A Coffin for Charley (7 page)

‘What will John say?'

‘Grandpa?' Their eyes met and they both began to laugh. ‘Serve him right for marrying a woman of my age.'

She was slightly, very slightly, older than her husband whom she had first met as a raw young detective, had loved, quarrelled with, and left. Only to meet him again and repeat the process. They had met for the third time and this time had married. It had to last.

‘He'll probably be very, very pleased.'

‘He's lucky, very lucky, to have you,' said Letty. ‘You keep him this side of sanity.'

‘Oh, he's very sane.'

‘I don't think his is a job you stay sane in, you see so much that's corruptible and devious and horrible. I've seen him have terrible rages.'

‘Not so much as he used to have.'

‘They were nearly all inside, I don't suppose he let them show. We're a very odd family.'

‘That diary,' said Stella.

‘Exactly.'

A few years ago a diary kept by the mother of the three, John, Letty and brother William, had been discovered in an attic. It revealed a life even more full of lovers, strange adventures and alarming anecdotes than anyone had suspected. None of the three had memories of their mother, whose habit had been to see each child was looked after by someone else as she moved on. Moving on was her speciality.

Letty had handed it over to Coffin to read and edit with the idea of publishing it. A film had been talked about. She
might put money in herself. That was when she had money, she thought regretfully, that lovely liquid stuff.

Stella had her regrets too. ‘I read some of it when there was this idea of a film. I wouldn't have minded getting the part of Ma but I thought she was a liar. Did you believe it?'

‘Believe, what's believe?' Letty nodded tolerantly. ‘But it was fantastic and a marvellous read. I thought: Well, if that's my mother, I hope I have inherited some of her flair. She could live, that woman.'

‘Several lives at once,' said Stella.

Letty leaned forward. ‘You know the thing I dread most … and it's why I gave up the idea of a film: she might still be alive. She might be alive and come forward and say, That's me. I began to have dreams, nightmares, in which she came back; she tapped me on my face and I woke up and there she was, standing by my bed. That was when the nightmare began.'

‘I think John has a nightmare like that,' said Stella. ‘Perhaps that's why he married me.'

‘No, oh no.' Letty's lips curved in a smile of great sweetness which yet echoed some expressions of her brother's face. ‘He married you for one reason only: that he loved you and could not see life without you.'

Stella shook her head. ‘We all have our own nightmares, and mine is that one day he will say, Well, that's it, Stella, sorry it didn't work. Goodbye.'

‘He's worried about you at the moment,' said Letty abruptly. ‘But he's taking measures.'

‘Yes, I've seen the patrol cars going past. But they can't watch me all the time. One day I might go round a corner or get in a lift and there he is with a knife or a gun, and no one to stop him. And sometimes I have an even worse fear: that he horribly, terribly likes me.'

This time it was Letty who poured them both a strong gin.

Then they turned to discussing the appointment of the Principal of the School of Drama for which they had several good candidates.

It was not until Letty left that Stella went back to look again at the ring of white roses found on the mat before her front door.

It was a small ring of blooms, more funeral than celebratory, with a chewed and torn appearance as if it had been about the world a bit. Tiddles the cat had been on it and may have been responsible for the depressing, even menacing look.

As she took the roses in her hand, she thought: And they're not even real roses. A card fell out on to the mat. A small old card which, like the flowers, looked as if this was not its first use. It said: LOVE.

That evening, up the stairs in Coffin's tower, she handed them over to her husband. He had an apron on and was in the kitchen.

A pleasant smell as of savoury chicken greeted her. They had arranged to cook in turns and her husband was now doing his part. Even acting the part with his striped butcher's apron. She guessed the food had come from a famous store which specialized in providing prepared food. She congratulated him, she would do the same. She did do the same, had been doing so for weeks. No good pretending that they were an orthodox domestic pair.

