the room was crammed with objects, several familiar ones were missing. The gold dolphin, for instance, and the gold tree bearing amethysts, and the Georgian silver candelabras. Perhaps at last, I thought, he had stored them prudently in the bank.
Carrying the passport, I went upstairs to fetch clothes to add to his sketchy packing and out of irresistible curiosity detoured into the room which had been mine. I expected a bright Moira-style transformation, but in fact nothing at all had been changed, except that nothing of me remained.
The room was without soul; barren. The single bed, stripped, showed a bare mattress. There were no cobwebs, no dust, no smell of neglect, but the message was clear: the son who had slept there no longer existed.
Shivering slightly, I closed the door and wondered whether the absolute rejection had been Malcolm’s or Moira’s and, shrugging, decided I didn’t now mind which.
Moira’s idea of the perfect bedroom turned out to be plum and pink with louvred doors everywhere possible. Malcolm’s dressing-room next door had received the same treatment, as had their joint bathroom, and I set about collecting his belongings with a strong feeling of intruding upon strangers.
I found Moira’s portrait only because I kicked it while searching for pyjamas: it was underneath Malcolm’s chest of drawers in the dressing-room. Looking to see what I’d damaged, I pulled out a square gold frame which fitted a discoloured patch on the wall and, turning it over, found the horrible Moira smiling at me with all her insufferable complacency.
I had forgotten how young she had been, and how pretty. Thirty years younger than Malcolm; thirty-five when she’d married him and, in the painting anyway, unlined. Reddish-gold hair, pale unfreckled skin, pointed chin, delicate neck. The artist seemed to me to have caught the calculation in her eyes with disconcerting clarity, and when I glanced at the name scrawled at the bottom I understood why. Malcolm might not have given her diamonds, but her portrait had been painted by the best.
I put her back face down under the chest of drawers as I’d found her, where Malcolm, I was sure, had consigned her.
Fetching a suitcase from the boxroom (no decor changes there), I packed Malcolm’s things and went downstairs, and in the hall came face to face with a smallish man carrying a large shotgun, the business end pointing my way.
I stopped abruptly, as one would.
‘Put your hands up,’ he said hoarsely.
I set the suitcase on the floor and did as he bid. He wore earth-stained dark trousers and had mud on his hands, and I asked him immediately, ‘Are you the gardener?’
‘What if I am? What are you doing here?’
‘Collecting clothes for my father… er… Mr Pembroke. I’m his son.’
I don’t know you. I’m getting the police.’ His voice was belligerent but quavery, the shotgun none too steady in his hands.
‘All right,’ I said.
He was faced then with the problem of how to telephone while aiming my way.
I said, seeing his hesitation, ‘I can prove I’m Mr Pembroke’s son, and I’ll open the suitcase to show you I’m not stealing anything. Would that help?’
After a pause, he nodded. ‘You stay over there, though,’ he said.
I judged that if I alarmed him there would be a further death in my father’s house, so I very slowly and carefully opened the suitcase, removed the underpants and the rest, and laid them out on the hall floor. After that, 1 equally slowly took my own wallet out of my pocket, opened it, removed a credit card and laid it on the floor face upwards. Then I retreated backwards from the exhibits, ending with my back against the closed and locked front door.
The elderly gardener came suspiciously forward and inspected the show, dropping his eyes only in split seconds, raising them quickly, giving me no chance to jump him.
‘That’s his passport,’ he said accusingly.
‘He asked me to fetch it.’
‘Where is he?’ he said. ‘Where’s he gone?’
‘I have to meet him with his passport. I don’t know where he’s going.’ I paused. ‘I really am his son. You must be new here. I haven’t seen you before.’
‘Two years,’ he said defensively. ‘I’ve worked here two years.’ He seemed to come quite suddenly to a decision to believe me, and almost apologetically lowered the gun. ‘This house is supposed to be locked up,’ he said. ‘Then I see you moving about upstairs.’
‘Upsetting,’ I agreed.
He gestured to Malcolm’s things. ‘You’d better pack them again.’