Paul stared at Rosalind incredulously when she explained that Jenny and Ned had gone out for a while, and Louise had gone jogging.
‘At a time like this? Her brother dies and all Jenny is concerned about is being with lover boy. And who said they could get engaged? No one asked me.’
Rosalind was getting tired of him yelling. She kept trying to tell herself that it was just his way of dealing with this tragedy, but it was a way that took no account of others’ needs. ‘She hasn’t been sleeping with him. He’s been here offering her comfort and support.’
A nasty grin curved Paul’s mouth. ‘Don’t you believe it, Ros. I know all about that sort of comfort. He was in her bedroom, helping her to dress, for heaven’s sake. How you can be so incredibly naïve at your age, I can’t understand.’
At least she wasn’t cruel to someone grieving.
She nearly told him what she knew about him, but managed to turn away, taking several deep breaths. Not now. She’d promised herself not to do or say anything about their marriage until after the funeral. ‘I’m going out to the shops. We need something for tea.’ It’d be a relief to get away from him.
‘Why bother? We’ll go out somewhere for a meal tonight.’
‘You can go out, if you want. I shan’t. There’s only the local pub to go to, anyway.’ Rosalind didn’t want to face a sea of sympathetic faces.
‘Well, all right, but be quick. I’ll stay here in case the police want anything else.’
As if she needed his permission to go shopping!
In the convenience store the staff and other customers left her alone, except for bobs of the head and sympathetic murmurs as they passed her. They didn’t seem to expect a response, for which she was grateful. She slung food into the trolley as quickly as she could and when she was waved to the head of the small queue, she nodded her thanks, but didn’t speak or make eye contact with anyone.
Back at the house, she put the groceries away and stayed in the kitchen wondering what to do with herself.
Paul came into the kitchen. ‘Fancy making us a cup of coffee?’
‘No.’ If she did that, he’d expect her to join him, and then she might blurt something out, like, Was Liz a better screw than me? She went upstairs to her embroidery.
When she saw what had happened there, however, she stopped dead, then rage boiled up in her, absolutely boiled. Paul had taken out his feelings on her things. ‘Oh, you bastard!’ she muttered under her breath. ‘You nasty, rotten bastard!’
She went first to pick up the broken frame from the floor in the corner, checking every inch of the family embroidery carefully and breathing a sigh of relief when she found it intact. Had he even noticed the picture? Surely he’d have said something if he had, because his figure was very prominent in it, very recognisable and not at all flattering. No, he must just have hit out in blind fury.
She was picking up her skeins of thread when he poked his head in the doorway. She turned to look at him and said loudly, ‘If you ever touch my embroidery things again, I’ll make interesting patterns on your business suits with my scissors.’
He scowled at her, the apology he had intended to make dying in his throat. ‘I might have known you’d come here. You’re sick, do you know that? Stuck in a bloody time warp, spending your life on an outmoded pastime that no one respects nowadays.’ He slammed the door behind him.
Rosalind sat on the floor looking at her sketch of Tim, which had drifted under the worktable. I’ll do you justice, love, she thought. I really will. If I have to redo your figure a hundred times.
But she didn’t have to. She mended the embroidery frame with insulation tape, then worked on her son’s head. As it took shape, it turned into Tim, giving her his half-smile, looking rebellious, yet lost and afraid in a hostile world. A few tears fell and the ice that was weighing down her chest cracked a bit more.
She needed to finish the family embroidery, even though she knew she would never be able to hang it on the wall. It was too full of pain. All their pain.
But she needed to know.
That afternoon she rang up the police station. ‘I was wondering how soon we can bury our son?’
‘Have to be a post-mortem, even though we know what he died of. Sorry about that, madam. Say three days, four at most. The undertakers will know what to do if you tell them what’s happened. Munham’s in Wareham is well thought of.’
‘Thank you.’
Paul came out of the living room. ‘What did they say?’
‘Three or four days. There’ll have to be a post-mortem.’
She started up the stairs.
‘Is that all you’re going to do? Sit and bloody embroider? Your son lies dead and you fiddle with embroidery silks?’
She paused only long enough to say, ‘It’s better than quarrelling, don’t you think? If you want something to do with yourself, go and book the funeral.’ She didn’t care about the details. They were irrelevant. However they did it, it would be her son they were burying.
She had to stand very still for a moment on that thought. She had known of agony like this, but only intellectually. The reality was far worse, a bleak cliff of pain that she had to scale an inch at a time. She realised Paul was speaking.
‘Yes. I’ll go and do that. Where should I go, do you think?’
‘Munham’s. In Wareham. They’re used to these cases, apparently. You can probably find their address online.’
