She waited for the news to break.
She knew now how people managed to live with a guilty secret. Joyfully. With exultation. The shattered living room was a private landscape she could command, where she breathed safe and free, the fear of madness gone for ever. Any social awkwardness, any evasions required of her would be trivial compared with that happiness.
Still, she waited for the news to break.
She lined the rug and put it away in her suitcase, meaning to ask Max to deliver it for her as soon as she knew how the land lay.
Sophie rang to say that she had the job and that William wanted to come and visit.
She did not mention the break in.
David and Martha took her to dinner at a pizzeria. They did not mention the break in, but there was a reserve in their manner which suggested unspoken thoughts. Perhaps they knew about it and were suppressing the knowledge, thinking it would distress her. Short of asking if they had heard of any good break-ins lately, there was nothing she could do about that.
She acquired merit at the lodging house through her willingness to answer the telephone. The first evening she had climbed the stairs, feeling slightly foolish, to call out, ‘John! Telephone!’, he had come running and, flustered with guilt, had said ‘Sorry!’ as he passed.
When the call was finished, he had knocked on her door, looking harassed, and apologised for the inconvenience.
‘An emergency at the Home. If I know a call’s likely, I wait downstairs.’ He paused. ‘I’m a social worker, work at a youth refuge. Things do come up, unexpectedly, and I need to go in.’
The thing which had come up unexpectedly was clearly a cause for anxiety.
‘You don’t need to apologise. I’m only too pleased to be helpful.’
And more thankful for the human contact than she wished to admit.
‘Truly? That’s wonderful. There have been problems about the phone.’
‘Well, it would never worry me to take a call for you, I assure you.’
‘Oh, great. It’s really not often. I have to be going.’
She wondered, as she watched him go, what the trouble was that creased his forehead. Perhaps one day he might talk to her about his problems.
Mr Constantine had appointed himself her protector. He came from the house he occupied, two doors away, to supervise the delivery of the fuel, split kindling and even set her first fire.
Didn’t those wretches ever go near the house?
It was Caroline who rang at last, nearly a fortnight after she had murdered the clock.
Lucky it was Caroline. Hidden feelings were the norm there.
‘Mother?’
‘Yes, Caroline?’
On either side a perfect measure of courtesy.
Caroline, however, now showed some hesitation.
‘I don’t know whether you’ve heard, there has been a break in at the house.’
‘No. No-one has said anything to me about it. When did this happen?’
The sharpness of her tone was no affectation. It said with real annoyance, Why wasn’t I told of this before?
Because it isn’t your house and it isn’t your business. How long it took to learn that.
‘We aren’t sure. Sophie was there at the weekend, not last weekend, the one before, moving out some furniture and she says everything was all right then. Louise discovered the damage when she was showing some friends through the house. It was a dreadful shock.’
Good.
‘Sheer wanton destruction, glass shattered in all the pictures and filth scribbled all over the walls. Thank goodness that was washable and we’ve managed to clean it off.’
What a pity.
‘Every glass smashed from the corner cabinet. There was hardly anything taken. The police say they must have been looking for cash and small valuables and got spiteful because they didn’t find what they were after. Just a little bit of money out of the housekeeping purse and a couple of bottles of drink. And then doing hundreds of dollars worth of damage. You can’t understand these people, how their minds work. We were wondering … there has to be a list for the insurance, of course.’
Ella said nothing. Caroline’s hesitation was now explained.
‘I’m afraid I’m not much help and of course Louise doesn’t know how many glasses there were.’
‘How odd,’ said Ella coldly. ‘I thought she would have counted them.’
Caroline sighed.
‘You’d be collecting half of the insurance, of course. It would be a help if you could make a list of the glassware.’
In her voice, there was a note of grievance, not against Ella. She didn’t like the task she had been given, and no wonder.
‘I’ll do my best.’ She added boldly, ‘I must have been there later than Sophie. I went up to get the sewing machine. Let me see. On the Tuesday. Everything was all right then.’
When I went in, that is.
‘Oh. I didn’t know you’d been in the house. We’d better tell the police that. They’re trying to fix the time of the break in. You don’t mind if I tell them and they come round to see you?’
‘No, not at all.’
She hoped she did not sound faint.
Well, this was what you took on when you turned vandal. Nobody can prove it. I was there, I collected my sewing machine, I left.
Why had she said she was there?
You had to keep as close to the truth as you could. Besides, she hadn’t much liked the way Caroline had reported ‘She says everything was all right then’. Why ‘She says’? Oddly put.
I don’t regret it. I’ll never regret it.
When she had put down the phone, another thought occurred.
Insurance money. That would be fraud. Like people burning down their house to get the insurance money.
How easy it all was, to get drunk, to go mad, to vandalise, to commit fraud.
Perhaps she had always had criminal tendencies; they hadn’t surfaced before because they weren’t relevant, didn’t suit her lifestyle.
If she refused to take her share? Better morally, perhaps, but not legally.
If it came to the point where she had to confess, to avoid criminal action, she would tell that person. What he thought didn’t matter.
Disgraceful pair, making a catspaw out of Caroline, getting her to do their dirty work.
*
She kept asking herself what she should do and knew she would do nothing.
The police had ways of getting the truth. They set traps, they asked trick questions.
Say as little as possible, stay as close to the truth as you can.
She must have read this advice somewhere. She had never prepared herself for a life of crime. Say as little as possible, she repeated mentally as she waited for the dreaded call.
When the phone rang late that afternoon, it was Caroline who spoke, too indignant to preserve her dignified manner.
‘I thought I should let you know at once. Dad isn’t going to claim on the insurance. He’s quite firm about it. He says it isn’t worth the trouble. Hundreds of dollars worth. And the clock. They smashed the clock. I don’t know what’s come over Dad.’
Perhaps he has got a message, thought Ella.
She said, with sympathy, bringing Caroline’s grievance into the light without compunction, ‘What a pity they didn’t tell you that before.’
‘Yes. Well. You had to know about the damage, of course. It’s your property as well.’
I can bear that, easily.
‘Yes, of course. Thanks for letting me know. Goodbye, then.’
There was one friendship that would not flourish for long.