The Banker's Niece 34: The Rock crumbles

Jane sits up in bed. With its down duvet and organic unbleached brushed-cotton linen, her bed is her favourite place in the world and something she would definitely take with her to a desert island. In deference to the weather she’s fished out her long-sleeved, ankle-length nightdress and wearing it makes her feel like an old maid, as they used to call them – which she is, she supposes (except for the ‘maid’ bit). It’s not an unpleasant feeling. In fact it’s rather comforting. And she’s always preferred Miss Marple to any other fictional detective.

    William was right. The supper did cheer her up.

    They sat in the pub's dining area at a proper table and because it was Monday they had it to themselves. The cheesy potato pie was sublime, as William promised - mashed potato glued together with strings of extra-tasty Cheddar, crunchy topped and so hot it stripped the roof of your mouth. Thank goodness she isn’t vegan yet.

    She explained her lack of car by saying that she became stuck in snow leaving work and had to call a taxi and excused her tears by saying something about the difficulty of adjusting to life in the country, leaving her friends behind, having trouble at work etc etc. Not really lies but not really the truth either and she felt slightly guilty, but William seemed to accept the stories.

    Then they fell to talking about their families.

    William told her about his father’s insistence on changing for ‘dinner’ every night and using proper linen table napkins and Jane told him about her mother still using a non-fillable fountain pen which she had to keep dipping into a bottle of ink and of how she ran her finger over every letter which arrived to see whether the address was printed (bad) or embossed (good).

    Jane laughed so much she almost fell off her chair. It was extraordinary how you could switch so quickly from despair to merriment.

    She was cross with herself for not having gone out with William before. He’d often asked but she’d always demurred as she couldn’t bear to think of the gossip they would engender if she (a single woman) appeared in the local pub with her neighbour (a single man).

    There had been some funny looks from the old codgers on the bar stools but she didn’t care now. Her conscience was clear. They’d got the sex thing out of the way. They were good friends, that was all.

    Apart from her brother Ollie, she’d never had a male friend before. It wasn’t at all bad and, if a foretaste of the future, she almost looked forward to it.

    They didn’t even have to go through all that palaver when they said good night. He stopped at her house, getting out of the car to see her to the back door, where they kissed each other decorously on the cheek and then parted. Lovely.

    And the warm glow is still with her, so much so that she’s picked up her spiral-bound shorthand notebook and decided to make one of her lists. But not just any old list (sort rubbish, do washing load, clean bath).  A proper life-changing list. It’s time – more than time – to get herself in order, and the happy outcome of the contretemps with William has given her confidence. But where to start?

    She taps her pencil against her teeth and steadies the notebook on her raised knees.

    She likes pencils. They’re more subtle somehow than ballpoint pens, more conducive to catching those ideas which flit like ghosts through the dusty rooms of the brain.

    She writes ‘List’ at the top of the page and thinks about tomorrow, and the answer comes to her. Henry. Point number one.

1 Henry

First thing in the morning she’ll ring him and give in her notice. That way, she’ll get in first. That might salvage both her pride and her career in publishing and, given her behaviour, it would be the honourable thing to do. After all, it’s what politicians do when they make a mistake.

    Whether Henry accepts her resignation and she does in fact leave Courtney Press and what she’ll do if she does are, she thinks, questions she can leave unanswered for the moment.

Which brings her to point number two.

2 Joe the Taxi

Even if she does leave Courtney Press she’ll still be working out her notice. So she’ll have to ring Joe as well first thing to see if he can give her a lift in, which – if he can - will be a great opportunity for him to see her calm and normal for a change.

    At the same time, she can prepare him for taking her to Exmoor to retrieve Clio, explaining that a visit to a friend went wrong due to circumstances entirely beyond her control (snow) and giving the impression that she’s totally on top of the situation.

    The fact that he is – according to Lauren – in his late fifties and unattached (a widower) and that he reminds Jane of Alan Bates as Gabriel Oak* has absolutely nothing to do with Jane’s desire to appear sane in his eyes. It’s because he lives in Muddicombe and she would hate the locals to get the wrong idea about her.

And thinking about good and bad impressions leads her into the next item on her list.

3 Lauren (and Gavin)

Gavin may be a prat but he’s Lauren’s prat and she should apologise to Lauren for being so rude to him, as well for her behaviour in general at the party since it was Lauren, as far as she remembers, who salvaged the situation by finding the vomit receptacle, leading Jane to a discreet corner of the room and ringing Joe.

    She ought to have spoken to Lauren this morning, instead of avoiding her by entering through the back door. She’ll use the front door tomorrow.

