Aunt Margaret's Lover Read online

  I made up my mind not to tell Saskia what was happening. This was purely for me - if she got wind of it she would hammer it to death. Besides, I felt uncomfortable talking to her at the moment. She had stepped up her campaign about Dickie coming to London one day and I thought I would stick to letter-writing for a while. Letters were much easier to control. Blessed are the peace-makers, perhaps, but I was quite at peace not seeing Dickie. Saskia had to respect that.

  With my mind a jumble, which was reasonable, I could not settle and went out again almost immediately. I called in at the shop. It was nearly closing-time. Reg was out delivering and there was no sign of Spiteri Junior. Joan looked just the same and it gave me the grimmest of satisfactions to watch le flick from the safety of the other side of the counter. It being Tuesday the lankness was apparent but it had not yet reached devastation point. Beneath its haunting shadow I detected a welcoming smile.

  'How's it going?' I asked, bonhomie oozing from every pore. 'Dreadful,' she said. 'Dreadful.'

  My stomach turned over, or whatever really happens to make the midriff lurch. I had promised Spiteri Senior that if the shop got completely out of hand I would come back - if only until a replacement was found - and, heart, blood and soul, suddenly I really, really didn't want to.

  'Where is the brute?' I asked.

  She raised her arms in despair, flicked back her hair again and eyed me balefully as the hank slowly descended. Automatically I reached for the small jam jar on the counter and took out a rubber band, handing it to her without a word. Automatically she took it, also without a word, and put it in her hair.

  'In the cells,' she said.

  I saw stars. 'What?!' I screeched. With no protective covering Joan's eyes blinked like a startled owl's. 'What on earth for?' Had he been embezzling? Assaulting the female customers? I saw my delightful days of sunshine and fun evaporate. I heard Simon's voice say, 'I've got a fair amount of free time . ..' My heart sank. Bloody Spiteri Junior. In the cells?

  'He stole a car and he had some hash . ..'

  Not, surely, things that would take him away from framing for ever? Wishful thinking. 'Oh, God.' I slumped down. 'That's it, then. I'll have to come back.'

  Joan looked even more startled. 'Well, not necessarily,' she said. 'I mean, I'm coping fine here and Reg is. We're on top of it. Manos is a bit of a pain but he does his turn. We manage . ..'

  'Manos?'

  'Mr Spiteri's son . . .'

  'How on earth can he do his turn if he's languishing in cells and reeking of pot?'

  'Oh, Aunt M!' Joan was laughing. 'It's my Charlie who's in the nick. Not Manos.'

  'Charlie? My God!' I said. 'You went back with him .. .?' But I very nearly kissed her.

  'Mistake. Never again,' she said grimly.

  'I'm sorry,' I said. She shrugged. On the whole there was not the usual look of crushed worm about her. 'Despite that you look well, Joan.'

  'So do you.' She looked me up and down. 'In fact you look terrific'

  'Well, that's what a few weeks off the treadmill can do' - I leaned forward - 'and no love troubles to get in the way. I'm sorry about Charlie.'

  'Oh, it was over and done with, anyway. Think I will give it all up for the time being.' She sighed as she replaced the right-angle samples neatly on the display board. 'It just never works out, does it?'

  'Not if you hope it will,' I said, perhaps a little too happily. 'Lower your expectations, and it might.'

  I bought a card for Jill on the way home of a simpering Edwardian couple standing in a rose bower, she parasoled, he bare-headed and bewhiskered, their hands about to touch as they reached towards the same bloom. The caption was 'Love blossoms'. Feeling a bit wicked, I added, 'But watch out for pricks,' which I thought was quite witty. I sent it off with a little message to the effect that I would ring her very soon to confirm the weekend arrangements for the end of May. Oh! I thought after I dropped it in the pillar-box. Arrangements. Like a double bed? I thought with passing regret of the pretty little room I usually occupied, with its flouncy curtains and broderie anglaise on the single bed, where I had always felt like an indulged child. Well. 'There sleeps Titania some time of the night, Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight.' Hmm, and we all know what happened to her . . .

