The Dream House (16 page)

The next week, when Kate got to the hospital, it was to find that Agnes’s housekeeper had already arrived. Marie Summers turned out to be the person Kate had seen helping Agnes into the car outside the church the previous summer. She was a pleasant woman, clearly fond of her employer, and she insisted that Kate stay.

Agnes asked after Simon and the children, then cross-questioned Mrs Summers about the state of Seddington House. Yes, Dan had started painting the kitchen, yes, the police had been round to discuss security and new alarms were being installed. Kate gathered that Mrs Summers often stayed at the house but, that with Agnes in hospital, she sometimes asked her son Conrad, who was perpetually out of a job, to be there instead. Agnes seemed to approve of this. Dan would be visiting later in the afternoon.

After a while, Mrs Summers got up and said goodbye, but by that time there were only ten minutes before Kate herself had to go and pick up Daisy and Sam.

‘It sounds as though the house is being properly looked after while you’re away,’ she said to the old lady.

‘Yes, it’s a great worry. All those things I’ve collected over the years. I had a friend from the auctioneers at Ipswich to look at everything several years ago. She seemed to think it was all very valuable. I should have got rid of it all then, but I couldn’t face it. It’s all I’ve got in life. Memories and old things. I lost everyone, you see. And now I’m stuck in here.’ Agnes’s tone was fierce. She stared out of the window at nothing.

‘When did you start collecting?’ Kate tried a new tack. Agnes became quite animated again.

‘Oh, I’ve always been a magpie, ever since I was a child. My father encouraged me. First shells and stamps, then coins, then, one day, when I was nine or ten, I found a miniature of a lady in a blue dress in a junk shop. Eighteenth century, it turned out. Very pretty, but damaged, so it cost next to nothing. And so my passion began. But it was only after the war – Hitler’s war, that is – that I got serious. Father had died, you see, and I had nothing else to do with the money.’

‘Did you ever . . . consider marriage?’ Kate was nervous of upsetting Agnes again.

‘I had my chance,’ sighed Agnes, ‘but I ruined it. I’ll tell you about it one day. But I’m tired now. And you must go.’

As Kate was gathering up her things, Agnes said casually, ‘Max called in on Saturday.’

‘Did you say your great-nephew lives in Norwich?’

‘That’s right. Barrister there. Had a wife, don’t know what happened to her – he says it didn’t work out. Don’t think he likes hospitals. He didn’t stay long.’

‘Well, it’s good he came, though,’ Kate said, and Agnes nodded thoughtfully, something of a gleam in her eye.

It was now the second half of May. Kate nearly didn’t make it to see Agnes the following week. Monday, she spent the day in London, meeting Liz for lunch and seeing the Braque exhibition with her old schoolfriend Sarah in the afternoon. Sarah’s children had both started school and she chattered happily about how nice it was to have some time for herself, though it was a shame that her husband, Jamie,
would
work such long hours at his computer consultancy.

‘Do you miss London?’ Sarah asked, as they sat over a sandwich in the gallery restaurant.

Kate finished her mouthful, trying to arrange the confused emotions the question evoked. ‘It was horrible getting off the train at Liverpool Street station and being struck by the noise and the crowds and the pollution. And the tubes are still awful. I don’t miss any of that.’

‘What about the shopping? And the exhibitions, and the theatre? It must be so quiet down in Suffolk.’

‘It’s busier in the summer. I went to a lovely organ recital last week, and there are always little art exhibitions.’

Sarah wrinkled her nose. ‘Surely nothing like we’ve just seen.’

‘No. I suppose I do feel a sort of bereavement coming back here.’

‘Oh?’

‘It’s hard to explain. It’s like I’m a ghost coming back to see my past life. I feel forlorn that everybody is happily going on without me. That I’m shut out.’

‘Well, you can’t have your cake and eat it,’ Sarah said sniffily.

Kate hadn’t really expected her to understand. Sarah had always been a practical girl who got on with the job in hand and dismissed ‘the path not taken’ as morbid nonsense. Kate wished she could have seen Claire today as well. She would understand. Mysteriously, Claire wasn’t answering her phone at home and her mobile was on voicemail.

At six, Kate met up with Simon for a drink. He seemed harassed. Another trip to Germany was coming up and his team were working day and night to get the presentations together.

