Scold's Bridle

'That's cheap.'

'Yes,' he agreed, 'but you've given me nothing to paint.' He passed her the sketchpad. 'I don't do glossy nudes and so far that's all you've offered me, bar a dreary and unremitting display of Electra complex, or more accurately demi-Electra complex. There's no attachment to a father, only a compulsive hostility towards a mother. You've talked about nothing else since I've been here.' He shrugged. 'Even your daughter doesn't feature. You haven't mentioned the poor kid once since she went back to school.'

Joanna got off the bed, wrapped herself in her dressing-gown and walked to the window. 'You don't understand,' she said.

'Oh, I understand,' he murmured. 'You can't con a conman, Joanna.'

She frowned. 'What are you talking about?'

'One of the most colossal egos I've ever come across, and God knows I should recognize one when I see it. You may persuade the rest of the world that Mathilda wronged you, but not me. You've been screwing her all your life,' he tipped a finger at her, 'although you probably didn't know until recently just why you were so damn good at it.'

She didn't say anything.

'I'll hazard a guess that your childhood was one endless tantrum, which Mathilda attempted to control with the scold's bridle. Am I right?' He paused. 'And then what? Presumably you were bright enough to work out a way to stop her using it.'

Her tone was frigid. 'I was terrified of the beastly thing. I used to convulse every time she produced it.'

'Easily done,' he said with amusement. 'I did it myself as a child when it suited me. So how old were you when you worked that one out?'

Her peculiarly fixed gaze lingered on him, but he could feel the growing agitation underneath. 'The only time she ever showed me any affection was when she put the scold's bridle over my head. She'd put her arms about me and rub her cheek against the framework. 'Poor darling,' she'd say, 'Mummy's doing this for Joanna.' ' She turned back to the window. 'I hated that. It made me feel she could only love me when I was at my ugliest.' She was silent for a moment. 'You're right about one thing, it wasn't until I found out that Gerald was my father that I understood why my mother was afraid of me. She thought I was mad. I'd never realized it before.'

'Didn't you ever ask her why she was afraid?'

'You wouldn't even put that question if you'd really known my mother.' Her breath misted the glass. 'There were so many secrets in her life that I learnt very rapidly never to ask her anything. I had to make up a fantasy background for myself when I went to boarding school because I knew so little about my own.' She dashed the mist away with an impatient hand and turned back into the room. 'Have you finished? I've things to do.'

He wondered how long he could stall her this time before the demands of her addiction sent her scurrying for the bathroom. She was always infinitely more interesting under the stress of abstinence than she ever was drugged. 'Southcliffe?' he asked. 'The same school Ruth's at now?'

She gave a hollow laugh. 'Hardly. Mother wasn't so free with her money in those days. I was sent to a cheap finishing school which made no attempt to educate, merely groomed cattle for the cattle market. Mother had ambitions to marry me off to a title. Probably,' she went on cynically, 'because she hoped a chinless wonder would be so inbred himself he wouldn't notice the lunacy in me.' She glanced towards the door. 'Ruth has had far more spent on her than I ever had, and not because Mother was fond of her, believe me.' Her mouth twisted. 'It was all done to stamp out the Jew in her after my little faux pas with Steven.'

'Did you love him?'

'I've never loved anyone.'

'You love yourself,' he said.

But Joanna had already gone. He could hear her scrabbling feverishly through the vanity case in the bathroom. For what? he wondered. Tranquillizers? Cocaine? Whatever it was, she wasn't injecting it. Her skin was flawless and beautiful like her face.

Sarah Blakeney tells me her husband is an artist. A painter of personalities. I guessed he would be something in that line. It's what I would have chosen myself. The arts or literature.

'I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another. ' Funnily enough, that might have been written for Sarah. She projects herself as a frank and open person, with strong, decided views and no hidden contradictions, but in many ways she is very insecure. She positively loathes confrontation, preferring agreement to disagreement, and will placate if she can. I asked her what she was afraid of, and she said: 'I was taught to be accommodating. It's the curse of being a woman. Parents don't want to be left with spinsters on their hands so they teach their daughters to say yes to everything except sex.'

Times haven't changed then ...

*8*

Sarah was waiting outside the doorway of Barclays Bank in Hills Street when Keith Smollett arrived. She had her coat collar pulled up around her ears and looked pale and washed out in the grey November light. He gave her a warm hug and kissed her cold cheek. 'You're not much of an advertisement for a woman who's just scooped the jackpot,' he remarked, holding her at arm's length and examining her face. 'What's the problem?'

'There isn't one,' she said shortly. 'I just happen to think there's more to life than money.'

He smiled, his thin face irritatingly sympathetic. 'Would we be talking Jack by any chance?'

'No, we would not,' she snapped. 'Why does everyone assume that my equanimity depends on a shallow, two-faced skunk whose one ambition in life is to impregnate every female he meets?'