Tigerlily's Orchids Read online

  ‘I’ve seen pictures of snowmen. I want one of my own.’

  ‘It will melt, you know. It will all be gone tomorrow.’

  ‘Then I’d better get taking my photos.’

  The extent of their exercise was walking round the block, up the roundabout, down Chester Grove, along the parade and home, Katie pausing now and then to get a shot of children throwing snowballs, a dog rolling in the snow, a child with a toboggan. Back at Lichfield House she pointed out to Michael the houses opposite, their roofs all covered with snow but for the central pair.

  ‘Isn’t that funny? I’ll just take a picture of it and then we’ll go in, shall we? It will soon start getting dark.’

  In the hallway they encountered the three girls from Flat 5, plump Molly Flint and skinny Noor Lateef shivering in see-through tops and torn jeans, Sophie Longwich comfortable in a padded jacket and woolly hat.

  ‘I’m frozen,’ Molly was saying. ‘I think I’ve got pneumonia.’

  ‘No, you haven’t,’ said Michael, the medical man. ‘You don’t get pneumonia through going out dressed like it was July. That’s an old wives’ tale.’ Maybe he should write something about that too …

  Noor had gone back to the doors, looking out through the glass panel. ‘It’s started to snow again.’

  ‘That roof will get covered up now,’ said Michael to Katie, pressing the button for the lift. While they waited Noor and Sophie told Molly that if she put on any more weight she would have to travel in the lift on her own. Its doors had just closed on the five of them when Claudia Livorno came through the swing doors, carrying a bottle of Verdicchio and walking gingerly because the step outside was icy and her heels were high. She rang the bell of Flat 1.

  *

  Olwen had nothing in Flat 6 to eat except bread and jam, so she ate that and when she woke up from her long afternoon sleep, started on a newly opened bottle of gin. She never went near a doctor but Michael Constantine said it was his opinion she had the beginnings of scurvy. He had noticed her teeth were getting loose. They shifted about, catching on her lips when she spoke. In the flat below hers, Marius Potter was sitting in an armchair that had belonged to his grandmother reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire for the second time. He would finish the bit about the murder of Commodus and then go downstairs to have supper with Rose Preston-Jones. This would be his third visit, the fifth time they had met, and he was looking forward to seeing her. He had already once cast the sortes for her and would do so again if she asked him.

  The first day he moved in they had recognised each other as kindred spirits, though they had nothing much in common but their vegetarianism. Marius smiled to himself (but only to himself) at her New Age occupation and lifestyle. Rose was no intellectual, yet in his estimation she had a clear and beautiful mind, was innocent, sweet and kindly. But something about her teased and slightly troubled him. Taking Paradise Lost from his great-uncle’s bookcase, Marius once again thought how he was almost sure he recognised her from further back, a long way back, maybe three decades. It wasn’t her name, not even her face, but some indefinable quality of personality or movement or manner that brought back to him a past encounter. He called that quality her soul and an inner conviction told him she would call it that too. He could have asked her, of course he could, but something stopped him, some feeling of awkwardness or embarrassment he couldn’t identify. What he hoped was that total recall would come to him.

  Carrying the heavy volume of Milton, he went down the stairs to the ground floor. Rose, admitting him to Flat 2, seemed to be standing in his past, down misty aeons back to his youth, when all the world was young and all the leaves were green. But still he couldn’t place her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Thanks to the recession, the solicitors Crabtree, Livorno, Thwaite had less than usual to do, so Freddy Livorno had taken the afternoon off and gone home. Now he was in the living room of his pretty little house in Islington, dismantling a basket of dried flowers which stood in the centre of an occasional table. Carefully he removed the plumes of pampas grass, the prickly stems of teasels with their spiked crowns and the slender brittle stalks of honesty (honesty!) bearing their transparent oval seedheads. Into the now empty basket he put the high-tech bug he had bought from a shop in Regent Street and replaced the plants, carefully concealing the deceitful little gizmo.

