Longshot

‘That’s my other son,’ Tremayne said, reading the message from a distance. ‘He’s fifteen. Unmanageable.’ He spoke, however, with indulgence. ‘I expect you’ll soon get the hang of the household.’

‘Er... Mrs Vickers?’ I said tentatively.

‘Mackie?’ He sounded puzzled.

‘No... Your wife?’

‘Oh. Oh, I see. No, my wife took a hike. Can’t say I minded. There’s just me and Gareth, the boy. I’ve a daughter, married a frog, lives outside Paris, has three children, they come here sometimes, turn the place upside down. She’s the eldest, then Perkin. Gareth came later.’

He was feeding me the facts without feelings, I thought. I’d have to change that, if I were to do any good: but maybe it was too soon for feelings. He was glad I was there, but jerky, almost nervous, almost — now we were alone — shy. Now that he had got what he wanted, now that he had secured his writer, a lot of the agitation and anxiety he’d displayed in Ronnie’s office seemed to have abated. The Tremayne of today was running on only half-stress.

Mackie, coming into the room, restored him to his confident self. Carrying an ice-bucket, she glanced quickly at her father-in-law as if to assess his mood, to find out if his tolerance in Fiona and Harry’s kitchen was still in operation. Reassured in some way she took the ice over to a table bearing a tray of bottles and glasses and began mixing a drink.

She had taken off her padded coat and woolly hat, and was wearing a blue jersey dress over knee-high narrow black boots. Her red-brown hair, cut short, curled neatly on a well-shaped head and she was still pale, without lipstick or vivacity.

The drink she mixed was gin and tonic, which she gave to Tremayne. He nodded his thanks, as for something done often.

‘For you?’ Mackie said to me. ‘John?’

‘The coffee was fine,’ I said.

She smiled faintly. ‘Yes.’

Truth to tell I was hungry, not thirsty. Thanks to no water in the friend’s aunt’s house, all I had had that day apart from the coffee was some bread and Marmite and two glasses of milk, and even that had been half frozen in its carton. I began to hope that Gareth’s return, ‘back for grub’, was imminent.

Perkin appeared carrying an already full glass of brown liquid that looked like Coca-Cola. He sank into one of the armchairs and began complaining again about the loss of the jeep, not seeing that he was lucky not to have lost his wife.

‘The damned thing’s insured,’ Tremayne said robustly. ‘The garage can tow it out of the ditch in the morning and tell us if it can be salvaged. Either way, it’s not the end of the world.’

‘How will we manage without it?’ Perkin grumbled.

‘Buy another,’ Tremayne said.

This simple solution silenced Perkin and Mackie looked grateful. She sat on a sofa and took her boots off, saying they were damp from snow and her feet were freezing. She massaged her toes and looked across at my black shoes.

‘Those shoes of yours are meant for dancing,’ she said, ‘and not for carrying females across ice. I’m sorry, I really am.’

‘Carrying?’ Tremayne said, eyebrows rising.

‘Yes, didn’t I tell you? John and Harry carried me for about a mile, I think. I can remember the crash, then I sort of passed out and I woke up just outside the village. I do vaguely remember them carrying me... it’s a bit of a blur... I was sitting on their wrists... I knew I mustn’t fall off... it was like dreaming.’

Perkin stared, first at her, then at me. Not pleased, I thought.

‘I’ll be damned,’ Tremayne said.

I smiled at Mackie and she smiled back, and Perkin very obviously didn’t like that. I’d have to be careful, I thought. I was not there to stir family waters but simply to do a job, to stay uninvolved and leave everything as I’d found it.

Thankful for the heat of the fire I shed the dinner jacket, laying it on a chair and feeling less like the decadent remains of an orgy. I wondered how soon I could decently mention food. If it hadn’t been for the bus fare I might have bought something sustaining like chocolate. I wondered if I could ask Tremayne to reimburse the bus fare. Frivolous thoughts, mental rubbish.

‘Sit down, John,’ Tremayne said, waving to an armchair. I sat as instructed. ‘What happened in court?’ he asked Mackie. ‘How did it go?’

‘It was awful.’ She shuddered. ‘Nolan looked so... so vulnerable. The jury think he’s guilty, I’m sure they do. And Harry wouldn’t swear after all that Lewis was drunk...’ She closed her eyes and sighed deeply. ‘I wish to God we’d never had that damned party.’

‘What’s done is done,’ Tremayne said heavily, and I wondered how many times they’d each repeated those regrets.