Almost a Crime (24 page)

Sandy had been half asleep in front of the television; it

was, he often said, his main hobby these days. He fought his

way back to reality through a fog of the best part of a bottle

of Beaujolais.

‘Yes,’ he said, standing up, switching the TV off. ‘Yes, in

here, in the breakfast room. Want a cup of tea?’

‘Yes, please,’ she said, coming in and sinking on to the

old sofa. ‘That would be lovely. I’m awfully tired. Dickon’s

asleep in the car.’

‘I’ll get him in. How’s your mum?’

‘Dying in front of our eyes. The hardest thing is not to

let her see it herself. Being brave and cheerful and

pretending—’

‘She’s not stupid,’ said Sandy carefully. ‘Don’t you think

she knows?’

‘Sandy, if she knows, she’s pretending too. It’s her way of

coping.’ Her voice was sharp; she was clearly struggling to

be patient, not reproachful.

Sandy felt instantly clumsy and insensitive: as he did most

of the time with Louise. ‘Sorry. Sorry, darling.’

‘They’re talking about getting further nursing help now.

Daddy and Janet and the District just aren’t enough any

more.’

‘So — how long? Do they think?’

‘Oh, weeks. Possibly less. I hope less, in an awful way.

It’s so terrible to see her like this. She can hardly eat now,

and what she does often comes up again. Oh, dear.’

She started to cry; Sandy sat down beside her, put his arm

round her. She was very thin; thinner than he could ever

remember, even after — well, after then. That.

‘This is an awful lot for you to cope with,’ he said,

suddenly. ‘And coming back here all the time, to look after

me. It adds to the strain. Why don’t you just stay there?

Until - well …’

‘Oh, Sandy, no. I can’t abandon you. You’ve got a lot on

your plate at the moment as well, it’s not fair.’

‘It’s fine,’ he said, ‘as long as you have Dickon with you.

I obviously can’t cope with him.’

‘I know you can’t. Of course I’d take him. Oh, Sandy,

it’s so sweet of you. I really don’t deserve you.’

‘Yes, you do,’ he said, ‘and it’s nice to be able to do

something for you for a change. Now look, drink this tea

and I’ll go and get Dickon from the car.’

He undressed Dickon, and tucked him up in bed.

‘Night night, old man.’

‘Daddy, Granny’s very ill, you know,’ Dickon said, his

dark eyes very large. ‘I’m frightened she’ll die. Like Juliet.’

Sandy couldn’t think what to say. Dickon’s terror of

death completely defeated him. ‘Granny’s very strong,’ he

said finally. ‘And doctors are very clever these days.’

That was wrong, he supposed; Louise and the child

psychiatrist had both insisted Dickon should be always told

the truth, said he must confront and be helped through his

fears, not led away from them. Sandy, who found any

emotional confrontation difficult, felt uneasy with that.

Anna was almost certainly going to die, but Dickon should

be spared from that knowledge for as long as possible in his

view; he wasn’t yet five years old. Equally he disliked the

insistence that Dickon must realise what death actually

meant; Sandy was not religious himself, but when his own

grandparents had died, he had been told they had moved on

from earth to heaven, where they were having a very pleasant time indeed, up above the clouds, sitting among

flocks of angels. The thought of them being up there

together and probably with their two smelly old Jack

Russells and his grandmother’s hunter had comforted him a

lot. By the time he had grown out of that vision, he had

grown out of his grief at losing them; he couldn’t see why

Dickon couldn’t be fed with the same harmless nonsense.

‘So she probably might get better, then?’ he said now, looking up at his father, his voice more hopeful.

‘She probably might.’ That wasn’t actually a lie; extraordinary

things happened to cancer patients. You heard about

them all the time. ‘So don’t you worry about her, old chap.

Just be nice and brave and cheerful for her and Mummy,

and that’ll help a lot.’

‘I will.’ Dickon’s eyes were closing. “Night, Daddy. You

go and look after Mummy. She hasn’t been very well on

the way home. She told me not to tell you.’

