Breaking the Chain (24 page)

Phoebe lay comfortably in bed reading Nancy’s diaries. She was feeling a lot better.

12 April 1961. I suppose the biggest news of the day is that the Russians have won the race to put the first man into space – a terrific achievement and one with tremendous consequences for the future. P. was rather scathing about it, of course. He’s anti science in the way that superior Arts people always are. I found out something extraordinary about the Moon family today when P. baldly announced that they had adopted a 14-year-old boy! He showed me a studio portrait he’d had taken of the whole family including Brendan, the newcomer. I have waited for years to see what all his children look like, and was fascinated by their strong resemblance to their father. I picked out Brendan at once by his brown eyes and his lack of strong Moon features. ‘No,’ P. said, pointing. ‘That’s Hereward. This is Brendan.’ ‘But that one can’t be yours and Hope’s,’ I said, looking at the brown-eyed Hereward (poor young man having to go through life with a ridiculous name like that!), ‘because you’ve both got blue eyes and blue eye colour is a recessive gene.’ P. looked vexed and uncharacteristically flustered and then reluctantly told me the whole story. It seems that before he knew me, P. had an affair with an actress who bore him a son (in 1947) called Brendan. P. kept in contact with the boy and (all unknown to Hope) paid for his education. Now the actress has suddenly died and P. feels he has to take the boy on. Hope was not surprisingly dead against this idea, but P. says he insisted upon it. It was when I disbelievingly asked him ‘How?’ that I got my greatest shock. It seems that I’m right and that Hereward is not P.’s son at all, but the result of Hope’s brief fling with a bishop! (She’s gone up in my estimation.) P. says he didn’t suspect
the child’s parentage at all until two years later when Hope gave birth to the girl she’d always wanted, but the baby was stillborn. Hope in her grief apparently thought it was Divine retribution, and confessed all. The gruesome thing, to my mind, is that P. accepted the boy as his own but seems to have used his existence all this time as a form of moral blackmail – a way of keeping Hope in order. She had no idea, of course, that he also had had a child by someone else, and he’s kept her in ignorance all these years until now, when he can make use of it. She didn’t want to take Brendan on, but P had Hereward as a kind of hold over her – tit for tat. ‘I took your bastard in, so you must do the same for mine.’ He told it to me in such a matter-of-fact way, as though the logic of it was unassailable, but he had a glint of pure triumph in his eyes, which utterly unnerved me. I find myself feeling so sorry for H. and understanding her so much more. My feelings for P. are confused. For sometime now I’ve known that we’ve lost that lovely trusting passion which can overrule all common sense and carry one off, laughing. I suppose I find I can’t love him unconditionally any more. There are facets of his character which really appal me (like today’s revelations), but in spite of that I find I still want him. Our arrangement is ideal for me – casual but regular. I shall just be careful not to invest any more of my dreams in him. Perhaps this is what they mean by life beginning at 40 – a down-to-earth pragmatic sort of a life?

Phoebe lay back on her pillows, amazed. Her father-in-law had been a total shit! She felt sorriest for Brendan. What must it have been like as an awkward adolescent to have been foisted upon a family who didn’t want you, with Hope as an unwilling stepmother? Phoebe couldn’t imagine. Then she felt sorry for Hope too. What a position to be in! It explained things … why Hope favoured Herry and his family so much, and, yes, of course, it explained Peter’s will. Phoebe thought, I must tell Duncan. It will help him so much if he knows the truth. To know the truth is to understand, and to understand is perhaps to forgive. But, she thought, if I do that I shall have
to confess to having the diaries … and inevitably the bestiary too.

She had had at the back of her mind for some time that the bestiary would be her insurance for the future; a valuable asset to fall back upon, should her marriage fail. It had given her the peace of mind to stay where she was, knowing that in a crisis anytime she could just leave, sell it and live on the proceeds. She supposed that this was the reason she had kept quiet about it for so long. She wanted it by her, just in case. She felt guilty about having it, of course, but the more she read the diaries the more she felt entitled to the bestiary, as though she alone was Nancy’s champion and rightful heir.

