Breaking the Chain (20 page)

There was a double clang from the back door and Phoebe saw that Geronimo had left the house via a cat-flap. He was free to come and go as he wished. She understood that all she had to do was to provide food and keep a warm house. Geronimo did not require any further service of her. She realized that in fact she could have done with his company that morning. Perhaps this was the edge that cats had over dogs; they were able to play hard to get until you were well and truly hooked.

Phoebe looked about her for something to do to kill the morning until it was time to go to Fay’s. She collected up the dirty bed linen, put it into the washing machine with some soap powder and turned it on. Then she watched for a while as it went round and round. She hoped she had done the right thing in letting the boys go out with Poppy …

Fay was amused at Phoebe’s reaction to her borrowed flat.

‘It’s amazing,’ Phoebe exclaimed, fingering the tapestries on the walls and nervously avoiding the collection of tall Chinese vases on the floor. ‘It’s so full of
things!
It’s overpowering. Whatever will you do with them when Jack comes? Won’t they all get broken?’

‘I’m planning to move all the breakables into the study and lock the door,’ Fay said. ‘It’s a collector’s paradise, isn’t it? Have a good nose round if you like.’ She watched Phoebe as she walked round the sitting room. She was touched by her childlike curiosity. Phoebe was not blasé. She had no false airs of sophistication; she was open and charming. Fay thought of the owner of the flat, her friend, who had so recently proved to be a collector of people as well as of things. She felt a stab of grief, tempered by a quick anger. I will not wallow, she told herself fiercely. Phoebe’s here now, and she’s so totally different, she’ll help me to get over her. She’s a good, kind person. More than that, she’s got beautiful chestnut hair, lovely speckled hazel eyes and that wonderful almost translucent skin. Perhaps she and I …? No, Fay thought. It’s too soon.

‘Your friend must be very trusting,’ Phoebe said, ‘to let you have this place when there’s so much of her precious stuff about. She must be a very special friend?’

‘Yes,’ Fay said.

They had tea together and talked, mostly about Conrad and then Duncan. Phoebe was easy to talk to and generous in her attitudes, Fay thought. It was too bad that she had chosen to marry such a cold fish as Duncan. It was a waste of all that zest and enthusiasm. Perhaps she should encourage her to leave him? On the whole, Fay thought not. It was up to Phoebe. She herself was in no position to hand out advice!

*

Phoebe had enjoyed her visit to Fay’s flat, and regretted the need to get back to Rick’s unwelcoming house. The time had gone by too quickly and she found that she was loath to relinquish her sister-in-law’s company. Fay drove her back in the dark through the crowded streets of London, dodging taxis, changing lanes expertly and apparently impervious to the blatant discourtesy and carelessly dangerous behaviour of the other road users.

‘Everyone in London is so
aggressive,’
Phoebe complained. ‘It’s all V-signs and blaring horns. Whatever happened to good manners?’

‘Another victim of high-pressure living?’ Fay suggested. ‘It doesn’t bother me. I suppose I take it for granted.’

When they got to Rick’s house, Phoebe remembered the burglar alarm with apprehension. She wasn’t confident of doing the right thing by it.

‘Will you come in with me,’ she asked Fay, ‘and show me how to press those damn buttons?’

Fay laughed. ‘I envy you,’ she said. ‘It’s obviously a different world in Somerset!’

‘Stay until the boys get back, and eat with us?’ Phoebe urged. ‘There’s loads of instant food.’

‘Well … okay, thanks.’

They made themselves at home in Rick’s drawing room, taking off their shoes and both curling up on the two plushy sofas, facing each other across the highly polished coffee table.

‘Have a drink?’ Phoebe suggested.

‘Just tonic water for me,’ Fay said. ‘I’ve got to drive home.’

Phoebe padded across the carpet in her stockinged feet to the drinks cupboard, poured herself a generous glass and handed Fay hers. ‘What’s the time?’

‘Eight o’clock already!’

‘The boys should be home any time now,’ Phoebe said, without enthusiasm.

‘Don’t you like them?’

‘They’re a bit hard going, aren’t they? I’m not good at talking to them. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t any of my own.’

‘Is that something you’re sad about?’

‘I don’t know.’ Phoebe surprised herself by discovering that she really did not know. ‘If you’d asked me that only three months ago, I’d have said yes, without a shadow of a doubt, but now I’m not so sure.’

By half-past eight Rod and Pete had still not appeared and Phoebe and Fay were hungry. They decided to go ahead with their supper anyway.

‘We can always bung the boys’ food into the microwave when they arrive,’ Fay said.

