Worst Fears (8 page)

“M
UMMY,” SAID SASCHA, IN
his piercing urgent voice, “the cat’s got kittens. I have to go.” He went. Irene took the phone.

“Darling,” she said, “I hope you’re not too upset. Men will be men; that is to say, babies.”

“Why should I be upset?” asked Alexandra. “In particular? Apart from being widowed; all that?”

“You have heard of the Doctrine of Parsimony?” asked Irene.

“No,” said Alexandra. “Couldn’t we talk about the cat having kittens? How many?”

“Eight,” said Irene. “But where did I go wrong in your education?”

“You sent me to stage school,” said Alexandra.

“The Doctrine of Parsimony is a version of Occam’s razor,” said Irene, who had been to Cheltenham Ladies’ College in its severe prime and then to Oxford. “Both suggest that the simplest solution is likely to be the true one; or the most useful. If, as you say, there is a mad woman roaming the edges of Ned’s life—”

“His death—” said Alexandra.

“—it is likely that Ned gave her some encouragement. Think of
Fatal Attraction.
”

“But she’s so fat and horrid,” said Alexandra.

“You mean why should Ned be interested in her while he had you?”

“Exactly,” said Alexandra. “Besides, we loved each other. He wouldn’t do anything like that. He had a great integrity. He didn’t cheapen himself, ever.”

“That’s as may be, but you’ve been away an awful lot,” said Irene. “Men don’t like it. If the wife leaves an empty bed a husband’s first impulse is to fill it.”

“I’ve been working,” said Alexandra. “What was I supposed to do? It’s not my fault if I’ve had to earn. Ned got me the part in the first place. Do you think I’ve liked being away from home? We couldn’t even have Sascha’s fourth birthday on the proper day because I had a matinee. And the poor little boy hated coming up to London at weekends…he missed all his friends’ parties, but what could we do? And then Ned died on the dining room floor, just fell down and died, and I wasn’t even there.” She cried.

“Stop blubbing,” said Irene, who’d always wanted to go on the stage but had been thwarted, or so she said, by an early marriage and Alexandra’s birth. “You owe it to your public not to blubber. You’ll spoil your looks. And it upsets me. I feel so helpless. I don’t like leaving you alone. Likewise, I don’t want to bring Sascha back to The Cottage, into such an unhappy house as it must be at the moment.”

“But I miss him,” wept Alexandra.

“Stop thinking about yourself,” said Irene. “I’ll keep Sascha with me until after the funeral, and that’s that. It’s the best thing. And when is the funeral? Why is nobody saying? Is it going to be a cremation? Really they’re the best, except there’s always a problem about the ashes.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” wailed Alexandra. “I can’t bear to think about it. Hamish is going to see to all that.”

“You’re the widow,” said Irene. “You really ought to take some responsibility.”

“You’ve had so much practice, I suppose,” said Alexandra, bitterly. “You know all about it.”

“Actually,” said Irene, who had indeed buried two husbands out of four, one of them Alexandra’s father, “I do.”

“Was our house full of whispers when my father died? And rustlings, and movements out of the corner of your eyes? Things you thought you almost saw, but didn’t really. It’s got so spooky here.”

“It was perfectly quiet and ordinary,” said Irene. “I made sure he died in hospital. But when our cat Marmalade passed away it was just as you describe until she was safely underground. Sascha made a little tombstone in the garden. I expect he told you about that. No? I’d keep seeing Marmalade on the stairs, but when I looked again she wasn’t there.

As I was going up the stair,

I met a cat who wasn’t there,

She wasn’t there again today,

I wish to God she’d go away.

The eyes play tricks. These are Marmalade’s eight grandchildren we’ve just had. I suppose you don’t want one for comfort? No? Probably wise. You’re never in one place long enough. The sooner Ned is buried the better. Or burned. As for this Jenny Linden, be careful. People like that can be dangerous. If Ned was God what does that make you?”

“Mary?”

“No, darling, the devil. In this Jenny Linden’s eyes. Do be careful! Wasn’t there a Jenny Linden in
A Doll’s House
?”

“Christine Linde,” said Alexandra. “She plays the doleful widow, a woman who has to earn her own living. Daisy Longriff was playing her—and understudying me. Now Daisy’s playing me, and they’ve got a girl out of wardrobe to do Mrs. Linde. Her big chance.”

