Chapter 19
Falling Out of Love
By the time that George Cartwright was carried off to hospital following his heart attack, there were four women who felt very ill-disposed towards him. These were Chloe Donague, Jennifer Cole and his two acknowledged daughters. All had reason to dislike the ill man, but only one hated him enough to kill him a week after he was admitted to hospital.
It is an old saying that the wife is always the last to know, but in such a close relationship as that which Jemma Cartwright and her father shared, it would have been equally apposite to suggest that the daughter was the last to know. Tanya might have suspected that her father was a sleaze-bucket around women and most likely a serial adulterer, but part of her devotion to her sister was concealing any evidence of this state of affairs from her. This she did to the best of ability; not that Jemma would have believed anything bad of her father.
Dealing with the state of her face and coming to terms with looking a little freakish were, for Jemma, heavily bound up in the abnormally close relationship which she had with her father. It honestly did not matter to her what she saw in the mirror; just as long as her father told her he loved her and demonstrated his affection at frequent intervals. George Cartwright did indeed love his older daughter and was happy to spend plenty of time with her; when, that is, he wasn't working or cheating on his wife. He was a tactile man and often stroked Jemma's hair, put his arm round her or held her hand. She for her part clung to her father both metaphorically and literally. When she was twelve and beginning puberty, Yvonne Cartwright had suggested to her husband that Jemma was getting a bit too old to snuggle up to him quite so much. She remarked that people stared oddly sometimes when he walked hand in hand with his daughter or put his arm round her shoulders.
There was absolutely nothing sinister or unnatural about George Cartwright's displays of physical affection for Jemma. He was so used to being physically demonstrative with different women, that he didn't think twice about laying his hand on his daughter as well. At the university, George was known to be a great one for emphasising points when he was talking by touching a woman's knee or placing a hand on a shoulder. The displays of affection for Jemma were just a natural extension of this behaviour.
However innocent all this was on the part of her father, the fact was that by the time she started secondary school, Jemma was absolutely and utterly in love with her father. The childish love of a little girl for her male parent had ripened into something deeper and exceedingly unhealthy. She initiated contact with George and at any opportunity would squeeze up close to him or kiss his cheek. At last, her mother decided that there was something wrong about the child's behaviour. In the early summer of the year that Jemma had turned thirteen, Yvonne Cartwright waited until the two of them were alone in the house and said to her husband, 'George, it's got to stop. All this cuddling with Jemma, I mean. She acts as though she's got a crush on you.'
'That's natural enough. All girls go through that phase. You never hear of the Electra Complex? She'll grow out of it. Girls try out all the sort of things they'll feel later, when they fall in love. It's a sight safer for her to have a crush on me than some teacher or older boy.'
In the usual way of things, Yvonne dropped any topic about which George was very determined. She was a great believer in the general principle of anything for a quiet life; but in this instance, she was adamant. 'No,' she said firmly, 'It's not at all normal and what's more I think that you know it. She treats me as though I'm in the way and I honestly think that if something happened to me, she'd have it in mind to marry you.'
Deflecting his wife when she got onto the subject of his being overly affectionate to another female was something which George Cartwright was good at. He'd had a lot of practice over the years, so he said, 'Ah, so that's it, is it? You're jealous of your own daughter!'
'Don't be so bloody silly. I'm telling you, it's not healthy, what's going on with her. It's nothing to do with being jealous. Just open your eyes.'
But of course, George Cartwright did not need to open his eyes at all, for he already knew that his wife was perfectly correct about this. The only thing was, he did not mind at all that his thirteen year-old daughter had a semi-sexual fixation on him. He may not have reciprocated it, but there was nothing he liked more than to think that some girl had the hots for him. He was so much in the habit of feeling this way, that even when the girl in question was his own daughter, he could not help but feel a slight frisson of pleasure.
Jemma began going out with the occasional boy when she was fifteen, but every single one was found wanting; they none of them matched up well when compared with her father. George Cartwright was aware of this too and secretly flattered. It wasn't until she went to university and was spending months at a time away from her father that Jemma had any serious relationships. And as soon as she returned home for the vacations though, she fell back into the old ways of relating to her father; who was to her like the one fixed point in her universe.
Things went on in this way for Jemma, until the early afternoon of a day in March, when she unexpectedly found that almost the whole of her life had been based upon a massive and unforgiveable lie and that she wasn't her father's special love at all, but merely one of a long string of woman and girls that he touched gently and who were made to feel special by him. Since a very large part of coming to terms with the scar on her face had been bound up with her father's love and the close and exclusive bond which she believed to exist between them; this sudden revelation had more impact than anybody could have foreseen.
