The Saint Zita Society (22 page)

T
he Princess’s yogurt phase had lasted longer than usual but had faded just at the point when disturbances in
the dietary arrangements at number 6 were least needed. She never wanted another mouthful of yogurt as long as she lived, she said. It was muesli she fancied, having tasted it while at the hotel in Florence and re-tasted in one of those dreams with which she regaled June when her breakfast was brought up. In the dream her husband Luciano had been poisoned by a pot of yogurt by a chambermaid who was under the impression she was giving him a love potion.

No longer able to carry a tray, June transported the coffee pot, the toast, butter and honey and the no longer desirable yogurt in a shopping trolley that had to be humped from stair to stair. The plaster on her right arm extended from her knuckles all the way up to her elbow, so there were many tasks she had had to give up. She couldn’t push the wheelchair or walk Gussie. The Princess had to stay at home, nursing her bruises and Gussie paced the house, whimpering. If only Rad were still alive June would have got him to sign her plaster but Rocksana Castelli was willing to do it and to bring round to number 6 several more B-class celebrities she had met during her association with June’s great-nephew. June’s idea was to get enough famous names to turn the plaster into a valuable item, then auction it in the Dugong. Ted Goldsworth, the licensee, ran a charity to raise money for Moldovan orphans and June realised that if she wanted to receive the approbation of Hexam Place she would have to give the proceeds to it, though she would much rather have kept them for herself. The doctor who had put the plaster on had promised to cut it off with the greatest care when the time came so as not to damage the autographs.

B
eacon was surprised and a little disturbed by Mr Still’s request (command) to him to leave the Audi with him
overnight. The bus went from door to door, so it wouldn’t hurt him to take that home in the evening and come back on it in the morning. What, after all, was the point, said Mr Still, of paying the enormous cost of a resident’s parking place if it was never used? Like most drivers employed by rich men, Beacon had come to regard the Audi, if not quite as his own, as a vehicle in which he had more than a half-share. But when it came to giving him orders Mr Still had the right and of course Beacon was obedient.

Mr Still had been going home rather earlier than in former days. Generally disapproving of almost everything done by his employer, his employer’s wife and to some extent his employer’s children and their lifestyle, Beacon supposed that getting home to Medway Manor Court was pleasanter than getting home to Hexam Place because Mrs Still was present in the latter but not in the former. This evening, however, it was to Hexam Place he was going at seven and the car was to be parked in melting snow ruts behind a very old VW Golf, the property of Montserrat, the au pair. She was there, pouring warm water out of a milk jug on to the door handles.

If they had gone into the house together, Beacon told himself he would have handed Mr Still his notice next day. To countenance such immorality was more than he could stomach, let alone contaminate Dorothee and Solomon and William by association. But he was spared the necessity of giving up his job in these hard times, for while Montserrat went down the stairs to the area, Mr Still mounted the steps to the front door. Beacon went off to catch the bus home.

Montserrat poured two glasses of wine, sat down to wait for Preston and contemplated her reflection in the mirror. It was an image to be admired, the low-cut dark red maxi-dress – bought with the five twenty-pound notes he had unexpectedly pressed into her hand – her hair done by Thea’s sister
and the dark red lipstick that matched the dress. The money, she supposed, was a reward for not telling the police or anyone else about his ‘accident’. Why should she tell them? There was nothing in it for her.

He walked in five minutes later. She no longer minded his failing to knock. They had reached too intimate a stage in their relationship for her to care about things like that. He kissed her, said, ‘No more taxis tonight. I can drive us.’

She liked that ‘us’ but the idea of driving to some distant restaurant was less acceptable. ‘There’s going to be freezing fog, darling.’ He no longer protested when she called him that. ‘We could buy our dinner and take it back to your place or here.’

‘I hate takeaway,’ he said with a reversion to his old manner.

‘OK, if you’re sure. I’ll just put my car away.’

He got up. ‘Let me do that for you.’

Such offers,
any
offers, were new. ‘Thank you, darling.’ She handed him the car key.

‘Perhaps you’ll open the garage door.’

