Beneath the Skin(42)
Helen is back at Charlie’s bedside, still reeling from the shock of her altercation with Antonia, of all people. She supposes that Antonia is beautiful, if you like that sort of thing, but she always finds her hollow and uninteresting. Any conversation is a staccato ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on the girl’s part. Not that she sees much of her outside David’s dinner parties and they don’t count as the silly girl is never at the table, choosing instead to fuss in the kitchen and produce unnaturally perfectly presented food with only a dash of sauce or gravy. Helen infinitely prefers Barbara’s sturdy casseroles, whatever the other guests might say about Antonia’s ‘splendid cuisine’.
‘She’s a nice, sweet girl, that’s all,’ Charlie would say. ‘You probably intimidate her.’
‘Good God, I hope so!’ Helen would reply.
Helen’s still holding the mobile tightly in her white-knuckled hand as she reviews her conversation with Antonia, who didn’t seem the least bit intimidated on the telephone. The discussion went along the lines of, ‘I dropped Rupert at the hospital because I thought it would be better for him to be with his father.’
To which Helen replied, ‘As his mother, Antonia, I think that I’m best placed to judge.’
And she replied, ‘Well, as his mother, Helen, I think you should put yourself in his shoes occasionally and see how it feels.’
Charlie puts his hand on hers and nods at the mobile phone. ‘Everything all right, my love?’
‘Oh it’s nothing,’ she replies. ‘You’re looking much better than you did at five this morning.’
‘Even handsome chaps like me don’t look their best at five in the morning.’
Helen smiles. It’s good to have Charlie back. He finally woke late in the morning and immediately spotted Rupert. ‘Is that you, Rupert?’ he said. ‘Come and give your old man a hug.’
She looks over at her son, sitting in the chair next to the hospital bed. His head is down towards some gadget or other, his ears covered with the huge muffler headphones, but there’s an air of calm about him. She’s rarely wrong about anything, but this time she wonders. She had assumed Rupert would wind Charlie up, get in the way and make his condition worse, but father and son seem content together.
Perhaps, she thinks buoyantly, her spat with Antonia already forgotten, perhaps everything will come together by Christmas and I’ll be on that aeroplane in the New Year.
David’s memory is starting to coming back, but in snatches. Antonia and Charlie, Charlie and Antonia. Misty too. Her eyes strangely hidden. Her voice low.
He’s been sitting on a dry-stone wall for a while, gazing over the rugged green fields to the rocky splendour of The Edge high above. People are walking their dogs, appearing miniature on the horizon. He’d once suggested adopting an old Labrador retriever left homeless by a deceased client, but Antonia said, no, sorry, she was allergic to dogs. She’d like a kitten though, he thinks, to keep her company while he’s at work. Or perhaps one of those small dogs they breed especially for owners with allergies. If he hasn’t messed things up completely. If it isn’t too late.
He tries to block out Charlie’s angry voice, still shrilling in his head. ‘Ethics, David. Ethics! Solicitors are supposed to be honest. Of the highest integrity, David. Ring any bells?’
He’d longed for a dog as a small boy. ‘Please, Mummy, please,’ he’d frequently begged. They lived in Derbyshire then, in a small medieval village near Chatsworth with a church, a school and a post office that had a cafe serving cream teas to the tourists. That was before Shell Oil International sent them away to their ‘far-flung adventures’, as his mother described them. Even now, he feels a strange uncertainty when his eye catches the familiar yellow Shell sign, and he remembers how his father refused to buy petrol from any other garage even if it meant driving miles out of his way. ‘Really, darling?’ his mother would breathe through her ruby-red lips. David loved and loathed the ‘far-flung adventures’ in equal measures.
Charlie’s voice is still piercing. ‘Spent it on the house? You won’t have a house, David. You won’t have a job, for God’s sake. You’ll be prosecuted, imprisoned, disgraced.’
The cows come up close to David, used to him now, their beautiful eyes deep and unreadable. Eyes like saucers, he thinks.
‘Please, Mummy, please. Let me have a dog!’
His mother would point to her inappropriate-for-Derbyshire heels. ‘How could I possibly walk a dog with those cobbles outside?’ and she’d laugh.
But of course she’d eventually relented. His father had arrived home early from work one day with a feeble black-and-white Border collie puppy in a cardboard box. ‘The runt. She’s got a twisted leg,’ he explained, his voice gruff. ‘The farmer’s wife refused to drown it, so now she’s yours. All yours. Look after her properly, son.’
The afternoon darkens. David eventually registers the cold, wipes the tears from his face, says goodbye to the cows and continues to walk.
The perfume, of course. Last night is now in focus. His mind is clear. He stumbled into White Gables and there was his wife, asleep on the sofa, beautiful, icy and still. He knelt down beside her, felt her breath, inhaled the aroma and softly kissed her neck. Her reaction was immediate.
‘Get off. You disgust me,’ she cried. Eyes cold with loathing as she hit him. ‘Don’t touch me. Never again. Do you hear?’