The Green Flash (46 page)

I stared at her still face. She was really a looker, but you wouldn't lay any odds on what she was thinking.

‘Feverish?'

She glanced at me, summing me up before returning to take a view of the unviewable horizon. ‘ You could say that.'

‘Up and down, in fact?'

‘Oh, down and up, certainly. Of course there were moments.'

‘Only moments?'

‘Let's go on,' she said. ‘There's a cairn up here. That usually marks the limits.'

‘Who owns the land?'

‘The Earl of Schofield. But he lives too far away and his keepers, such as there are, know me.'

We reached the pile of stones, and as we did so rain began to infiltrate in the breeze.

She said: ‘Tell me about
yourself
for a change.'

‘You must have my history at your fingertips.'

‘Personal accounts differ, don't they?'

I muttered a few things, which she listened to with her usual care and stillness. As the rain got thicker I took a cap out of my raincoat pocket, and she put on a mackintosh hood. We began to walk back. It was thick, clinging, dense rain, not the sort my tailor had been dreaming about when he fitted me with this coat. Doubtful whether she was going to be much better; the mackintosh was only the length of her skirt and in the fashion of those garments the rain ran straight off them on to the legs of the wearer.

On the way down she asked me about Shona, and I gave her an edited version. She appeared to have cottoned on to our former goings-on. She didn't seem to have much to ask about Erica; only Shona, as if she were the real rival. Rival for what, I asked myself? Jumping Jesus, let's not take anything for granted.

By the time the house came in sight we were both more than a little wet. In spite of the hood the rain was glistening on her eyelashes.'

‘This is Scotland. People here are used to getting damp; they take no notice of it.'

‘Any more than the sheep?'

‘Well, if you like to say so.'

As we reached the door of the house she said: ‘I always carry a spare skirt and pair of shoes in the car. I'll get them.'

I waited for her and then we went in and I put a match to the drawing-room fire. ‘Help yourself to anything you want. You know the house better than I do. The new kitchen provides hot water everywhere, so take a bath or a shower if you feel like it.'

‘I'll just change these things.'

While she was upstairs I made tea and brought it in. The fire was leaping for joy but spitting resin all over the place. My own jacket and trousers were soaking, and when she came down I went up and changed.

She was pouring tea.

‘Thanks,' I said. ‘Sorry to tell you it's the Coppells' day off.'

‘I know. It's always been Saturdays.'

‘Ah.' I put my hand on her shoulder. ‘This is damp.'

‘It's
nothing
.'

‘I'll stoke the fire,' I said. ‘Pull up your chair.'

So we sat and sipped for a few minutes. She clearly hadn't brought a change of stockings and her legs were the same colour as her face – pearl-pale – and of the most seductive shape. I thought, if Erica finds me a shade unsatisfactory at present I'm damned sure Alison wouldn't.

‘Did you do this often with Malcolm?' I asked.

‘Do what?' she asked, sounding startled.

‘Sip tea together in this room in companionable silence.'

‘Oh … No, not often. In fact I don't remember a time. He was a very restless man.'

‘Yes, I could see that.' I thought of his big eyes, restless indeed, when I introduced him to Rona Anderson at Claridge's.

‘He was always looking for something
new
. Always trying to impress someone. Always concerned about his public image.'

I realized it could have been a bad idea to grasp her shoulder, though so lightly. It turned the attention.

‘Also,' she said, ‘he was a terrible liar.'

‘Oh,' I said, looking her over. ‘Pity.'

‘Are
you
, David?'

‘What, a liar? Was at one time. No longer, I think.' Quite surprised to say so, never having asked myself the question. Except to Derek, which perhaps didn't count.

‘Ordinary things of course he didn't lie about, but anything to do with his ambition, his presentation of himself. I suppose you never saw his entry in
Who's Who
?'

‘No.'

‘Wrong age; too many accomplishments; laying claim to some distant barony of Kilclair, so that he could be known as Abden of Kilclair while his father was still alive.'