‘Really?’ said Sandy. ‘What sort of not very well?’

‘She was sick. She—’

‘Dickon—’ it was Louise’s voice, speaking from the door — ‘you promised, I didn’t want to tell Daddy, make him more worried. Sandy, I’m fine. Honestly. Good night,

darling one, give Mummy a kiss …”

‘What sort of not very well?’ said Sandy again, as they went

downstairs.

‘Oh, hideous sore throat. Had it all day. Nothing to

worry about, honestly. But they make you feel rotten all

over, those things.’

‘Poor old you. I’ll find you the Lemsip.’

‘Would you, darling? Thank you.’

She did look rotten, he thought; it undoubtedly added to

the exhaustion. The familiar old raw panic gripped him;

then he pulled himself together. She absolutely could not be

pregnant. It still haunted him, that — despite everything he

had done, despite her passionate avowals that she would

never, ever even consider it. He thanked God, or the power that he imagined to be God, not to mention medical science, every day, every week, every month, most

fervently every month, that she couldn’t be pregnant, that

they weren’t ever going to have to go through that again.

When Octavia was getting dressed next day, she pulled the

handkerchief out of her drawer by mistake. It made her feel

very odd; she threw it down on the bed as if it was

something obscene, something she couldn’t bear to touch,

and stood staring at it for quite a long time, her eyes boring

into it, as if it could tell her something, trying to summon

up some kind of image from it: almost as if, she thought,

and had to laugh at herself, it was a latterday Turin Shroud.

It stopped seeming funny quite quickly.

She folded it up again and wrapped it very carefully in

some tissues and put it in her briefcase to take to the office.

She didn’t want it at home, but she felt she had to keep it; it

was important, central to her strange new life. Then she

went and washed her hands, several times. Like Lady

Macbeth, she thought distractedly.

She felt very tired that day; she had slept badly the night

before. Tom had been very late, and, until she heard his car,

she’d tortured herself with visions of him in Her bed,

wondering what She was like in bed and how She behaved,

and in the end began to feel she was watching some porn

movie. She had finally taken a sleeping pill at three, had

found waking up almost impossible, struggling out of a

thick, dry-mouthed fog, had taken a taxi to work early, not

daring to drive.

She was drinking a strong coffee when her phone went.

It was Tom, Tom sounding slightly distant, and she heard

her voice, not tearful at all, saying, ‘Yes?’

‘Just to let you know,’ he said, ‘that I’ve just had a call

from Michael Carlton. He said the meeting with you went

well. He seemed pleased. I just thought I should thank you.’

‘That’s all right,’ she said, and put the phone down quite

gently. Only the thought of what she was going to do for

Patricia David and Barries Wood kept her from slamming it viciously enough for him to hear.

‘I saw Michael Matthews last night,’ said Tom, ‘MP for

Romford North. He’s very interested in this takeover of

yours, going to table a few questions for us.’

‘Good. I’ve balloted the shareholders,’ said Nico Cadogan,

‘and presented the streamlined new company to them,

as you said. All we can do now is pray, I suppose.’

‘I think you’re paying me to do a bit more than that,’ said

Tom, laughing.

‘Maybe. Very good day at Ascot, by the way. I enjoyed

it. Thank you. You must let me take you and Octavia to

dinner one evening soon.’

‘That would be very nice,’ said Tom, ‘thank you.’

‘She’s very bright, your wife, as well as beautiful. You’re

a lucky man.’

‘I hope so,’ said Tom.

It seemed to Cadogan an intriguing reply.

‘This is marvellous, Octavia!’ Patricia David’s voice was

breathless with pleasure. ‘We could never have done

anything as good as this. Thank you so much.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Octavia. ‘It was quite easy, really. I

went there, you know, to the wood, and it can’t be

allowed. But you really will have to do much more than

issue that press release, and put up a few of those notices.

Now, as long as it’s turned down at local level, you’ve got

time on your side. They’ll appeal, it’ll take months, with

luck. But if it’s true, the rumour that it’s going to be passed

— well, that’s more difficult.’

