The Sixth Lamentation

Chapter Twenty-Three

1

Pascal rang Lucy on her mobile while she was having lunch with her parents. Her father sat at the head of the table; her mother had just left the dining room for the kitchen. The opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth, electrified and appalling, blared out from Lucy’s pocket.

‘Destiny, I presume?’ asked Freddie woodenly

Lucy took the call.

‘I think a little miracle happened when we were at Larkwood Priory.’

‘It passed me by’

‘Meeting Max Nightingale.’

‘You’re joking.’ She thought of him with revulsion. ‘I call that unfortunate. ‘

A long moan of hopes betrayed floated out from the kitchen. As usual her mother was battling with milk and powder, strong adversaries that would not be reconciled.

Pascal said, ‘I don’t know why he threw that question in about your grandmother but he hadn’t the faintest idea who she was.’

‘That’s not a miracle.’

‘But if he knows of her, he may well know of Victor Brionne … and his name.

Her father realigned his plate, clinking it against a neatly laid dessert spoon.

Lucy said, ‘But he’s not going to tell you, is he?’

‘I’d like to find out.’

‘You’re joking again.’ Lucy sensed the future, predatory and inevitable.

‘I’m not. In a way he’s no different to you or me-Lucy spat, ‘How?’

‘He’s part of the aftermath. He’s not a criminal. I’d like to meet him, it’s just… right … and I couldn’t be bothered to work out why’

‘I have to go,’ said Lucy The approval of her father flowered in a smile. Phone calls during meals were not encouraged. It had been one of Darren’s specialities, done on purpose.

The call ended, and Lucy’s father said, ‘Dreadful things those. Who was that?’

‘Just a friend.’ The barricade on her private life appeared. Her father scouted around for an opening, looking for light between the slats: ‘How’s your study getting along?’

‘Not so bad.’ The phrase sealed a gap. Lucy had detected the true meaning beneath her father’s question: ‘You made a hash of Cambridge so please don’t fail again.’ She thought: fail who? You or me? Who do you really think lost out in my growing up? Shocked by her own charity she answered: we both did, terribly and she suddenly wanted to touch him. She took her father’s empty plate and laid it on hers. When were they ever going to forget the past? Why were they cursed to remember everything?

Her mother came into the room, hands on her hips, her face fallen: ‘I’m afraid there’s lots of lumps in the custard.’

‘Oh God, not again,’ said her father as he reached out for Susan’s hand.