The Saint Zita Society (16 page)

She thought she had convinced Rabia. The girl was rather
naive. Montserrat piled on the hard time the police would give her if she mentioned Rad and his voice and the even harder time Lucy might inflict on her. ‘She’s capable of giving you the push, you know.’

‘The push?’

‘Sacking you.’

Preston Still had only once made contact with her since the money had been handed over. Being used in this way and then ignored was hard. She started answering Ciaran’s calls again, went to the cinema with him and once let him stay the night. He asked if he could have a key to the basement door and she didn’t see why not. Preston had apparently made a flat for himself on the top floor. Rabia said he generally went out for his meals. Once or twice Montserrat saw Beacon open the car door for him and Preston climb the steps to the front door. He had never mislaid his keys again.

T
he Princess had always been fonder of Rad than his great-aunt. She told June that she lay awake at night worrying about him. June was to invite Rocksana Castelli round for tea.

‘A drink will be more in her line, madam,’ said June.

‘You shouldn’t say things like that. The poor girl will be broken-hearted.’

June recognised her from her photograph. She came in a taxi and June watched her climb the front steps, looking around her and taking in her surroundings. In skintight jeans, equally tight sweater with a pale gold leather jacket over it and high-heeled boots, she looked uncannily like Lucy. June wondered if she was wearing a wig as surely no one could naturally have quite so much hair, striped in various shades of blonde and with little braids sprouting out of it.

The Princess told June to open a bottle of The Drink That Is Never Wrong because the poor girl must need cheering up and Rocksana showed them both an enormous sapphire she said was her engagement ring. Rad’s girlfriend drank more champagne than the two of them put together and June had to open a second bottle. She said she had fallen in love with the house and would June show her over it. Rocksana’s disappointment showed plainly as, once they had climbed the first flight of stairs, one shabby room succeeded another, the furniture was thick with dust, the atmosphere smelling of dog and stale French perfume. No one had decorated these rooms since the Princess moved in over half a century before and Zinnia repeatedly said they’d have to get a team in to spring-clean the place before she could be expected to take it over.

‘You could let the top two floors to someone,’ said Rocksana.

Got her own eye on it in case Rad doesn’t come back, thought June. She took the girl downstairs again and put the the champagne back in the fridge. Invisible to June behind the basement window, Montserrat watched Rocksana walking up and down looking for a taxi. There never were taxis – Montserrat had only seen them bringing people home to Hexam Place. After about ten minutes’ pacing that became limping, Rocksana took off her shoes and set off to walk in her stockinged feet towards Sloane Square.

‘I
t’s going to cause a lot of trouble,’ said Thea, scanning the civil partnership guest list. ‘You want to have a look at who you’ve got down here. You tell me what strikes you, there’s something stands out a mile.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Damian.

‘Just look at the sort of people you’ve got on the list. Rather, the sort of people you haven’t got on the list.’

‘Come on, don’t keep me in suspense.’

‘Well, you’ve got the Stills and Simon Jefferson and Lord and Lady Studley and the Princess and me but you haven’t got any of the servants. You haven’t got Jimmy or Beacon or Henry or Rabia or Montserrat or Zinnia or Richard or Sondra or
June
.’

‘It didn’t occur to us to ask them.’

Thea threw down her ballpoint. ‘Suit yourselves of course but whatever happened to equality? Maybe not Rabia, she’s a darling but she’s a strict Muslim and she wouldn’t come. Zinnia – well, she’s a bit rough is Zinnia and anyway she works on Thursdays. But Montserrat? Her dad went to school with Lucy’s dad, something like that. And June’s more of a lady than the Princess – anyway, the Princess wouldn’t come without her.’

‘We’ve got enough people with those on the list. It’s not snobbery, I promise you, Thea. Another ten guests and we won’t be able to get them all in this room.’

‘Well, it’s your party, but I’m telling you, there’ll be trouble.’

In her secretary’s role, Thea wrote all the cards as instructed despite her misgivings. She was already wondering if she could keep these omissions dark. If Jimmy found out there would be hell to pay and equal hell if she told him. Perhaps, though, she should tell Montserrat. Montserrat of all the people on the list would be least disappointed. Damian and Roland bored her and she had once told Thea she disliked weddings and would never go to another. A civil partnership was really a wedding, wasn’t it, just a wedding under another name? Jimmy would have to do without her this evening. She picked up the phone and called Montserrat.