  Now for Claudia’s computer, the machine she exclusively used for her journalism as the deputy fashion editor of a national newspaper. A small widget, minute, almost invisible, went in between the keyboard lead and the socket. That should do it, Freddy said to himself. Technology was a wonderful thing, what an improvement on private detectives! As a solicitor, he knew all about that variety of gumshoe, though now he thought their days were numbered. His gizmos were costly and for the two of them he hadn’t had much change out of eight hundred pounds, but that was nothing compared to a private eye’s charges.

  Freddy wasn’t the sort of man to speculate about the character or even the identity of the man who was his wife’s lover. Those details would be revealed in time. As to how she had met him, he supposed she had interviewed him for some aspect of her work. She could well have taken up with a male model. But it was of little interest to him. He couldn’t even have said if he loved her any longer. If there was one thing of which he was certain it was that he didn’t want to lose her, had no intention of losing her. On the practical side, he had a mortgage to pay on this small but extremely expensive house, the repayments of which were considerably helped by her contribution. In these hard times you could never be quite sure what steps building societies might take to recover their money if householders defaulted. No, he couldn’t lose the thirty-three and a third per cent she put into it. Also, though no more than two years younger than he, she was a trophy wife whom he was proud to show off, good-looking, lovely figure, well dressed and clever.

  Today, apparently, she had gone to her Russian class. Freddy didn’t believe in the Russian class but he couldn’t be bothered to check on it. No need for that now he had his handy gadgets. He looked in the wine rack and saw that a bottle of Verdicchio was missing, a bottle he was sure he had noticed there this morning. No doubt she and Mr Mystery were enjoying it now, relaxing between bouts. Tomorrow, she had told him, she’d be at home all day, working on this piece she was writing on how to dress well during an economic downturn. Everything she typed on that computer, every email she sent, would be accessible to him when he put in a simple code after she’d gone to bed; everything she said in this room he’d be able to hear when he dialled the mobile number of the gizmo in the dried-flower basket. And then what?

  He would take steps.

  *

  Pieces you wrote for the newspapers these days had to be full of references, or at least make allusion, to television programmes, celebrities and pop music. Claudia was too young ever to have known anything else so she had no difficulty in comparing something to Coldplay, pointing out the resemblance of an up-and-coming model to Cheryl Cole and referring in a scathing yet amused way to Jonathan Ross’s latest escapade on air. These were the kind of things her readers understood. Most of them were under forty. Claudia had no patience with those writers who quoted Shakespeare or made reference to Rigoletto as if anyone likely to read their articles had ever been inside the Globe theatre or an opera house.

  Claudia began by writing about shopping. Could it cease to be the principal leisure activity of the British female both under and over forty? Her research into the subject had furnished her with a lot of shopping anecdotes, lists of excessive amounts spent by individual women, the most allegedly spent by any one woman in three hours in Knightsbridge, the stampedes occasioned by the 7 a.m. openings of new West End stores and, to show her compassionate side, a rundown on the suffering statistics of small children operating sewing machines in Chinese sweatshops. Now on to the difference the credit crunch might make to curtailing women’s shopping sprees, but first to pour herself a cup of coffee from the pot she
had made before she began.

  Two more sentences must be typed before she took her break. Claudia followed a principle of getting into the next bit before stopping either for coffee or lunch. Once getting into the next bit had been done there would be less of a problem in getting on with it when she returned to work after half an hour. The coffee was black and strong, its surface made frothy by the artificial sweetener she had put into it, an additive she roundly condemned when writing about healthy diets.

  She shifted the coaster along the table surface before putting the mug down, slightly pushing aside the bowl of dried flowers. It seemed to her that they were less attractively arranged than usual but she must be imagining it. After all, who but she would touch them? Maria was far too lazy and to associate Freddy with any household task, however minor, was a joke.

  Her mobile told her the time was 10.31. She dialled Stuart Font’s number. He answered sleepily but livened up after she had told him in some detail how much she had enjoyed the previous afternoon. No, she couldn’t come today. Some badinage ensued on the alternative meaning of the verb she had used, after which she suggested he take her out to lunch the day after, not in his neighbourhood, absolutely not. Why not Hampstead which wasn’t too far away to get back, somewhat the worse for wear, to his place in the afternoon? The suggestions he made for ways to spend the following hours evoked from her a ‘Stuart, you are sweet’, and a ‘I can’t wait to try that’

  She’d call for him – ‘Don’t forget I’ve got a key now!’ – but would leave her car in Kenilworth Avenue and they’d take a taxi. ‘And now I must get on. Some of us have to work for our livings, you know.’

