HAMISH, ABBIE AND VILNA were sitting at the kitchen table when she and Diamond got home. Hamish was at the head of it, pouring tea carefully and precisely, unused to such an activity. Tea no doubt was normally something poured for him, in a living room. Hamish was a cup-and-saucer man, not a mug in the kitchen man. But he appeared to like being here, doing this. Hamish seemed to Alexandra to be like a small boy allowed to take the steering wheel of the family car and pretend to be in charge. She wondered to what degree Hamish had envied Ned. And Abbie her friend and Vilna, Abbie’s friend and her own familiar and surely harmless acquaintance, seemed suddenly not quite so trustworthy as she, Alexandra, had thought. They were sitting at her table as of right, but not invited: she felt wary. She wanted them to go, but how could she say so? They were her friends: this was her future family. When men died, or went, the women friends moved in to close the gap: consolatory comfort, female friends. That’s what friends were for.
She didn’t want to talk, she wanted to go to bed, but the brass bed was compromised, even by thought, by the merest contemplation of Jenny Linden’s occupancy of it, of Ned’s arms around Jenny Linden, even temporarily, even by mistake, even under duress, even regretted even as occurring; Jenny Linden’s naked flesh against Ned Ludd’s, forget the violence of his dying: a just penalty, you could see, for the violence of his own act against the heart of the universe. Summon up the Devil the Devil gets you—forget the body lying in the morgue, so much life and passion reduced to a marble penis forever firm against an icy groin—there could be no forgiveness. None. Her bed.
“You look like a ghost,” said Vilna.
“That’s Ned’s province,” said Alexandra, and laughed.
“This always was a house of laughter,” said Hamish. There was silence.
Then Alexandra said to Abbie: “Do you really think Jenny Linden’s mad?”
“No,” said Abbie.
“Do you?” asked Alexandra of Vilna.
“No,” said Vilna. Alexandra was glad they had given up pretending but wondered why they had decided to do so. She felt that some extra betrayal of her, Alexandra, gave them new pleasure. Their secret had given them power over her. Now they chose to exercise that power.
“At least none of you have to pretend any more. I know Jenny Linden was with Ned when he died. They were in the bed together upstairs.” She waited for them to deny it, but no one did. Not even Hamish. Worst Fears realised. Her survival now depended on Best Remembrance.
Hamish said, “I was telling them of the dreadful time you nearly went off with Eric Stenstrom, and how upset Ned was. He really loved you at the time.”
“How do you know about me and Eric Stenstrom?” asked Alexandra, taken off guard. “Only Ned knew that.”
Both Abbie and Vilna took in little sharp breaths, as if they’d been waiting to take them. Confirmation.
“Not that there was anything really to know,” Alexandra amended, quickly. Perhaps rather too quickly. “And what do you mean, Ned loved me ‘at the time’? Really, Hamish!”
There seemed to be shadows of Ned working through Hamish’s face, looking for a home. The eyebrows were the same, the set of the jaw.
The family resemblance seemed stronger now Ned was no longer there in the flesh to deny it. Alexandra realised she had probably in the past seldom been in a room with Hamish in which Ned was not there too.
“As for that time I ‘nearly went off with Eric Stenstrom,’ ” remarked Alexandra, “I certainly know nothing about it, nobody told me, how come you seem to know more than me?”
Why was she having to defend herself in her own home? Who were these people?
“Ned and I exchanged letters from time to time,” said Hamish. “As you know. We didn’t get to see each other much but we were very close. There’s a letter from him to me about you and Eric Stenstrom.”
“He shouldn’t have written about it, and you shouldn’t have spoken about it,” said Alexandra. “These things are private.”
“These are your friends,” said Hamish. “Surely there’s no harm in their knowing? And surely you don’t resent Ned writing to me? His brother? Wives don’t own husbands. And men aren’t without feeling, in spite of what you women like to say. If women claim the right to women’s talk, you can hardly grudge men their men-talk.”
Alexandra perceived again, and clearly, that Hamish simply didn’t like her. She said nothing, but from now on wanted not to confide in him.
She did not think there was any real damage he could do her, but she must think before she spoke.
“Anyway,” said Abbie, in her light, polite tones, “Vilna and I knew about Eric Stenstrom already.”
“Such a good-looking man,” said Vilna, in her most slurred and earthy voice. “I do envy you, darling. It’s the buttocks. I like a Hamlet with good buttocks.”
Eight years back Eric Stenstrom had played Hamlet in a Hollywood movie, dressed in tights more suitable for a ballet dancer on a stage a long way from the audience. He had regretted it but it had not been forgotten.
Hamish, Abbie and Vilna had been drinking wine. They had taken it without asking. It was the Barolo Ned most treasured, the ’86. They had formed a kind of cabal against her.
“Jenny Linden came over this afternoon,” said Abbie, “and told me all about you and Eric Stenstrom. So you really shouldn’t be shocked and surprised if Ned had his own entertainments. It’s hypocritical of you, Alexandra.”
“What could Jenny Linden possibly know about me and Eric Stenstrom?” asked Alexandra.
“What Ned told her,” said Abbie.
“I don’t believe that,” said Alexandra.
“Never trust a man, darling,” said Vilna.
Alexandra said she was tired, and suggested Abbie and Vilna leave. They did. Hamish had the spare room. She no longer wanted to sleep in her own bedroom. She slept again in Sascha’s bed. It occurred to her that perhaps Abbie and Vilna, like Hamish, had their own reasons for being resentful.
No. That way madness lay. Abbie was her friend; Vilna trying to be her friend. She, Alexandra, was exhausted and paranoic, and saw nightmares where none were, and in the morning everything would seem different. But it was a pity Eric Stenstrom’s name had come up.