Fraud Page 6

  ‘Very sensible,’ said Mrs Marsh crisply. ‘It sounds as if you’ve made plans.’

  ‘My husband and I made our plans when the children left home. We’ve always been savers, never spent a lot on ourselves. That’s how we were able to buy our house, you see.’

  ‘Anna said that you lived in Paddington, if I’m not mistaken.’

  ‘Well, that’s part of the plan: no more Paddington, no more Star Street. Our house is on the Isle of Wight. That’s where we’re going when we retire, or when I do, rather. My husband retired last year, from the Post Office. Now he makes a bit extra window-cleaning.’

  ‘How very interesting,’ said Mrs Marsh, who did in fact find this interesting, and was excited by the prospect of possible access to a window-cleaner. ‘And will you like retirement? Won’t you miss London?’ She did not ask Mrs Duncan if she would miss her work, for that she thought too stupid and potentially offensive a question, although Mrs Duncan was so obviously superior that she probably regarded herself as being almost in the professional class. I hope she won’t be insulted when I bring the conversation back to money, she thought.

  ‘It’s our dream home, you see, something we’ve always wanted. Nice garden, patio, French windows, en suite bathrooms, the lot. So, you see, I don’t mind working flat out for those little extras.’

  It is the enterprise culture, thought Mrs Marsh, and it is admirable. I should have done something like that, but on a fixed income it would hardly have been possible.

  ‘I won’t say it hasn’t been hard, sometimes,’ Mrs Duncan went on. ‘But the children have been very good to us. Luckily they’re both doing well. Louise is in computers and Keith’s in hairdressing. They’ve got their own places now, one in Fulham, one in Wandsworth. And there’s room for both of them, when they come down, until they marry, of course, though there’s no sign of that. “I want to make my mark first, Mum,” Keith says to me. “I don’t want to interfere with my career while I can still give it all I’ve got.” ’

  ‘Did Keith cut your hair?’ asked Mrs Marsh. ‘It looks most beautifully shaped.’

  ‘That’s my Keith,’ said Mrs Duncan proudly. ‘Salon treatment. Of course I can’t expect him to do it all the time. Saturdays I go round to Edgware Road. I know the man there, known him for ages. “Do everything,” I say to him. Laugh! But when Keith does it everyone remarks on it.’

  The hint of vulgarity had brought a tint of animation to her velvet cheeks. Mrs Marsh’s wintry features relaxed into a brief smile. Yes, a pretty girl, she thought. And never thinking herself out of the running.

  ‘You were with Anna, I believe,’ she said, reluctantly calling the business to order.

  ‘Still am. I was with her mother for ten years, no, more like eleven.’

  ‘Ah, yes, poor Mrs Durrant.’

  ‘Ainsworth. Mrs Ainsworth.’

  Mrs Marsh looked at her in surprise. ‘I knew her as Amy Durrant.’

  ‘She was Amy Durrant, all along,’ said Mrs Duncan confidentially. ‘But when I went to her she called herself Mrs Ainsworth. Married this man, you see, or so she thought, until he told her he was already married.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ said Mrs Marsh slowly. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘Well, of course, it was terrible for her. He was after her money, wasn’t he? And I dare say she had to pay him off. Two years it lasted. I suppose he got fed up with her finicky ways. The sad thing was that I think she really loved him. A woman like that, on her own all those years. And there’s the frustration, you have to reckon with that, don’t you?’

  ‘I dare say.’ Mrs Marsh’s tone was distant. Nevertheless, she had to hear more. ‘What kind of a man was he?’ she asked.

  ‘Good-looking, nicely turned out, well-spoken. Very clean, always smelled lovely. Always had a bit of a chat with me, before he went to work. Didn’t leave the house until about ten, sometimes ten-thirty.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Mystery. Said he was a wine merchant, or so Mrs Ainsworth or Durrant or whatever she was told me. But I once saw him behind the counter of an off-licence when I was doing my shopping in Queensway. Luckily he didn’t see me. I went past a few days later but he wasn’t there any more. And shortly after that he was gone altogether.’

  ‘Good Heavens. Poor Amy.’

  ‘Of course, she went right down after that, didn’t she? “My heart is broken, Peggy,” she said to me. She used to pour it all out. Many’s the morning I’ve just sat there and listened to her. Well, she couldn’t talk to Anna, could she? Anna hated him. And if you ask me Anna’s the one who really suffered.’