  He said something about emailing her with the name of the restaurant to see if it was all right and she said that was a good idea, having some doubts about his standards when he was paying. Their conversation stimulated her to continue with her piece about fashion in a time of downturn and she moved on to high-street shopping for men.

  It was in a men’s boutique, though not the high-street kind, that she had first met Stuart. At first she thought he was gay. The man in the Jermyn Street shop who was contemplating and delicately caressing a vicuña coat was too slender and too beautiful to be straight – and too interested in this garment which had been reduced in price to a still hefty thousand pounds. Claudia advanced on him, introduced herself as a journalist, and started questioning him about buying clothes. Which designers did he prefer? Would he ever buy from M&S? Had he ever had a suit made? The admiration in his eyes and what she called his ‘edgy’ comments soon told her she had been mistaken in his sexual orientation. No, he wasn’t going to buy the coat, he’d just bought a flat, but he’d like to take her somewhere and buy her a drink. Their ideas of where this drink should come from differed but Claudia quickly made it clear that she favoured a select bar in St James’s over the Caffè Nero. Next day they met at the fashionable champagne bar at St Pancras Station, watched the Eurostar come in from Paris and after Stuart had spent fifty pounds on a bottle of champagne, took a taxi to Lichfield House.

  Claudia had long since incorporated Stuart’s fashion comments in an article (naming no names) but managed to recycle some of them for this one. A thousand words and she was done. She made herself more coffee and had a look at her emails. The top one in her inbox was from Stuart to tell her that he had booked a table at Bacchanalia in Heath Street. Would that do? Claudia googled Bacchanalia, found it satisfactory and far from cheap. She emailed back to say she would let herself into his place at twelve noon next day. That way they could be back from the restaurant by three as we shall have plenty to do in the afternoon. She was pleased he hadn’t suggested texting her as the necessary abbreviations of such messages would have militated against the sexy tone of their correspondence.

  It was hard for Stuart to pass a mirror without looking into it. His own reflection brought him a lot of pleasure. He usually turned away from it satisfied that he had rarely seen a man better-looking than himself. Aware that men are not supposed to feel this way, are expected to take no interest in their appearance apart from being clean and adequately clothed, must be deprecatory and indeed embarrassed should anyone make a favourable remark about their looks, he was careful to dress with discreet casualness or, in the days when he was at work in the City, in sober suits and plain ties. But one of his indulgences was to drop into boutiques of the Jermyn Street kind or wander through the men’s department of Harrods, imagining how superb he would look in this Armani tweed jacket or that Dolce and Gabbana sweatshirt.

  This morning he was dressed in jeans, a black shirt and a blue sweater. As he eyed himself in the living-room mirror – there was another in his bedroom and a third in the passage – he saw that the sweater was the exact colour of his eyes. No doubt Claudia had already noticed. If she remarked on it he would put on his embarrassed look; unfortunately, he had never mastered the art of blushing. Though nearly sixty, his father so far showed no sign of going bald and Stuart, who had heard that baldness occurs on a gene carried by the male progenitor, thought comfortably that he stood a good chance of keeping his hair into old age. His was thick and a beautiful shade of rich dark brown, almost but not quite black.

  He had completed his invitation cards the night before, excluding Freddy Livorno, put them in envelopes, and was going out to buy stamps and post them. The idea of simply placing them in residents’ pigeonholes had occurred to him and been dismissed as looking mean. There must be some sort of etiquette about this but he didn’t know what it was. Best be on the safe side.

  It was very cold outside, one of those English midwinter days when the sky is bluish-grey with pale clouds, no snow has fallen and no frost is to be seen but every small puddle of water has become a slab of ice. A light yet sharp east wind was blowing. Stuart possessed a winter coat but seldom wore it. Young people don’t wear coats. Young people wear T-shirts in below-freezing weather. Maybe he wasn’t quite young enough for that and he ventured out in the blue sweater that matched his eyes.

