Cushing's Crusade (3 page)

‘What got you interested in antique furniture?’

‘Boredom,’ she came back at once. ‘Now go to sleep.’

‘That new dentist of yours,’ whispered Derek, after a short silence. A loud sigh from Diana. ‘I think I’ve got a loose filling. Do you think he’d suit me?’

She jerked into a sitting position and turned on the light. ‘Do you have to settle your dental problems in the middle of the night?’

Her exasperation could be genuine, or again she could be
trying
to put him off.

‘I want to change my dentist,’ Derek said.

‘Are Gilchrist’s eyes getting you down too?’ she asked with feigned incredulity.

‘He’s too far from my work. Where’s your Indian bloke?’

‘South Ken,’ she replied without hesitation.

‘Would you make me an appointment?’

‘I’ll ring him tomorrow.’

‘You won’t need to,’ he came back quietly. ‘You’re seeing him tomorrow.’

‘Thank God you reminded me. That bloody hygienist. I’ll ask him in person.’ She reached out for the switch. ‘Can I?’ she asked imploringly. Derek nodded assent. Darkness again. Diana said, ‘Of course he may not be able to take on any more National Health patients. I was lucky he took me on.’

It was then that Derek was finally convinced that the Indian dentist did not exist. A little later he knew that he would have to follow her in the morning; wherever she was planning to go, it would certainly have nothing to do with her teeth.

Derek left the flat shortly after half-past nine and made his way to the telephone box on the opposite side of Fitzsimmons Avenue. After his early departure from the Institute the previous
afternoon
, his assistant was not surprised to hear that he felt unwell, and did not intend coming in to work that day. After finishing his call, Derek stayed in the phone box for a further quarter of an hour, holding the receiver and pretending to talk. In this way he felt less conspicuous observing the entrance of the flats; but the arrival of two women, both eager to use the phone, forced him from his concealment. Later he might be able to go back but in the meantime somewhere else had to be found. It was not very likely that Diana would see him from the window but it was just possible, and Derek was unwilling to take any chances.

Fifty yards to the right of the phone box was a group of shops and beyond them a couple of plane trees with a seat under them. On his way to this new vantage point Derek went into a
newsagent
and bought a paper as quickly as he could. The seat, placed almost opposite Abercorn Mansions by a considerate council, was black with dirt and haphazardly patterned with bird droppings. Derek dropped a page from his paper onto the bench and sat down, holding the rest of the paper up in front of him. Every few seconds he glanced over the top of the paper, but, a little later, feeling that this was overdoing caution, he laid the paper on his lap. Her appointment was likely to be between ten-thirty and noon. It might be a long wait. The sun was climbing in a cloudless sky and already it was hot. A slight breeze stirred the dust and the paper in the gutter.

Derek had already given some thought to the method he would
use in following Diana, but he had only solved the problems posed if she should take the tube. At the opposite end of a long platform she would be unlikely to see him, but if she chose to go by bus things would be very different. He would not be able to wait in the queue with her, and if he jumped on after her she might very well see him. In films there would be a conveniently placed taxi with an obliging driver quite willing to ‘follow that bus’ without questions. Derek imagined himself perfectly
disguised
with a false beard and a wig. Would anything fool her? Certainly not dark glasses. He had a vision of Diana sweeping along the gangway of the bus and, to the amazement of the other passengers, snatching off his dark glasses. Any sensible man would have let well alone or gone to a private detective. She might go shopping on her way to South Kensington and that would mean every kind of difficulty; he would have to dart in and out of shop doorways, stop abruptly, pretend to look at pairs of shoes, watches, second-hand books or travel posters. Very
possibly
he might lose her. If she went into a department store and got into a lift, he wouldn’t have a hope.

A hundred yards away Derek could see a policeman coming towards him. Nothing wrong with sitting on a bench; people sat on benches every day. But if the policeman saw him on the same bench an hour later mightn’t he suspect something? Suspect that Derek was watching the movements of residents of the flats with a view to burglary. If the policeman saw him farther along the street later on in the day, he might be accused of loitering with intent, which in a sense was a very apt description of what he was doing. At least there was no school so he wouldn’t be suspected of trying to molest minors. The policeman passed by.