‘Magic,’ Phoebe said. ‘Duncan doesn’t believe in convenience food, in spite of the fact that it’s never him who’s inconvenienced!’

By 9.30 Phoebe was beginning to get restless. ‘They ought to be home,’ she said. ‘Wherever can they be? The leisure centre must surely be closed by now? You will stay until they get back, won’t you?’

‘I’ll stay,’ Fay said. ‘But has it occurred to you that they may have gone somewhere else entirely?’

‘Oh God!’ Phoebe said, allowing her unease to surface in a burst of realization. ‘You think she’s abducted them! You think she’s taken them to America, don’t you? I thought those bags were too big for sports kit. I should have said so. I should have made them open them!’

‘Steady on!’ Fay said. ‘I wouldn’t say abducted exactly. I’m sure the boys would be more than willing to go to the States.’

‘But, whatever will I say to Rick? If it’s true, it’s all my fault!’

‘How can it be?’ Fay said reasonably. ‘How could you have stopped them? They’re not babes in arms.’

By midnight the boys had still not returned, and Phoebe, who had been fortifying herself with gin, was tipsily convinced of her worst fears.

‘I should have guessed,’ she said. ‘Pete nearly let the cat out of the bag this morning, but Rod squashed him. I thought it was just their usual niggling. I should have known then.’ Another thought struck her. ‘Poppy said I shouldn’t worry. She said
“These guys are safe with me.” I didn’t realize what she meant. I’m so
stupid’
She burst into tears. ‘How am I going to tell Rick?’ she wailed.

‘I’ll tell him,’ Fay said.

‘We must phone the police!’ Phoebe cried, struggling out of the depths of the sofa.

‘No,’ Fay said. ‘What could they do? She’s their mother. She’s within her rights.’

‘But Rick has custody. She’s probably not allowed to take them abroad!’

‘Is that fair? She’s their mother and it’s illegal for her to entertain her own children at home?’ ‘Well … but she did desert them.’

‘She was ill. Do you think she should be punished for that forever? You saw her, did she look like a wicked person to you?’

‘No,’ Phoebe agreed, ‘but we must do something. I feel so responsible.’ Tears ran down her face.

‘Look, Phoebe, don’t get all het up. This may be no big deal. She may well have taken them to the States. She may equally well send them home again after they’ve had a good holiday there. Either way, there’s not a lot we can do. They’re probably halfway across the Atlantic by now. It’s a job for Rick’s lawyers.’

‘But we should phone Rick,’ Phoebe said, sniffing.

‘Not tonight,’ Fay said. ‘Let’s wait until tomorrow morning at least.’ She took a linen handkerchief out of her pocket and stooped over Phoebe, gently wiping her eyes with it. ‘Maybe it’s not such a tragedy,’ she said.

‘Another breaking of the chain, you mean?’

‘I fear it’s too late for that,’ Fay said. ‘Those boys are too old. Their characters will have been set in stone by now. But in a way, yes, I suppose it may be. Come on, let me help you up to bed.’ She put an arm round Phoebe’s waist and walked with her upstairs.

‘Don’t go home,’ Phoebe said. ‘I can’t bear the thought of being here on my own.’ She felt quite overcome by guilt and by gin, so she was barely conscious of Fay helping her out of her clothes, pulling her nightie on over her head and easing her
under the duvet in the four-poster. And when Fay herself got into the other side of the bed and snuggled up to her back, it was the most comforting thing in the world. Phoebe slept.

The telephone rang on Fay’s side of the bed at 7 a.m. She groaned and fumbled for the bedside light, before sitting up properly and picking up the receiver. It was Rick.

‘Fay? What are you doing there?’ he said. He sounded curt.

‘Looking after Phoebe,’ Fay said. ‘We were going to phone you this morning. We think Poppy –’

‘She’s only fucking well taken the boys to America!’ Rick interrupted furiously. ‘I’ve just been woken by my morning call and a bloody fax from her from New York! What the hell happened? How could Phoebe have let them go? I can’t believe it! Is she there? I want to speak to her.’

‘Yes, but she’s very upset, Rick. It’s not her fault. Both Poppy and the boys deceived her. How was she to know?’

‘Any sentient being could have worked it out, surely? It doesn’t take a doctorate in anthropology, just a tiny measure of common sense, or is that too much to ask?’

‘That’s not fair, Rick.’ Fay glanced sideways at Phoebe. She was awake and looking up at her with startled eyes. Her hair was spread out on the pillow around her face. She looked like Botticelli’s Venus. ‘Rick wants a word,’ Fay said to her. ‘The boys
are
in the States.’

