Mexico Set

20

And when finally I got back to London I was surprised to find a woman in my bed. Well, that's not precisely true. The woman was Tessa my sister-in-law, and she wasn't exactly in my bed; she was sleeping in the spare room. And I wasn't surprised either; there was a note on the hall-stand telling me she was sleeping there.

It was early in the morning. She came downstairs in her magnificent floral dressing gown to find me in the front room. Her long blonde hair was dishevelled and her eyelids were still heavy with sleepiness. There is a curious intimacy about seeing a woman's face without make-up. Tessa looked pale, especially round her eyes where there was usually shadow and darkened eyebrows and blackened lashes. It was the face of a sleepy child but no less attractive for that. I'd never before realized how beautiful she was; George was a lucky man, but there were too many other men equally lucky.

'Bernard. We thought you were never coming back. The children keep asking me…'

'I'm sorry, Tessa. I've come straight from the airport.'

'Nanny gets nervous here on her own, then the children recognize that, and they get frightened too. It's stupid, but she's such a good girl with the children. She doesn't get much time to herself, I moved into the boxroom. You said that I could use it.'

'Of course I did. Any time. Thanks for looking after them,' I said. I took off my hat and coat and threw them on to an armchair. Then I sat down on the sofa.

'Did they give you breakfast on the plane?'

'Nothing fit for human consumption.'

'Do you want coffee?' She fiddled with her hair as if suddenly aware that it was disarrayed.

'Desperately.'

'And orange juice? It will take time for the coffee to drip through.'

'Does David know I'm away so much?'

'He was furious. He threatened to come here and take the children. That was another reason why I stayed here. Nanny wouldn't be able to stand up to him.' Furtively she looked at herself in the mirror and straightened the dressing gown. 'I'm planning to take the children to my cousin's house on Friday… perhaps you'd prefer that I didn't, now that you're home.' Hastily she added, 'She has three children, big garden, lots of toys. We were going to stay there over the school holiday.'

'I have to go back to Mexico,' I said. 'Don't change your plans.'

She bent over me and touched my face in a gesture of great affection. 'I know you love the children. They know it too. You have to do your work, Bernard. Don't worry.' She went into the kitchen and rattled bottles and glasses and cups and saucers. When she came back she was holding a tray with a half-filled bottle of champagne. There was also a jug containing water into which a can-shaped slug of frozen orange juice was trying to melt. 'How do you like your orange juice?' she said. 'Diluted with champagne or straight?'

'Champagne? At this time in the morning I thought they served it in ladies' slippers.'

'It was in the fridge, left over from last night. I split a bottle with nanny but we didn't finish it. The bubbles stay if you put it straight back into the fridge after pouring. I brought a case with me when I came. I had a big bust-up with George and I thought, why leave all the champers there?'

'A permanent bust-up?'

'Who knows? George was shouting. He doesn't often shout.'

'Did he go to South Africa?'

She poured some champagne for both of us. 'I told you all that, didn't I?… Phoning the hotel in Italy and asking for Mrs Kosinski. Was it terribly tiresome of me to burden you with all that?'

'Did he go?' I stirred the frozen juice and poured some into both glasses. I was too damned puritanical to drink champagne so early in the morning, but adding the orange juice made it seem permissible.

'No, he sent his general manager instead. It shows that there must have been another woman.'

'I don't follow the logic of that,' I said. I tasted the champagne mixture.

'The other woman would have been furious had he turned her down and taken his wife instead. His only way out of trouble was not to go at all.'

'I wish I could help,' I said.

'I'm not sure that you could, Bernard.' She looked at her watch. 'The coffee will only take a moment or so.'

'I'll speak to George.'

'I'm sure you've got all sorts of worries of your own.'

'No,' I said resolutely. Good old Bernard, always has time to help his fellow humans no matter what threatens. Or was I just trying to convince myself?

'George is being such a fool, Bernard. I mean, he knows that I've been tempted by other men.'

She paused. 'Ummm,' I said. I nodded and admired her choice of words. Only a woman could describe such a long succession of reckless love affairs as being tempted, without any clear admission that she'd submitted to the temptations.

'I didn't go to great trouble to hide it from him. You know that, Bernard. So he's left it a bit late, hasn't he? You'd have thought he would have said something before deciding to go off with other women. It's not like him.'

'Was it one particular relationship that might have made George angry?'

'Oh, Bernard,' she said. Her voice was loud, louder than she intended perhaps, for she looked round, wondering if the nanny had heard but the nanny's room was at the top of the house next to the children. 'Bernard, really. You are exasperating.' She drank. 'That's good,' she said.

I hated to annoy anyone without understanding why. 'What have I done, Tessa?' I asked.

'Surely it's obvious. Even to a thick-headed idiot like you it must be evident.'

'What?'

'Evident that I adore you, Bernard. It's you that George is always making such a fuss about.'

'But we've… I mean I never.'

She gave a short, sardonic chuckle. 'You've gone red, darling. I didn't know I could make you blush. You're always so damned cool. That's what makes you so adorable.'

'Now stop all this nonsense, Tessa. What is it all about?'

'It's George. He's convinced that we're having a red-hot love affair, and nothing I tell him makes any difference.'

