‘Your wife must have given you a very long list.’
‘No ... that is ...’ he stammered, looking at her quickly then back to the shelves. ‘It’s my daughter’s list ... I’m a widower.’
With hardly a break in her step she said, ‘Oh - how thoughtless ... I just didn’t ...’ She stopped walking then and looked straight at him. ‘I’m so very sorry.’
They went for tea at a café over the Odeon. Barbara excused herself as soon as they were settled and retired to the Ladies’ where she removed one set of false eyelashes and half her lipstick, and put on some more scent. They met for tea again, then dinner at a hotel on the bank of the Thames at Marlow. They drove down in his beautiful old Jaguar. The doors clunked when they closed and it had real leather seats. At the hotel there were candles in glasses and flowers floating in glass bowls. She was used to dining in out-of-the-way places, but not with men who didn’t keep looking over their shoulders. He told her about his wife’s accident and about his daughter. He said, ‘I’d like you to meet her.’
This took some time to arrange. Weekends came and went and Judy always appeared to have something on. However eventually, at her father’s insistence, a Sunday afternoon was set aside. Barbara dressed very carefully: a soft paisley dress and a light tweed coat. Hardly any makeup: just blusher, bronzer, soft lipstick and a light brown eye pencil.
The village was nearly thirty miles from Slough (thank God, she thought) and as they drove along she kept saying prettily, and only half falsely, ‘I do hope she’ll like me.’
And he, obtuse and self-deluding, said, ‘Of course she’ll like you. Why on earth shouldn’t she?’
When he turned the car into the drive she thought at first that there must be some mistake. That he was calling on a wealthy patient or dropping in on some friends before taking her home. Lawns swept each side of the drive. There were trees and shrubs and flowerbeds. The house was a large Victorian villa with a turret and gables and (she discovered later) seven bedrooms. She felt cold as she got out of the car. Cold with longing and hope and fear.
She said, ‘This reminds me of my father’s house.’
‘Oh. Where was that, dear?’ She had never before mentioned her family.
‘In Scotland. It went, I’m afraid, like everything else.’ She looked up at the many windows and gave a heavy sigh, pulsating with remembrance and loss. ‘He was a terrible gambler.’
‘I hope you’ll -’ He checked himself. Barbara knew what he’d been going to say and cursed the unseen girl in the house. She had never got on well with women, never had a close woman friend. Well - she’d just have to play it as it came.
It came as an absolute disaster. The daughter had sat, lumpen and disapproving (that was my mother’s favourite chair), dispensing tea and heavy damp wodges of home-made cake. Barbara tried to make conversation, the daughter either didn’t reply or spoke only of times gone by when Mummy did this or Mummy did that or we all went ...
Meanwhile Barbara looked around at the chintz-covered puffy sofas (two) and armchairs (five). At the bowls of flowers and washed Chinese rugs and beautiful mirrors and ornaments. And through the french windows a flagged terrace with urns of brilliant flowers leading to the shaven, incandescently green lawn, and prayed for the first time in years: Oh God - please make him ask me. She realized she was gripping the handle of her delicate cup with unnatural force and set it down very carefully.
Driving back in the car, he had said, ‘She’ll come round.’ She wouldn’t of course, thought Barbara. That sort never did. Frigid little bitch. With that granular complexion and a bum that nearly touched the ground. A born spinster. She’d be there looking after Daddy when she was ninety, never mind nineteen.
‘Oh - do you think so, Trevor? I was so looking forward to meeting her.’ Her voice shook a little. As he parked outside her flat she said, ‘Would you mind coming in for a moment? I feel a bit down.’ It was the first time she had issued such an invitation. He bounded eagerly out of the car and up the steps.
The flat was in Mancetta Road over a newsagent’s in the centre of the town. She didn’t offer him anything to drink, just flung her coat over a chair and slumped on the mock ocelot sofa, burying her face in her hands. Immediately he was beside her.
‘Don’t be upset.’ He put a lumpy tweed arm around her shoulders. She turned to him, childlike in her sorrow.
‘I wanted her so much to like me. I pictured us talking about clothes and makeup and things ... I thought I could look after her ... after both of you ... I suppose you think that’s silly?’
‘Darling, of course not.’ He suddenly became very conscious of the heaviness of her breasts, pressing into his shirt front. And the scent of her hair. He raised her chin and was touched to see tears in her eyes. He kissed her. For a moment her mouth parted eagerly under his, he even felt the tip of her tongue, then she gasped and pushed him away. She got up and crossed the room, turning to face him. She was panting.
‘What must you think? Oh - Trevor. I don’t know what it is ... you’re in my thoughts all the time ... I should never have asked you up here.’
Then she was in his arms again. For a moment she let her whole body relax and press against his, noting that at least he was going to be able to do it when the time came. Another long kiss. His hand moved. She allowed herself one little cry of excitement before breaking away. ‘What do you think you’re -’
‘Barbara ... I’m sorry -’
‘What sort of woman do you think I am?’
‘Forgive me, darling ... please ...’
‘Just because I love you - yes I admit it! I love you. Oh Trevor’ - she started to cry again - ‘you must go. It’s all so hopeless.’
He went and was back again the next day. And the next. For three weeks he visited, agonized, tumefied, was refused entry, subsided, begged, pleaded, squirmed and writhed. The day he cracked, Barbara had been feeling so unhappy that she had not even bothered to dress and was sitting by the gas fire wearing an edge-to-edge peignoir.
They were married on the morning of 30 June 1982. The night before the wedding he stayed in the flat, experiencing transports of delight which he was to remember, with an increasing degree of resentful yearning, for the rest of his life. Then they drove off to Badger’s Drift to break the news to Judy.
And now - Barbara let the strap slip and studied the bite again - she was putting it all at risk. A mixture of frustration and boredom had led her to take a lover. And what a lover. Only a few hours since they had parted, and she already wanted him again. For the second time she had slipped out along the golden stream. Her body felt things she hadn’t allowed it to feel for years. She had been very, very careful, but for how long could the affair stay concealed? Yet she couldn’t stop. He was as necessary to her now as breathing. She got into bed and lay for a moment experiencing again in memory the rhythmical movements of love, then slid into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Chapter Two
The cordoning of Miss Simpson’s cottage caused more interest than a whole platoon of Sergeant Troys. Half the village seemed to be out, ignoring the patently untruthful statement from an attendant constable that there was nothing to see.
The scene-of-crime men worked deftly and methodically through the whole house. Barnaby wandered about, went into the garden. The bereaved bees thrummed in their hive. He noticed without surprise that any unplanted ground was already full of weeds. He returned to the back door and the sweet scented arch of the Kiftsgate rose.
‘We found this under some laurels near the larder window, sir.’ Barnaby was shown a garden fork already labelled and in its polythene bag. ‘Probably been used to fork over any prints. Somebody’s certainly been out that way.’