her keep the cottage after she handed in her notice to marry Herbert Narton.
The Alfordes had had their heads in the clouds, Narton considered, more money than sense, an easy touch for anyone with a sob story — which was why of course they didn’t have much money left now. When they had sold up the estate, they had offered the Nartons the freehold of the cottage for not much more than the price of a decent dinner. He had been delighted at the time. He had seen himself growing old there, growing sweet peas and marrows, maybe asparagus if he could manage it; and Amy’s kiddies helping him pot seedlings.
Now the garden was a dripping wilderness crowded with the remains of last summer’s weeds. He glanced through the kitchen window as he passed it. Margaret, wearing coat, hat and gloves, was sitting at the table reading the Bible. Her lips moved and her finger crept along the line of text. When he let himself in at the back door, she did not look up.
He knew better than to interrupt her. While she sat there reading, he removed his coat, riddled the kitchen range and added kindling and a thin layer of coke to the glowing embers that remained. He set a kettle on to boil and washed his hands.
Margaret came to the end of the chapter and looked up. ‘Nothing to eat,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you were coming today.’
‘It’s all right. I’m not hungry.’
Her eyes went back to the Bible. It was easier when she didn’t talk. He investigated what was available. The leaves in the teapot could be used again. In the larder the milk jug had been left uncovered but in any case the milk had turned sour and a dead fly floated on its surface. There was however a little sugar left, and also half a loaf of stale white bread and a cup of beef dripping. He no longer had much interest in food and drink but he knew he needed them.
‘Where’s the key?’ Margaret said suddenly.
He stood in the larder doorway and looked at her. ‘What key?’
‘The one for the parlour cupboard.’
‘I’ve got it here.’ He patted his waistcoat pocket. ‘It’s quite safe.’
‘I want it.’
‘You can’t have it.’
‘You should burn those things you’ve got in there. All of them.’
He sighed. ‘Don’t be stupid. They might be important. We’ve talked about this over and over again. Don’t you listen to a word I say?’
She stared up at him, pushing out her lower lip like a thwarted child. Her fingertip was still touching the page in front of her and moving slowly and erratically towards the right-hand margin. She had been not just pretty but beautiful, he thought, and elegant with it, like a lady; not that it mattered. He brought the bread and dripping from the larder and put them down on the table. Muttering under his breath, he picked up her left hand, the one with the thin gold wedding band.
‘You’re freezing,’ he snapped. ‘You silly woman. What do you think you’re trying to do? Die of pneumonia?’
She stared at him, withdrew her hand but said nothing. He fetched a blanket from the unmade bed and draped it over her shoulders. She neither helped nor hindered him. He had seen mannequins with more life in them.
He touched the range with his fingers. ‘It’s getting warmer. That’s what you need, warmth. You’ll be better when you’ve had some tea.’
She looked up without smiling. Then at last she held out her hand to him.
‘We’re a fine pair of crocks,’ Narton said furiously, and took it.
He pulled out the chair beside hers. They sat there, hand in hand, staring at the kettle and waiting for the water to boil.
On Sunday afternoon Rory walked north from Bleeding Heart Square, at first in a straight line and later in a long north-westerly arc that took him through Regent’s Park and over Primrose Hill. Fenella was not expecting him. He reached Cornwallis Grove a little before half past three. Fenella answered the door. He fancied a look of disappointment passed over her face when she saw it was him. Instantly he supplied the reason for it. That was the trouble with jealousy. It created a ferocious appetite that was capable of nourishing itself just as effectively on speculation as on fact.
The hall was full of broken chairs, tins of paint, canvases stacked against the wall and an entire aviary of stuffed birds.
‘Come into the kitchen,’ she said. ‘It’s warmer.’
On the way he tripped over a canvas bag of tools and grazed his hand on a half-built bookcase.
‘I’m beginning to think I’ll never be free of the old monster,’ Fenella said over her shoulder. ‘All that clutter is like having Dad around again.’
‘Will you miss it?’
‘Why should I? Quite the reverse.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean the house and everything. It’s your home.’
‘It doesn’t feel like it since Mother died. The only thing I really miss is the car. A car gives you freedom — you can drive anywhere you like, at any time.’ She smiled at him. ‘You can always escape.’
She turned aside to fill the kettle. Rory thought she looked almost incandescent with excitement. He hadn’t seen her in such a good mood since he had come back from India. It was either the job or that chap Dawlish, or more probably both.
‘Listen, there was something that I forgot to ask you yesterday,’ he said. ‘It’s about those men who attacked me on Friday.’
Suddenly she was all attention. ‘The drunks? What about them?’
He chose his words with care: ‘There was a cufflink on the ground which might have come from one of the men who attacked me. It had the badge of the British Union of Fascists on it.’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Everybody knows they’re brutes. Why, Julian says-’
‘The point is,’ he interrupted, ‘do you think it’s possible they might have attacked me because of you?’
She frowned. ‘Why?’
Now he had said the words aloud to her, the possibility seemed even less likely than it had before. ‘It’s just that you go to these socialist meetings and — and a lot of your friends are that way inclined, or more so, like that chap Dawlish. And now your new job with — what’s it called?’
‘ASAF. The Alliance of Socialists Against Fascism. You make it sound like some — some deviation.’
‘I don’t mean to. It’s just that I wondered whether someone might have seen you and me together and assumed I was a communist or something too. In other words, they attacked me for political reasons. After all, if the chap was wearing cufflinks, you’d think that he was at least halfway respectable.’
‘Respectable? And he goes around beating up strangers on Friday nights?’
‘Not on the breadline, then.’
Fenella shook her head. ‘I can’t see it. Those Fascists are capable of almost anything, but the idea of them lying in wait for you in Bleeding Heart Square and then beating you up — well, it’s too ridiculous. You came to that meeting in Albion Lane, I know, but you didn’t exactly play an active part in the proceedings.’
‘But I know you. And I’ve met Dawlish.’
She shook her head. ‘If the target were Julian or me, they would just chuck a stone through my window or perhaps beat him up. Anyway, from what you say you can’t even be sure that the cufflink came from them.’ She paused and added in quite a different voice, ‘Rory?’
‘What?’
‘Are you all right? I know this isn’t easy for you.’
The gentleness in her voice took him by surprise. ‘I’m fine. It will be better when I find a job, of course.’
‘You’re not going to waste any more time on this business about Aunt Philippa, are you?’
‘You think it’s a wild-goose chase.’
‘It’s a distraction,’ Fenella said. ‘But you should be concentrating on finding a job, not chasing shadows.’
‘But I thought-’