'Oh, really. I'll have to talk to him.'

'I wish you luck, darling. He takes no notice of anything I tell him.'

'And he knows you're here now?'

'Well, of course he does. That's what really got him steamed up. He called me some horrible names, Bernard. If you were really my lover you'd go round there and punch him on the nose. I told him that.'

'You told him what?'

'I said, if Bernard was really my lover he'd come round here and give you a good thrashing.'

'Oh my God, Tessa. Whatever made you say that?'

'I was angry.' She laughed as she remembered the scene with her husband. But I didn't join in the laughter. 'I told him you had lots of women. I told him you don't need me.'

'I haven't got lots of women.' I didn't want her spreading such stories. 'I haven't got any women, to tell you the truth.'

'Now don't overdo it, Bernard. No one expects you to live the life of a hermit. And that Secret de Venus in the bathroom is not something you got from the supermarket to make you smell lovely.'

'Secret of what?'

'Bath oil from Weil of Paris. It costs an absolute fortune and I know Fi never used it.'

'I let someone from the office change here.'

'Gorgeous Gloria. I know all about her from Daphne Cruyer. She left it here, did she? Her mind was on other things in store. You are a quiet one, Bernard. How many others are there?'

My inclination was to rebut her charges but, knowing that was exactly what she wanted, I let it go. 'Poor George,' I said. 'I'll have to straighten it out.'

'He won't believe you. We may as well go straight upstairs, jump into bed, and make all his suspicions come true.'

'Don't joke about jt,' I said.

'Come over here on the sofa and I'll show you if I'm joking or not.' She inched back the hem of her dressing gown to expose her thigh. It was a jokey gesture, the sort of antic she'd probably copied from some ancient film, but I could see she was naked under the dressing gown. I took a deep breath and devoted all my attention to the drink. That 'sweet disorder in the dress' made it difficult to concentrate on anything but Tessa; she was disturbingly attractive.

I gulped my drink and got to my feet. 'I'll go up to the children,' I said. 'We'll all have breakfast together.'

Tessa smiled.

'And I'll talk to George. I'll phone him this morning.'

'I'm sure you have more important things to do,' she said. She stood up too. 'Do you want me to clear out?'

'I thought you wanted to go back to George.'

'I don't know what I want,' she said. 'I need time to think.'

'You don't need time to think,' I said. 'You must either go back to George or leave him and make a clean break. You'll both be miserable if you let things go on like this. You have to decide whether you love him or not. That's all that really matters.'

'Is it? Are you still in love with Fiona?'

'No,' I said. 'And I never was.'

'You can't just wipe out the past, Bernard. I know how happy Fi was when you asked her to marry you. She adored you, you both were happy. I don't know what happened but don't say you never loved her.'

'That Fiona I knew was only part of a person, an actress who never let me see the real person. She lived a lie and I'm glad she's gone to where she wanted to be.'

'Don't be bitter. George could say the same thing about me. He could say that I have never truly given him my real self.'

'I can't help you make up your mind, Tessa.'

'Don't kick me out, Bernard. I'll look after the children and I'll keep out of your way. While you've been away I've been sitting upstairs watching nanny's television with her, and I use her little kitchen to make breakfast and we eat it in the nursery. We hardly ever come down here. I won't be in the way when you bring people home.'

'I have no plans for bringing people home, if by that you mean women.'

'Are you going into the office this morning?'

'Eventually,' I said. We stood close together. Neither of us had anything to say but we didn't want to move. We were lonely, I suppose.

She said, 'I can hear the bath-water running for the children. Why don't you go and say hello to them? They will be so excited to see you.'

'I'll have to have a talk with George,' I warned her.

'But not right at this moment,' she pleaded.

'I'll phone him when I get to the office,' I said. 'I hate misunderstandings.'

When I got upstairs the children greeted me vociferously. I told them that Tessa was going to take them away to the country.

'Nanny too?' Billy asked.

Nanny gave a shy smile. Billy was in love with his nanny I think. 'Of course,' I said.

'Auntie Tessa lets us drink champagne,' said Sally. Billy glared at her because she was revealing a secret. They had never asked me about their mother. I wondered what they thought about her sudden disappearance but it seemed better to let it go until they asked questions.

Pinned up on their board there was a coloured drawing of a red-faced man sitting on a pointed box strumming a guitar. Across the vivid blue sky it said 'Wellcom Daddy' in big letters. 'Is that me?' I said.

'We copied it from a picture of Mick Jagger,' Billy told me. 'And then we drew your glasses on afterwards. I did the outline and Sally filled in the colours.'

'And that's a pyramid in Mexico,' said Sally. 'We copied it from the encyclopedia.'

'It's beautiful,' I said. 'Can I keep it?'

'No,' said Billy. 'Sally wants to take it to school.'

I went into the little room where I keep my typewriter, books and unpaid bills. I looked up 'fink' in my dictionary of American slang.

fink n. 1 A company spy, secret informer or strike breaker.

(Orig. Pink, contraction of Pinkerton man.)

I wondered how Pavel Moskvin fitted to that definition and what else Paul Biedermann had been about to tell me about it.