  ‘Poor Anna,’ said Mrs Marsh slowly.

  ‘She took it very hard. Of course she’s always been a bit fussy, like her mother. But look what her mother fell for! I shouldn’t be surprised if Anna did the same thing, one day, fell for someone, I mean. Her mother hoped it would be the doctor.’

  ‘Halliday?’ Mrs Marsh was startled.

  ‘She was fond of him, I know. And he seemed fond of her. But he just couldn’t take it on, do you know what I mean? Anna, and her mother, and that flat.’

  ‘Yes, I see. Poor Anna,’ she said again. ‘And you still keep an eye on her? I’d like to think she had someone she could turn to.’

  She noted with interest, and not a little shame, that she had consigned Anna to Mrs Duncan instead of taking her on herself. Anna was the victim of multiple derelictions, she thought, hardly a person any more in her own right.

  By the time they took their leave of each other, having agreed that Mrs Duncan was to come for three mornings a week, starting on the following Monday, each was experiencing a slight sense of disappointment. Mrs Duncan had hoped for an answering conviviality, for confidences from another witness to Amy Durrant’s disgrace. She thought in the lurid terms of her girlhood reading, when women paid the price for giving in to the snares of men. It pleased her to think of Amy Durrant as a victim, for were not all women victims, saved from their fate only by marriage to a good man? Her own husband she had long classed as this archetypal good man, of the kind who would not try to deceive women, and in whom infidelity was unthinkable. Her own safety made her sympathetic to Amy Durrant, whom she nevertheless regarded with appalled fascination. She had understood, much as she had a general if vague understanding of catastrophe, the lure to which Amy Durrant had succumbed, but had not felt its echo in her own flesh, so comfortably catered for, so noticeably safe. She was not embarrassed by any sense of impropriety, although she realized that the burden of this fell on Anna’s unprotected shoulders, a fact which made her more uncomfortable than the dilemma which had brought this about.

  Mrs Duncan would not have been averse to discussing this problem with Mrs Marsh, but this was apparently not to be. What to do about Anna would have been a theme they could both have pursued on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, over coffee. For she was anxious to hand Anna over to someone else, feeling uneasy in her presence for reasons which she could not define. She found her heart beating a little too strongly when she put her key into Anna’s front door on Wednesday afternoons, and was always relieved to find that she had gone out, leaving the money on the kitchen table. She found that she usually worked more quickly on Wednesday afternoons, as if anxious to escape before Anna made her reappearance.

  Anna was worrying, but not sufficiently attractive to be ostentatiously worried over, and Mrs Duncan was astute enough to know that condolences over Anna’s plight would not be welcome. There was, she told herself, no reason to worry; Anna was not a child. She had sensed Anna’s antagonism during the Ainsworth affair, had sensed too that the antagonism would be turned against anyone who was a witness to her mother’s weakness. Yet sensing the antagonism, she was at the same time unable to dismantle it, or even to identify it, for Anna’s feelings were masked by her terrifying all-purpose goodwill. Occasionally Mrs Duncan saw a faraway look on Anna’s face, a look of contained suffering and patience so adult that she felt ashamed, all her horrified and righteous s
ympathy banished. That expression of Anna’s had always recalled her to her senses. No confidence had ever passed between them, and thus no truth was ever unveiled. She would have liked to be kind, yet it was clear that no kindness was expected, and if offered might be quietly refused. This knowledge, with which her reading had not equipped her to deal, made her uncomfortable, rendered her without resource. She continued to tidy Anna’s flat, with an instinctive reluctance which she did not quite understand. She regarded Anna with a disfavour which made her almost fretful, and was always relieved not to have to encounter her.

  Mrs Marsh was disappointed in herself because she had given in to the temptation of gossip. She regarded Mrs Duncan very firmly as a servant, and she had grown up with the knowledge that one never gossiped with servants. Not that she had imparted any information of her own, but she had listened fairly avidly to what Mrs Duncan had to tell her, and she was aware that any future association would depend on further discussions of a similar nature. How was she to bear this for three mornings a week without transgressing her codes? She looked round the kitchen, which seemed to her dingy: it probably needed painting, but at her age she regarded this as a needless extravagance. She went into her bedroom, ran a finger over the glass top of her dressing-table, disturbing a light film of whitish powder. It was shabby, she conceded, dusty, perhaps not too clean. Perhaps Mrs Duncan could see to all this. There were attractions to having someone in regular attendance. If she were ill, if she were to have a fall, as happened to so many women of her age, she had no doubt that Mrs Duncan would be invaluable. She raised her head to look out of the window at the grey empty street. Oh, the sun, the sun!

