Turquoiselle, Tanith Lee [100 best novels of all time .TXT] 📗

lady all right? Haven’t seen her for a bit.”

“Donna?Sure. She’s at her mother’s.”

“Oh,they still like going to mummy’s, don’t they. Funny that. Even sometimes whenthey don’t really like mummy that much.” (“I hate her, I always have,” saidDusa the dead hawk, in Carver’s head, “from seven years of age.”) “In fact,Car, I’ve been meaning to have a word with you.”

“Sure.”

Johnstonwatched light ruffs of cloud blot over the pale, lowish sun. He said, still sky–watching,“I’ve been seeing someone about, the past couple of nights.”

“Yes?”

“Mmn.Oh, I know some of them go up and down via the woods, and there’s the oddnocturnal courtship. Not to mention animal wildlife. But this was a man on hisownsome. I couldn’t see much of him. No moon round the first time. It was about2 a.m. I usually have to get up for the old feller about then, he wants thelav. And I took a look out of the window, as you do, and there’s this tallish bloke,all in black, out in the woods, between here and the cottage. Thing was, hewasn’t courting, or pissing, or walking through. He was standing there. Juststanding. I went back to bed in a bit, didn’t stay to watch long. Too old for thatmalarkey. Wondered if I’d dreamed it, the next day. But last night he was backagain. About the same time, and the same thing, just there, just stood there. Icouldn’t see which way he was facing, towards your place or mine. I had theimpression his face was covered up as well. A black mask or a black balaclava.Should have told you, perhaps, the first time. But now it’s happened twice.What do you think?”

Five

He heard the cardraw up about four in the afternoon. The sound was different, and he recognisedit: a 2000 Chevrolet Monté Carlo SS. Bought about three years ago, second-handadmittedly, as a present from a then-admirer, it was a rich oiled red andgleamed, as it always did in sunshine. Maggie’s car. Looking out from theupstairs window in his ‘playroom’, Carver made sure only Maggie got out of it,and only Maggie had been in it.

Helocked the ‘playroom’s’ door before going down.

“What lovelytea, Car. I can do with this. The traffic, honestly. It’s absurd at this timeof day.”

“Yes,it can be.” He waited, gauging her as he tried his own glass of soda water.

“Thisis quite difficult,” said Maggie.

Hewaited on.

“It’sDonna,” she said, and her well-organised prettiness flushed with a sudden,perhaps hormonal agitation.

“What’sthe matter with Donna?”

“Youdon’t sound very concerned,” said Maggie sharply. “I mean, I say ‘it’s Donna’and you sound – almost bored.”

“No,I’m not bored. I’m just listening.”

“Andnow you sound very patient.”

Hewaited.

Maggiedrank her tea. At last she put down the mug and said, “I love my daughter, Car.Of course I love her. But I know sometimes, particularly recently, she can...exaggerate things. To others, to herself. Do you see? That’s my difficulty.”

“Isshe ill?” Carver asked quietly. It was a much safer response than the one shemight expect: What has Donnaexaggerated?

“Oh– no. No, I think she’s fine–”

Finebut not pregnant? He wondered, pondered, kept silent, kept waiting.

“No,she just – I don’t know how to broach this, Car. I simply don’t. It would be adifferent matter if I didn’t know you – I mean, we know each other, don’t we?We have done for a few years. And I’m not such a bad judge of men. Even quiet men,like you. Even men your young age, Car. And so – oh shit. Well, here goes. Shesays,” Maggie put back her artistically styled and blonded head and looked himfiercely in the eye, “you’ve abused her. You’ve been physically violent.”

Heallowed the surprise to show on his face. (He had been anticipating somethingelse, some floundering guess Donna had belatedly made, concerning the work hedid. Some notion his ‘office in London’ was not exactly that at all. That hisjob involved somewhat more than the ordinary, soulless, time-eating yet well-recompensedslog he had always implied it was and did. She had never taken excessiveinterest in it, and this he encouraged. The long and erratic hours alwaysirritated, and more recently apparently maddened her, but did not make herbelieve, he had supposed, that it was more than corporate overkill andovertime.)

“Why,”he said slowly, “does she say that?”

“Well,fairly obviously, Car,” said fierce-eyed Maggie, angrily, “because she thinksyou did.”

Hewished to say, Hasshe shown you any bruises? He did not say this. He said, “Whyshould she think that?”

AndMaggie got up. She shouted at him, the way Donna had if not quite so loudly orsavagely. “Maybe because you have?”

“No.”

“Oh,No. Well. You would say that, wouldn‘t you.”

“Notnecessarily. If I were that way inclined I might agree, and make some excuse.”

“Isthat what you’re going to do?”

“No,Maggie. Because I didn’t abuse Donna.”

“Shesays you did.”

Nowit was appropriate to say it. “What did I do? What’s the evidence?”

Maggieflung her arms quite elegantly upward. Her nails were long and faultlesslypainted a soft coppery shade. Then she sat down again. She said, in the hushedtone of someone speaking of something unspeakable, “She wouldn’t say andshe wouldn’t show me. She said – the marks had faded. And she was – ashamed.”

“Whyashamed?”

“Shewished she’d hit you back.”

“Ihit her then, she said?”

“She– implied you hit her.”

Carverlooked out of one of the front windows. The Chevrolet sat smartly, glittering,on the space outside the garage. Across the lane the woods were also at lastbeginning to burn up red.

“Whatdo you want to do, Maggie?”

“Itold her I had to go into Maidstone, and I didn’t say I was coming here. I don’tknow what to do. Donnahas been – odd.”

“Didshe tell you she was pregnant?”

Maggie’snicely lipsticked mouth dropped open and she stared at him. “What? Pregnant – No.Is she?”

“I’veno idea. She told me she thought she might be. She was going to see the doctor,she said. But I don’t think she has. At least, not yet.”

“Butdidn’t you try to make her go?”

“No,Maggie. I didn’t try to makeher do anything. Just as I didn’t hit or otherwise abuse her.”

“Yousound so – cool, Car. Is that how you feel?”

“I’mstartled, Maggie. Like you, more than you. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Thisis insane.”

“Yes.”

“Whatshall I do?” Maggie asked, but not of him.