She heard him go into his office. She let some of the tension sift slowly out in a long breath, but her relief was short-lived. A few minutes later she became aware of him standing in the doorway. She covered the embroidery instinctively.
‘I’m not going to touch your precious toys. I’ve seen what you’re doing there. A pitiful attempt at a family portrait.’
‘Did you want something?’
He scowled. ‘I think you should come with me. I don’t know anything about arranging funerals. You’ve just done one for that old witch.’
‘Don’t,’ her voice was so sharp it surprised her as well as him, ‘call Aunt Sophie that.’
In her bedroom, eavesdropping as usual, Louise grinned. Good one, Mum. She made a sign of triumph with an upraised fist.
‘Don’t be so bloody touchy! It’s only a nickname.’
‘Well, it’s one I don’t care for. I was extremely fond of my aunt.’ Rosalind sighed, but put down the sewing and shepherded him out of the room. ‘Very well. We’ll do this together.’ She knocked on Louise’s door. ‘We’re going to sort out the funeral. Do you want to come with us, love?’
Louise recognised the look of pleading in her mother’s eyes and steeled herself. ‘Yes. I’d like to be part of it, Mum.’ And found to her surprise that it was the truth.
‘Thanks.’ Rosalind squeezed her daughter’s hand.
Watching them, Paul thought how successful his methods had been with this child, at least. Louise had fallen into line, just as he’d known she would. It took discipline, something Ros wasn’t good at. These housewifely types never were, but they made the best sort of wife for a man like him.
‘You drive,’ he said outside, waving a hand at Rosalind. ‘You know the district. I’ll just program the address into the satnav.’
She couldn’t remember the last time he’d asked her to drive him. And he was very quiet on the journey – amazingly quiet, for him – sitting staring out of the window with a grim look on his face.
Louise was just as quiet in the back.
When they got home, Rosalind fidgeted round the house then decided to go for a walk. She had to get out of this brooding atmosphere for a while if she was to continue coping. As she came downstairs, dressed in her outdoor things, Paul peered out of his office, where he’d been making phone calls and sending faxes intermittently, as well as doing a lot of staring into space. ‘Where are you going?’
‘For a walk.’
‘Where?’
‘Just out.’ She tried to pass him, but he grabbed her arm.
‘I need to know where you’ll be, in case the police want you.’
She had promised herself no confrontations till after Tim was buried, but suddenly she’d had enough. She tore her arm out of his and shrieked, ‘I’m going out and I don’t know where. I just need a bit of peace, so damned well leave me alone.’
She went out before he could say anything, and judging by the way he was gaping, her outburst had startled him. Well, that’s just the beginning, Paul Stevenson.
In Western Australia Audrey decided to ring round her daughter’s friends and let them know what had happened. ‘Liz? Audrey Worth here. Yes, I’m fine. Liz – I have some bad news.’
Liz braced herself to hear that Paul and Ros had split up.
‘Tim’s dead.’ Audrey took a deep breath. ‘Overdose.’
Liz collapsed onto the nearest chair, speechless, shocked.
‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes. I just – I don’t know what to say.’
Audrey’s voice was thick with tears. ‘I thought you might like to ring Rosalind. You two have always been so close. Do you have her UK number? Oh, well, here it is, then.’
‘Thank you.’ She wasn’t sure what to say, just knew she had to offer her sympathy. Liz put the phone down and sat there, feeling numb. Then she looked at the clock. No, not a good time to ring.
When Bill came in, she was sitting in the kitchen with an empty mug in front of her. She didn’t even look up.
‘Something wrong?’ He was getting quite used to the idea now, was looking forward to being a father. He would make himself the child’s father, and let anyone try to say different. He’d been wondering about moving away from Perth, too. It’d been hinted lately that he needed to broaden his experience, work overseas for a while. If he found somewhere to go for a year or two, it’d get Liz out of the Stevensons’ way, and keep the baby out of that bastard’s hands, too.
Liz shook her head and managed a faint smile. ‘No. No, it’s not that. It’s – oh, Bill, Tim Stevenson’s dead, an overdose.’ Her eyes filled with tears again. ‘What must Rosalind be feeling?’
He came to stand beside her, his hand on her shoulder. ‘You’ll have to ring her.’
‘I can’t. Bill, I just can’t face her.’
‘You have to.’
So a little later, when it would be morning in England, she picked up the phone. ‘Ros? Liz here. I just heard. I—’
‘Go to hell, you cheating bitch!’ Rosalind slammed the phone down.
Liz sank to the floor in the hall, burying her face in her hands. Rosalind knew. How long had she known? Had he told her? Surely even he wouldn’t do that?