Phoebe wanted very much to tell Duncan everything straightaway, but something held her back. She thought she would wait and see whether things went on getting better between them. They had started to, and were promising but would they last? She and Duncan had had more talks, and Duncan had actually promised to try harder to communicate on a deeper level with her and even to be tidier. Phoebe in her turn had undertaken to be less critical and more understanding. If he really did make the effort, she knew she would go more than halfway to meet him. She decided to hold back until Duncan had proved conclusively that he really was committed to their marriage. Then she would confess to having both the diaries and the bestiary (which they could sell and divide the loot between all the brothers) and there would be no further thought in her head about splitting up. She would be Mrs Moon for ever.

On Tuesday when she was over her flu, they made love for the first time since the foam bath and massage fiasco. Phoebe was relieved to find that it worked adequately enough, even if it was less than wonderful, but she was not prepared for the thoughts which came unbidden to her mind at crucial moments. Images of Fay appeared. Phoebe wondered what lovemaking with another woman would be like …

Afterwards, as Duncan slept beside her, Phoebe lay awake and worried about herself. Was her curiosity about Fay normal,
or was she a latent gay as well? Was that partly why Duncan had showed so little interest in her during their marriage? Wasn’t she attractive to a man any more? What nonsense! she told herself. I’ve always been entirely heterosexual. There’s absolutely nothing unnatural about me … but the thought persisted and unsettled her.

On Wednesday, the morning of Peter’s funeral, Duncan was up early. He hadn’t slept well the night before and had lain awake worrying about how the cremation service would go and whether he would manage not to break down in public and disgrace himself. He needed something to do now, to take his mind off things. It was too early to take Diggory to kennels for the night. They didn’t open until nine o’clock. He made himself a pot of tea and sat at the kitchen table fretting. Phoebe was still asleep upstairs. He had managed to slip out of bed without waking her and noticed in passing how sweet and childlike she looked. He had felt heartened by their recent discussions and surprised at how much better he had felt when he had unloaded some of his pent-up misery onto her willing ears. She had been right about that after all. He found himself jolted into the realization that she had a point and that he
could
do practical things to make their life together run more smoothly.

He could do something useful now. The dirty-clothes basket in the bathroom was bulging, with shirts and socks and towels spilling out from under its woven lid. He remembered he had had trouble stuffing the last ones in. Duncan finished his tea and got up from the table. Then he tiptoed quietly upstairs again and sorted out a load of clothes to wash, congratulating himself on remembering that dark colours had to be done separately. He gathered them all up in one of the towels, crept downstairs again and through into the utility room. It took a moment or two before he could work out how to open the damn door on the washing machine, and there wasn’t enough space in the room to allow him to get down to its level, but he finally worked it out and stuffed the clothes inside, together with a hollow ball thing which he filled with liquid soap. He switched it on and nothing happened. Duncan waited, puzzled. Still nothing happened. He frowned. It should be filling with water. Perhaps Phoebe turned the two inlet taps off every time.
He reached over and turned them on, and the machine hissed into life.

Feeling justifiably pleased with himself, he went back into the kitchen and made a pot of tea, carrying it upstairs to Phoebe and managing to negotiate the door at the bottom of the stairs to exclude Diggory. Mindful of last time’s disaster, he put the tray down on the windowsill and carried the mugs from it one at a time. Phoebe sat up in bed blinking and rubbing her eyes.

‘Oh Duncan,’ she said, ‘how lovely,’ and leant over to give him a kiss. They sat comfortably side by side drinking their tea. ‘How long will it take us to get to the crematorium?’ Phoebe asked.

‘Two and a h-half,’ Duncan said, ‘m-maybe three hours?’

‘Better make it three and a half to be on the safe side,’ Phoebe said, ‘in case the traffic’s bad.’

‘If y-you like,’ Duncan said. He didn’t mind either way.

‘Why isn’t he being cremated here in Somerset?’ Phoebe asked.

Duncan shrugged. ‘L-London’s his home,’ he said, ‘and a-all his friends are there and m-most of the family. It seemed the 1-logical thing to do, and M-Mother wanted it. He a-always hated the country.’

‘It would have been cheaper to cremate him here and then take just his ashes to London later on, for the service in the Temple church,’ Phoebe said, ‘but I suppose expense doesn’t really come into it at a time like this.’

Duncan nodded.

‘Who will be there?’ Phoebe asked.

‘Just about e-everyone,’ Duncan said. ‘Mother says the f-flat will be b-bursting at the seams with f-family. She went up after the i-i-inquest on Monday to get it s-sorted out.’

