Almost a Crime (76 page)

The airport building was slightly cooler, and Octavia was

waving excitedly to someone in a gallery over their heads.

‘Who’s that?’ said Gabriel gloomily. ‘Another friend of

your father’s?’

She smiled at him; she seemed oddly cheerful and

relaxed, in spite of the heat and the long flight. ‘You are in

a grump. No, it’s Bob. Elvira’s husband. I told you about Elvira, didn’t I?’

‘No, I don’t think you did.’ He tried not to sound sulky.

‘Elvira’s our cook — well, housekeeper, I suppose.’

‘Your housekeeper! I thought we were going to be on

our own in this house.’

‘Gabriel, we are. She lives with her husband and some of

her children in Holetown. She conies in every day. For

heaven’s sake, calm down. Bobby, hallo.’

‘Hallo, Octavia. Good to see you. This way now.’

Bob was tall, thin, grizzled, very relaxed. Gabriel liked

the way he called Octavia Octavia, not Mrs Fleming. He

followed him over to a rather battered car.

‘This is Gabriel, Bob. Gabriel Bingham. He’s a politician

from England. Gabriel, you sit in the front, then you can

see more.’

Outside again, the blanket of heat had descended. He had

thought the car might be air conditioned. It wasn’t.

‘How’s your dad, Octavia?’

‘He’s very well, Bob. Working too hard.’

‘And Mrs Muirhead?’

‘She’s fine too,’ said Octavia quickly. ‘How’s Elvira?’

‘Elvira’s fine. She’s very happy about the new baby. And

he’s beautiful.

‘I’m sure. Gabriel, look, you see that great palace over

there?’

It did appear to be a palace: Moorish in style, vast,

painted purple and aqua green, with glittering minarets.

‘Who lives there, for God’s sake?’

‘It’s the supermarket. Isn’t it wonderful? Waitrose, eat

your heart out. Now look, over there, Gabriel, that’s sugar

cane. See? And over there …’

He tried to smile, to appear pleased and interested. The

drive seemed to go on for ever: hot, blindingly sunny, the

old car lurching over the road. It wasn’t very pretty, not as

he had imagined it, just an endless, rather narrow, two-lane

highway, lined with small wooden houses set on stilts. He felt a bit sick: and very depressed. What was he doing here, why had he come?

‘Zoe? Zoe, hallo, it’s Ritz. Look, is your mum there? Oh,

she’s not. Oh, I see. No, nothing’s wrong. Well, Romilly’s

a bit upset. No, nothing serious. Yes, if you could. How

long do you think you might be? Oh, fine. Yes, we’re both

here.’

‘I’m fine,’ said Romilly. ‘Honestly. I’m just so sorry I was well,

silly.’

‘Romilly, you weren’t silly,’ said Ritz. Her voice

sounded rather shaky.

‘Yes, I was. Next time—’

‘There won’t be a next time,’ said Serena smoothly, ‘not

with Alix Stefanidis. I do wish these bloody people would

remember who’s paying the bill.’

‘Serena—’ said Ritz. Her voice had an edge to it. ‘Not

now. Now look, Romilly, what do you want to do? Go

out for a drink, go home, call your mum?’

‘I certainly don’t want to call my mum,’ said Romilly.

She managed a rather shaky smile. ‘It’s exactly the sort of

thing she was worrying about, I expect. She’d be on the

next plane down. Hideous! Honestly, I’m fine, please don’t

worry about me. I—’ Her mobile rang suddenly, from the

depths of her bag; she pulled it out. ‘Sorry, I thought it was

switched off. Hallo, this is Romilly. Oh - hi, Fen. Yes.

What? Oh, okay. I’m a bit tired. What? Oh, oh, I see. No,

that’s fine. Honestly. I can spend it with my sister.’

Zoe’s stomach lurched. Now what?

“Bye, Fen.’ She switched off the phone, smiled the same

shaky smile. ‘That was Fenella. Her grandmother’s taking

them all out to the ballet, apparently. Surprise treat. So they

can’t have me tonight after all. Fancy a video, Zoe?’

‘Well — I …’ Shit! That was all she needed. To miss the

one good night she was going to get for a long time; she’d

be off to the States on Monday, probably wouldn’t see Ian

again.

