‘My feelings about Merrily are complex. Always have been. Now she’s dead they are even more confused.’
Graham’s eyes wandered round Charmian’s living-room as she spoke. It was the evening of the cremation. He had left Lilian to settle the children and gone out without specifying his destination. Deviousness, covering his tracks, was becoming a habit.
His flickering glances took in the dark brown paint, the loaded pine bookshelves, the terra cotta plant pots suspended in harnesses of knotted string, the giant floor cushions, the hand-woven rugs on the wall. It was all yesterday’s trends, dating from the time when Charmian was at her most successful, when pop journalists were being snapped up as feature writers, when she had had a regular column in one of the Sundays. She had been married then, too. The house had been a mutual project, the work of a pair of London trendsetters. But now the marriage and the column were long gone. Charmian survived as a freelance journalist, spreading her net ever wider to increasingly obscure publications as the impetus of her reputation slowed. If she had not received the house as part of the divorce settlement, her life would be precarious; as it was, she was safe but not affluent. Her surroundings reflected this. The paintwork was a little battered, there was too much dust, the windowpanes wore a filter of grime.
Through the front windows Graham could see the spiked railings that protected the steps down to the basement. He had a quick image of a body impaled on them, one viscously gleaming point emerging from the stretched bulk of clothes. Anyone who jumped from the upstairs window would land like that. So would anyone who was pushed.
Pleasing fantasies of murder methods were now part of the regular stock of his thoughts. His imaginative life, he felt, had been considerably enriched since he became a murderer. Railings, yes, good. With comparable satisfaction he noted the tangle of wires and adaptors that fed the randomly assembled stereo components. He didn’t want to repeat himself, but the set-up offered plenty of opportunities for electrical accidents.
It was all hypothetical, of course. Casual conjecture. He was merely making a professional assessment of the situation and its possibilities. At the moment he had no reason to kill Charmian. It rather depended on what she felt such urgency to discuss with him.
He concentrated his mind on her analysis of the relationship she had had with her sister.
‘It’s an awful thing to admit, particularly of someone so recently dead, but I never liked her.’
Graham offered no reaction, and Charmian continued, ‘Obviously childhood recollections are all mixed up and it’s hard to disentangle my feelings for Merrily from those I have for my mother. I think I turned against Lilian when our father walked out, when I was about twelve. We never got on after that. I just became increasingly aware of her selfishness and affectation. And Merrily seemed to get daily more like her. I’m sorry, but I thought my late sister was a profoundly silly woman.’
Graham was surprised to discover how closely her view coincided with his, but recollection of his bereaved status prevented him from endorsing it. He bided his time. He still wasn’t sure where Charmian’s discourse was leading and, until he was, felt mildly apprehensive.
‘The fact is,’ Charmian continued, ‘I often wanted Merrily dead.’ Graham did not comment. ‘It’s only now she is dead that I can recognise the violence of my feelings. I thought I just disliked her; in fact I hated her. And if I knew who caused her death I’d like to shake him by the hand and thank him.’ Graham tensed, but with her next words the danger passed. ‘Oh, that’s metaphorical, but it is what I feel. I know I’m taking a risk talking to you like this, Graham. You were married to Merrily, you must be in a terrible state, and perhaps you don’t want to hear her abused. But I need to say these things to you.’
‘Why?’ He bleached the monosyllable of intonation. ‘Because I have to know whose side you’re on.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Listen, my mother fucked my life up completely. I think if my marriage had worked, if I could have had children of my own, I might have been able to break free of her influence. As it is, I’m stuck, a menopausal divorcee, full of hatred.
‘She also destroyed Merrily. Not in the same way, because I resisted and Merrily never resisted, but quite as completely. She destroyed Merrily by absorption, by making her into a facsimile of Lilian Hinchcliffe. And I’m glad Merrily died before she could repeat the process on her own children.’
She paused, momentarily exhausted by the outburst, and looked at Graham for reaction. He did not know what response to give. He was surprised; he had feared suspicions about the circumstances of Merrily’s death, but never anticipated this statement of sisterly revulsion. Also he found himself in more or less complete agreement with Charmian, though he was wary of confessing it.
He looked blank and confused, which he was, and once again a favourable construction was put on his lack of emotion.
‘I’m sorry, Graham, I’m being stupid and insensitive. Showing a sense of timing almost as crass as my mother’s. Oh God, I keep recognising bits of her in me! I’ve tried to suppress them, blot them out, but they’re still there. I sometimes wish they could be cut out by surgery, that I could just go into hospital for a few weeks and come out a normal person.’
He waited for the end of this spasm of self-hatred before he spoke. ‘I still don’t understand why you’re saying all this. You said you wanted to know whose side I’m on. I’d like to know what the alternatives are.’
‘All I’m asking is: do you like Lilian?’
It did not require a lot of thought to answer that one.
‘Right. Good. Which means you’re on my side.’
‘I still don’t understand, Charmian.’
‘There are no half-measures with Lilian, no truces, no alliances. Either you’re for her or against her.’
‘Well, we’ve established where I stand.’
‘Yes. So my next question is: Do you want her looking after your children, repeating what she did to Merrily and me in another generation? She’s already started on Emma, I could see that at the cremation, already she’s training her into a “little woman”, teaching her the rules of alternating blackmail and collapse, the system of militant pathos by which she’s always run her own life. God knows what effect she’ll have on Henry, but I can’t think that it’ll be for the good.’
‘No.’
‘So do you really want her to look after them?’
