Chapter 18
‘You mean you’ve actually sacked Geraldine? Before we’ve even had a chance to discuss it?’
Alec looked absolutely furious. He paced up and down the room, pushing his fingers through his hair, arranging and rearranging the ornaments on the mantelpiece. Lisa could not make out whether his anger was at the prospect of losing the contact with Geraldine, or because he was worried about the girl’s connection with Carruthers.
‘I wish you wouldn’t jump down my throat like that. I didn’t sack her. I know she’s Carruthers’ niece. What I did was put my foot down about that dog. I said she couldn’t bring Duffers here again, and told her I’d put the triplets’ names down for Anne’s playschool.’ Her frown lines bit deep. ‘I told you, Alec, she makes more work than she helps with. And that business after the party was an absolute disgrace.’
‘At least she’s there,’ he said dryly. ‘You can answer the phone or go to the loo without panicking.’ He bit his lip, narrowed his eyes. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you lately. It isn’t sensible to antagonise the girl.’
Lisa felt her husband’s irritation tearing them apart. He was blind to the tell-tale signs of the strain she was under. She felt herself becoming alienated. Alec couldn’t even understand why Geraldine was unbearable. If he thought about it at all, he probably thought she was jealous of the girl’s youth, her obvious good looks. So what on earth would he make of talk about cloning? She was right not to burden him with it. It was her cross to bear, and bear alone. Her job was to protect her children and her family. And there was still the faint - the very faint - possibility that she’d imagined everything. It would be fatal to tell Alec, and then find out that Don had had some quite innocent reason for digging in their garden. Perhaps Alec, or Frank, had asked him to do some work there.
‘I’ve always got to have an ear out for her. What about what happened with the kettle? If it hadn’t been for Seb being alert Janus would have been scarred for life.’
‘For God’s sake, Lisa.’ Alec’s head jerked back as his eyes blazed at her. ‘She’s not likely to do anything like that again. That was weeks ago.’
The way he was always making excuses for the girl infuriated Lisa. It was Geraldine’s incompetence which had precipitated the crisis, after all.
Lisa couldn’t hold back her anger any more. ‘And that wretched animal,’ she flared. ‘You simply ignore that. It’s dangerous for children to play on grass a dog has fouled. I had to put a stop to that.’
Alec looked at her sideways. She could almost hear his brain ticking over, deciding she was becoming neurotic. She’d have to sound reasonably composed if things were not to get out of hand. She softened her voice. ‘And I haven’t thrown her out, just alerted her to what I’m going to do. I explained I’d need some time completely to myself so that I can really get back to painting. And that means the triplets being at the playschool.’
‘You still need help when they get back.’
‘I told you, Alec. Anne is willing to give them lunch and arrange for them to have a nap. Betsy will take them for a walk after that.’
He sighed. ‘When, Lisa? When can you send them to Anne’s?’
‘As soon as they can manage without a bottle,’ Lisa told him gleefully. ‘I’m pretty sure I can get them on to cups by next month.’
‘That’ll be the day!’
‘No, honestly; trainer cups. The triplets are crazy to follow in Seb’s footsteps, and Anne is simply longing to have them. They’ll bring in other children, you see. I think she’s already decided to make allowances.’
‘And you think she can handle our whole brood?’
‘It really isn’t a problem, Alec. She has three assistants, and all mod cons, and a lovely garden which is completely walled in and very safe.’
‘I see you’ve got it all worked out.’ The narrowed eyes had broadened again, looked at her reflectively.
‘And she’s happy to take on extra help if she needs it.’
Lisa and Alec were walking round their two acres, admiring the new plantings of daphnes: Mezereum glowing deep rose in May sunshine, Somerset carrying pinky-white blooms with a pervading scent, attracting the first crop of butterflies. Slightly to Lisa’s discomfiture Alec was leading the way towards the peaches and apricots. That was precisely where she judged Don had used a spade the evening before. Suppose Alec found evidence of Don’s digging?
‘Can you smell our daphne collina? The fragrance is still absolutely glorious,’ she said, trying to sound normal.
‘What? Oh, yes.’ Alec had popped his head round the tool shed door. ‘I can’t understand it, Lisa. I had a whole bag of lime I was going to put on the new espaliers. They’re stone fruit and need the minerals. I know I put a two kilo bag in the shed.’
Lime. Had Don taken it? She knew lime had been used in the past to help bodies decompose, and as a disinfectant. Bodies; she trembled as her mind conjured up images of the night before. The little figure in the bath, bent over, Don’s expression as he saw the bracelet dangling from her hand... She pulled herself together. ‘Perhaps you left it in the garage.’
