An Immoral Code (19 page)

‘Good grief! Rachel! Why on earth didn’t you ring?’

‘I did, but you weren’t in,’ said Rachel. The cold had woken Oliver up and he began to squall. Mrs Dean glanced down at him and backed into the hallway, opening the door to let them both in.

It was warm in the hallway, too warm, and the air was filled with the smell of whatever Mrs Dean had had for supper.

‘Well, this is a surprise.’ There was no particular warmth or cheerfulness in Mrs Dean’s voice. ‘You’d better come through.’ Rachel dumped the bags and followed her mother down to the little living room, Oliver now wailing lustily. ‘Not,’ added her mother over her shoulder to her daughter, ‘that it’s terribly convenient. It is Christmas, you know.’

Rachel sighed, and began to wonder whether she shouldn’t just have stayed in London.

Anthony and Camilla walked from the restaurant down to the Tube. They parted at the ticket barrier, Anthony to take his westbound train to Kensington, Camilla the Northern line to Kentish Town. There was nothing in this, Anthony told himself. He had no intention of kissing her goodnight, or anything like that. This was purely platonic. Besides, Camilla didn’t look as though she expected anything like that. Still, just after he had said goodnight to her, he found himself adding, ‘Are you especially busy over Christmas?’

‘No,’ she replied, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Not especially.’

‘I thought we might go out some time. See a film, have dinner.’

She nodded, then glanced away. ‘Yes. Yes, that would be great.’ She turned and went down the steps, and Anthony found himself standing and watching her until she was completely out of sight.

When Leo got home on Friday evening, he noticed immediately that Rachel’s car was gone. As he came in through the front door, Jennifer was coming downstairs with a zipped-up holdall and her coat, ready to go off home for the holiday.

‘Did – ah – did Rachel say where she was going when she went out?’ he asked the girl. That was another thing – he would have preferred Jennifer to address them as Mr and Mrs Davies, but Rachel had insisted from the beginning that she and Jennifer should call one another by their Christian names and there was no going back now. Jennifer, however, never addressed Leo by his Christian name – she never addressed him as anything at all.

‘No. No, she didn’t,’ replied Jennifer. ‘She must have gone out when I was having a shower.’ Jennifer’s eyes met Leo’s, and their expression was blank. Leo was very conscious, suddenly, of Jennifer’s complete understanding of the tensions in the household, and of how her knowledge gave her a curious kind of power. ‘She took Oliver with her,’ the girl added.

Leo nodded, standing there in his overcoat, tossing his keys lightly in his hand. He glanced away, then back at Jennifer. She
looked very pretty, he noticed, made up in a way that was not usual with her when going about her domestic chores, her hair fluffed up and gleaming. She was wearing Doc Martens, black tights and a very short skirt, and a baggy denim jacket. There was something almost insolent about her careless, youthful vitality, and the entire situation made Leo feel somehow middle-aged and impotent. The girl knew so much, said so little. She was watching him now with a bland, incurious expression approximating pity. There was an awkward pause and then, suddenly wishing to elicit from her some response that would give a clue as to what she thought about them, Leo remarked, ‘You must think us an odd household.’

She gave a vague smile and bent to pick up her holdall. ‘Every household’s odd,’ she said. ‘You just get used to it.’ Her words were those of the dispassionate observer. Of course, thought Leo, she doesn’t care what we do, so long as we pay her wages. ‘I have to get to Euston for my train,’ she added, almost apologetically, in case Leo was thinking of detaining her further in conversation.

‘Right, right,’ said Leo, turning away and dropping his keys on the table. ‘You get off. We’ll see you … after the holidays, I suppose.’

‘Yes.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘Merry Christmas.’

He glanced at her, wondering if he detected any irony. But her face betrayed nothing. She’s just a child, after all, he thought. Why should he misjudge her, invest her with non-existent malign feelings? It was paranoia. He sighed. ‘Yes. Merry Christmas, Jennifer.’

When she had gone he wandered into the kitchen, aware of the utter silence in the house. There was no note. He went upstairs, and looked in Rachel’s wardrobe. Most of her clothes were still there. In Oliver’s room his toys still lay in their box beneath the window and, as far as Leo could see, the drawers
were still full of his clothes. But she was gone, and Leo could tell from the silence that she would not be back soon. He went back downstairs and fixed himself a drink. Obviously the idea of spending Christmas together had been too painful. Where would she go? There were not many options. He didn’t think she would descend on her friend Marsha at such short notice. She’d probably gone to her mother’s in Bath. Leo rubbed his hands over his face and wondered whether he should ring her there. For some reason he felt an urge to speak to her. That was absurd, he told himself. He should be glad of her absence, for God’s sake, glad of the freedom from guilt and hostility. He should, at this moment, be hoping that it might become permanent. Then he could be himself again. But he realised, as he finished his Scotch and stared into the empty glass, that all he felt was a slight, childish anger that she should leave him all on his own at Christmas.

