Frozen Music (19 page)

Elsa looked at me. Her eyes were blue and deep-set, and surprisingly sharp. ‘Maybe you shouldn't, but it's easy to be wise after the event.'

I told the investigators from the gas board everything I knew. They told me that they had not received a call from the Hammonds. ‘So you decided not to report it yourself?' the inspector, a Mr Fenton, asked me.

‘It wasn't so much a decision.' I paused, looking for understanding. ‘But they told me they were taking care of it, so I assumed they had.'

Mr Fenton looked up gravely from his notes. ‘It's as we say, Miss Fisher, never assume with gas. We didn't lodge any call from the Hammonds and now they've lost their home and Mr Hammond his arm. Mrs Hammond is in a state of shock from which, we've been told, she might never recover. And as for her leg…' Mr Fenton shook his head.

I dreamt about destruction. Each night there were different scenes: an explosion, a burning building, a sinking ship, an outbreak of a deadly virus, different calamities with one common factor: me. I would be there, in the thick of it, its undisputed cause, the queen of disaster.

‘Audrey is very concerned about Esther,' Olivia said. ‘She called me this morning. Apparently she's lost all her oomph, all her get-up-and-go. She dithers about the smallest decision, mopes around asking questions about life… it's all since that gas explosion on her street.'

‘It sounds as if she should join the Merry Group,' Lotten said.

‘The what group?' Olivia wanted to know.

‘Merry Group. I'm sure I've told you about it. It's all about finding your inner…'

‘Self,' Olivia suggested.

Lotten frowned, her thick blonde eyebrows meeting above her nose. ‘I'm not quite as stupid as you seem to think, Olivia,' she said. ‘What we learn at the Merry Group is real. It's about relying on your own quiet centre, the base core inside you. About not blowing in the wind of other people's actions and opinions. Instead, we learn how to trust ourselves and to dare to go with our instincts. Since the… since Linus's little episode, it's been invaluable to me.'

Linus shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Any social occasion lately had been a minefield of embarrassment as Lotten confessed, sooner or later, on his behalf. ‘I don't think we need to go into all that again, do we?' he mumbled, clearing his throat and feeling himself turning pink. How he hated that tittle-tattle complexion of his, how he hated everything about himself from the hair that still curled ridiculously when damp or wet, to his long-fingered hands with their insistence on drawing what no one seemed to want or understand. How he hated his fickle heart and his act of betrayal. He could feel it, all that self-hatred, seep into every part of him like some terrible exercise in reverse relaxation. Now hate your toes, feel it creep up your ankles and up your thighs. Now it's at the pit of your stomach, feeling sick yet? Your fingers tingle with it, feel them tingle, and your arms… feel that hatred seep into every pore, every cell. Your limbs are growing heavy with it.

‘No, let's just leave it for now shall we?' he said. Lotten turned to him with a faintly surprised look on her face as if she had not expected to find him there, in his own parents' flat, drinking after-dinner coffee.

‘I don't think that it's really your place to object, do you?' she said.

No, no of course not. As a sinner he had no rights, Linus had learnt that, if nothing else lately. ‘So anyway.' Lotten turned back to Olivia. ‘The group has been a life saver. Did I tell you why it's called the Merry Group?'

‘Because you're all frightfully jolly?' Bertil said from his chair in the corner of the room.

Lotten ignored him. ‘It's rather a lovely story. The founder of the programme…'

‘… American?' Bertil interjected again.

‘Dutch with an American mother, actually. Her name is Merry van Heuysen, but wait for it, her real name was Joy van Heuysen.' There was a pause while everybody tried to work out what the point was.

‘Ahh,' Olivia said, but she still looked confused. ‘She decided to change her name from Joy to Merry because…'

‘Wait for it,' Lotten repeated. ‘Her mother who was this strict religious woman, very cold, would tell her as she grew up, “We named you Joy and J stands for Jesus, O stands for Others, and Y stands for You, yourself. You must never forget that you come last, after Our Lord and your fellow men.” Can you imagine what that kind of thing would do to a young mind? Anyway, she then met this young man and they fell in love and she told him the story of her name and that it was the reason why she had no confidence and no self-esteem. And do you know what he said? He said, “I'll call you Merry. M stands for Me. Now you can put yourself first.” Isn't that the most wonderful story?'

