‘That woman doesn’t amuse me,’ Ivan said. ‘Never has.’
‘Was she making it up?’
‘Of course she was. Three-quarters of what she tells you is made up. Ours won’t be far behind.’
Mel had spotted a stationary black saloon car parked at the edge of the approach road. Someone was in the driver’s seat. ‘Could that be it?’
‘Where?’
He pointed.
Ivan sniffed. ‘It looks to me like a private car. Probably waiting for some student.’
‘I might go and ask. Stupid if he’s waiting there and we’re standing here only thirty yards away.’
‘As you wish,’ Ivan said. ‘I’ve never known them to park there.’
With his cased viola gripped to his chest, Mel strode towards the parked vehicle. True, he couldn’t see any writing on the side or any sign that it was licensed. Sometimes it was difficult to tell.
He hadn’t gone ten yards when the driver started up, made a screaming U-turn that must have left rubber on the tarmac, and drove off at speed, just missing a student on a bike.
Shaking his head, Mel returned to Ivan’s side. ‘What was that about?’
For once, Ivan had no answer.
‘Bloody dangerous,’ Mel said. ‘Someone could have got killed.’
‘Yes,’ Ivan said. He’d turned pale.
Their transport arrived soon after, a recognisable cab with a Bath Spa Taxis emblem on the roof.
Most of the journey was in silence. The reckless driving of the car seemed to have affected Ivan. Mel tried saying something about the venue for the soirée and got one-word answers. It was like being with Anthony. ‘See you at Corsham tomorrow, then,’ he said when the taxi stopped outside his lodgings. ‘Early as usual to get ready?’
‘Yes,’ Ivan said.
Inside the house, Mel closed the front door as quietly as he could, crept upstairs, let himself into his room and slid the precious Amati viola under the bed. Later, he would practise scales, still getting the measure of this marvellous new outlet for his talent. For now, playtime of a different sort was overdue. He stripped to the waist, washed at the hand-basin in the corner, refreshed the deodorant and the aftershave, put on a fresh shirt and checked his hair in the mirror. Then he reached to the back of his sock drawer for two miniatures of gin and a small can of tonic and left his room to cross the passage to Tippi’s bedroom. She liked her G&T and Mel liked the result. It took the edge off her sarcasm and made her even more randy.
He didn’t knock. They had an understanding. He opened the door and said, ‘Better late than never, huh?’
‘Late for what?’ said a voice he didn’t expect.
Tippi’s mother, with a crocodile smile, was sitting on the bed.
A better man might have thought of some clever excuse. Mel sighed and said, ‘Fair cop.’
This was no bad response, as it turned out, because it avoided an elaborate lie and had a sense of contrition. Mrs. Carlyle must have been expecting some tall story she could lay into. Instead she was thrown off course. Rather than attacking Mel, she started to account for her own behaviour, explaining what she was doing in her daughter’s room. ‘I came up here to put away some of her washing. She leaves it for days on the clothes-rack in the kitchen if I don’t, and she may not mind you seeing her frillies, but I’m old-fashioned enough to think it isn’t quite the thing.’
Mel nodded as if he approved every word.
Mrs. Carlyle said, ‘Is that gin and tonic you’re holding, Mel?’
‘Would you like some?’ he said, pleased to find anything to say that wouldn’t land him deeper in trouble.
‘I wouldn’t mind, but not here. We don’t want Tippi walking in and finding us.’
‘True.’
‘Heaven knows what she’d think mummy was up to. Bring it across to my room.’
Mel had alarming doubts of his own about what mummy was up to, but he’d offered the drink and he couldn’t easily refuse. ‘Is she about?’
‘Carry the booze across and I’ll tell you.’
He felt he had no option.
‘Last door on the left,’ Mrs. Carlyle said. ‘Don’t be surprised how bijou it is. When I took a lodger I switched rooms.’
He pushed open her bedroom door. Certainly it was small, and dominated by a double bed that was a nest of pink, with ruched satin along the headboard and sides. The walls, too, were pink, with a design of ribbon and roses.
‘Don’t stand on ceremony,’ Mrs. Carlyle said. ‘Make yourself comfortable on the bed. I don’t have room for a chair, as you see. I have to perch on the edge of the mattress when I’m using my dressing table.’
Uneasily he lowered himself into the softness of goose down and foam rubber. He was facing the window, which was mostly covered by pink velvet draped in two deep curves held by tiebacks. He couldn’t help thinking it was the shape of a pair of enormous buttocks.
‘There isn’t much choice over seating arrangements, is there?’ Mrs. Carlyle said. She took her place beside him and they both sank a few inches deeper. ‘Yours is the master bedroom, which is right and proper for a masterful man.’
‘I wouldn’t say I’m masterful.’
‘We’ll find out presently. I’m ready for that snifter now,’
He felt the warmth of her hip against his. In this new predicament he’d almost forgotten he was still holding the miniatures. ‘Do you have a glass?’
‘Not here. Let’s be depraved and drink the gin straight from the bottle and chase it with the tonic.’
‘All right.’ He handed her one of the gins.
She unscrewed it and tipped the contents straight down her throat.
He handed her the tonic and she took a gulp of that.
‘Nice,’ she said. ‘Next time, we can do it properly with my Waterford glasses and ice and lemon, but you made an offer I couldn’t refuse. Seize the moment, I say. Do you believe in seizing the moment?’
‘I like a drink, if that’s what you mean.’
‘How old are you, Mel, if you don’t mind me asking? And don’t say old enough to sit on a lady’s bed and sink gin. That’s self-evident.’
‘Twenty-nine.’
‘Are you sure? Not an itsy-witsy bit over thirty?’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘You just appear more mature than that. Far be it from me to complain. The reason I asked is that I was lying here on the bed a couple of nights ago thinking about you — in a totally innocent way, I must add — and it struck me that you must be quite a bit older than Tippi.’
‘Tippi?’ Mel said as if he hadn’t heard of her. ‘I’ve no idea. How old is she?’
‘Eighteen last August twentieth. Not quite a Virgo.’
Mel couldn’t follow that, so he looked steadily ahead.
‘And I had her when I was twenty-one, so I’m thirty-nine, only ten years older than you. Do you realise what that means?’
‘Not really.’
‘You’re closer in age to me than you are to Tippi.’
‘Is that a fact?’ he said with all the enthusiasm of a man told that a pit-bull terrier wanted stroking.
‘And I was reading in the Daily Mail that it’s become very fashionable for men to be attracted to women older than they are. It’s all about sophistication and experience, on the part of the women, I must add. I’m not saying men aren’t sophisticated and experienced about certain things we won’t go into — not after only one G&T — but when a knowledgeable woman takes the initiative it enriches the man’s enjoyment, and I can understand why.’
Was this a try for more gin? It could be a way of escape if he could leave the room and find some reason not to return. A sudden emergency? A blackout? A coronary?