Almost a Crime (72 page)

She didn’t seem to be doing very well altogether, Octavia

thought, walking back into her office and sitting down to

Mrs Piper’s budgets. If she didn’t pull herself together soon,

she wouldn’t have anything at all.

‘Bye, Mum,’ said Zoe, as Marianne appeared at the bottom

of the stairs, holding her leather Gladstone bag, her slightly

embarrassed expression clearly indicating she was about to

leave for her weekend. ‘Have a great time.’

‘Thank you, darling,’ said Marianne. ‘Thank you very

much. Now you will keep an eye on Romilly tomorrow,

won’t you, take her to the session and so on?’

‘I promise, Mum.’

‘Thank you.’ The doorbell rang. ‘That’ll be the car now. I must go. ‘Bye, Zoe, I’ll see you on Sunday night. You’ve got my number in Glasgow, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, Mum. Er — Mum, could you — could you possibly

lend me a hundred pounds. Please?’

Zoe very seldom saw her mother angry; it wasn’t her

style. She was angry now.

‘I really can’t quite believe you said that, Zoe. Of course

I won’t lend you a hundred pounds. I actually wouldn’t

lend you ten at the moment. You have simply got to learn

some self-discipline — you failed your exams because you

never exert any. You have a perfectly adequate allowance,

and if it doesn’t cover your extravagant requirements, then

you must change them. In any case, I imagine you want the

money to go out celebrating, and I think even you must

realise you have absolutely nothing to celebrate. So - sorry,

but no. Goodbye.’

And she was gone, without even a kiss.

Zoe sat down and burst into tears.

‘Okay, hon,’ said Tim Forbes, coming into the bar where

Lyndsay was reading a rather elderly Vogue. ‘We leave early

in the morning. Home to sunny old England. It’s eighty

over there apparently. We’ll get to Heathrow about nine,

local time. Home by midnight. How does that sound?’

Octavia dialled the Bartlett house; a foreign voice answered.

Lauren would have a Filipino, exploitative bitch.

‘This is Mrs Fleming. Mrs Tom Fleming. Could I speak

to Mrs Bartlett, please?’

‘Oh — I am sorry, Mrs Bartlett has gone. And the

children.’

‘To the airport?’

‘Yes, to the airport. They were delayed, the taxi did not

come. But Mr Fleming, your children’s father, yes?’

‘Yes,’ said Octavia, ‘yes, that is correct.’

‘Mrs Fleming, he arrived and so they have all gone

together. So there was no more problem.’

‘No. No, I see. No, absolutely no more problem. Well,

thank you.’

As Zoe had done, half an hour earlier, Octavia too sat

down and burst into tears.

‘Tom, hi!’

It was Bob Macintosh; Tom had rarely been so pleased to

see anyone in his entire life. Waving the children off

through Departures, seeing them hardly glance backwards,

had left him feeling totally alone and very bleak. He had

planned to have dinner with Aubrey, but Aubrey’s father

wasn’t well and wanted to see him. So he had seemed

destined to an evening at Phillimore Gardens alone with an

icy Caroline, and an even icier Octavia: the only mitigating

circumstance being that Octavia would be forced finally to

concede he wasn’t actually in Tuscany with Lauren Bartlett.

He turned and took Bob’s outstretched hand like a

drowning man reaching for a log. ‘Bob! Good to see you.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Oh, just seen the kids off on holiday. Going home on

my own.’

‘No Octavia?’

‘No, she’s — working late.’

‘Great. Come and have dinner with me. I’m on my own

tonight as well. Maureen’s at some absurd hen night, one of

her friends is getting married. We’re staying at the

Berkeley, we could eat there. Bloody good restaurant. How

does that sound?’

‘It sounds magnificent,’ said Tom.

‘Darling, why don’t you come and have dinner with me

tonight? There are a few things I’d like to go over with

you, things I want you to tell Elvira and—’

‘Daddy, I can’t. Honestly. It’s my last night with Minty

for a week, and I really really want to be with her. I’ve

missed saying goodbye to the twins as it is.’

