Kissing the Gunner's Daughter (26 page)

ite spotted veils. ^He drove slowly. As soon as his mind emptied

Fred Harrison and his anxieties, Sheila came

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in to fill it. He could almost have groaned aloud. Every angry word that had been uttered during that hideous interchange was fresh in his memory, was persistently repeating itself.

"... you were determined to hate anyone I loved. And why? Because you were afraid I'd love him better than you."

Driving on through the wood where aconites grew in yellow rings like patches of bright sunlight, he opened the car window to feel the sweet air against his face, the equinoctial air of the first, or maybe the second, day of spring. Last night, with the rain lashing against the windows, he had tried to ring her, and Dora had tried. He wanted to apologise to her and ask her forgiveness. But the phone rang and rang unanswered and when he tried again, despairing, at nine and again at nine-thirty, her answering-machine voice came on. Not one of her characteristic messages: "If that's someone offering me the female lead in the Scottish play or wanting to take me to dinner at Le Caprice ..." 'Darling' -- the actress's universal darling that would serve for him or Casey or the woman who cleaned -- "Darling, Sheila's had to go out ..." It was neither of those but, "Sheila Wexford. I'm out. Leave a message and there's a chance I'll get back to you." He hadn't left a message but at last had gone to bed, sick at heart.

He thought, I've lost her. It had nothing much to do with her going six thousand miles away. Casey would have taken her from him in the same way if they had both decided to buy a

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house and settle down in Pomfret Monachorum. He had lost her and things would never be the same for them again.

The lane made its last wind, coming to the straight and the level ground. On either side stretched acres of young trees, planted perhaps twenty years before, their slender branches that reached for the light a bright russet colour, the hawthorn and blackthorn amongst them bouquets of misty green and snow white. The ground between, strewn with dry brown leaves, was dappled with spots of sunlight.

In the distance he saw a movement. Someone was walking towards him, along the lane, a long way ahead, someone young, a young girl. More and more was revealed as he approached and she approached. It was Daisy. Unlikely as it was that she should be here, in this place, at this time, it was undoubtedly Daisy.

She stopped when she saw the car. Of course,

from that distance, she could have no idea

who the driver was. She wore jeans and a

Barbour jacket, the left sleeve empty, a bright

red scarf wound twice round her neck. He knew

ithe precise moment when she recognised him

|fey the way her eyes widened. She remained

pnsmiling.

He stopped and wound down the window. She didn't wait for the question.

"I've come home. I knew they'd try to stop me so I waited till Nicholas had gone off to work and then I said, I'm going home now, Joyce, thank you for having me, and that was it. She said I couldn't, not on my own. You

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know how she talks, Tm sorry, dear, but you can't do that. What about your luggage? Who'll look after you?' I said I'd already phoned for a cab and I'd look after myself."

The thought came to Wexford that she had never in fact done much of that and, as in the past, Brenda Harrison would be looking after her. But she only had the kind of illusions all the young have. "And now you're taking a walk round your domain?"

"I've been out long enough. I'm going back. I soon get tired." The bleak look was back in her face, her sorrowful eyes. "Will you give me a lift?"

He reached across and opened the passenger door. "Now I'm eighteen," she said, though not enthusiastically, "I can do as I like. How d'you do up this seat belt? My sling and all this padding get in the way."

"You needn't put it on if you don't want to. Not on private land."

"Really? I never knew that. You've got yours

on."

"Force of habit. Daisy, are you planning to stay here on your own? To live here?"

"It's mine." Her voice was as grim as it could get. It became bitter. "It's all mine. Why shouldn't I live in what's mine?"

He didn't answer. There was no point in telling her things she already knew, that she was young and a woman and defenceless, and things she might not have realised, that it might very well be in someone's interest to finish off the job he had begun two weeks before. If he

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took that seriously he would have to put a day and night guard on Tancred, not alarm Daisy with his fears.

Instead, he reverted to a subject they had discussed when he last saw her at the Virsons. "I don't suppose you've heard from your father?"