Of course, the disappearance of love is no more instantaneous than its appearance, but most people would agree that love can fade very quickly; given the right circumstances. Jemma's falling out of love with her father did not happen overnight, but her love and adoration for him did not take more than a month to ebb away completely. That her mother, sister and best friend had all known for years that the most important man in her life was an indiscriminate lecher was humiliating and helped over the weeks to cause the passionate love for her father to be transmuted into a festering and poisonous hatred.
There was another aspect of the affair; one which she was not about to share with anybody, not even Tanya or Chloe. Why she had felt impelled to ask her mother if there were any other children of her father's she didn't know about, Jemma could not say. Her mother's angry and evasive response though was enough to persuade her that she was on the right track. And Jemma, for the first time since she was five or six, recalled to mind the memories which she now knew shed light upon one of the enduring motifs of her life; her fixed and ardent dislike of Jennifer Cole.
A scene from when she had been at school for only a few months. Mrs Cole had arrived with Jennifer, who was about to start at the primary school. Jemma's father had taken her to school that day, which was an unusual circumstance and accounted perhaps for the vividity of the recollection. She had left her father standing at the gate and walked into the playground. Just as she had turned to wave him goodbye, Jennifer and her mother reached the gate and Jemma's father had greeted them warmly. More to the point, he had squatted down and spoken to Jennifer, a friendly smile on his face. Even at that age, Jemma had known that this was odd; her father wasn't one for children. There was obviously something different about Jennifer though and Mr Cartwright seemed enchanted by her. Then something strange had happened, because Mrs Cole had tugged her little daughter's hand and hurried her away. Mr Cartwright had stood up and Jennifer's mother had said something sharp to him; Jemma could still see the anger in her face. Then it had all been over.
The incident had stuck in Jemma's mind and when Jennifer showed that she had taken a liking to her, Jemma had rebuffed her. This hadn't discouraged Jennifer though, quite the opposite. She had persisted in trying to be Jemma's friend and the odd thing was that Jemma herself felt an urge to smile at the other child and become her friend. But then she remembered that soppy look on her father's face as he talked to Jennifer and a wave of jealousy swept through her; little though she was. She wanted her father all to herself and if she made friends with Jennifer, then perhaps her father would like Jennifer too and that wasn't to be borne. She wanted to keep her father all to herself. In this way, the dislike and mistrust of Jennifer Cole became a rooted fact of school life and when Tanya started school, her loyalty to Jemma caused her too to become part of this childhood game.
***
Chloe's emotions about George Cartwright also underwent a transformation at this time. His behaviour had opened up the first real breach between her and Jemma, and her beloved friend was now suffering dreadfully as a direct consequence of her father's actions. If there had been some real thing like witchcraft or voodoo and Chloe could have brought about George Cartwright's death by remote control, she would have done so in a flash.
Once she had found out that everything she thought she knew about her father was a lie, Jemma became obsessed with discovering the truth. To this end, she cross-examined her sister about all that Tanya had known or suspected. This became a bit like picking at a scab; it was painful, but weirdly satisfying as well. By the summer, Jemma Cartwright not only hated her father, but was also obsessed about the fact that she was horribly scarred. Her acceptance of the disfigurement had been so bound up in the reassurance and love which she had been given by her father, that when this evaporated, it was almost as though she was forced all over again to come to terms with her appearance. The grieving and anxiety with which she should have dealt almost twenty years earlier resurfaced and made Jemma unsure of herself. A sizable chunk of her adjustment and psychological balance seemed to have vanished and she didn't know any more how to behave like herself. Looking in the mirror made her feel, for the first time in years, very sad. The man whom she had always somehow supposed to be in love with her had turned out to be a treacherous snake who had never really cared about her at all. Now Jemma felt the need for a replacement; a man who would prove to her that the scar across her face didn't really make her an ugly monster.
Confession
Turning her eyes towards the person sitting in the chair by the window, the woman in the bed could see only a silhouette. She wanted nothing more than to drift off to sleep. She forced herself though to remain alert and watchful; if for no other reason than to assure the maniac by the window that there was still a conscious audience for her grotesque reminiscences.
'There were three people I had reason to kill, but I knew that I couldn't just go after them all, one after the other. A massacre like that, it'd be sure to get people talking. Then again, I'd found that killing people released all the pent-up tension in me. I needed to do it. What I did was to hold off on murdering those known to me and just go after complete strangers when the urge was upon me. You ever feel that powerful desire to have sex, you know the frustration and the way it makes you ratty? Then afterwards, everything's OK. That's what killing's like for me.'
And still in the slowly darkening room, the only sound other than that one person's voice was that of the ventilator and the noise of traffic from the street. Every so often, there were voices out in the corridor or the rattle of a trolley; otherwise, just those background sounds of the sibilant rhythm of the machine and the car engines outside.
