chair outside and was gently manipulating himself on it as he read. He was finding it hard to concentrate this evening, in this heat, and the book was hardly a page turner. It was a comparative study of acidity in the oceans.
The cordless phone sounded shrill and invasive in this suburban setting. It gave him quite a shock.
Not as great a shock as James’s news, though.
‘Deborah!’
‘I know.’
‘Of all people.’
‘Exactly.’
‘How?’
Philip listened to the story of the car crash in silence. Then he said, ‘Oh, James, I am so sorry. Bloody bastard young men with too much money. Bloody Jeremy Clarkson has a lot to answer for.’
‘Oh, Philip, that’s so unfair. That’s ridiculous. Why drag him in? Anyway, who cares? She’s dead, Philip.’
‘Shall I come over?’
‘This sounds awful, Philip, but … I don’t think I could cope … not tonight.’
‘No, no. No problem. Tomorrow, maybe. I’m supposed to be at work, but I can come any time if you’d like it.’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t know, Philip.’
Philip said that he would ring in the morning about eight, before he set off, to see if James needed him.
‘Thanks.’
‘James?’
‘Yes?’
‘Love you.’
Who next? Mum? Oh, God. She’d blame him. I knew something like this would happen. You haven’t looked after her.
He went to the gin bottle, held it over his glass, thought of his mum listening for signs of thickening in his speech, sighed deeply, put it down again, and, on an impulse, phoned Deborah’s sister.
‘Fliss Parkington-Baines.’
‘Hello, Fliss, it’s James.’
‘Hello, James!!’ This in her two-exclamation-marks voice, as if she was really delighted to hear from him, as if there was nobody in the world she’d rather hear from, and perhaps there wasn’t, except the Queen, David Cameron and James Blunt.
Her good cheer didn’t make James’s task any easier.
‘I’m afraid I’ve got bad news, Fliss.’ Already the words were beginning to hang heavy, burdened by all the repetition that was to come. ‘Very bad news. Um …’ How could he say the monstrous words, cut through her good cheer, with Dominic in Indonesia on business as he suddenly remembered. He swallowed. ‘Deborah’s dead.’
‘No!’
It was a cry of pain from a wounded animal, a yell of protest from a middle-class sister, a scream of disbelief and yet of instant understanding.
He started telling her about the car crash, the driver of the Porsche, the fact that it had happened near Diss.
‘Diss? We don’t know anyone near Diss. Do you?’
It was as if she was clinging to the hope that, since the location was unbelievable, the whole story was untrue.
When he had finished his sad tale, Fliss asked if there was anything she could do, and he asked her if she could break the news to the Harcourt clan. She agreed, but reluctantly.
‘No, look, Fliss,’ he said, ‘you don’t want to, it’ll be very difficult, it was unfair to ask, I’ll do it.’
‘I’ll do it, James,’ she said grimly, through gritted teeth. ‘I said I’ll do it and I’ll do it.’
He groaned inwardly. Why did so many of their conversations end with gritted teeth?
‘Oh, dear,’ said Fliss. ‘Oh, dear. I think I’m going to cry.’
‘Do. Do, Fliss. I have.’
How many lies was he going to have to tell in the days ahead?
Mum. Mum next.
He looked at the gin bottle on the sideboard, but didn’t dare go near it.
His mother was shocked, very shocked. With every telling the irresponsibility of the driver of the Porsche grew slightly greater. With every telling the fact of Deborah’s having been near Diss grew more mysterious. When he had finished, she said, ‘I’m so sorry, James. First Philip and now this.’
Philip’s wife had died three years ago. James felt a spasm of irritation, swiftly quenched. It was natural for his mother to see it all from her point of view. That’s two sons who’ve put me through pain and suffering because I love them so much. It’ll be Charles next, you mark my words. Valerie’ll fall off a cliff path on one of their walks or something.
Sometimes James felt that he could see right into his mother’s subconscious.
‘I loved her, James,’ she said. ‘I hope you know that. Well, how could you not love her?’
He was already beginning to ask himself that question. Although he did, didn’t he, in his…
‘Am I interrupting a programme?’ he asked, hoping to find an excuse to ring off.
‘No. It’s all right. I’ve lost the thread. Another girl’s been strangled while we’ve been talking, but I won’t know who or why.’
They talked on for a bit, both of them coming slowly to terms with the enormity of what had happened, and then his mother suddenly came out with one of those devastating remarks of hers which showed that she was incapable of believing that her youngest son was not responsible to some extent for whatever had happened.
‘You had had her car properly serviced, hadn’t you?’ she asked.
‘You are going to ring him, aren’t you?’
Charles knew that to a certain extent it was his fault that Valerie was like this. He went away so much and she didn’t like travelling. She was quite pleased that he was famous but she had no desire to move in the world of celebrity.
‘I’m going to speak to him the moment I’ve finished this wine, which is bursting with hints of vanilla and raspberry and even, dare I say, a distant intimation of saffron?’
He took another sip. She gave the faintest sigh because his sip had been so small. He decided to speed up, without giving her the satisfaction of seeing that he was speeding up. But it would be cruel to tease her any more.
At last the glass was finished, and he went to the phone, and dialled James’s number.
‘Hello, James, it’s me. Got your message. What’s up? …’
Valerie