"My father?"

"He is your father, Daisy. He must know about all this. There's no one living in this country could have missed it on television and in the papers. And unless I'm much mistaken, it'll revive today with the funeral all over the dailies. I think you should expect him to get in touch."

"If he was going to, wouldn't he have Sfready?"

?? "He wouldn't have known where you were. For all we know, he's been ringing up Tancred House every day."

5 Suddenly he wondered if it was this man she had looked for in vain at the funeral. That |jfoadowy father no one talked of but who must &tist. He parked the car beside the pool. Daisy _ it out and stared into the water. Perhaps iJNeause the sun was shining, several fish had jjfcfcbe close to the surface, white, or colourless ler, with scarlet heads. She lifted her face to statuary, the girl metamorphosed into a tree, leath of bark enclosing her limbs, the man

*ing upon her with uplifted yearning face, arms outstretched.

-Daphne and Apollo," she said. "It's a copy �the Bernini. Supposed to be a good one. I Idn't know, I don't really care about things

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like that." She made a face. "Davina loved it. She would. I suppose the god was going to rape Daphne, don't you think? I mean, they have nice words for it, make it sound romantic, but that's what he was going to do."

Saying nothing, Wexford wondered what event in her own past prompted this sudden savagery.

"He wasn't going to court her, was he? Take her out to dinner and buy her an engagement ring? What fools people are!" She changed tack as she turned from the pool with a little toss of her head. "When I was younger I used to ask Mum about my father. You know how kids are, they want to know all that. She had this way, had my mother, if there was something she didn't like talking about she'd tell me to ask Davina. It was always, 'Ask your grandmother, she'll tell you.' So I asked Davina and she said -- you won't believe this but it's what she said -- 'Your mother was a soccer groupie, darling, and she used to go and watch him playing football. That's how they met.' And then she said, 'Not to put too fine a point on it, he was among the low life.' She liked those expressions, sort of trendy slang, or what she thought was trendy slang, 'soccer groupie' and 'low life'. 'Forget him, darling,' she said. 'Imagine you were born by parthenogenesis like the algae,' and then she explained to me what parthenogenesis was. Typical of her, that was, to turn everything into a lesson. But it didn't exactly make me feel much love or respect for my father."

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"Do you know where he lives?"

"Somewhere in north London. He's married again. Come into the house, if you want, and we could find where he lives."

The front door and the inner door were not locked. Wexford followed her in. The closing of the door behind them made the chandeliers tremble and ring. The lilies in the orangery had an artificial smell, like the perfumery department of a big store. Here in the hall she had crawled to the telephone, leaving a trail of blood across this shiny floor, had crawled past the body of Harvey Copeland, spreadeagled across those stairs. He saw her glance at the stairs where a great area of carpet had been cut away to show the bare Wood beneath. She went to the door at the back which led into Davina Flory's study.

He had not previously entered it. Every wall Was lined with books. Its single window gave on to the terrace, of which the serre formed one wall. He had expected this, but not the fine terrestrial globe of dark-green glass on the stable, nor the bonsai garden in a terracotta trough under the window, nor the absence of Word processor, typewriter, electronic equipment *of any kind. On the desk, beside a leather writing

'ncils and a bone-handled paperknife.

"She wrote everything by hand," Daisy said. She couldn't type, never wanted to learn." She

s searching a top drawer of the desk. "Here.

is is it. She called it her 'unfriendly' address k. She kept it for people she didn't like or

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it didn't -- well, benefit her to know.'

There were an uncomfortably large number of names in the book. Wexford turned to the J's. The only Jones had the initials G. G. and an address in London N5. No phone number. "I don't quite understand this, Daisy. Why would your grandmother have your father's address and not your mother? Or did your mother have it too? And why 'G. G.'? Why not his first name? After all, he'd been her son-in-law."