Bill peered out of the living room, saw her and rushed over. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Rosalind knows.’
‘Oh, hell!’
Liz burst into tears and wept till she was so exhausted and wrung out that Bill was seriously thinking of calling out the doctor to sedate her.
When she stopped sobbing, he brought her a cup of camomile tea and sat beside her while she drank it, steadying her shaking hand round it at first, but not saying anything. What was there to say? The harm had been done. Nothing they could do would make things right again, not between Rosalind and Liz, anyway.
Hearing the phone, Paul came into the hall. ‘Who was that?’
Rosalind stared at him blankly for a moment. ‘What? Oh, wrong number.’
‘But you told them to go to hell.’
‘Nuisance call, then. What is this? The Inquisition?’ She drifted up the stairs into her own room, not to embroider, no, just to sit and stroke the face she had made for Tim’s figure. And to wish this dreadful waiting time would end. Not until her son had had a proper funeral would she feel like facing the rest of her life.
A little later she went out in the car. Paul heard her go but didn’t ask where she was going this time. He stood in the hall watching her drive away through the glass of the front door, feeling abandoned. They’d all gone out, Jenny with that fellow – God, she could certainly pick ’em, what a weak-looking prat! – Louise for a run – ‘Keeping fit, Dad,’ she had said brightly as she left – and now Ros. Didn’t they realise he had feelings, too?
There was a knock on the door and he went to open it. A woman was there with a big arrangement of flowers in her hands.
‘Special delivery,’ she said in a hushed, sympathetic voice.
He took them off her and she drove away. It was a while before he realised he was still standing there, with the door wide open, clutching the damned things.
He set the flowers down on the hall table. What good did flowers do? But when he looked at the label, he felt a bit better. From the chairman himself. He studied them again. They must have cost a packet.
But the flowers didn’t solve the problem of what he was going to do with himself for the rest of the day. He tried ringing work to catch up with a few things, see how the workshop had ended, but everyone insisted they could manage, speaking to him in gentle tones, as if he were ill.
He’d rather have worked. Much rather. It’d have stopped him thinking so much, stopped him regretting so much, too. He cut that thought short. He wasn’t going to allow himself to get maudlin again. He’d follow Louise’s example and go for a run.
It didn’t help as much as he’d expected.
Rosalind drove for a long time, eyes blind with memories. Then she realised where she was and turned right. ‘Why not?’ she asked the wind as it buffeted the car. The cold spring was being featured on the news every night now – one of the coldest Mays on record. That suited her, somehow. It was much better than soft, sunny days, which would have seemed to mock her grief.
Jonathon opened the door, glanced round and saw that she was alone, so simply opened his arms.
She walked into them, resting her head against his chest with a weary sigh. ‘Can we go into one of your lovely rooms and just sit? The one with Araminta’s embroidery, perhaps?’
‘Of course.’
They walked along the hall arm in arm and she let him fuss her into an armchair near the unlit fire.
He struck a match and soon flames were crackling in the hearth. ‘Want a cup of coffee?’
‘Mmm.’
When he got back, she was sitting there, staring into the fire with her hand on Dusty’s head, stroking him absent-mindedly.
She looked up. ‘I’m not very good company, I’m afraid.’
‘I don’t need entertaining. Would you like me to leave you alone here?’
She considered this, head on one side, then nodded. ‘I would, actually. I love this room. I need to be alone and quiet. Paul’s so – loud and demanding.’
‘Want me to take the dog with me?’
She looked down and seemed surprised to see her hand lying on the soft fur. ‘No. Leave him.’
‘Come and join me when you feel like a bit of company. I’m varnishing the gallery floor upstairs.’
The peace and silence enfolded her like a lover’s arms. Like Jonathon’s arms. Only she couldn’t make him her lover. Well, not physically, anyway. And perhaps not in any way. During the long hours of the night she’d woken several times and begun to worry about it, to wonder if she could leave Paul now.
She had to face the fact that she’d lost some of her certainty about what she was going to do after the funeral. There was no doubt Paul was upset in his own way. She’d never seen him behaving so irrationally. He’d even looked at her pleadingly a couple of times. Could she just abandon him after all those years together? She didn’t know.
Only – she didn’t think she could continue as his wife, either. The thought of him touching her sexually after playing around with Liz made her feel like vomiting.
Dusty nudged her with his head, asking for more caresses and she obliged, finding the action soothing on herself as well as gratifying to the animal.
Oh, hell, she thought after a while, she didn’t know anything any more. She had just been starting to get her act together, just been finding herself. And now she was lost again.