  Tomorrow I would go to the Auerbach show and get Sassy's wretched catalogue. That'd shut her up. She could be extremely tenacious sometimes. As I wended my way home, I thought, Now there's no going back . . .

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dad and Judith are separating for a while. It is so sad and I feel very bad about it because, apart from that, I am extremely, extremely happy. And still waiting for that catalogue! What's the matter? Don't you care about me any more? We paint away like mad. I'm learning a lot. He's nicer than you could possibly imagine. Hope you are having a good time whatever you are up to!

  Verity, who is working on a script treatment based on Joan's experience - very loosely based since she has re-invented her heroine as extremely beautiful, extremely rich and extremely powerful - is feeling pretty fed up again. She is drinking mineral water laced with a few drops of lemon juice and, although it makes her feel morally superior, it is no compensation for the buzz of alcohol. However, she has vowed to abjure it, and abjure it she has. Even when Mark rang and said that he was about to ask someone else out but before he did he wanted to know if Verity really meant it was over between them. She had put her knuckles in her mouth while he was talking so that any sobs or gasps would not transfer, and she said brightly when he had finished his little speech, 'Yes, of course. I hope it works out for you.' He had not sounded too sure that it would, nor pleased to be given her blessing. As she put the phone down, she said to the handset that at worst he was game-playing and at best he meant it. Either way it showed him up for the shit he was. Why couldn't he just leave her alone?

  She has stomped back to her word processor and written a highly satisfying dialogue between her heroine and her hero in which he abjectly apologizes for everything. The abject apology goes on for quite a long time and turns into a lament for the honour of done-unto women. Verity knows that it will all have to be cut - the whole point is that he docs not excuse himself for the way he is made, nor for being in love with both her and the other man. It is a play for the caring nineties, which is how she sold it, and any hint of prejudice will have to come out. Nevertheless, the scene has been a satisfying exercise. She might keep it for the next opus. With the dead way she has been feeling, by the time she comes to write the sodding next opus it will be out of the caring nineties and into the terrible twenty-ones - castrate the deviants and women should be seen and not heard . ..

  She looks at the screen. 'That is quite enough for today,' she tells it. She knows that she will descend into cynicism if she continues. Tomorrow is another day. Oh God, why did she go and say that? She could weep. Well, she decides, if she is going to weep, she is not going to do it alone. It is six-fifteen, sun definitely over the yard-arm, and unless she is out, Margaret will be in. Verity finds her friend's burgeoning interest in the opposite sex fascinating, enlivening and -Verity is quite sure - doomed. When the doom finally reveals itself, Verity will be able to sit with Margaret and talk about it in five-minutes-for-you five-minutes-for-me style. It has always irritated her that her friend had avoided such emotional pitfalls. Female normality was to go into batde, win a few, lose a few, and then retire from the war to convalesce with an equally shell-shocked pal. Usually of course another battle soon follows, but in this case, Verity thinks to herself as she swings through Margaret's gate and up the path, she, Verity, will never start another one again. She doubts if Margaret will, either. Maybe it's the lemon juice but Verity is feeling extraordinarily sour.

  While she waits for the door to be answered, she looks at the little front garden, which bears unmistakable signs of activity. Not particularly attractive activity, but better than none. Verity's garden, like her house, is individual and stylish - stone urns, well-matched flowers and s
hrubs throughout the year, window boxes that do not wilt, interesting varieties. The weeds gave up long ago. Margaret has shown little inclination to garden beyond the most basic weeding, so it comes as a surprise to see haphazard polyanthuses dotted about the front patch, with slightly startled-looking salvia plonked down between them. Margaret has selected from the full range of polyanthus colours available, which is rather a lot; not all of them are complementary.

