Jeffrey came close. ‘Was that true?’
My heart beat faster than when I’d hit him. ‘No, but I had to say something. Maria is pregnant, though. My wife and I are looking after her. She’s all right at the moment, but you’ll have to do something when the kid pops out. As for thinking I’m a blackmailer, you should be ashamed of yourself.’
He came close, his eyes six inches from mine. ‘How did you come to be able to lie so well?’
‘Quick thinking,’ I smiled. ‘Sorry I was over-hasty. That’s another of my faults.’
He rubbed his nose. ‘Faults? It’s a quality very much lacking in the world today. What’s your job?’
‘I’m a writer.’
‘Do you get published?’
‘Yes, but I write under a pseudonym. My father’s Gilbert Blaskin the novelist.’
‘You don’t say.’ He considered for a moment. ‘Have you ever thought of working in advertising?’
‘Occasionally.’ What else could I say?
He reached for a jacket on the coat hook, and took a card out of his wallet. ‘Give me a ring on Monday, and we’ll talk things over.’
Frances came back with her coat, and a leather shoulder bag. ‘Shan’t be long, Uncle Jeffrey. Elizabeth’s in the garden. Peter’s been sick. He’s all right, though. Must have eaten too many sausages at breakfast.’
I noticed his touch as she passed by, and wondered whether such a desirable medical student niece had been able to keep him off.
It had never ceased to amaze me how quickly one’s prospects could be transformed for the better. Or, now and again, for the worse. But here I was, walking along the tree-lined Saturday morning suburban road with Frances Malham, when on seeing her for the first time the night before I would never have thought it possible, especially with Ettie and Phyllis causing so much trouble over ten paltry quid Delphick had conned out of them.
‘You’re walking too quickly for me.’
I would do anything to hear the sound of her voice, but slowed down, and she came level so that I could see the bloom of her cheeks. ‘I’m glad I found you in.’
‘How did you know I was staying with Uncle Jeffrey?’
‘You gave me the address last night.’
‘That was a friend’s place in Golders Green.’
‘In the press of the moment you must have written this one.’
She wrinkled her mouth, as if such a mistake was the tragedy of the week. ‘Who were those two horrible females at the reading? They certainly took a dislike to Ronald.’
We stood by the main road, hoping to see a taxi. ‘I met them in a pub and they told me about how he had tricked one of them out of ten pounds. It sounded too true to be lies. I met Delphick when I gave him a lift down the Al three months ago. He got money out of me, and does whenever he sees me. He’s incorrigible.’
She sighed, as if he’d bled her dry, or would if she let him. ‘Is he badly hurt?’
It was as much as I could do to keep my hands off her delectable hips as she went into the taxi. ‘Not really. In fact he’s hardly hurt at all. To hear him scream you’d have thought they’d killed him. But he was more concerned for his panda. He’s very English in his love of animals.’
‘Poor Ronald.’
‘He’s a born survivor.’ I thought the joke of her being fond of him had gone far enough. ‘I expect he’s borrowing money from my father right now, though it won’t be easy. He’s Gilbert Blaskin, the novelist.’
Her downcurving lips told me she was annoyed. ‘Can’t you come up with something better than that?’
I realised the folly of taking her to a place inhabited by an old lecher like Blaskin, not to mention by someone like my mother. If they were in the same mood as last night they’d cut her up between them and eat her raw. I hadn’t had time to weigh the ramifications of the lie I’d been forced to blurt out, and it was too late to modify it now. Frances had probably seen photographs of Blaskin, and his features were too distinctive for her to have any doubts when she saw him. You could bet that he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the great writer stunt when he set eyes on someone as lovely as her. And if she was so impressed with a rotten little half-baked poet like Ronald Delphick how would she react to a fully-fledged author like Blaskin, even though he was sixty, bald, drunk, decrepit and, in all probability, poxed up to the eyebrows? ‘I may have my faults,’ I said, ‘but I don’t lie, except in exceptional circumstances, or in a purely professional way, because not only is Gilbert Blaskin my father, but he occasionally throws a bit of writing in my direction.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’
‘I suppose you’re worried about Ronald? You should be. He’s made a lot of enemies. Not that I myself regard him as a bad sort, because he has to live. It might be a good idea, though, if he laid doggo at Doggerel Bank for ten years or so.’
‘Doggerel Bank?’
‘His house in Yorkshire. Didn’t you know?’
She said nothing.
‘It’s a wonderful place. Quite a mansion. He’s got forty acres, though it’s mostly moorland, except for a smallish ornamental garden of five acres. I was up there once. It’s a solid stone-built house looking across the dales, one of the most beautiful views, I should think, in all England. His wife and two kids love it there. At least he said it was his wife, and who was I to disbelieve him?’
Her shoulders were shaking. Time to stitch your lips — now that she was crying. How could she, or anybody, weep over Ronald Delphick? Little did I know. I told her I was sorry. I really was. I’d have done anything to put back those tears. I’d have spread them on bread and eaten them with relish. We were passing Gloucester Road. ‘Shall I tell the taxi to turn round and take you back to Uncle Jeffrey’s?’
‘No. I’ll see Ronald first.’ After a pause, near the Science Museum, she said: ‘Is Gilbert Blaskin your father, or isn’t he?’
‘He is.’
My determination never to lie again was as strong as ever, because I was quickly coming to realise that telling lies never did me any good. On the other hand they rarely caused those I told them to much harm. It seemed hardly worthwhile acquiring the moral taint of being known as a liar. On the other hand, I didn’t know why — if my lying was so ineffectual — I was made to feel so tainted. As I got older my guilt in this respect became worse, especially sitting beside Frances Malham in the back of a taxi, as I took her hand to try and comfort her. If the intention of my recent bout of lying was to put her off a sponging fraud like Ronald Delphick, then they were told in a good cause, but if they were told to draw her in some way closer to me, then the sooner I acted on my determination never to lie again the better. On the other hand (how many hands have I got?) I was so in love with her that any amount of lying seemed justified. These thoughts having gone through my mind, I felt much improved. After helping her out of the taxi, I left the driver a good tip.
Going up in the lift I sensed a new curiosity coming from her regarding my good self. I smiled, and she couldn’t have been too despondent because the beginning of a return smile settled on her lips. ‘I hope he hasn’t done anything silly like doing a bunk,’ I said. ‘He was certainly making himself comfortable when I left.’
I stood aside to let her out first. She may have been a supporter of Women’s Lib, but I was taking no chances. If my politeness struck the wrong note she could have the pleasure of being scornfully indulgent, but if I was impolite when she expected me not to be her contempt might be fundamental. I was canny enough to know, however, that no female who attached herself to Ronald Delphick could have believed in Women’s Lib.
The flat was uninhabited.
‘Ronald!’ I looked in all the rooms, and came back rubbing my hands — almost. ‘Let me take your coat, then we can sit down and have a drink, while we think the situation over.’