Shortly after ten-thirty Derek left the bench and walked along the street to a bus shelter. Nothing strange about a man waiting there. Four buses called at this particular stop, so he would be able to remain there for at least half-an-hour without drawing attention to himself. If Diana was going to come out, she would probably do so fairly soon. Derek smiled to himself. This idea that he was conspicuous was madness. In London one could wander about in one’s underwear without getting a glance.
Nobody
would notice if he spent the whole day at the bus-stop. There had been a piece in the papers several days before about a man who had fallen in a river and drowned. His corpse had floated twenty miles downstream, past people fishing, past
picknicking
families and couples walking along the banks. Several had seen the body but had thought nothing of it. One woman had supposed the drowned man to be a swimmer who liked letting the current do the work for him. He had only been found to be dead when his corpse had floated into a lock.

Two buses called at the stop within ten minutes: the 158
followed
by the 42. Derek was feeling considerably more relaxed when he saw a potentially alarming situation developing. On the other side of the street Mrs Harvey, who lived in a flat on the second floor of Abercorn Mansions, was heading straight for the bus-stop.

Mrs Harvey and Derek talked about the beauty of the day and the unpredictability of the bus service. Then came the question Derek was dreading. ‘Which bus are you catching, Mr Cushing?’

Derek hedged. ‘Which bus are
you
catching?’ he asked archly and then added, ‘Perhaps we’ll be getting the same bus.’

Mrs Harvey said the 42 was her bus and in return Derek told her his was the 158. Although Derek had survived the danger of a journey on the same bus as Mrs Harvey he was still extremely worried. If the buses were running to schedule it was more than likely that the 158 would come before the next 42; Derek was trapped and knew it. The 27 came and then the 158. As it approached Derek went through a pantomime of fumbling in his pockets. He swore aloud and, after a few inarticulate words about having forgotten his money, dashed across the road to Abercorn Mansions.

Please God don’t let Diana come out now. Derek stopped in the hall of the flats and tried to think quickly. Since it was
possible
that another 158 might come before Mrs Harvey’s 42, there was no question of returning to the stop while she was still there. But since the woman had just missed a 42, she might have to wait for fifteen minutes. Derek realized that he could not stay in the hall for that length of time.

In front of Abercorn Mansions was a low privet hedge. Derek made up his mind what he had to do. He would slip out of the entrance and hide behind the hedge. There was a chance that Major Smythe in the front ground-floor flat might see him but there seemed no alternative course of action. The hedge was too low for him to stand behind, so he had to squat; a casual observer, who failed to notice that his trousers were up, would certainly think he was opening his bowels. Through the hedge it was impossible to see whether Mrs Harvey was still at the
bus-stop
. Derek felt that he would not be safe until another four buses had passed. If Major Smythe did see him what could he say? That he had dropped his car keys from the balcony? It wasn’t very likely but would have to do if necessary. Derek remained squatting behind the hedge; already his thighs were aching. Sweat was running down his back.

There was a gap in the hedge near the doors of the flats and through it Derek watched for Diana. The gap was large enough for Diana to see him, if she should happen to look round. Derek imagined her saying: ‘You’re insane, completely off your trolley. You’ll have to be committed.’ He would leap over the hedge followed by Diana, Major Smythe, Mrs Harvey and the
policeman
armed with a strait-jacket. Enthusiastic passers-by would join in the chase with howls of derision. A cuckold
and
a lunatic would be an ideal subject for mockery. The hedge smelled of dogs’ excrement. Gardens worthy of mansions. In my father’s house are many mansions. The person who first decided to call second-rate blocks of flats ‘mansions’ must have had an
extravagantly
warped sense of humour. Behind Derek was a row of laurels, their leaves grey with dirt; these dismal-looking shrubs were all that had been thought necessary for the thin strip of garden.

Derek came out of his hiding-place a few minutes after eleven and headed for the phone box. He had no intention of making a call. Inside, it was as hot as a small greenhouse. Just above the phone two messages had been written: ‘For a suck and a fuck ring 401-8871’ and ‘Mary likes being buggered 223-9364’. Most of the directories had been ripped out. When the heat got the
better of him, Derek went back to his bench. Heat haze was shimmering on the road; in the distance cars seemed to float into view. How long ought he to sit on the bench? Mrs Harvey might see him on her return. ‘Still there, Mr Cushing?’ ‘As a matter of fact I am conducting a survey on traffic flow in Fitszimmons Avenue.’ ‘Saw you hiding behind that hedge. Funny place to keep your money.’ ‘I buried it there for safe-keeping.’

