Lynda Plante - The Talisman

Barbara examined her face in the mirror. She was calm, back in control. Patting her hair, she turned to Jinks. ‘I think you had better tell me what’s been going on.’

Jinks shrugged her shoulders and began picking up the flowers. ‘Nothing, he just came round to see you, and you weren’t here.’

‘Oh, I’m sure! Don’t treat me like an imbecile, darling, I’m not your mother, and I’m a damn sight sharper than you give me credit for, so give me the truth — just what has been going on between you two? Has he been sneaking in to see you while I’ve been out? Has he?’

Jinks felt faintly disgusted, and repeated that nothing had been going on, it was all a misunderstanding. Barbara whipped round on her; the fashion-plate-duchess act dropped, replaced by the old toughness she had spent so many years trying to disguise.

‘Look, sweetheart, who do you think you’re kidding? And don’t think I like doing this, but I walk in to find my son fucking naked in your bedroom — what the hell do you think I’m gonna think is going on, you tell me?’

Jinks could feel her temper rising, and she faced Barbara. Her sweet ‘butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth’ act dropping as fast as Barbara’s. ‘I don’t think it’s any of your business, but if you want to know, he came round to see you. You weren’t here, he took a bath, and he was just getting dressed when you walked in... And I don’t like your attitude, or your assumption that I have, in your words, been fucking your son. That may be your style, or your daughters’, but it isn’t mine.’

‘My, my, how the little mouse turns.’

‘I’ve had a very good teacher.’

‘So, are you going to see him again?’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Barbara, does it matter?’

‘Yes — he’s no good, and don’t think I don’t know how attractive a little bastard he is. He’s been putting himself about since he was fourteen years old, and I just wanna know if you are intending to see him again? Are you telling me you didn’t find him attractive?’

Jinks took a deep breath and, keeping her voice calm, suggested that Barbara drop the subject. It had been a misunderstanding and it was best forgotten. Barbara took two brandy glasses from the cocktail cabinet and smiled. She was quieter, calmer now.

‘Yeah, I guess that’s what you call jumping the gun, to put it mildly. I guess that’s down to my own promiscuous, ill-spent youth. I can’t help it if I presume every girl’s a woman after my own libido! Here, take it, you might need it.’

She handed Jinks a large brandy. Jinks wondered if Barbara was drunk; if she was about to divulge her past indiscretions she really didn’t want to hear them. Quietly and firmly she refused the drink, sounding rather scathing even to herself.

Barbara smirked. ‘Christ, you know, sometimes you are so like your father. Here, take it, it’s good brandy... The cold, vocal put-down doesn’t wash with me, but give you time, sweetheart. You have the killer instinct, I can feel it, and you know why I know? Because once he put me down, he did it just like that...’

Barbara snapped her fingers, drained her glass and refilled it immediately. Jinks could feel a strange sensation, as if she were stepping out of her body, protecting herself, moving away from a danger — but what, she couldn’t grasp. Barbara lit a cigarette, allowed the smoke to drift out of her nostrils, and stared at Jinks through the haze.

‘I married Alex before I met Edward, and it’s obvious to anyone who meets them which one my type of woman would go for. Oh, they were both good-looking, but...’

Barbara was twisting the cigarette, her long, bright-red nails like talons. ‘I would have left Alex, if he’d wanted me to, but he was using me like he uses everyone who walks into his life.’ Suddenly she stubbed out the cigarette, grinding it, then looked directly at Jinks. ‘Evelyn is his son. I’m surprised you couldn’t tell just by looking at him. Apparently your mother knew, that Christmas, that time he came over to see you all. She knew, she must have realized then. Perhaps that was what made her go crazy... I know she’d been sick before, but that time sort of finished her off.’

Jinks closed her eyes. There was the nightmare of her mother cradling the doll, holding it to her naked breast... She could hear the pounding of her father running up the stairs, dragging the terrified Jinks away from the sight of her mother’s madness.

Her voice betrayed nothing of her emotional state. ‘Does Evelyn know?’

Barbara swayed slightly as she got up to fill her glass again. ‘No, he thinks Alex is his father. Edward gave up any right to him before he was born, Alex’s name is on the birth certificate. Alex found out, but he will never give him up — in a perverse way he has the only thing Edward, with all his money, can’t buy.’ She laughed a soft, slightly drunken laugh.

Jinks moved quickly across to her bedroom door, then turned to Barbara. Her face was set, impassive, giving no sign of the emotional turmoil raging inside her. ‘I overheard Uncle Alex saying he was trying to take over the Barkley Company. I intend to become part of that company, and neither my uncle nor Evelyn will take what is rightly mine. I don’t think I want to see you again, Barbara. You are a vain, egotistical woman without a shred of decency or compassion. You should never have treated my mother with such disrespect — perhaps if you had a grain of sensitivity you would have realized the anguish you must have caused her... Goodnight.’

The bedroom door closed. There was an expression on Jinks’ face that unnerved the older woman. A mask of complete unapproachability had fallen into place. Barbara had seen that mask before, when Edward ended their affair. Now she felt the same bitter anger, the betrayal, all over again. She slammed out of the suite, telling herself that when that little bitch came round needing her help she would tell her, just as she had told her father, to go to hell. She felt not the slightest twinge of guilt.

Barbara did not get the satisfaction she had hoped for. Jinks had already left Paris by the following morning, on her way to New York. Evelyn called his mother and, afraid he would turn up looking as wretched as he had on the previous night, she arranged for more money to be transferred to his account. She made no attempt to enquire if his studies were going well. She still seethed over the scene with Jinks, and as Evelyn had been more than a problem throughout his life she found it easier to pay him whatever it cost to keep him out of her sight.

Evelyn’s so-called friends waited for him to return with the money. In some way the group replaced the family he had never been part of.

The money he had taken from Barbara was used to buy two.22 Birettas. Like children playing with new toys, they inspected the weapons. Evelyn practised loading the.22 short cartridge, and listened with awe as one of the boys, their self-designated leader Kurt Spanier, took it from him. Kurt was older than the rest of the group, and with great authority he told them the Israeli teams used the same weapons, although they were ballistically limited. However, the SOPS of the Massad ‘Sayaret’ teams liked them because they were fairly quiet.

Evelyn looked from Kurt to the gun and back again. ‘Yeah, but we’re not going to kill anyone... I mean, these are just for show.’

The gun was held to Evelyn’s temple and his friend whispered in his ear, ‘Best way is to pump the shots directly into the bastard’s brain. That way, my rich friend, death is assured... and that is exactly what we’ll be doing, if it should prove necessary. We’re gonna hit the post office in two weeks, and we need more cash, ‘cause we’ll need explosives. So, we got a few hundred from mummy — why don’t you tap that nice rich daddy of yours, he’s a fuckin’ capitalist tycoon, isn’t he? Or has one visit with your bourgeois relatives changed your ideals?’