She had to wake Jordan to take him with her and meet Eugenie from school. He whimpered and whined. He was wet too. She took his jeans and underpants off. There was a big smelly stain on Jims’s cream silk sofa. It was terrible having to put a three-year-old into a diaper but she didn’t dare not to. On the way back she’d stop at a chemist and do something she’d sworn she never would do, buy a pacifier to stuff in his mouth. And then she must phone her mother.
For once she was early. The school was a big Georgian house in a lane off Victoria Street. The car parked on a yellow line-but a single line and she wouldn’t be there long-she got out and got Jordan out, and was leaning against its nearside in the sunshine, thinking once more about her marriage service and those words, when a man got out of the BMW behind and came up to her.
“Zillah Watling,” he said.
He was very attractive, tall and thin and fair, with a hooky nose and a nice wide mouth, and dressed in what Zillah thought the most flattering uniform a man could wear, blue jeans and a plain white shirt. The neck was open halfway down his chest and his sleeves were rolled up. She’d seen him somewhere before, long ago, but where she couldn’t remember. “I’m sure I know you but I can’t think…”
He reminded her. “Mark Fryer.” They’d been students together, he said. Then he’d left and Jerry had come…“Is this your boy? I’m here to pick up my daughter.”
“I’m here to pick up mine.”
They exchanged news. Mark Fryer didn’t appear to be a newspaper or magazine reader, for he knew nothing about her marriage to Jims. And he didn’t mention a wife, partner, girlfriend, or anyone that might be the mother of this child who, by a happy coincidence, came down the school steps with her arm round Eugenie.
“Look, we’ve got so much to say to each other, can’t we meet up again? How about tomorrow? Lunch tomorrow?”
Zillah shook her head and silently indicated Jordan.
“Then say Friday morning. We could have coffee somewhere.”
She’d love to. He pointed across the street. How about that place? Zillah thought it rather too near the school for comfort and he named another in Horseferry Road. He waved as she drove off, calling, “I’m so glad we ran into each other.”
Eugenie, in the passenger seat, was staring censoriously at her. “What does he mean, ran into each other? Did he hit our car?”
“It’s just an expression. It means ‘met by chance.’ ”
“He’s my friend Matilda’s father. Did you know that? She says he’s a womanizer and when I said, What does that mean, she said he chases after ladies. Did he chase you?”
“Of course not. You’re not to talk like that, Eugenie, do you hear me?”
But Zillah was already feeling better. It was wonderful what a little male admiration could do. As to the other thing that was always coming back to haunt her, No one can do anything to me, she said to herself, because I’m a widow.
Police officers were back again, talking to Fiona. Although they never came out and said so, she was sure they thought she couldn’t have been deeply affected by Jeff’s death because they hadn’t known each other for very long. It didn’t stop them expecting her to know all about his past, his family, his friends, and everywhere he’d lived since he left art school nine years before.
She’d told them everything she could think of but great gaps existed in her knowledge. His marriage, as she told them, was a closed book to her. She didn’t know where he’d lived with his wife, whether or not she’d ever been in Harvist Road, or the ages of the children. She thought it very hard on her that she couldn’t be left in peace to mourn quietly and by herself-or maybe with Michelle. As for the ex-wife, “I don’t even know where she lives.”
“That’s okay, Miss Harrington, we do. We’ll see to that.”
Did she imagine the flicker that crossed the man’s face at the word “ex-wife”? Perhaps. She didn’t know. She could never banish from her mind what they’d told her about Jeff not booking that hotel for their wedding on the appointed day or any other day. Why had he lied to her? Was it that he’d never meant to marry her? She’d tried to talk about it with Michelle, but her neighbor, usually so warm and affectionate, grew remote and impenetrable when expected to reassure her about Jeff’s shortcomings. Fiona wanted excuses made for him, not suggestions, however gently put, that she should try to look to the future instead of dwelling on a man who was-well, she’d never even hinted at this but Fiona knew the missing words were “after her money.”
“You’ve told us about friends and family, insofar as you can. Now, how about enemies? Did Jeff have any enemies?”
She didn’t like the way they referred to her as Miss Harrington but to him as Jeff, as if he were too much of a villain to be accorded the dignity of a surname. What do they say to each other about me when they get out of here, she often asked herself. “I don’t know that he had any,” she said wearily. “Do ordinary people have enemies?”
“They have people who don’t like them.”
“Yes, but that’s different. I mean, my neighbors, the Jarveys, didn’t like Jeff. Mrs. Jarvey admitted it. They both disliked him.”
“Why was that, Miss Harrington?”
“Jeff was-you have to understand he’d got an enormous lot of vitality. He was so full of life and energy…” Fiona couldn’t keep back a little sob when she said this.
“Don’t upset yourself, Miss Harrington.”
How could you help upsetting yourself when you were forced to talk about things you’d have liked to keep locked up inside you forever? She wiped her eyes carefully. “What I was going to say was, Jeff came out with things that-well, that sounded unkind, but he didn’t mean them, they just sort of brimmed over.”
“What kind of things?”
“He made digs, sort of jokes, at Michelle-Mrs. Jarvey. About her size. I mean, he called her husband and her Little and Large, things like that. She didn’t like it and her husband hated it. If it had been left to her I don’t think she’d ever have had anything more to do with Jeff.” Fiona realized what she was saying and tried to make a better impression. “I don’t mean they did anything about it, they didn’t even say anything. Michelle’s been an angel to me. It was just that they didn’t understand Jeff.” She made herself think from Michelle’s point of view, though she’d never faced up to it before. The lie Jeff had told about the hotel booking returned to her mind. “I suppose the truth is Michelle didn’t want me to marry Jeff, she thought he was bad for me. And-well, Michelle thinks of me as a daughter really, she told me so. My happiness is very important to her.”
“Thank you very much, Miss Harrington,” said the inspector. “I don’t think we’ll have to trouble you again. You won’t be needed at the inquest. Be sure to give us a call if you think of anything you haven’t told us.”
In the car he said to his sergeant, “The poor cow’s having a rude awakening.”