Caroline Graham - A Ghost in the Machine

Alone now, Mallory drifted back into the deserted orchard, grateful for the space and silence. Grateful even for the sensation of rotten, wasp-infested fruit squelching beneath his sandalled feet. Ambling vaguely about in the weak light of the setting sun he yearned for consolation while simultaneously despising himself for weakness and self-pity. During these evening wanderings he struggled to concentrate on the smallest thing, however ordinary, which lay directly under his nose. He knew, of course, that the intensity of this endeavour was prompted by a need to hold at bay bitter memories of what he still saw as his daughter’s deception and betrayal. He knew Kate thought he’d be better talking about it but he just couldn’t and she was sensitive enough to let things be.

She had spoken with Polly. Just over a week ago she had been saying “goodbye” on the telephone when he came into the room. He heard “…of course I will, darling,” before she hung up. Then she had turned to him smiling and said: “Polly sends her love.”

Mallory couldn’t speak. He had hurried away across the terrace and into the shrubbery where he began pulling out fistfuls of tall weeds, violently, without discrimination. At one point he had gripped a long bramble and wrapped it round and round his wrist, tugging and ripping until the roots came out. Tearing with it the skin from his hand.

Mallory was choosing to spend the larger part of every day outside now, weather permitting. There was never any shortage of things to do and he had to learn as he went along. Occasionally he would ask Benny’s advice but mainly he’d look things up or muddle through. He remembered Kate telling him once, when all else fails we must cultivate our gardens. She’d said it was a famous quote; he thought it was bloody silly. He’d thought a man would have to be desperate to engage in such an incredibly pointless and boring activity. Now he was not so sure. Sometimes, gently lifting and separating papery tulip bulbs or collecting lupin seeds in a small envelope Mallory became aware of a momentary lightening of the heart. A fleeting sensation, even, of peacefulness.

Polly had fallen comfortably on her feet, landing in a top-floor flat off Eaton Square. The owner, an elderly, extremely wealthy Brazilian with a wife as young and lovely as Polly herself, had homes in Paris and the Costa Esmeralda as well as a ranch in Kentucky, Virginia, where he bred horses. They were hardly in London at all.

Polly got the job through an agency. When told her wages would be four hundred pounds a month she gaped at the interviewer in astonishment and got up to leave. Then sat down again. There must be extensive perks going with such a derisory salary and this indeed proved to be the case. The job was light, to put it mildly. She was to forward any post and telephone messages to an office in the Boulevard Haussman in Paris. The apartment was to be kept clean and tidy. All bills would be paid and if any problems of a domestic nature arose she was to inform and liaise with the porter. She was not expected to house sit. Once these simple tasks were performed her time was her own. Naturally references were required. Polly obtained one from her tutor at the LSE and forged the other on House of Commons notepaper stolen from Amanda Fforbes-Snaithe’s briefcase. She was always sure this was the one that swung it.

She was not sorry to leave Dalston. Though ultimately grateful for Deborah Hartogensis’ earlier intervention, Polly felt uncomfortable in the girl’s presence. No one likes to have been seen grovelling and incapable. Deborah seemed to understand this and mainly kept out of Polly’s way, smiling tentatively when their paths happened to cross. But she did forward a small package of mail, which included a splendid view of the French Alps. Ashley wrote to say he was getting better every day. Better and stronger. He was looking forward very much to seeing her again. He sent his love. Polly found it almost impossible now to even remember what he looked like. She threw the card away.

Her room in the new flat was quite small, windowless and plainly furnished. The other seven were stuffed with antiques and ancient statuary rather in the manner of William Randolph Hearst’s castle at San Simeon but minus the packing cases. The bathrooms and kitchen were magnificent.

Once settled Polly looked around for a way to earn some money. She took the first job available that was within walking distance, thus saving on fares. This was at Calypso’s, a wine bar on the King’s Road. Meant as a stopgap, the place proved so congenial and the owner so accommodating as to hours that Polly decided to stay on working as and when, after the new term began. The wages were rubbish but the tips outstanding. Some days it seemed every other man at the counter wanted to buy her a drink; one week she took home nearly three hundred pounds. A meal was included in every shift, which was another bonus.

Being busy helped her through the first few weeks back in the Smoke. She sent her new address to Appleby House and had talked to her mother a couple of times on the telephone. Soon Kate was hoping to come to London. So far there had been no word from Mallory. Polly totally understood this and was even relieved at the enforced separation. Though she missed him she now saw clearly that his constant and uncritical support – emotional, psychological and financial – for whatever she chose to say or do had been seriously damaging. It was not his fault. He loved her and wanted to see her happy. But what makes you happy, as Polly had bitterly discovered, does not necessarily make you wise.

She had already obtained a loan for her final year and was stubbornly set on not taking a single penny from her parents. The wrong she had done them was still fresh and raw. And with the City in the state it was, her vow to repay now seemed just so much empty rhetoric. But she could at least get a good degree. No more slacking, no more drugs, no more speculation.

Speculation especially was off the agenda. Though as determined and ambitious as she had ever been, Polly had changed in one important respect. Excessive greed had left her, taking with it the will to chicane. Cheating and lying now seemed abhorrent. Also fractured beyond repair was that of which she had been most proud—her precious edge.

But, hearing herself so described, Polly would have made one thing very clear. There had been no Damascene conversion. She still did not have an altruistic bone in her body and probably never would have. Polly would not be seen putting her intelligence and training to the service of the poor on some unspeakable housing estate. She knew only too well what that sort of thing could lead to.

Billy Slaughter was always in her thoughts. She struggled to remain free of him, to draw his sting but found it impossible. Constantly she imagined him walking into the wine bar, even though Calypso’s was nowhere near the City. The fact that she had no idea where he lived only added to Polly’s anxiety. What if it were Knightsbridge or Sloane Square? Or, worse, one of the supremely grand, monstrously priced wedding-cake villas directly off the King’s Road.

At night, before a full-length mirror in the master bedroom, she sometimes practised how she would behave when they met. Polite, withdrawn, uninvolved. One time, raising and lowering eyebrows in aloof enquiry, she laughed at herself. Something she could not remember doing her whole life long.

But all these rehearsals were in vain. Billy Slaughter did not come to the wine bar nor did she see or even hear about him during her final year at the LSE. Even when she started work in Gracechurch Street, in the hub of the City, his name was never mentioned. And when Polly became confident enough to bring it up herself no one recollected him at all. Eventually, her fancy running riot, she began to wonder if he had been some demon spirit fired into life by an unknown benevolence then dropped squarely in her path, forcing her to change direction. And in the cold light of day this notion still appealed. For Polly saw quite clearly now what sort of person she would eventually have become had they never met.