"You really don't understand." She managed a fleeting smile. "Davina liked keeping tabs on people. She'd want to know where he was and what he was doing, even if she'd never see him again as long as she lived." At this she bit her lip but continued, "She was very manipulative, you know. Very organising. She'd know exactly where he was, no matter how often he'd moved. You can be sure that's the right address you've got. I expect she thought he'd turn up sometime and -- well, ask for money. She used to say that most people out of her past turned up sooner or later, she called it 'coming out of the woodwork'. As for Mum, I doubt if Mum even kept an address book."

"Daisy, I'm trying to find a kind and tactful way of asking this and I'm not sure if there is one. About your mother." He hesitated. "Your mother's friends ..."

"You mean, did she have boyfriends? Lovers?"

Once again, he was astonished at her

intuitiveness. He nodded. "She can't have

seemed young to you but she was only forty-five.

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|JJ

,.*

Besides, I don't think age is of much importance in this area, in spite of what people say. People have friends of the opposite sex, friends in the romantic sense, at any age."

"Like Davina would have had." Daisy grinned suddenly. "If Harvey had dropped off his perch." She realised what she had said, the awfulness of it. Her hand went up to cover her mouth and she gasped. "Oh, God! Forget I said that. I didn't say it. Why do we say these things?"

Instead of answering, for he couldn't answer ('Come back all I said'), he reminded her gently that she had been telling him about her mother.

She sighed. "I never knew her go out with anyone. I never heard her mention a man. I just don't think she was interested. Davina used to tell her to get herself a man, that would 'take her out of herself, and even Harvey had a go. I remember Harvey bringing some chap tlome, some political bloke, and Davina saying ^wouldn't he do for Mum? I mean, they didn't Jt&ink I understood what they meant but I did. 1"-' "When we were all up in Edinburgh last year <^. you know we went up for the Festival, Davina was doing something at the Book Festival Mum got flu, she spent the whole two eeks in bed, and Davina moaned about what shame it was because she'd met this son of friend of hers who would just have done for urn. That's what she said to Harvey, that he'd t have done for Mum:

^Mum was all right as she was. She liked life, she liked pottering about in that

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gallery and watching the telly and not having any responsibilities, doing her bit of painting and making her own clothes and all that. She couldn't be bothered with men." A look of extreme despair suddenly descended upon Daisy's face. It fell into a disconsolate childlike grief. She leant forward across the table where the green glass globe was and pressed her fist up against her forehead. She pushed her fingers through her hair. He expected a sudden outburst of anger against life and the way things were, a cry of protest at what had happened to her simple, innocent, contented mother, but instead she lifted her head and said quite coolly, "Joanne's the same, so far as I know. Joanne spends thousands on clothes and having her face done and her hair and massage and whatever, but it's not for a man. I don't know what it's for. Herself, maybe. Davina was always on about love and men, she called it having a full life, she thought she was so modem, her word, but actually women don't care about that any more, do they? They're just as pleased to be seen about with women friends. You don't have to have a man to be a real woman, not any more."

It was as if she were justifying something in her own life, making it seem right. He said, "Mrs Virson says your grandmother wanted you to be like her, to do all the same things."

"But without her mistakes, yes. I told you she was manipulative. I wasn't asked if I wanted to go to university and travel and write books and -- and have sex with a lot of different people."

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Daisy looked away from him. "It was just taken for granted I would. I don't as a matter of fact. I don't even want to go to Oxford and -- and, well, if I don't even do my A levels I can't. I want to be me, not someone else's creation."

So time had begun doing its stuff, he thought. It was working. And then what she said next made him revise.

"In so far as I want to do anything. So far as I give a toss what happens."

He made no comment. "There's one thing you might want to do. Would you like to come and see how we've turned your sanctum into a police station?"

"Not now. I'd like to be alone now. Just me and Queenie. She was so pleased to see me, she jumped on to my shoulder from the banisters the way she used to, purring like a lion roaring. I'm going to go all over the house and just look at % get reacquainted with it. It's changed for me, you see. It's the same but it's quite different too. % shan't go into the dining room. I've already asked Ken to seal up the door. Just for a while. He's going to seal it up so that I can't open it SI --if I forget."