Stella stopped and smiled at her daughter, as if waking slowly from a dream.
“Why,” she said, “ I thought it would be nice to come and meet you so we can walk home together.”
She slipped her arm through Carolyn’s arm without offering to carry the bag or the violin, her attention fixed on the shops in the main street. The girl hung back, staring down the alley after her friends. She saw Ramsay, who was still standing outside the chemist shop. Their eyes met, but the child gave no sign that she had seen him and did not mention him to her mother.
In the shop the chemist was back in his dispensary. The doorbell brought him out into the shop to the counter.
“Yes,” he said. “ Can I help you?”
“Who was the woman who was here just now?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the chemist said. “ I can’t tell you that, you know.”
Ramsay showed his identification card. “What did she want?” he asked.
“She was bringing a prescription,” the chemist said rather defensively. “There was nothing unusual about it. Tranquilisers. She seemed rather neurotic, didn’t she. It was written by Dr. Laidlaw.”
“His surgery’s on the other side of town,” Ramsay said. “ Why did she bring it here to have it made up?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it was more convenient.”
“Is it legal for a doctor to prescribe for his own relative?”
“But she wasn’t a relative,” the chemist said impatiently. “At least I had no indication that she was. The prescription was in the name of Raven. Mary Raven.”
On her walk home with her mother Carolyn felt the same panic that she had had some years ago when she had been pushed into the deep end of the swimming pool before she could swim. There was the same gasping breathlessness, the same sense of inevitable pain. Then, she had fought to the side of the pool and saved herself. Now she felt helpless. The sight of Ramsay close to her mother had confirmed all her worst fears. He must know everything.
In the house her mother suddenly became kind and solicitous. Carolyn wasn’t looking well, she said. There was a lot of flu about. Perhaps she should go to bed. But Carolyn was frightened to leave her mother alone and sat with her in the kitchen. Stella’s apparent concern for her well-being made her feel sick and angry, but it was better to put up with that than to be in bed, not knowing what Stella was up to.
“When will Dad be home?” she asked at last. Her mother was frying onions and mushrooms in a pan, and there was a smell of garlic.
“I don’t know,” Stella said. “He should be here by now. Perhaps he’s working late.” She seemed quite unconcerned and Carolyn marvelled at adults’ capacity for deceit. She was desperate for her father’s return.
“Haven’t you any homework to do, darling?” Stella asked. “Or violin practise?”
But Carolyn shook her head. She knew she could not concentrate on anything until she had spoken to her father.
Stella began to chop parsley with a wide-bladed knife, holding the handle with one hand and hitting the blade quickly with the palm of the other. Carolyn watched, fascinated, and when the phone rang, she was unable to move. Stella set the knife down on the chopping board and went out to answer the phone.
“That was Daddy,” she said when she returned, “He’s got a meeting and will be working late tonight, so it’ll just be us for supper.”
She smiled, and Carolyn, faint and exhausted, thought, This must be what it’s like to drown.
Chapter Nineteen
In the days of waiting for Max to make a decision, Mary became obsessed with the idea of her story. She had never, she supposed, been a person with a highly developed sense of proportion. She smoked too much, drank too much, loved too much. Now she wanted to see the story through to its conclusion, and even her desire for Max occupied less of her thoughts.
When Hunter and Ramsay were waiting outside her flat on Tuesday night, she was in Newcastle, wandering round the bars where reporters hung out, talking, picking up information, drinking whisky, buying drinks. Later she staggered to the students’ house there, woke the neighbours up by banging on the door to be let in, and spent the night on the settee.
The next day she decided not to go into the office to work at all. Even the news of Charlie Elliot’s murder could not distract her. Every other reporter in the northeast would be working on that. Her story would be exclusive, more important in the long run. If she went to the office, James would want to know what she was up to and she was not ready yet to discuss it with him. He would talk her round and send her to interview a housewife in Hexham whose first novel had been bought by Mills & Boon. In her obsession it no longer mattered whether or not she got the sack from the Express. Other papers would run her story, she thought. Better papers. She imagined it splashed over the front page of the Journal, sold outside of the metro stations in Newcastle and Gateshead, bought by all the businessmen on their way to work. From the students’ house she phoned the office to tell them she would not be there.
“I’m not coming in today, Marg,” she said to the receptionist. “Make up some story for me, will you? You should be good at fiction by now.”
“Oh, pet,” Marjory said. “ Do you think that’s wise? You know what he’s like.”
“This is a big story, Marg. It’ll make my fortune for me. Tell him I’m ill. Tell him I’ve got a hangover.”
“The police are looking for you. That inspector’s already phoned here twice.”
“He’ll have to wait then. I’m too busy to see him today.”
“I don’t think you’re well, dear,” the receptionist said. “You sound very highly strung. I’m worried about you. We all are. Why don’t you see a doctor?”
And that, Mary thought, lighting a cigarette from the one she was about to put out, is the last thing I need.
Mary spent the day in the library in Newcastle looking up old press reports, feverishly taking notes, stopping only to take the lift to the gloomy cafeteria in the basement to drink black coffee or to go to the lavatory. When she left the place, she had no idea what time it was-her watch had stopped-but it was dark and she was very hungry. She drove back to Otterbridge, stopping on the way to collect fish and chips.
She was in the shower when Max arrived. There was a loud knock on the door and she thought it must be the police, tracking her down at last, so she dried off and made herself decent before she went to answer it.
When she saw Max standing there, she was astonished. Usually he came discreetly, slipping into the house when no-one was there to see him, tapping gently on the door so that he would not be heard by the other tenants. By the time she had got to the door, he was banging it with his fist and shouting.
“Mary Raven, let me in!”
She saw immediately that he had been drinking, and that surprised her, too. Usually, when they went out, he drank little and then he ordered what she considered women’s wimpish drinks: white wine and small glasses of lager. Now he was loudly and incoherently drunk. She let him in, glad to have the opportunity of looking after him, and switched on the fire because he seemed very cold. Then she made coffee for him. When she returned from the kitchen, she found him weeping. There was more wrong with him than just the drink, she thought. She, after all, was an expert in these things.
“Max,” she said. “ What’s the matter?”
She sat on his lap and put her arms around his neck, thinking that she might distract him from his misery with sex. But he seemed only to want her for comfort and clung to her, his head against her shoulder still crying. At any other time she might have tried to laugh him out of it, but he seemed quite distraught and she began to be frightened.