'Anyway, I thought I'd best not do anybody who knew me for at least six months. Instead, I thought I'd go after another stranger, but make it a good one. I mean a really special death.
Chapter 20
A Random Attack
The London borough of Hackney is one of the most run-down and deprived areas in the whole of Western Europe and has a higher murder rate than any other part of the capital. In some ways, it would be the ideal place to commit an undetectable murder; especially as she didn't even live there.
Apart from Victoria Park, the first purpose-built public park in the whole of Britain, there are several large grassy stretches of land in Hackney; among them Well Street Common, Hackney Downs, Weavers' Fields and London Fields. Although they also contain little playgrounds, these are not really parks as we generally understand the word. They are rather the remaining fragments of pasture from the days when Hackney was a pretty little village a few miles north of London. It was to one of these open spaces that the woman made her way on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of December.
Obviously, a secluded spot would be the best for something like this. She was still planning a more spectacular death at some time in the not too distant future; this was just by way of being a pot-boiler, something to keep her hand in. Running between London Fields and Richmond Road is a narrow alley way which runs under the railway viaduct. It is famous locally for the number of muggings and sexual assaults which have been carried out there; particularly at night. Men used the gloomy shortcut to relieve themselves and mothers living nearby forbade their children to use this route to the Fields. It was, in short, perfect for what was planned.
Despite the passage between London Fields and Richmond Road being theoretically off limits to local children, they used it anyway to get home or to reach Mare Street from the secondary school on the other side of the Fields. The woman knew this, because for a month she had worked in an office overlooking London Fields. It would accordingly be necessary to commit the murder before three in the afternoon. This was also a good time because at that time of year, it was very nearly dusk by mid-afternoon. It would be almost completely dark under the viaduct at three.
It would not do at all to appear to be hanging around aimlessly near to the very spot where she would later be committing a murder and so the young woman just walked back and forth along the alley way; not quickly, but not dawdling either. Just a normal person, taking a shortcut. Perhaps she was coming home from work, maybe heading to the shops in Mare Street. Once she reached the end of the ally, she didn't immediately turn round and start walking back again, that would have looked almost as peculiar as loitering in one place. Instead, she strolled out into Richmond Road, crossed the road, checked that nobody was observing her and then went back over the road and headed towards London Fields again. She repeated this process five times and was just heading away from the Fields again, when she saw the old woman leaving the building on the edge of the Fields and turning into the alley. She waited for a space, to allow the woman to get a little way ahead of her.
Mrs Olusanya was in almost constant pain in the cold weather. She bent over and tried not to let the chilly wind find its way under the collar of her coat. All she wanted was to get home and huddle in front of the gas fire. This was, she thought, not a good country in which to be old and sick. Back in the Yoruba village in which she had grown up over sixty years ago, families took care of their older members. Old people were seen as a blessing, rather than a burden. But in this cold and unfriendly country, your family pushed you out and tried to get the 'authorities' to take charge of you.
Hunched against the wind which was funnelled through the space beneath the railway arches, the old woman hurried along the shortcut which she usually took on her way home from the senior citizens' club which she attended every Wednesday afternoon at the community centre. She was so absorbed in feeling cold and nursing a grudge against her ungrateful, grown-up children for their neglect of her, that she scarcely heard the young woman walking up behind her. She was subliminally aware of the clicking of heels, but this was a quintessentially feminine sound and Mrs Olusanyu was old enough to equate 'female' with 'harmless'. It was not until she found herself stumbling helplessly forward after receiving a crushing blow to the back of her head that she knew something was wrong. She might have been old, but she was still tough enough to regain her balance and half turn to see what had happened. She steadied herself, but did not have time to look round, because she was struck twice more on the head. Oddly enough, there was no pain at all; the old woman pitched forward and lost consciousness before her face even hit the ground.
Nobody was to be seen either ahead of her in Richmond Road nor behind from the direction she had come. The woman slipped the wrench into a stout plastic shopping bag and then continued walking in the direction of Richmond Road. She turned right once she was in Richmond Road and headed towards Mare Street. The aim now was to put as much distance as she could between herself and the body, for when it was found, she hoped to be already mingling with the crowds of shoppers who generally thronged that part of Mare Street which lay between the Town Hall and Hackney Central railway station.
A quick examination of her arms and a glance down the front of her coat assured the young woman that she was not spattered with gore. From what she could make out, there had not been any blood at all; cracking open the old woman's skull seemed to have been accomplished without even cutting into the scalp; which was surprising. It had been as effortless as cracking open a boiled egg. Well, you lived and learned. It was the kind of thing which was worth knowing, if she found herself using this method again.