Dinner was quiet and attended by both animals, cat and dog, who received their own bowls of food with suspicious pleasure. The cat had taught Bob to inspect what he ate before touching a mouthful in case it was poisoned and the dog had taught Tiddles to eat fast or the chap next to you in the feeding line might get it.

‘I shall be staying the night.'

‘I should hope so.' He was surprised it had to be mentioned. On the whole, their nights were spent in his tower. At first Stella had called it romantic, now she just called it home which he liked even better.

The wreath of plastic roses rested on a bookcase by them.

‘I feel more nervous than ever. What can you do with the roses?'

He poured her some more wine and looked across at the wreath, sitting in a melancholy way as if it had a life of its own on the bookcase by the window where Tiddles often sat.

‘I don't suppose the roses take fingerprints well, although you never know, but it shall go off for forensic examination.' He drank some wine himself. ‘No one saw it delivered?'

‘Who could I ask?' said Stella. ‘Letty didn't know anything.'

‘People from the theatre … coming and going?'

Stella shrugged. ‘I'll try. But I don't think so.'

‘Don't worry too much.' But he was worried himself.

‘But don't you see, he's coming closer. Closer. He knows my face and I don't know his.'

‘Come to bed. It'll seem better in the morning.'

Stella smiled. ‘The nice thing about being married is that there is the morning as well as the night.'

Coffin traced his finger delicately down her profile. ‘You have a very charming nose, did you know it?'

Without warning he remembered the face of Marianna Manners, seen in the police morgue that morning. She too had a nice nose but one now suffused with dark colour.

An actress, like his Stella, but not so talented or successful with her chewed fingernails. Trying, though, to justify her Equity card, taking whatever part she could get.

‘Did you ever hear of the Karnival Club?' he asked Stella.

Stella looked surprised. ‘Yes, I know about it. Why do you ask?'

‘Marianna Manners had an engagement there. She was at the Karnival a week. It was where she met Job Titus.'

‘I went there once,' said Stella.

‘You did?'

‘I was producing a play about a transvestite. I wanted to get it right.'

‘Did it help?'

‘So-so. The production was scrapped anyway.'

He wouldn't question her now, but tomorrow, in the morning, he would get out of her the date and details of her visit.

But he couldn't resist one question. ‘What did you wear?' She considered. ‘Well, it was work. I didn't dress up.' Hastily she added, ‘Not that way, or any way. It was summer. Jeans and a shirt, I think.'

One more question had to be asked now after all. ‘Which summer?'

‘This summer. When it was hot, in June.'

This summer, not so long ago. Not too long ago for a person to have seen both Marianna and Stella.

Damn, he thought. Damn and damn and damn.

Thursday. Down Napier Street

Morning did not always bring joy. Annie woke up with a headache and a gut feeling of worry. ‘Always worse in the morning,' she told herself. She battled against misery, always had, she was a fighter.

Annie cleared away the breakfast and took her daughter to nursery school. Didi was still asleep, she seemed to use more than the average ration of oblivion. Annie couldn't remember if she had been that way herself but she thought not. Sleep, surely, had been a commodity hard to come by after that episode in the garden. Moreover, there had been a generation change and it had happened between Annie and Didi, a matter of some ten years. Girls were different now.

Her thoughts veered away to Caroline Royal. Caroline, the tenant upstairs, was someone she thought about often. As soon as Caroline had rented the flat, Annie had known she was going to be important in her life. There was something different about Caroline.

Caroline's flat at the top of Annie's house was always beautifully in order but with an empty feeling to it, as if Caroline left nothing behind when she went out to work.
It was hardly her home because she travelled so much. Perhaps Heathrow was where she really lived.

Annie went up the outside staircase next day, the day after her conversation with Tom Ashworth. Didi was out doing whatever Didi did every day. She said she was working at Max's Delicatessen near St Luke's Theatre and much frequented by those acting at the theatre and their hopeful hangers-on who thought there might be an agent or a company scout drinking coffee and nibbling Max's special almond brioches, but Annie doubted if she was there all the time.