‘I’m off on the plane on Wednesday morning, and I’ve left my damned passport in Suffolk.’

He didn’t have time to come down to fetch it, so Kate eventually agreed to bring it up the next morning, together with his dinner jacket, which she had just had cleaned.

When she got home at ten o’clock that evening and started rummaging through Simon’s bedside table for the passport, she found his building society passbook attached to it with an elastic band. Although the account was in his name, Simon had always been careful to explain that the money was a nest egg for both of them. They had a few other investments, of course, and the proceeds of the sale of the Fulham house were in an account that paid out monthly interest, which Kate used to give Joyce some housekeeping money. Still, Kate thought she’d check just how much extra they had. She faintly remembered that Simon had said, ‘Oh, eleven thousand or so,’ when she’d asked six months ago. But when she ran her eye down the figures, she frowned. The £11,300 that was recorded had dwindled in the past six months to £6,010. Where had all the money gone?

On impulse, she picked up the phone and dialled the number to Nigel’s flat. After ringing for a while, a recorded voice clicked on. Perhaps Simon was still at the office. She rang his direct line there but it switched immediately to voicemail. She tried his mobile. It rang three times, then went dead. Eventually she left a tetchy message on the flat number to say she’d meet him at twelve and went to bed.

‘But where’s it all gone?’ she asked Simon the next day in the Starbucks coffee shop by his office.

‘Life is very expensive here at the moment,’ said Simon, not looking at her. His coffee was pushed away untouched. ‘There’s my season ticket coming up for renewal, then I’m paying Nigel. And there was the optician’s bill last month – and it’s not cheap eating up here, you know.’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t add up to five thousand pounds. And you’ve been doing so well at work. There was your salary rise at Christmas, and the bonus.’

‘The bonus wasn’t that much, Kate.’ As an accountant rather than one of the dealers, his rewards were modest. ‘And we put it in the pension pot, remember?’ Simon was on edge now, looking at his watch, tapping his foot.

‘But you could have told me about this.’ Kate prodded the passbook on the table before her.

‘What d’you want me to do, ring up the wife for permission every time I write a cheque? For God’s sake!’

Kate flinched. This was so unlike Simon. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’ She was lost for words.

‘No, I know. Look, we can’t talk about this now.’

‘I suppose you’ve got to get back to work.’

‘Yup, sandwich lunch with Gillingham
et al
. Three-line whip. C’mon, darling, I’m sorry I was sharp. Everything’s so stressed at the moment. Let me put you in a taxi.’

Outside on the street, he rattled the coins in his pocket and said, ‘Let’s have another look at that old farmhouse outside Diss this weekend, eh? That one with the huge kitchen. Durrant’s rang this morning. The owners have reduced the price.’

He kissed her on the cheek and helped her into a cab. A quick wave and he had gone. Kate sat there as the taxi pulled away, stunned at how he had just brushed her off – had refused to discuss something as important as their finances and then just dispatched her like a parcel. Suddenly she remembered the house he’d mentioned. It had been too small upstairs and too isolated, they’d decided. Had he really forgotten? What was going on?

On Wednesday night, Marie Summers rang to tell Kate that since Agnes was now out of the surgeon’s care she was being moved back to Halesworth the next day to the community hospital there.

‘It’s a nice place and it’ll be easier for us to visit,’ she said comfortably.

On Friday afternoon, Kate drove into Halesworth and parked outside the hospital, a pleasant redbrick building in spacious grounds. But when she reached the little room Agnes had been allocated, it was to find the old lady was asleep.

‘She didn’ have a good night,’ whispered the young West Indian nurse, who had accompanied Kate. ‘The pain was botherin’ her, my dear. And she was worryin’ about something. So Doctor gave her some pills after lunch.’

Kate sat by the bedside for a while, watching Agnes. Her sleep wasn’t restful – her lips were moving without sound, her face contorted in a frown. She looked very, very old now and, without her teeth, her face looked all caved in. There was hardly a scrap of flesh on her, thought Kate, noting the thin wrinkled skin hanging over the proud cheekbones. How old was she? Well over ninety, surely. And yet the sharpness of her mind and the strength of her spirit belied her age.