By noon Derek had realized that the assumption on which he had based his vigil had been far from cast-iron. If, as he had supposed, she had no appointment, there was no reason why she should go anywhere. Only his overdramatic imagination had led him to suppose that she would pretend to go to her non-existent dentist. In fact it was far more likely that she would content herself with a straightforward lie when he came home in the evening. But that would prove the case against her just as surely as a successful pursuit. No sooner than he had begun to see the matter as a foregone conclusion, tremors of the now familiar panic returned. A few moments before, he had been sitting quite calmly on his bench, but now he could not keep still. He had to get up and pace up and down for a while to relieve his nervousness. If there was no point in waiting any longer, what ought he to do? This question had terrified him before but then he had dismissed it with phrases like ‘cross your bridges when you come to them’, ‘find out first and then decide’, ‘no point in making decisions before you know the facts’. Suddenly Derek stopped dead in the middle of his pacing. He had told himself that as soon as he knew one way or the other, his panic would go. But it hadn’t gone at all. Once again he found his chest tightening and his breathing laboured. He also felt slightly sick; his mouth was uncomfortably dry.

Derek forced himself to sit down again. He might go home in the evening to hear that she had put off her morning appointment and gone in the afternoon. He couldn’t be sure yet. Had she really told him that she was going in the morning or had he just assumed it? The return of uncertainty calmed him at once; it was like a reprieve. Nothing would be definite until after five in the
afternoon. He would have to wait on. No point in thinking about what to do until then.

It started shortly before two o’clock but, because he hadn’t drunk much at breakfast and had sweated a lot during the
morning
, Derek at first decided that his desire to pee stemmed from his nerves rather than his bladder. Twenty minutes later this pretence was no longer tenable; he wanted to go and would have to go. His first thought was the privet hedge but that was
dangerous
not only because of Major Smythe; he might bump into Diana in the entrance. The nearest lavatory was at the tube station three hundred yards down the road. An athletic man would be able to run that distance in roughly forty seconds; eighty seconds there and back and forty seconds to pee. Two minutes away from his post. Well, a little over two minutes since he wasn’t an athletic man. Three minutes. Not long at all. He would have to be particularly luckless for her to come out at this precise time; even more luckless if she caught a bus or a taxi at once.

Four minutes later Derek was back at his bench and feeling reasonably confident that he hadn’t missed her. To make certain he decided to phone her. Naturally he would not say anything, just to check whether she answered. Back in the now familiar phone box Derek dialled the number and heard the phone
ringing
. Two minutes later it was still ringing. Derek rang the operator who had the line checked and confirmed that there was no fault on it. She could be in the bath, under her hair dryer, asleep; if she was going to pretend to have kept her appointment, she might be ignoring the phone deliberately. There was however another possibility; she had gone out while he was in the lavatory. Nothing to be done though.

At three o’clock Derek concluded that his persisting feeling of sickness might be hunger. One of the shops opposite Abercorn Mansions was a delicatessen. He went in and bought a couple of slices of salami, a quarter of a pound of cheddar, a carton of milk and a packet of biscuits. Having returned to the bench, Derek ate his lunch slowly and without enjoyment. He had eaten the salami,
finished the milk and started on the cheese, when he saw, on the other side of the road, either Charles Lamont or his double. Lamont walked briskly past Alfriston House, past Tunstall House, past Derek’s privet hedge and then, after a momentary pause, into Abercorn Mansions. Charles had never mentioned knowing anybody else in the block apart from the Cushings. The time of his visit made it equally clear that he intended to see Mrs Cushing rather than her husband.

Derek nibbled at his cheese mechanically. The idea of Lamont being Diana’s lover seemed at first too grotesque to be true. Diana was certainly an unusual woman but nobody could have done what she had done. Derek recalled the way she had so convincingly attempted to force him to come to Cornwall, and how she had finally allowed him to
persuade
her to go without him. He remembered something else: she had told him, shortly after Charles’s invitation, that Giles wanted to go with his school Scouts to the Peak District, instead of spending the first week of the Cornish holiday with her; he would come down to Cornwall for the last few days. At the time, Derek had thought nothing of this, but now it appeared in a very different light. Everything fitted, there was no doubt about that, and yet he could not quite face the final conclusion. Had he been so thoroughly fooled and manipulated? Had she really come to view him with such
contempt
that she had been happy to make him almost a conniver at her infidelity? She had never forgotten the dates of his projected trip to Scotland. She had merely used her knowledge and gambled on his natural reluctance to abandon his research.