The Dark Room (6 page)

‘Hello, Jinx,’ said a quiet voice from the open doorway into the corridor. ‘Can you stand a visitor, or should I make polite excuses and leave?’

Her shock was so extreme that her heart surged into frantic activity.

Fear . . . fear . . .
FEAR
! But what was there to be afraid of?

She recognized the voice and turned away from the window. ‘Oh, God, Simon,’ she said angrily, ‘you gave me such a fright. Why on earth would I want you to
leave?’ She held a hand to her chest. ‘I can’t breathe. I think I’m having a panic attack. Don’t you ever dare do that to me again.’

‘I’d better call someone.’

‘No!’ She waved him inside and took deep breaths. ‘I’m OK.’ She leaned back, drawing the air into her lungs. ‘I don’t know why, but
I’m really on edge at the moment. I keep thinking – no, forget it – it doesn’t matter. How are you?’

Simon Harris stood half-in and half-out of the doorway, looking irresolutely down the corridor. ‘Let me call someone, Jinx. I really think I should. You don’t look at all
well.’ He had the fine-boned, rather ascetic face of the clergyman he was, and he was as different from his sister as chalk was from cheese. Meg would have told her: ‘Sod it,
sweetheart, be it on your own head. Don’t blame me if you die.’ Simon could only peer through his glasses with well-meant but impotent concern.

‘Sit down, Simon,’ she said wearily.
She wanted to scream.
‘I’m OK. Why wouldn’t I want to see you?’

Reluctantly, he abandoned the doorway and made his way to the other chair. ‘Because it struck me as I was walking along the corridor that I had deliberately shut my eyes to the
potential embarrassment my visit might cause.’

Why do you always have to be so pompous, Simon?
‘To you or to me?’

‘To you,’ he said. ‘I’m more angry than embarrassed. I still can’t believe my sister would steal her best friend’s fiancé.’

‘Well, I’m neither embarrassed nor angry, just very lethargic and rather sore.’ She eyed his dog-collar and cassock with disfavour. ‘Mind you,’ she
grumbled, ‘I don’t go a bundle on the uniform. Couldn’t you have worn jeans and a T-shirt like everyone else? They all think I’m suicidal as it is, so having a vicar visit
me will destroy any credibility I’ve managed to salvage.’

He smiled, reassured by her feeble attempts at humour. ‘No choice, I’m afraid. I’m doing an official stint in the Cathedral in approximately two hours so, if I
wanted to visit you as well, I wasn’t going to have time to change.’

‘How did you know I was here?’

‘Josh Hennessey told me,’ he said, squeezing his knees with bony fingers. ‘I managed to get through to Betty once during the week but she hung up as soon as I said
who it was. The name Harris is
nomen non gratis
at Hellingdon Hall at the moment,’ he finished ruefully, ‘and I can’t say I’m altogether surprised.’

‘Then how did Josh persuade her? She knows quite well he’s Meg’s partner not mine.’

Simon pulled a face. ‘He got the same treatment I did until he realized deception was the better part of valour. He lied, said he was Dean Jarrett and needed to talk to you
urgently on business.’

Dean was Jinx’s number two at the photographic studio and he played his homosexuality for all it was worth because it amused him. Jinx massaged her aching head. ‘She must
have been drunk as a skunk to fall for that. Josh doesn’t sound anything like Dean.’

‘
In vino
absolutely, but don’t be too harsh on her. Josh says she sounded genuinely upset for you.’

Sudden irritation seethed in Jinx’s soul.
Why shouldn’t she be harsh on the silly woman? By what right did anyone suggest that she temper her scorn?
‘You
will never speak about your stepmother like that again,’ her father had said, when, at the age of ten, she had pointed out with genuine anxiety that Betty was so stupid she thought the moon
orbited the sun and that Vietnam shared a border with America, which was why they were fighting a war there. ‘She does nothing but paint her fingernails and go shopping,’ she had told
him severely.

But all she said now was: ‘She was very sweet to me yesterday,’ before plucking a cigarette from the packet on the arm of her chair and lighting it. ‘So has Josh
managed to track down Meg? I gather he’s pretty annoyed with her for leaving him in the lurch.’

Simon shook his head. ‘Not as far as I know, but I haven’t spoken to him since last night.’

