On the Edge [= Dead Gorgeous]

16

Reggiori’s must have been a cleaner’s nightmare. Ornate fittings in abundance: the original gas jets, hat pegs, doorknobs, hand rails and bar furniture. More brass than the Royal Philharmonic. Red plush settees, wall mirrors, mosaic floor, ornamental tiles, potted ferns and silver cruets.

Antonia waved from a table against the wall and Hector stood up and helped Rose into her chair. Whatever it was on his hair smelt expensive. She smiled her thanks. The guarded look he gave her in return was difficult to understand. He’d been so open the last time they had met.

After they’d ordered, Antonia asked about the funeral and Rose told her how Rex Ballard, Peter Bliss and the others had driven down from Kettlesham Heath. ‘I wasn’t too happy about them coming at first, but as it turned out they helped me get through the day.’

Ridges of tension showed in Antonia’s cheek. ‘You didn’t mention my name?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Did they?’

‘No.’

The lines softened and disappeared. ‘I expect they were shocked about Barry.’

‘Rex could hardly take it in.’

‘I bet he wasn’t lost for words, though.’

Rose smiled. ‘No.’

The wine waiter arrived and Hector asked whether Rose cared for Italian wine. She made the mistake of asking if wine wasn’t rather extravagant and got ticked off by Antonia.

‘The war’s over now. You’ve got to get out of that scrimp-and-save mentality.’

‘People in your circumstances can. It’s not so easy for the rest of us.’

‘Oh, send me to the guillotine, darling. I don’t know how the poor live.’

Hector turned from ordering the wine and showed that he had missed the point entirely. ‘I think in this country they don’t use the guillotine.’ He made a ‘V’ shape between thumb and forefinger of his right hand and pressed it hard into the angle of his neck and jaw, at the same time pulling an imaginery lever with his left hand. He ended the performance by giving a doglike stare at Rose that made her feel extremely uneasy.

She took a sip of water and tried to think of some other topic, but Antonia was unaffected.

‘I see that our ex-RAF colleague went to the scaffold this morning.’

‘Oh?’

‘Neville Heath.’

Rose tensed. Hector made a vibrating sound with his lips but it didn’t discourage Antonia.

‘According to the Star, he took leave of the world in style. They asked for his last request and he said he’d like a whisky. When it was handed to him and everyone was waiting he said, “I think I’ll make that a double.” Nice sense of humour.’

Rose said, ‘I can’t admire a man who did the things he did. Can we change the subject?’

‘If you like, darling. What shall we talk about — carburettors? No, Hector, it’s meant to be a joke, like the double whisky.’

Hector didn’t talk about carburettors. He told them he’d spent another good day at the Victoria & Albert Museum, where his refrigerator was being demonstrated at the Britain Can Make It exhibition. Crowds had formed every day around the stand and there was tremendous interest from retailers.

‘How thrilling for you! I must come and see it.’

His chestnut eyes suddenly shone again. ‘You tell me when. I can get you in complimentary.’

Antonia studied her fingernails. ‘Don’t get carried away, Rosie. Just about everything in that tinpot exhibition is marked “For export only”, including his precious fridge.’

Hector glared at her.

The minestrone made a timely arrival. Rose took a first spoonful, watched by Antonia.

‘Good?’

‘This wasn’t out of a tin.’

‘Did your parents come up for the funeral?’

‘Yes. They asked me to go home with them.’

‘Why? Do they need looking after?’

‘They were thinking of me.’

‘You’re lucky. They must be fond of you. My mother’s impossible. Even Hector can’t stand her.’

‘Not true, Antonia.’

‘Oh, get away with you, Hec. You complained of a headache last time and we had to leave early.’ She picked up a slice of bread and started picking it to pieces. Rose, as she listened, quickly sensed that Antonia was at it again, manipulating people, but this time Hector seemed to be the target. ‘This is fearfully boring for you, Rosie, but now that the subject of Ma has come up, I’ve got something to ask my husband. I had a letter from home this morning, dearest. It’s about Lucky.’

Hector frowned. ‘Lucky?’

‘The dog, you chump.’ She sighed and turned to Rose. ‘If ever an animal was misnamed, it’s this one. Ma collected it from the dogs’ home when I was still a schoolgirl, that’s how old it is. It was blind in one eye and she felt sorry for it. A cross between a bull terrier and a Bedlington, if you can imagine that. Pink eyes and white woolly hair. It’s been run over twice and has a metal splint in one leg. One of its ears was torn off in a fight and it went deaf in the air raids. Lucky!’

Hector nodded. ‘First time I met this Lucky, he make water on my new shoes.’

‘Thank you, dear heart. The dog has an unreliable bladder to add to its miseries and Ma’s, but I wasn’t going to speak of it over dinner. The latest bulletin is that it’s developed a chronic case of mange. The woolly coat is dropping like snow all over the house. Ma says she must face the inevitable.’

‘He must go?’

‘Poor old thing, yes. What’s that song of Gracie Fields? — “Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye”. — The thing is, she can’t bear the thought of taking the old dog to the vet, so she wants me to go up there and do the necessary.’

Hector’s eyebrows pricked up. ‘Kill it?’

