• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1631 0

Thomas Lynley was another: where he was, what he was doing, and why she hadn’t been informed about either. Isabelle Ardery was yet another: whether she was actually going to be named to the position of detective superintendent permanently and what that would mean to Barbara’s own future with the Met, not to mention to her working relationship with Thomas Lynley. Angelina Upman was still another: whether she— Barbara— could have a friendship with the lover of her neighbour and friend Taymullah Azhar, whose daughter had become a needed bit of sparkle in Barbara’s life. No. The reason she took the train was avoidance, pure and simple. Additionally, the distractions afforded by the Tube were vast and continually shifting, and what Barbara wanted was distractions because they gave her conversation openers that she could use with her mother when she finally saw her.

Not that she and her mother had conversations any longer. At least not the sort of conversations one might deem normal between a mother and daughter. And this day had ultimately been no different to others in which Barbara spoke, hesitated, watched, and felt desperate to end the visit as soon as possible.

Her mother had fallen in love with Laurence Olivier, the younger version. She was completely swept away by Heathcliff and Max de Winter. She wasn’t sure who he was exactly— the man she kept watching on the television screen— tormenting Merle Oberon when he wasn’t leaving poor Joan Fontaine completely tongue-tied. She only knew that they were meant to be together, she and this handsome man. That he was, in reality, long dead and gone was no matter to her.

She didn’t recognise the older version of the actor. Olivier doing the job on poor Dustin Hoffman’s teeth— not to mention Olivier rolling round the floor with Gregory Peck— made no impact on her at all. Indeed, whenever an Olivier film other than Wuthering Heights or Rebecca was brought to her attention, she became quite ungovernable. Even Olivier as Mr. Darcy could not sway her from either of the other two films. So they looped endlessly through a television in her mother’s bedroom, a feature that Mrs. Florence Magentry had installed in order to save the sanity of her other residents as well as her own. There were only so many times one could watch devious Larry destroy poor David Niven’s tenuous claim on happiness.

Barbara had spent two hours with her mother. They were heart-sore hours, and she felt the pain of them all the way home from Greenford. So when she’d run into Angelina Upman and her daughter Hadiyyah on the pavement just outside the big house in Eton Villas where they all lived, she’d accepted their invitation to “look at what Mummy bought, Barbara” as a means of clearing her mind of the images of her mother cradling one breast tenderly as she watched the flickering screen display Max de Winter in torment over the death of his evil first wife.

She was with Hadiyyah and her mother now, having dutifully admired two ultra-modern lithographs that Angelina had managed to “practically pinch, Barbara, they were such a bargain, weren’t they, Mummy?” from a vendor in the Stables Market. Barbara admired them. Not to her taste, but she could indeed see how they were going to work in the sitting room of Azhar’s flat.

Barbara gave thought to the fact that Angelina had apparently taken her daughter to one of the places absolutely verboten by the little girl’s father. She wondered if Hadiyyah had mentioned this to her mother or if, perhaps, Angelina and Azhar had agreed in advance that it was time Hadiyyah began to experience more of the world. She had her answer when Hadiyyah clapped her hands over her mouth and said, “I forgot, Mummy!” Angelina replied, “No matter, darling. Barbara will keep our secret. I hope.”

“You will, Barbara, won’t you?” Hadiyyah asked. “Dad’ll be so cross if he knows where we went.”

“Don’t nag, Hadiyyah,” Angelina said. And to Barbara, “Would you like a cup of tea? I’m parched and you look a bit rough round the edges. Difficult day?”

“Just a trip to Greenford.” Barbara said nothing