Ruth Rendell - Adam And Eve And Pinch Me

He got off the bus and walked slowly down Holmdale Road. In all his six-year-long quest to find a woman who was young yet rich, a home owner, out at work all day, good-looking, sexy and loving, willing without demur to keep him, he’d never come across one who satisfied the criteria as well as Fiona. Sometimes, especially when he’d had a drink, he even felt romantic about her. So how was he going to juggle the three slippery balls of keeping her in love with him, obtaining access to his children, and avoiding marrying her?

He let himself into the house and found her watching Matthew Jarvey’s television show. He kissed her affectionately and asked after her parents, whom she’d been visiting while he was out. On the screen Matthew, looking like a famine victim, was gently interviewing a Weight Watchers woman who’d lost twenty pounds in six months.

“Must be nuts, that guy,” said Jeff. “Why doesn’t he just get himself together and eat?”

“Darling, I hope it doesn’t upset you, but did you know there’s a big piece in the Telegraph Magazine about your ex-wife?”

“Really?” This would solve his dilemma of whether to tell her or not.

“Mummy kept it for me. She thought it terribly naff-I mean, the people who write this stuff. What kind of a woman would be such a bitch?”

For some obscure reason, this innocent attack on Natalie Reckman made Jeff angry, but he didn’t show it. “Have you got it, darling?”

“You won’t let it upset you, will you?”

Fiona handed him the magazine and returned to watching Matthew chatting to a man who failed to put on weight no matter how heartily he ate. On rereading, the bits about Zillah’s clothes and her souk jewelry restored his good temper and made him want to laugh. He assumed a gloomy expression. “I admit I’m anxious about my children,” he said quite truthfully when the program ended and Fiona switched off the set.

“Perhaps you should consult a solicitor. Mine’s very good. A woman, of course, and young. High-powered, doing very well for herself financially. Shall I give her a ring?”

Fleetingly, Jeff considered it. Not because he had any intention of involving the law-nothing could be more dangerous-but he liked the sound of this woman: young, high-powered, rich. Good-looking? Richer than Fiona? He could hardly ask. Regretfully, he said, “Better not, at this stage. I’ll fix up a meeting with Zillah first. What shall we do this evening?”

“I thought we might stay in, have a quiet time at home.” She edged closer to him on the sofa.

Zillah also had a quiet time at home. Jims had dumped the suitcases in her bedroom and gone off to spend the night with Leonardo. A note by the phone informed her that her mother had removed the children to Bournemouth, being unable to stay in London because Zillah’s father had had a heart attack and was in the hospital there. Zillah picked up the phone and, as soon as it was answered, got a mouthful of abuse from Nora Watling. How dare she go off without leaving the phone number of the hotel she and Jims were staying in? And never to call once from the Maldives! Had she no concern at all for her children?

“How’s Dad?” asked Zillah in a small, wretched voice.

“Better. He’s home. He might be dead for all you care. I may as well tell you here and now that I never in my life read anything so disgusting as that article in the Telegraph . I haven’t kept it for you. I burnt it. More or less calling you a prostitute! A Gypsy! When you know perfectly well your father and I come from good West Country stock for generations back. And that picture! As good as topless you were. And calling poor James a pervert!”

Zillah held the receiver at a distance until the cackling ceased. “I don’t suppose you’ll feel like bringing the children back?”

“You ought to be ashamed to ask. I’m worn out with nursing your father. And I don’t know what to do about Jordan’s crying. It’s not natural a child of three crying at the least little thing. You’ll have to fetch them yourself. Tomorrow. What do you have a car for? I’ll tell you something, Sarah, I didn’t know my luck all that time we barely had any contact. Since you went to London, I haven’t had a moment’s peace.”

In Glebe Terrace, in Leonardo’s tiny but extremely smart Gothic house, he and Jims were reclining on the huge bed that filled Leonardo’s bedroom but for a few inches between it and the walls, listening to The Westminster Hour on the radio. They had eaten their dinner (gravlax, quails with quails’ eggs, biscotti, a bottle of pinot grigio) in that bed and made some inventive love afterward. Now they were relaxing in their favorite way, Leonardo having comforted Jims by telling him not to worry about the Telegraph . There was nothing offensive about him in it, rather the reverse. It was Zillah who got all the stick.

A couple who had been spending the evening in a similar way were Fiona and Jeff. Their lovemaking had also been inventive and satisfying, but their dinner had consisted of papaya, cold chicken, and ice cream with a bottle of Chilean chardonnay. Fiona was now asleep while Jeff sat up in bed rereading Natalie Reckman’s piece. After a while he got up and, treading softly, went downstairs to find the address book he kept in an inside pocket of his black leather jacket. Fiona, as she’d no hesitation in telling him, was far too honorable ever to look in jacket pockets.

There it was: Reckman, Natalie, 128 Lynette Road, Islington, N1. She might have moved, but it was worth a try. Why not give her a ring for old times’ sake?

NEARLY A MONTH went by before Minty got to see Josephine’s wedding photographs and then she was expected to pay if she wanted a set of her own. She hadn’t the money to waste on things like that, but she carefully scrutinized the photos for a hint of Jock’s presence before handing them back. Auntie had had a book with amazing spirit photos in it, taken at seances. Sometimes the spirits looked solid like Jock and sometimes transparent, so that you could see the furniture through them. But there was nothing of either sort in Josephine’s pictures, only a lot of drunk people grinning and shrieking and hugging each other.

For a week, while Ken and Josephine were on a deferred honeymoon in Ibiza, Minty had been in charge of Immacue on her own. She didn’t like it but she had no choice. Once, when she was in the back ironing and she heard a man’s voice, or rather, a man’s cough from the shop, she thought Jock had come back again, but it was Laf, his kind face looking doleful and apologetic.

He was in uniform, an imposing figure, all six foot two of him and, it seemed to Minty, exaggerating, nearly six foot two round his middle. “Hallo, Minty, love. How are you?”

Minty said she wasn’t so bad, thanks. Josephine would be back the next day.

“It’s not Josephine I want. It’s you. To be honest with you, it’s no good me popping in next door with Sonovia the way she is. She’s got a nasty tongue when she likes, as you know. But I thought-well, me and Sonny are going to see The Cider House Rules tonight and I thought-well, you might like to come along. No, don’t say anything for a minute. I thought, maybe you’d meet us there and sort of come up to us and say hello or whatever and Sonn would-well, she wouldn’t make a song and dance of it in a public place, would she?”

Minty shook her head. “She’d ignore me.”

“No, she wouldn’t, love. Believe me, I know her. It’d be a way of putting things right between you. I mean, it’s not right the way things are, never being able to pop next door, me not allowed to pass on the papers, and all that. I reckon if you did that, she’d apologize and then maybe you would, and everything’d be grand again.”