pyjamas and his best dressing-gown, and smoking. As Maurice had said, he was clearly awaiting his visitor. There was no flicker of surprise when she appeared at the door. And, as she’d anticipated, he had his welcome ready.
‘At last, a familiar face.’
He didn’t open his arms to embrace her, but she went to him and kissed him lightly on both cheeks.
‘One of the nurses will get you something to drink if you’d like,’ he said.
‘Yes, I’d like some coffee. It’s bitter out there.’
‘Maybe Maurice’ll get it, if I promise to unburden my soul tomorrow.’
‘Do you?’ said Maurice.
‘I do. I promise. You’ll know the secrets of my potty-training by this time tomorrow.’
‘Milk and sugar?’ Maurice asked.
‘Just milk,’ Charlie said. ‘Unless her tastes have changed.’
‘No,’ she told him.
‘Of course not. Judith doesn’t change. Judith’s eternal.’
Maurice withdrew, leaving them to talk. There was no embarrassed silence. He had his spiel ready, and while he delivered it - a speech about how glad he was that she’d come, and how much he hoped it meant she would begin to forgive him - she studied his changed face. He’d lost weight, and was without his toupée, which revealed in his physiognomy qualities she’d never seen before. His large nose and tugged-down mouth, with jutting over-large lower lip, lent him the look of an aristocrat fallen on hard times. She doubted that she’d ever find it in her heart to love him again, but she could certainly manage a twinge of pity, seeing him so reduced.
‘I suppose you want a divorce,’ he said.
‘We can talk about that another time.’
‘Do you need money?’
‘Not at the moment.’
‘If you do-’
‘I’ll ask.’
A male nurse appeared with coffee for Jude, hot chocolate for Estabrook, and biscuits. When he’d gone, she plunged into a confession. One from her, she reasoned, might elicit one from him.
‘I went to the house,’ she said. ‘To collect my jewellery.’
‘And you couldn’t get into the safe.’
‘Oh no, I got in.’ He didn’t look at her, but sipped his chocolate noisily. ‘And I found some very strange things, Charlie. I’d like to talk about them.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Some souvenirs. A piece of a statue. A book.’
‘No,’ he said, still not looking her way. ‘Those aren’t mine. I don’t know what they are. Oscar gave them to me to look after.’
Here was an intriguing connection. ‘Where did Oscar get them from?’ she asked him.
‘I didn’t enquire,’ Estabrook said with a detached air. ‘He travels a lot, you know.’
‘I’d like to meet him.’
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ he said hurriedly. ‘You wouldn’t like him at all.’
‘Globe-trotters are always interesting,’ she said, attempting to preserve a lightness in her tone.
‘I told you,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t like him.’
‘Has he been to see you?’
‘No. And I wouldn’t see him if he did. Why are you asking me these questions? You’ve never cared about Oscar before.’
‘He is your brother,’ she said. ‘He has some filial responsibility.’
‘Oscar? He doesn’t care for anybody but himself. He only gave me those presents as a sop.’
‘So they were gifts. I thought you were just looking after them.’
‘Does it matter?’ he said, raising his voice a little. ‘Just don’t touch them, they’re dangerous. You put them back, yes?’
She lied and told him she had, realizing any further discussion on the matter would only infuriate him further.
‘Is there a view out of the window?’ she asked him.
‘Of the Heath,’ he said. ‘It’s very pretty on sunny days, apparently. They found a body there on Monday. A woman, strangled. I watched them combing the bushes all day yesterday and all day today, looking for clues I suppose. In this weather. Horrible, to be out in this weather, digging around looking for soiled underwear or some such. Can you imagine? I thought: I’m damn lucky I’m in here, warm and cosy.’
If there was any indication of a change in his mental processes it was here, in this strange digression. An earlier Estabrook would have had no patience with any conversation that was not serving a clear purpose. Gossip and its purveyors had drawn his contempt like little else, especially when he knew he was the subject of the tittle-tattle. As to gazing out of a window and wondering how others were faring in the cold, that would have been literally unthinkable two months before. She liked the change, just as she liked the new-found nobility in his profile. Seeing the hidden man revealed gave her faith in her own judgement. Perhaps it was this Estabrook she’d loved all along.
They spoke for a while more, without returning to any of the personal matters between them, and parted on friendly terms, with an embrace that was genuinely warm.
‘When will you come again?’ he asked her.
‘In the next couple of days,’ she told him.
‘I’ll be waiting.’
So, the gifts she’d found in the safe had come from Oscar Godolphin. Oscar the mysterious, who’d kept the family name while brother Charles had disowned it; Oscar the enigmatic; Oscar the globe-trotter. How far afield had he gone, she wondered, to have returned with such outré trophies? Somewhere out of this world, perhaps, into the same remoteness to which she’d seen Gentle and Pie’oh’pah dispatch themselves? She began to suspect that there was some conspiracy aboard. If two men who had no knowledge of each other, Oscar Godolphin and John Zacharias, knew about this other world and how to remove themselves there, how many others in her circle also knew? Was it information only available to men? Did it come with the penis and a mother fixation, as part of the male apparatus? Had Taylor known? Did Clem? Or was this some kind of family secret, and the part of the puzzle she was missing was the link between a Godolphin and a Zacharias?
Whatever the explanation, it was certain she would not get answers from Gentle, which meant she had to seek out brother Oscar. She tried by the most direct route first: the telephone directory. He wasn’t listed. She then tried via Lewis Leader, but he claimed to have no knowledge of the man’s whereabouts or fortunes, telling her
