Yours Faithfully,
Matthew Coppice
On my way to the Horlickstones my fist was tingling, as if it had been dipped in a tin of iodine. The tube ticket almost dropped from my fingers as I went through the turnstile. I would teach the bastard to get Maria pregnant. And yet, did she really want me to? — I wondered by the time I got out into the sunshine at the other end. Bridgitte had bullied her into the idea, I was sure. In any case, hadn’t I committed far worse actions than Horlickstone? Was I losing my sense of fair play? It was hard to say what drove me on, but, looking back, I’m more than glad that something did.
The trees along the streets smelled fresh, and it felt good to be outside, neither in a car nor in Blaskin’s cluttered flat. Horlickstones’ house was doublefronted and freshly painted, a garden in front and no doubt a bigger one behind with greenhouse and Wendy hut and a rope hanging from a tree with an old Volvo tyre swinging on the end even when there was no breeze.
It was Saturday, so I hoped he would be home, and not on his way to a football match. I hammered the iron knocker. They were too upmarket to have a glockenspiel or Swiss yodel-alarm. I expected to see a new au pair girl, but maybe he had put her up the spout as well, and packed her off home on the Newhaven ferry, because a woman who was obviously the type to be his wife opened up and asked what I wanted. ‘I’ve come to see Mr Horlickstone. They sent me from the office.’
‘You mean Harlaxton, I assume.’
‘That’s right. So I do.’
She had a narrow, delicate, fine-featured face, and would have been young-looking for a woman in her late thirties if it hadn’t been for the wrinkles around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. Nevertheless, she had that combination of worry and good looks that attracted me, though it was hard to know what kind of female would not have got me on the hop. My mother was right when she said I should never go bald.
‘On Saturday?’
‘It’s important.’
She was dark-haired and blue-eyed, but didn’t have much of a figure. Jeffrey had worn her out by his permanent hard-on, and when he’d got tired of her he had worried her to a frazzle by his hanky-panky with secretaries and home helps. I almost turned and walked off without accomplishing what I had called for, not knowing whether I didn’t because I was afraid she would phone the police — suspecting that I’d called to burgle the house but changed my mind on seeing somebody in — or because I really wanted to blat her husband and give her the pleasure of seeing that for once he’d had to pay for one misdemeanour in his life.
‘Why didn’t they phone, I wonder? They’ve never sent for him on Saturday before.’
‘I know. But it’s on fire. Somebody broke in, poured petrol over the art department and set a match to it.’
She went into the house, while I stood with hands in pockets as if prepared to wait all day. But Jeffrey came immediately. He was a stocky man with short fair wavy hair, but rather worn skin, and was dressed in trousers, shirt and carpet slippers. His grey eyes glared at having been disturbed, but I couldn’t tell whether it was from looking through his stamp collection or rumpling the skirts of his latest au pair while she was picking up Galt toys from the Habitat bedroom floor. ‘What’s all this I hear?’
‘I don’t know what your wife told you,’ I said, ‘but I’m here on behalf of Maria de Sousa, your Portuguese skivvy. Remember? I didn’t want to mention it in front of your wife.’
He moved back sharply — to close the door in my face — but I got half inside and held it firm. ‘I want to tell you that she’s pregnant.’
He laughed, legs apart, head back, as if I’d told him the award-winning joke of the Universal Joke Contest. He seemed such a good sort that for a moment I knew I wouldn’t have been there if Bridgitte hadn’t made me promise. ‘Not another!’ His laughter made him so much younger and better looking than when he first came to the door. ‘Oh marvellous! Wonderful! I’m populating half the bloody planet. But you see, it couldn’t have been me, old boy, and if you think so you’ll never prove it. It’s impossible, out of the question.’ His face turned red, and he pushed me, but with a clenched fist. ‘I’ll have no truck with blackmailers.’
It’s always been my belief that if you’re going to do something, then do it when it’s unexpected. Surprise furthers. Shock accomplishes. It’s not often, though, that the perfect opportunity presents itself. Now it did, because there’s often no one more surprised than the bloke who, having taken a poke at you, gets one back. I hit him so that he lost his balance and did a spinning two-step along the hall and knocked an umbrella stand flying. ‘Elizabeth,’ he called, ‘phone the police.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and I’ll tell them why you’re down on the floor. Anybody can get into that sort of scrape with a woman, but you shouldn’t have laughed. Maria’s my sister-in-law. My sister’s married to Maria’s brother. Her whole family are on their way from Portugal to cut you up. I’m in touch with a lawyer, and he’ll write to the big chief of your advertising firm telling him about it. Get the coppers by all means, but you’ve had one fumble too often. When she has the baby it’ll be dumped on your doorstep. Make no mistake about that.’
I was wondering whether to hit him again if he got up, when Frances Malham came out of a room further along the hall. ‘What’s that noise, Uncle Jeffrey?’ Not only was she blessed with the most exquisite intelligence, but she had a superior memory to match: ‘Oh, it’s you!’
Life was too cruel. I’d just hit the favourite uncle of the woman I’d fallen in love with only the night before. I knew she was the girlfriend of the feckless Delphick, but I wasn’t averse to a taste of unrequited love as long as I got there in the end. ‘What are you doing here?’ Her voice was not altogether pleasant, for there was a trace of blood under Jeffrey’s left nostril. ‘What happened?’
His laughter was almost as real as when I had told him about Maria. ‘These damned slippers. I tripped in my hurry to get to the door and banged my snozzle.’ His wink was meant only for me as I helped him up. ‘What did you say you wanted?’
‘I have a message for Miss Malham — for you,’ I said to her. ‘I was in Town this morning, and Ronald Delphick was beaten up by a gang of skinheads. They smashed his panda-wagon, but I managed to fight them off. I got him into a taxi and took him to my father’s flat in Knightsbridge.’
Her lovely cheeks turned pale. ‘Oh my God!’
‘I’ve come to take you to him. He’s not badly hurt.’
‘You are good.’
‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘But he’s asking for you, naturally.’
‘I’ll get my coat.’