She studied his face through the smoke from her cigarette and saw he’d been lying when he said he wasn’t embarrassed. He looked deeply uncomfortable –
almost as
drained and wretched as she felt herself
– with his thin fingers smoothing and pleating the black serge of his cassock and his eyes looking anywhere but at her. Her irritation mounted.
‘I couldn’t give a toss about Leo,’ she said harshly. ‘If you want the truth, he was beginning to get on my nerves.’ A tear glittered along her lashes. ‘The only
thing that’s upsetting me is the embarrassment of everyone thinking I tried to kill myself over him.’ She gave a hollow laugh. ‘I don’t envy Meg at all. Believe me, Leo will
be absolutely insufferable if he thinks I couldn’t bear to lose him.’
Oh, stupid, stupid woman! No one will believe the grapes weren’t sour.

Simon sighed. ‘Dad and Mum don’t know which way to turn. They felt badly enough before your accident, but afterwards – well . . .’ He lapsed into silence.
‘I don’t know what to say to you, Jinx, except that I’ve never felt angrier with Meg than I do at the moment. God knows, she’s no angel, but none of us thought she’d
do something like this.’

‘Like what?’ She took quick nervous drags on her cigarette. ‘All I’ve been told is that Leo said he wanted to marry her and that they then left for France.
But does Meg want to marry
him
? If so, it’ll be a first. She’s never wanted to marry anyone else.’

‘You really don’t remember anything about it?’

‘No,’ she said grimly. ‘I’ve made a prize arse of myself by telling everyone I’d be prancing up the aisle on July the second.’ Tears threatened
again. ‘Look, it’s not important. Tell me what’s been happening in the world in the last week. Is everyone still killing each other in Bosnia? Is the Queen still on the
throne?’

He ignored this and addressed himself to what she really wanted to know. ‘Meg phoned Mum and Dad a week ago last Saturday and sprang on them that she and your fiancé had
been having an affair for some time, that he wanted to marry her instead and that they were off to France until the fuss died down because they thought it would be more tactful.’ He pulled a
rueful face over the word ‘tactful’. ‘Rather predictably, she and Dad had a flaming row about it. He accused
her
of being shameless, and she accused
him
of being
holier than thou as per usual. Result, they hung up on each other. Mum threw an almighty wobbly, screamed at poor old Dad that it was his fault because he would insist on preaching at her, then
phoned me. My view was that if Leo was prepared to jilt
you
so unceremoniously, then he was probably a scoundrel and would abandon Meg just as unceremoniously, and Mum got on the blower to
her and said she wasn’t to go anywhere until they’d met him. Meg told her she was worrying unnecessarily and that she’d bring Leo down the minute they got back from France. And
that’s all we knew until we read about your attempted suicide.’

She flinched at the word ‘suicide’ but let it go. ‘He wasn’t a scoundrel, Simon. You’re not old enough to use words like “scoundrel”. He was
a fucking scumbag.’

‘I’m a vicar, Jinx.’

‘So? I’m a millionaire’s daughter who went to public school.’ She rubbed her hands over her shaven scalp. ‘Look, I don’t care. They can shag each
other to death as far as I’m concerned.’ Tears flooded her throat. ‘It’s no big deal. I’d hate to lose Meg because of it. She’s my friend, Simon.’

He felt ashamed in the face of such generosity, and as usual rushed to condemn his sister. Would Meg, he wondered, in the same circumstances, be as unjudgemental of the woman who had
stolen her fiancé? ‘Does it help if I say I don’t believe you tried to kill yourself? Is that what’s worrying you? What people are thinking?’

Jinx fished the newspaper clipping that Betty had given her from her pocket and stared at it. ‘Except that it doesn’t look like an accident, does it?’ she said
slowly, offering him the picture. ‘They say it’s a miracle I escaped.’

‘Miracles do happen, you know.’

Not in her philosophy they didn’t
. ‘Apparently I was drunk when it happened.’

‘Does that matter?’

‘Yes,’ she said flatly, ‘it does. To me, anyway.’

‘Because of Betty’s problems?’

‘Partly.’ She paused. ‘No, it’s more to do with my own self-esteem. I refuse to believe that I’d need to get drunk in order to kill myself.’ She
smiled faintly. ‘You see, I’m a very proud woman, which makes me doubt I’d have given anyone, least of all Leo, the satisfaction of knowing I cared
that
much.’

‘I believe you,’ he said.

Tears flooded her eyes again, and she jabbed at them with the palm of her hand. ‘Look, don’t take any notice, OK? I’m tired, I’m pissed off and I wish to hell
I was back in London.’ She took deep breaths to bring her sorrow under control. ‘Will you do me a favour? Tell Meg I’m happy for her, and that I don’t bear any grudges. And
tell your parents that I’m not about to end a damn good friendship because a bastard like Leo swaps horses mid-stream. Truly, Simon, I don’t care.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll tell them,’ he promised. ‘You’re very generous, Jinx.’

