The Peacock Emporium, Page 37

  'Anything you want to take, help yourselves. All the rest into a pile to be burnt.' She heard Rosemary's voice, clear and commanding, perhaps lifting with the restoration of her own domain, and watched as she marched back inside to bring out yet another box. She wondered if she felt the same small thrill of excitement at Athene's final, enforced removal. A small, mean thrill that she was hardly able to admit to herself. The same ungenerous feeling that had brought her down here to watch, like an old hag at an execution.

  'You don't want any of this, do you?' Rosemary called, catching sight of Vivi as she walked over slowly, pushing Suzanna's pram.

  Vivi glanced at Athene's going-away suit, the beaded slippers she had worn at that first hunt ball, now lying in a heap by the geranium border, occasionally stirring in the stiff breeze. 'No,' she said. 'No thank you.'

  Athene's own parents had wanted nothing. Vivi had heard her parents discussing it when they thought she wasn't listening. The Forsters had been so embarrassed by their daughter's behaviour, so keen to distance themselves from her even in death. They had had her cremated in a closed ceremony, had not even put an announcement in The Times, Mrs Newton had said, in a shocked whisper. And they had not wanted to meet their own grandchild. Except they hadn't referred to Suzanna as a child.

  Vivi wheeled Suzanna slowly through the piles of belongings, stooping forward to check on the sleeping baby, making sure she was shielded from any gusts of wind. She hesitated, wincing, as she caught sight of a drawerful of Athene's undergarments, diaphanous pieces of lace and silk, items that spoke of nights of whispered secrets, of unknown pleasures, now exposed and discarded. As if there was no part of her that deserved to remain sacrosanct.

  She had thought this might bring her some secret satisfaction. Now she was here, this hurried, thorough disposal of Athene's things seemed almost indecent. As if everyone was determined to obliterate her presence. Douglas no longer talked of her. Rosemary and Cyril had forbidden mention of her name. Suzanna was too young to remember her: her age had enabled her to move on seamlessly, to accept the love of the strangers around her as a happy substitute. But, then, one didn't know how much Suzanna had been loved before.

  Vivi picked her way past a heap of expensive wool coats and stood on the edge of the lawn, as a man dumped a box of photographs beside her. Afterwards she wasn't sure what had made her do it. Perhaps the thought of Suzanna's rootlessness, perhaps her own discomfort at what seemed an almost fervid desire among those who had known Athene to obliterate her even from history. Perhaps it was those beautiful undergarments, exhibited, discarded, as if they, too, had been tainted by her.

  Vivi bent down, pulled a handful of photographs and newspaper cuttings from the box and stuffed them into the bottom of the pram, under her bag. She wasn't sure what she would do with them. She wasn't sure she even wanted them. It just seemed important that, no matter how unpalatable, no matter how many awkward questions it might raise, when she was older Suzanna might have some idea where she had come from.

  'Who's my beautiful girl, then?' As Vivi made her way back up to the brow of the hill Suzanna had begun to cry. She lifted her from the pram and whirled her around, letting the baby's cheeks pink in the brisk air. 'Who's my beautiful, beautiful girl?'

  'She certainly is.'

  She spun round to find Douglas standing behind her, and flushed. 'I'm sorry,' she said haltingly. 'I didn't . . . I didn't know you were there.'

  'Don't be sorry.' His tweed collar was lifted against the cold, his eyes weary and red-rimmed. He stepped closer, adjusted Suzanna's woollen bonnet. 'Is she okay?'

  'She's fine.' Vivi beamed. 'Very bonny. Eating everything in sight, aren't you, precious?' The baby thrust out a fat hand and pulled at one of the blonde curls that emerged from under Vivi's hat. 'She's - she's doing very well indeed.'

  'I'm sorry,' said Douglas. 'I've neglected her. Both of you.'

  Vivi flushed again. 'You don't have to . . . nothing to apologise for.'

  'Thank you,' he said quietly. He glanced down towards the lawn, where they were already tidying up now. 'For everything. Thank you.'

  'Oh, Douglas . . .' She was unsure of what else to say.