Maisie and Tom are best left alone for the moment as they’ve no doubt had more than enough of her which leaves one final item to be tackled in the débâcle that is her life at the moment (as Sam would put it).

4 Mother

Because of her migraine on Saturday and her hangover on Sunday she didn’t answer the phone when her mother rang and she’s not yet returned the call. She’ll do that at the first available opportunity as she wouldn’t want her mother to be worried. That might lead to her visiting which sort of wastes all the effort of moving to the other side of the country.

Oh, and one other item.

5 William

Not a problem any more of course but she doesn’t want to be in his debt. She’ll text him when she wakes and ask him to come over for breakfast. She has croissants in the freezer and eggs in the fridge. She could even open a tin of baked beans for him if he wanted. He’ll enjoy that after the milking.

She puts down the pad and pencil and wriggles her feet under the hot water bottle. The house is growing cold and it’s more than time for her to switch off the light and burrow under the covers.

    There is however one thing that still niggles and she might as well clear it out now, while she has the impetus.

    She puts on her fleecy dressing-gown and slipper-boots and pads through to the spare bedroom where her computer lives.

Even if she does have to pay £10 to subscribe to the archive, finding the item is easy – too easy, like it was bumping into Sharon first time or coming across the job ad. But then she does know the name of the publication, the date and the item’s position so she doesn’t have to read anything into that.

    As she opens the page however, that ease – that sense of events unfolding without her input – makes her stomach knot and she remembers that she collapsed the last time she saw the words. But perhaps there was no connection between the two events. They were a coincidence, nothing more.

    ‘There’s no such thing as coincidence,’ snaps Sharon’s voice in her head.

    It doesn’t make her feel any better.

    She reads again the snippet that caught her eye in the village shop.

The Rock crumbles
In a shock announcement last night, singer Rick ‘The Rock’ Rockford, 61, revealed that he is to marry for the first time. Renowned for his playboy lifestyle and string of young, beautiful and famous girlfriends, Rick has finally settled on 58-year-old boffin, Dr Christine Beckford (pictured above with Rick). ‘I’ve always liked intelligent women,’ said Rick, ‘and now at last I’ve found one.’
FULL STORY – PAGES 4 AND 5

She falters.

    Does she carry on? What will she find?

    But maybe this is the final room, and once she’s dusted it everything in her new life will come right.

   

RICK’S TURNAROUND
Has old age finally caught up with him?
Rick Rockford last night dealt his fans a double whammy when he announced not only that he is to marry but also that he has left super-group Minotaur.
    ‘I’ve bought a house in the country,’ said Rick. ‘I’m moving back to Devon where I come from in order to concentrate on writing music. I’ve had enough of life on the road.’
    At one stage dubbed ‘the Peter Pan of rock’, Rick has begun increasingly over the last few years to look his age (see pictures, right). Is he now acting it too? Or is this latest move just one more fad?
Founder
Minotaur crashed into the charts in 1981 with their debut album ‘Ariadne’s thread’. Rick, who co-founded the band, attributed its success to a broken heart.
    ‘I’m on the rebound,’ he told your Daily Star at the time. ‘I had to throw myself into something.’
Consolation
He also threw himself into the rock and roll lifestyle, becoming as famous for his love life as his career. (See list of girlfriends, below.) When challenged about his behaviour he always maintained that he was faithful: 'I only ever date one person at a time,'
   And on the subject of marriage, he was adamant. ‘There was only one woman I ever wanted to marry,’ he said, ‘and she wouldn’t have me.’
    So why the change, and just who is Christine Beckford, his fiancée?
Mystery woman
According to official sources, Dr Beckford works for the marine-environment charity Making Waves, heading up a research facility at the University of Devon. Rick claims she is an old friend.
    ‘Chris knew me before I became successful. She has her own career. She’s not after me for anything,’ he says wryly.
    Our reporter tracked her to a decaying mansion in a remote part of the county (see picture, left).
    ‘We’ve not seen Chris for weeks,’ said a housemate.
    Locals spoke of ‘the hippies on the hill’.
    ‘We don’t know what goes on up there,’ said the landlord of the Fox and Hounds in the nearby village of Buckland Abbot. ‘And we don’t want to neither.’

Well, it was only to be expected. It had to happen some time. And she already knows most of it.

    But why does it have to be Chris?

    And Devon?

    And the University of Devon?

    And why is her beloved study turning into something out of a nightmare?

    And why is the strength vanishing from her body as if she were bleeding to death?

   

Without warning, like a migraine, the darkness returns. Only now it’s not a wave. It’s the bottomless black hole she remembers from long ago.

*In the film Far from the Madding Crowd

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