Dreaming Of The Bones

Kit fell upon the cake with a whoop and slid the two largest slices onto his plate.

“I swear I don’t know where he puts it,” sighed Vic. “It just disappears. And the cake won’t stop him stuffing himself with sandwiches and scones.” She took a sandwich and bit into it. “I hope you both like cucumber.”

Gemma took a sandwich for herself and sat back, nibbling and letting the talk eddy round her. Listening to the easy banter between mother and son, she had to keep reminding herself that this slender woman with the pleasant smile was the cold and formidable ex-wife who had callously walked out on Kincaid. For the first time, she wondered if she might have distorted the few comments he’d made about Vic to suit her own ends. What had he actually said?

Suddenly she wished she knew how Vic had seen things. Why did you leave him? she thought. And why did you leave him that way, without a word? But of course she couldn’t ask. Watching them, she tried to imagine them together, but she couldn’t separate Kincaid from her own experience of him.

Vic had taken the armchair opposite, with Kit perched on its arm like a tawny-crested bird, while Kincaid sat beside Gemma on the sofa, tea plate balanced on his knee. She was as aware of the warm solidity of his presence as if he’d been touching her, and she wondered what had been more important to Vic than that.

“Another scone, Gemma?” asked Vic.

Startled, Gemma thought she had better make an effort to pay attention. “Oh, I couldn’t manage another bite, but thanks. It was all lovely.”

They’d all reached the wiping-up-the-crumbs stage, Kit having polished off the last piece of cake. Gemma saw Vic glance at Kincaid and sensed the unspoken communication that passed between them before Vic said, “Kit, if you’ve finished—”

“I know, you want to be rid of me,” he said, vaulting from the sofa arm and landing with a thump. He didn’t sound the least bit unhappy. “Since you’re not using the computer, can I play Dark Legions? Please, please, Mummy?” he wheedled, grinning, already sure of getting his way.

“Oh, all right.” Vic gave in gracefully. “Just be sure to save my document.”

Kit leaned down and gave her an unselfconscious kiss on the cheek. “Brilliant cake, Mum,” he said, then bounded from the room before she could change her mind.

When the door had slammed behind him, Vic said, “I don’t know why I nag him. He knows more about the computer than I do. He’s the one who helps me when I get stuck.”

“Illusion of power,” said Kincaid, teasing.

“You’re lucky. He’s a nice kid,” said Gemma, knowing even as she did so how inadequate the word sounded, but Vic gave her a pleased smile.

“I know. He doesn’t deserve what he’s been through this last year.” Vic glanced at Kincaid, then back at Gemma. “He’s told you about Ian?”

Gemma nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. At least not for my sake, and I’m beginning to think it may not have been such a bad thing for Kit, either. Ian was so critical…. Kit must have felt he could never please him.” For a moment Vic gazed consideringly into her teacup, then looked up at Gemma and said softly, “And you know what’s odd? After so many years together, I’ve never missed him. Not for a day, not for a minute. You’d think that just the familiarity would be enough to make you miss a person a little, no matter what they’d done. Oh, well.” She set her cup on the table and smiled at them. “You didn’t come to talk about that.”

Kincaid shifted beside Gemma as he reached into the inside breast pocket of the sports jacket he’d worn over his jeans. “I’ve brought you the notes I made from Lydia Brooke’s case file. I thought you might like to see them yourself.” He handed over a folded sheaf of papers that Gemma recognized as torn from his spiral notebook. “You understand that I couldn’t take the file away with me.”

Vic took them as though they were fragile, then moved across to the other chair so that she could unfold them in the cone of light from the lamp. She read slowly, frowning in concentration, and they waited in silence. Gemma was suddenly aware of the fire hissing, and of the almost imperceptible sound of the light rain against the windowpanes.

Finally, Vic settled the pages back in their original order, and looked up at them. “Nathan found her?” she said, as if she couldn’t quite believe her own words. “Nathan never told me he found her.”

The strong lamplight lit her face and Gemma saw for the first time the tiny creases round her eyes and the lines running from her nose to the corners of her mouth.

“Should he have done?” asked Kincaid.

Vic colored and looked away. “It’s just that… I thought… we were friends.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to distress you,” suggested Gemma, wishing now that she’d read the notes herself and not been satisfied with Kincaid’s quick summary. “Or he found it too difficult to talk about.”

“Surely there was some other record,” said Kincaid.

“Such as? There were two brief mentions in the local paper, the first stating that Lydia Brooke had been found dead in her Cambridge home; the second that she had died from an overdose of her own heart medication, and that her death had been ruled a suicide by the coroner’s office. Full stop.”

“What about academic gossip?”

“For once, the gossip mill proved strangely unproductive,” Vic said disgustedly. “You’d think that a door had slammed shut when Lydia died—after that, no speculation, no reminiscences, nothing.” Then, as if she could contain her frustration no longer, she stood and began pacing before the hearth. “I wasn’t prepared for this. And it’s not as if I see myself as Quentin Bell writing about Virginia Woolf, either. Lydia wasn’t a major literary figure. Nor was she particularly well connected in literary circles, so I knew I couldn’t hope for scads of revealing letters turning up among other people’s correspondence. But I never expected this … this … possessiveness about her, as if no one who knew her can stand to let anything go. Her ex-husband was actually abusive when I tried to talk to him.