Riders (77 page)

Helen was totally thrown. She’d been so certain Jake was going to crowd her, that she had a tiger by the tail. Why the hell couldn’t Mrs. Bodkin throw away dead flowers, she thought, as she wandered restlessly round the drawing room, moving ornaments, even snapping at Marcus. She tried to read. Half an hour passed. Then Malise rang, hoping to catch Rupert before he left. Janey rang for a gossip and the headmistress of Marcus’s play group rang about their summer bring-and-buy. Helen was uncharacteristically terse with all of them. Then Charlene’s mother rang and gossiped to Charlene for twenty minutes. Helen couldn’t even accuse her of wasting money as it was an incoming call. Perhaps Jake was in a call box trying to get through; perhaps he’d lost the number. Oh, the nightmare of being ex-directory. Unsupervised by Charlene, the children swarmed into the drawing room. The next moment Tab had put jammy fingerprints all over the apricot silk curtains.

“Charlene,” screamed Helen, “for God’s sake, get off the telephone.”

Charlene flounced in, looking martyred. “It’s Gran. She’s got cancer of the bowel.”

“Oh, God,” said Helen, mortified. “I’m so sorry.”

The telephone rang. Helen sprang to it.

“Hello.”

“Helen?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Jake. Sorry I couldn’t ring before. The class went on and on.”

There was a pause. Mindlessly she watched Tab stumping towards the table with the long pale blue cloth, on which stood all Helen’s favorite ornaments.

“Look, I know it’s short notice, but I’m coming your way tomorrow. Can we lunch?”

“I don’t know. Tab, leave that tablecloth alone.
Alone,
I said.”

“Shall I pick you up?”

“No.” It was almost a scream.
“Tab—I said, put it down!”

“You know the Red Elephant at Willacombe?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll see you there at one o’clock.”

“Okay—hey wait.”

But he had replaced the receiver.

Leaping forward, Helen retrieved a Rockingham dalmation from Tab’s predatory fingers.

“I said, ‘Don’t touch.’ ”

Picking up the child, she was suddenly overwhelmed with happiness, swinging her around and around, covering her with kisses until she screamed with delight.

“Weeties,” said Tabitha, sensing weakness.

“Oh, okay” said Helen, “if you really want all your teeth to fall out.”

Looking in the diary after a sleepless night, Helen saw to her horror that she was supposed to go to a fund-raising lunch for the NSPCC. As vice-president for the local area, she was expected to play a leading part and make a rousing put-your-hand-in-
your pocket speech after lunch.

The president was very put out when Helen rang and said she couldn’t make it. Charlene had to go to an unexpected funeral, she explained, so she had to stay home and look after Marcus and Tab.

“Surely one of the grooms can do that? I mean, we are expecting you. You’re on the poster and you’re such a draw. They’re all looking forward to meeting you.”

“I’m sorry, Davina, but I really can’t leave them.”

“What about Janey Lloyd-Foxe?”

“She’s away.” Horrifying how easy she found it to lie. “Honestly, I’d never forgive myself if Marcus had an asthma attack.”

The president was not so easily defeated. She rang back at half-past eleven, just as Helen was having a bath.

Charlene answered the telephone before Helen could reach it.

“Hello, Mrs. Paignton-Lacey, Mrs. C-B’s in the bath.”

“Give it to me.” Dripping, Helen snatched the telephone.

“D’you always have a bath in the middle of the morning? Who was that answering the telephone?”

“Charlene.”

“I’d thought she’d gone to a funeral.”

“She’s just leaving.”

“Hmm, well I’ve sorted out your problems. Angela Pitt’s nanny’s a state-registered nurse and she’s quite happy to bring Angela’s smalls over to you and look after your smalls.”

“That’s very kind,” said Helen, realizing the bedroom door was still open and Charlene was probably hovering, “but I’m afraid the answer’s no.” She kicked the door shut.

