Ruth Rendell - A Demon in My View

There are ways and ways of ending a love affair. Anthony thought of the ways he had ended with girls in the past and the ways they had ended with him. Cool discussions, rows, pseudo-noble renunciations, cheerful let’s-call-it-a-day farewells. But it had never been Helen’s way. No one had rid herself of him with a curt note. And yet any of those other girls would have been more justified in doing so, for he had claimed to love none of them and offered none of them permanency. A last meeting he could have taken, a final explanation from her or even an honest letter, inviting him to phone her for a last talk. What he had received was more than he could take and he refused it. There still remained the last Wednesday of the month. Tomorrow. He would ask Linthea for the use of her phone so that there wouldn’t be that hassle with the change. And Helen should learn she couldn’t dismiss him as if he were some guy she’d picked up and spent a couple of nights with.

Leroy was still at school when he called at Linthea’s on his way home from college. “You’re welcome,” she said, “but I have to go out around eight, so when you’ve done your phoning, would you sit with Leroy for an hour or two?”

This wasn’t exactly what Anthony had envisaged. He had seen himself needing a little comfort after speaking his mind to Helen. On the other hand, this way Linthea wouldn’t have to know whom he was phoning and why. And there would be plenty of time later in the week, next week, the week after, for consolation. All the time in the world …

Linthea was ready to go out when he got there and Leroy was playing Monopoly in his bedroom with Steve and David. Because it was still only ten to eight, Anthony passed the time by reading the evening paper’s account of the inquest on Brian Kotowsky. Evidence was given of the murder of Brian’s wife three weeks before, of his disappearance but not a hint was breathed that Brian might have been responsible for that murder. The body had been in the sea for a fortnight and identification had been difficult. No alcohol had been present, but the cumulative effects of alcohol were found in the arteries and the liver. The verdict, in the absence of any suicide note or prior-to-death admission of unhappiness on Brian’s part, was one of misadventure. In a separate paragraph Chief Superintendent Howard Fortune, head of Kenbourne Vale C.I.D., was quoted as saying simply, “I have no comment to make at this stage.”

Eight o’clock. He would give it till ten past. Steve and David went home, and Anthony talked to Leroy, telling him stories about a children’s home where he had once worked and where the boys had got out of the windows by night and gone off to steal cars. Leroy was entranced, but Anthony’s heart wasn’t in it. At eight-fifteen he put the television on, gave Leroy milk and biscuits and shut himself up in Linthea’s bedroom where she had a phone extension.

He dialled the Bristol number and it began to ring. When it had rung twelve times he knew she wasn’t going to answer. Would she, after all there had been between them, just sit there and let the phone ring? She must know it was he. He dialled again and again it rang unanswered. After a while he went back to Leroy and tried to watch a quiz programme. Nine o’clock came and he forgot all about sending Leroy off to bed as he had promised. Again he dialled Helen’s number. She had gone out, he thought, guessing he would phone. That was how she intended to behave if he tried to “contact” her. And when Roger was at home and the phone rang they would have arranged it so that he answered.… He put the receiver back and sat with a contented little boy who didn’t get sent to bed until five minutes before his mother came home with Winston Mervyn.

“I don’t owe you anything for the call,” said Anthony. “I couldn’t get through.”

He went home soon after and lay on his bed, thinking of ways to get in touch with Helen. He could, of course, go to her house. He could go on Saturday, it was only two hours to Bristol in the train. Roger would be there, but he wasn’t afraid of Roger, his guns, and his rages. But Roger would be there , would possibly open the door to him. With Roger enraged and belligerent, Helen frightened and obedient according to what she had the effrontery to call her duty, what could he say? And nothing would be said at all, for Roger wouldn’t admit him to the house.

He could phone her mother if he knew what her mother was called or where she lived. The sister and brother-in-law? They had hardly proved trustworthy in the past. In the end he fell into an uneasy sleep. When he awoke at seven it occurred to him that he could phone her at the museum. He had never done so before because of her absurd neurosis about Roger’s all-seeing eye and all-hearing ear, but he’d do it now and to hell with Roger.

He had planned to spend the day in the British Museum library but it didn’t much matter what time he got there. At nine he went out and bought a couple of cans of soup at Winter’s in order to get some change. On the way back he passed Arthur Johnson in a silver-grey overcoat and carrying a briefcase, the acme of respectability. Arthur Johnson said good morning and that the weather was seasonable, to which Anthony agreed absently. A hundred and forty-two was quite empty, totally silent. The seasonableness of the weather was evinced by a high wind, and little spots of coloured light cast through the wine-red and sap-green glass danced on the hall floor.

He went upstairs to the phone and dialled. Peep-peep-peep, and in went the first of his money. A girl’s voice but not hers.

“Frobisher Museum. Can I help you?”

“I want to speak to Helen Garvist.”

“Who is that calling?”

“It’s a personal call,” said Anthony.

“I’m afraid I must have your name.”

“Anthony Johnson.”

She asked him to hold the line. After about a minute she was back. “I’m afraid Mrs. Garvist isn’t here.”

He hesitated, then said, “She must be there.”

“I’m afraid not.”

Then he understood. She would have come to the phone if he hadn’t given his name, if he had insisted on anonymity. But because she didn’t want to talk to him, was determined at any cost not to talk to him, she had got the girl to tell this lie.

“Let me speak to the curator,” he said firmly.

“I’ll see if he’s available.”

The pips started. Anthony put in more money.

“Norman Le Queuex speaking,” said a thin academic voice.

“I’m a friend of Mrs. Helen Garvist and I’m speaking from London. From a call box. I want to speak to Mrs. Garvist It’s very urgent.”

“Mrs. Garvist is taking a fortnight of her annual leave, Mr. Johnson.”

How readily the name came to him.… He had been forewarned. “In November? She can’t be.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. She told you to say that, didn’t she?”

There was an astonished silence. Then the curator said, “I think the sooner we terminate this conversation the better,” and he put the receiver down.

Anthony sat on the stairs. It is very easy to become paranoid in certain situations, to believe that the whole world is against you. But what if the whole world, or those significant members of it, truly are against you? Why should Helen go away now in the cold tail end of the year? She would have mentioned something about it in her last letter if she had planned to go away. No, it wasn’t paranoid, it was only feasible to believe that, wanting no more of him, she had asked Le Queuex and the museum staff to deny her to a caller named Anthony Johnson. Of course they would co-operate if she said this was a man who was pestering her.…

“Kotowsky’s being cremated today,” said Stanley Caspian.