Her expression was unreadable. ‘And Miss Kensley?’
He shook his head. ‘It seems that she’s changed her mind.’
‘About the flat?’
‘And the job.’
She said very quietly, ‘You might not want me there.’
‘Why ever not?’
One of the Blue Dahlia’s browbeaten minions arrived to collect their plates.
‘Anyway, it’s nothing to do with me what Dawlish decides.’ Rory studied Lydia’s face. ‘I think, between ourselves, he was rather keen on Fenella.’
‘That had occurred to me too.’
‘It’s strange,’ he said. ‘I thought she liked him. She — she seems to be very volatile these days. One never knows quite how she’ll react. She used not to be like that, you know.’
Lydia smiled. ‘You make it sound as if the problem is Fenella. It may just be that she doesn’t like Mr Dawlish, or not in that way. After all, there’s no reason why she should.’
He had an unsettling sensation that she saw the outline of a possibility he did not see. ‘Lydia-’ he began, and put his hand on the table.
‘One plum crumble with custard,’ said the minion, lowering a bowl with a clatter onto the table. ‘One apple tart, no custard.’
When they were alone again, Lydia said, ‘I need to tell you something. You may not want to be under the same roof as me.’
The possibilities chased through his mind: an old flame of Lydia’s, emerging like Miss Penhow’s fabled sailor from the past; or a desire to tell him that he, Rory, had served his purpose and was now surplus to requirements; or perhaps she was dying of an incurable disease or about to leave for several years on a cruise around the world; or-
‘Last night,’ she said, ‘the reason that I was so upset was that I went to see Mrs Narton. She told me something that I didn’t want to hear, and my mother confirmed it this morning.’ She stared at her hands, palms down on either side of the apple tart, no custard; just like Mrs Narton’s, palms down on either side of her Bible. ‘William Ingleby-Lewis isn’t my father: Serridge is.’
He stared across the table at her bowed head. ‘Oh damn.’
She didn’t move. ‘I’m sure,’ she muttered doggedly. ‘There’s no possible doubt.’
He reached out and laid his right hand over her left hand, and his forefinger touched the wedding band that Marcus had given her. ‘It really doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Now, would you like me to have a word with Dawlish about this flat?’
‘But of course it matters. Especially if Serridge is a murderer as well as everything else.’
‘I don’t agree. We’re not our parents. If Serridge really is your father, he’s nothing more than a biological accident. You can choose your own father. You can choose whoever you want. Or you can do without a father altogether.’
‘Something wrong with that tart?’ asked the manageress, looming menacingly behind Rory.
‘Not at all.’ Lydia obediently took up her spoon and fork. ‘It looks lovely.’
The manageress watched her chew and swallow a mouthful. She shuffled away.
‘See?’ Rory said. ‘You’re practically a daughter to her now. Next time we come here, she’ll probably take the food off my plate and insist on feeding it to you.’
He watched the smile breaking slowly over her face. While they ate their pudding, he told her about his hopes that the
Outside, he took her arm and slipped it through his. They walked back to Bleeding Heart Square together for the last time. In Charleston Street Serridge drove past in his car but he appeared not to notice them.
As they turned into the square, they saw Captain Ingleby-Lewis in front of them. He had just left the Crozier. There was a roll to his gait, as though the cobbles, puddles and cracked paving slabs were swaying this way and that on the swell of a mighty ocean. He paused by the pump, holding on to the handle to restore his balance. He heard their footsteps behind him and turned his head.
‘Ah — hello, my dear.’ He looked first pleased to see Lydia, and then guilty; his memory was slower to respond than his emotions.
‘Hello, Father,’ Lydia said, leaving her arm in Rory’s. ‘I’ve come to say goodbye.’
26
You must come to a decision about the diary. It’s a dangerous thing to keep. Besides, you have read it so many times that you know what it says: you can recite passages from memory. You are disposing of so much else, so why not this as well?
But something stops you. The diary will stay the same. You can’t rely on memory to do that. Memory is a process, not something finished, complete in itself.
That is why you keep the diary. That is also why you must destroy it.
You hear the doorbell and it pulls you from a remote corner of your mind where you float between past and future. Only the standard lamp is alight, and the fire has died. The drawing room is insubstantial, full of shadows. It no longer feels like a room you have known all your life. The shabby furniture has lost its meaning, and so have the books on the shelves and the pictures on the walls. The room might just as well be a shop selling second-hand household effects.
You go into the hall and pick your way through the rubbish, your father’s, your mother’s and your own. You know who it will be and you do not want to have to deal with the questions. You have had enough of all this. You open the door and the shock of what you see hits you like a gust of wind. It’s not Rory after all. It’s not even poor Julian.
‘Fenella,’ Joseph Serridge says. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’
‘No,’ you say, and your voice is cold and perfectly steady.
His body almost fills the doorway, blocking out the night. He is the shadow who buys what you are and pays you with a dream that rots into nightmare.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ he asks, with a ghost of a chuckle in his voice. ‘Looks like you’re running a junk shop.’
You hold the door to steady yourself, to keep the shadow out.
‘Suit yourself,’ Serridge says. ‘We can talk on the doorstep if you want your neighbours to hear. It was you, wasn’t it? Go on — admit it.’
Oh it was you, all right; you never hid that from yourself. Philippa Penhow came into the barn and saw Joseph Serridge lying back on the straw and you riding on top of him with your skirt up around your armpits. His arms were clamped on your shoulders, holding you down.
Philippa Penhow couldn’t have seen your face, not then, not from the doorway, but she said, ‘It’s you, Fenella, isn’t it? Oh, how could you?’
‘It’s you sending me all that rubbish,’ Joseph Serridge says. ‘Why now? Christ, it was years ago. What’s the point?’
You tell him the truth. ‘Because Mother died.’
‘You
You shake your head. Because you loved Mother. Because she loved you.
Serridge stares down at you and forms his fleshy, hair-fringed lips into a silent whistle. ‘You’re cracked, my girl. You know that?’
‘I’m what you made me.’
‘You knew what you were doing. You wanted it — go on, admit it. You were all over me, remember? Begging me. That’s why you wired that day, that’s why you came.’
Oh, you remember. What you remember most of all is the absence of choice. The devil made you want