  Douglas had placed his coat on the ground and they had sat in silence for a while, facing the house, he staring at the lawn, at the child whose fingers clenched and unclenched on the blades of grass from the safety of Vivi's lap.

  'Can I take her?'

  She handed over the baby. He looked calmer, she thought. Perhaps as if he were emerging from his self-imposed exile.

  'I keep thinking it's all my fault,' he said. 'That if I'd been a better husband . . . that if she'd stayed here, none of this--'

  'No, Douglas.' Her voice was unusually sharp. 'There was nothing you could have done. Nothing.'

  He looked down.

  'Douglas, she was gone to you a long time ago. Long before this. You must know that.'

  'I know.'

  'The worst thing you could do is make her tragedy your own.' She wondered at the strength, the determination of her own words. It came somehow easier to her these days, this certainty. There was pleasure in supporting him. 'Suzanna needs you,' she said, pulling the child's rattle from a pocket. 'She needs you to be cheerful. And to show her what a wonderful daddy you are.'

  He made a mild scoffing noise.

  'You are, Douglas. You're probably the only father she's known, and she loves you to bits.'

  He looked at her sideways. 'She loves you to bits.'

  Vivi reddened with pleasure. 'I love her. It's impossible not to.'

  They watched as Rosemary's erect figure marched backwards and forwards between the remaining piles, gesturing and pointing with military efficiency. And then at the bonfire, which had started to burn, just out of sight, its plume of smoke hinting at the irrefutable end of Athene's tenure of the house. As the grey column gained in strength, lost its translucency, she felt Douglas's hand creep across the grass to hers, and squeezed it reassuringly in return.

  'What's going to happen to her?' she said.

  He stared at the child between them, and let out a long breath. 'I don't know. I can't look after her alone.'

  'No.'

  At that Vivi felt something shift inside her, the stirrings of a confidence she had never yet felt. The sense of being, for the first time in her life, indispensable. 'I'll be here,' she said, 'for as long as you need me.'

  He had looked up at her then, his eyes - too old and sad for his youthful face - seeing her as if for the first time. He had observed their linked hands, and then he had shaken his head slightly, as if he had missed something and was chastising himself for doing so. At least, that was how she liked to remember it afterwards.

  Then, as her breath stalled in her chest, he had lifted his free hand to her cheek, in almost the same way as he had to the child's. Vivi had lifted her own to meet it, her sweet, generous smile breaking through, willing strength, joy, love into him as if she could do it by willpower alone. So that when his lips met hers, it was no great surprise. Despite it finally closing over that part of her that had always been raw, wounded, it had been no great surprise.

  'Darling,' she had said, marvelling at the determination, the certainty that requited love could bestow. And her blood sang when he answered her in the same way, his arms enclosing her in an embrace that said as much about his need as it did hers. Not quite a fairytale, but no less momentous, no less real, for that.

  I'll be here.

  Twenty-Five

  The passengers emerging through the arrivals gate from BA7902 and Buenos Aires were a conspicuously handsome lot. Not that the Argentinians weren't a good-looking nation generally, Jorge de Marenas observed afterwards (especially when compared to those Spanish Gallegos), but it was perhaps inevitable that a hundred and fifty members of a plastic surgeons' convention - and their wives - would be a little more aesthetically pleasing than most: tanned Amazonian women with hourglass figures and hair the colour of expensive handbags, men with unif
ormly thick dark hair and unnaturally firm jawlines. Jorge de Marenas was one of the few whose appearance related to his biological age.

  'Me and Martin Sergio, we played a little game,' he told Alejandro, as they sat in the back of the taxi, speeding towards London. 'You look around and work out who's had what. The women, it's easy.' He held an imaginary pair of footballs to his chest, and pouted. 'They start using too much of everything. They start off with a little nip and tuck here, then they want to look like Barbie. But the men . . . We were trying to start a rumour that the plane had run out of fuel to see who could still form lines on their brow. Most of them were like . . .' He mimed a frozen expression of benign acquiescence: '"Are you sure? But that's terrible. We're going to die!"' He laughed heartily and slapped a hand on his son's thigh.