In Mare Street, she caught a bus to Bethnal Green tube station and was home within an hour of catching the train. There was absolutely nothing to connect her with the killing in Hackney and the old woman's violent death would almost certainly be attributed to a bungled robbery. This proved to be the case, because a few days later the online version of the Hackney Gazette carried a piece about the death of an old Nigerian woman in what, it was suggested, was a mugging which had been interrupted. There were the usual agonised cries from those who could not believe the direction in which society was currently moving and an interview with some man living in Richmond Road, who explained that local people shunned the shortcut under the railway viaduct for this very reason; the fear of being robbed or assaulted there. There were no police appeals to learn the whereabouts of a well-dressed young woman who had been seen in the vicinity at the time of the crime; by which it was probably safe to assume that she was home and dry.
Reading about her latest murder in the newspapers like that, gave the young woman a thrill. It was part of the pleasure of the thing, knowing that she had got away with it again and that no suspicion whatsoever attached itself to her. Revelling in her own cleverness in evading not only capture, but even the faintest suspicion, was the crowning touch to such affairs. Looking at that bit in the Hackney Gazette, which included a blurred snapshot of the victim herself, made her killer feel like the angel of death.
Chapter 21
Fighting Back
Giles Lucas had originally embarked upon his private investigation into the death of Melanie Pearl for no nobler reason than that he didn't like being made a monkey of. Those four young women had all managed to put him out of countenance and he had felt personally aggrieved at the casual way that they had behaved; almost as though the woman’s death was a private matter, just between them. That may have been how it began, but after visiting Mrs Cartwright, Lucas was convinced that there was something deeply sinister behind the death of the woman on the Point. Before that, he had entertained strong suspicions; now he had not the slightest doubt that more than one murder had taken place without anybody being called to account for it. For any policeman, such an idea would be shocking. To Inspector Lucas, it was infinitely worse than that. It was an affront to the smooth running of the universe that somebody was walking around the world, killing other people with impunity. It was not only desirable, but essential that such a person was brought to justice.
The visit to Jemma and Tanya’s mother had taken place in late September and within a few days, the effects of the conversation which Lucas had had with George Cartwright’s widow had spread outwards until his own family was in peril. This was ironic, since he generally refused even to discuss almost any aspect of his work with his wife, for fear of his family being contaminated with the filth with which he came into regular contact. Now though, he had tracked the dirt right to his own doorstep and the theoretical separation which he maintained mentally between work and home no longer existed.
The Saturday after the nice young detective’s visit, Yvonne Cartwright was pottering about in her front garden. It was a warm, sunny day and there was only a week more of September left. She was readying the garden for autumn and winter. When Jennifer Cole passed by on the way to the shops, it seemed only natural to call to her and mention that somebody had been asking about her and her family. Jennifer now lived in her old family home, the mortgage on which she had almost managed to pay off. Living alone in a three bed-roomed house was a terrible extravagance, but she couldn’t somehow bring herself to leave.
‘Cooee! Jennifer!’ cried Mrs Cartwright across the road to the young woman who was hurrying along; wrapped in her own thoughts. When Jennifer saw who had called her, she crossed the road.
‘Hallo, Mrs Cartwright.’
‘How many times must I tell you? Call me Yvonne.’
‘How are things?’
‘Yes, fine. I just wanted to tell you, I had a strange visit the other day. Well, not strange but a little odd. Mind you, he was a nice young man, but I couldn’t work out what he wanted really. If he did. I mean if he wanted anything, that is. He was asking about you and your mother.’
For all that she was Jemma and Tanya’s mother, and deserving of a certain amount of respect on that score, Jennifer had always found Yvonne Cartwright massively irritating to talk to. There was invariably an endless stream of pointless words before you found out what she really wanted to say. Jennifer said politely, ‘What young man? I’m not sure I understand.’
‘Oh, isn’t that me all over? You must think I’m rambling. It was a policeman, asking about that woman who died when you and the girls were at Greenwich that day.’
‘You say he was asking about me?’
‘Well, now you say that, I don’t know that he actually did ask. He just seemed so interested in everything, that I talked about you and the girls and so on. I just thought I’d let you know. I’m sure he’ll come to see you if it’s anything important.’
A terrible chill went through Jennifer’s heart at the garrulous woman’s words. Was she personally suspected of killing that Pearl woman? Or was it just that she and the others had been present that day and the police were not happy about the inquest? She said, ‘I don’t suppose you caught his name, did you? The policeman, I mean.’
‘Yes, he was called Inspector Lucas, though he seemed very young to be an inspector.’
‘Thanks for letting me know, Mrs Cartwright. I’m sure there’s nothing in it. I have to get off now. It’s been nice talking to you.’
‘Won’t you come for a coffee?’ asked the older woman, a little sadly, ‘It seems such a long time since we had a proper chat.’ Although she was aware that Jennifer was her husband’s ‘love child’, Yvonne had always liked her. Funnily enough, she had got on very well with Samantha as well, despite the fact that she had been one of her husband’s many lovers.