The inquest had brought in the expected verdict of Death by Misadventure. Duncan had not wanted to attend, so Phoebe had gone with Hope. Duncan had been grateful to her for that. He was grateful to her now just for being there.

After three leisurely cups of tea they got up. It was going to be a difficult day for Duncan, Phoebe knew, and she had resolved
to make it as easy for him as possible. He seemed to be taking his father’s death badly, much worse than his mother was. Phoebe has been surprised at how strong Hope had appeared to be at the inquest. She had been softer too, and had even taken Phoebe’s arm as they walked in from the car, and had thanked her with unaccustomed warmth at the end. Phoebe wondered if she would be as stoical today. Halfway through breakfast she heard an unexpected roaring sound and looked up, startled.

‘It’s okay,’ Duncan said. ‘It’s the w-washing machine.’

Phoebe raised an eyebrow. Duncan was looking rather smug, she thought with amusement. ‘Good for you,’ she said. ‘Wonders will never cease!’ and she reached over and kissed him on his ear. After the final spin, she got up to empty the machine, but Duncan put out a restraining hand.

‘I’ll d-do it,’ he said, going out.

‘I’ve started, so I’ll finish!’ Phoebe called in friendly mockery. She heard him opening the door and starting to pull the newly washed clothes out.

‘What the b-bloody hell …?’ he exclaimed.

‘What?’ Phoebe said. Duncan didn’t answer, so she went to see what was wrong. Duncan was pulling the last of the clothes out into the plastic laundry basket. She looked over his shoulder. They were covered with whitish bits of what looked like paper, rather like the result of accidentally including a paper handkerchief in the wash, but a thousand times worse! A whole box of tissues would have been needed to produce this degree of chaos.

‘What on earth …?’ Phoebe began.

Duncan reached into the machine and felt about inside it. When he withdrew his hand he was holding the soggy, distorted, partially pulped remains of what looked like a small book, with blue covers and a black ribbon bookmark. The truth dawned on Phoebe with a sudden guilty clarity. She felt her cheeks blush a flaming red.

‘What’s this,’ Duncan asked, ‘and how did it g-g-get in here?’

Phoebe had realized that it must be Nancy’s diary for 1960. She had finished reading it just before she had flu. She must have forgotten to take it out of its day hiding place, when she had felt ill and gone early to bed! Wildly, and for only seconds,
Phoebe considered lying to Duncan and inventing some story about a book, any book, to explain its presence there, but she realized straightaway that it would be unbelievable. Things were getting so much better between her and Duncan. She couldn’t risk being found out and jeopardizing that progress. She had been going to tell him about Nancy’s diaries all along. Now it would just be sooner than she had intended.

‘Oh Lord,’ she said. ‘I put it in there. I never meant it to get washed! What a hideous mess.’

‘But what i-i-is it?’ Duncan said. ‘And why p-put it there?’

‘It’s one of Nancy Sedgemoor’s diaries,’ Phoebe confessed. ‘I found them in her flat when we went there that time, and I thought they’d be interesting so I brought them home.’

Duncan frowned. ‘You didn’t s-say,’ he said. ‘Why the s-s-secrecy?’ He dropped the ruined diary into the bin and turned to confront her. ‘What is all this?’ he demanded.

‘I’m sorry, Duncan. I
was
going to tell you about them,’ Phoebe said earnestly. ‘Please believe me. I was just waiting until the right moment. I’ve been reading through them, you see, and I used to hide them in there during the day to keep them safe …’

‘To stop me from f-f-finding them, you mean,’ Duncan said icily.

‘No,’ Phoebe said. ‘Well … yes, I suppose so.’ It had seemed harmless enough at the time. Now she saw only how shabby it must appear to Duncan. ‘There’s something else I was going to tell you as well,’ she said. ‘It’s
good
news.’

‘Go on.’ Duncan was still regarding her coldly.

‘It’s about Nancy’s bestiary,’ Phoebe said, plunging in as a desperate attempt to put things right. ‘I found it with the diaries and I rescued it too. It’s –’

‘You’ve got the b-b-b-bestiary?’ Duncan sounded incredulous.

‘Yes,’ Phoebe said. Surely he would be pleased to hear it was safe? ‘So you’ll be able to sell it and give lots of money to all your brothers – except Brendan – and it won’t matter any more about the –’