Barbara Vine - The Minotaur

A log falling from the fire would have toppled on to the brown glazed tiles of the hearth and been stopped from rolling on to the rug by the fender. To prevent such a thing was its function. Ever since the first fire of the winter had been lit, the fender had been in place. I remembered, very distinctly, Ida bringing it from the boot room, placing it round the hearth and telling me – astonished that I didn't know – what it was and what it was called.

No log falling from the fire could have rolled past it. Logs don't have wings, nor are they fired from catapults. So what had really happened?

I believe I know that answer. It has to be. Ida went into the drawing room, clearing up, emptying an ashtray, plumping a seat cushion, performing one of the myriad tasks she set herself every day. The fire had reached that red glowing stage of maximum heat when it can either be left to burn out in ten minutes or fed with more logs, in which case it will lose heat for a moment or two. I think Ida seized her chance, moved away the fender with the toe of her shoe, and again with the toe of her shoe dislodged the topmost log from the fire. Perhaps she watched it and the sparks it scattered catch the tufts of the rug and a little flame flicker, take hold and strengthen. Or perhaps she went straight back to the kitchen, filled a bowl with water, sat at the table and began to peel potatoes. It will never be known, I thought, because she will never say.

Why? Because her mother had killed Winifred and burning alive was fit punishment for her? Or because Ida herself had killed Winifred and to lose her home and perhaps her life was fit punishment for her ? I don't think so. I don't think either of these dramatic solutions is true. I remembered what she said to me that day when Dr Barker had refused her the prescription.

‘Sometimes I think I'd do anything for a change.’

Now

She came. The words she had called back to me were ‘Love to.’ She had brought Daisy with her, having left Zoë behind with some people of her own age she had met. Charles and Mark and Anna were in the far corner of the bar but I had decided to make no introductions yet. We sat at a little table, the child quiet and staring, her hands folded in her lap.

Ella looked less like her mother. She had put on a red jacket and shoes with high heels. Her face was discreetly made up and her hair had been done in one of Riga's many hairdressers. That day, it appeared, we had both been to see the art nouveau in Alberta Street, that place of bad dreams for some and fantasies for others, which she had hated and I had loved, anything between the two being impossible. Though nothing like it, though belonging to a different period, it had reminded me of the library at Lydstep Old Hall.

‘I was so glad to hear about John,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she said rather doubtfully, as if hearing her brother was in a mental hospital or had come to some other bad end would have been better options.

The same old Ella, I thought. I asked Daisy if she would like orange juice or a coke. ‘I don't mind,’ she said meekly, and then, ‘What can I do, Grandma?’

Inspiration came to me. ‘I'll make you a Dog Growing,’ I said, taking the drinks menu off the table and beginning to fold it. ‘Would you like a glass of rosé, Ella?’

‘Rosé?’

‘It used to be your favourite.’

‘Did it? Goodness, I haven't touched the stuff since I married. Still, why not?’

I thought then that she would say who she had married and I waited expectantly. Not Felix, surely. I tried to remember a profile I had read of him in some paper. No wife had been mentioned. Daisy, a serious child, watched me beginning to draw the dog's outline.

‘I'm a widow now,’ Ella said. ‘Have been for ten years.’ She sipped the wine and then went on, ‘You live in Sweden, do you?’

‘I live in London. I've lived in London since before I married. You remember my husband, Charles Trintowel? That's him over there. I'll introduce you in a minute.’

‘Oh, yes.’ She sounded bored.

Daisy moved to sit beside me and started giggling as I drew the dog's nose and floppy ears. ‘Is Ida still alive?’

Ella peered into her glass as if into a crystal ball. ‘She's in an old people's home. After the fire she stayed with us for a while but we never really got on. Mr Trewith's wife died – do you remember Mr Trewith? – and he offered her a job as his housekeeper.’ I remembered Mr Trewith. He heard confessions, had perhaps heard Winifred's. ‘That's what really always suited Ida, housework, waiting on others, that sort of thing. Would never have done for me but of course I was a professional woman.’

I had to know. ‘Felix Dunsford did well for himself. I saw the other day that one of his paintings fetched fifty thousand pounds.’

Not a flicker of memory or reminiscence, still less of pain, showed in her face. ‘Oh, yes. We sold his portrait of Winifred for quite a tidy sum. Not fifty thousand, I may add, but not far off. It's been a godsend to me. Talking of Felix, when we saw you'd become a cartoonist we couldn't understand you never said anything to him about it. You having that in common, I mean.’ She peered at the now recognizable dog without enthusiasm. ‘He might have given you some tips.’

She laughed, so I laughed and Daisy burst into a peal of laughter. ‘Who are “we“, Ella?’

‘We?’

‘Who did you marry?’

‘Oh, didn't I say? Eric, of course.’

Eric.

‘I wore Winifred's wedding dress, so it wasn't wasted. But you know, Kerstin, the Church of England are so mean-spirited. When Eric died they made me get out of the Rectory in three months. Three months to find another place and move out. I ask you.’

I pulled open the folds and the spaniel became a dachshund. Once more serious, Daisy put out her hand for the drawing. She folded it, pulled it out and smiled. ‘Can I keep it?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Come and say hallo to Charles.’

And they did, Daisy with the Dog Growing in her hand.