Ruth Rendell: The Bridesmaid

He opened them again very quickly and came down the steps and hid whatever it was that was upsetting him under hearty politeness. Philip expected him to kiss Christine—and perhaps Christine expected this too, for she went to him with her face held up, but he didn’t kiss her. He shook hands with everyone. Philip put Flora down on the step while he shook hands.

Christine said, “This is Fiona, my eldest. She’s the one I told you is getting married next year. And this is Philip who’s just got his degree and is training to be an interior designer, and this is Cheryl—she’s just left school.”

“And who’s this?” Arnham said.

The way Philip had set Flora down she did look like a fifth member of their party. Her wrappings were coming off. Head and one arm poked out of the hole in the cleaning bag. Her serene face, whose eyes seemed always to be looking beyond you and into the distance, was now entirely uncovered, as was her right hand, in which she held the sheaf of marble flowers. The green stain on her neck and bosom had suddenly become very noticeable, as had the chip out of one of her ears.

“You remember her, Gerard. She’s Flora who was in my garden and you said you liked her so much. We’ve brought her for you. She’s yours now.” When Arnham didn’t say anything, Christine persisted, “For a present. We’ve brought her for you because you said you liked her.”

Arnham was obliged to make a show of enthusiasm but he didn’t do it very well. They left Flora out there and went into the house. Necessarily, because there were four of them and the hallway was narrow so that they had to proceed singly, they seemed to troop into the house. Philip felt glad they at least hadn’t brought Hardy. This was no place for a dog.

It was very beautifully decorated and furnished. Philip always noticed these things. If he hadn’t, he probably wouldn’t have been taking the training course at Roseberry Lawn Interiors. One day, a day that was necessarily far off, he would like a living room in his house like this one, with ivy green walls and drawings in narrow gilt frames and a carpet whose glorious deep soft yellow reminded him of Chinese porcelain seen in museums.

Through an archway he could see into the dining room. A small table was laid for two. There were two pink table napkins in two tall pink glasses and a single pink carnation in a fluted vase. Before he could fully realise what this meant, Arnham was ushering them all into the garden by a back way. He had picked up Flora very much as if, Philip thought, he feared she might dirty his carpet, and was swinging her along like a bag of shopping.

Once outside he dumped her in the flower bed that was the border of a small rockery and, making an excuse, disappeared into the house. The Wardmans stood on the lawn. Fee looked at Philip behind Christine’s back and behind Cheryl’s back, put up her eyebrows, and gave the kind of satisfied nod that is the equivalent of a thumbs-up sign. She was indicating that she approved of Arnham, that Arnham would do. Philip shrugged his shoulders. He turned to look at Flora once more, at the marble face which certainly wasn’t Christine’s face or that of any real woman he had ever known. The nose was classical, the eyes rather too wide apart, the soft lips too indented, and there was a curiously glazed look on the face as if she were untroubled by normal human fears and doubts and inhibitions.

Arnham came back apologising, and they set Flora up in a position where she could contemplate her own reflection in the waters of a very small pond. They wedged her in place between two grey stones over which a golden-leaved plant had spread its tendrils.

“She looks just right there,” said Christine. “It seems a shame she can’t stay there for ever. You’ll just have to take her with you when you move.”

“Yes.”

“I expect you’ll have another nice garden wherever it is.”

Arnham didn’t say anything. There was a chance, Philip thought, for he knew his mother, that Christine would say a formal farewell to Flora. It would be like her. He wouldn’t have been surprised to hear her say good-bye and bid Flora be a good girl. Her silence gratified him, the dignified way she preceded Arnham back into the house. He understood. There was no need to say good-bye to someone you would soon be living with for the rest of your life. Had anyone else seen or was he alone in noticing that the little table in the dining room had been stripped of cloth, silver, glass, and pink carnation? That was why Arnham had come back into the house, to clear this table. Much was made plain to Philip. Christine had been expected on her own.

His mother and sisters seemed not to understand that any social solecism had been committed. Cheryl sprawled on his settee, her legs apart and sticking out on the rug. She was obliged to sit like that, of course, because her jeans were too tight and her heels too high to permit of bending her knees and setting the soles of her feet on the floor. Fee had lit a cigarette without asking Arnham if he minded. As she looked round for an ashtray, conspicuously absent among all the variety of ornaments—little cups and saucers, china animals, miniature vases—and while she waited for Arnham to come back with one from the kitchen, the inch of ash fell off the end of her cigarette onto the yellow carpet.

Arnham didn’t say anything. Fee began talking of the missing girl. She was sure the man who had been helping police with their enquiries must be this Martin Hunt, the one the papers and television said had phoned on the day of her disappearance. It was what they always said, the terminology always used, when they meant they had caught a murderer but couldn’t yet prove he had done it. If the papers said any more—gave the man’s name, for instance, or said he was suspected of murder—they might risk a libel action. Or be breaking the law.

“I bet the police grilled him unmercifully. I expect they beat him up. All sorts of things go on we don’t suspect, don’t they? They wanted a confession from him because they’re too thick often to actually get evidence like detectives in books do. I don’t suppose they believed he’d only been out with her four times. And it’s hard for them because they haven’t got a body. They don’t even know for certain she’s been murdered. That’s why they have to get a confession. They have to extort a confession.”

“We have the most restrained and civilised police in the world,” Arnham said stiffly.

Instead of denying this, Fee smiled a little and lifted her shoulders. “They take it for granted when a person gets murdered it’s her husband, if she’s got one, or her boy friend. Don’t you think that’s awful?”

“Why do we have to think about it?” Cheryl asked. “I don’t know why we have to talk about it. Who cares about those revolting things, anyway?”

Fee took no notice. “Personally, I think it was the person who phoned in answer to her advertisement. It was some mad person who phoned and enticed her to their house and killed her. I expect the police think it was Martin Hunt putting on a false voice.”

Philip thought he could see disgust and perhaps boredom on Arnham’s face, but perhaps this was only a projection of his own feelings. He risked Fee’s telling him he was changing the subject and said quickly, “I was admiring that picture,” he began, pointing to the rather strange landscape over the fireplace. “Is it a Samuel Palmer?”

Of course he meant a “print.” Anyone would have known he meant that, but Arnham, looking incredulous, said, “I shouldn’t think so for one moment if Samuel Palmer is who I think he is. My ex-wife bought it in a garage sale.”

Philip blushed. His efforts anyway had done nothing to stem the tide of Fee’s forensic narrative. “She’s probably dead already, and they’ve found the body and are keeping it dark. For their own reasons. To trap someone.”