‘What’s the problem?’ said Ritz.

‘Well, Rom can’t stay home on her own. I did have

plans. But — doesn’t matter.’

‘What sort of plans did you have? Share your exciting

young lifestyle with us,’ said Ritz, grinning. She was clearly

glad of a distraction from the horrors of the day.

‘Oh, just going to the Ministry of Sound. With some — some friends.’

‘Sounds good. I hate going there these days, I feel so old.

I do, occasionally, talent spotting, but not any more often

than I have to. Shame, Zoe. Was it for anything special?’

‘Celebrating her A-levels,’ said Romilly, ‘well, hers and

her friends’.’

‘Oh, Zoe, you can’t miss that. Romilly, how would you

like to come out to supper with us? We were going to have

a quiet evening together. Honestly, it would be a pleasure.

We could go somewhere fun, like the Hard Rock. Or the

Fashion Cafe.’

‘No,’ said Zoe, quickly. ‘No, honestly. I’ll stay home

with her. I haven’t got much to celebrate anyway!’

‘I don’t want you to stay home and look after me, Zoe.

Look, I really would like to go out with Ritz and Serena

tonight. The Fashion Cafe’d be great, really cool.’

‘Rom, if I go out, I won’t be home till four or five in the

morning. You can’t stay at the house alone. Mum would

never forgive me.’

‘Why not? God, I really am not a child! But look, tell

you what. Mrs Blake would come over. Just to sleep at the

house. She offered yesterday when she was doing the

ironing, before I fixed to stay with Fenella. How’s that?’

Zoe hesitated. It was very tempting.

‘I’ll ring Mrs Blake,’ she said finally, just to make sure

she can come.’

Mrs Blake said she’d be glad to come over. Steel

Magnolias was on Sky and she had been going on to Mr

Blake about how she wished they could get it.

‘I’ll order a cab for you, Mrs Blake. On Mum’s account.

About half past eight, that all right?’

That way she could see her safely into the house before

she went off herself. Romilly was right, she told herself,

they really should stop treating her like a baby. When Zoe

had been sixteen, she’d flown out to Sydney to stay with

her aunt Bella, all by herself, and then travelled on the train

down to Melbourne, also by herself, to meet her cousins

there. There was no way her parents would think Romilly

was old enough to do that. It was the curse of the youngest

child, that Romilly was always going on about. And she did

seem to have recovered from her ordeal now. Nothing had

happened to her after all; she’d just been a bit embarrassed.

It would do her good to have a grownup evening with

Ritz and Serena. Put it in perspective. And she probably did

need to do a bit of PR on them, if she was going to make

this modelling thing work. She really did seem fine.

Absolutely fine. Nothing to worry about at all.

It just wasn’t fair of Sandy, Louise thought: not to come and

see her more. She needed people to talk to, ordinary

people, not the wretched other patients and the ghastly

nurses, and the doctor with his endless questions. Why

couldn’t Sandy see that? She was trying so hard to cope

with it all, and he just wasn’t doing anything. Obviously,

she hadn’t behaved exactly well: but for heaven’s sake,

Sandy of all people should understand why. Nobody

seemed to understand how much she hurt. What it had

been like, all of it. First losing Juliet, then her mother. And

discovering what Octavia had done. She still couldn’t

believe that of her. Having an abortion, getting rid of a

baby. After all the things she had said when Juliet had died,

about how she admired Louise so much for her courage,

about how she wouldn’t be able to bear it, about how she

could hardly begin to imagine how much it hurt, about

how she had cried for nights out of sympathy with Louise.

She’d been able to bear it, all right: she had just trotted

along to the clinic one morning, let them scrape the baby

out of her and throw it away, and then go off to her busy

life, her important meetings, without another thought for

her dead baby. Killed, incinerated, that’s what they did to them, she had read about it. Just because it wasn’t quite

perfect enough for her perfect family, and perfect marriage.

