‘Oh, I don’t know. The police keep things close to their chest and— Eyes on the bloody road, Tabby! Slow down. Slow down!’
‘I’m doing twenty miles an hour, Mum.’
‘Did you try your brother again?’
‘Catherine answered. Said he’s at a conference.’
‘A conference? How perfectly exhilarating.’ She lit a cigarette and looked in the mirror. The tops of her hearing aids were poking through her hair, miserable flashes of beige plastic.Vile. ‘Did you speak to my agent about that debacle over my royalties, darling?’
Tabby was leaning forward, trying to read a road sign.
‘Darling, I just asked if—’
‘Shh. I can’t see the… is it the first left or the second? Mum?’
‘It’s the one by the petrol station.’
‘OK. I think I remember. Yes, I spoke to your agent. She said— Mum! I told you not to smoke in my car!’
‘Oh dear. I must be developing dementia. Well, it’s too late now.’
‘Fucking hell, Mum.’
‘You were telling me about my agent?’
Tabby sighed. ‘She said there’s been no mistake and she’ll be happy to clarify that over the phone, so long as you wear your hearing aids. Oh, there we go.’ They were passing the petrol station. Tabby indicated and slowly manoeuvred the car around the sharp bend into the road that contained Haines-on-the-Hill, her father’s nursing home.
‘Look who’s come to see you!’ The carer was tall and brown-skinned with oily ringlets and stubble growing below her eyebrows. ‘It’s your daughter and wife, Mr Dawes. Come all this way in the snow.’
‘Yes, we hiked here,’ said Bettina, sitting down next to Bart on the two-seat sofa. His room was large and comfortable and contained his own furniture, even the old bureaus from his father’s study and his mother’s Welsh dresser which was supposedly worth £150,000. Never much of a reader, his shelves were full of videos and only seven books – four different biographies (of himself) and Bettina’s novels: Silence Is Dying, The Rats Are Upon Us and A Love Most Ungainly. Bettina had requested that he never read them. If he’d told her he disliked them, that would cause unpleasantness (well, full-scale war), and if he told her he liked them, she might not believe him. On top of the huge Panasonic television set stood his sole Oscar statuette from 1951, freshly polished, as always.
Bettina squeezed Bart’s hand. ‘How are you, my lovely boy?’
‘Shit,’ said Bart.
‘Mind your language around the ladies, Mr Dawes.’
Bettina scowled up at the carer. ‘He’s a grown man, let him speak his bloody mind.’
‘Ignore her, she’s just being rude,’ said Tabby to the carer.
‘That’s all right,’ said the carer.
‘Can you all leave us alone?’ said Bettina.
Tabby and the carer exchanged looks.
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Bettina. ‘We’re not children.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Tabby, to the carer. ‘I’m sure they’ll be fine. Do you want anything, Mum? Dad? A cup of tea?’
‘No, thank you.’ Bettina gave her daughter a tight, strained smile. ‘Off you go.’
They left, gently closing the door behind them. Bettina waited a suitable time and then took the brandy bottle from her purse. ‘Here,’ she said, passing it to Bart, ‘unscrew the cap, will you? My hands are all buggered up with arthritis. You remember how to do it?’
‘I think I can manage it.’ His voice had an airy, muffled quality, as if his sinuses were inflamed and he’d just woken up. He was freshly shaved except for a strip down the side of his left cheek – the point, probably, where he’d refused to co-operate any more. Stubborn, difficult bastard. Always was. His clothes were clean – a lavender shirt underneath a cadet-grey pullover and dark-grey slacks, the pleat crisply ironed. She’d bought them herself, five or so years ago, back when she was still able to get out and about. Sometimes when she visited he’d be wearing his pyjamas, with snot on the sleeves and dried cornflakes stuck to the lapels. The carers said it was because of the dementia, but she half suspected it was down to the ‘calmers’ they were always giving him to keep him semi-agreeable.
He got the cap off the bottle and sniffed the brandy inside.
‘Your favourite,’ she said, smiling. ‘Do you have any glasses?’
He ignored her, drinking straight from the bottle, then offered it back.
‘Cheers,’ she said, taking a sip.
She got out her cigarettes and lit two, passing one to him. He stared at it, at the lit end, confused.
‘Put it in your mouth and suck, darling.’ She elbowed him, gently. ‘I know you’ve had a lot of practice in that area.’
His blanched eyes moved from the cigarette to her face. He laughed. It was a beautiful golden laugh. ‘Betts?’ he said.
‘Yes, it’s your Betts.’
He took a tentative puff on his cigarette. ‘Betts?’ he said again.
‘Yes, darling. Your adoring wife.’
‘Wife?’ His eyes wrinkled with mirth. She knew what was coming next.
‘Well if I was you, I’d divorce me.’ He slapped his thigh. ‘I’m a fruit!’
She smiled a tired smile. Probably half the home knew he was a “fruit” by now. ‘I would have divorced you years ago,’ she said (and it was the thing she always said), ‘if it’d been worth all the fuss.’ She thought back to Bart’s agent, his whispered, doomy words to her one night in 1973: ‘The only thing keeping all those rumours in the jar is your marriage. Your marriage is the lid.’ No, it wouldn’t have been worth it. The lawyers and journalists and carving up of assets. Why make life hard for yourself?
‘Where’s Étienne?’ said Bart.
‘Étienne’s dead, darling.’
Every week, the same old thing. It was probably why William, his partner since 1952, had stopped visiting so regularly. How could William compete? Étienne existed as an ageless ghost, a beautiful young man frozen in memory who Bart had never had to see grow old. And of course, they’d never got to the stage that all long-term partners arrive at where they don’t want to fuck each other any more, where the sight of the other’s miserable face chewing on toast in the morning is enough to induce screaming. Twenty years it’d taken to get to that point with Ivy. Still, that was good going. And they’d toughed it out, neither wanting to throw in the towel at their advanced age, and arriving eventually at a place of tolerable companionship.
‘Don’t you remember?’ she said. ‘He had that car accident in 1950. He did a Monty Clift and smashed into a tree. You don’t remember? We went to the funeral.’ They’d flown to California – the first time Bettina had been on a plane. Bart had got drunk and, halfway across the Atlantic, almost got caught in the toilets with another man – he was always doing silly things during times of emotional difficulty.
Bart drank his brandy, eyes vapid. He did not remember.
‘What about Henry?’ she said.
‘Henry.’
‘Yes, Henry. Heinous Henry. Do you remember him?’
‘The thing with the… thing. Was it Tuesday? In a box?’
‘I really need you to remember, darling. Henry. Butler.’ She lowered her voice: ‘I offed him in the woods. Remember? He got concussion and choked on his own vomit. Surely you remember something like that.’
He stared at her. Clear thin mucus dribbling down his philtrum.
‘I need you to focus. The police might want to talk to you.’ She clicked her fingers in front of his face. ‘Are you listening?’
‘Yes.’ A trace of irritation.
‘Good. Now I need you to stick to the story. Henry disappeared in 1943, taking your mother’s pearls and antique brooches. 1943. Butler. Pearls. We were all very upset about the betrayal and we reported it to the police, but he was never sighted again. 1943. Butler. Pearls. That is all we know. Bart?’