“For Chrissakes, Pam, just something simple that looks like it’s not, easy to cook but doesn’t look like it, know what I mean? I’ve got the starters organized, just avocados with some prawns bunged in, but it’s the main course I’m worried about.”
“How many is it for?”
“There’ll be six of us. It’s got to be something simple, I haven’t cooked for so long I don’t think I could cope.”
“Tell you an easy one-fresh pasta, a little cream and seasoning, then strips of smoked salmon. Plenty of good crusty bread, and fruit and cheese to follow. Are any of them vegetarians?”
The front door banged open and Peter appeared, with the News of the World open at the center pages.
“Are any of your friends vegetarian, Pete?”
Ignoring her, Peter read aloud from the paper: “ ‘George Marlow opened his heart to our reporter. He wept, saying he was an innocent man, but the police are making his life a misery… ’ ”
Jane tossed her head, thinking he was joking. “Very funny!”
He laughed. “I’m serious! They’ve got a terrible picture of you, like something out of a horror movie. Dragon Woman!” He dodged her as she grabbed for the paper, and continued reading in a Monty Python voice. “This is the woman detective in charge of the murder investigation. To date, her only words have been 'No comment.’ Should be at home with me, mate!”
Jane’s next attempt to get the paper from him succeeded, but she tore it in half in the process. “Now look what you’ve done!” he teased.
But she wasn’t listening. Her mouth hung open as she scanned the article. She screamed, “My God, they’ve got pictures of my surveillance lads!”
Still laughing, Peter was reading over her shoulder. “ ‘Marlow states that he is being hounded by a woman with an obsession-to lock him up… ’ ”
“It’s not bloody funny! It’s buggered everything! We can’t have any more line-ups, with his face plastered all over the papers. Not to mention the boys; I’m going to have to pull them off him now their cover’s blown!”
She stormed out to the telephone, leaving Pam and Peter staring at each other. Pam whispered, “I think I’d better go.”
George Marlow walked quickly up the steps of a large, detached house in Brighton and through the open front doors. A pair of glass swing doors admitted him to the hallway.
Following the directions of the receptionist, Marlow entered a high-ceilinged, airy room with windows overlooking the sea. Several elderly people were quietly playing draughts or chess, while one or two just sat silently in armchairs, their eyes focused on a future that no one else could see.
He knew where he would find her; alone in her wheelchair by the window, gazing out towards France. He walked silently towards her, stopped two or three feet away.
In a low voice that could not be heard by the other residents, he began to sing, “When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high…”
His mother turned in her chair, her face lit with joy. As her son kissed her gently on both cheeks, she picked up the refrain.
“… And don’t be afraid of the dark; at the end of the storm there’s a golden sky, and the sweet, silver song of a lark…”
Mrs. Marlow, or Doris Kelly as she used to be known, had spent the entire morning getting ready for his visit. Her make-up was perfect, her lipstick and eye shadow perhaps a trifle overdone, but she was still a beauty, retaining a youthfulness in her face that was, sadly, not mirrored in her once-perfect body. She had grown heavy, and the scarves and beads, chosen carefully to disguise the fact, didn’t help. Her tiny hands, perfectly manicured with shell-pink varnish, glittered with fake diamonds.
“Hallo, my darling!”
When he kissed the powdery cheek, he could feel the spikes of her mascaraed eyelashes. She smelt of sweet flowers. The big china-blue eyes roamed the room as if acknowledging the other residents’ prying eyes.
“Take me somewhere special for lunch, George, I’m ravenous, simply ravenous. How about the Grand Hotel? Or we can have morning coffee, I’d like that. They’re so kind at the Grand.”
He gathered her things into a carrier bag and hung it on the back of her chair, then wheeled his mother out, pausing beside gray-haired docile old women for Doris to smile and wave gaily, and elderly gentlemen who begged her to sing their favorite songs that evening.
“Oh, we’ll have to see, Mr. Donald… Goodbye, William, see you later, Frank…”
She loved the fact that even here she was a star. On Sunday evenings they hired a pianist, and she would sing. “The old fools love to be entertained, George, but the pianist has two left hands. Do you remember dear Mr. McReady? What an ear he had, pick up any tune… But now, without sheet music, this young man can’t play a note.”
She sang snatches of songs as George tucked her blanket around her swollen legs, and called and waved until they reached the end of the driveway. Then she fell silent.
“Shall we have our usual stroll along the front, work up an appetite, Ma?”
Doris nodded, drawing her blanket closer with delicate pink-nailed fingers. George started singing again, “When you walk through a storm…” but Doris didn’t join in.
“Come on, Ma, let’s hear you!”
“No, darling, my voice isn’t what it was.” She put a hand to her head. “Did you bring me a scarf?”
It was high tide, and the spray was blowing onto the promenade. He parked the chair beside a bench and brought out a silk square. Folding it carefully, he handed it to her.
“Thank you, darling. I was asking Matron if we could get a better hairdresser, only I need a trim, but I don’t like the young girl that comes in. Oh, she’s very sweet, but she’s an amateur…”
George watched her tie the square over her head, carefully tucking in the hair. “You have to watch these girls, they cut off far too much…”
George could see the reflections of her past beauty as she tilted her head coquettishly. “All ship-shape, am I, darling?”
He nodded, and gently pressed a stray curl into place. “All ship-shape. Now, how about singing me ‘Once I had a secret love, that dwelt within the heart of me’…?”
Sitting in her wheelchair, wrapped in her rug, she swayed to the rhythm, her hands in the air like an old trouper. Being together like this brought the memories flooding back to both of them, and they were laughing too much to finish the song.
“You always like the old ones best. Remember that Elvis medley I used to do?” She sat up straight and played an imaginary piano as she sang, “Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfil; for, my darling, I love you, and I always will… That was your Dad’s favorite. I don’t know what he would think about this… What does that Moyra think of it all?”
George’s face fell. “Now, Mum, don’t start. Moyra’s a good woman, and she’s stood by me.”
He took a newspaper from the carrier bag. It was folded so that the article about him was on the outside. Managing to grin at her, he asked, “What did you give them this photo for? I hated that school.”
Mrs. Marlow pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve. “Your dad would turn in his grave…”
“Don’t cry, Mum, don’t… I’m innocent, Mum, I had to do something to prove it. They’ll lay off me now, and I got paid a fair bit. I’ll get a new job-they gave me good references. Things’ll turn out, don’t you worry.”
He walked to the railings at the edge of the promenade and threw the paper into the sea. When he turned a moment later to face her, his hands were in his pockets.
“Which one’s got a present in?” he demanded. “I want a song, though, you must promise me a song.”
She made a great performance out of it, finally fooling him into giving her a clue to which pocket his gift was in. He presented the perfume with a flourish and she made him bend down for a kiss. Her warmth and her love for him shone out, despite her fears.