E
ven in the heart of London gales blow, winds crack their cheeks and tiles fall off roofs. Even in a little bar round
the back of Leicester Square tempestuous shrieks and claps of thunder penetrate the walls when a November storm starts up. This storm had been forecast but no one believed in it till the first sixty-mile-an-hour gusts started and the rain lashed down out of a black sky.

Thea and Montserrat were sitting in the little bar, drinking Chardonnay and eating Pringles crisps and big black olives. Thea’s mobile rang the moment they sat down. Of course it was Jimmy, wanting to know if he should come and join them.

‘Better stay in on a night like this,’ said Thea.

Montserrat helped herself to more of what the barman called ‘nibbles’. ‘I’ve lost seven pounds in the past month so I think I can treat myself to a crisp or two.’

‘No one ever eats two crisps,’ said Thea.

Very thin herself, one of those who boast that they don’t have to worry about their weight, Thea looked critically at her friend and admitted that her looks had greatly improved recently. The spots were gone and the little roll of fat, the dimension of a bicycle tyre round her middle, had disappeared.

‘You’re looking good,’ she said. ‘Ciaran brought that on, has he?’ When there was no answer beyond a small smile, she moved on to the question of the guest list. ‘It’s true they’ve got about a hundred people coming.’

Montserrat gulped down the dregs of her wine. ‘I wouldn’t have thought they’d got a hundred friends. They’re not very nice people. You won’t go, will you?’

‘What d’you mean, like make a gesture? If you’re not asking my friends I’m not going? The fact is, Montsy, I don’t come in the category, I’m not a servant.’

‘You’re nearly as much a one as I am and they’re not asking me.’

‘I thought you wouldn’t mind,’ said Thea. ‘I thought you’d be glad. I mean, you don’t like them. You wouldn’t enjoy yourself.’

‘It’s the principle of the thing. To be perfectly honest with you, I wouldn’t mind so much if you’d make a stand with me and not go.’

Driven to placating Montserrat, anything rather than give in, Thea picked up their empty glasses and offered her friend another drink. ‘Have a vodka this time, why don’t you? I’ll pay.’

Montserrat nodded coldly and Thea went up to the bar, wishing she had never said a word about civil partnerships and guest lists. It would have been better to leave it for Montserrat to find out for herself. Jimmy rang again while she was waiting for their drinks and she nearly didn’t answer it. But even if she hadn’t yet succeeded in loving him, she couldn’t do that to Jimmy.

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to join you? The storm’s over and it’s stopped raining.’

‘Jimmy, I think it’s best for us sometimes to have an evening apart, don’t you?’

No true lover has ever been known to make that remark. Jimmy said, ‘Mind you call me when you’re leaving and I’ll pick you up.’

The vodka elicited a glum thank-you from Montserrat. ‘I can’t just let it go. I shall have to raise it at the next meeting of the Saint Zita Society.’

‘Well, that won’t be for ages. We’ve only just had a meeting.’

‘That was an
extraordinary
general meeting. We’re still due for November’s. I shall tell June and put it on the agenda.’

She cheered up a bit after that and the two of them returned to the Chardonnay, of which they drank rather a lot. ‘We’ll have a taxi home,’ said Thea. ‘I’ll pay.’

Another call came from Jimmy but this time Thea didn’t answer. She and Montserrat had to walk all the way to the top of Regent Street because all the cabs were taken. The place had been taken over by drunken teenagers, a revelation to Thea but nothing new to Monserrat. They waited for a bus – or a cab if one came – and one of the boys started shouting abuse at a man with ginger hair.

‘It’s what they do,’ Montserrat said. ‘Ginger hair, red hair, whatever, it’s the latest thing. You want to cover up your head in case they start on you.’

For the boy, who was now shouting obscenities, had been joined by a gothic-looking girl. Thea had nothing to cover her head with, and when Montserrat offered her the scarf that was wrapped round her own neck, it was too late. If Montserrat herself had been the target of ‘fucking carrots’ and ‘ginger shithead’, she could have withstood it and returned abuse of her own, but Thea was made of more tender stuff.

‘Let’s go, let’s go.’ The scarf wound round her head but inadequate to cover all her hair, she was almost in tears. ‘We can walk, let’s walk.’