Octavia deserved to lose her husband, she really did. She

deserved to lose her baby. She needed to be shown how

much it could hurt, how much Louise had hurt. But how

did you do that, to a woman who was so hard, so tough, she

could just throw her baby away, in between breakfast and

lunch? How could she have ever loved Octavia, thought

she was her friend? Louise wouldn’t have had an abortion if

they’d said her baby had had two heads. You looked after

babies, you didn’t murder them. And then Octavia had had

another. Just like that. Less than a year later. A healthy,

beautiful baby. Who was still alive: Octavia’s baby hadn’t been found dead in her cot one morning, white and cold and still. Octavia’s baby could sit up and laugh and say dad

dad.

Juliet had just started to talk; she hadn’t said dad-dad

though. She’d said Mum-my. Not mum, not mum-mum,

but Mum-my, very beautifully, only the day before she had

died. She had been sitting on Louise’s lap, and she had

looked up at her and smiled that beautiful, perfect smile and

reached out her at little hand and touched her hair and

then said, ‘Mum-my.’ It was the first and the last thing she

had ever said. Mummy. And now she was lying under the

earth, in her little coffin, with her toys in it, wrapped in her

blanket, and she would never say or do anything, ever

again. And the other baby, the baby she had managed to

make with Tom, that was dead too, washed so painfully out

of her that terrible day. Two cold, dead babies: when she

needed them so much. And Octavia, who didn’t need any

babies, who had everything else she could possibly wish for,

including Tom, had a baby as well. Octavia deserved to lose

that baby. Lose her for ever. Then she would know how it

felt, what the pain was like.

Louise sat there, in the settling dusk, savouring her anger,

the helpful, strong anger, looking over the garden, and thinking very hard indeed about Octavia losing Minty. It made her own pain feel much better. It really did.

‘We’d better be on our way,’ said Sandy, ‘it’s after six.’

How had that happened, how had the whole afternoon just

disappeared, how had he managed not to notice it, when

for the past two and a half weeks, every hour had crawled

painfully, sickeningly past?

‘Could we go and see Mummy again on the way back?’

‘No. Visiting hours are over. And she’ll be tired.’

‘She won’t. She said she missed us, she said she wanted to

see us more.’

‘Dickon, no, old chap.’

Pattie was watching him closely; she said suddenly, ‘If

you want to go on your own, we could keep Dickon

here…’

‘No,’ said Sandy, ‘thank you all the same.’ His voice

sounded sharp, even to him; it shocked him, that sharpness.

It was a giveaway.

Pattie looked at him, her pale blue eyes very calm

suddenly. ‘Just a thought.’

‘It was very kind. But — one visit is enough, in one day.

For Louise, I mean. Come on, Dickon, off we go. Say

thank you to Mrs David.’

‘Pattie,’ said Pattie, ‘please.’

‘Thank you, Pattie,’ said Dickon solemnly. ‘Thank you

for having me. Thank you, Megan.’

‘We loved it,’ said Megan, ‘come again soon.’

‘Yes, do,’ said Pattie, ‘any time. Whenever you visit your

wife, we’d like it.’

‘Thanks. I’d like that. Good luck with your application,

Megan. Don’t forget to send the pictures.’

‘Of course not. I’ve got one frame left on the film, might

as well finish it. Mum, stand up, next to Sandy. Smile, that’s

right. Great. Mum can get them developed. Sandy, thank

you very much for your help. I wish you’d stay for supper.’

‘Maybe next time,’ said Sandy, ‘if your mother could face

it.’

‘She could face it,’ said Megan, ‘she’d like it, she gets

ever so lonely.’

‘Megan!’ said Pattie. ‘Please! You make me sound very

pathetic’

She was flushed; Sandy realised she was upset. ‘I get ever

so lonely too,’ he said, and realised it was the second time

that day he had spoken seriously out of character.

Romilly sat back in her seat at the Fashion Cafe and smiled

at Serena and Ritz. She felt rather lightheaded. Not only

had they ordered her a glass of champagne - but only one,

had then insisted she moved on to Pepsi Max — but Serena

had produced a present for her, as they settled down at the

table. It was a Donna Karan sweater, black, very sexy. ‘It’s

to make up for today. With love from us both.’

She had insisted on going to change in the ladies’; it was

quite perfect. It made her look more sophisticated without

looking older.

‘I love it,’ she said happily, sitting down again next to