Barbara Vine - The Minotaur

‘Even Julia herself wouldn't have behaved like that,’ was her comment.

So Ella and I arranged to meet on neutral ground. There was a teashop in Windrose, the front part of it selling handicrafts and souvenirs no one ever seemed to buy, so depressing and shabby had they become over the years, and the back part a café with four sets of tables and chairs and a counter where the cakes under a glass dome looked as old as the souvenirs. There Ella and I had begun meeting either for morning coffee or afternoon tea. Ella wanted to vary our venue to take in the White Rose but there I was adamant, fearing another encounter with Felix.

‘I know he and I will never be together again, Kerstin,’ she said sadly. ‘It's just that I thought if we went to the pub I could look at him across the bar. I could just look at him and remember. He'll never see me in my bridesmaid's dress now, will he?’

‘How is John?’ I said. He was my concern and I wished passionately I could see him, though I knew the chances were that, like Felix and the pink silk dress, I never would.

‘I don't know,’ Ella said. She sounded impatient. ‘I hardly see him. He's in the library all the time.’

That pleased me. He was happier in there than I had ever seen him. I could imagine him trying to discover the square root of minus one, doing the theorems which soothed him, moving the hated Bible from Longinus's hands and replacing it with the works of one of those writers of classical antiquity. Who would replace it now Winifred was gone?

‘No one had been in there,’ said Ella, ‘since they came and took him away. Mother said there was a trail of blood leading into the middle bit but there wasn't. I looked. And there couldn't have been, you know, because John's hands weren't cut. She must know that now, though she's never said.’

‘Is he all right?’

‘I said I don't know.’ Ella was growing irritable as she always did when the conversation wandered too far from her own troubles. ‘He's never exactly all right, is he? Ida takes him food in there on a tray, otherwise he wouldn't eat. She says he seems afraid of her. He's very afraid of Mother. You can't wonder really, can you? After all, he may be mad but he's not stupid.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No.’

‘I think he remembers they both accused him of killing Winifred and he does understand cause and effect. He thinks it's because of what they said that the police took him away.’

‘Can you wonder?’

‘Well, perhaps not. But do we have to be always talking about John? He's really very boring, you know. You'll say the mad are and it's not their fault but one doesn't have to be always discussing them. This coffee is awful, isn't it? It's worse than the stuff Ida makes. I dreamt last night that Felix came to the Hall and said he'd really loved me all along and we'd get married and he'd take me to Morocco on our honeymoon.’

I asked why Morocco.

‘I don't know, it sounds so romantic. Anyway, it was nothing to do with me, it was in the dream. I believed it, you know, I thought it was all true. But it wasn't. I woke up and I was crying as if my heart would break – only it's broken already. Do you want a cake?’

‘Not one of those,’ I said.

She hadn't mentioned Zorah and I didn't ask. Next day was Winifred's funeral.

‘You won't go to that,’ said Jane.

It was more of a statement of fact than an inquiry. I was growing fretful and fidgety under her increasing habit of directing my life. I liked her – I was always to like her – and I could see that she had singled me out to be her son's wife, something that I too was soon to desire, though her selection had more to do with her own taste than with Charles or my preferences. But I was determined to tread that fine line between resisting her commands and being a good guest, even if it rather wore me down, for I had so recently come from another and much more savage domination.

‘I think I'll go,’ I said. ‘She was always pleasant to me. I had no quarrel with her.’

‘I hope you won't regret it,’ Jane said in the grim tone she used when thwarted.

It was hard to see how I could feel much regret, even though there should be scenes among the Cosways and hysterical outbursts. In the event nothing like that took place. Mrs Cosway wasn't there. For the very good reason, I found out later, that she was at home being closely questioned by the police. Ida turned up, wearing the big hat I had last seen on Winifred's head and on which Eric had complimented her. Ella came to sit next to me and chatted away through the solemn voluntaries.

‘Have you seen the papers this morning? There's a group photograph of us all and one of those Ida took of you and me and Winifred. Mrs Lilly sneaked them out and gave them to the paper. Well, sold them, more likely. I don't absolutely know it was her but it's an intelligent guess, don't you think? Mother said it was you but I told her she shouldn't make accusations like that.’

Someone had had the idea of bringing the coffin up the aisle to the Dead March in Handel's Saul . It was only the fact that we had to rise which stemmed the tide of Ella's chatter. Even so, as Mr Trewith began to say the words, something about man born of woman being full of misery – the women, presumably, were as happy as the day is long – she managed to whisper in my ear that she knew she looked awful in black and hoped Felix wouldn't be there to see her.

He wasn't but Eric was, looking thinner and even more gaunt than usual. Instead of joining us, he sat alone in the pew several times occupied by Felix. What do people think about at funerals? If they were close to the dead, no doubt they think of what they have lost, their past with them and their future without them. As for the rest of us, I suppose our thoughts wander as mine did that day, returning always from these journeys through the associative process to John, then to Felix and Zorah. When did they meet? How did they come together? Where were they now? And then, as the coffin was carried out again to begin its journey to the crematorium, I thought of something else.

It seems strange that this hadn't really come into my mind before. It entered now, driving away everything else. If John hadn't killed Winifred, who had? I said it aloud to Ella on the dreadful drive back after Winifred was ashes. Ida had gone home, driven by Eric. Ella looked blankly at me, as if she hadn't heard. I repeated it. I had a horrible feeling of being doomed to say this over and over, but unheard.

‘I don't want to think about it,’ she said.

I found myself coming out with the absurd usage I hated so much from her. ‘You'll say it's no business of mine.’

‘Oh, no, Kerstin. No, I won't. It's just that it's so awful, one's mother and one's sister…’

‘Which one?’ I said, my voice a breath or a whisper.

She pulled the car into a lay-by and switched off the engine. Her face was full of woe, like a hurt child's, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘I don't know.’ Hope – a ridiculous hope – sent the colour into her white cheeks. ‘Does it have to be either of them?’

‘What else?’

‘I thought someone might have got in from outside. By the French windows. No, they couldn't, could they? That's impossible. And Winifred couldn't have – well, done it herself. No. No, she couldn't have.’

We sat silent in the car, starting to shiver. Our breath steamed up the windows. ‘I'd better tell you.’

I had reached the point of dreading revelations. I wished I hadn't asked which one, but I had asked. It was too late.

‘The police came yesterday. They asked a lot of questions and then they took Mother and Ida away to a police station somewhere. When they brought them back it was very late. They were questioned separately and – well, I'll have to tell you now I've begun. Ida said Mother did it and Mother said Ida did.’