‘I checked earlier on. It’s not there.’
Should she tell him, after all? He was her children’s father, he –
‘I know I put it in the shed. Did you take it?’ He looked at her accusingly.
She wondered what possible use he thought she could have for the lime. Always that accusation in his eyes. No, she couldn’t take him into her confidence. ‘I’ll pick a bag up for you when I go shopping,’ she volunteered, instead. ‘You can put it on next week.’
‘What? Oh; right.’ Alec hoisted a package of Multiplier under his arm, turned away from the shed and began striding down the garden in his boots. He carried a fork and made his way towards the espaliers. Lisa followed him hesitantly, unwillingly.
Arrived at the bed planted with the new fruit trees he stopped short and began to examine the ground. ‘What on earth’s been going on here? Someone’s been messing about with the soil between these trees.’
The narrow border between the new espaliers against the wall looked freshly raked. Lisa remembered the scrape of metal against the stone scalpings. She looked nervously around for further evidence. Don would have had to put extraneous soil from the grave somewhere.
And then she saw it, a great clump of dense clay on top of good black loam. A grey solid clod which leered at her. It glowed, sticky wet and pale, its ghostly outline all too visible. Would Alec notice? There must have been more of it. What had Don done with it? Carted it away? Her eyes roamed the area for a hiding place, lighted on the rhyne dividing their garden from Mark Ditcheat’s field. She saw grey lumps of mud jutting out of the water in the ditch shallow with lack of rain. Don must have thrown the clay in for rainstorms to wash away.
‘This really is too much!’ Alec exclaimed. ‘Look at this - the main leader’s been broken.’ He turned on her. ‘D’you know anything about this?’
‘I haven’t been down here, Alec.’ Her voice was low, subdued. She thought about the little body, unceremoniously got rid of. A child - her child, even if he did come about in a quite incredible way. A tear began to trickle down her cheek.
Alec was examining his trees carefully and didn’t notice her. ‘Someone’s been breaking several of the young shoots I was going to train,’ he said. ‘This really is going too far. How can I grow espaliers if I haven’t got decent leaders?’
He squatted down beside the place where Lisa judged Don had buried the body.
‘Did you allow the children down here? Was that them, crashing into my trees?’ He turned round, annoyance making his face red. ‘The place is big enough. I asked you not to let them play around down here.’
Her voice, at first unsteady, gruff, took on irritation. ‘It wasn’t the children, Alec. I wouldn’t let them come down here on their own.’ She couldn’t think quickly enough, but tried to say something which would make sense, which would head him off. ‘Maybe Saunders raked it over for you, darling.’
He turned right round. ‘Saunders?’ he exploded. ‘Since when does Saunders decide what needs doing?’ He began to distribute granules of fertiliser from the yellow packaging. ‘This will produce results, I’m sure.’
Lisa gulped, abhorrence flooding over her. A scene of small corpses, multiplied, crowded into her mind. She shook herself, trying to quench the tears trying to spill. ‘D’you think, darling, it might be a good idea to let the trees establish first? Otherwise you’ll just encourage the extra growth of young wood,’ she said.
‘Exactly what I’m aiming for,’ he rounded on her. ‘I’ve just explained. I want young shoots to train as leaders.’ He scraped his fork around a tree trunk. ‘Someone has been here.’
His attitude, his care about the trees rather than her, brought out her temper. ‘Then I expect it was Duffers,’ she shot back at him.
‘Duffers?’ He knew quite well what she was talking about. ‘Oh, yes. Gerry’s terrier.’
‘Exactly. I told you I had to get rid of him. It isn’t just a question of Geraldine being useless. That wretched animal keeps digging up the garden. It’s completely untrained. Perhaps Saunders noticed and tidied it all up again. He knew you’d be upset.’
‘Dogs don’t attack fruit tree branches, Lisa. You really are prejudiced against that girl and anything to do with her.’
She knew better than to attack Geraldine directly. ‘That animal is such a pain, digging everywhere. I expect he dug about and swished his stupid rear into the leaders. I’ve seen him dig right round trees and shrubs, exposing the roots and everything.’
Alec squatted down and examined the earth around the slender tree trunk. ‘It has been disturbed. These trees are pot grown, so he must have dug right by the trunk and broken some of the roots. You didn’t mention that before.’
‘I do have a few other things on my mind,’ she suddenly snapped. The tears were really threatening now, oozing under her eyelids. Whatever she did or said annoyed him. He was being completely obsessive about the garden, unwilling to tolerate anything but his own ideas. It simply wasn’t possible to talk to him.