‘Oh — very well.’ He sounded disappointed. ‘I’d have

thought she’d be asleep by now anyway. And you can see

her in the morning.’

Octavia hesitated; it was a serious temptation, she was so

tired, so dispirited. And she needed to talk to him about the

sponsorship of Cultivate. But she was going to miss Minty terribly; it was her last chance to be with her.

‘No, really. I’m sorry. I’ll call you about the cottage.’

‘Very well.’ He was clearly disappointed.

She phoned the house; a rather brisk Caroline informed

her that Minty was already asleep. ‘Absolutely exhausted,

Octavia. And rather upset at the twins being away. I

certainly don’t think you should wake her.’

Octavia assured her she would do no such thing, and

phoned her father back. The thought of an evening alone

with a hostile Caroline was hideous.

‘Is the invitation still open? Apparently Minty’s already

asleep. Had my hand slapped by Caroline very hard.

Metaphorically.’

‘My darling, of course you can. Nothing would give me

more pleasure. Do you want to go out, or shall I get Mrs Harrington to cook something special?’

‘It’s a bit late for that, surely.’

‘Well, she could do you some fish, or some steak. What

would you fancy?’

Octavia didn’t fancy anything; the thought of food made

her feel sick, but it seemed churlish to say so. She had an

inspiration. ‘Tell you what I’d like. Fish pie — that wouldn’t

be very difficult, would it?’

‘Fish pie, eh? Our favourite. Of course not. Plenty offish

in the freezer. Might not be ready till nine.’

‘That’s fine. I might not be there till nine.’

It really was too bad, Caroline thought. Octavia had

promised to see the children off and failed; Poppy in

particular had clearly been upset by it. Octavia had also

promised to get back that night, spend the evening with her

and Minty; the poor child had hardly set eyes on her

mother for days. She had been very cranky as Caroline put

her to bed.

She had no idea when Tom would be back; he’d not

even spoken to her at the Bartletts’, except to nod at her

briefly and tell her to check the children’s luggage, before

driving off. She didn’t like the way any of it was going; her

last employers had divorced, and she could see that the

Flemings were hardly on steady ground at the moment. She

had planned to talk to Octavia that night, try and make her

understand how unsettling it all was, for her as well as the

children. But now she was out with her father. Monstrous

man! In Caroline’s view, he was largely to blame for

whatever had gone wrong with the Fleming marriage.

The phone rang: Caroline sighed, went to answer it. It

was her mother.

‘Darling? How are you?’

‘Oh — fine. Thanks. All alone here, with Minty.’

‘That’s what I thought. Darling, why not bring her here

for the weekend? If Mrs Fleming is willing? I’d love to have you and her, and your father’s gone off sailing. What about it?’

‘What a wonderful idea. And of course Octavia wouldn’t

mind.’ She had done it several times before; taken Minty to

her parents’ house in the New Forest. ‘I’ll have to check

with her, obviously, and then I’ll come down first thing in

the morning.’

‘Splendid. I’ll expect you midmorning unless I hear to

the contrary. It’ll be lovely to see Minty again.’

Octavia’s mobile was on message, and Felix Miller’s phone

picked up by an answering machine. Caroline left a slightly

terse message on both to the effect that she would like to

take Minty to stay with her mother and, unless she heard to

the contrary, by nine in the morning, that was where she

would be.

This was lovely, Felix thought, smiling at Octavia across the

dining table, heaping her plate with the fish pie that had been their favourite celebration dish right through her childhood, that had been served on both their birthdays

every year, on the awarding of her scholarship to Wycombe

Abbey, her brilliant O-and A-level results, her 2:1 in Law

should have been a First, he knew, but he had smiled away

his disappointment of course, assured her it was marvellous.

They did not, however have fish pie the night Octavia

had arrived home, flushed with excitement and joy, bearing

a bottle of champagne, to tell her father she had fallen in

love with Tom Fleming; indeed, after that, they had never

eaten it together again, until now.

