“You coming back?”
“I’d like to, if it’s no trouble.” She took a card from her handbag, flicking the switch on the recorder at the same time.
“That’s my name and telephone number. Rosalind Leigh. It’s a London number but I’ll be down here regularly over the next few weeks, so if you feel like a chat’ she smiled encouragingly and stood up - ‘give me a ring.”
He regarded her with astonishment.
“A chat.
Goodness me. A youngster like you has better things to do with her time.”
Too right, she thought, but I do need information.
Her smile, like Mr. Crew’s, was false.
“I’ll be seeing you then, Mr. Hayes.”
He pushed himself awkwardly out of his chair and held out a marbled hand.
“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Miss Leigh. What shall I say? It’s not often an old man sees charming young ladies out of the blue.”
He spoke with such sincerity that she felt chastened by her own lack of it. Why, oh why, she wondered, was the human condition so damn bloody?
FOUR
Roz found the local convent with the help of a police an “That’ll be St. Angela’s,” he told her.
“Left at the traffic lights and left again. Large red-brick building set back from the road. You can’t miss it. It’s the only decent piece of architecture still standing round there.”
It reared in solid Victorian magnificence above its surrounding clutter of cheap concrete obsolescence, a monument to education in a way that none of the modern prefabricated schools could ever be. Roz entered the front door with a sense of familiarity, for this was a schooling she recognised.
Glimpses through classroom doors of desks, blackboards, shelves of books, attentive girls in neat uniforms. A place of quiet learning, where parents could dictate the sort of education their daughters received simply by threatening to remove the pupils and withhold the fees. And whenever parents had that power the requirements were always the same: discipline, structure, results. She peeped through a window into what was obviously the library. Well, well, no wonder Gwen had insisted on sending the girls here. Roz would put money on Parkway Comprehensive being an unruly bedlam where English, History, Religion and Geography were all taught as the single subject of General Studies, spelling was an anachronism, French an extracurricular activity, Latin unheard of, and Science a series of chats about the greenhouse effect…
“Can I help you?”
She turned with a smile.
“I hope so.”
A smart woman in her late fifties had paused in front of a door marked Secretary.
“Are you a prospective parent?”
“I wish I were. It’s a lovely school. No children,” she explained at the woman’s look of puzzled enquiry.
“I see. So how can I help you?”
Roz took out one of her cards.
“Rosalind Leigh,” she introduced herself.
“Would it be possible for me to talk to the headmistress?”
“Now?” said the woman in surprise.
“Yes, if she’s free. If not, I can make an appointment and come back later.”
The woman took the card and read it closely.
“May I ask what you want to talk about?”
Roz shrugged.
“Just some general information about the school and the sort of girls who come here.”
“Would you be the Rosalind Leigh who wrote Through the Looking Glass by any chance?”
Roz nodded. Through the Looking Glass, her last book and her best, had sold well and won some excellent reviews. A study of the changing perceptions of female beauty down the ages, she wondered now how she had ever managed to summon the energy to write it. A labour of love, she thought, because the subject had fascinated her.
“I’ve read it.” The other smiled.
“I agreed with very few of your conclusions but it was extremely thought-provoking none the less. You write lovely prose, but I’m sure you know that.”
Roz laughed. She felt an immediate liking for the woman.
“At least you’re honest.”