  The plane journey, and the prospect of seeing his beloved Alejandro, had made him garrulous, and he had talked so much since their embrace in the echoing arrivals hall that it wasn't until they reached the outskirts of Chiswick, and the taxi slowed on the motorway, that he realised his son had said barely anything. 'So, how long do you have off work?' he said. 'Are we still on for our fishing trip?'

  'All booked, Papa.'

  'Where are we going?'

  'A place about an hour's drive from the hospital. I've booked it for Thursday. You said you'd be finishing your conference Wednesday, right?'

  'Perfect. Buenisimo. And what will we be catching?'

  'Salmon trout,' Alejandro said. 'I bought some flies in Dere Hampton, the place where I'm living. And I've borrowed a couple of rods from one of the doctors. You need nothing apart from your hat and your waders.'

  'All packed,' said Jorge, motioning towards the boot. 'Salmon trout, eh? Let's see if they'll give us a bit of a fight.' He sat, heedless of the flat west London sprawl that was building in density through the window, his mind already in clear English rivers, the whir of the line as it flew through the air and landed a length of water in front of him.

  'How's Mama?'

  Jorge regretfully left the bubbling waters behind. He had wondered for much of the plane journey how much to tell him. 'You know your mama,' he said carefully.

  'Has she been anywhere lately? Will she leave the house with you?'

  'She . . . she's still a little worried about the crime situation. I cannot persuade her that things are improving. She watches too much Cronica, reads El Guardian, Noticias, that kind of thing. It's not good for her nerves. Milagros has been living with us full-time - did I tell you?'

  'No.'

  'I think your mother likes to have someone else in the house when I'm not around. It makes her . . . more easy in herself.'

  'She didn't want to come here with you?' His son was staring out of the taxi window, so it was hard to tell from his voice whether he was regretful or glad.

  'She's not so keen on aeroplanes these days. Don't worry, son. Milagros and she, they rub along quite well together.'

  The truth was, he was glad to have a little break from her. She had become obsessed with the idea of the supposed affair he was having with Agostina, his secretary, while simultaneously berating him for his lack of interest in her. If he would only agree to tighten her waist, lift her cheeks, he might find her more attractive. He tended to say little in denial - years of experience had shown him that this often made her worse - but he could never articulate the truth: that not only was he getting on, he no longer felt the intense need for physical reassurance he once had. And years of slicing open these young girls, of reshaping them, of padding them out and hauling them in, of carefully sculpting their most intimate parts, meant that he no longer had much more than a detached, artist's appetite for female flesh.

  'She misses you,' he said. 'I'm not telling you this because I want you to feel guilty. God knows, you should have some fun as a young man, see the world a little. But she misses you. She's packed you some mate in my bag, and some new shirts, and a couple of things she thought you might want to read.' He paused. 'I think she would like it if you wrote a little more often.'

  'I know,' said Alejandro. 'Sorry. It's been . . . a strange time.'

  Jorge looked sharply at his son. He was going to probe a little, but changed his mind. They had four days together, and at least one day's fishing lined up. If Alejandro had something on his mind, he would find out soon enough. 'So, London, eh? You'll like the Lansdowne Hotel. Your mother and I came here in the 1960s when we were first married, and we had a ball. This time I have booked us a twin room. No point in being separated, not after all these months. Me and my boy, eh?'

  Alejandro grinned at him, and Jorge felt the familiar pleasure at being in the company of his handsome son. He thought of how Alejandro had held him tightly, pulling him close at the airport gates, kissing his cheeks, a drastic progression from the reserved handshakes he had habitually bestowed, even as a small boy returning from boarding-school. They said travel changed you, Jorge thought. Maybe, in this cold climate, his son was finally thawing out a little. 'We'll be boys together, eh? We'll hit the best restaurants, a few nightclubs. Live a little. There's a lot to catch up on, Turco, and a lot of good times to be had doing it.'