“But that’s absurd. Surely a state-registered nurse is better…”

“At looking after Marcus rather than his own mother?” snapped Helen. “Since we’re talking about cruelty to children, I figure my first duty is towards my own kids. I appreciate your help, Davina, but please don’t try and run my life,” and she hung up.

Looking at herself in the bedroom mirror, she was suddenly elated and amazed by her own defiance. Suddenly, however, panic assailed her. What if Davina rang again and got Charlene after she’d left, or if Marcus really had an asthma attack? Whimpering with terror, she rang the Red Elephant. Could she leave a message for Mr. Lovell? After a long pause, the manager said there was no one booked in the name of Lovell, although they had four Mr. Smiths and five Mr. Browns who’d booked tables for lunch. Helen rang off. Perhaps he wasn’t going to show up at all.

Mrs. Campbell-Black, reflected Charlene, as she listened to Helen singing ‘I’m in the Mood for Love’ in the bath, was behaving in a very odd way. Yesterday she’d unloaded all Badger’s tins of dog food from the supermarket into the dishwasher and put a packet of Tampax in the fridge. Even when she came out of the bath and found Tabitha trying on lipsticks and dropping one on the pale gold carpet, she didn’t fly off the handle as she normally would.

And now she was walking into the kitchen in a new silver flying suit and shiny black boots, with her hair trailing down her back in one long red plait.

“You look fantastic,” said Charlene, in genuine amazement. “Like an astronaut. You ought to go to the moon.” (She’s over it already, she thought to herself.)

“Do you really like it?” asked Helen, shyly, desperate for reassurance.

“Gorgeous. Makes you look so slim. You’ll be wasted on the NSPCC,” Charlene added slyly. And asphyxiate them too with all that expensive perfume, she reflected. Mrs. C-B must have bathed in it.

Marcus wandered in. “Mummy pretty. Going out?” His face fell.

“Only to a lunch to make money to help kids who aren’t as lucky as you. I must go. I won’t be late.”

God will smite me down for such terrible lies, she thought.

Terror increased on the drive to the restaurant as she passed two NSPCC stalwarts driving like mad in the other direction—late for their one glass of sherry. She glanced in the driving mirror, hoping she wasn’t getting too flushed. She was so nervous, she’d been rushing to the loo all morning. It would be terribly difficult to pee wearing this flying suit; she’d have to take the whole thing off. There was the Red Elephant. She couldn’t see Jake’s Land Rover anywhere.

He was waiting in the bar, three-quarters the way through his second whisky. For a minute she thought he was going to kiss her on the cheek, then he settled for shaking hands.

“D’you want a drink here, or shall we go straight in?”

All along the bar sat businessmen, gawping, finding her face vaguely familiar, trying to identify her.

“Let’s go straight in.”

Rupert could never enter a restaurant without turning the whole place upside down so Helen was amazed that Jake slid in so quietly. They reached their table in a corner without anyone recognizing him. There was a bunch of dark purple irises in a royal blue vase.

“It’s not considered good form, but would you rather sit with your back to the room?” Jake asked.

Helen nodded.

At her request for a glass of white wine, Jake ordered a bottle and another whisky for himself. Helen found herself quite unable to meet his eyes. It had been so easy to talk before because it had been just a monologue, with her pouring out all her woes. Now, sitting opposite, conversation was incredibly heavy going, like chopping up raw swede with a blunt knife.

Marcus was much better. Darklis and Isa were well. Both of them felt it bad form to mention Tory or Rupert. Helen was reluctant to ask Jake about his horses in case she betrayed her total ignorance. Jake felt the same about films, plays, and books. The weather had been perfect, so that lasted them only thirty seconds. A kindly waiter arrived with the menus. Helen randomly chose whitebait, which she hated, and grilled lamb cutlets with zucchini.