The smell of cigarettes and hot tea was one which Rachel always associated with her mother. It filled the kitchen as they sat there the following morning, Mrs Dean reading her
Daily Mail
and sipping tea as she smoked, while Rachel spooned baby rice into Oliver’s mouth and took the occasional bite of toast. Eventually her mother put down the paper and sighed.

‘Well, I don’t know what to suggest.’ She paused, glancing reflectively from her daughter to her grandson. Her face, naked of its make-up, had a raw, pale look. Her eyebrows, plucked to the finest line, to be pencilled in later, gave her an expression of surprised vacancy. ‘I mean, we’ve already booked the restaurant for tomorrow, and I don’t know if they could squeeze another one in. And there’s Oliver – I don’t think the girls want their Christmas lunch spoilt by a crying baby, frankly.’ Mrs Dean was referring to her cronies, five other women in their fifties who, for various reasons, were husbandless and therefore spent their time together in a variety of social pursuits.

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ said Rachel. The thought of having Christmas lunch with her mother and five cackling friends in a third-rate restaurant was not her idea of fun, anyway. She supposed she’d imagined that she and Oliver and her mother would just spend a quiet Christmas Day together. It was her own fault, she knew. During long spells of absence from her mother, she always managed to create an image of her that was not quite real, investing her with non-existent warmth and sympathy. Those qualities had been there once, Rachel thought, long ago, before the business with her father. Rachel knew her mother had never quite forgiven her for that, had always believed that for Rachel’s father to have done those things to her – the things the police said he had done – she must have somehow encouraged him. Relations between them had been difficult ever since. Yet something still brought her back to her mother. She gazed into Oliver’s wide blue eyes as she gently scraped the remains of baby rice from around his mouth with the spoon. Maybe all children were like that. Oliver banged the table of his high chair with his hands and Mrs Dean looked at him dispassionately.

‘You brought all his things, I see,’ she remarked. ‘This wasn’t just intended to be an overnight visit, was it? You still haven’t told me what’s happened between you and Leo.’

Rachel shrugged. ‘Just something. You know the way things can get between people. I had to get away for a while. I’m sorry if it’s messing up your plans …’

Mrs Dean planted the flats of her hands on the table and rose to her feet. She was still dressed in her candlewick robe, fluffy mules on her feet. ‘Oh, have no fear, Rachel, my life is going to carry on as normal. Though I don’t see why you came all this way to stay, if you can’t even tell your own mother what’s been going on.’ Her tone was childish and resentful.

‘Oh, Mum, it wouldn’t help if I told you. I came because I
wanted to see you, I needed somewhere to go over Christmas. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t need to be asked.’

Mrs Dean folded her arms and regarded her daughter. ‘Your trouble is, Rachel, you don’t like men. You’ve got a coldness about you. I can imagine what it is between you and Leo. That kind of man—’

Rachel gave a bitter laugh. ‘Mum! You don’t know anything! You don’t know anything about him or about me. Just leave it.’ She wiped Oliver’s face with his bib and then plucked him from his high chair. Why had she come? This resentful bickering would just go on and on throughout the visit. ‘Look, when I’ve got Oliver dressed I’m going to take him out. Then maybe when we come back we can all go out to lunch—’

‘Oh, I’ve already made arrangements with Connie, I’m afraid. You seem to have come here expecting me to be sitting at home, idle and friendless. I can assure you my life is quite busy enough. I really do think it is thoughtless of you just to arrive on my doorstep like this, and expect me just to drop everything, especially at Christmas.’

Rachel sighed in exasperation. ‘Right. You get on with your own plans, and we won’t interfere with them, I promise you.’ She knew that if she were to sit down and tell her all about Leo and his bisexuality and the kind of marriage they had, and explain to her why she needed to get away and think about it all, that her mother would be appalled, but mollified by the fact that Rachel had confided in her. But Rachel shrank from the idea of such intimacy. She wished there were someone she
could
tell, someone disinterested, but sympathetic and trustworthy. Whoever that person was, it certainly wasn’t her mother.

A bitter wind had sprung up as Rachel wheeled Oliver in his pushchair down the suburban streets, heading for the centre of town and the shops. The sky was white, oppressive, with grey scudding clouds, and the sight of the shop windows filled with
Christmas displays and tinsel depressed her spirits even further. Tannoys had been set up above the shops to relay seasonal music to the shoppers, and a Salvation Army band at the end of the street was chiming out ‘Silent Night’ in competition with tinny drifts of ‘Frosty the Snowman’. She and Oliver watched the band for a few moments, and then, tugging Oliver’s woollen hat further down on his ears, Rachel realised that she should probably buy her mother a Christmas present. The presents which she and Leo had, separately, bought for Oliver, were already wrapped and in the boot of Rachel’s car. She turned Oliver’s buggy around and pushed it in the direction of the antique shops in the back streets, hoping for inspiration there.

