A New Lease of Death (7 page)

5

… That they may see their children Christianly and virtuously brought up.

The Solemnization of Matrimony

THE KERSHAWS’ HOUSE
was about a mile from the town centre, separated from shops, station, cinema and churches by thousands of other large suburban villas. For number 20 Craig Hill was large, halfheartedly Georgian and built of raspberry red brick. The garden was planted with annuals, the lawn was clover-free and the dead heads had been nipped off the standard rose bushes. On the concrete drive a boy of about twelve was washing down a large white Ford.

Archery parked his car at the kerb. Unlike Wexford he had not yet seen the coach house at Victor’s Piece, but he had read about it and it seemed to him that Mrs Kershaw had climbed high. Sweat started on his forehead and his upper lip as he got out of the
car
. He told himself that it was unusually hot and that he had always been prone to feel the heat.

‘This is Mr Kershaw’s house, isn’t it?’ he asked the boy.

‘That’s right.’ He was very like Tess, but his hair was fairer and his nose was freckled. ‘The front door’s open. Shall I give him a shout?’

‘My name is Archery,’ said the clergyman and he held out his hand.

The boy wiped his hands on his jeans. ‘Hallo,’ he said.

By now a little wrinkled man had come down the porch steps. The bright hot air seemed to hang between them. Archery tried not to feel disappointment. What had he expected? Certainly not someone so small, so unfinished looking and so wizened as this scrawny creature in old flannels and tieless knitted shirt. Then Kershaw smiled and the years fell from him. His eyes were a bright sparkling blue and his uneven teeth white and clean.

‘How do you do?’

‘Good afternoon, Mr Archery. I’m very happy to meet you. As a matter of fact I’ve been sitting in the window, looking out for you.’

In this man’s presence it was impossible not to feel hope, cheerfulness almost. Archery detected at once a rare quality in him, a quality he had come upon perhaps only half a dozen times in his life. This was a man who was interested in all things. Energy and enthusiasm radiated from him. On a winter’s day he would warm the air. Today, in this heat, his vitality was overwhelming.

‘Come inside and meet my wife.’ His voice was a hot breeze, a cockney voice that suggested fish and chips, eels and mash, and East end pubs. Following him into the square panelled hall, Archery wondered how old he was. Perhaps no more than forty-five. Drive, the fire of life, lack of sleep, because sleep wasted time, could prematurely have burnt away his youth. ‘We’re in the lounge,’ he said, pushing open a reeded glass door. ‘That’s what I like about a day like this. When I get home from work I like to sit by the french windows for ten minutes and look at the garden. Makes you feel all that slogging in the winter was worthwhile.’

‘To sit in the shade and look upon verdure?’ After the words were out Archery was sorry he had spoken. He didn’t want to put this suburban engineer in a false position.

Kershaw gave him a quick glance. Then he smiled and said easily, ‘Miss Austen knew what she was talking about, didn’t she?’ Archery was overcome. He went into the room and held out his hand to the woman who had got up from an armchair.

‘My wife. This is Mr Archery, Renee.’

‘How do you do?’

Irene Kershaw said nothing, but holding out her hand, smiled a tight bright smile. Her face was Tess’s face as it would be when time had hardened it and finished it. In her youth she had been blonde. Now her hair, evidently set that day and perhaps in his honour, was dyed a dull leaf-brown and arranged in unreal feathery wisps about her forehead and ears.

‘Sit down, Mr Archery,’ said Kershaw. ‘We won’t keep you a minute for your tea. Kettle’s on, isn’t it, Renee?’

Archery sat in an armchair by the window. Kershaw’s garden was full of experimental rose pergolas, eruptions of rockery and stone sporting geraniums. He gave the room a quick glance, noting at once its cleanliness and the enormous mass of things which had to be kept clean. Books abounded, Readers’ Digests, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, works on astronomy, deep sea fishing, European history. There was a tank of tropical fish on a corner table, several model aircraft on the mantelpiece; stacks of sheet music covered the grand piano, and on an easel was a half-finished, rather charming, portrait in oils of a young girl. It was a large room, conventionally furnished with Wilton carpet and chintz covers, but it expressed the personality of the master of the house.

‘We’ve had the pleasure of meeting your Charlie,’ said Kershaw. ‘A nice unassuming boy. I liked him.’ Charlie! Archery sat very still, trying not to feel affronted. Charles’s eligibility, after all, was not in question.

