Barbara Erskine - Kingdom of Shadows

‘I’m sorry, Paul, but I couldn’t help it –’

‘Of course you couldn’t.’ Penny put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She was a plump pretty woman of about thirty, smartly dressed in a dark suit with a frilly jabot at the collar of her blouse. Next to the green swirl of silk under Clare’s mink coat it looked odd, even indecently sober. ‘I hate that lift myself. I’m always terrified it might get stuck.’

‘It didn’t get stuck.’ Paul sounded irritated. ‘It stopped for a couple of seconds when the electricity went off. That’s all.’

‘It was several minutes, and it probably seemed like several hours to poor Mrs Royland,’ Penny retorted stoutly. She glared at her employer.

Shakily Clare took another sip of brandy. ‘I’m all right now, really.’ She managed a smile.

Behind Paul the sunset was fading fast. Greyness was settling over the city. No one had switched on any lights in the conference room itself, and it began to seem very dark.

Paul was watching his wife closely, as if undecided what to do. The wave of tenderness which had swept over him as he helped her from the lift had passed, leaving him strangely detached once more. When at last he spoke, his eyes were cold. Whatever regret and sadness that still touched him when he thought of their longing to have a child had been firmly suppressed. He had far more immediate worries on his mind.

‘You look very pale, Clare. I don’t think you should come to the reception after all.’

‘Nonsense, Paul. I’m fine.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Paul was firm. ‘Penny, would you go back with Clare? Get a taxi and see her to the house. I have to go on to this wretched do, but I’ll come on home straight away afterwards. You should go to bed, darling. You look completely overwrought.’

‘I’m not, Paul.’ Clare was suddenly angry. ‘I’m perfectly all right. If you’d been waiting in your office none of this would have happened.’

‘I thought you’d like to see the view.’

‘But you know how much I hate lifts. Couldn’t you at least have waited downstairs and come up with me?’ She knew she sounded petulant, and the realisation made her even more angry.

He was looking at her thoughtfully. ‘I suppose I should have. I’m sorry.’

‘Oh Paul.’ She bit her lip suddenly, desperately wanting him to put his arms around her, but it was Penny who kept ineffectually patting her shoulder.

Paul had reached into his pocket for his wallet. He extricated a ten-pound note. ‘Here, Penny. Would you take her home now, please, then go on yourself. I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘Paul –’

‘No, darling. I insist. I’m afraid you will have to go down in the lift again, there’s no other way, but I’m sure you’ll be all right with Penny with you.’

Clare swallowed her anger and disappointment with difficulty. Paul was treating her like a spoiled child who needed punishing. She wanted to shout at him, to defy him, to go to the party in spite of him, but then again, for his sake she did not want to argue in front of the other woman; and she had to admit, her legs did still feel shaky. She glanced up at him, suppressing with difficulty the new wave of fear which swept over her at the thought of getting into the lift again. ‘But what about you? Why can’t you come down with us?’

‘I’ll follow in five minutes or so. I have a few papers to sort out.’ He glanced at the long conference table. At the far end his case lay open, a neat pile of documents beside it on the polished surface. His gold fountain pen lay meticulously aligned on top of the papers. ‘You will be all right, Clare. Penny will look after you.’

Unceremoniously he ushered them both to the door. He didn’t wait to see them call the lift.

Penny pressed the button, her arm firmly linked through Clare’s. As the doors slid open she glanced up at the small glass-fronted cupboard set into the wall high up near the lift buttons. Inside it were all the emergency power switches for the top floor. Sitting in the conference room, bathed in the light of the setting sun, she had got up to close the door on to the landing after Paul went out to the cloakroom. She was sure she had seen him standing there near the switches. Then all the lights had gone out and, dazzled by the sunlight behind her, she could see nothing on the dark landing at all.

‘The club is almost empty this evening.’ Peter Cassidy greeted James Gordon in the changing room at Cannon’s as the latter, having fitted his card into the electronic door, came in carrying his sports bag. ‘We needn’t have bothered to book a court.’ He stooped to retie the lace on one white tennis shoe. ‘How is your sister, James? Em seems to think she’s going through a rough patch.’

‘Is she?’ Putting his card back in his wallet, James ripped off his tie and pulled the Asser and Turnbull shirt up over his head without undoing more than two buttons. ‘I haven’t talked to Clare for ages. I think she was a bit miffed about me inheriting Aunt Margaret’s money. I mean, the old girl had a very good reason for doing it, but Paul and Clare didn’t see it that way. Paul wanted to contest the will and have her declared senile.’

‘Which she wasn’t, I gather.’ Peter sat down on the bench in the middle of the room to wait for him.

‘No way. She was right on the ball up to the last five minutes, Ma said. Clare knew that of course. I don’t think she cares, actually. It’s Paul. You’d think with all his money he’d leave it alone, wouldn’t you? But perhaps it’s a habit with him.’ He paused reflectively. On the whole he was a great admirer of Paul’s. ‘Anyway, I thought Clare might be too embarrassed by the whole stupid thing to want to talk to me for a bit.’ He grinned, flicking his dark hair back from his face. ‘Besides, she hasn’t been much fun lately. She leads such a boring life, stuck in that house stuck in the middle of nowhere.’ He stepped out of his trousers and reached for his shorts.

‘It doesn’t sound boring from what I’ve been hearing.’ Peter laughed. ‘She’s having personal private lessons in body-building from a continental lothario.’

James had been rummaging in his sports bag for a shirt. Abruptly he straightened. ‘Oh, come on. That’s one of Emma’s stories!’

‘No, you ask Clare.’

‘I will.’ James laughed. ‘Good old sis. Perhaps she’s finally kicked over the traces. I always knew she would in the end. I wonder what Paul thinks?’

‘He’s horrified. He was the one that rang Em. He wants her to talk Clare out of it all. Apparently he thinks it’s all some sort of compensation for not getting pregnant.’

‘What a load of crap.’ James had finished putting on the white socks and shoes. Stowing the last of his things into his locker he picked up his squash racquet. ‘It’s Paul who is neurotic about having a son. I don’t think Clare gives a screw. Come on. I’m going to thrash you tonight, then last man to finish twelve lengths of the pool pays for dinner.’

James looked distastefully round at the disordered living room of his flat in the Barbican when he got home that evening and sighed. The cleaning woman had failed to come for the second time running, and it was thick with dust. Dirty plates and glasses littered every free surface and there were clothes scattered on the floor. The air smelt stale. Throwing open the windows he went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was empty of food. Tonics, cans of lager, two bottles of Bollinger, that was all. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t hungry. Peter had gone home to Emma for supper in the end. James had been invited, but he hadn’t wanted to go – there was always tension in the Cassidy house. He helped himself to a can of Pils and, going back into the living room, threw himself down on an easy chair, picked up the phone, and extending the aerial, began to punch out a number.