Elizabeth George - For the Sake of Elena

She wanted to say, “Mrs. Gustafson’s as afraid as you are, Mum, that’s why she resorts to frightening you when you get a bit wild,” but she knew her mother would not understand. So she said nothing. She merely drew her mother close to her and thought with longing and loss of that studio in Chalk Farm where she had stood beneath the false acacia and allowed herself a moment to dream of hope and independence.

“Lovey? Are you still up?”

Barbara turned from the window. Moonlight made the room a place of silver and shadow. It fell in a band across her bed and pooled round the odd, ball-and-claw legs on the chest of drawers. The full-length mirror that hung on the door of the built-in clothes cupboard-“Look at these, Jimmy,” her mother had said. “What a nice touch! We won’t need wardrobes here.”-refl ected the light in a shaft of white against the opposite wall. She’d hung a cork board there when she’d turned thirteen years old. It was supposed to hold all the souvenirs of her adolescence: programmes from the theatre, invitations to parties, mementoes from school dances, a dried flower or two. It held nothing at all for the first three years. And then she’d come to realise it never would unless she pinned to it something more than unrealistic dreams. So she’d clipped newspaper articles, first human interest stories about babies and animals, then intriguing pieces about small acts of violence, and finally sensational columns on murder.

“Not the thing for young ladies,” her mother had sniffed.

No indeed. Not the thing for young ladies.

“Barbie? Lovey?”

Her door was half-closed and Barbara heard her mother’s fingernails scratching against it. If she was absolutely quiet, she knew there was a slight chance that her mother would go away. But it seemed an unnecessary cruelty after what she’d been through that day. So she said:

“I’m awake, Mum. I’ve not gone to bed.”

The door swung inward. Light from the passage behind her acted as accent to Mrs. Havers’ gaunt frame. Especially her legs, human spindles with bulbous knees and ankles that were emphasised by the fact that her housecoat was rucked up and her nightdress too short. She toddled into the room.

“I did a bad today, Barbie, didn’t I?” she said. “Mrs. Gustafson was to spend the night with me here. I remember you said that this morning, didn’t you? You were going to Cambridge. So I must have done a bad if you’re home.”

Barbara welcomed the moment of rare lucidity. She said, “You got confused.”

Her mother stopped a few feet away from her. She’d managed a bath on her own-with just two quick supervisory visits-but she hadn’t done as well with the post-ablutionary rites, for she’d doused herself with so much cologne that it seemed to surround her like a psychic aura.

“Is it near Christmas, lovey?” Mrs. Havers asked.

“It’s November, Mum, the second week of November. It’s not too far from Christmas.”

Her mother smiled, obviously relieved. “I thought it was near. It gets cold round Christmas, doesn’t it, and it’s been like that these past few days, so I thought it must be Christmastime. With the fairy lights on Oxford Street and those lovely displays in Fortnum and Mason. And seeing Father Christmas talking to the children. I thought it was near.”

“And you were right,” Barbara said. She was feeling enormously weary. Her eyelids seemed pricked by thousands of pins. But at least the burden of further dealings with her mother seemed lifted for a moment. She said, “Ready for bed, Mum?”

“Tomorrow,” her mother said. She nodded as if satisfied with her decision. “We’ll do it tomorrow, lovey.”

“Do what?”

“Speak to Father Christmas somewhere. You must tell him what you want.”

“I’m a bit old for Father Christmas. And at any rate, I’ve got to go back to Cambridge in the morning. Inspector Lynley’s still there. I can’t leave him on his own. But you remember that, don’t you? I’m on a case in Cambridge. You remember that, Mum.”

“And we’ve all the invitations to sort through and the gifts to decide upon. We’ll be busy tomorrow. And busy, busy, busy as bees until after the new year.”

The respite had been brief indeed. Barbara took her mother by her bony shoulders and began to guide her gently from the room. She chattered on.

“Daddy’s the hardest to buy for, isn’t he? Mum’s no problem. She’s got such a sweet tooth that I always know if I can just find chocolates-you know the kind she loves-I’ll be all right. But Dad’s a trick. Dorrie, what’re you going to get Dad?”

“I don’t know, Mum,” Barbara said. “I just don’t know.”

They managed the passage to her mother’s bedroom where the duck-shaped light she loved was burning on the bedside table. Her mother continued her Christmas conversation, but Barbara tuned it out, feeling a tumour of depression begin its slow growth in her chest.

She fought it off by telling herself that there was a purpose behind it all. She was being tested. This was her Golgotha. She tried to convince herself that if nothing else the day had taught her that she couldn’t leave her mother for the night with Mrs. Gustafson, and having that knowledge now, under circumstances when she had been close enough to get back home quickly, was so much better than…

Than what? she wondered. Than if she had been called home from an exotic holiday she would never take, in a place she would never see, with a man she would never know, in whose arms she would never lie?

She shoved the thought aside. She needed to get back to work. She had to have a focal point for her thoughts that was anywhere else but in this house in Acton.

“Perhaps,” her mother was saying as Barbara pulled the covers up and tucked them under the mattress, hoping the gesture would seem like concern for her warmth rather than a desire to keep her anchored to the bed, “perhaps we should take a holiday at Christmas and not worry about a thing. What d’you think of that?”

“It’s a grand idea. Why don’t you work on it tomorrow? Mrs. Gustafson can help you sort through your brochures.”

Mrs. Havers’ face clouded. Barbara removed her spectacles and laid them on the table by the bed. “Mrs. Gustafson?” her mother said. “Barbie, who’s she?”

Lynley saw Sergeant Havers’ old Mini trundling its way down Trinity Lane at seven-forty the next morning. He had just left his room in Ivy Court and was walking to his car, which he’d parked in a small space on Trinity Passage, when the familiar rust-eaten sardine-tin-on-wheels that served as Havers’ transportation made the turn at the far end of Gonville and Caius College, sending out a noxious cloud of exhaust fumes into the cold air as Havers changed gear round the curve. Seeing him, she tooted the horn once. He lifted a hand in acknowledgement and waited for her to pull to a stop. When she did so, he opened the passenger door without word or ceremony and folded his lengthy frame into the confines of the cramped front seat. Its upholstery was shiny with age and wear. A broken spring bulged against the material.

The Mini’s heater was roaring with ineffectual enthusiasm against the morning cold, creating a palpable pool of warmth that rose from the floor to the level of his kneecaps. From his waist up, however, the air was ice tinctured with the odour of the cigarette smoke which had long ago altered the vinyl ceiling from beige to grey. Havers, he saw, was doing her best to contribute to the vinyl’s continuing metamorphosis. As he banged the car door shut, she stubbed one cigarette out in the ashtray and immediately lit another.