The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [26]
She finally emerged from a bedroom at the end of the landing. “OK, I’ve got a signal. Do you want to try for the connection?”
It was a Heath Robinson set-up—a stepped pyramid built out of a dressing-table, a chest of drawers and some chairs—but it worked. It meant crouching under the ceiling to make the link but, once established, I was able to operate the computer at floor level.
“The signal’s stronger in the attic,” said Jess, “but it’ll mean climbing up there every time the battery runs down or you want to log off. I didn’t think you’d want to do that…and you’d probably get lost, anyway. It’s not very obvious which room you’re above.”
“How can I thank you?” I asked her warmly. “Perhaps you’d like a glass of wine or a beer? I have both in the car.”
She showed immediate disapproval. “I don’t drink.” And neither should you, was the firm rebuke that I took from her expression. She was even more disapproving when I lit a cigarette as we went back downstairs. “That’s about the worst thing you can do. If you get bronchitis on top of a panic attack, you’ll really be struggling.”
Delayed maturity and pointy-hat puritanism made a lethal combination, I thought, wondering if she’d cast me as dissolute Edwina from Absolutely Fabulous with herself as Saffy, the high-minded daughter. I was tempted to make a joke about it, but suspected that television was a focus of disapproval as well. I had no sense that there was room for fun in Jess’s life or, if there was, that it was the sort of fun anyone else would recognize.
Before she left, I asked her how I could contact her. “Why would you want to?” she asked.
For help… “To thank you.”
“There’s no need. I’ll take it as read.”
I decided to be honest. “I don’t know who to call if something goes wrong,” I said with a tentative smile. “I doubt the agent could have lit the Aga.”
She smiled rather grudgingly in return. “My number’s in the book under J. Derbyshire, Barton Farm. I suppose you want help with the extension cables for the landline?”
I nodded.
“I’ll be here at eight-thirty.”
THIS WAS THE PATTERN of the days that followed. Jess would make a reluctant offer of help, come the next morning to fulfil it, say very little before going away again, then return in the evening to point out something else she could do for me. On a few occasions I said I could manage myself, but she didn’t take the hint. Peter described me as her new pet—not a bad description, because she regularly brought me food from the farm—but her constant intrusions and bossy attitude began to annoy me.
It’s not as if I got to know her well. We had none of the conversations that two women in their thirties would normally have. She used silence as a weapon—either because she had total insight into the reaction it inspired, or none at all. It allowed her to dictate every social gathering—and by that I mean her and me, as I never saw her in a larger group except on the rare occasions when Peter dropped in—because the choice was to join in her silences or trot out a vacuous monologue. Neither of which made for a comfortable atmosphere.
It was difficult to decide how conscious this behaviour was. Sometimes I thought she was highly manipulative; other times I saw her as a victim, isolated and alienated by circumstance. Peter, who knew her as well as anyone, compared her to a feral cat—selfsufficient and unpredictable, with sharp claws. It was a fanciful analogy, but fairly accurate, since the goal of Winterbourne Barton appeared to be to “tame” her. Nonconformists may be the bread-and-butter of the media, and loved by the chattering classes, but they’re singled out for criticism in small communities.
Over time I heard Jess described as everything from an “animal rights activist” to a “predatory lesbian