  Later, having digested the morning’s business in her usual efficient manner, she conceded that Mrs Duncan’s revelations had not been without interest. What had been particularly interesting had been the woman’s feelings about Anna, which she recognized as ambiguous, pessimistic. Mrs Marsh supposed that, had she been a good woman, she would have made Anna her concern, and regarded the settling of Anna as part of her responsibility as an elder of the tribe. But I am not a good woman, she told herself firmly, or if I am it is purely by default. Anna is too burdensome a project for a woman of my age. Her contemporaries must take care of her. I will introduce her to Philippa’s two (but of course they are much too young). I will even introduce her to Nick. She can come to my Christmas drinks party. After that I wash my hands of the whole affair, which remains faintly distasteful to my mind. Mrs Duncan must see that she pulls her weight. But by this stage in her ruminations it was time for the News, so she gave Mrs Duncan and Anna and even poor Amy Durrant no further thought. So nice, she reflected, so refreshing, to hear a man’s voice.

  6

  ‘BIEN CHÈRE Marie-France,

  ‘This comes to you with my Christmas greetings and all my hopes and wishes for a peaceful New Year. I suppose you will be going to Meaux for the holidays (I think you mentioned that Emmanuel and his family were joining you) and I hope that this letter arrives before you leave. I shall be staying here, quite happily, and catching up on my work, and on my sleep, for I have been having a very busy time. Christmas seems to have come round more quickly this year, and the shopping is a nightmare. On Christmas Day I shall take Aunt Vera to church, and then come back here for a quiet afternoon. After a light meal I shall settle down to read. There will be a great deal to think about. You may even get an extra letter.

  ‘The great event of the week was Aunt Vera’s Christmas party. She gives one every year, for the members of the Residents’ Association, of which she had been chairwoman, her daughter and son, her two grandchildren and their partners, and the doctor and his wife. My Mrs Duncan was there to help out. It was a tremendous success and I enjoyed it enormously, although I knew no-one except Philippa, Aunt Vera’s daughter, and of course the doctor. I was interested to take a closer look at his wife, of whom more later. It was quite obvious to me, from various remarks dropped by Aunt Vera, that I was invited to meet her son, Nick. In any event I took care to look my best, though not for the famous Nick, I should emphasize, but because I love to dress up. I wore my brown corded silk suit with the gold buttons, and my gold ear-rings. I may even have looked a little too formal: Lucy, Philippa’s daughter, wore a tiny leather skirt, and Michael, her son, a very bright yellow cashmere pullover—to show he was in advertising, I imagine. The doctor’s wife, Victoria, or Vickie, as I am supposed to call her, although I have only met her once or twice, wore a short red dress with enormous shoulder pads. I thought she looked ridiculous, but she was so animated and so sure of herself that she soon had quite a crowd round her. All the elderly men from the surrounding flats thought her marvellous. We exchanged a few words and she announced that she was going to ask me to dinner, “to meet some new people”—hardly the most tactful greeting. Aunt Vera was in black and looked very dignified.

