Ruth Rendell - The Bridesmaid

“Goodbye for now,” he called. “I’ll let myself out, shall I?”

The interlude made him feel rather jaunty. He had acquitted himself well. It had also served to distract him from the business of John Crucifer, alias Joley. The real world, or at least a different one, had intruded. Philip could now see that Joley’s death had absolutely nothing to do with him. In fact, his gifts to Joley had probably made the old man’s last days brighter.

He put the car in the car park when he reached head office. It was ten past one. Just the sort of time when, if he went to find somewhere for lunch, he might bump into Arnham again. Philip told himself that was why he avoided leaving by the passage which led into the street of Georgian houses, but he knew it wasn’t really. The true reason was that he wanted to avoid passing the Venetian glass shop where he might see in the window the dagger of Murano glass.

All his life, probably, the name Murano or even the word dagger would evoke unpleasant memories. That was another good reason why he had to cure Senta of fantasising. There were whole areas of life he now found himself shying away from: the district of Kensal Green, the name Joley and the name John, Scottie dogs, Venice and glass daggers, little grassy glades. Of course time would change it, time would wipe the past clean of all this.

He took the other direction and came out into a busy thoroughfare where street vendors sold souvenirs to tourists. Philip wouldn’t have dreamt of buying anything from one of these stalls, he would have passed them without a glance, but as he came closer to one on which tee shirts with the Tower of London printed on them were displayed, and teddy bears in Union Jack aprons, and tea towels with pictures of the Prince and Princess of Wales, the press of the crowd slowed his pace. He was forced to stand almost still, and for a moment he thought he was going to witness some sort of assault or raid on stall and vendor.

A car pulled into the kerb, on the double yellow line, and two men jumped out. They were young and they looked thuggish—heavy-set with cropped hair and wearing studded leather jackets like Cheryl’s. Both of them came up to the stall, one standing at either end. The bigger and older one said to the vendor, “Got a licence somewhere about, then, have you?”

At once Philip knew they were not thieves or thugs but policemen.

Never before had he looked at the police with fear. And it wasn’t quite fear that he felt now, more a cautious defensiveness. As he watched them standing over the vendor of souvenirs while the man fumbled through the pockets of a coat hanging up on a pole, he thought about Joley and his death. He thought how he had actually said he had killed Joley. Of course, he had only said this to Senta, who in this respect didn’t count, but he had uttered an admission of murder aloud. It might be that these very police officers, one of whom was now scruntinising the vendor’s licence with a deep frown, might be part of the team working on the case of Joley’s murder. Why had he allowed himself to be drawn into this game of Senta’s? Why had he ever played it?

Philip had a sandwich and a cup of coffee. While he ate he kept trying to travel those few weeks back in time. He remembered how Senta had withdrawn her love from him and how, to regain it, he had confessed to a murder he hadn’t committed, wouldn’t even in his wildest nightmares have committed, he who hated these things. It was far worse than what she had done. She had simply invented a killing. He couldn’t understand now why he hadn’t done a similar thing, why he hadn’t appreciated that almost any preposterous tale would have done for her. What had made him think it necessary to claim responsibility for a real murder? He felt soiled by it, he felt that his hands were actually dirtied, and he looked down at them, spread them out in front of him on the yellow formica of the cafe table, as if he might see graveyard earth in their lines and blood under the nails.

The way Joley had called him “governor” came back to him as he went up in the lift to Roy’s room. Philip had liked the humour Joley still retained in spite of the dreadful life he led. Of course, it wasn’t so good thinking of him insulting a young girl just because she wouldn’t give him money. Philip wondered why Joley had ever gone to Kensal Green. Perhaps there was a soup kitchen up there.

Roy was working on his design for the complete remodelling of a flat. It was clear that he was in one of his bad moods.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Coming to see you, of course. You said to come in around two.”

“I said to get over to Chigwell by two and find out just why La Ripple is still dissatisfied with her marble whatsit. No wonder this company’s fast going down the plughole when even a little squirt on the bottom rung of the ladder can’t get to an appointment on time.”

Roy hadn’t said anything about going to Mrs. Ripple’s, Philip was sure of that. But there was no point in arguing. He wasn’t hurt by being called a little squirt. What went sharply home was the bit about the bottom of the ladder.

The drive to Chigwell took a long time. It had begun to pour with rain. Heavy rain always slowed up the traffic. The cars and trucks crawled along through Wanstead, and by the time he was on the doorstep ringing Mrs. Ripple’s bell, it was five to three. She had a friend with her, a woman she called Pearl. The two of them somehow managed to open the front door together, as if they had simultaneously and ritually put hands to latch. He had the impression they were waiting just inside it, and had been waiting there for some time.

“We’d just about given you up, hadn’t we, Pearl?” said Mrs. Ripple. “I suppose we’re behind the times. We’re naive. We’ve just got this old-fashioned idea in our heads that when someone says two o’clock he means two o’clock.”

“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Ripple. There was a misunderstanding about that, nobody’s fault, but I didn’t actually know I was supposed to be here until an hour ago.”

She said very sourly, “Now that you are here at last, you’d better come straight up. You’d better see if you can explain why I have to put up with the shoddy rubbish you’ve seen fit to instal in my bathroom.”

Pearl came up too. She looked enough like Mrs. Ripple to be her sister, but somehow a more richly furnished, more ornate version. It was as if Mrs. Ripple were the standard model and Pearl the de luxe. She had black curly hair like an uncut poodle’s and her tight-fitting silk dress was shiny peacock blue. She stopped on the threshold and said in a theatrical way, “How much did you say you had to pay for this job, dear?”

Mrs. Ripple didn’t hesitate. The little scene had probably been rehearsed while they waited for him. “Six thousand five hundred and forty-two pounds ninety-five.”

“Highway robbery,” said Pearl.

Mrs. Ripple pointed with a quivering finger at the marble top of the vanity unit. She looked like a character in an amateur dramatic production indicating the presence of a ghost offstage. Philip examined the marble, the minute fissure in one of the white veins of the marbling. To his alarm and intense displeasure, Pearl took hold of his wrist and moved his hand so that the tip of his forefinger just touched the fissure.

“But that isn’t a fault or damage, Mrs. Ripple,” he said, doing his best to disengage his hand without giving offence. “That’s the character of the stone. This is a natural substance. It isn’t as if it’s plastic which could be made with a perfectly smooth surface.”

“I should just hope it isn’t plastic,” said Mrs. Ripple, “considering what I paid for it.”

Philip would have liked to tell her that she had not only chosen the vanity unit from a selection of illustrated brochures but had actually examined samples of the marble they proposed to use. That would only have caused more trouble and in any case have been ineffective. Instead he tried to convince her that any visitor would at once appreciate the quality and taste of her bathroom from the undeniable evidence of that tiny flaw in the marble, which would never have occurred in a synthetic material. Mrs. Ripple wasn’t having any of that. She wanted marble—of course she did, she had always known what she wanted and that was marble—but she wanted a piece which had all the veining and the proper look of marble without any flaws.