  The post office was a counter in the newsagent’s in Kenilworth Parade next door but one to Mr Ali’s. Further along was the furniture shop. Everything in its window had become a sale item, chairs, tables, beds, lamps, some labelled ‘Unbelievable Reductions!’. Stuart went to the post office, bought his stamps and posted his invitations, then to Design for Living where he weighed up the advantages of buying furniture at knock-down prices but which he didn’t much like, against going down to the West End and buying furniture he liked a lot at twice the cost. His mother’s words on the subject of money and getting a job came back to him. Auntie Helen’s legacy had seemed a fortune when it first came to him but now half of it had gone on the flat, plenty more on the sofa, the king-size bed and the mirrors, and he was spending a great deal on Claudia. A lot more drink would have to be bought for the party. He began to regret posting those invitations but it was too late now. He had to have the party and he couldn’t have it in a semi-unfurnished flat.

  The assistant who came up to him in Design for Living could hardly believe his luck when Stuart picked out a dining table and six chairs, two armchairs, a coffee table and a standard lamp like a half-open sunflower on a gilt metal stalk. If all went well this would be the first sale he had made that week. Mirrors were Stuart’s weakness and they had a couple they had no chance of ever selling, one in a gilt frame with curlicues, the other framed in matt black. The assistant said he would throw that one in for nothing. Stuart didn’t much like any of the stuff he had bought so he had to keep telling himself what a bargain it was. Delivery next day, said the assistant as Stuart handed over his credit card.

  The automatic doors at Lichfield House came open as he approached. He stood outside on the doorstep studying Design for Living’s receipt, all the items he’d bought listed. Waves of heat from the hallway bathed him as he informed himself anew that the armchairs had cost four hundred pounds apiece and the standard lamp two hundred and fifty. Were those really knock-down prices? His reverie was
interrupted by Wally Scurlock the caretaker tapping him on the shoulder and telling him he was letting all the heat out.

  ‘If you stand there, sir, the doors stay open and when the doors are open all the bloody heat goes out. Right, sir? Savvy?’

  Wally seemed to think that reiterating sirs and madams to the residents compensated for the gruffness of his tone and the harshness of his words. Stuart went inside, feeling thankful that he hadn’t sent the caretaker an invitation. He let himself into his flat and contemplated his reflection in the mirror, three feet long by eighteen inches wide and framed in stainless steel, on the living-room wall. Cold as it was outside, his face remained its normal pale olive, neither pinched nor reddened. He smiled to show himself his white even teeth, went into his bedroom and put on a tie, in case Bacchanalia demanded it. Surely they wouldn’t, not for lunch. Stuart reasoned that if a restaurant required men to wear ties and a jacket at lunchtime it was likely to be more expensive than one which did not.

  He went into the kitchen and made himself a big mugful of hot chocolate, spooning into it quite a lot of long-life cream. The nearest place to buy fresh cream, as far as Stuart knew, was Tesco up beyond the roundabout. You never really knew, when you bought a place, how convenient it was for things like that. Only living in it for a few weeks told you. When you hadn’t a car and the only bus to come anywhere near you was the 113 which went nowhere he wanted to go, when the nearest Tube station was on the universally loathed Northern Line, the nearest cinema probably miles away at Swiss Cottage and no decent restaurants were to be found within a file-mile radius, you began to wonder if you wouldn’t have been better off keeping your job and spending all Auntie Helen’s money on a flat in central London.

  Helen Morrison had been his godmother. The first annoying thing she did was to assert her rights in this particular role and name her godson. Stuart’s parents had intended to call him Simon George but Annabel Font was very aware of the advantages of having her aunt as his godmother and soon persuaded her husband to give in. As well as being unmarried, apparently childless and rich, Helen was a Jacobite. She still adhered to the view that the present royal family were German usurpers, though their tenure of the throne went back three hundred years, and believed that its present incumbent should be an obscure prince no one had ever heard of living somewhere in central Europe. To her, Stuart was an almost sacred name and Windsor (or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha or Hanover or whatever you liked to call them) a laughable misnomer. So Stuart was christened and wasn’t even permitted to have George for a second name as that had been the name of several Hanoverian kings.