‘What should we do?’

‘I’ll try and find out for you. I’m better informed on

getting planning permission than fighting it. But let’s see.

You should hear this week, I understand.’

‘Yes. After the planning meeting. Two days’ time.

Anyway, I’m going to whack this release of yours out to the

local papers right now.’

‘Yes, do. And no reason why you shouldn’t try the

nationals. The Guardian would be a good idea, and the Independent. They’re the greenest papers.’

‘Thank you. Octavia, we’re so lucky to have you on our

side.’

‘Yes, well, remember, just keep quiet about it,’ said

Octavia. ‘I really mean it, Patricia. It would do you, never

mind me, huge harm if it got out I was involved in all this.’

God, she thought, putting the phone down. This really

was playing with fire. The funny thing was, it was making

her feel so much better.

Melanie came in. ‘Hi. Everything okay? Look, we’ve had

a call from your friend Lauren Bartlett. She wants us to call

her. Next Generation, I presume. Do you think we’ve got a

chance there after all? It would be marvellous to get it, such

high profile, a real honeypot account, and Diana’s rumoured

to be very interested.’

‘I really don’t know,’ said Octavia.

Lauren Bartlett was in a hurry. ‘Big dinner party for Drew.

I’m frantic. I’ve got to get the flowers and my hair done

before the cook arrives. Now look. We’ve decided we

might like your firm to help us with our day at Brands

Hatch. We really are just slightly out of our depth, so

providing we can meet on the fee—’

‘Lauren,’ said Octavia firmly, ‘our fee is fixed. We don’t

work for less, for anyone.’

‘Not even friends?’

‘Well—’ She knew Melanie could bend the rules to get

this one. ‘Well, we could talk about it.’

‘Oh, I see. I have to say, if it’s not possible, there could

be a problem. Anyway, there’s something else. There’s a

children’s hospice we make a grant to each year, which is

under threat. Basically it needs rehousing, and a lot more

money than we can possibly supply. We’ve applied for

lottery money, of course, but we’re not hopeful. Needless

to say, our old friends the cuts are to blame. Tom knows all

those MPs, do you think he could help?’

‘I really don’t know,’ said Octavia.

‘This is what I thought. We’d like to come in to your

company and have a meeting; if we made it towards the end

of the working day, I thought Tom could join us, you and

me, that is, afterwards. Discuss what he might be able to

do.’

The arrogance was breathtaking. ‘I will ask,’ she said, ‘see

if he has any ideas.’

That was usually enough; people felt soothed into a sense

of security, usually false, by the notion that Tom Fleming,

who famously spent half of his working life at the House or

so he encouraged people think — would address his brain

and contacts to their problems.

Lauren was not most people.

‘No, I’m afraid that’s not good enough, Octavia. I want

to discuss it with him personally. Could you put it to him?’

‘Yes, of course, but I can’t promise—’

‘No, I realise that. Now how about next week for the

meeting, Tuesday, say? Tuesday afternoon. That would suit

me very well. I’ve another dinner party on Monday and the

theatre on Wednesday, so — yes, Tuesday. We could come

in at four thirty?’

Octavia looked at her diary; it was enragingly empty. ‘All

right by me. Let me just check with my partner, Melanie

Faulks.’ Melanie was also free; Octavia gritted her teeth,

went back to the phone. ‘Yes, that’s fine.’

‘Good. And you’ll speak to Tom?’

I try not to these days, Octavia thought, a sudden sadness

sweeping over her, but, ‘Yes, I will ask him of course.’

Tom said he couldn’t possibly meet anyone anywhere next

Tuesday; he had to attend a meeting with Nico Cadogan

and his bankers in London, and then had a late meeting in

Oxford. ‘I probably won’t be back that night.’

‘Any other day next week?’ said Octavia. She hated this,

but Lauren Bartlett’s account probably hung on Tom’s

association with it.

‘No, sorry,’ he said shortly.

‘Well,’ she said with an enormous effort, ‘could I suggest