‘Pass it over to the vet. She’s in a frightful state about it.’

He lifted his shoulders and spread his hands. ‘You’d better go, then.’

‘But it’s bound to mean two or three days away. Apart from all that travelling, I’m going to have a distraught mother to deal with.’ She hesitated before asking Hector in a voice pitched on a tragic note, ‘I suppose you won’t come with me?’

Rose sipped her soup and looked into the mid-distance. She wished Antonia had saved this conversation for later.

Hector shook his head. ‘Britain Can Make It.’

‘So Hector obviously can’t. No, I don’t mean to be rude. I shall just have to go on my own. You do understand that the doggie has to be dealt with, Hec, my pet?’

Antonia’s concern for her husband was as warming as it was unexpected. A pity she called him her ‘pet’ in the circumstances, but he seemed not to take it badly.

He leaned towards Rose. ‘My wife, she is highly suitable for such a sad duty. No nerves. No panics.’

‘I can believe it.’

The matter still wasn’t settled to Antonia’s satisfaction, even though Hector had given his blessing. There was the problem of his eating arrangements. ‘How can I go up to Manchester knowing you won’t eat a thing? It’s no good looking at me like that, Hector. You’re too proud to eat in a restaurant alone.’

He shook his head. ‘Not too proud. I don’t enjoy it, that’s all.’

‘It comes down to the same thing.’ She swung round and addressed Rose. ‘You see how difficult he makes it?

The silly man won’t have a hot dinner for as long as I’m gone.’

‘How does he manage for lunch?’

‘Never eats it. This is the only substantial meal he gets. He’s going to collapse if he doesn’t eat something.’

The thought crossed Rose’s mind that if all Hector was lacking was a dining companion, she could easily volunteer. This thought was overtaken by another: this concern for Hector’s eating arrangements didn’t square with Antonia’s plans for him. No, she thought. Something lies behind this.

She slipped in a suggestion. ‘Couldn’t you cook something like a stew before you go and leave it in the oven for Hector to warm up?’

As if Hector hadn’t heard of anything so humble as stew, Antonia provided a rough translation. ‘Goulash.’

He gave a shrug.

‘Darling, he’d like nothing better, but there are two little snags. First, I couldn’t make a stew to save my life, and second, Hector would blow up the house trying to light the gas.’

‘Could I do it?’

‘Light the gas?’

‘Prepare the evening meal.’ The suggestion came from Rose spontaneously, and immediately after making it she cursed herself for being so impetuous. Then she thought about the prospect more calmly and decided that if Antonia were away in Manchester there couldn’t be any harm in it. She’d do as much for any friend. It was a practical and agreeable way of dispensing at least a little of the obligation she had to Antonia. ‘I can easily cook up a stew, but I don’t know about goulash.’

‘It’s just extra seasoning, like curry. That’s a thought!’ Antonia smiled knowingly at Hector and he nodded back.

Rose looked towards each of them in turn. ‘What’s that?’

‘Could you make a curry for him? He’d adore that.’

She liked the suggestion. It would be much more tempting to serve up to Hector than plain old stew. ‘Well, yes. I make quite a passable lamb curry.’

‘Darling, that’s awfully good of you. Let me buy the ingredients. The meat. Everything. It’ll keep in the fridge. We’ll give you a key and you can let yourself in whenever you want and do the cooking. Hector gets home about six from the exhibition. He won’t be a minute late if there’s a curry waiting. You’re an angel.’

Hector raised his glass to her. ‘The lady who is about to save my life.’

She felt herself go pink.

At the door of Reggiori’s, Antonia was handed a box not unlike the cake-box she’d picked up at the Ritz. Rose asked what the cat was getting for supper and learned that it was salmon.

They drove her back to Pimlico in the Bentley. She thanked them profusely for the meal and for bringing her home.

While Hector was turning the car she stood waving from her front door.

‘Like some little girl who went to a birthday party.’

‘What?’ Antonia was staring out of the other window at the road safety poster.

‘Rosie. Such nice manners. I believe you’re wrong about her. She wouldn’t make trouble for us with the police. Didn’t you see how she really wants to cook dinner for me? She jumped at it. How can you think of this wicked thing?’

‘Don’t start up now, little man. I’m pooped.’

‘Pooped from telling so many lies.’

Hector wasn’t used to getting the last word, so it was no surprise when Antonia pitched in as they were motoring up Park Lane. ‘She really took you in, didn’t she? You’re a sucker for the little-girl-lost look. The timid smile and watery blue eyes.’

‘No wonder her eyes are sad when her husband just died. Don’t you have no pity?’

Antonia shook with amusement, taking gusts of air through her nostrils. ‘You prize idiot! She isn’t suffering. Barry was no loss. She killed him.’

He drew the car in to the kerb and switched off the engine. ‘Antonia, I do not believe this.’

‘He was a washout as a husband so she shoved him on to the Piccadilly Line and picked up five thousand in insurance. Don’t waste any sympathy on Rose Bell, my innocent. She’s a killer. You can ask her.’

‘How can I ask such a thing?’

‘Ask her if she really misses him. You’ll see the guilt in her face.’