  Jorge's conference finished every day at four thirty, and while the other delegates met in bars, admired glossy photographs of each other's handiwork and muttered about their colleagues' supposed butchery behind their backs, he and his son set about a frantic bout of evening activities. They visited a friend of Jorge's, who lived in a stucco-fronted house in St John's Wood, went to see a West End show, although neither liked theatre, took drinks at the bar of the Savoy, and had tea at the Ritz, where Jorge insisted the waiter take their picture ('It's all your mama asked for,' he said, as Alejandro tried to disappear beneath the table). They talked of medical practice, of Argentinian politics, of money and mutual friends. Drunk, they clapped each other on the back, and said what a great time they were having, how good it was to be together, how the best times were to be had by men alone. Then, more drunk, they became tearful and sentimental, expressing their sorrow that Alejandro's mother couldn't be there too. Jorge, while gratified to see these unusual displays of emotion from his son, was aware that something was yet to be told. Alejandro had said a friend had died, and this explained something of his change in character, something of the sorrow that hung about him, but it didn't explain the tension, a fine yet increasing anxiety that even Jorge, a man with the emotions of a carthorse, as his wife often told him, could sense in the atmosphere.

  He asked him nothing directly.

  He was not sure that he wanted to know the answer.

  Cath Carter's house was two doors along from her late daughter's, a throwback to the days when council policy tried to put family members near each other. Jessie had told Suzanna stories of families whose members occupied whole cul-de-sacs, grandmothers next to mothers, sisters and brothers whose children had melded into an amorphous family group, running in and out of each other's homes with the confident possession of the extended family.

  Cath's house, however, couldn't have been more different from her daughter's. Where Jessie's front door and gingham curtains spoke of an esoteric taste, a love of the bright and gaudy, an irreverence reflected in her character, Cath's spoke of a woman certain of her own standing; its neat floral borders and immaculate paintwork betrayed a determination to keep things orderly. And this from a woman embedded in chaos, Suzanna thought, averting her eyes from Jessie's front door. She did not want to think of her last visit to that house. She wasn't convinced she wanted to be here at all. The morning school run had just finished, and the estate was dotted with mothers pushing prams, others carrying newspapers and cartons of milk purchased from the mini-mart down the road. Suzanna walked on, her hands thrust deep into her coat pockets, feeling the envelope she had prepared half an hour earlier. If Cath wasn't there, she wondered, should she push it through the door? Or was this the kind of conversation that needed to be had face to face?

  There was a photograph of Jessie in the front w
indow, her hair in bunches, the familiar grin on her face. It was bordered in black. There were what looked like around forty cards of remembrance around it. Suzanna glanced away from them, and rang the doorbell, conscious of the curious stares of passers-by.

  Cath Carter's hair had gone white. Suzanna stared at it, trying to remember what shade it had been before, then caught herself.

  'Hello, Suzanna,' Cath said.

  'I'm sorry I haven't been round,' she said. 'I wanted to. I just--'

  'Didn't know what to say?'

  Suzanna blushed.

  'It's okay. You wouldn't be the only one. At least you came, which is more than most. Come on in.' Cath stepped back, holding open the door, and Suzanna walked in, her step leaden on the immaculate hall carpet.

  She was shown into the front room and directed towards a sofa, from where she could see the back of the framed picture and the cards, a few of which were turned inwards towards the little room. It was the same layout as Jess's house had been, the interior as pristine, but the atmosphere was loaded with grief.

  Cath moved heavily across the room, and sat down on the easy chair opposite, folding her skirt under her with careworn hands.

  'Emma at school?' Suzanna asked.

  'Started back this week. Half-term.'

  'I came . . . to see . . . if she was okay,' Suzanna said awkwardly.

  Cath nodded, glanced unconsciously at her daughter's picture. 'She's coping,' she said.

  'And to say - if there's anything I can do to help . . .'

  Cath tilted her head enquiringly.

  There was a photograph behind her on the mantelpiece, Suzanna noted, of the family all together, with a man who must have been Jessie's father holding Emma as a baby. 'I - I feel responsible,' she said.

  Cath shook her head briskly. 'You're not responsible.' There was a huge weight in the words she left unspoken.

  'I really just wondered . . . perhaps if I could . . .' she reached into her pocket and held the envelope in front of her '. . . contribute anything?'