Page 74 of Last Letter Home
‘It was lovely to see her, but she seemed unhappy, Luke. I know it’s not my business, but she is my best friend.’
‘Do you think I don’t get that, Briony?’
‘All right, it really isn’t my business.’ She could sense Luke’s anger.
‘OK. Well, if you’d email me over those transcripts I’d be grateful. The job is taking longer than I’m being paid for. And I’d like to get that guy Greg off my back.’ Again, that bitter tone. She chose to ignore it.
‘How is Greg? Oh, and poor Mrs Clare.’
‘Mrs Clare is back in Westbury Hall with a carer in attendance and improving. Her son gave permission for me to borrow that plan. Which reminds me, Kemi asked after you.’
‘Oh, she’s so nice, Kemi. Say hi from me. I’ll send the stuff over in a moment.’
Briony ended the call and stared out of the window for a long time, watching with distaste as the cat played with its prey, going over the conversation in her mind. Luke was troubled about something, sounded deeply unhappy in fact. He seemed cross with her, too, and she didn’t know what she’d done to deserve that. What a mess everything was at the moment. A car drew up outside the house opposite and the cat ran off as a young couple unloaded a baby in a car seat. They were smiling and laughing. The lamplight fell on the face of the sleeping infant, round and chubby with tight black curls. So cute. They looked so content, the little family, caught in the golden aura of the street lamp, that Briony felt suddenly terribly alone.
Thirty-four
‘What should I do, Sophie? If I say no he’ll spike my promotion, but if I say yes I’ll be so overwhelmed by work I won’t be able to function.’
Briony was sitting in the office of one of her colleagues, surrounded by posters of illuminated manuscripts with marginalia of fabulous beasts. Sophie was a mediaevalist, Swedish, in her early thirties, with short, clipped fair hair streaked with purple. Her seated pose, upright, long legs in skinny jeans crossed at the knee, suited her forthright, don’t-mess-with-me manner. She was the department’s union rep, so a natural person to go to, but Briony, who hated being confrontational, had really gone to her for friendly, not formal, advice.
‘He has no right, Briony.’ Sophie jabbed the air with a blue-nailed finger. ‘You don’t have to take the work on and there would be trouble if he tried to interfere with the promotion board proceedings. Still, he is on it and his word counts. You do want him on your side.’
‘So I should say yes?’
‘You should say no. Be tough and he’ll respect you. That’s the type of man he is. So much of this place runs on people’s goodwill, that’s the trouble. And he exploits that. But there are rules, and if necessary the union will back you up.’
‘I don’t want to involve the union at the moment. I worry about appearing a troublemaker.’
‘That is a typical female response,’ Sophie said with a sigh. ‘I like making trouble.’ Her eyes sparkled and Briony laughed. It was good to feel that someone was on her side. All too often in this place staff crept about doing what they were told. Once she’d jokingly said to Sophie that she was surprised that the Head of Department had agreed to the appointment of someone like her with such trenchant views. Sophie’s response was direct: ‘I was the best candidate for the post. You have to believe in yourself, Briony, and others will believe in you too.’
‘You’re lucky having such self-confidence,’ she sighed now.
She stood to go and Sophie bounced up and gave her a hug. ‘So, think about it over the weekend, eh? Then blaze in on Monday and tell him your decision. Remember, it’s your life.’
‘You’re right.’ Briony’s eye fell on one of the posters. ‘That griffin – it is a griffin, isn’t it? – looks like someone we both know.’ Sophie stared at it and they both burst out laughing. It was the mustard-coloured legs of the creature and the curly bits of feather on its head.
As she walked back to her own office she saw that she had a missed call. Greg Richards. She sat for a while at her desk wondering what he might want, then shrugged, her curiosity getting the better of her reluctance. She touched the screen of the phone to ring him back.
The little mews tucked away in the maze of streets north of Sloane Square was deserted when Briony walked down it early the following evening, the only noise being the flapping of a giant piece of polythene broken loose from the scaffolding that enveloped one of the houses. The builder’s board shining in the streetlight read Judd Holdings Basement Solutions. Not fun to live next door to, she told herself, examining the numbers on the doors she passed. Number Five, however, was several yards beyond the building work, with a neat two-storey Georgian frontage and a pair of olive trees in tubs standing sentinel at the entrance. Briony pressed the brass doorbell and smoothed her hair while she waited.
The door flew open and there was Greg in T-shirt, jeans and loafers. ‘Briony, come in out of the cold, honey,’ and she found herself sucked into a warm, dimly lit hallway redolent with the savoury smell of cooking. She could hear the tinkle of piano music. He kissed her on both cheeks and she gave up her coat and handed over the wine she’d brought.
‘I don’t know if it’s any good – the man in the shop picked it.’
He squinted at the label, said he was sure it would be lovely and ushered her into a large, knocked-through living room with two black, grey and sable velvet sofas festooned with furry zebra-striped cushions. The far wall was lined with chunky bookshelves in a light-coloured wood. Ceiling lights like abstract sculptures in glass and metal twinkled above her head.
‘It’s like the Tardis,’ she exclaimed. The modernity of the inside was such a contrast to the exterior of the house. ‘Gorgeous, of course, but I’d never have guessed all this lay beyond your Regency front door.’ When she slipped off her shoes, the hardwood floor was deliciously warm beneath her feet.
‘It’s a listed building, of course,’ he said. ‘But my predecessor did most of the work inside. God knows how she got it past the planning department. Now what can I get you to drink?’
While he was out in the kitchen fetching white wine, Briony surveyed the contents of the shelves, several of which were set wide-spaced for the outsize art books and his vinyl collection. Rows of hardbacks mostly had titles like Nietzsche and Leadership and The Zen of Globalism, but there was an impressive line of recent celebrity sporting biographies, too. She was concluding sadly that there was nothing here that she would want to read when Greg returned with a bottle in an ice bucket and a couple of glass goblets. She sat down rather self-consciously on one of the velvety sofas. It was squashy, but very comfortable.
‘It’s good of you to come,’ he said as they clinked glasses and he settled on a sofa opposite, one arm along the back of it. Although his pose was a study in relaxation, she sensed a coiled-up energy and tension in the firm line of his lips. ‘I’ll be straight with you, Briony. As I told you on the phone, your friend Luke mentioned in an email that you’d found another set of letters, from this guy Paul, and . . . well, I’d better explain my interest. Did you bring them with you, by the way?’
‘Yes, they’re in my bag.’ Briony felt a bit annoyed with Luke for telling Greg about them, but recognized he’d done so in all innocence, thinking they might offer further information about the garden.
Greg was eyeing the bag which she’d left by the door of the room.