‘Oh God!’ Phoebe said. She sat up jerkily and took the receiver from her. ‘I’m so, so sorry …’ she began.

Fay slipped out of bed and covered her nakedness with Rick’s dressing-gown from the back of the door. It smelt of his cologne. She wondered if Phoebe was embarrassed by nudity? Fay had put the nightdress on her the night before, just in case. It had been like dressing a child. Sweet! thought Fay. Phoebe was still apologizing. Fay left her to it and went downstairs to make some tea.

When Fay came back into the bedroom, Phoebe had put on a sweater over her nightie and was sitting up in bed with the duvet bunched defensively round her. So she is shy, Fay thought, smiling at her encouragingly.

‘That was awful,’ Phoebe said.

‘Well at least we know what’s what now,’ Fay said, putting down the tray.

‘It explains Rick’s burglary too. Apparently it was Poppy’s current boyfriend. He took her marriage and divorce certificates and the boys’ birth certificates to get passports for them. That’s why nothing else was taken. Poppy told him where they were kept.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Rick said it was all in the fax. It sounds as though Poppy wanted him to know how clever she’d been.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Fay poured two mugs of tea and put them down next to the telephone. Then she got back into bed and handed one across to Phoebe. ‘Tea.’

‘Thanks.’ Phoebe looked sideways at Fay. ‘I don’t remember going to bed last night,’ she said. ‘Was I totally plastered?’

‘Pretty much,’ Fay said cheerfully.

‘I mean, did I do anything embarrassing?’

‘Now let me see …’ Fay saw Phoebe’s anxious face and relented. ‘Nothing at all,’ she reassured her.

‘Thank you for staying.’

‘It was a pleasure.’ Fay decided to explain herself in case Phoebe was wondering about her presence there. ‘The other beds in the house looked rather foetid, so I didn’t think you’d mind me sharing this one,’ she said. She hadn’t looked at any other beds, but it seemed a fair guess.

‘No,’ Phoebe blushed. ‘It’s odd to be in bed with another woman,’ she said. ‘I never have been before. What would people think!’

‘That we were lesbians?’

‘No, that’s daft, isn’t it? No one who looks as good as you could possibly be one of them.’

Phoebe drank a second cup of tea, sitting in the four-poster bed next to Fay. The events of the day before played and replayed themselves in her head like a never-ending loop of muzak. She felt punch-drunk. She didn’t know what to do next. Rick had been so furious on the telephone, so scathing. He hadn’t seemed at all relieved that the boys were safe. She said as much to Fay.

‘No, well, I don’t think he loves them the way I love my children, for instance. It’s more a sort of pride of ownership, and now they’ve been stolen from him by someone he particularly despises. I think that’s what makes him so angry.’

‘I can’t bear people being angry with me,’ Phoebe said. She felt near to tears again.

‘You poor creature,’ Fay said kindly, patting her arm. ‘You’re very thin-skinned, aren’t you?’

‘Wouldn’t you be upset?’ Phoebe demanded.

‘Not if I knew it wasn’t my fault. I’d be angry back. You should try it.’

‘I’m not strong-minded like you,’ Phoebe said.

‘You could be, if you were determined to be,’ Fay said briskly. ‘Positive thinking and all that. More tea?’

‘No,’ Phoebe said, ‘thank you. I must get myself together and decide what to do next. I suppose there’s no point my staying here now, unless Poppy brings the boys back.’

‘Rick didn’t say?’

‘Apparently there was nothing in the fax about their coming back.’

‘I should think it’s unlikely then.’

‘So I’d better go home. Oh!’ Phoebe stopped, distressed.

‘What?’

‘I forgot to phone Duncan last night! I phoned on Friday night, but last night in all the fuss about the boys, I forgot.’

‘Well, he knows Rick’s number. He could have phoned you if he was worried,’ Fay said reasonably. ‘So he probably isn’t.’

‘Oh,’ said Phoebe, ‘yes.’

‘Look, Phoebe,’ Fay said, ‘you’re all in a state. Don’t rush off today. Spend it with me and go home tomorrow when you feel better, yes?’

‘But what about the cat?’ Phoebe said inconsequentially, ‘I can’t go away anyway, and leave him!’

‘We’ll pop next door and ask the neighbour to feed him until Rick gets back,’ Fay said. ‘That’s all he needs.’

‘But …?’

‘Just say you’ll stay and spend today with me,’ Fay said.

Phoebe let out a long sigh. ‘All right,’ she said, and because
this didn’t sound very gracious, she turned and kissed Fay on her cheek. ‘Thanks,’ she said.