‘I honestly can’t come in right now,’ said Jennifer, ‘I’m in such a hurry. I’ll come and visit soon though.’
As she hurried away, Jennifer wondered what was going on. She had thought that after the inquest had delivered its verdict, that the whole thing was ended. She’d no idea that the police were still investigating the death.
Jemma and Tanya had learned about the policeman’s visit two days before their mother had collared Jennifer Cole in the street. The day that Jemma had found out that Lucas was still sniffing round, she had rung Chloe and told her about it as well. By September 28th all four of the women knew that police enquiries had not yet ended and that the repercussions from Melanie Pearl’s death were not over.
***
Six days after Giles Lucas’ visit to Mrs Cartwright, the woman who had killed Melanie Pearl was sitting alone in her bedroom, trying to work out the best way of putting an end to any further complications arising from the murder which she had committed in Greenwich that July. The fact that it was the same detective who had been involved in the initial investigation of the death who was now making a nuisance of himself, suggested to her that this might well be more in the nature of an individual vendetta, rather than a proper police murder enquiry. It was a shrewd enough guess, which was of course entirely correct. If the police had really been treating the death as suspicious, then surely they would have been calling in the four women associated with the supposed victim and not just popping round to see the mother of two of them for an informal chat. It was still disturbing.
Most people have a repertoire of techniques for ridding themselves of unwanted social connections. These range from unfriending the individual on Facebook to not answering a mobile when the person rings. Sometimes, a blunt approach is necessary and the person will be told that their friendship is now surplus to requirements. In those who are in the habit of killing people, the solution to the problem of inconvenient or troublesome acquaintances can be a little more direct.
If, as she strongly suspected, this Inspector Lucas was looking into the incident on the Point in a purely private capacity, then his death would most likely bring a halt to the business at once. Always provided of course, that there were no notes or other material about the case which might suggest a motive for his murder. It was a sign of her precarious mental state that the woman was now prepared to commit the one crime which, in Britain, guarantees that every police officer in the country will be after one forever more. As it happened, her serial killing days were in any case drawing to a close and she was on the verge of launching a murder spree. Perhaps at the back of her mind, she was aware that her career in this field was almost over. There was however all the difference in the world between going on the rampage and killing a dozen people over a day or two and tamely allowing herself to be taken into custody by a nosy policeman. If an end was to come to her activities, then she was determined to go out with a bang and not a whimper.
Although he had forgotten the fact, two of the young women whom Inspector Lucas had interviewed about the death of Melanie Pearl had asked to see his warrant card. His first name was accordingly no secret. Opening the laptop, the young woman Googled ‘Giles Lucas’ + ‘Electoral register’. After looking at a couple of sites which required registration and a subscription, she came across one place which gave free and very brief details. Giles Lucas did not appear to be a very common name and only two references came up. One was in Manchester and the other in the London suburb of Woodford. The Woodford one gave the street, Buckingham Road, and the age range, 30-50; which sounded about right. There was no house number, but a visit to the local library in Woodford would rectify that. Most big libraries held copies of the electoral register, sometimes known as the voters’ list.
As she worked, a shiver of pure pleasure went through the woman, which was almost sexual in nature. There was nothing, absolutely nothing in the world, more exciting and satisfying than planning and committing a murder. There was the added bonus here that this was going to be a most spectacular and public death. She hadn't killed anybody since the day of that picnic and found the idea of killing the policeman weirdly attractive. She hadn't liked his way of questioning her at all and thought how enjoyable it would be to kill him.
Chapter 22
Finding Another Man
Having leaned heavily upon her father since the age of two, Jemma Cartwright naturally felt an aching loss when she cast him out of her heart. As is so often the case when a couple break up, she picked up with somebody swiftly on the rebound. Despite the adoration and love which she felt for her father, Jemma had been out with several boys while she was at Durham. She had found them all to be tiresome, shallow and immature. Without even realising what she was doing, she measured them subconsciously against the pattern of her father and every one of them fell woefully short. The least unsatisfactory was an economics student called Graham Foster.
Six months before discovering her father’s treachery and infidelity, Jemma had gone out a few times with Graham Foster; even allowing him into her bed. This was in the autumn term of her third year at Durham. The two of them had never officially broken up; truth to tell, they had never really been recognised as a couple in the first place, so it would have been difficult for them to break up. Graham had a firm offer of a job with a firm of consultants in the City of London, which was conditional only on his acquiring a First. Nobody doubted that he would achieve this feat. Jemma knew that Graham was still keen on her and so she decided quite deliberately that she would give him all the love and devotion which had previously been her father’s due.
