A Cry from the Dark (20 page)

“He didn't need to figure prominently. Vanity hates pinpricks. Just a casual aside, a dismissive sneer, a cruel joke, would be enough. He could easily have feared that sort of treatment. He knows you don't like him, I'm sure.”

“He certainly knows he doesn't impress me. I'm so old I don't think he's thought about liking one way or the other. When he stayed here, when he first arrived, he tried to treat me as an irrelevancy, but I wasn't going to put up with that.”

“This all ties up with
vanity,
doesn't it? The child or adolescent thinking he's the center of the universe.”

“Maybe. But I still don't think Mark is capable of this…I tell you one thing: if he
did
do it, you'll find evidence against him. He's not bright enough to have thought of everything.”

“Then we don't have to worry: There's no danger of his not getting caught, is there?”

“Bettina?”

“Hello, Hughie. Who else could it be?”

“Sylvia's voice is quite like yours. But of course a bit more Australian.”

“Of course. But Sylvia moved back to Mark's flat several days ago.”

“You're not nervous on your own? You really are all right?”

“I really am all right,” said Bettina, concealing her exasperation. “What are you ringing about, Hughie?”

“I have a very faint trace, a possible trace, of the John Mawurndjurl picture. Don't get your hopes up—”

“You've already raised my hopes. I love that picture. Hughie, why don't you come—both of you, of course—to a little farewell drinks gathering I'm giving for Ollie and Sylvia? It's at the Prince Leopold—early evening, about five. They're off to the National later on.”

“At the Prince Leopold? I don't know why you bothered to move out.”

“It's at the Prince Leopold because the alternative, here, wouldn't be exactly conducive to jollity.”

Hughie cleared his throat, chastened. Bettina knew very well how to chasten him.

“Of course not. I'll be there.”

Jollity reigned only fitfully at the gathering. Ollie and Sylvia still had two more days in London, and Bettina was taking them to Windsor—one of her favorite places—the next day. This was the only time the Prince Leopold had one of its smaller private rooms available. Clare didn't add much to the jollity, and Hughie's manner suggested that attending such a gathering involved bending—even stooping—to a level he did not normally function on. Bettina was just glad that Marie had been on one of her monstrous shopping binges and sent her regrets. Peter, as so often, was the jolliest, and swapped stories with Ollie about British roads and with Mark about the sporting scene and television advertisements.

“These days they're the best things on television,” Pete said.

“Too right. Little miniature dramas,” said Mark. “That's what our director calls them.”

Seeing Pete looking at his watch, Bettina said, “And how are your miniature dramas, Peter? Someone lined up for later?”

“Nothing gets past you, does it, Bettina? Old X-ray eyes, that's you. Yes, actually I have got someone lined up to take to bingo. Quite young for a bingo fanatic, and definitely interested. We'll be going back to her place afterwards, if her hints have been anything to go by. It's a minor triumph, because there are lots of others sniffing around.”

“She must be a very odd younger woman if she finds hordes of pensioners sniffing around her a turn-on.”

Mark had been hugging himself with impatience.

“Auntie Bet, about that film of your book—”

“Oh, Mark, I was wanting to make you and Clare better known to each other. She has
lots
of contacts in the advertising world, and could be
very
useful. Clare, darling—”

That done, she and Hughie got into a huddle with Sylvia listening in, all of them now and then reaching out to take one of the delicious nothings from the Prince Leopold tray.

“So what about this ‘faint trace' of the Mawurndjurl?”

“It's a contact in Melbourne. He's been offered a picture from a British source. It's aboriginal, or aboriginal-inspired. It's been described to him as a matter of intricate lines and shapes, in browns and grays.”

“That could describe a lot of aboriginal work,” said Sylvia.

“It doesn't seem to amount to much,” said Bettina.

“It's a lead. If it doesn't amount to anything it still alerts people, and that's what we want. Dealers noticing and making contacts.”