Annie had a key which she used so that she could see if any post was accumulating for Caroline. She had an address to which to send it and if she felt like it, she did so send it. Occasionally, if the place looked dusty she would give a quick flick round with a duster but she didn't bother much. Caroline would not notice. One of the things that Annie had observed about Caroline was her relative in-difference to the appearance of where she lived and the freedom this gave her. Annie saluted her for all her freedoms.

There was no post.

Annie looked around. The flat felt empty but no one knew better than Annie that appearances were deceptive. She stood on the threshold and let the silence of the flat sink into her.

‘Caroline, Caroline,' she murmured, half aloud. ‘Keep Charley tethered today. Don't let him out.'

Is Charley a dog, Annie said sadly to herself, as she locked the door behind her and went down the stairs, that I must talk about him so?

Annie went back to her sitting-room where she settled herself at the table with her books to do her essay of the week on the Treaty of Vienna. She was a slow worker, but thorough.

Didi came back at lunch-time. She was late and tired. ‘Had a rush,' she complained. ‘I had to help at the counter as well as the tables and my feet ache.' She kicked off her shoes. ‘Can I get you something?'

‘Some coffee if you're making it,' said Annie, her head still bent over her notes.

‘Can do.' Didi padded off to the kitchen. The sisters were fond of each other and happy in each other's company most of the time.

‘Why didn't you stay to eat at Max's?' Annie called after her.

‘Wanted to get away. More of a break.'

‘I suppose so.' Annie wondered sceptically if Didi had an arrangement to meet someone later that day and wanted to change her clothes. She had noticed the phenomenon before. Better not be the Creeley boy.

Didi came back with two mugs of coffee.

‘I prefer a cup,' said Annie.

‘You get more in a mug and mugs it is.'

It was a generation thing again, thought Annie. She was the cup and saucer generation. When had the division arisen? The mugs of infancy now carried on for ever. Perhaps today's adults or near-adults like Didi were trying to stay as children.

Profound thought. She made a note of it to tell her tutor.

Didi sipped some coffee and was ready to gossip. She had decided what she would change into for tonight. Red and black. Dramatic. ‘Miss Pinero had a wreath of roses left on her door.' Stella had come in to Max's for breakfast where she had chattered away to her sister-in-law who was also there. Didi had listened in without shame. Sometimes she thought she was meant to, those in The Profession like to be heard.

‘Well, lucky her.'

‘She didn't think it was well meant. It sounded tatty. Chewed up. Plastic anyway. Didn't Caroline have one like that? I seem to remember.'

‘Goodness, I don't know.' As it happened, Caroline had had such a wreath. ‘Didn't know you went up there.' Annie put her head down and tried to get back to her books.

‘Well, I don't. Not now. But I went up there to help when Caroline first moved in. I liked her then … that was before …'

‘Before what?'

‘Before she got so peculiar.'

‘She's not peculiar.'

‘Well, away so much. I know you like her.'

‘Admire her,' said Annie. ‘Career woman, good job. I'd like to be what she is.'

Didi said: ‘I'm going to audition at St Luke's tonight.'

‘Thought you'd done that.'

‘Yes, I did. But I was too modest. Only auditioned for a small part. Cough and a spit, you know. I'm going for a bigger part. So don't worry if I'm late back. Lot to pack in.'

Annie got up. ‘I've got to get the child from nursery school.'

‘Thought she stayed all day on Thursday,' said Didi.

‘You manage your life and I'll manage mine.'

‘All right, don't be cross. I only said it, didn't mean anything. I'll collect her for you if you like.'

Annie left her coffee unfinished and went off. ‘Sorry, mustn't be late.'

Didi waited until Annie banged the door behind her, then she took the mugs into the kitchen and left them in the sink. Then she changed her clothes as she had planned. Her face needed repair too, and she was slow about it. Her nails were beginning to grow but too many auditions and she might start chewing again.

Finally, she closed the front door behind her carefully, you couldn't be too careful in this district.