He might have been, and indeed was, something of a genius at economics and finance, but Graham Foster was unsophisticated and inexperienced in social relationships. He had nursed a flame for Jemma for well over a year and was altogether bowled over when she revealed that she had long reciprocated his feelings. She offered no explanation as to why she had given no sign of this before, and Graham didn’t think to ask. He was too much in love.
Shortly after Jemma’s twenty first birthday party, to which Graham was unable to come, they became engaged. Chloe was at first upset, seeing in this a threat to her friendship with Jemma; but this fear proved groundless. Without actually spelling it out, Jemma gave her friend to understand that marriage would not interfere with their own relationship. There were raised eyebrows in their circle about Jemma’s finally falling for a man, and such a dull one at that, but nobody felt inclined to express their curiosity about the matter openly to either Jemma or Chloe. Having a fiancée did not seem to make much difference to Jemma’s life and things carried on much as before. Only Jemma knew that she had now acquired a man who worshipped her and would do anything he could to make her happy. Graham wasn’t really an adequate substitute for her father, but having his love and affection helped sooth the recently awoken anxieties about the appearance of her face.
Jemma’s decision to marry Graham Foster very nearly caused a breach between she and her sister. Tanya said, when told of the engagement, ‘Don’t rush into something like this, Jem. I know you were upset about dad, but this is just crazy,’
‘Is it?’ said Jemma coldly, ‘Because I have a man who loves me and wants to look after me? That’s what a lot of people are after.’
Since this was undeniably true, Tanya was at a loss to know what to say next. Her sister saw an advantage and said, ‘I’m going to marry him anyway. I don’t care what anybody says. He’s mine. Chloe’s happy for me, why can’t you be?’
‘Because it’s wrong. Graham’ll see it, you know. He’ll figure out that you don’t really care for him and then what’ll happen?’
They were having this conversation in Jemma’s room at the Halls of residence; Tanya having travelled up to Durham specially, because she was so concerned about her sister making such a massive mistake. She’d met Graham and found him to be as dull as anything; not a bit like Jemma. It was so plain that this was going to end badly.
‘Tell you what, Tan,’ said Jemma suddenly, ‘I’m not going to talk about this any more. Graham wants to take care of me and that’s good enough for me. To have somebody loving me and always looking out for me.’
It was on the tip of Tanya’s tongue to point out that Jemma already had two people taking care of her and looking out for her, but she managed to restrain herself. She shrugged and simply said, ‘I’ve told you what I think.’
Jemma stood up walked over to her sister. She said, ‘Please don’t be awful about it. I think that Graham could make me happy.’ She bent down and hugged Tanya and then the friction was over. It was clearly understood though, that Jemma’s marriage was to be forever off-limits as a topic of conversation. While she was in Durham, Tanya met up with Chloe for a coffee and told her the gist of what had been said. Chloe said,
‘Well, you tried. She’s going to do it, whatever we say.’
The wedding was originally scheduled to take place in November; after Graham and Jemma had both graduated. George Cartwright’s death in October though cast rather a shadow on the idea and in the event, Jemma didn’t get married until the following February. By that time, Graham had taken up his post with the City firm and he and Jemma were living together in a rented flat.
However razor-sharp Graham Foster's mind might have been when it came to economics and finance, he was a simple soul as far as matters of the heart were concerned. He felt in any case that to be married and have a family was the proper thing to do, now that his career was about to take off and when the woman with whom he had more or less once gone out declared her love for him, Graham was very much inclined to take the matter at face value. He liked Jemma and wasn't even bothered by her scar. All things considered, this should work out well. More important to Graham than whether or not he and Jemma loved each other was the fact that they came from similar backgrounds and that his wife would therefore know how to hold a knife and fork properly and behave at social functions. His father had told him that for men, love often came after marriage, rather than before and that the crucial thing was to acquire a wife who would be reliable; somebody with whom you could get on.
Chapter 23
The Lalique Vase
One of the reasons that Richard Cole left no provision for his wife and daughter in the event of his death was that he spent money, as soon as he received it, on beautiful things. What remained was swallowed up by family holidays to places with famous art galleries and museums; Florence, Paris, Madrid and Amsterdam, for example. In addition to his salary, the head of mathematics at Chingford County High School for Girls had inherited a substantial sum of money from his parents. That too had been spent on furniture, ornaments for the home and culturally enriching travel.
A favourite of Richard Cole was glassware by the French designer, Rene Lalique. He acquired, usually at inflated prices, for he was not a man to haggle when he saw something he wanted, small figurines of women and animals and also several vases. Although his wife fretted from time to time about the fact that Richard wasn't paying into a pension fund or setting aside a cash sum for rainy days, she too loved visiting Italy and furnishing their home with lovely glassware and chairs which had not been mass-produced in a modern factory.