“I love that picture so much!” said Bettina.

“I could look around a bit when I'm back in Australia,” said Sylvia. “It seems logical that that's where the thief would try to sell it. And I remember it quite well. It sort of brought me up every time I went out the door.”

“
Would
you keep an eye open?” said Bettina, feeling oddly pleased. “I'd be so grateful. And we would be keeping in touch.”

For a moment Bettina thought, I'll leave my art collection to my daughter. But then she thought, But what will happen to it after she dies? She might even leave it to Mark. Better to leave it to an English gallery, maybe one of the regional ones. Australian art
should
have a strong presence in Britain. It was international, like Australian fiction.

“These little fishy things are gorgeous,” said Sylvia, into the moment's silence.

“They do me very well here,” said Bettina complacently.

“So they should,” said Hughie. “You put them on the literary map.”

“The literary map!” scoffed Bettina. “You're obsessed with league tables and ratings and values at auction. It's very vulgar.”

“You're wrong, Bettina,” said Hughie, for whom this was an old charge. “I'm obsessed with
quality.
I like all the other stuff associated with quality—standing, current values, that sort of thing—but they come very definitely second.”

“Anyway, I don't suppose the Leopold gets anyone staying here or dining here because
The Chattering Classes
put them on some imaginary literary map.”

“As you please,” said Hughie. “I don't suppose anyone ever drank at the bar of the Folies-Bergère just because Manet painted it.”

“Actually, I bet thousands of tourists have.”

“So how is the good Inspector Murchison going?” asked Hughie casually.

“You've talked to him?”

“Oh yes. He came to quiz me on Tuesday night. I told him quite a lot about Australian art values, but I didn't have a lot else to add. Since the thief was obviously disturbed by Katie while he was on the job, the one picture he took doesn't tell us very much about whether he was an expert or not. He grabbed the Mawurndjurl either because it was just beside the door or because he had seen it in
Hi!
magazine. Or both.”

“I still can't get my brain around the idea of art thieves in Britain specializing in Australian art,” said Sylvia. “I suppose in an odd way it proclaims that it has arrived.”

Hughie raised his eyebrows. He had hastened its arrival, in his estimation, and that several decades ago.

“Don't knock your native land,” he said. “Artists, opera singers, novelists, even poets. You name it, Australia is in there buzzing.”

“Still a bit short on playwrights, architects, and one or two other things,” said Bettina. “But I'm sure Sylvia was not knocking it. And I'm not either.”

“You could have fooled me. I should think you know less than nothing about Australian architects. And not much more about playwrights.”

“More than you think, Hughie. Australia won't need you as a cheerleader while I'm around. You loathed the place, remember?”

“I loathed small-town and outback Australia,” corrected Hughie. “That's only a tiny segment, population-wise. Essentially Australia is a big-town place.”

“Maybe. I'd certainly prefer to live in Sydney than in Bundaroo if it was still my country…Anyway, I'm not sure how seriously Murchison took this art thief notion.”

“He certainly seemed to be taking it as a distinct possibility,” said Hughie. “And he struck me as a pretty bright man.”

“Oh, I think he is. But talking to me he seemed more interested in my little memory novel. I'm thinking of calling it
A Far Cry from Bundaroo,
by the way. I don't suppose Muriel Spark will sue.”

“You know there's no copyright on titles, Bettina. Why would Murchison be interested in that?”

“Victims of my vitriolic pen trying to sabotage it, that sort of thing. I take that with a pinch of salt. I can't see that my pen is that savage.”

“How can you say that? We just mentioned
The Chattering Crowd.
Kingsley Amis must have felt
flayed
by that book.”

“Odious man—served him right. And I'm glad I crucified the young Kingsley rather than the old man. He was a monster and a bore who everyone could have a go at in his later years, but he was horrible back in the fifties, well before he whizzed over to the lunatic right.”

