‘Yes, of course. Well, needless to say, Oenone’s up to her ears with arrangements for the funeral, and I’m trying to take any burdens I can off her back.’ There was a silence, as if the woman was making preparations for her next sentence. ‘Now there is one thing that’s worrying Oenone and, as I say, she’s got more than enough on her plate at the moment, so I’m making enquiries on her behalf.’
Jude had had enough of this diplomatic circumlocution. ‘What’s it about?’ she asked.
‘It’s about Reggie Playfair’s mobile phone.’
That wretched mobile phone. There seemed to be no way of escaping the subject.
‘What about it?’
‘Well, Oenone hasn’t been able to find the thing. She’s checked through Reggie’s belongings that came back from the hospital, and she’s looked through his car. She’d got George Hazlitt to check out around the tennis court. No sign of it. So I was just wondering whether you actually saw a mobile phone near Reggie’s body . . . you know, when you . . .’ Graciously Felicity Budgen didn’t spell out the details.
‘No, I’m afraid I didn’t see any sign of it.’
‘I thought that would probably be the case, but it was worth asking. As I say, anything that can be done to save Oenone further distress . . .’
‘Of course.’ Jude had a moment of hesitation before she went on, ‘It might be worth asking Piers. I wasn’t with him all the time when we were at the court. He might have seen something I didn’t.’
‘Yes, what a very good idea. I’ll give him a call.’ But Felicity Budgen didn’t sound as if that would be the first thing on her agenda. ‘Anyway, it’s been a pleasure to talk to you, Jude. And I probably won’t see you Thursday . . .?’
‘Probably not.’
‘No. Well, hope to see you round the tennis court with Piers on another occasion.’
I wouldn’t count on it, thought Jude bitterly.
The call she was waiting for came through late that afternoon, by which time she had to some extent got her head together. She had done some special yoga exercises, which calmed her, and by the end of them she’d reconciled herself to the idea that she was never going to see Piers Targett again. The thought didn’t make her happy, but at least it was the first broad stroke of the thick black line she was determined to draw under the whole episode.
Then Piers phoned her and her embryonic defences crumbled instantly.
‘“I can explain”’, he quoted ironically. ‘I’m sorry, Jude, but I can’t let the last words you ever hear from me be the cliché response of every guilty husband in every dreadful farce ever written – “I can explain”.’
His description so exactly matched what she had thought of the words when he’d said them on the Saturday afternoon that Jude couldn’t prevent the eruption of a small giggle. It was also relief, relief at finally hearing his voice after the torture of the previous days.
‘But can you?’ she asked.
‘Explain? Well, I can give you some relevant information.’
‘Something which has been rather lacking from you since we first met.’
‘Mea culpa. On the other hand, I don’t think you can be completely exonerated from the same charge.’
‘Fair enough. I agree, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.’
‘Well, maybe we should get together and barter chunks of our pasts . . .?’
Two minutes before Jude had been determined that she would never see Piers Targett again. But it didn’t take long for her to say, ‘I think that’d be a very good idea.’
‘Where? Some kind of neutral ground? A pub? A bar?’
‘No.’ Jude felt too emotionally fragile to conduct their next meeting in public. ‘You come round here.’
NINETEEN
‘The fact is that Jonquil is bipolar,’ said Piers. ‘The condition’s kind of contained so long as she takes her medication, but I’m afraid she’s sometimes very perverse about taking her medication.’
‘But are you still married to her?’ asked Jude.
‘Yes. I’ve never denied I am.’
‘I meant, are you still cohabiting?’
‘What, at the house in Goffham? God, no. Neither of us lives there. Surely you could see that from the state of the place?’
‘Then why were you there?’
‘For the reasons I told you. Look, I’m not a liar, Jude. I told you I was down there to get on to an estate agent, to get the place on the market as soon as possible – and that’s true.’
‘All right, let’s change the question a little. Why was Jonquil there?’
‘Ah.’
There was a silence. They hadn’t touched since Piers arrived at Woodside Cottage, not a peck on the cheek or even a handshake, but Jude could still feel the magnetism of his presence. Slowly he answered her.
‘Jonquil, as I say, is very volatile. She can agree to something one day and then totally disagree the next. For a long time I’ve been trying to get her to agree to the sale of the Goffham house. But she’s kept being resistant to the idea.’
‘Is that because she thinks it represents your marriage? That once that’s sold, it will be a kind of acknowledgement that the marriage is really over?’
‘God, no. Jonquil was the one who wanted the marriage over, at least initially. She was the one who kept on having affairs and saying how claustrophobic she felt in the relationship. For a long time I thought I could somehow still make it work.’
‘And do you still think that, Piers?’
‘No. For years now I’ve really known that it was over. But I dithered. Because of her mental state, Jonquil can be very vulnerable at times. I didn’t want to do anything that might push her over the edge.’
‘What do you mean by “push her over the edge”?’
‘I mean: make her do something stupid.’
‘And you’re using “do something stupid” in the traditional sense of attempting suicide?’
‘Yes, I suppose I am. It wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘Jonquil has attempted suicide before?’ He nodded. ‘Genuine attempts, actually trying to kill herself, or just as a means of gaining attention?’
‘In retrospect I’d have said the latter. But that didn’t make them any less scary at the time. And didn’t make me feel any less guilty.’
Of course it was going to be true, thought Jude again, that nobody gets to our age without accumulating baggage. And it seemed like Piers Targett had got a serious amount of baggage. ‘You still haven’t told me why Jonquil came to the house on Saturday,’ she reminded him.
‘No. Well, as I say, she’s very inconsistent, but I’d spoken to her when I got back from Paris on Friday evening.’
Jude couldn’t stop herself from remembering jealously that he hadn’t found time to ring her the same evening. God, she was pathetic.
‘Anyway, I was feeling really positive and I said it was daft for us to go on doing nothing about the house and we really ought to sell it. And Jonquil actually agreed with me. She was very calm and rational and she said she couldn’t imagine why we hadn’t put the house on the market years ago.’
‘Any particular reason why she had changed her mind?’
‘She’s got a new chap.’
‘Do you know who he is?’
‘No idea. When we were living down here, in quite a lot of cases I did know who her men were, because they were people in our circle. Since she’s moved to Brighton, I’ve no idea who she consorts with.’
‘But if she’s now in a good relationship, then maybe that’ll take the pressure off you, and she’ll finally get out of your life . . .?’
‘Jude, I’ve been here before. Many times. With Jonquil every new relationship is going to be The Big Thing. And so it is for a few weeks, months sometimes, years in my case . . . and then she starts getting unsettled and jealous . . . and pretty soon she’s off with someone else. It’s a recurring pattern with her, one that I’m afraid never gets broken.’