‘No, of course not. It isn’t settled yet, what’ll happen to them. Obviously, it’s going to be difficult for me, being at work most of the time, you know. .’
‘Yes. Listen, Graham, I have a proposition to put to you. Let me look after the children. Let them come here to live with me.’
‘Charmian — ’
She raised a hand. ‘No, hear me out.’ Which was just as well. It wouldn’t do for him to accept the offer with too much alacrity. He should hear out her justifications, make some pretence of assessing the proposition. It didn’t look good for a new widower to abandon his children with too much enthusiasm.
‘Graham, I know some of my motives may be suspect. I know I was jealous of Merrily having children and no doubt I want to take hers over because I will never have any of my own. Also my career’s not going well, and maybe I fancy the option of doing less and staying at home to look after children. And I don’t know how good I’ll be at it. The only things I do know for certain are that I love the children and that, whatever I do, being brought up by me will do them less harm than being brought up by Lilian Hinchcliffe.’
Graham’s mind was working fast. This was better than he had dared hope. If Charmian took the children off his hands, then he could sell the Boileau Avenue house and buy the service flat he so yearned for. With Merrily’s death, the mortgage would be paid off, so whatever he got for the house would be pure profit. Of course, if Charmian was going to give up work, he would have to support her, have to pay her maintenance for the kids. .
Her voice broke into his calculations. ‘I’m sorry, Graham. I’m going too fast. I shouldn’t have rushed in. You need time to think about it. Or perhaps you think what I’m suggesting would break up your family completely. .’
He gave a little, confused shake of his head.
‘Perhaps you think I should be offering to come to the house, as a kind of housekeeper. But I can’t see that working, Graham.’
‘No.’ His voice still sounded puzzled.
‘I can’t really see us as a foursome,’ she continued with her customary bluntness. ‘I’m just talking about the children.’
‘Yes. I understand that.’ But he didn’t sound as if he understood.
‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have barged in like this. Maybe you don’t want Henry and Emma to leave the house. Maybe you’d rather get in some sort of professional housekeeper. .’
Oh no, that sounds expensive, thought Graham. His mind was absolutely made up, but the scene, he knew, required some token prevarication.
‘I’m sorry, it’s a bit sudden. .’
He looked at Charmian. The grey eyes were tense, dependent on his response.
What she had offered made excellent sense from every point of view. She had a core of common sense which the rest of the family lacked, and her current feud with her mother was bound to minimise Lilian’s influence.
Once again he felt the strange need to confide in her, to confess his murder — no, he wasn’t doing himself justice — his two murders. He felt a need for outside commendation. Again he missed his parents. He knew it was idiotic, but he wanted to phone them, to hear their impressed and reverent silence as he described his latest success. In his parents’ absence, Charmian seemed the most likely person to give him the reaction he needed.
He felt very drawn to her. Sex played no part in the attraction. Sex was now a vague recollection from his past, like a journey walked daily to school, presumably important at the time, but instantly forgotten once discontinued.
Charmian’s grey eyes looked sympathetic. She had said she always hated Merrily. She had said she would like to shake her sister’s killer by the hand. Graham wanted to see the eyes light up with surprise and admiration when he told her of his achievement.
‘Charmian, there’s something you don’t know. .’
‘Yes. What?’
He suddenly realised what he was about to do, and stepped back from the brink. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t. . I’m confused. .’
Again she misread the cause of his incoherence.
‘I know it’s a shock. Take time. Let the idea sink in. Think about it. Or ask me any details you want to know.’
‘Yes. yes.’ And with the broken delivery masking the baldness of the question, he asked, ‘What about money?’
‘Money?’
‘Yes. I mean, if you were to look after them, you couldn’t do it for nothing.’
‘Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, I had thought about that.’ She had. Sensible woman. She had thought it out in some detail and she presented her suggestions with clarity. The appeal of the idea to Graham increased. It would move the obligation to his children to that area of contractual agreement he so favoured.
But the greatest appeal of Charmian’s proposal lay in how little she was asking. With no mortgage repayments and the children mopped up by such a modest monthly outlay, he was going to be quids in. True, there were school fees, but they couldn’t possibly get to their current schools from Islington, and he recalled with relish that Charmian was a great advocate of State education. Still, time enough to sort that out.
He felt light-headed. He couldn’t believe with how little effort everything was working for him. That the force of Charmian’s hatred of her mother should be channelled so conveniently was pure serendipity. What she had offered him completed his desires. He had removed his wife from his life. Charmian was proposing to do the same service for his son and daughter. And, incidentally, for his mother-in-law.
All was quiet when he returned to the Boileau Avenue house. He had taken a taxi all the way, feeling he deserved a little pampering and celebration. He had contained the urge to leap about and shout for joy until he got home.
Inside he found the post, which had been neglected in the upheaval of the cremation. Amongst other less important items was a letter from the broker through whom he had arranged the mortgage.
From a flurry of condolence, one hard fact emerged. The letter confirmed that, following the tragic death of his wife, the outstanding mortgage on the Boileau Avenue house would be paid off by the insurance policy.
It had all worked. Graham poured himself half a tumbler of Scotch and, drinking it, began to laugh, softly at first. But as the tensions of the past weeks, of the old man’s murder, of Merrily’s murder, of the inquest, the cremation, drained out of him, the laughter increased in volume.
He was aware after a time of the door being opened and of Lilian’s bemused face framed in the space. Hers was soon joined by the shocked faces of Henry and Emma.
And the sight made Graham Marshall laugh all the more.