Charles Beecham cackled demonically under his breath as he slid into the last vacant parking place, deliberately avoiding the indignant eye of the old woman in the Nissan who’d been waiting to get in ahead of him. Well, it helped to be on the right side of the road, he thought to himself, as he got out, preparing to set his features into an expression of astonished innocence in case the woman confronted him. But she had driven off angrily, and Charles, smiling, got his ticket from the pay-and-display machine and locked his car. He liked last-minute Christmas shopping. He wasn’t one of those people who bought things well in advance and had them all wrapped up two weeks before Christmas. That took all the fun out of it. Anyway, he found that his most successful gifts were always purchased in an inspired last-minute panic, generally around five twenty-five on Christmas Eve. He’d already got his son, Nicholas, some books which he knew he wanted, and now it was just a matter of finding something for Chloe, his daughter, who would be coming down on Boxing Day. Chloe was usually easy – she liked oddities, knick-knacks, Victoriana. He should find something outrageously overpriced in one of the antique shops.

It was just as he was coming out of the shop with the art deco silver photo frame which he had bought for Chloe that he saw Rachel. She was standing on the other side of the street, her hands thrust into the pockets of a dark blue woollen coat, and he wouldn’t have recognised her if she hadn’t, at that moment, turned to glance momentarily to her left. He remembered that clear, sad profile instantly. Even with her long dark hair tucked into her upturned collar he recognised her. He was filled once again with that delightful, poignant shock which he had experienced on first seeing her at the Names’ party. Then he remembered that she hadn’t exactly reciprocated his feelings of instant love, and had in fact turned him down when he’d invited her to lunch. He hesitated on the pavement, wondering whether he should speak to her. No, there was no point – she’d used the fact that she was married as an excuse not to go out with him. The chap was probably somewhere around, and he didn’t feel like standing in this bitter wind making small talk to the husband of someone he fancied and could not have. Besides, he couldn’t remember her name. That was always embarrassing. But then she turned and, before he could make his escape, she saw him, and smiled in recognition. Meeting her again was inevitable, he realised, and he raised his hand in greeting and stepped across the street. She looked very pretty, and he felt a heart-warming surge of rekindled lust as they shook hands, and a sense of relief when her name came back to him.

‘Hello! This is quite a surprise!’ he said. ‘Ruth, isn’t it? Sorry, I’ve forgotten your last name.’

She smiled. ‘It’s Rachel, actually. And I remember you perfectly. I even watched your last programme. I enjoyed it very much. What are you doing in Bath?’

‘Oh, spot of shopping. You too?’

She nodded. ‘I’m trying to find something for my mother. I’m hampered by a distinct lack of enthusiasm, however.’

‘Oh dear,’ he murmured. God, he did like that smile of hers. How could he have forgotten her? How could he even have been casting an eye at that Boxer woman when there was someone like this in the world? He suddenly had the feeling that she was on her own. There didn’t seem to be a hubby hovering around. ‘Why don’t we go and have a coffee? Maybe the warmth will inspire you. I’m getting frozen standing here, to be honest.’

‘That’s a good idea.’ She turned away, and he saw her reach out to the pushchair standing by the shop window. All he could see of Oliver were two fat red cheeks and staring blue eyes. The rest of him was covered in hat, mittens and blanket. Oh God, she had a baby. Well, what did he expect? Anyway, it wasn’t as though he was going to seduce her in a coffee shop. Still, it did hamper things, somehow.

‘And who’s this handsome young man?’ he hazarded, hoping that it wasn’t a girl. Didn’t look like a girl, but one never knew.

‘This is Oliver,’ said Rachel, smiling, and bending down to stroke his face. The baby smiled back at Rachel, then the smile faded to inscrutable blankness as he turned his gaze on Charles. Boy doesn’t like me, thought Charles. He knows I have designs on his mother.

‘Come on. There’s a place I know round the corner.’

In the café the windows were misted with steam, and the ubiquitous faint jingle of Christmas music filled the air.

‘Right,’ said Charles, setting down two cups of coffee on the Formica-topped table. ‘Tell me the story of your life.’ He spooned sugar into his coffee and stirred it.

‘Hmm. That wouldn’t make for very festive conversation, I can assure you. Who were you buying presents for?’

‘My daughter Chloe. She’s coming down on Boxing Day with her brother. I’ve already bought Nicholas his presents. A life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and a book about the Rossettis. Keen on that kind of thing, you know.’