After her husband hanged himself, Samantha Cole was reduced to selling off many of the nice things with which they had filled their home over the years. Richard had paid well over the odds for most of the things that he had bought and Sam had no idea how much they were really worth; which meant that she lost a lot of money when selling them. Her husband might have paid £400 for a writing chair, which she sold at the dealer’s valuation of £60. Neither she nor her husband had ever been canny with money. One thing that Samantha would not part with though, however tight money became, was a Lalique vase that her husband had given her one birthday. It was nine inches tall, perfectly cylindrical and embossed with the figures of dancing nymphs. The glass was as thin as an eggshell and iridescent; colouring the light which passed through it pink, mauve and pale green. It was the most beautiful thing that she had ever owned. Although it looked quite flawless, there was a hairline crack in the glass, but because this ran along the very edge of one of the nymph's legs, it was impossible to detect unless you knew just where to look.
When Sam had gone into hospital for the last time and had been there for a fortnight, her daughter brought the Lalique vase in and placed it on the table, with a single rose in it. By this time, the hospital knew that Samantha Cole was on the point of death and were trying to move her to a hospice. After all, she might linger on for another few weeks or even a month, and as it stood she was occupying a side room that could be given to somebody who had the prospect of recovering. Jennifer was vociferous in expressing her own view to the hospital staff, which was that her mother was dying and that it would be an act of cruelty to move her at this stage.
One evening, Sam had a desperate urge to empty her bladder. She had been warned that under no circumstances should she try and get out of bed alone and unaided, but after laying then using a bedpan for weeks, she wanted the dignity of walking to the lavatory and using it like a normal person. She accordingly sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, preparatory to standing up. Although she felt a little weak and giddy, Samantha was sure that she could make it across the corridor. She stood up and immediately felt so unsteady on her feet that she clutched the bedside table for support, causing her precious vase to wobble precariously.
Disaster struck, as the vase overturned; spilling water and the fading rose onto the linoleum covered floor. Seeing that her most prized possession was about to tumble to destruction, Samantha Cole took her hand from the bedside table, causing her to lose her balance. Then, events moved balletically to their horrifying and inevitable climax. The Lalique vase toppled from the table, turning twice and landing on the floor on its base. Sam made a desperate and futile grab at it, which resulted in her falling forward helplessly, her unsteady legs giving way beneath her. As the vase struck the floor, the impact opened up the hairline crack, and the whole thing split in two. A fraction of a second later, Sam fell heavily to the floor, her neck landing directly on the vase, the thin, sharp edge of which sliced open her carotid artery as effectively as an open razor. She lay there stunned, and quickly exsanguinated; the blood pumping out across the floor. When a nurse came in ten minutes later to check on the dying woman, she was half way into the room before she noticed that she was paddling through a lake of blood.
Jennifer was as shocked as anybody at the sudden and gruesome death of her mother. Her mother’s death, which left Jennifer living alone in her childhood home, had a detrimental effect on her psychological wellbeing. She was naturally a blunt and not especially likeable person; prone to saying whatever came into her head and to hell with the consequences. Her mother had exercised a moderating and softening influence on her, encouraging her to be a little more tactful and a good deal less abrasive. Because she cared for her mother, Jennifer Cole used to heed her admonitions to an extent and bit back on her more caustic and biting remarks. Even away from home, she was guided by some of her mother’s precepts, such as, ‘If you can’t say something nice, then don't say anything’.
When her mother fell ill, the scales had fallen from Jennifer’s eyes and she had known that all her mother’s advice had been pointless cant. Samantha Cole was always polite and never confrontative, but that had counted for nothing in the greater scheme of things; she had still developed terminal cancer at the age of forty. That at least was how Jennifer saw the case. The news of her mother’s illness and the likely prognosis, had been delivered at the end of March and within six months, Mrs Cole was dead. Three weeks after learning of the diagnosis, Jennifer attended Jemma Cartwright’s twenty-first birthday party.
‘Yvonne said to ask if you’d like to go to Jemma’s party next week,’ said Samantha Cole, only two weeks after being told by the doctor that the outlook for advanced pancreatic cancer, which she had, was ‘not promising’. ‘That’ll be nice for you, I know how fond you are of Jemma and her sister.’
‘Then it wasn’t Jemma who asked me?’ responded Jennifer, a little sulkily, ‘It was her mum?’
‘Doesn’t matter which of them it was,’ said her mother brightly, ‘You’ve been invited. You need something to cheer you up, it’s all been a bit doom and gloom here lately, hasn’t it?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Oh, come on darling. I know things are a bit grim, but it would take you out of yourself for a while, wouldn’t it? Do go.’