Alec was squatting by the nectarine. He turned and looked up at her, his eyes dark and brooding.
‘You always turn down help, Lisa. You reject my mother, and now you’re longing to get rid of Geraldine. You have only yourself to blame if you get completely worn out.’
‘What I would like to do,’ Lisa explained to Dr Gilmore, ‘is make sure no one can get the triplets confused. You know, there might be all kinds of occasions when that could happen.’
He’d called in unexpectedly. Lisa had taken him to the children’s playroom, settled him on a chair.
‘Well, I suppose so,’ he said, sounding dubious and looking at the toddlers crawling round their playroom floor. ‘I always thought mothers never got it wrong.’
‘I don’t,’ Lisa agreed. ‘And nor do Alec or Seb; or even Betsy. And Meg usually knows the difference, too. I’m not talking about the people who’re used to them. I’m talking about unexpected eventualities.’
‘Like what?’
‘I’m going to send them to a playschool on weekday mornings. Lodsham House is only five hundred yards down the road from here. They’re one year old now, and it will be good for the whole family. But of course the assistants there have to be able to tell them apart.’
‘So that’s the plan, is it?’ He smiled enthusiastically. ‘That is a good idea. It’ll give you some time for yourself.’ He grinned as he looked from one small child to another. ‘And I do see what you mean about mixing them up.’
‘Alec and I may take a few days’ break.’ Lisa sounded nonchalant. ‘We might leave Alec’s mother in charge.’ A bright sudden smile. ‘So I thought, if you have nothing against it from a medical point of view, I’d have their ears pierced.’
The GP sat upright in his chair and blinked at her, startled. ‘Pierce their ears? What good would that do?’
‘Only the one. You may have noticed, their left ear has a special little indentation on the lobe. I thought there would be no harm in piercing through that and inserting a different metal ring in each child’s ear.’
‘Just one? For identification purposes?’
‘Yes, just a tiny band, as small as we can make it. Gold, bronze and silver,’ Lisa finished up, exultant. ‘Just wide enough to make it easy to tell them apart.’
The doctor stood, picked up Jeffrey, then sat down again and placed the child on his lap, examining his ear. ‘You know, that’s not a bad idea,’ he said. ‘Not bad at all.’ He jiggled the laughing child up and down. ‘There’s just one thing: I think you should use precious metals for all three. Bronze might well cause an allergy. Why not use platinum instead?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that. The problem is it’s almost the same colour as silver.’
‘Yes, I do see that.’ He looked from one child to another. ‘You could, I suppose, put a few twists in one of the bands.’
‘That would solve it,’ Lisa agreed at once, impressed.
‘I hope it won’t affect them psychologically.’ Gilmore smiled at the triplets, now all engrossed in building blocks. ‘I’m sure you don’t want to encourage them to be drifters!’
‘As soon as they’re old enough to say who they are we can dispense with the earrings,’ Lisa said. If he knew the whole idea was based on Leo, he’d probably think she was encouraging her children to become gay.
‘You seem to have it all figured out.’
‘That is my job.’
The doctor looked surprised at her tone. ‘And what about you? Are you getting on all right? Not too much strain?’
Why was he asking about her? ‘Things have settled down a good deal.’ Had Alec been discussing her with him behind her back?
‘Good, good,’ Gilmore soothed easily. ‘I think taking a break is an excellent idea. And if, in the meantime, you think you need something to calm you down, I can prescribe a mild sedative.’
He opened his bag before she could even answer, and hauled a prescription pad out of it. ‘I know you always like to know what I’m prescribing.’ He smiled. ‘Smallest dose of diazepam.’ He saw her look non-plussed. ‘Quite well known - Valium.’ He scribbled illegible symbols on the pad, tore off a sheet and handed it to her. ‘Just don’t increase the dose without consulting me,’ he said.
That sounded remarkably like Meg’s instructions about valerian tea. And the names of the herbs Meg used were almost as unfamiliar to Lisa as Gilmore’s drugs.
‘Calm me down? Whatever do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing at all,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Just a suggestion, in case you’re having broken nights.’
‘I don’t take drugs unnecessarily,’ Lisa reminded him, handing back the prescription. ‘I prefer to stick to herb tea. Melissa is a wonderful relaxant. I grow it for myself.’ She grinned at an idea which was forming in her mind. ‘Would you like to try some?’ she asked pleasantly.
‘That’s very kind, but I must get on. The children are looking really well. I do congratulate you.’
So Alec had been on to him. Telling tales about her problems with sleeping, her fits of anger, her shouting. She’d have to go back to valerian tea for a short time. She couldn’t afford to have her brain fogged by tranquillisers.