“That’s a bit spooky,” said Irene. Then she had to go because her current husband wanted her to find one of his golf shoes which the puppy had no doubt run off with, and Sascha had tried to put one of the kittens in the dryer. Alexandra, usually so independent, missed her mother and whimpered.

Alexandra put
Mozart’s Greatest Hits
on the CD player, very loud. That dispersed a fear or so but added to her melancholy. She put Jenny’s diary and address book in a drawer amongst Ned’s papers—then she took them out: there was too much intimacy there—and put them on an open bookcase, where they touched nothing important. She would turn her mind to them when she felt like it. She stored it up in her mind as a kind of treat. Having them in her possession increased her control over the situation. She felt empowered, as would a witch who had just stolen the clippings from her enemy’s toenails.

Dr. Moebius called. Ned’s body would be back in Mr. Lightfoot’s morgue during the course of the afternoon. He hoped Alexandra did not take his insistence on a full autopsy as unfeeling. It was important that the forensic labs didn’t cut corners.

“Only skulls and breastbones,” said Alexandra.

The cause of death was myocardial infarction; there was no sign of cerebral haemorrhage. Would Mrs. Ludd like some sleeping pills? He seemed to have forgotten about the herbal tea.

“What brought the heart attack on?” asked Alexandra. “So suddenly, and without warning?”

“These things just happen,” said Dr. Moebius. “Or there may have been some undue excitement.”

“Like someone coming to the door you didn’t want to see?” suggested Alexandra.

“Possibly,” said Dr. Moebius. And he told her that someone you didn’t want to see might well increase the heartbeat, and a simple increase could indeed be enough to trigger an infarction. She should think of the many middle-aged men who died when getting up to make an after-dinner speech; or in the middle of sexual congress. He asked when the funeral was, and said he would do his best to get there. Ned had been a charming man, and an excellent patient. That is to say, he seldom came to the surgery. It might have been better if he had come. His blood pressure might have been high for years but no one would know now.

Alexandra said the day of the funeral had not yet been decided.

“Don’t leave it too long,” said Dr. Moebius. “An overnight stay at a morgue can cost as much as a five-star hotel. Am I being too practical? I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” said Alexandra.

Dr. Moebius asked when Alexandra was going back to work. She said a week today. He was shocked and said she’d need more time than that—and wasn’t there the child to think about? Alexandra said too much thought might be counter-productive: she did not know yet what her financial position was going to be: time off for widowhood might prove an impossible luxury. “Surely—” said Dr. Moebius.

“Surelys went out the windows years back,” said Alexandra. “These days we all do what we have to, not what it would be nice to do if we could.” She asked if Jenny Linden had been in the house when he was called in on the Sunday morning, and Dr. Moebius said that was so, apparently she’d turned up to walk the dog and found Ned dead—”

“Abbie found him dead,” said Alexandra.

“Oh yes, of course,” said Dr. Moebius. “The one who runs the language school. She was there as well. She’s very careful, very responsible. But Mrs. Linden was particularly distressed and made quite a nuisance of herself.” He’d given her a sedative and she’d left. If Mrs. Ludd happened to see her, would she ask Mrs. Linden to drop by to see him? She might find herself suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Why should she?” asked Alexandra. “She’s not exactly family. Just an acquaintance.”

“She’s very sensitive,” said Dr. Moebius. “We are not all made of stone.” Meaning I am? wondered Alexandra, detecting censure in his voice. She told herself not to be paranoic. Dr. Moebius said he had to make an emergency visit to the language school and brought the conversation to an end.

Alexandra called Abbie and told her she’d broken into Jenny’s home and how she’d found a shrine to Ned there, and how eerie it was. Abbie said she thought Alexandra had gone mad doing such a thing, but she, Abbie, couldn’t come now because the doctor had given the student an injection earlier, and the lad was now reacting to that far worse than to the suspected wasp sting, which had probably never happened, and she’d had to ask the doctor to visit yet again. Should she ask Vilna to go over to The Cottage, if Alexandra was upset?

“No,” said Alexandra. “I’m just fine, thank you.” Then she asked Abbie if in Abbie’s opinion Ned and Jenny had ever had an affair. Abbie shrieked down the phone and said, “Why should Ned look at anyone else when he had you?”

“He looked at Vilna,” said Alexandra, “according to Vilna.”

“Vilna’s like that,” said Abbie. “Hopelessly Balkan. She thinks every man’s a sexual vampire. Take no notice. What does it matter anyway, Alexandra? Ned’s dead. Over. Don’t these things fade into perspective?”