She went out by way of the basement door after she had seen him go back up to the ground floor and the front door. The fog was starting, white and very cold, hanging in the windless air. No one was about but Thea, going into number 6 to attend to June and the Princess. Montserrat waved to her, slipped and nearly fell over on a sheet of melting ice that covered half the pavement. Preston was already sitting in her car, the engine running and the lights on. He took no notice of her, though he must have seen her. He was a strange man, cold and hard, like the weather. But she would marry him. Earlier, on the phone, he had talked about his coming divorce, the sale of this house and what he called ‘a division of the spoils’. She would marry him and have some of those spoils as compensation for what living with him would be like.

She unlocked the door and opened it. The light switch was inside on the left but when she pressed it the light failed to come on. The lights on the car would be adequate. She went to stand at the back of the garage and began to beckon him in. It was a standard-size garage but made narrower by stuff stacked along the walls on either side, a folding bed she was storing for a friend of her father’s, four suitcases of various sizes, plastic sacks containing bedding.

She didn’t expect him to turn the lights up to full beam as he drove towards her. Beckoning with both hands, she flinched and retreated a step or two, blinded by those lights, the dazzle forcing her to close her eyes. She tried to make a patting-down movement with both hands but cried out when instead of braking he accelerated. She threw herself spreadeagled across the bonnet of the car, clutching at the windscreen wipers.

There was no longer any need to scream. She was alive. But she went on screaming for the relief of it, letting out the aftermath of terror in short sharp cries and whimpers.

T
he first thing he did was put her in the wrong.

‘You’ve only yourself to blame. What possessed you to stand there gesticulating at me? Do you think I don’t know how to drive a car into a garage?’

If she tried to speak she would start crying. She slid as best she could off the bonnet of the car, slipping down over the grid and those blazing lights and tearing her dress. He went on haranguing her.

‘I’ve always made it a principle not to have anything to do with women who assert themselves too much. And when I go against it this is what happens. I told you I’d put the car away for you and instead of letting me get on with this perfectly simple and straightforward task, you interfere and half kill yourself.’

Rubbing her arms and thighs, twisting her neck this way and that, Montserrat came to stand so close in front of him that her forehead almost touched his chin. She tilted her head up, said, ‘You almost killed me, is what you mean.’

He shouted at her then. ‘Don’t be a fool!’

‘Is that what you meant to do?’

They were standing between the end of the folding bed and a plastic sack of blankets and sheets. He took hold of her by the shoulders and began to shake her. Montserrat
struggled, shouting and yelling into his face, and in that moment a man walked in through the open garage door, squeezing along between the car and the suitcases. It was Ciaran.

‘What’s going on here?’

‘Mind your own business,’ said Preston.

‘If you’re assaulting a woman it’s anyone’s business. Primarily it’s the business of the police. Now take your hands off her.’

To Montserrat’s surprise, Preston did. ‘All right, Montsy. Let’s go.’

‘She’s not going anywhere with you,’ Ciaran said.

‘Who is this person, Montsy?’

Preston had called her by that diminutive twice in succession. Maybe what had happened in the garage had been her fault, after all. ‘A friend of mine,’ she said.

‘I’m her boyfriend.’

‘Is that true?’

‘What if it is? It’s nothing to you.’

‘You know where I am if you need me,’ Ciaran said to Montserrat. ‘Just call me and I’ll come. Any time. Happy to be of help.’

He walked off down the mews. Montserrat followed him for a few yards, then stopped while Preston shut the garage door. He tried to take her arm.

‘You’re not actually seeing that fellow, are you?’

‘I used to be. I could be again. I’m going home now and maybe I’ll give him a call. I need someone to protect me from people like you.’

‘Now, Montsy, what have I done? If you’d had a light that worked in that garage I wouldn’t have had to have the beam on. I’d have been able to see you, not been blinded by the glare. It was an accident, you know that.’

‘Accident is what you always say. I know you tried to hurt
me. You did, Preston. I’m not saying tried to kill me but hurt me so’s I know who’s the master, not assert myself. You said that yourself, it must be what you mean.’

