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

Or he did not think so. “Honestly,Car, I just don’t know. Look,” she said, seeming to straighten inside herfashionable jeans, her sleek white jumper, her cared-for skin, “she wants tostay on with me for a while. That’s all right. We can do things. Maybe bechildish, go to the seaside... Something. I’ll try to get to the bottom of thispregnancy business. You know, Car, I don’t think she is. There’s just – somethingmissing from that, somehow. She isn’t... like a pregnant woman. But could shebe? Had you been trying?”

“Ididn’t know we were, but maybe she was. If you mean have we been having sex,then yes. We do have sex. She never expressed the need for a child.”

“Butyou wouldn’t – mind? I mean, you’d like it if she had a baby?”

Carversaid, “I didn’t suggest it, but yes. It might be good.” Just the proper amountof cautious interest and agreeability in his voice. A lie. Less than liking theconcept, he was utterly indifferent, and had been when, and since, Donna toldhim.

“Well.We’ll see how it goes. Better keep it at that. For now.”

“Andshe doesn’t want to come back here yet,” His voice was entirely neutral.

“I’msorry.” Maggie had taken the neutrality as self-controlled disappointment. Orunderstandable relief? “I’m sorry, but no, she doesn’t. I’ll keep you posted,yes?”

“Allright. So long as you can manage.” She could, she was aware she could, andwould. He was quite safe to fake concern.

“Youknow you can trust me, Car.”

“Yes.I know.”

“I’lltake great care of her. Honestly, don’t worry. It’s just a phase. She ismy kid, after all, isn’t she?”

“Thankyou, Maggie.”

“And– the other thing... You didn’t. I apologise. Of course you didn’t. That’s not you, Car.”

“No.”

Shestood up.

“I’dbetter get off. I’m – well, I’m meeting someone at a little restaurant overtowards the town. It’s OK. Donna’s staying in with the TV, some wine and acouple of shows she likes and there’s a great takeaway place...”

Hedecided abruptly, not having really considered it before, that Maggie too hadbecome a fraction jaded with Donna.

Theysaid goodbye at the door and she planted her accustomed light press-kiss onhis right cheek. She smelled of health and hygiene and Chanel No. 5. TheChevrolet started up immediately, eager to run, and vanished like a red wavearound the bend of the red-leafed lane.

Six

Oncethe sun set, Carver took his position in the spare room.

Downstairshe had switched on the porch light, but not the security. The nearest (distant)streetlamp was out, and so would stay out. The rest of the house, upstairsincluded, he also left to the darkness. Like a conscientious or impoverishedlight-saving citizen. Or like Donna, when she was trying to make some pointabout his latecomings.

Hesat near the window in the upright chair that was comfortable enough not tocause unnecessary movement, unrelaxing enough it did not tempt sleep.

Hehad set a sandwich and a flask of coffee on the small table next to him, and acouple of other things that might prove helpful.

Afterglowand English dusk filled the woods beyond the garden wall. In the distance,about two hundred and fifty metres off along the lane, he could, when they cameon, make out the narrow dim illuminations of Robby Johnston’s cottage. By tenor earlier they would be dead again, although now and then, much later, one ortwo might reappear, generally starting in the upstairs bedroom. This indicatedone of Robby J’s insomniac nights, as he called them, when he sat up reading,and occasionally meandered downstairs for tea or a whisky. He did not employlighting to visit the lavatory.

Carverwould prefer tonight was not an insomniac for Robby. Everything needed to beback as dark as it could be, so nothing out in the woods might be disturbed.

Asthe evening ebbed he heard bell-ringing from the old church at the far end ofthe village. This did not, any more, happen very often. The village hadcomplained, it seemed, about the noise. Later he heard two or three people, andnext saw them, as they negotiated the lane, headed doubtless for The Bell pub.Somewhere around midnight they would return by the same route, unless there wasa lock-in, which could last until sunrise, if everybody was in the mood.

Really,Carver knew he had set up his sentry post very early. But who could predictwhat preliminaries might go on, or if they did not, that too could be anindication.

Timepassed, now fast, now slow, relative to itself, or perhaps to him.

Johnston’slights came on late, at half past six. (He had been out? Or asleep.)

Everyhour Carver got up and went to check from the windows of the other upstairsareas, the main bedroom and en suite and the ‘playroom’ to the front; thesecond bathroom, and the annexe at the opposite side by the boiler cupboard, tothe rear.

Nothingunusual was apparent. No car drove through the lane, as rarely they did. Whenhe opened the bathroom windows about nine, the air was much dryer and morecold. There was a smell of woodsmoke from some banked bonfire, and theindefinable odour of dying leaves.

Heate half the sandwich.

Hegave no thought to Maggie, and none to Donna. She especially was nowirrelevant, as so often, legitimate only though her absence. He did not eventhink of Silvia Dusa, or even of Latham in the room with the vodka and therecording of voices, Carver’s saying what he had not said at all.

Betweeneleven and a quarter to midnight the vocal people who had gone to the pub waltzedback with a torch flickering like a giant firefly, laughing and careless, anddisappeared into the farthernesses of night.

Johnston’slights were all out again for now. There would be no moon. And anyway the sky wasonce more overcast, only the splintery rhinestone of Jupiter intermittentlyvisible. The vague lit aura of the village, also detectible from here, had sunktoo, as it did not always do as yet. Though the shed, of course... a faintsheen, the reflection on the birches, nearly not there at all.

Attwenty-five minutes past one he began to use the night glasses. He had keptthem from a stint a year ago, as other Mantik employees often did. They werenot very strong, the I/R by now not up to much. He detected a fox, however,trotting between the trees,