“Well, Kingsley is dead—”

“Exactly. And if Martin is going round exacting revenge on people who didn't like his father, he'll have his work cut out.”

“So who does Murchison think might be wanting revenge or preempting revenge?”

“Any- and everyone I'm in contact with at the present time, apparently,” said Bettina briefly. She turned aside abruptly and drew Ollie and Sylvia together. “How is K—” began Sylvia, but Bettina just shook her head and silenced her before going on. “I know we'll see each other tomorrow, but since this is in the nature of a farewell I did want to say, from the bottom of what heart I have, that I have been so happy having you here. It's been, somehow, reviving—what people mean when they say ‘a tonic.' Can we keep in better touch in future, Ollie?”

“That suits me fine,” said her brother, grinning widely with pleasure. “And Dad would have been pleased.”

“Dad and Mum,” said Bettina. “Dad was only half the man I knew when he lost Mum. That's not my observation, of course. It's what he said to me just before he died…” She turned to Sylvia. “And I meant what I said about keeping in touch.”

“I'm really glad about that.” The warmth in her tone was patently sincere.

“You're wonderful because you don't expect from me what I can't give.”

“You mean love, don't you? I understand that, and maybe why. I'll settle for interest. Interest lasts longer usually.”

Kissing her and turning away, Bettina felt that that last remark was an acute one. She would part from Sylvia with genuine regret, and look forward to whatever contact they could maintain with interest, and she felt the same would be true for Sylvia. She was sure they were both similar souls—or at any rate natures: if they had met without the emotional baggage they did have, they would still have felt a kinship in attitudes, in their psychological makeup. But love? Bettina felt that love did not enter into it. Had love ever entered into it with her, in the years since the closeness to her parents? Hughie had been a wonderful intellectual stimulus, the Brighthouse boy had been just a flirtation, Cecil Cockburn had been a bit of fun, which marriage had turned sour, and Peter had been “something else”—something different in her life, something comfortable to be with. All the rest had been just bed.

Peter was the first guest to go—off to meet his bingo queen. Then Ollie and Sylvia disappeared in the direction of the underground, which their stay in London had made them quite expert in negotiating. Clare and Mark were still there. She hadn't noticed how they'd been getting on, but she did notice that, though they pretended to be going their separate ways this involved some acting on Mark's part that he was not quite up to. Bettina raised her eyebrows at Hughie and they both went over to the window that overlooked the main entrance. A minute or two later they saw the two of them leave together and go toward Mark's car. As she waited for Mark to unlock the passenger door, Clare looked up and gave a cheeky wave in the direction of the window.

“Good God! Whatever is Clare thinking of?” said Bettina.

“I'll give you one guess,” said Hughie. “Actually, I think Clare is exactly the type of managing middle-aged woman that Mark stands in need of,” he added in his prissiest tones.

“I'm not worried about what Mark needs,” protested Bettina. “What on earth can
he
offer
her
?…One guess for that, too, I suppose. Forget I spoke. What do I know about such things? One day some critic will discover a great gap at the core of all my novels and realize it's an absence of heart…What time are you meeting Marie, Hughie?”

“Not till eight.”

“Would you walk me to the park then? It's a lovely evening, and we haven't had so many of them. The café will still be going, and we can have coffee sitting out.”

They walked through the tediously well-painted streets until they got to the park, where the winding paths soothed her: the abundant and varied flowers, the shade from the trees, the nursemaids with prams, the foreign students, the people staying at the youth hostel, and the world and his wife walking in the late sunshine. They had hardly spoken so far, Hughie only to show solicitude for her greater walking difficulties. Once they were rid of all the traffic noise and fumes Bettina said, “I'm worried, Hughie.”

“Of course you are. You don't get over something like a break-in in a matter of days.”

“It's not that—not
just
that. It's the police. I didn't want to talk about it in there, but they have everyone in their sights. Even Ollie and Sylvia, though they were with me in Edinburgh at the vital time.”