He took her arm, not gently but in a hard grip. ‘Come along, we’ll get into my car and I’ll take you back to Medway Manor Court. There’s a nice little Italian place round the corner, we’ll go there.’

‘No, we won’t.’ She shook him off. ‘I’m going to be covered in bruises. I know your nice little Italian places. I’m going home.’

S
hut up together all day, the Princess and June bickered incessantly. Gussie had no walks until Rocksana appeared with chocolates and flowers and offered to take him out. She had turned out to be a kind girl, after all. She signed June’s cast in green ink and next day brought with her a pop singer whose name and photograph had lately been in all the papers and magazines. Rocksana told June that if she got online the first image she would see was this singer plugging her new autobiography and giving advice on losing weight without pain. The singer also signed the cast and promised that her new husband, a famous TV presenter, would come next day and autograph it in purple ink. This was everything June most desired but it went against the grain with the Princess who complained that all these visitors were hoovering up her gin.

While they were quarrelling Thea arrived with Chinese takeaway, Dr Karg’s crispbread and a piece of Shropshire Blue. She admired the signatures, was sufficiently overawed by some of the particularly celebrated names and made a request.

‘Can I sign it?’

This was what June had feared. ‘I’m afraid not. You see, it’s only for celebrities, TV personalities and people like that. Yes, I know the Princess has signed it but she
is
a princess.’
The two of them had settled their differences and for the time being appeared the best of friends. ‘I think that makes her an exception, don’t you?’

Thea didn’t. She was very hurt, far more hurt than she would have expected to be if she could have imagined this situation. But she said nothing, simply standing there watching the Princess peering into the various little plastic pots of rice, pork, chicken and vegetables.

‘Actually, I don’t care for Chinese food.’

‘Oh, I thought you did.’

‘We can eat the biscuits and cheese,’ said June. ‘Would you mind taking Gussie round the block?’

Thea didn’t see how she could say no. She seldom did. They would be asking her to push the Princess’s wheelchair next. Gussie had to have his coat put on, an exercise which often resulted in his dresser being bitten. Carrying the takeaway in the knowledge that she would have to eat it herself – Damian and Roland certainly would not – she took the little dog up to Ebury Bridge Road and back again, noticing the single thing to be pleased about: it was a lot less cold than it had been.

T
he Belgrave Nursery was unlike most other garden centres in that they potted up their Christmas trees before delivering them. The pots, as Abram Siddiqui said, were works of art in themselves, Santa Clauses, reindeer, fairies in tutus, all painted on a background of snowy mountains and navy-blue skies, glittering with stars. Khalid took on the task of delivering them himself, mainly in order to convey the one he considered the most beautiful to number 7 Hexam Place and thereby see Rabia.

It was true that Christmas and Christmas trees meant nothing to Rabia and himself. The paintings on the pots,
though he admired them for the skill of the artist and also as a commercial success, he saw as near-blasphemous; they portrayed animals and, worse, the human figure in various forms. Nevertheless, those painted pots were a great selling point and would lead to an increase in orders for next Christmas.

Rabia saw his van draw up outside from the nursery window. She was sitting in an armchair upholstered in blue linen with white spots, and Thomas, in a blue-and-white-striped jumpsuit, was standing on her lap while she held him up to the window. A pretty sight. ‘Look, Thomas, here is Mr Iqbal’s van and here is Mr Iqbal getting out of it to bring our Christmas tree.’

This sight was a cause of great excitement. Thomas jumped up and down heavily on Rabia’s thighs but she gave no sign that he had hurt her, his pleasure far outweighing her pain. The Christmas tree in its painted pot was a beautiful object even before it was dressed. Khalid Iqbal was coming up the steps to the front door. To go down herself to let him in was unnecessary, Rabia decided, it would give him too much encouragement. Zinnia could do that. But still, as she hastily covered her head, lifting Thomas down and teaching him the polite things to say when Khalid came to the nursery door, she tried in vain to restrain herself from feeling a small surge of not quite excitement, happy anticipation rather, that this kind handsome man who admired her was paying them a visit.