She hadn’t actually looked him in the face yet. White wine didn’t seem to jolly her up at all. Desperate for something to say, she boasted she’d met half the Tory shadow cabinet at dinner on Saturday. Then thought what a fatuous thing to have done. Jake was bound to be wildly left wing. Conversation didn’t improve with the arrival of food. There were long silences. Jake, unsmiling, said very little. Helen was beginning to rattle. Gloom swept over her; she had no charm; she was boring him as she bored Rupert and obviously Dino. She looked down at the silver bodies of the whitebait in their coats of batter and could see their glassy little eyes staring at her.

Suddenly Jake leaned across, took her knife and fork, and put them together and beckoned the waiter: “Could you take the plates away, and bring our next course; but there’s no hurry.”

“Anything wrong, sir?”

“Nothing. We just weren’t as hungry as we thought.”

Helen gazed down at her hands, which were frantically pleating the white tablecloth.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “What a dreadful waste.”

Jake stretched out his hand and very gently began to stroke her cheek. For a second she shied away, then gradually relaxed under his touch.

“There,” he said softly, “there. It’s all right, pet. I’m just as scared as you are.”

“Are you?” she glanced up, startled.

“More so, I should think. I was so terrified you’d say no. I couldn’t work up the courage to ring you until six o’clock. I hung round the phone box, steeling myself.”

“And I figured you weren’t going to call.”

“And I thought you’d probably cry off this morning, so I booked in under the name of Smith, and went out first thing, so you couldn’t reach me.”

“And when I got cold feet and rang up to cancel and found you hadn’t booked, I got in a blind panic because I thought you weren’t coming.”

They both found they were laughing. Then she told him about the hassle with Davina and the NSPCC.

“What was
your
excuse?”

“I said I was going to look at a horse. Tory looked at me as though I was barking. We haven’t got enough cash for a three-legged donkey at the moment.”

“And I left all that whitebait.”

“Doesn’t matter. Nice treat for the restaurant cats. D’you mind if I smoke?”

As the match flared, she noticed the beautiful, passionate mouth, with the full lower lip and for the first time realized his eyes were not black but a very dark sludge green matching his shirt.

“Have you really got gypsy blood?”

“Sure. My father was pure Romany. I ran away back to the gypsies when I was six. After my mother died, I tried to find him, and lived with the gypsies for three years before the social security people caught up with me and slapped me in the children’s home.”

“So you’ve really had no family life to speak of?”

“I’ve got one now, and when I see what Tory’s mother did to her, I reckon I was well off.”

“What was it like living with the gypsies?”

“Cold, sometimes, and always with the feeling of being moved on by the cops. But I enjoyed it, I learnt a lot. They taught me to recognize a good horse, and treat all nature as a medicine cupboard. Which reminds me.” He put his hand in his pocket and produced a bottle of gray-green liquid.

“For you. For neuralgia.”

Helen took it wonderingly. “You remembered. What is it?”

“Extract of henbane. Deadly poisonous, neat. Crippen used it to murder his wife.”

Helen looked slightly alarmed.

“But that’s very diluted. It’s a marvelous sedative and a painkiller. Try it, but keep it in a safe place.”

Helen was so moved and touched, she had to make a joke out of it.

“D’you eat hedgehogs as well?”

“No,” he said coldly, “nor do I tie them on top of poles, like your husband.”

Oh dear, thought Helen, I’ve upset him.

Then he said, “Did you know hedgehogs’ prickles go all soft when they’re with kind people?” and suddenly smiled.

God, he’s attractive, thought Helen. She felt as if she were on top of a snowy mountain, perched on a sled, with her hands and feet tied, hurtling into the unknown with no way of stopping or steering.

“Do you tell fortunes?”

He shrugged. “A little. It’s really a con trick. The hand betrays the calling: if it’s rough, or pampered, or the nails are bitten. You look more for the face behind the eyes, the droop of the mouth.”

Helen held out her hand. Her engagement ring, far too loose, had fallen underside down. For a second the huge sapphires and emeralds on her third finger caught the light, then fell back into place. Jake examined the palm for a second.

“It tells me a small, dark stranger has entered your life.”