‘Was he ever a Doctor of Philosophy?'

‘No. He spent a year on it, then threw it up. Yet he was really very
clever
.'

‘Malcolm?'

‘
Yes
. If he'd taken politics seriously, or anything seriously enough. He'd such a good brain. But it was always clouded with conceit.'

‘Perhaps that's an Abden failing,' I said. ‘More tea?'

‘Thanks, no. I ought to go.'

‘Why?'

She looked at me. ‘No reason at all.'

‘I'm glad of that.'

‘Tell me,' she said, ‘why did you say you were misanthropic?'

‘Because I am. People on the, whole I find hard to take.'

‘Is that why you are not getting on with Erica?'

‘Who said I was not?'

‘It's a little obvious. What's the matter? Are you shopping around?'

‘No.'

‘Nor going back to your old love?'

‘Shona? No.'

‘Is Erica off with other men?'

‘No. Her favourite company at the moment is the gay boys.'

‘How strange. I can't stand them. So what are you going to do?'

‘About Erica? I don't know. Just at the moment I don't much care.'

‘Why not?'

I smiled at her. ‘ I'm short-sighted, I don't believe in looking beyond the next hour.'

She was very still again, hands clasped around one bare knee, her hair dank; she might have been listening.

‘Was Malcolm often unfaithful?'

‘Constantly. But he always came back.'

‘And made up for it?'

‘You don't really ‘‘ make up'' for infidelity. It becomes a way of life.'

‘Was Malcolm a good lover?'

Her long brown eyes slanted up at me, little points of reflected life sparking in them. ‘ Yes. Why d'you ask?'

‘So that made up for a lot.'

‘Not everything.'

‘What did it not make up for?'

She sighed. ‘Probably for the fact that I never really loved him.'

‘That's a pity, isn't it?'

‘Maybe.'

‘Can you explain more?'

‘I'd rather not.'

‘If that's your decision I have to abide by it.'

‘Yes, you do, don't you?'

There was a long pause, with no sound except the crackle of the fire.

‘In fact,' she said, ‘he made love to me once in this room. It was early on, six weeks or so after we were married. There
are
locks on both doors.'

‘So I've noticed.'

‘The window curtains were heavy.'

‘
Are
heavy.'

‘Yes. The fire was roaring – rather like this. There were plenty of rugs.'

‘Are plenty.'

‘He put out the lights and I took off my clothes and knelt down. Then, he stroked my breasts by the firelight.'

I bent to put another log on. ‘What a splendid idea … Would it seem rather
déjà vu
? …'

‘What?'

‘To suggest that we might do exactly the same thing now?'

There was an even longer pause. Then she rose and stretched like a pale beautiful cat.

‘Not at all. In fact, David, dear David, I'd twenty times rather it was you than ever Malcolm.'

I

Love (or what you will), Erica

She left at nine before the Coppells got back. She came on Sunday with Trina, and Mrs Coppell took Trina for a walk; we had almost an hour. I went to Lochfiern House for lunch on Monday and couldn't get out of being shown some more of the military relics: letters, ancient maps with threadbare joints, captured spears, dented helmets. In the afternoon I took Trina for a ride in the Ferrari on her own. That night, just before midnight, Alison arrived at Wester Craig and didn't leave till four a.m. Somehow we missed only one day in that first week. We drank each other dry and came back for more.

People were bound to know. I said to Alison: ‘What does it matter? Come and stay here.'

‘With Trina?'

‘Ah. Leave her with Mary, who's mad about her.'

‘Maybe we can expect our relatives to turn a blind eye, David. I hope so, anyway. But that would smack of connivance and encouragement.'

We talked; but not that much. Alison brought Trina with her most afternoons and we went walks together. It was a way of being with me, said Alison, if nothing more. Usually somehow it became something more. Mornings I laboured on the jetty and the boat.