Jennifer felt that it would be ungracious and unkind to decline the invitation; even though she guessed, quite correctly, that it had been obtained by her mother by means of dropping broad hints to Yvonne Cartwright once she had learned of the forthcoming party. She said, ‘Of course I’d love to go, mum. It’s really nice of you to get the invitation from Jemma’s mother.’
Already, before even arriving at the birthday party, Jennifer was feeling a little awkward at going; without actually having a received an invite from the person whose birthday was being celebrated. Almost the first person she bumped into when she got there was Sophie McAllister. Sophie, who never bothered to conceal her feelings and in any case rather enjoyed being cruel to those weaker than herself, took one look at Jennifer, made eye-contact without greeting her, and then turned away, making a joke about looking like one of the Teletubbies.
It would have been an unpleasant sort of remark at the best of times, but Jennifer Cole was only just coming to terms with the fact that her mother was probably dying. Not only that, she was abnormally sensitive about the fact that she might, in a sense, almost be gate-crashing Jemma’s party. She glared furiously at Sophie’s back, wishing that she was the kind of person able to come up with snappy and cutting retorts when people were rude to her like that. She contented herself with imagining how pleasant it would be to see Sophie McAllister die the sort of lingering and painful death which her mother was now facing.
Tanya had never been as averse to Jennifer Cole’s presence as her sister. Left to her own devices, she might even have got to know her. But in her self-appointed role of Jemma’s advocate and defender, she automatically adopted anybody for whom Jemma didn’t care as somebody she too should shun. From her first year at school, when Jennifer was still trying so hard to be friends with Jemma, and being constantly rebuffed, Tanya fell into the way of sharing her sister’s view of Jennifer. Even so, when Tanya saw poor Jennifer standing around in the hall at Jemma’s birthday party, she felt so sorry for her that she smiled and said, ‘Hallo, I’m glad you could make it. Help yourself to food and things.’ At this unexpected kindness, Jennifer realised that tears were forming in her eyes. She turned away from Tanya without speaking; thus confirming what people often said about her rude and abrupt manner.
Tanya had spoken those few words to Jennifer casually and soon forgotten about them, for she was more engrossed in thinking about Sophie McAllister’s exhibition with Chloe. She had in fact been close enough to hear when Sophie had told Chloe that she thought that she, Chloe, was getting excited, and hearing this made Tanya suddenly alarmed that Chloe would fall for Sophie and abandon her sister. This would have been very hurtful to Jemma and so of course something must be done to prevent it happening. Had Sophie looked round later, while she was, as the woman who killed her later remarked, ‘doing her show’, she might have been disconcerted to see Tanya Cartwright staring at her venomously.
Chloe was also feeling exceedingly vindictive towards Sophie McAllister that evening. She might have admitted to herself privately that her sexual desires were directed wholly towards other woman, but that was a different thing entirely from having her orientation publicly exposed, as she saw it, by somebody she loathed. That an in-your-face lesbian such as Sophie was hugging her in front of people and whispering endearments in her ear as she did so, was distasteful in the extreme to Chloe. If, and when, the time ever came when she wished to come out to others, then it would be at a time and place of her own choosing. It was obvious that in some mysterious way, Sophie McAllister had divined that she and Chloe were on the same bus, as it was sometimes put, and Chloe’s fear was that Sophie might, after tonight's display, blab this out loud to people; causing them to look a little more closely and ask themselves if there might be something in the idea and if this wasn’t the real reason that Chloe had never been known to have a boyfriend. That evening, Chloe wished very strongly that something might happen to Sophie which would shut her up forever.
As for Jemma, she knew very well that Sophie McAllister was trying to seduce Chloe. For all that Chloe was in love with her, something which she would never reciprocate, Jemma relied heavily upon her friend and would have been lost without her. As a matter of fact, there were rumours at Durham that there was something going on between Jemma and Chloe, although nobody said anything to Jemma's face. The two women spent all their time together and in the final year, neither seemed to have any time for anybody else. If you invited one to a party, it was tacitly understood that both would come and this was so noticeable that one wag had dubbed them 'the inseparables'. The thought of losing Chloe was unbearable to Jemma and she sometimes worried what would happen if her friend picked up with somebody who reciprocated her feelings sexually. From this perspective, Sophie represented a definite threat.
Although Jemma hadn't heard what Sophie had said after embracing Chloe, she saw the embrace itself and fancied that Chloe had been a little slow off the mark from disentangling herself from the other woman. Sophie had a reputation for being a sexual predator and it had been obvious for some time that she was actively pursuing Chloe. After Sophie had insulted Jemma and Tanya's mother and hit on Chloe, she sauntered off into the kitchen. Jemma stared at her back, as though she might be about to spring after her and knock her to the ground.
very enjoyable as usual. "The madness of women's cavortings" ........