  Margaret opens the door. She has on a bathcap, leggings and an ancient white T-shirt which shows sign of bloody battle. As if somebody has attempted to cut her throat. The mistress of the house is not - quite - looking her best.

  'I saw it was you,' she says, reaching out to hoick Verity in, closing the door swiftly.

  'You've been gardening.' Verity says it as if it is an accusation. Then she sniffs the air. 'What a beautiful smell.' She looks about her. The Hoover, clearly in the process of being used, lies in the hall, and everything has an air of neatness and cleanliness - even the hall table is polished and clear of debris save for a large blue and white bowl. Verity peers in, sniffs again. 'Wonderful,' she says.

  'Pot-pourri,' says Margaret absently. 'Verity, have you got anything to unstop wastepipes?'

  Verity taps the pockets of her jeans and her shirt. 'Must have dropped it on the way here ...'

  'Be serious,' says Margaret. 'The downstairs sink is blocked.'

  'Bleach? Soda crystals?'

  'I don't have either.'

  'What's blocking it?'

  'Grunge - tea-leaves. I don't know. Don't just ask the quality of my blockages. Do something.'

  Verity is frogmarched into the kitchen. Here it is not quite so pristine. Indeed, here there are signs of dementia - open cupboard doors; pans, bottles, brushes, screwdrivers all over the floor.

  'Have you got a plunger?' Verity asks.

  'Of course I've got a plunger.' Margaret hands it to her as if it were an ill-deserved bouquet.

  Verity presses up and down at the sink. There is a rank smell and not much activity from the suction. She continues while looking over her shoulder, 'Why have you got blood dripping from your ears?'

  Were it possible for someone with a hatchet in the head not to notice until a kindly neighbour pointed it out, Margaret's surprise would not seem so odd. As it is, Verity is amazed to see her friend put a hand up to her head, pat its bath-hatted horror once or twice, wail, '0//, my GoaV and vanish from the room.

  Verity goes on using the plunger for a little while but to no avail. She gives up and starts hunting through the floor's detritus for something suitable to poke down the hole. And in her innermost secret musings she wishes she had a man with her to do this sort of thing; in her inner innermost, secret musings she is perfectly willing to acknowledge that they are better, much better, at tasks like this. During this secret betrayal of hers the doorbell rings. Verity is encouraged by a strangled, faraway hostess's voice to 'see who the hell that is'.

  'We've met, haven't we?' Colin says, coming into the hall.

  'We have,' says Verity firmly, tugging him in the direction of the kitchen, 'and we need you.'

  Colin looks pleased until, as he reaches the open door, the pot-pourri's scented delight is replaced by something altogether more unpleasant.

  Margaret, her towel-dried hair standing up in spikes that have a certain orange quality to them, comes into the kitchen to find Verity leaning on the sink unit, the doors of which are open to reveal the lower half of a man lying on his back with his legs stretched out.

  'Oh,' says Verity, 'you've gone orange.'

  'Orange-ish,' says Margaret peevishly. 'I was hoping it would look like Gloriana - a big fiery halo of auburn.'

  Verity looks her usual doubtful self. 'More like London Brick Company.'

  Gloriana refuses to be drawn. 'Damn stuff. I'll wash it again in a moment.' She advances, looks at the legs, cocks an eyebrow.at Verity.

  'Colin,' mouths Verity.

  Margaret smiles. 'Colin,' she says cheerily, bending down and peering into the cupboard, 'I'd recognize that lower half anywhere.'

  His upper half is crouched around a bucket and the whole makes a picture of which Dali would approve. His smile is a grimace.

  'If you're going to get yourself a man,' he says acidly, 'you might get one who's good at this sort of thing . . .'

  Margaret kicks his ankle, apparently playfully.

  Verity says, 'Get a man, did you say, Colin? She's been getting them - loads of them. Why stop at one? And none of them lasts. Too picky, you see!'