Linus rubbed the bridge of his nose with his index finger as Bertil cleared his throat, then they both looked at Olivia who got up and asked if anyone wanted more coffee. Lotten smiled, unconcerned. She certainly seemed more contented these days, Linus thought. And even more sure of her opinions. He had always envied Lotten her certainties, imagining her topping them up at the supermarket together with the coffee and cereal and cartons of milk so that she could sit there at the end of the day, brim-full of them. And waking up every morning with the knowledge that you were more sinned against than sinning was probably as helpful in strengthening your beliefs as attending the meetings of the Merry Group. Lotten had taken to shaking her head and saying ‘Men' a lot, too. At first it had just been a minor irritation, but it had become something of a worry since Ivar had appeared for breakfast wearing his mother's nightdress.

‘I've decided to be a woman when I grow up,' he had announced as he climbed up on his chair.

Linus had put down his mug of coffee and looked searchingly at
his small son. ‘That might not be all that easy, you know,' he had said gently.

‘But I want to.' Ivar's voice had become agitated.

‘But why do you want to, darling?'

‘Because then when I'm really grown up and have a wife, she'll like me better,' Ivar had declared, kneeling on his chair and reaching across the table for his cereal.

Lotten was busy sharing more of those excruciating little confidences he had learnt to dread. ‘And do you know, Olivia, Linus and I have never been closer.' She glanced around the room. As her eyes fell on Linus, she lowered her voice as if he were the one person in the room who should not hear. ‘Even our, you know what, has improved no end.'

Olivia looked helplessly at Linus and got up from her chair with an air of relief. ‘I just remembered, I promised to call Gerald. About a book,' she added. ‘Help yourselves to more coffee.' And she was off as if carried by a little gust of relief. Linus wished he could have followed. Actually, he could. ‘I'll just run down and get some cigarettes,' he said, leaping up and ignoring Lotten's sigh and the disapproving shake of her head.

Outside, the air was fresh and clear, and a brisk wind sent the autumn leaves swooshing along the pavement, but Linus saw summer sunshine and bright, warm-weather clothes, and Lotten with her flaxen hair dancing round her shoulders. Lotten some ten years ago, smelling of lemon and looking at him with her straight gaze. ‘Grapefruit, Linus, not lemon, grapefruit.' He was yanked back into the present by an impatient voice asking him if he meant Marlboro or Marlboro Light. He muttered ‘Light' and, pocketing the cigarettes and his change, strode back to his parents' apartment. ‘I love her,' he muttered to himself as he walked, his collar up against the chill wind. ‘I love her. She's my wife, the mother of my child, of course I love her. And who said it should be easy, marriage? Who said it should be rewarding and warm and companionable and stimulating? Someone should.'

Someone should.

I was meeting Chloe for lunch. I was on time, as always, and Chloe was late. She finally arrived, brimming with the kind of excuses – traffic, roadworks on the Cromwell Road, telephone ringing – that the terminally tardy keep handy the way a young mother keeps wet wipes.

Once we were seated we ordered, salade Niçoise for both of us and Chloe asked for mineral water, fizzy, no ice and a slice of lemon. I wanted wine, but I had a rule not to drink on my own at lunchtime. ‘No wine?' I asked.

‘No, I fall asleep.'

‘Why don't you have a glass?' I coaxed. ‘It'll do you good.'

‘Look, Esther, if you want some, have some.'

‘Me, no, no, I'm absolutely fine with water.' I ordered some for myself, feeling disgruntled.

‘This lunch isn't entirely pleasure,' Chloe said as our salads arrived. ‘In fact, I won't beat about the bush…' Oh do, I wanted to say, do if it'll stop you saying something I don't want to hear.

‘Your portraits, they're lacklustre these days. I'm sorry, but that's the truth of it. The wit is gone, the bite and the irony. They're bland, lame to the point of paralysis. That interview you did with Tallulah Pinkerton Taylor, for example, it was about as thrilling as a kiss from one's brother.'

