In the few short months that had passed since her first wedding to Jims she had almost entirely lost her ignorance of how the media operate, but she still wasn’t aware that the newspaper she didn’t see until 7 A.M. might be read by rival journalists the night before. So she believed she had several hours in which to prepare herself before the pack of reporters and photographers presented themselves on the doorstep of Abbey Gardens Mansions. Jordan was crying again. She gave him cereal and a mug of milk. He put his hands into the milk as if it were a finger bowl and began a low keening that was halfway between a moan and a song.
Eugenie came down from her bedroom, demanding to know why everyone was up so early and what were all those people doing outside in the street. Zillah went to the window. They were here already, waiting for her. She wouldn’t attempt to exclude them this time, she wouldn’t hide herself or escape via the garage. They were welcome. She thought of all the women she’d heard of recently who’d broken into television or modeling careers or simply become celebrities of unspecified talent, through nothing more than getting themselves into the media for taking their clothes off in public or demonstrating against something or being victims. How much more success could a beautiful bigamist, widow of a murder victim, and wife of a newly outed gay MP, hope to enjoy?
But the pack mustn’t see her yet. Give her an hour in which to transform herself. Zillah ran her bath and took Jordan into it with her to shut him up.
Chapter 26
ALL SATURDAY MORNING Sonovia kept her eye on the street and Mr. Kroot’s in particular, but Gertrude Pierce didn’t go home. She kept darting into her front room to look in case she missed her.
Laf came in, carrying a mug of coffee. “Why are you sitting there looking out of the window?”
“Nothing exciting ever happens in Syringa Road.”
“You should be thankful. What d’you want to happen?”
Sonovia ignored him. Mr. Kroot’s front door was opening. The old black cat came out and the door shut.
“D’you want to go out tonight?”
“Anything you like, only don’t bother me now, you’re spoiling my concentration.” Sonovia often reproached herself for not having been more vigilant when Jock Lewis was on the scene. How she regretted not ever seeing his face!
Laf looked up films in the paper. There was nothing on he and Sonovia would fancy. Besides, though he’d been a few times, he’d never enjoyed the cinema like he used to since the Jeffrey Leach murder. It was a funny thing for an officer of the Metropolitan Police to think, he ought to be hardened and indifferent, but the fact was that he always expected the flash of a knife when the person in front of him or behind got up, or thought he might trip over a body in the dark. Why not go to the theater instead? Laf had only been twice in his life, once to The Mousetrap when he was a kid and later on, for his fortieth birthday, to Miss Saigon. How about An Inspector Calls? It sounded as if it might be about the police and therefore he’d get irritated if they got the police procedure wrong. On the other hand, he’d be able to tell Sonovia afterward just how inaccurate it had been. There were little bits of description of the play for each theater. Laf read that this one was an “acclaimed psychological thriller.” It didn’t sound bad. He got on the phone and booked three seats for eight-fifteen. Sonovia would be amazed and as for Minty…Laf looked forward to seeing Minty’s face when he told her.
Just as Sonovia was on the watch for Gertrude Pierce, so Minty was waiting for the reappearance of Mrs. Lewis. She was ironing. The light-green-and-dark-green striped shirt was on the top of the pile. It couldn’t be more than ten days since she’d ironed it. The man it belonged to must be very fond of it, maybe it was his favorite. She spread it out on the ironing board, feeling the cotton. It was just damp enough but not so damp that steam rose from it when she applied the iron.
She’d ironed shirts for Jock, not many and not often, but when he’d stayed the night she wouldn’t let him put the same one on in the morning. Next time he’d come over she’d handed him the clean shirt and he’d said he’d never seen such good ironing as hers. That was the day he’d taken her bowling. It was the most amazing evening of her life. She slipped the cardboard collar round the neck of the green shirt and as she slid it into its cellophane bag, a tear slipped down her cheek and splashed on to the shiny transparent stuff. Minty wiped it off and washed her hands. On second thoughts, she washed her face as well. The poky little room smelled of detergent and heat, a scent she couldn’t define because it wasn’t a burning smell but something like a really hot summer’s day. She was alone, there was no one watching her and arguing about her. The ghosts had been absent all the morning. She started on the last shirt but two, a white one with a very pale pink check.
Sonovia got bored with waiting. It wasn’t as if anything else happened down the street that was worth looking at, apart from those two yobs revving up their motorbikes for an unnecessarily long time and that Iranian woman coming out in the chador that enveloped her from head to foot in black folds, leaving only her tired eyes free. Her three children looked like anyone else’s, dressed in jeans and T-shirts and sandals. Sonovia couldn’t understand it.
“When in Rome do as the Romans do,” she said when Laf came in.
“Pardon?”
“Our mothers never got themselves up like that after they came here. They adapted.”
“Your mum never dressed like a nun either,” said Laf sarcastically, “so far as I recall. In case it’s of any interest, Mrs. Pierce is sitting in the old man’s back garden in a deckchair. So you can come off watch. Want a beer? I’m going to have one.”
Sonovia accepted the beer but sat there ten minutes longer, just to prove she was relaxing, not waiting for Gertrude Pierce. She was just getting up, thinking about making lunch for her and Laf, when Minty came along. The last thing she wanted was for Minty to find out for herself Gertrude Pierce was still here, which she would do as soon as she looked out of her kitchen window, so she waved and mouthed, “She’s not gone. She’s in the back.”
Minty nodded and made a face, a sympathetic face that registered disgust and fellow feeling at the same time. Inserting her key in the lock, she felt the usual apprehension and braced herself. There was no one and nothing there. It was funny, she was getting to be able to tell if the house was empty of them the minute she came into the hall. Anyway, they weren’t her immediate worry. For some reason, Josephine had kissed her when she left and she could still feel her scent on her skin and the smear of her lipstick as well as her own tears. But first she went through to the kitchen and looked out of the window at the two of them next door, Gertrude Pierce and Mr. Kroot in old-fashioned striped deckchairs. They’d put a rickety table with a green baize top between them and on it they were playing cards. The black cat with its aged gray muzzle lay on the grass, looking as if it were dead. But it often looked like that and it never was dead. Minty could hardly remember a time when that cat hadn’t been there, its face like an old whiskered person’s, its walk growing stiffer. A bumble bee drifted down close to its ears. They twitched and its tail flicked. Gertrude Pierce swept up the cards into a pack and shuffled them.