Scold's Bridle

to live without, I should imagine. He leaves something of a vacuum in his wake.'

Sarah turned away from him to look out of the window. She couldn't see anything, of course-it was now very dark outside-but the policeman could see her reflection in the glass as clearly as if it were a mirror. He would have done better, he thought, to keep his mouth shut but there was an openness about the Blakeneys that was catching.

'He's not always like that,' said Sarah. 'It's rare for him to be quite so forthcoming, but I'm not sure if that was for your benefit or mine.' She fell silent, aware that she was speaking her thoughts aloud.

'Yours, of course.'

They heard the front door open and close. 'Why 'of course'?'

'I haven't hurt him.'

Their reflected eyes met in the window pane.

'Life's a bugger, isn't it, Sergeant?'

Joanna's demands on my purse are becoming insatiable. She says it's my fault that she's incapable of finding a job, my fault that her life's so empty, my fault that she had to marry Steven and my fault, too, that she was saddled with a baby she didn't want. I forbore to point out that she couldn't get into the Jew's bed quick enough or that the pill had been available for years before she allowed herself to get pregnant. I was tempted to catalogue the hells I went through-the rape of my innocence, marriage to a drunken pervert, a second pregnancy when I'd barely got over the first, the courage it took to climb out of an abyss of despair that she couldn't begin to imagine. I didn't, of course. She alarms me enough, as it is, with her frigid dislike of me and Ruth. I dread to think how she would react if she ever found out that Gerald was her father.

She says I'm a miser. Well, perhaps I am. Money has been a good friend to me and I guard it as jealously as others guard their secrets. God knows, I've had to use every ounce of cunning I possess to acquire it. If shrouds had pockets, I'd take it with me and 'to hell, allegiance!' It is not we who owe our children but they who owe us. The only regret I have about dying is that I won't see Sarah's face when she learns what I've left her. That would, I think, be amusing.

Old Howard quoted Hamlet at me today: 'We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath no profit but the name.' I laughed-he is a most entertaining old brute at times--and answered from

The Merchant

'He is well paid who is well satisfied...'

*7*

'Violet Orloff sought out her husband in the sitting-room, where he was watching the early evening news on the television. She turned down the volume and placed her angular body in front of the screen.

'I was watching that,' he said in mild reproof.

She took no notice. 'Those awful women next door have been screaming at each other like a couple of fishwives, and I could hear every word. We should have taken the surveyor's advice and insisted on a double skin with soundproofing. What's going to happen if it's sold to hippies or people with young children? We'll be driven mad with their row.'

'Wait and see,' Duncan said, folding his plump hands in his ample lap. He could never understand how it was that old age, which had brought him serenity, had brought Violet only an aggressive frustration. He felt guilty about it. He knew he should never have brought her back to live in such close proximity with Mathilda. It was like placing a daisy beside an orchid and inviting comparisons.

She scowled at him. 'You can be so infuriating at times. If we wait and see, it'll be too late to do anything. I think we should demand that something be done before it's sold.'

'Have you forgotten,' he reminded her gently, 'that we were only able to afford this house in the first place precisely because there was no soundproofing and Mathilda agreed to a five thousand pound discount when the surveyor pointed out the deficiency? We're hardly in a position to demand anything.'

But Violet hadn't come in to discuss demands. 'Fishwives,' she said again, 'screaming at each other. The police now think Mathilda was murdered, apparently. And do you know what Ruth called her mother? A whore. She said she knew her mother was a whore in London. Rather worse, in fact. She said Joanna was,' her voice dropped to a whisper while her lips, in exaggerated movement, mouthed the words, 'a fucking whore.'

'Good lord,' said Duncan Orloff, startled out of his serenity.

'Quite. And Mathilda thought Joanna was mad, and she tried to murder Ruth, and she's spending her money on something she shouldn't and, worst of all, Ruth was in the house the night Mathilda died and she took Mathilda's earrings. And,' she said with particular emphasis, as if she hadn't already said 'and' several times, 'Ruth has stolen other things as well. They obviously haven't told the police any of it. I think we should report it.'

He looked slightly alarmed. 'Is it really any of our business, dear? We do have to go on living here, after all. I should hate any more unpleasantness.' What Duncan called serenity, others called apathy, and the hornets' nest stirred up two weeks ago by Jenny Spede's screams had been extremely unsettling.

She stared at him with shrewd little eyes.''You've known it was murder all along, haven't you? And you know who did it.'

'Don't be absurd,' he said, an edge of anger in his voice.

She stamped her foot angrily on the floor. 'Why do you insist on treating me like a child? Do you think I didn't know? I've known for forty years, you silly man. Poor Violet. Only second best. Always second best. What did she tell you, Duncan?' Her eyes narrowed to slits. 'She told you something. I know she did.'