She listened to the screams of frustration that echoed off the walls of her mind. ‘I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true,’ she said carefully, glancing sideways
at him. ‘There’s no generosity involved.’

He leaned forward, staring at the floor. ‘You think you know a person and then something like this happens. She wasn’t even remotely apologetic, just said these are the
facts, stick them in your pipe and smoke them. It’s caused the most unbelievable bitterness between the folks. Mum’s blaming Dad for trying to force religion down Meg’s throat for
years, and he’s blaming her for her frigidity.’ He sighed. ‘He’s more upset than Mum is but I think that’s because he’s always been so fond of you. He
can’t understand why Meg would want to hurt you. I can’t either for that matter.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said inadequately, ‘but I don’t expect she meant to hurt anybody. You know Meg.
Carpe diem
and leave tomorrow to look after
itself. She’s always been the same.’ She rubbed the side of her head where it was hurting.
Why did memories of Russell keep flooding her mind?
‘Your father must be very
angry if he’s saying things like that to your mother.’
. . . Russell and Meg . . . Meg and Leo . . .

‘They’re just words,’ he said, ‘he doesn’t mean anything by them, any more than poor old Mum means anything by striking out at religion.’

‘But in a way they’re both right, you know.’ She felt very tired suddenly. ‘Meg’s never been comfortable in the role of vicar’s daughter, and
she’s far too raunchy for your mother.’ Her eyelid drooped in exhaustion as memories whirled effortlessly across her mind. ‘It’s your fault as much as
anyone’s.’

Russell dying . . . she had an affair with Russell, too, you know . . . you got drunk and tried to kill yourself . . .

His voice came across vast stretches of space. ‘Why?’

‘She couldn’t compete with a saint, Simon, so she became a sinner . . .’

She lurched out of sleep with a sickening jolt and opened her eyes on Alan Protheroe. He was bending over her, and Jinx’s immediate thought was that he must be Simon until
relieved recognition told her he wasn’t. She looked around rather vaguely. ‘I was smoking a cigarette.’

He pointed to the butt in the ashtray. ‘I put it out.’

‘I had a visitor.’

‘I know. Father Simon Harris. I gave him his marching orders. I was afraid he’d upset you.’

‘He wouldn’t dare,’ she said with a twisted smile. ‘He’s an Anglo-Catholic priest.’

‘And Meg’s brother,’ he said, taking the other chair. ‘Do you like him, Jinx?’

She could feel the inevitable sweat drenching her back again. ‘He’s a sanctimonious prig like his father and mother, and he made his sister into a whore.’ Her face
turned towards this huge amiable man who was doing his best to care for her, and she felt an incredible urge to reach out and touch him. She wanted to curl in his lap, feel his arms about her,
shelter, childlike, inside the protection of his strong embrace. Instead she withdrew to the other corner of her chair and wrapped her thin arms about her chest. ‘I’m not sure why I
said that.’

‘Because you’re angrier with her than you think you are.’

‘Simon came to apologize.’

‘For his sister’s behaviour?’

‘I suppose so.’ She fell silent.

‘Is he older or younger than she is?’

‘He’s a year younger.’

‘Does Meg look like him?’

‘Not really. She’s very beautiful.’

‘Do you like her, Jinx?’

‘Yes.’

He nodded. ‘You were dreaming just now, and they didn’t look very happy dreams. Do you want to tell me about them?’

She didn’t –
couldn’t?
– answer. Even after ten years, the wound was still raw and she shrank instinctively from anything that might re-open it. Yet,
there was an extraordinary need within her to convince someone –
anyone –
of how little Leo had really mattered to her. Do you like her?
Yes. Yes.
YES
. But why
did it hurt so much to say it?

‘I was dreaming about a man I knew,’ she said abruptly. ‘He was beaten to death ten years ago, and I was the one who found him. He had an art gallery in Chelsea.
The police think he disturbed some burglars because the place had been ransacked and several of the paintings stolen. We were supposed to be having dinner but he never turned up, so I went to the
gallery to find him. There was blood everywhere. I found him in the store room at the back, but I didn’t recognize him . . .’ Her voice faltered and she held her fingers to her lips.
‘He was still alive, but he couldn’t say anything because his jaw had been smashed. So he tried to use his eyes to talk to me, but – I – couldn’t understand what he
wanted.’ She lived the terrible scene again in her mind, her shock, her revulsion, her inadequacy in the face of the bludgeoned bleeding mask that had once been Russell. ‘And there was
nothing I could do except call an ambulance, and watch him . . . I watched him die.’ She fell silent.
Had Russell been in a trap, too?