Jude tried not to dwell on it, but she couldn’t help remembering what Piers had been talking about just before Jonquil’s arrival. He’d said that what made him want finally to sell the house was having met her. Jude. He wanted to ‘close that chapter’ of his life. Did that mean he was looking forward to a new life that included her?
These thoughts circled infuriatingly round and round in her head and she despised herself for letting them. It was so unlike her. This wasn’t the Jude she felt comfortable with, the strong Jude she had so carefully constructed over the years. She hated behaving like a snivelling schoolgirl.
Shilly-shallying wasn’t in her nature. Her instinct was to get everything out in the open, have a confrontation if necessary, but at least not bottle things up. A hundred times on the Sunday she had contemplated just picking up her phone and ringing Piers. But each time she restrained herself, thinking, no, the ball’s in his court. When he’s sorted out whatever he needs to sort out with his wife, then he’ll get back to me.
By the Monday morning the temptation to ring Piers hadn’t weakened. In fact, through Jude’s largely sleepless night it had got stronger. But still she resisted it.
She was hugely relieved, though, when mid-morning the phone rang. She pounced on it, feeling sure it must finally be Piers.
It wasn’t. The voice was the extremely cultured one of a mature woman who had been to all the right schools and moved in all the right circles.
‘Good morning. Is that Jude?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is Felicity Budgen. We met at Lockleigh House tennis court during the Secretary’s Cup.’
‘Yes, of course, I remember.’
‘I’m sorry to trouble you, but it’s in connection with dear Reggie Playfair’s death.’ Felicity Budgen was far too genteel to use the expression ‘poor old bugger’.
‘Oh yes?’
‘Now, Oenone Playfair’s a very dear friend of mine, and I understand from her that you were actually with Piers Targett when he discovered poor Reggie’s body. .’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘I’m so sorry you had to experience that. It must have been a terrible shock.’ She spoke with the practised empathy of an ambassador’s wife comforting the bereaved.
‘Yes, it was a shock, but don’t worry, I’m fine.’
‘I’m very glad to hear that. Now, I don’t know whether you know, Jude, but Reggie’s funeral is on Thursday.’
‘Yes, I had heard.’
‘I don’t know whether you’ll be coming with Piers. .?’
No need for Jude to say that the two of them were currently not communicating. ‘He hasn’t mentioned it. And it’s not as if I knew Reggie Playfair well. Just met him very briefly on that Sunday.’
‘Yes, of course. Well, needless to say, Oenone’s up to her ears with arrangements for the funeral, and I’m trying to take any burdens I can off her back.’ There was a silence, as if the woman was making preparations for her next sentence. ‘Now there is one thing that’s worrying Oenone and, as I say, she’s got more than enough on her plate at the moment, so I’m making enquiries on her behalf.’
Jude had had enough of this diplomatic circumlocution. ‘What’s it about?’ she asked.
‘It’s about Reggie Playfair’s mobile phone.’
That wretched mobile phone. There seemed to be no way of escaping the subject.
‘What about it?’
‘Well, Oenone hasn’t been able to find the thing. She’s checked through Reggie’s belongings that came back from the hospital, and she’s looked through his car. She’d got George Hazlitt to check out around the tennis court. No sign of it. So I was just wondering whether you actually saw a mobile phone near Reggie’s body. . you know, when you. .’ Graciously Felicity Budgen didn’t spell out the details.
‘No, I’m afraid I didn’t see any sign of it.’
‘I thought that would probably be the case, but it was worth asking. As I say, anything that can be done to save Oenone further distress. .’
‘Of course.’ Jude had a moment of hesitation before she went on, ‘It might be worth asking Piers. I wasn’t with him all the time when we were at the court. He might have seen something I didn’t.’
‘Yes, what a very good idea. I’ll give him a call.’ But Felicity Budgen didn’t sound as if that would be the first thing on her agenda. ‘Anyway, it’s been a pleasure to talk to you, Jude. And I probably won’t see you Thursday. .?’
‘Probably not.’
‘No. Well, hope to see you round the tennis court with Piers on another occasion.’
I wouldn’t count on it, thought Jude bitterly.
The call she was waiting for came through late that afternoon, by which time she had to some extent got her head together. She had done some special yoga exercises, which calmed her, and by the end of them she’d reconciled herself to the idea that she was never going to see Piers Targett again. The thought didn’t make her happy, but at least it was the first broad stroke of the thick black line she was determined to draw under the whole episode.
Then Piers phoned her and her embryonic defences crumbled instantly.
‘“I can explain”’, he quoted ironically. ‘I’m sorry, Jude, but I can’t let the last words you ever hear from me be the cliche response of every guilty husband in every dreadful farce ever written — “I can explain”.’
His description so exactly matched what she had thought of the words when he’d said them on the Saturday afternoon that Jude couldn’t prevent the eruption of a small giggle. It was also relief, relief at finally hearing his voice after the torture of the previous days.
‘But can you?’ she asked.
‘Explain? Well, I can give you some relevant information.’
‘Something which has been rather lacking from you since we first met.’
‘
‘Fair enough. I agree, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.’
‘Well, maybe we should get together and barter chunks of our pasts. .?’
Two minutes before Jude had been determined that she would never see Piers Targett again. But it didn’t take long for her to say, ‘I think that’d be a very good idea.’
‘Where? Some kind of neutral ground? A pub? A bar?’
‘No.’ Jude felt too emotionally fragile to conduct their next meeting in public. ‘You come round here.’
NINETEEN
‘The fact is that Jonquil is bipolar,’ said Piers. ‘The condition’s kind of contained so long as she takes her medication, but I’m afraid she’s sometimes very perverse about taking her medication.’
‘But are you still married to her?’ asked Jude.
‘Yes. I’ve never denied I am.’
‘I meant, are you still cohabiting?’
‘What, at the house in Goffham? God, no. Neither of us lives there. Surely you could see that from the state of the place?’
‘Then why were you there?’
‘For the reasons I told you. Look, I’m not a liar, Jude. I told you I was down there to get on to an estate agent, to get the place on the market as soon as possible — and that’s true.’
‘All right, let’s change the question a little. Why was Jonquil there?’
‘Ah.’
There was a silence. They hadn’t touched since Piers arrived at Woodside Cottage, not a peck on the cheek or even a handshake, but Jude could still feel the magnetism of his presence. Slowly he answered her.
