Carole looked at her watch as she stopped the Renault in the almost empty car park. Not even half past six. Her habit of being extraordinarily early for everything did annoy her. The only thing that would annoy her more was being late. She had always wished she could be one of those people who ambled up to appointments at just the right time. For Carole Seddon, any prospective encounter with another human being involved a certain amount of trepidation and realignment.
Still, she wouldn’t waste the time. She’d go and have a word with Gina before the Trustees’ Meeting started. In doing this she had double motives. For a start, she could find out what the official line should be for the Trustees when approached by the press. And she could also perhaps do something for the Director’s self-confidence, demonstrating that some of the Trustees still thought she was the one in charge at Bracketts.
As Carole approached the former stable block, however, she heard the voice of Gina’s rival, raised in anger. Carole stopped awkwardly. Out of sight round the corner, there was clearly a major row going on, and, in a very British way, she didn’t relish walking into the middle of that. She looked back towards the car, but what she heard stopped her from retracing her steps.
‘I can assure you,’ Sheila Cartwright was almost shouting, ‘that Bracketts is bigger than you are! Esmond Chadleigh is bigger than you are! And your attempts to sully his reputation will soon be shown up for the kind of gutter journalism they really are!’
‘We’ll see about that.’ The other voice was Marla Teischbaum’s, no less angry, but more controlled. ‘And I don’t take kindly to having my writing referred to as “gutter journalism”. I am a serious academic writer, and all I am seeking is the truth. I’m not setting out to find muck or filth or sleaze or whatever you want to call it in the life of Esmond Chadleigh. I am trying to find out the truth about that tortured man.’
‘He was not tortured! He was a man of great personal happiness, who spread happiness to those around him!’ Sheila Cartwright sounded like a religious fundamentalist, the basis of whose belief was being challenged.
‘I have evidence to the contrary,’ said Marla Teischbaum coldly. ‘And I will write nothing that is not fully supported by evidence. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pay a call on Graham Chadleigh-Bewes.’
‘I can save you the trouble, Professor. He’s out for the afternoon, with his aunt. And they’ll be back just in time for a meeting tonight at seven. So you won’t have an opportunity to talk to him today.’
‘Then I’ll have to find another day.’
‘He still won’t tell you anything.’
‘We’ll see about that.’ Professor Teischbaum’s voice took on a new intensity. ‘You can’t stand in the way of the truth, Mrs Cartwright. My biography is going to be completed. It’s going to be published. And nothing is going to prevent that from happening.’
‘Don’t you believe it!’ Sheila Cartwright now sounded dangerously out of control. ‘I’ll prevent it from happening!’
‘I think not.’ The words were spoken calmly, and the accompanying scuff of gravel suggested they had provided Professor Teischbaum with a satisfactory exit line.
Rather than being caught obviously hanging around listening, Carole moved forwards, making loud footsteps, as if she had just arrived from her car.
As she rounded the corner, she saw the two strong-minded women taking one last look at each other. Though almost exactly the same height, they couldn’t have been more different in style. Sheila Cartwright, her white hair sensibly short, looked what she was, an upper-middle-class Englishwoman in white blouse, navy suit and sensible black shoes. Marla Teischbaum, the copper-beech of her hair gleaming in the sunlight, was wearing a symphony of autumn tints in linen and Indian cotton.
Suddenly it started to rain. Big heavy drops thudded down on to the gravel. Marla Teischbaum lifted the briefcase she was carrying to hold it over the perfectly coiffed chestnut hair and, with a nod of acknowledgement to Carole, stalked off towards the car park.
Sheila Cartwright managed a curt ‘Good evening’, and then she too strode away towards the main house, no doubt to prepare for the Emergency Trustees’ Meeting she had summoned.
Carole Seddon went into the Administrative Office to speak to the person who should have called the Emergency Trustees’ Meeting.
But she couldn’t forget the scene she had just witnessed between Sheila Cartwright and Marla Teischbaum. Or the flame of intense hatred that had burned in the eyes of both women.
Chapter Twenty-One
It had been a bad day for Jude. She had been woken at half past four by Laurence’s coughing, which sounded worse than ever. It was. There was blood all over the sheets, and still dribbling from his mouth.
She had called an ambulance immediately. Though a great believer in the efficacy of alternative therapies, Jude knew when conventional medical intervention was required.
They had left Woodside Cottage before anyone else in the road was awake, and Jude had had a day of intense anxiety at the hospital, while Laurence was subjected to a series of X-rays and tests, building up to a late afternoon interview with the consultant. Even though she had no official relationship with him, Jude reckoned she would have been allowed to sit in on that meeting, but Laurence didn’t want her to, and she respected his wishes.
Even though the day, like most in hospitals, involved a lot of sitting around waiting, Jude was too preoccupied with Laurence’s health to think of anything else. She’d meant to ring Carole to discuss the previous night’s news bulletin about the Bracketts skeleton, and to tell her about Mervyn Hunter’s escape from Austen, but such intentions were swamped by worry about Laurence.
He was silent in the cab back from the hospital. Except for the occasional coughs, coughs which had taken on a new and ominous significance for Jude.
But as soon as he got back inside Woodside Cottage, he found his black leather jacket, took out a cigarette packet and lit one up. Jude said nothing as she watched him gratefully drink in the smoke.
‘Would you like a whisky?’ she asked.
‘God, would I like a whisky? I’ve spent this entire day only thinking how much I would like a cigarette and a whisky.’ His voice was dry and cracked after his ordeal. He looked paler and thinner than ever.
Jude waited till they both had drinks and were sitting in two of her shawl-draped armchairs. Then she said, ‘So?’
‘So . . . what?’ he echoed with a dusty giggle.
‘Presumably the consultant didn’t give you a clean bill of health?’
‘I think, Jude, that would have been too much to hope for.’
‘Cancer?’
‘He came up with a lot of longer words first, but then he made a concession to my ignorance and used that one. Always a problem for us academics. If it’s not our speciality, we just don’t know the jargon.’
‘And what treatment did he recommend?’
‘Oh, there was chemo-this and radio-that. It all sounded distinctly unpleasant.’
‘Don’t you think the alternative might be even more unpleasant?’
He shrugged languidly, tapped out the ash of his cigarette and returned it to his mouth. ‘It all seems rather a fag,’ he said, ambiguous as to whether the pun was deliberate.
‘Are you saying you’re not going to have any treatment?’
‘I’m saying that I’ve spent nearly sixty years of being me. That me is not a particularly admirable being. It certainly smokes and drinks too much. Its morals don’t accord to the prescribed norms. It has probably caused unnecessary hurt to people – mostly women – who didn’t deserve it. But that me has suited me surprisingly well. Having got this far through life, jogging along with myself amiably enough, I don’t want to have a personality transplant at this late stage.’