Quite suddenly Renee Kershaw spoke. ‘We all like him,’ she said. Her accent was just the same as Wexford’s. ‘But I’m sure I don’t know how they plan to manage, what with everything being such an awful price – the cost of living, you know – and Charles not having a job in line …’ Archery felt amazement. Was she really concerned with this trivia? He began to wonder how he would broach
the
subject that had brought him to Purley. ‘I mean where will they live?’ Mrs Kershaw asked primly. ‘They’re just babies really. I mean, you’ve got to have a home of your own, haven’t you? You’ve got to get a mortgage and …’

‘I think I can hear the kettle, Renee,’ said her husband.

She got up, holding her skirt modestly down to cover her knees. It was a very suburban skirt of some permanently pleated material banded in muted blue and heather pink and of dead sexless respectability. With it she wore a short-sleeved pink jumper and around her neck a single string of cultured pearls. If cultured meant tended and nurtured, Archery thought he had never seen such obviously cultured pearls. Each night, he was sure, they were wrapped in tissue and put away in the dark. Mrs Kershaw smelt of talcum powder, some of which lingered in the lines of her neck.

‘I don’t think we’ve got to the mortgage stage yet,’ said Kershaw when she had gone. Archery gave a wry smile. ‘Believe me, Mr Archery, I know you haven’t come here just for an in-laws’ get-together over the tea cups.’

‘I’m finding it more awkward than I thought possible.’

Kershaw chuckled. ‘I daresay. I can’t tell you anything about Tess’s father that isn’t common knowledge, that wasn’t in the papers at the time. You know that?’

‘But her mother?’

‘You can try. At times like this women see things
through
a cloud of orange blossom. She’s never been very keen on Tess being an educated woman. She wants to see her married and she’ll do her best to see nothing stands in her way.’

‘And you, what do you want?’

‘Me? Oh, I want to see her happy. Happiness doesn’t necessarily begin at the altar.’ Suddenly he was brisk and forthright. ‘Frankly, Mr Archery, I’m not sure if she can be happy with a man who suspects her of homicidal tendencies before she’s even engaged to him.’

‘It isn’t like that!’ Archery hadn’t expected the other man to put him on the defensive. ‘Your stepdaughter is perfect in my son’s eyes. I’m making the inquiries, Mr Kershaw. My son knows that, he wants it for Tess’s sake, but he doesn’t even know I’m here. Put yourself in my position …’

‘But I
was
in your position. Tess was only six when I married her mother.’ He looked quickly at the door, then leaned closer to Archery. ‘D’you think I didn’t watch her, look out for the disturbance to show itself? When my own daughter was born Tess was very jealous. She resented the baby and one day I found her leaning over Jill’s pram striking her on the head with a celluloid toy. Luckily, it
was
a celluloid toy.’

‘But, good heavens …!’ Archery felt the pallor drawing at his face muscles.

‘What could I do? I had to go to work and leave the children. I had to trust my wife. Then we had a son – I think you bumped into him outside cleaning the car – and Jill resented him in just the same way
and
with just the same violence. All children behave like this, that’s the point.’

‘You never saw any more – any more of these tendencies?’

‘Tendencies? A personality isn’t made by heredity, Mr Archery, but by environment. I wanted Tess to have the best sort of environment and I think I can say, with all due modesty, that she has.’

The garden shimmered in the heat haze. Archery saw things he hadn’t noticed at first, chalk lines on the lawn, where, regardless of herbaceous borders, the grass had been marked out for a tennis court; a shambles of rabbit hutches attached to the garage wall; an ancient swing. Behind him on the mantelpiece he saw propped against ornaments two party invitations. A framed photograph above it showed three children in shirts and jeans sprawled on a haystack. Yes, this had been the best of all possible environments for the murderer’s orphan.

The door was pushed open and the girl in the portrait came in pushing a tea trolley. Archery who was too hot and troubled to feel hungry, saw with dismay that it was laden with home-baked pastries, strawberries in glass dishes, fairy cakes in paper cases. The girl looked about fourteen. She was not so beautiful as Tess and she wore a bunchy school tunic, but her father’s vitality illuminated her face.

‘This is my daughter Jill.’

Jill sprawled in a chair, showing a lot of long leg.