It was a very special recipe, worked on and fussed over

down the years by Mrs Harrington, haddock and scallops

cooked in a white wine sauce with prawns under a

wonderful flaky pastry lid; served always with new potatoes

and Octavia’s favourite vegetables, runner beans.

When she had been little, she had gobbled it up greedily,

always asking for more; then as caution and concern over

her figure took over, she had rationed herself carefully.

That change had saddened Felix; he had loved to watch her, plump and glowing, tucking in unself-consciously, her

little round face watching him closely as he cut into the

pastry, ladled the wonderful contents on to her plate. The

tense teenager who had pushed her prawns on and off her

fork, piled her plate high with the beans, rejected the

potatoes, had been a worrying stranger.

Tonight, she was actually eating more than he had

expected. ‘Do you know, I’m starving,’ she said as they sat

down, ‘I haven’t eaten since breakfast.’

‘Octavia, that is madness. When you work so hard, why

not?’

‘Oh — too busy. Frantic, you know, finishing up to go

away. Dad, don’t look at me like that, I’m hardly fading

away.’

‘I think you are actually,’ he said, studying the sharp

cheekbones, the thin arms.

‘You can’t be too rich or too thin, you should know that.

It’s all right, I’m only joking. No, it has been difficult lately,

what with one thing and another. And I’ve been so upset

about this Tuscany business. For some reason it seems well,

the very last straw.’

He was encouraged by that; that she should, finally, be

talking in such terms. He had been so afraid she was going

to accept what Tom had done, stay with him, take him

back even.

‘I know it doesn’t alter what he’s done, but it’s so brutal,

so — oh, I don’t know. I honestly think if he’d stayed, if we

could have had some time together, time to talk — well…’

She smiled at him rather weakly.

‘I’m sorry, Bob,’ said Tom Fleming. He leaned forward

slightly hazily across the table, put his hand over Bob’s.

‘Terribly, terribly sorry. To have embarrassed you. So

terribly sorry.’

‘Tom,’ said Bob, signalling to the waiter for the bill, ‘you

haven’t embarrassed me. Not in the least. I wish I could

help more.’

‘Helped a lot. Just having you to talk to. Really, really

helped. Not good at talking, us men, are we, Bob? Oh,

God. What a fool I am! Bloody, bloody fool. Wonderful

girl like Octavia and I have to go and do that to her. I love

her so much still, Bob, you know. So much.’

Half an hour later, Bob Macintosh gave a ten-pound tip to

the young porter who had helped him get Tom Fleming up

in the lift, and settle him on to the bed which Maureen

would be occupying the following night. Then he removed

Tom’s shoes and tie, got into the other bed himself and lay

in the darkness, listening to Tom’s snores and worrying

slightly that Maureen might not actually be at a hen party.

Octavia lay in bed in her room: it felt very strange. She

looked round, smiling at its absurd familiarity, at the way it

was so unchanged; as she had got ready for bed, she had felt

almost frightened, so easily did she slip back into its rituals,

putting her used underwear into the linen bag hanging on

the door, showering away the strains of the day in the

adjacent bathroom, pulling a cotton lawn nightdress out of

the chest of drawers, opening both the windows, settling

into the bed — God it was soft, so wonderfully soft, she had

forgotten, opened the book she had pulled out of the

bookcase. Even the bookcase was kept fresh and up to date,

like the flowers; there were all her old favourites of course,

but on the top shelf, her father kept a steady supply of the

new novels, the bestsellers that she called junkfood reading.

There was a new Maeve Binchy there: wonderful. Just

what she needed. She had only just opened it when there

was a knock at the door: it was her father. He was carrying

a tray, with a blue and white mug on it.

‘I’ve brought you a milky cure. I thought you needed

one.’

‘Dad! I’m fine.’

‘Octavia, you are not fine. You practically fainted down

there, when you said you were going to drive home.