The thought of those pale limp hands, last glimpsed crossed over the dead body, closing round her ankles made her shudder. According to some legend or other, male Remnants rarely found peace in death and tended to come back …
She had slept badly. She had had the most appalling nightmares, through which she had tossed and turned and sweated in horror; nightmares exploding with strange flaring lights and fires and the terrible cries of people being burnt alive. She had woken up hearing herself scream, and as she had come to her senses, she heard someone laugh, a triumphant kind of laugh. She was certain it had been Lord Remnant.
She and Basil had had separate bedrooms for quite some time now. She wondered if her irrational fantasies might have something to do with her husband’s refusal to share a bed with her …
Louise sat at her dressing table. The mirror showed a moon-shaped face surrounded by carefully arranged auburn hair — formless features — emotional gold-brown eyes. Her expression managed to be at once neutral and unrestrained. She lacked allure. Perhaps she should dye her hair blonde and start doing it differently — over the ears, in sibylline coils? No — her face was too puffy. She had a double chin. How she hated herself!
She had too many curves and protuberances. She should lose weight. She should take up skipping, or perhaps she should stop eating altogether. She felt a hot tear roll down her cheek. Inconsequentially, she remembered reading somewhere that cures for melancholy included ballroom dancing and scourging.
For some reason she couldn’t get Lord Remnant’s hands out of her head. There was something about Lord Remnant’s hands that troubled her …
The day Lord Remnant had died, 25 February, had become a watershed in her and Basil’s lives, a line of demarcation, or a point in time, rather, before which the world seemed to glow with a patina of innocence and clarity, contentment and health. Since then everything had turned murky and tortured and incomprehensible, bearing nothing but portents of greater darkness to come.
Louise had been to London the day before. It hadn’t been her day for London, but there was something she needed to do. A couple of things, actually. It would have been unwise to go to a local post office. Her lips twitched into a smile. She could be quite clever when she put her mind to it!
Lord Remnant’s hands — why did she keep thinking about Lord Remnant’s hands? As though she didn’t have enough on her mind! Well, they were the hands of a nobleman. Clean, well-tended, meticulously manicured, smooth. She couldn’t say what it was about them that filled her with such unease.
In some dim corridor of her mind the nebulous importance of the hands grew and grew …
Dr Sylvester-Sale was on the telephone, talking in his low, well-modulated voice.
‘I couldn’t call you because I didn’t have my mobile with me. I’d left it at home. These things happen. I am really sorry. No, I am not lying. You’re not crying, Clarissa, are you? Oh God.’
‘You could have stayed with me. I needed you. The moment you disappeared, I felt unsafe. The ground shook under my feet. I can’t live without you, Syl. No sanctuary left, I kept thinking. No sanctuary.’
‘I couldn’t stay with you. You know I couldn’t.’
‘Why couldn’t you? Why?’
‘It would have caused comment.’
‘So what? I don’t care! Do you? Do you?’
‘As a matter of fact, I do, Clarissa. We agreed that we needed to be careful, didn’t we? Better to play it safe for a while … What was that? No, I am not going to “abandon” you, you silly girl.’ He glanced at his watch.
‘You intend to go off with one of your adoring lady patients, why don’t you admit it? You have a mistress. I am sure you have a mistress. She’s with you now, isn’t she? Some clever young girl. You like clever young girls.’
‘Now, listen carefully, Clarissa — take one of the sachets I gave you. It will calm you down at once. It’s getting rather late, so hop into bed. No, I am not trying to poison you. I am not trying to get rid of you. Do be sensible.’
‘Please, Syl — can you — can you come now? I need to see you. I must see you.’
‘I am sorry but that would be quite impossible.’
‘We must talk. About us. About the future.’
‘We are talking now.’
‘I can’t live without you.’
‘Apparently people kept ringing while I was away, leaving messages. I am under a lot of pressure. Hell of a lot to do.’ Heaven give me strength, he thought. ‘My secretary has been finding it incredibly difficult to cope. Devil of a backlog … No, I don’t feel greater sympathy for my secretary than for you. No, I am not having an affair with my secretary. Do try to understand — no, you can’t come to see me. I won’t open the door,’ he said desperately. ‘No, Clarissa. No. Out of the question.’
‘You are trying to get rid of me. You said once that I was given to emotional extremism.’
‘I never said that.’
‘You did! You would like nothing better than to be shot of my leech-like devotion, why don’t you admit it?’
‘For God’s sake, Clarissa, pull yourself together … What was that about Stephan?’ Sylvester-Sale held the receiver closer to his ear. ‘No, he needs to stay there,’ he said firmly.
‘He is dreadfully unhappy. He hates the food. He hardly eats anything. He wants to know when he can come home. He keeps asking, “When can I come home, Mummy?” He sounds desperate. When will they release him? When will he be able to come home?’
‘I don’t know. It all depends how well he responds to treatment. They know what they are doing, I assure you. Sans Souci is one of the best places, if not the best.’
‘Sans Souci costs squillions. It’s incredibly expensive. Incredibly. For a loony bin.’
‘Sans Souci is not a loony bin.’
‘It’s more expensive than the Taj Mahal … More expensive than the Empire State Building … More expensive than Windsor Castle … And so much more expensive than the Kremlin.’ She giggled.
‘I hope you haven’t been drinking, Clarissa.’
‘I am having a little drinkie.’
‘You are a bad girl,’ he said wearily. ‘You promised you were not going to touch the stuff.’
‘I am in pain — in deep searing pain. I miss you terribly, Syl. I can’t live without you. If you leave me, I’ll kill myself. I am going to take an overdose.’
‘The Sans Souci staff are extremely efficient. The best specialists in the land,’ he said. ‘The rooms are airy and tastefully decorated. They have a cordon bleu chef-’
‘Life without you is not worth living.’
‘They know exactly what should be done for Stephan. Stephan will be all right, so there is absolutely no call for you to worry.’
‘What if he talks about what happened? You know he lacks any instinct for self-preservation. What if he tells everybody about it? He can’t be trusted to control his tongue … I mean the murder, Syl. What else could I possibly mean? What if he starts saying it was he who killed his stepfather?’
‘No one will take it seriously.’ Sylvester-Sale spoke reassuringly. ‘They are used to the wildest talk at these places … Sorry? Who’s accusing you? What bloody nonsense is that? You have had — an anonymous letter?’
He is going to leave her. He told me so last night. Clarissa never meant anything to him. He was bored, that was the only reason he started the affair. Also because he hated her husband. It was a form of revenge. He admitted he had made a mistake. It is me he loves. He told me I made his life worth living.
Clarissa is cunning like a fox, seductive like a she-cat and cold like a snake. She is obsessed with Syl. How she kept staring at him! She seems to have thrown all caution to the winds. That old boy at the funeral, Sir Gyles Napier, said Clarissa had been the sweetest girl when he first met her twenty years ago. Innocence personified. Sugar and spice and all things nice. Is that possible?