Her message left him feeling disgruntled. It was possibly all lies, he thought sourly; she could be out with a boy friend, though he doubted it. Deception wasn’t her style. If he knew Dorothea, she’d blurt out that kind of information just to enjoy the effect it had.
He mooched disconsolately about the house. With Dorothea and Kath both out, this was the best time to carry on with the spraying, if he could bring himself to do it. It had to be done some time, that was certain, and the sooner the better.
Not tonight, though, he decided. He was too restless to stay in. Rummaging in the sideboard, he found a sheet of paper and scribbled a note for Dorothea to say he was working late in his office and she should ring him there if she got home first. As an afterthought he added a brief apology for leaving the house in a mess and said he’d explain about the beetles later. Oh, and Kath’s staying with Susi tonight. I said she could. Love — G.
Naturally, she did not ring him at the office. He worked till two o’clock, got through the backlog, then gathered up the foil trays from the takeaway Indian curry he’d bought for his supper and went down to his car again, dropping the trays into a waste-bin on the way. The drive home was uneventful, though he noticed there were more police cars about than usual and quite a few ambulances. There had also been a fire at the Station Inn, which was a sordid beer-house opposite the tube, but he didn’t stop to gawp. Perhaps Dorothea was still out, he was thinking uneasily. That wouldn’t matter, not in itself, except that recently she’d been giving the impression she resented being married at all. It left him feeling uncertain.
‘Fuck!’ he swore at himself impatiendy as he drove past the Plough, now closed and dark save for one light burning on an upper floor. ‘Need sleep, that's all. Going off my head.’
But the moment he opened the front door he knew Dorothea was home. Her coat was slung over the bannister and the note he’d propped up by the telephone had gone. Going upstairs he found her in bed, already asleep, but she opened her eyes when he went into the room.
‘ ’Bout rime you came back,’ she muttered, turning over and pulling the bedclothes over her head. ‘Goo’-night.’
No word about the damage he’d caused to her paintwork in the front room, nor the chaos in the kitchen; but he’d tel! her all that in the morning, he thought.
He slept deeply and for once without dreams, either of beetles or anything else. It was eight o’clock before he woke up, and when he went downstairs he could already smell the coffee. She had cleared a space on the kitchen table for bis breakfast and was offering to fry egg and bacon.
‘I’ll make myself some toast,’ he began, but she gave one of those rich laughs which were a sign that she was in a good mood.
‘Accept it while the offer’s still good!’ she advised expansively. ‘I’m making some for myself anyway.’ ‘You’re not going to work today?’
‘No need! You’d not believe it, Guy. There were three of us in that office slogging away till past midnight just to get the Lord God Managing Director off to Frankfurt this morning. Well, he’s on the plane now, and you should see the money I’m getting. It’ll pay for the carpets.’
‘Ah well, talking about the house…’ He started to recount that whole business of yesterday afternoon. ‘Only two streets away from here… a whole row of houses infested…’
‘Guy,’ she said softly, putting her arm around him. ‘I’m the one who should apologise for not believing you earlier. I saw the fire engines last night, and the ambulances. Oh, I’m a thoughtless person really, aren’t I, standing here laughing when all those people are dead!’ ‘Which people? What about last night?’ he asked, bewildered.
i thought you knew. You mean you don’t know? But there was a message for you on the answering machine from this Mary Armstrong, if that’s her name. You didn’t hear it?’
‘Obviously not.’
‘Here, I bought a paper when I went out for the bacon and milk. See for yourself. Front page.’
KILLER BEETLES ON LONDON RAMPAGE, he saw in heavy block capitals. MANY DEAD. Then, in smaller type, came the sting: MYSTERY SNAKES’ LINK WITH BEETLE ATTACKS FEARED. The details made horrifying reading. Worth Hall… the crowded disco with all those young people killed… the coach crash… even the fire at the Station Inn had been started by beetles setting upon one of the barmaids while she was having a quiet smoke in the back. Near the foot of the page the deaths of Hazel and Jim Roberts were given a paragraph to themselves, and another sentence briefly mentioned Tony’s misadventure with the woodworm — or bloodworm, as the paper preferred to call it.
Guy glanced back to the top of the page to see who had been responsible for that. Tessa Brownley — he might have guessed!
i’ll have to get on with the spraying,’ he said, putting the paper down. ‘You and Kath should go down to your sister’s till this blows over.’
‘And leave you?’ she retorted from the cooker. She broke a couple of eggs into the frying pan. ‘Guy, you don’t realise the truth about yourself. You might be in your element playing war games with your computers, but when it comes to doing things about the house, you don’t even know where to start.’
‘I made a beginning yesterday,’ he defended himself mildly.
‘Sure!’ came her sceptical comment. ‘I’m not blaming you. You try. But it’s not the same as growing up with it, is it? We all had to help as kids, and what with my dad being a decorator by trade.. Guy, you leave the spraying to me. I’ll organise a couple of people to come in and make a thorough job of it.’
‘You should get out of London. I’d be happier.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t! D’you want one egg or two?’
‘After what’s happened I’m not sure I’ve got the appetite for a big breakfast.’
‘One then. If this goes on, it may be the last real meal we’ll get for some time. So eat it up, love, then get off to your office. I’m sure you’ve plenty to do there.’
It was certainly the first meal she’d cooked for several days, he thought, though he refrained from saying it. When they married after those mad days in Cyprus, cooking hadn’t been any part of the bargain. Bed, yes — their field trials in that department had been exciting and thorough; general compatibility — a high rating, particularly their sense of humour; but cooking? Well, the subject never cafne up. With their favourite tavema only five miles from the camp there’d been no need.
He took a piece of bread and wiped his plate, savouring the traces of tomato ketchup. ‘Maybe you’re right, love,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘But if you can’t get anyone to help with the spraying today, I’ll come home myself and carry on with it.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It’ll be done.’
‘What about Kath?’
‘I rang Susi’s mum before you came down. She’s taking them to school and I’ll be fetching them this afternoon. She’s in a bit of a state, as you might imagine. They can see the roof of Worth Hall over the tops of the trees from their flat. But Kath and Susi don’t seem bothered at all. 1 couldn’t get anything out of Kath but ballet, ballet, ballet… And they had that music tape going on in the background again, so they must have been at it even before breakfast.
Guy drank a last cup of coffee. At least, he thought, he had made one correct decision in this business when he had gone to the school to confiscate the two beetles Lise had been keeping as pets for her class. Whether they proved to be the same kind or not, he was convinced the children were safer without them. And Lise herself, come to that,