‘Now, sit nicely, dear,’ said Mrs Kershaw sharply. She gave the girl a repressive look and began to
pour
tea, holding the pot with curled fingers. ‘They don’t realize they’re young women at thirteen these days, Mr Archery.’ Archery was embarrassed but the girl didn’t seem to care. ‘You must have one of these cakes. Jill made them.’ Unwillingly he took a pastry. ‘That’s right. I’ve always said to both my girls, schooling is all very well in its way, but algebra won’t cook the Sunday dinner. Tess and Jill are both good plain cooks …’

‘Mummy! I’m not plain and Tess certainly isn’t.’

‘You know what I mean. Now don’t take me up on everything. When they get married their husbands won’t be ashamed to have anybody for a meal.’

‘This is my managing director, darling,’ said Jill pertly. ‘Just cut a slice off him and put it under the grill, will you?’

Kershaw roared with laughter. Then he took his wife’s hand. ‘You leave Mummy alone.’ All this jollity and family intimacy was making Archery nervous. He forced a smile and knew it looked forced.

‘What I really mean is, Mr Archery,’ said Mrs Kershaw earnestly, ‘is that even if your Charlie and my Tessie have their ups and downs at first, Tess hasn’t been brought up to be an idle wife. She’ll put a happy home before luxuries.’

‘I’m sure she will,’ Archery looked helplessly at the lunging girl, firmly entrenched in her chair and devouring strawberries and cream. It was now or never. ‘Mrs Kershaw, I don’t doubt Theresa’s suitability as a wife …’ No, that wasn’t right. That was just what he did doubt. He floundered. ‘I wanted to talk to you about …’ Surely Kershaw would help
him
? Jill’s brows drew together in a small frown and her grey eyes stared steadily at him. Desperately he said, ‘I wanted to speak to you alone.’

Irene Kershaw seemed to shrink. She put down her cup, laid her knife delicately across her plate and, folding her hands in her lap, looked down at them. They were poor hands, stubby and worn, and she wore just one ring, her second wedding ring.

‘Haven’t you got any homework to do, Jill?’ she asked in a whisper. Kershaw got up, wiping his mouth.

‘I can do it in the train,’ said Jill.

Archery had begun to dislike Kershaw, but he could not help admiring him. ‘Jill, you know all about Tess,’ Kershaw said, ‘What happened when she was little. Mummy has to discuss it with Mr Archery. Just by themselves. We have to go because, although we’re involved, it’s not quite our business. Not like it is theirs, O.K.?’

‘O.K.’ said Jill. Her father put his arm round her and took her into the garden.

He had to begin, but he was hot and stiff with awkwardness. Outside the window Jill had found a tennis racquet and was practicing shots against the garage wall. Mrs Kershaw picked up a napkin and dabbed at the corners of her mouth. She looked at him, their eyes met, and she looked away. Archery felt suddenly that they were not alone, that their thoughts concentrated on the past, had summoned from its prison grave a presence of brute strength that stood behind their chairs, laying a bloody hand
on
their shoulders and listening for judgment.

‘Tess says you have something to tell me,’ he said quietly. ‘About your first husband.’ She was rolling the napkin now, squashing it, until it was like a golf-ball. ‘Mrs Kershaw, I think you ought to tell me.’

The paper ball was tipped soundlessly on to an empty plate. She put her hand up to her pearls.

‘I never speak of him, Mr Archery. I prefer to let the past be the past.’

‘I know it’s painful – it must be. But if we could discuss it just once and get it over, I promise I’ll never raise the subject again.’ He realized that he was speaking as if they would meet again and often, as if they were already connected by marriage. He was also speaking as if he had confidence in her word. ‘I’ve been to Kingsmarkham today and …’

She clutched at the straw. ‘I suppose they’ve built it all up and spoiled it.’

‘Not really,’ he said. Please God don’t let her digress!

‘I was born near there,’ she said. He tried to stifle a sigh. ‘A funny little sleepy place it was, my village. I reckon I thought I’d live and die there. You can’t tell what life will bring forth, can you?’

‘Tell me about Tess’s father.’

She dropped her hands from fidgeting with the pearls and rested them in her respectable blue lap. When she turned to him her face was dignified, almost ridiculously prim and shuttered. She might have been a mayoress, taking the chair at some parochial function, clearing her throat preparatory to addressing the Townswomen’s Guild. ‘Madam
chairman
, ladies …’ she should have begun. Instead she said:

‘The past is the past, Mr Archery.’ He knew then that it was hopeless. ‘I appreciate your difficulty, but I really can’t speak of it. He was no murderer, you’ll have to take my word. He was a good kind man who wouldn’t have harmed a fly.’ It was curious, he thought, how she jumbled together old village phrases with platform jargon. He waited, then burst out: