15
I tell you ’tis not modish to know relations in town.
William Congreve, The Way of the World
‘So? What did you think of Bombyx Mori?’ Nina asked him as they pulled away from her flat in a taxi he could ill afford. If he had not invited her, Strike would have made the journey to Bromley and back by public transport, time-consuming and inconvenient though that would have been.
‘Product of a diseased mind,’ said Strike.
Nina laughed.
‘But you haven’t read any of Owen’s other books; they’re nearly as bad. I admit this one’s got a serious gag factor. What about Daniel’s suppurating knob?’
‘I haven’t got there yet. Something to look forward to.’
Beneath yesterday evening’s warm woollen coat she was wearing a clinging, strappy black dress, of which Strike had had an excellent view when she had invited him into her St John’s Wood flat while she collected bag and keys. She was also clutching a bottle of wine that she had seized from her kitchen when she saw that he was empty-handed. A clever, pretty girl with nice manners, but her willingness to meet him the very night following their first introduction, and that night a Saturday to boot, hinted at recklessness, or perhaps neediness.
Strike asked himself again what he thought he was playing at as they rolled away from the heart of London towards a realm of owner-occupiers, towards spacious houses crammed with coffee makers and HD televisions, towards everything that he had never owned and which his sister assumed, anxiously, must be his ultimate ambition.
It was like Lucy to throw him a birthday dinner at her own house. She was fundamentally unimaginative and, even though she often seemed more harried there than anywhere else, she rated her home’s attractions highly. It was like her to insist on giving him a dinner he didn’t want, but which she could not understand him not wanting. Birthdays in Lucy’s world were always celebrated, never forgotten: there must be cake and candles and cards and presents; time must be marked, order preserved, traditions upheld.
As the taxi passed through the Blackwall Tunnel, speeding them below the Thames into south London, Strike recognised that the act of bringing Nina with him to the family party was a declaration of non-conformity. In spite of the conventional bottle of wine held on her lap, she was highly strung, happy to take risks and chances. She lived alone and talked books not babies; she was not, in short, Lucy’s kind of woman.
Nearly an hour after he had left Denmark Street, with his wallet fifty pounds lighter, Strike helped Nina out into the dark chill of Lucy’s street and led her down a path beneath the large magnolia tree that dominated the front garden. Before ringing the doorbell Strike said, with some reluctance:
‘I should probably tell you: this is a birthday dinner. For me.’
‘Oh, you should have said! Happy—’
‘It isn’t today,’ said Strike. ‘No big deal.’
And he rang the doorbell.
Strike’s brother-in-law, Greg, let them inside. A lot of arm slapping followed, as well as an exaggerated show of pleasure at the sight of Nina. This emotion was conspicuous by its absence in Lucy, who bustled down the hall holding a spatula like a sword and wearing an apron over her party dress.
‘You didn’t say you were bringing someone!’ she hissed in Strike’s ear as he bent to kiss her cheek. Lucy was short, blonde and round-faced; nobody ever guessed that they were related. She was the result of another of their mother’s liaisons with a well-known musician. Rick was a rhythm guitarist who, unlike Strike’s father, maintained an amicable relationship with his offspring.
‘I thought you asked me to bring a guest,’ Strike muttered to his sister as Greg ushered Nina into the sitting room.
‘I asked whether you were going to,’ said Lucy angrily. ‘Oh God – I’ll have to go and set an extra – and poor Marguerite—’
‘Who’s Marguerite?’ asked Strike, but Lucy was already hurrying off towards the dining room, spatula aloft, leaving her guest of honour alone in the hall. With a sigh, Strike followed Greg and Nina into the sitting room.
‘Surprise!’ said a fair-haired man with a receding hairline, getting up from the sofa at which his bespectacled wife was beaming at Strike.
‘Christ almighty,’ said Strike, advancing to shake the outstretched hand with genuine pleasure. Nick and Ilsa were two of his oldest friends and they were the only place where the two halves of his early life intersected: London and Cornwall, happily married.
‘No one told me you were going to be here!’
‘Yeah, well, that’s the surprise, Oggy,’ said Nick as Strike kissed Ilsa. ‘D’you know Marguerite?’
‘No,’ said Strike, ‘I don’t.’
So this was why Lucy had wanted to check whether he was bringing anyone with him; this was the sort of woman she imagined him falling for, and living with for ever in a house with a magnolia tree in the front garden. Marguerite was dark, greasy skinned and morose-looking, wearing a shiny purple dress that appeared to have been bought when she was a little thinner. Strike was sure she was a divorcée. He was developing second sight on that subject.
‘Hi,’ she said, while thin Nina in her strappy black dress chatted with Greg; the short greeting contained a world of bitterness.
So seven of them sat down to dinner. Strike had not seen much of his civilian friends since he had been invalided out of the army. His voluntarily heavy workload had blurred the boundaries between weekday and weekend, but now he realised anew how much he liked Nick and Ilsa, and how infinitely preferable it would have been if the three of them had been alone somewhere, enjoying a curry.
‘How do you know Cormoran?’ Nina asked them avidly.
‘I was at school with him in Cornwall,’ said Ilsa, smiling at Strike across the table. ‘On and off. Came and went, didn’t you, Corm?’
And the story of Strike and Lucy’s fragmented childhood was trotted out over the smoked salmon, their travels with their itinerant mother and their regular returns to St Mawes and the aunt and uncle who had acted as surrogate parents throughout their childhood and teens.
‘And then Corm got taken to London by his mother again when he was, what, seventeen?’ said Ilsa.
Strike could tell that Lucy was not enjoying the conversation: she hated talk about their unusual upbringing, their notorious mother.
‘And he ended up at a good rough old comprehensive with me,’ said Nick. ‘Good times.’
‘Nick was a useful bloke to know,’ said Strike. ‘Knows London like the back of his hand; his dad’s a cabbie.’
‘Are you a cabbie too?’ Nina asked Nick, apparently exhilarated by the exoticism of Strike’s friends.
‘No,’ said Nick cheerfully, ‘I’m a gastroenterologist. Oggy and I had a joint eighteenth birthday party—’
‘—and Corm invited his friend Dave and me up from St Mawes for it. First time I’d ever been to London, I was so excited—’ said Ilsa.
‘—and that’s where we met,’ finished Nick, grinning at his wife.
‘And still no kids, all these years later?’ asked Greg, smug father of three sons.
There was the tiniest pause. Strike knew that Nick and Ilsa had been trying for a child, without success, for several years.
‘Not yet,’ said Nick. ‘What d’you do, Nina?’
The mention of Roper Chard brought some animation to Marguerite, who had been regarding Strike sullenly from the other end of the table, as though he were a tasty morsel placed remorselessly out of reach.
‘Michael Fancourt’s just moved to Roper Chard,’ she stated. ‘I saw it on his website this morning.’