Minette Walters - The Ice House

"Would you like a drink?" She walked over to a mahogany cabinet.

"Are you having one?"

"Yes."

"OK. I'll have a gin and tonic."

Diana poured the drinks and took the glasses over to the window. "Cheers." She perched on the back of a chair and joined her daughter's contemplation of the terrace. It was easier, on the whole, not to look at her. "For years I couldn't think about your father without getting angry. When his letters arrived for you and I saw his handwriting, I used to get so tensed up my jaw would ache for hours. I kept wondering what Miranda had that I hadn't." She gave a short laugh. "That's when I first understood what 'grinding your teeth' meant." She paused. "It took me a while but I've got over it. Now I try to remember the good times. Is she nice? I never met her, you know."

Elizabeth's attention was riveted on the antics of a sparrow on the flagstones outside, as if in its small person it was about to provide an answer to the mysteries of the universe. "It wasn't all his fault," she said defensively.

"No, it wasn't. Actually, in many ways it was more my fault. I took him for granted. I assumed he was the sort of man who could cope with a working wife, and he wasn't. He particularly disliked competing with me as a business partner. I don't blame him. He couldn't help that, any more than I could help wanting a career after you were born. The truth is, we should never have married. We were far too young and neither of us knew what we were doing. Phoebe feels the same. She married David because she was pregnant with Jonathan, and propriety amongst the middle classes twenty years ago dictated marriage. I married your father for virtually the same reasons. I wanted to go to the States with him and my parents wouldn't hear of my going as his mistress." She sighed. "God knows, Lizzie, we've all lived to regret it. We made a mess of each other's lives because we didn't have the courage to raise two fingers to convention."

The girl stared at the sparrow. "If you regret the marriage, do you also regret its consequence?"

"Do you mean, do I regret you?"

"Of course," she snapped angrily. "The two are rather closely linked, wouldn't you say?" The hurt ran deep.

Diana sought carefully for the right words. "When you were born, I used to be driven mad by people asking: Who does she take after? Is she like you or Steven? My answer was always the same: Neither. I couldn't understand why they needed to tie you to one or other of us. To me, from the moment you drew breath, you were an individual with your own character, your own looks, your own way of doing things. I love you because you're my daughter and we've grown up together, but much more than that I actually like you. I like Elizabeth Goode." She brushed a speck of dust from the girl's sleeve where it rested on the chair beside her. "You exist in your own right You're not a consequence of a marriage."

"But I am ," the girl cried. "Don't you see that? I am what you and Dad have made me."

Diana looked at her. "No, you were bolshy as a baby. I had to put you on solids when you were about eight weeks old because you wouldn't stop yelling for food. Steven always called you 'The Despotic Diaper' because you had us both so well trained. Whatever makes you think now that you were born without personality and had to be fashioned by two untrained people? God knows, you've a horrible shock coming if you think babies don't have minds of their own."

Elizabeth smiled. "You know what I mean."

"Yes," her mother conceded, "I know what you mean." She was silent for a moment. "The truth is, I should have thought this one out before. On the one hand, I've been patting myself on the back for having a strong-minded, independent daughter even if she is a bit wilful; on the other, I've been nagging at you not to make my mistakes." She smiled ruefully. "Sorry, darling. Hardly a consistent position."

"Phoebe's just the same," said Elizabeth. "It must be a common maternal weakness."

Diana laughed. "What does Phoebe do?"

"Haven't you noticed? Whenever Jonathan takes a drink she quietly marks the level in the bottle with a felt-tip pen. She thinks he's never noticed."

"Well, I haven't," said Diana in some surprise. "How extraordinary. Why does she do it?"

"Because his father drank too much. She's watching like a hawk to make sure Jonathan doesn't do the same."

God, and I can't blame her, thought Diana, yet how foolish her actions seemed when looked at objectively. "Does Jonathan understand?" she asked curiously.

"I think so."

"Do you understand?"

"Yes, but that's not to say you or Phoebe are right. My own view is you're both getting your knickers in a twist over something that may never happen."

"I'll drink to that," said Diana, clinking her glass against her daughter's, but if she hoped this new fragile accord would lead to confidences, she was disappointed. Elizabeth had kept her own counsel too long to give it free expression on such tenuous beginnings.

"She is nice," said Elizabeth unexpectedly. "Very different from you. She's short and rather dumpy and she wears pinafore dresses all the time. She cooks very well. Dad's put on about two stone since he married her." She smiled. "None of his shirts do up any more, or they didn't three years ago."

Good lord, thought Diana, so that's what he wanted. She thought of the slim young man she had married with the cadaverous good looks and the designer clothes, and she chuckled. "Poor old Steven."

"He's very happy," her daughter protested, quick to see a criticism.

Diana held up her hands in mock surrender. "I'm sure he is and I'm glad. Very glad," she said, and she was.

"I suppose I'll have to ask the police if it's all right for me to go back to London," Elizabeth hazarded after a moment.

"When do you want to go?"

"Straight after lunch tomorrow. Jon said he'd drive me to the station."

"We'll ask Walsh in the morning," said Diana. "He's sure to be up here bright and early to rap me over the knuckles for this afternoon's little naughtiness."

"Oh, Mum," scolded Elizabeth as if she were speaking to a child, "you will be careful, won't you? You've got such a temper when you're angry. Frankly, I think you're damn lucky to have got off as lightly as you did."

"Yes," agreed Diana meekly, marvelling at how rapidly roles reversed.

Elizabeth pursed her lips. "Jon got into a fight today," she announced surprisingly, "but don't tell Phoebe. She'll have a fit."

"Where?"

"Silverborne. Some yobbos recognised him from that photo in the local newspaper, the one taken outside the hospital the night Anne was attacked. They called him a lessies' pimp, so he bopped one of them in the eye and took to his heels." She smiled. "I was rather impressed when he told me. I didn't think he had it in him."

Diana thought of David Maybury. Jonathan had it in him all right.

Within twenty-four hours Anne had made such a rapid recovery that she was suffering severe nicotine withdrawal symptoms and announced her intention of discharging herself. Jonathan told her not to be such a fool. "You nearly died. If it hadn't been for the Sergeant, you probably would have done. Your body needs time to recover and get over the shock."

"Damn," she said roundly, "and I can't remember a thing about it. No near-death experiences, no free-floating on the ceiling, no tunnels with shining lights at the end. What an absolute bugger, I could have written it all up. That's what comes of being an atheist."

Jonathan, who for various reasons had come to view McLoughlin as a bit of a hero, certainly not all to do with coming to Anne's rescue, took her to task. "Have you thanked him?"

She scowled from him to the WPC beside her bed. "What for? He was only doing his job."