  Colin chuckles. '"Selective" is a kinder word, perhaps.' His voice is muffled and he is clearly straining to undo something. He continues, 'I didn't actually come round here to do this. Get off, you bugger, damn thing. I came to - ah, good, it's coming now — I came round to see how you - one more turn, I think. Don't turn on the water . . .' He laughs. 'To see how you made out with that Oxford date? The one who sent you his - i said don't turn on the water, you silly cow.' But Margaret has. Only a little. Just enough to cause a diversion. She hands him a length of kitchen towel, bending over the open door, and puts her hand over her mouth quickly to stifle her laughter. She apologizes as convincingly as she can. Colin's face is bespattered with unpleasant, unidentifiable liquid matter. She gives him a warning look which is wasted since his eyes are closed.

  'What on earth did you do that for?' asks Verity. But she suppresses her own laughter. In fact, both women, confronting each other's suppressions, can sustain it no longer. They hold their sides in silent, uproarious mirth, bending from the waist, trying not to catch each other's eye. Margaret tries to form words of more abject apology but each attempt explodes.

  Well, she counsels herself, she told him to be discreet. Now, as he sits up and picks U-bend detritus from his eyebrows, he will realize she was serious.

  Verity is not to be dissuaded. She knew all those dates of Margaret's were more serious than she said. Verity's heart sinks. She has a nasty feeling the blood bond has completely fallen away. Clues? Margaret doing garden. Margaret cleaning house. Margaret dyeing hair. Verity smells man, and man of duration.

  'What happened in Oxford?' she demands, once Colin has righted the plumbing and gone upstairs to wash, muttering about women's incapacity for technological understanding.

  'Hang on,' says Margaret. 'Colin will need something clean to put on.' And she runs up the stairs after him.

  'I can give you one of Roger's old shirts,' she calls through the bathroom door. 'Open up.'

  He does so. She takes his dirty linen and hands him an old schoolteacher check. Through tight lips she hisses that if he so much as breathes a word about advertisements and photographs to Verity she will never forgive him and nor will he get his own shirt back, which she will tear into strips and use as bunting for the day of his funeral. Colin, disadvantaged with soapy face, grunts agreement and closes the door.

  'Shall we have tea?' she says, switching on the kettle. While they wait for it to boil, she asks how Verity is. Verity says she is much more keen to know how Margaret is and what she has been up to - that irritating little phrase again that turns every sodding activity into playgroup stuff - but Margaret insists that Verity start first.

  Although Verity is keen to know about Oxford, the bait proves irresistible. She tells Margaret all about Mark's latest sally, which they both agree is not on.

  'Just tell him to leave you alone,' says Margaret.

  'I have,' says Verity. She always feels a lot stronger about it when in the company of her friend.

  This is their usual opening conversation on the topic. Margaret then goes on to say, 'Well, you've got to say it and mean it.' She is about to do this when Colin arrives. Counselling is immediately forgotten as Margaret crumples with laughter. 'Oh God,' she says, 'Colin, you look strangely different . ..' Roger's shirt has defeated Colin's usual stylishness and made him look like a harassed history master. Margaret laughs again.

  'What do you think about lonely hearts columns?' Colin asks Verit
y very politely.

  Margaret stops laughing instantly and says, 'Colin, your exceptional sense of elegance is not at all diminished by my ex-lover's garment.' And she keeps her face straight after that.

  'Colin?' says Verity. 'You're a man, aren't you?'

  'Well, yes,' he says, amused but cautious.

  'I mean - why do you all do it? Why, when you have a perfectly good relationship with someone, do you still go and flirt with other women and eye them up and down and then forget to tell the one you are with that she looks nice so that the whole thing disintegrates, and when it has disintegrated, then you want the original back?'

  Colin puts up his hands. 'Whoa there,' he says. 'That's a hell of a lot packed into one sentence.' He pauses, thinking. 'I don't think all men do those things.' He thinks again. 'Do we?'