Perhaps the forbidden – or if not forbidden, then something done by stealth – adds an extra zest. And there was never time to indulge to the point of satiety. Every fresh meeting was a new adventure, a new thrill.

We walked down to the mouth of the loch and Alison pointed out the sea pipits and the Arctic terns. We got expert at talking to each other while pretending to talk to Trina. Innuendoes flew over the infant's head like arrows in a Robin Hood film.

I had another letter from Shona telling me of the plans at present being put together by her accountants and her lawyers for a company flotation. She would like me to be back not later than the week after next, if only to attend one or two of these meetings; whether I remained in London after that was my own affair. She proposed I should receive a substantial slice of the equity, whether I remained with the firm or not. ‘This expansion has been so much your work that that seems only fair.' Not only fair, but
generous
! Yes, Shona being generous with money! Was age softening her up? I did a few sums on the back of an envelope and realized, if my figures were approximately right, that I should never again lack for a crust. I had to write to her, and soon. I'd never written about John's death. Hard to say much about a man I'd never got on with and who so plainly disliked me.

I wrote to Shona saying what I could that was nice about him and telling her I'd probably be in London the week beginning the 5th. I thanked her for the proffered gift and said I'd be glad to accept it. I had a feeling she was banking on my better nature. (Could I really accept a dollop of valuable shares and then not go on working for her? Damned right I could. My better nature is my worst characteristic.)

Then Chalmers rang. He'd tried a couple of times before, he said. The arrested men were still in Brixton but were due shortly to come up in the Magistrates' Court to be committed for trial. Sometimes, Chalmers explained, the defence admitted there was a case and reserved their ammunition for the Crown Court. Then the committal proceedings were a formality. But the defence in this case was proposing to contest the committal, and the hearing might take a couple of days. It would be very useful if I could attend, at least for part of the time, to give evidence if required, possibly with our technical director as well. There were people coming from Chanel, Lancôme, etc., and it would be of assistance to the police.

I said: Where and when? He said, Barking Magistrates' Court, about Tuesday, the 16th. I hadn't wanted to show my hand as freely as this, but probably by now one way or another the villains would have come round to the idea that I had had a finger in their pie. So I said, yes, I'd come.

In the second week I paid two visits to Lochfiern House after lights-out. The throaty exhaust of the Ferrari meant parking a distance away; then a burglarious approach to the stone-porched side door where the bolt had been slipped back; tiptoeing up the creaky stairs and along a square, carpeted landing to a door which had been oiled that morning so it wouldn't groan. Then by the light of a tiny night light the long sensuous eyes of Mrs Malcolm Abden peering over the sheet, watching me undress and knowing she was naked herself.

But after two nights we decided reluctantly that it had to be a home fixture at Wester Craig; it was not nice thinking of her driving back at three in the morning, but there were too many people in her own house, including Trina, who woke on the second night and came tapping at the locked door. But the passion went on just the same; she was a ravishing woman and had been a widow too long.

You could hardly say I'd been a bachelor too long but there it was; I couldn't have enough of her.

Came time almost for me to go. The roof was finished, the boat was finished, the jetty was repaired and would last groggily a bit longer. The marks of the porch hadn't been made good but they promised it before I returned.

Returned? Well, yes, it looked like it. Within a week? Probably. I still wasn't all that taken with Scotland but Alison was here, which brought the scales down with a thump. The simple life and high sex went well together.

She made no demands on me when I said I'd to go to London. The stillness and steadiness of her showed up plain enough then. After I'd made love to her a few times I cottoned on that the poise and balance was mental, not physical; unlike me, she was steady as a rock; she knew exactly what she wanted, and when possible took it.

She said she'd thought of going back to live with her parents, since there was nothing specific to keep her with the Abdens; but the very first time I called she'd changed her mind.

‘Like that?' I said.

‘Like that.' She trailed her hand in the water. We were out in the boat near the mouth of the loch fishing – fishing for sillocks; I'd never heard of the damned things but that's what she said they were called. ‘I knew you'd come back.'