Emma Page - In Loving Memory

He pulled open the bottom drawer of the bureau and took out a bunch of letters secured with an elastic band. Carole’s letters, written during one of their stormy separations, kept out of sentiment. He slipped off the elastic band and drew a letter from its envelope, running his eyes over the pages with satisfaction. She’d let herself go in the letters, hadn’t minced matters. Not at all the kind of letters a tycoon’s daughter-in-law would care to see produced in her elegant drawing-room.

He began to hum a little tune. All he needed now was a cover-story, a good excuse for a visit to Rockley.

The final lines of the newspaper story gave him his cue. Among his many and varied interests Mallinson apparently numbered a passion for old coins. His collection was among the finest in the country, he had made a particular speciality of Roman coins. Tim grinned with pleasure at his own ingenuity.

One good rarity, surely he could lay hold of one decent Roman coin with twenty-five pounds? One flawless specimen and he was in business as a dealer. He frowned suddenly, biting his lip in agitated thought.

He’d need money for the train-fare, money to stay somewhere near Whitegates for a day or two – the village pub perhaps? Money for some presentable clothes. How much would be left when he’d bought that coin? He hadn’t the faintest idea how much it would cost, whether anything at all would be left, whether in fact the whole twenty-five pounds might not even be enough to buy the coin, let alone leave anything over for the other expenses.

He banged his palms together. He could dispense with the notion of buying a train ticket, he could thumb a lift as he’d done countless times before. He could borrow a respectable suit from one of his cronies, beg a suitcase from another. That left only the money for the pub. How long would he need to stay in the village – what was the name? Rockley, that was it. They wouldn’t be likely to charge much in a place like that. Bed and breakfast, he could get by on that. He’d made do with one meal a day before now, with no meals a day often enough. You could stoke yourself up on a good pub breakfast with enough calories to keep you going all day.

He looked round the room, his eyes searching for saleable goods, for anything that might fetch a few shillings. The transistor radio – he could do without that. If his gamble came off he could buy himself a dozen radios. The easels, they’d fetch a bob or two. And of course the coin might only cost a few pounds, he might not have to sell anything at all.

Too late to do anything tonight. Frustration stabbed at him but he brushed it aside. First thing in the morning he’d be down at the shops looking for his coin, then he’d have to make a round of his mates to collect the clothes and the suitcase. The afternoon should see him on the way to Rockley. But no – why spend tomorrow evening in the Rockley pub, paying out good money when the day would be already nearly over, useless to him? Sleep the night here in the studio, start out the following day at the crack of dawn, thumbing a lift from the early lorries, get to Rockley before the morning was well advanced, that would leave him the rest of the day to pay his calls. With any luck he might finish his business before the day was out, might not need to spend a single penny on a night’s lodging.

The Siamese cat sprang down from the sofa and rubbed herself against his leg. He glanced down at her, stooped and picked her up, burying his cheek in the soft fur.

‘Can’t let you starve while I’m gone, Princess,’ he said. ‘When I get back there may be salmon and cream for you, but in the meantime—’

In the meantime there was Hilda Browning, tap-tapping at her hopeless novel on the floor below.

‘Come on, Princess!’ He went rapidly from the room, down to Hilda Browning’s door and rapped loudly.

‘Open up, Hilda! It’s me, Tim!’

The typewriter keys rattled to a halt. Footsteps inside the room, the door flung open and Hilda Browning smiling at him with sudden renewed hope.

‘Tim! It’s been ages—’ Ages since he’d banged on her door, ages since their brief flare of affection had fizzled out into darkness. ‘Come in!’ She threw the door wide open.

‘I have to go away for a day or two,’ he said, stepping inside. ‘On a matter of business. Would you do me a favour?’ He threw her his most winning smile with the charm turned full on. ‘Look after Princess for me while I’m gone? I’m leaving the day after tomorrow, very early. I’ll make it up to you when I get back.’ He kept his smile going at full beam. But Hilda didn’t even pause to consider the matter.

‘Of course I will!’ she cried. ‘I’d be glad to, you know that! Bring Princess down tomorrow evening. She’ll be quite at home here.’ She ought to be, Hilda thought with a fleeting thrust of nostalgia, she spent most of her time down here a few months ago. She stretched out a hand and stroked the cat’s fur. ‘I’ll take very good care of her.’

Tim began to edge his way back towards the open door.

‘I knew I could rely on you,’ he said, allowing his face to glow with gratitude. ‘Thanks, Hilda, I won’t forget.’ He let his eyes send out a beam of promise. ‘I think I’ll have something to celebrate when I get back. You can help me to celebrate.’

Another minute or two of rather fatiguing encouragement and radiant goodwill and he was able to make his escape back to the studio. He dropped Princess on the sofa, picked up the newspaper and with great care tore out the half-page to be folded away safely in his pocket. He dropped a kiss on the demurely smiling features of Carole Stewart, now Carole Mallinson of happy memory.

‘Get out the champagne, Carole, my love!’ he said. ‘Old Tim’s riding into town!’

CHAPTER 3

BREAKFAST TIME at Tall Trees. Fragrant coffee in a silver pot, hot rolls in a napkin-lined basket, delicate whorls of creamy butter in a crystal dish. The uniformed maid lifted the cover from the platter of bacon and kidneys. She left the room, closing the door behind her with well-trained noiselessness.

‘I don’t want any of that.’ David Mallinson frowned at the succulent kidneys. ‘I’m not very hungry.’ He took a roll and broke it in two. ‘I didn’t sleep very well.’

‘I slept like a log.’ Carole Mallinson had acquired that knack in the grim days, when she’d been Carole Stewart, she’d learned that sleeplessness didn’t help. Whatever disasters the morning might see fit to bring, it was better to meet them rested and refreshed. It was just a trick, really, you closed your eyes and switched off – pouf! like a bright light being extinguished, you sank down, down into the pit of unconsciousness where there was no yesterday and no tomorrow, no ambitions, no memories, no hopes, no fears.

‘I thought Father looked surprisingly well yesterday evening,’ she said. ‘I think he’ll start getting up for a little while in a day or two. He can’t bear staying in bed.’ She had started calling Henry Mallinson Father as soon as the wedding-ring was safely on her finger. No father of her own, it gave her a feeling of security, of background, to use the name. And the old man liked it, she knew that. Such a pleasant, unspoiled girl, his son’s wife – she was aware of the regard in which he held her – so refreshingly unsophisticated and uncalculating in this day and age.

David glanced at the small French clock on the mantelshelf.

‘Kenneth will be arriving some time this morning.’ It wasn’t anxiety for his father’s health that creased David’s brow into deep lines. The old man had the constitution of an ox, it would take more than a heart spasm to finish him off or even keep him out of action for more than a day or two. It was the thought of his elder brother walking up the curving staircase at Whitegates that took away his appetite, the prodigal son come home again – to what? To the fatted calf, reconciliation, the old man’s will changed, his fortune sliced in two instead of being delivered whole into the hands of his younger son, the one who had faithfully stayed at home, who had run the business, had taken care in the whole of thirty-eight years of living, never once to cross swords with his father, knowing even in childhood on which side of his bread the butter lay?