Kate was surprised at her feeling of tenderness towards the tiny figure in the bed. It was such a strange coincidence, the way they had met, and such a short time ago, but already, she and Agnes seemed to have formed a strong bond, the same as she had used to feel with her Hastings grandmother. It wasn’t just the fact of their being family, though that was part of it. Although there were sixty years between them, they were kindred spirits. Was it because they were both wounded birds? Kate didn’t yet know the full extent of Agnes’s emotional wounds, though losing her mother so young had had an obvious effect, but she hoped as she got to know her cousin better, that she would learn something of the secrets she guarded.

After ten minutes spent deep in thought, she left the bottle of elderflower cordial and the copy of
Mansfield Park
she’d brought on the bedside table and got up to go.

‘Hello, you’ve found her then.’ Dan had put his head round the door. He looked at Kate appreciatively and she automatically smoothed her hair.

‘Oh, hi. Haven’t seen you for ages,’ she said, a touch shyly.

‘No. I went to the other place every week, but not till late most times. Thought I’d get here early today. I needed some parts from the garage, so it seemed sensible to drop in here first.’

‘Bit of a wasted trip for you, I’m afraid.’ And Kate explained about the sleeping pills. As they walked down the stairs together, she asked him about his work.

‘I help out at Seddington a couple of mornings a week,’ he said. ‘Do a bit of gardening, repairs – that sort of thing. Wish I had more time to go there. That garden needs a lot of looking after.’

‘Maybe Miss Melton will be home before too long.’ Kate paused on the bottom step. In front, Dan swung to face her. His blue eyes looked deep into hers.

‘I hope so, Kate, I do hope so.’ Then he said, ‘Whatever happens, meeting you has made a difference to her. She talks about you a lot, you know. I gather you’re cousins or something. It’s so amazing that you found each other like that.’

Kate smiled. ‘Yes, it makes you believe in destiny or something. And she’s made a difference to me. Now she’s nearby I want to bring the children to see her – do you think she’d like that?’

‘I think she might. Why don’t you do that?’

The next morning, by the time she got back from taking the children to school, Kate and Simon’s credit-card statements had arrived. Kate opened hers. No surprises there. For half an hour, she prowled around, wrestling with her conscience. At ten o’clock, when Joyce went out with Bobby, she took Simon’s envelope into the kitchen and steamed it open. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Simon owed £4,000 on his card. She read the list of entries. £430 for some dental treatment, yes, but over £1,500 to City restaurants? £700 to British Airways? She resealed the envelope but the operation didn’t look convincing, so she ripped it open again. She could always pretend she’d done so in error. But in the end, when Simon came home, she didn’t even bother to do that.

‘Look, it’s all right, Kate. God, you’re so suspicious What’s got into you lately? It’s just I lost my business credit card. Really stupid – can’t think how it happened – and the new one didn’t come through straight away. Then Zara had to fix up some German flights at a moment’s notice, so I got her to use my personal card. I’ve got the new company one now so I just have to claim this little lot back. All right? Satisfied?’

I want to be convinced, Kate said fiercely to herself, but her feeling of uncertainty grew. Why was Simon becoming so distant? There were times when he seemed to be miles away and would jump when she spoke to him. He was rarely unkind, just absent.

May turned to June. Kate took the children to EuroDisney at half-term; it turned out to be an exhausting affair, especially since they wouldn’t sleep thanks to all the E-numbers they consumed and the high-pitch level of excitement. Simon had been supposed to come too, but a week before they were due to leave, he was dispatched to Germany again – Munich, this time. Joyce was reluctant to take his place on the basis that it would be too tiring so Kate, disappointed, bit the bullet. While it was lovely being on her own with the children, she missed Simon dreadfully, not least because he always took responsibility for tickets, passports and finding seats on trains.

The Carters came back from Spain and settled into their normal routine. They talked about coming up to see the family in Fernley, but kept putting it off. Then one of the dogs developed kidney trouble and Barbara didn’t want to leave home.

Simon was working as hard as ever, with regular trips to Germany and sometimes further afield. He remained remote and hardly touched Kate. Money was a subject they avoided. Simon seemed to be spending more on clothes – two Armani summer suits, a pair of handmade shoes. Well, it was important for presentation, Kate thought. But Simon had always been so careful with money. She couldn’t quite shrug off the feeling that he was hiding something, but he avoided all her attempts to talk seriously about money or moving or changing jobs. She drifted through her days with a sense of disquiet, not daring to face what was happening to their relationship.