  ‘The famous Nick turned out to be a sardonic-looking man of fifty-odd, which I suppose made him suitable for me—trust Aunt Vera! I can’t say I took to him, but then first impressions are misleading and I told myself I was being a little unkind. He is certainly very presentable, tall and well dressed, but with rather disappointing hair and a distinct blue shadow round the chin, one of those men who needs to shave twice a day and who hadn’t bothered, thinking he’d be meeting his mother’s usual crowd. As we were meant to be partners—for there was no-one else there who was unattached—I stayed with him more or less for the whole evening, although at one point we were rudely interrupted by Vickie, who seemed to want Nick all to herself. Now I must confess that this is a woman I really cannot like. She struck me as infantile, all petulance and smiles; one felt one had to win her back into a state of good temper from whatever tantrum had recently claimed her. She is supposed to be delicate (I can’t remember who told me that) which I suspect means that she cries and has headaches and various upsets and that all physical manifestations come easily to her, without ugly signs or after-effects. I have often found that these childlike women come from very happy families: they have been Daddy’s girl or Mummy’s little princess, and are spoilt ever after. The man they marry takes over from the parents in many ways. Poor Lawrence! But men seem to love it and take all those tears and smiles for a sign of temperament. Maybe they are a sign of temperament. But when I see it being paraded like this I become very calm and quiet, too quiet perhaps, but really I find such performances profoundly embarrassing. Would you believe that Nick was smiling? She is very pretty, of course, and immediately started to tease him. “Hallo,” she said. “I’m Vickie Halliday. And you are?” “Nick Marsh.” “Oh, of course. You look as if you could do with a great deal more to drink.” “Oh?” “Positively ferocious! I’ve been watching you—such a ferocious expression. I’m not being tactless, am I? Take no notice if I am. I’m just sensitive to atmospheres. Hypersensitive, in fact.” “I’m perfectly happy,” he said. “But I’ve a hard day’s trading behind me,” (he is in the City like his father). “I can’t say the same for you,” he said. “You look quite radiant. I like your dress. Red suits you.” “That’s very gallant of you. Much better in fact. I’m just terribly lucky, I suppose.” At which point I had had enough and moved away. I collected a handful of glasses and went off to the kitchen to wash them. I had a word with Mrs Duncan, then I freshened my make-up, and, still calm, went back into the drawing-room. I thought it was about time I paid some attention to Aunt Vera who had been on her feet the whole evening. Across the room I could see the two of them, still in conversation. I said to Aunt Vera that I must soon be going, but she told me to wait. “Nick will drive you home,” she said. “I’m sorry he can’t give you dinner,” she added. “He is coming back here for a light supper and a talk about my investments—all much too boring for a guest. So you will have to excuse us. But Nick will drop you off first.”

  ‘So we drove back to Cranley Gardens. It was quite amusing. He told me that he usually has a dog in the back of the car, but that he had had to leave the dog at his place in B
erkshire, something he doesn’t care to do but has to when he has evening meetings. I told him how fond I was of his mother, which pleased him. I said that I would always keep an eye on her. Then I suddenly felt extremely tired: I suppose the evening had been a bit of a strain. I asked him in for coffee, which seemed to amuse him. “I must get back,” he said. Then he kissed me. So you see, my dear, interesting things happen all the time …’

  This surely was the right note, the note they always seemed to strike: feminine, intimate, critical, high-spirited. They had both read their Jane Austen, and prided themselves on keeping a cool head. She had in fact felt achingly unwell on the evening of the party. In the hallway of Mrs Marsh’s flat (reached all too soon) she had arrived as Lawrence Halliday and his wife were taking off their coats.

  ‘Hello, Anna,’ Lawrence had said. ‘You remember Vickie, don’t you? Vickie, Anna.’

  The small dark woman he was with turned to her thoughtfully.

  ‘Anna,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  Her voice held deep, almost parodied compassion, but her gaze was withdrawn almost immediately, as more guests arrived, forcing them into uncomfortable proximity.

  ‘We’d better go in,’ said Lawrence, putting an arm round his wife’s shoulders: she assumed an expression of spotlit festivity. A star, thought Anna. But Lawrence’s gaze was mild, detached, polite, withdrawn: he was not thinking the same thoughts as his wife. It occurred to her, by an instantaneous insight which she could not verify, that he did not love her, that it was only sex between them, but that that was considerable. A small pulse beat in her head, signalling a future headache. Smiling, she had followed them into the room.

  She had felt alarm and despair when she was introduced to the grimly smiling Nick, sensing, as she always did, that some sort of explanation for her presence had already been offered, and that it was not entirely favourable, or not entirely imaginative, or not entirely generous. She sensed criticism everywhere, but had perfected a condition of calm good humour, which she employed for every occasion. She saw at once the impossibility of having anything to do with this Nick, against whom her most intimate fibres instinctively protested. That secret and most censorious of voices told her that here was a man who would have to be cajoled into loving a woman, would not condescend to look at a woman unless she amused and entertained him, would expect salacious performances in private and a high level of sophistication in public. He was not, nor ever could be, that profound silent loving man whom she sought and had never found. From the dead father, whom time had effaced, to the absconding Ainsworth, to the disappearing Halliday—all men had come to represent absence, the absence which they could not or would not fill.