Chapter Six
AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AFTER the incident at Waterstone's I left the party. The drive to Chawton compelled me to think of other things. The cottage where Jane Austen spent the last eight years of her life is located this side of Alton, just off the A31, and is furnished as a museum by the Jane Austen Society, not a place I would normally have sought out, but the Steering Committee had concentrated my mind wonderfully. I took note of a number of items -manuscripts, family portraits and other memorabilia -that I decided were worth making enquiries about for a possible loan. My list didn't include the lock of Jane's hair recently dyed bright auburn, or the microphotographs of pieces of her skin still attached to the roots. I had ditched most of my donnish scruples, but there were limits, even with a hundred-foot Assembly Room to fill. Before leaving, I explained my interest to the curator and sounded him out about the possibility of borrowing items. It seemed I would have to approach the Society. There were the usual complications over insurance.
The worst of the day's heat had passed when I started for home, yet it was still an uncomfortable drive with the sun steadily penetrating the windscreen at a low angle. I stopped for a pint and a salad in Marlborough and got back to Bath shortly before nine – to an extra infliction. The mindless beat of disco music carried to me from my own garden even before I saw the line-up of large cars in the drive. I recognized a red Porsche and a grey vintage Bentley: Geraldine's Bristol crowd. The whiff of charcoal fumes and kebabs was in the air. A far cry from Jane Austen.
The front door stood open and a bearded man I had not met sat across the doorstep, tapping the disco rhythm with his fingertips on a 1935 Silver Jubilee biscuit tin belonging to me that was quite a collector's piece, and usually displayed on the Welsh dresser. 'Hi,' the man greeted me without looking up. 'What have you brought?'
'Nothing. I live here.'
Now the man raised his face to squint at me. 'With Gerry, you mean? Nice work, man. Want to come in?'
I stepped over his legs and walked through the house, and found Geraldine dancing on the patio opposite an estate agent called Roger, in striped shirt and red braces, who never missed these shindigs. Gerry gave me a wave. The music was deafening, so I turned down the volume.
Continuing to wriggle her hips, she called out, 'You're too early for the food. It needs another half-hour to get up some heat. You've got time to get into something more relaxing.' She was relaxing in an emerald green jumpsuit. Her feet were bare.
To say that I wasn't in the party mood would be an understatement. I said, 'For Christ's sake, Gerry – you might have told me you were planning this.'
'Didn't get the chance, dear heart. You were up and away too early this morning. Never mind, I've fixed you up with a date.'
'What?'
'A date. Skirt, or whatever charming expression you fellows use these days.' The cassette ran out and she stopped dancing and came over to me and tried to loosen my tie. Her manner was elated in a way that it rarely was when I was alone with her. I guessed she was on vodka, because I couldn't smell drink on her breath. 'So get yourself into something sexy,' she told me. 'She'll be here any minute.'
I said, 'Jump in the pool, Gerry.'
'I'm not shooting a line,' she persisted.
'I'm not shooting a line,' she persisted. 'This woman with a name like a man's called on the phone an hour ago and asked for you. Wait, it's coming to me. Some nineteen-forties film star with dreamy eyes and a trilby. Dana Andrews. That was it. Her name is Dana.'
'I don't know anyone called Dana.'
'You will shortly. She was so desperate to speak to you that I invited her to my barbecue. She's the mother of that schoolkid you rescued from the river.'
'Mrs Didrikson.' It had been that sort of day. 'You birdbrain. Those people are a menace. They turned up at the Ted Hughes signing.'
'What's come over you, shyboots?' said Geraldine. 'I thought publicity was meat and drink to you.'
'Not this local hero stuff. I've had a bellyful. Look, I'm not having the press invading my house – least of all while this is going on.'
'She's coming alone, she told me,' said Geraldine.
'Yes, and pigs might fly.'
I went up to the bedroom, picked some fresh clothes off the hangers, looked into the en suite, discovered a woman already using the shower, and had to wash in the bathroom instead. And would you believe it, someone had removed the mirror from the wall.
My first idea had been to tell Geraldine to give the Didrikson woman her marching orders the moment she arrived. But Gerry couldn't be relied on, even when sober. I would do it myself. I dressed, returned downstairs, stepped over the man in the doorway and looked in the drive to see if another car had arrived yet. I walked out to the road. It was completely dark by now and blessedly cool.
In my days as a smoker this would have been a fine time to light up. I had no desire to join Geraldine's barbecue. I had nothing in common with her friends, although I was resigned to joining them ultimately. Trying to sleep would be futile.
I heard the approach of a car from the direction of Bath. Before it came into view, the headlights on full beam glowed high above the walls and hedges. Its progress was slow, as if the driver was looking for a particular house. Then the car itself appeared and the lights dipped. A Mercedes. It halted just across the road from where I was standing, but no one got out.
The driver was a dark-haired woman. She wound down the window and said, 'Would I be better off parking in the road?'
'Are you here for the barbecue?'
'Not exactly,' she said, hesitating. 'You are Professor Jackman?'
'That's right, but my wife is giving the party. You can park there if you like. Not much comes along at this time of night.'
She said, 'I think we're at cross-purposes. I just wanted a few minutes with you, Professor.'
'You're Mrs Didrikson?' I hadn't expected the woman to arrive in a Mercedes.
'That's right. Didn't you get the message that I was coming?'
'If you want to talk, this isn't the place,' I said, seized with a pleasing thought. I could outflank Molly Abershaw, who had no doubt set up this meeting, and escape the party for a while by getting a lift to the nearest pub. 'It would be easier in my local – the Viaduct. Do you have any objections?'
She hesitated. 'Well, no – if that's what you'd like,' she said.
I got in, chatted about the weather and the tourists for a mile and admired the way she took the Mercedes round the tight bends on Brassknocker Hill. She handled it as if she enjoyed her driving. I was curious why she hadn't chosen to drive something more like a sports car, for she was really too short for the Mercedes. She was propped up on two thick cushions.
The pub was busy. As she wanted something non-alcoholic, I suggested a St Clement's and ordered a large cognac for myself.
'I was so upset by what happened in Waterstone's today that I had to get in touch with you,' she plunged in as soon as we had our drinks. 'Believe me, it came as a total shock to Matthew and me when that photographer appeared. We were there in the belief that it was a chance to meet you informally and thank you for what you did. It seemed a good idea when Molly Abershaw suggested it. Now I'm kicking myself for being so dumb. Can you forgive me?'
I had given her no more than a glance in Waterstone's. The incident had been so unexpected that I had barely registered who the boy was before the camera flashed and triggered my angry reaction. Dana Didrikson's deep-set brown eyes now studied me with apprehension as she awaited my response. She didn't look as if she was out for more publicity. The shape of her face, the high forehead and neat mouth and chin, suggested intelligence without guile. Her small hands were clasped tighdy.
I said, 'Forget it, Mrs Didrikson. I blew my top, and I'm not too proud about that. Your son has fully recovered