I sighed. Chloe was right. I had tried to ask the girl some searching questions, but as I had looked into her large empty eyes, trying to find something interesting behind, as I listened to the inane platitudes spoken with the earnest fervour of someone about to reveal the secrets of life, I froze. ‘That's a very pretty frock you're wearing, Tallulah,' I
heard some idiot say. ‘Where do you go for your shopping?' The idiot, of course, was me.

‘It depends, Esther,' Tallulah said, stretching out her long legs in their high Gucci boots. ‘It depends on the season. For autumn wear there's nowhere like Milan. Of course my winter cashmeres I get from Scotland, like everyone else. Spring, well, spring is Paris.' Her eyes lit up as if someone had just popped a chocolate fondant into her carefully painted mouth. ‘Summer is New York, of course. No one, but no one understands what's required for summer travelling like the New York designers. If you've ever travelled with anything else you'll know what I mean.'

And so the interview had continued. I had got hundreds of handy hints: Where to go to get Mummy's old pearls jazzed up. Where to find those little baskety handbags that were like totally to die for. She told our readers how to get to the top of the queue for the three-thousand-pound Hermes Kelly bag and which restaurant in the Swiss Alps one simply must not miss on this year's skiing holiday.

Chloe frowned at me over the lunch table. ‘You let that girl get away with the most inane load of drivel I've ever seen south of
Hello!
. What's up, Esther?'

I shook my head. ‘Maybe I'm just tired, my mind plays tricks on me when I'm tired.' I could have added that these days the little blighter played tricks on me when I wasn't tired as well. I sighed. ‘All right, I suppose I've lost my nerve. It's as simple as that. Lately I've come to see how every action, even ones that could be deemed reasonable or justified, can have the most disastrous and far-reaching consequences. You can literally destroy someone's life with the stroke of a pen.'

‘I've told you, you can't think like that,' Chloe said. ‘Or you'll never do anything. If we all thought about every possible consequence of everything we did there'd be no newspapers, no TV either, for that matter, and then where would we all be?'

We'd been over that one before. ‘It's happened to me twice now,' I said instead. ‘First with Barry Jones: I interfered and practically ruined the man's life, his family's too and they were completely innocent. Then
there was the gas explosion. Can you imagine what it's like knowing that if I had just bothered to interfere some more the Hammonds would still have a home, let alone all the requisite number of arms and legs. You know me, I'm as sane as they come, but it's enough to send anyone mad. You do what you see as the right thing and the consequences are awful. You do the wrong thing and what d'you know? The consequences are still awful. And God knows what damage I've done without even knowing about it, simply by existing.'

‘You can't think like that,' Chloe repeated.

‘I can't see how you can fail to. As a child I made up my own rules, constructing them,
Blue Peter
style, from bits and bobs: keep your room tidy because that means you can find your favourite things in case there is a fire. Always finish a book once you've started it or the characters you left unread might come back to haunt you, say your prayers every night and never forget to include someone once you've thought of them because then God might let them die, that kind of thing. My parents only believed in discipline when my crime interfered with their comfort. That kind of attitude is confusing for a child. You have your own idea of what's right and wrong, of what constitutes a misdemeanour. Then they go and change the goalposts. You think that breaking Great-Aunt Doris's china pitcher and using the pieces for a mosaic will get you into serious trouble, you actually accept it as quite fair, but then it's laughed off as creative. The next minute you're treated like the spawn of Satan and all his little right-wing followers because you spilt some Ribena on a chair cover. As I said, it's confusing and you end up losing your antennae.'

‘You certainly lost me somewhere along there,' Chloe said. ‘But Esther, be this as it may, we have a problem.'

‘And the same with goodies and baddies,' I carried on, oblivious. ‘Black and white. Bit by bit you come to see that what you thought was black and white was just grey and beige, and that the goodies were only looking after their own interests and the baddies weren't all that bad, just hormonally challenged. It makes you kind of insecure, don't you think? Apt to cling to any passing certainty as if it were a lifebuoy.'

‘Not really, no,' Chloe said. ‘Coffee?'