“Actually no,” said Alexandra. “They don’t seem to. Since I can’t discuss the matter with Ned, or ever have any explanation from him, let alone excuses, or any resolution to do better in future or any apology, and since there is no way more recent times could ever push back past times into irrelevancy, why then no forgiveness is possible. I can’t play both sides of the argument on this matter, speaking for him as well as for me. It isn’t possible.”

“I don’t see why not,” said Abbie. “If Arthur can play three-dimensional chess with himself, you can forgive a husband posthumously for a trivial and stupid affair—”

“You mean there was one?” Alexandra was quick.

“I mean nothing of the sort,” said Abbie. “I swear on the cross that to the best of my knowledge and belief nothing untoward happened between Ned and that little bitch Jenny.”

“On the cross?” demanded Alexandra.

“I thought you were a Buddhist.” But she laughed. Then she said, “Did Ned ever say anything to you about seeing a therapist called Leah?”

“Of course not,” said Abbie. “If he didn’t tell you why would he tell me?”

“You mean he was?”

“Alexandra,” said Abbie. “Stop all this. You’re brooding and paranoic. Can’t you just grieve peacefully, and think of the real Ned; do all that stuff you’re meant to do: reconciliation and incorporation and all that?”

“I expect I am a little mad,” said Alexandra.

“You certainly are.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What are friends for?” asked Abbie. “It’s okay. Just lean on me.”

N
O SOONER HAD ALEXANDRA
put the phone down, having seen Hamish’s Citroen coming up the drive, than Abbie had a call from Jenny Linden. Jenny was crying and gulping down the phone and saying she’d got home from her therapist to find someone had broken into her house and stolen her photographs of Ned and her address book and diary.

“What else did they steal?” asked Abbie.

“Nothing,” said Jenny. “Isn’t that enough? To steal what’s nearest and dearest to me, at a time like this.”

“Are there signs of a break-in?” asked Abbie.

“Nothing,” said Jenny. “That’s what’s so weird. Just Marmalade acting peculiar, miaowing and rubbing up against me. I’m sure he’s trying to tell me something. You know Ned gave me Marmalade? She’s all I have left of him. No, that’s wrong. His spirit is with me. He’s in my heart, in my being. Leah said today she felt his presence in me very clearly.”

“That’s nice,” said Abbie. “Are you sure you didn’t just put the books somewhere else? It’s the kind of thing one does. And you’ve been so upset. You could have taken down the photos yourself. Have you looked everywhere?”

“The books were on the table when I left,” said Jenny. “I’ll swear they were. But I suppose I could be wrong.”

“Or perhaps you took them with you in the car,” said Abbie. “And if they were on your lap or something, and when you got out at Bristol they might have fallen out. That once happened to me with my Filofax.”

“I suppose it could be,” said Jenny. “And I do rotate the photographs, it’s true. I could have taken them down and not put the others up. I’m so upset I don’t know what I’m doing any more. The air in my lovely little house was all shaky from spite and malice, I’m sure it was. You don’t think Alexandra got in? She is such a hating person. Why should she live and Ned die? There’s no justice in the world at all.”

“Now, Jenny,” said Abbie, “all this is total paranoia. It’s guilt speaking, because you used to snoop around in The Cottage from time to time. Ned was Alexandra’s, after all. He isn’t really yours to mourn. She was his wife.”

“How dare you say such a thing!” cried Jenny Linden. “Leah says Ned and I were married in heaven: we were old souls reunited at last in this life. Leah realised that the moment she met Ned. She says Alexandra was the cross Ned had to bear: Dave was my cross. Apparently we all have them. What have I got to be guilty about? Nothing! Why are you all so horrid to me? You used to be on my side.”

“Jenny,” said Abbie. “Now calm down. I think perhaps you tend to remember what you’d like to remember, not what really happened. You must be careful what you say. We don’t want anyone to be more upset than they are already.”

“Don’t we?” shrieked Jenny Linden. “Well perhaps I’m sick of bearing things alone. Perhaps I’m tired of being the one good person round here. If I don’t get my address book and diary back I’m going to pull the plug on Alexandra Ludd. Stuck-up bitch!”

W
HEN HAMISH STOOD IN
the doorway, Alexandra thought for a moment it was Ned. Same build, same colouring: the pale curly hair receding in just the same way. She put her arms round him and felt his warmth; she buried her head in his jacket but he didn’t smell of Ned, his body didn’t melt into hers. She was conscious of his distress. “Poor Alexandra,” said Hamish.