‘God knows why you didn’t accept Jimmy’s offer.’

Shouts and shrieks pursued them. Just as they set off, determined to walk all the way if necessary, the wind and rain buffeting at them, a taxi stopped at the lights. ‘Sod’s Law,’ said Montserrat. They got in, gasping with relief.

Yesterday’s copy of the
Evening Standard
lay on the back seat. Montserrat was too affected by three vodkas and several Chardonnays, too tired she called it, to notice the
Standard
’s front page. Thea found herself trembling from the teenagers’ insults, an attack she had never anticipated or considered possible. She read the piece in the paper to distract herself but without much interest in its subject. Bodies found in Epping Forest could be of no concern to her. It looked as if
this one had been found by a yellow Labrador. In the absence of a picture of the corpse, the newspaper showed one of the dog.

The fox was sauntering down Hexam Place. As the taxi drew up it squeezed through the railings at number 8 and ran down the area steps of number 6 in the vain hope of a find comparable to Miss Grieves’s bin. Bits of twig, plane-tree leaves the size of dinner plates and torn plastic bags lay all over the roadway, scattered by the storm. Thea paid the driver. She tried to help Montserrat to her door but her offer was indignantly refused. Thea watched her just the same and satisfied herself that her friend was more or less in control of herself.

Number 7 was in silence, all the lights off. Montserrat, in a fuddled state but well able to walk, let herself into her flat and fell on to the bed. A raging thirst drove her into the bathroom where she drank first from the cold tap, then filled an empty wine bottle with water for the night. Funny the things you think of for no reason in the middle of the night. Her mother always said that whatever you did before you went to bed you must without fail clean your teeth and take off your make-up with cleansing cream and astringent. Montserrat hadn’t any astringent, had never possessed any, and the cleansing cream was all used up. She dropped her clothes on the floor and fell on to the bed for the second time, sinking at once into a deep sleep.

According to the green figures on the digital clock, it was 2.37 when she woke up. It might have been thirst that woke her or a footfall in the passage outside. She drank without putting the light on, thought, must be Ciaran, maybe he said he’d come, and rolled back into half-sleep. The darkness was dense, thick like black velvet. Ciaran got into bed beside her, smelling unlike himself of some expensive male cologne. It
made such a pleasant change that she turned over into his arms.

Neither of them spoke for half an hour, during which time Montserrat drifted in and out of sleep. Whatever had happened, and it was quite involved and complicated, it was unlike any previous experience of hers for at least the past year. She felt the face that was close to hers, the arms wrapped round her, then put her hands inside the open neck of his shirt. The skin was thickly furred with hair, a forest of hair, in complete contrast to the smooth chest of Ciaran.

‘Oh my God, Preston,’ said Montserrat and fell immediately asleep once more.

T
he Studleys at number 11, the Neville-Smiths at number 5 and Arsad Sohrab and Bibi Lambda at number 4 all had their Sunday and their weekday papers delivered. The others fetched them from Choudhuri’s the Newsagent’s, known as the corner shop, though it was not on a corner but halfway along Ebury Lane, or went without. Thea fetched the papers for Roland and Damian (the
Sunday Times
and the
Sunday Telegraph
), June for the Princess and herself (the
Mail on Sunday
), Jimmy for Simon Jefferson (the
Observer
and the
Independent on Sunday
) and Montserrat for the Stills (also the
Sunday Times
) when she was fit to walk up the street.

That Sunday morning she had a headache but nothing worse than that. She got up, wondering if she had dreamt Preston’s visit of the night before. But no, she could still smell that Hugo Boss scent and two coarse dark hairs lay on the pillow next to hers. Hexam Place was deserted as was usual on a Sunday. Winter had come. There was frost on the windscreen of the Neville-Smiths’ Mercedes. Gussie, visible on the drawing-room windowsill of number 6, was wearing his quilted coat. Montserrat made her way down to Ebury Lane. Mr Choudhuri had put the papers out onto the street, the quality ones looking discreet on the top shelf of the rack and
the red tops blatant below. In spite of saying she would never look at the
Mirror
or the
Star
, it was one of their headlines that first caught her eye:
IS EPPING FOREST BODY MR FORTESCUE?
She stood there, reading it and the story beneath it, turned the page to see a full-page spread of a forest scene with upturned soil, police and a police car.