The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett [98]
Against one wall was a small upright piano. She wondered who played. Perhaps Mrs. Vandam sat here sometimes, in the evenings, filling the air with Chopin while Vandam sat in the armchair, over there, watching her fondly. Perhaps Vandam accompanied himself as he sang romantic ballads to her in a strong tenor. Perhaps Billy had a tutor, and fingered hesitant scales every afternoon when he came home from school. She looked through the pile of sheet music in the seat of the piano stool. She had been right about the Chopin: they had all the waltzes here in a book.
She picked up a novel from the top of the piano and opened it. She read the first line: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” The opening sentences intrigued her, and she wondered whether Vandam was reading the book. Perhaps she could borrow it: it would be good to have something of his. On the other hand, she had the feeling he was not a great reader of fiction. She did not want to borrow it from his wife.
Billy came in. Elene put the book down.suddenly, feeling irrationally guilty, as if she had been prying. Billy saw the gesture. “That one’s no good,” he said. “It’s about some silly girl who’s afraid of her husband’s housekeeper. There’s no action.”
Elene sat down, and Billy sat opposite her. Obviously he was going to entertain her. He was a miniature of his father, except for those clear gray eyes. She said: “You’ve read it, then?”
“Rebecca? Yes. But I didn’t like it much. I always finish them, though.”
“What do you like to read?”
“I like tecs best.”
“Tecs?”
“Detectives. I’ve read all of Agatha Christie’s and Dorothy Say ers’. But I like the American ones most of all—S. S. Van Dine and Raymond Chandler.”
“Really?” Elene smiled. “I like detective stories too—I read them all the time.”
“Oh! Who’s your favorite tec?”
Elene considered. “Maigret.”
“I’ve never heard of him. What’s the author’s name?”
“Georges Simenon. He writes in French, but now some of the books have been translated into English. They’re set in Paris, mostly. They’re very ... complex.”
“Would you lend me one? It’s so hard to get new books, I’ve read all the ones in this house, and in the school library. And I swap with my friends but they like, you know, stories about children having adventures in the school holidays.”
“All right,” Elene said. “Let’s swap. What have you got to lend me? I don’t think I’ve read any American ones.”
“I’ll lend you a Chandler. The American ones are much more true to life, you know. I’ve gone off those stories about English country houses and people who probably couldn’t murder a fly.”
It was odd, Elene thought, that a boy for whom the English country house might be part of everyday life should find stories about American private eyes more “true to life.” She hesitated, then asked: “Does your mother read detective stories?”
Billy said briskly: “My mother died last year in Crete.”
“Oh!” Elene put her hand to her mouth; she felt the blood drain from her face. So Vandam was not married!
A moment later she felt ashamed that that had been her first thought, and sympathy for the child her second. She said: “Billy, how awful for you. I’m so sorry.” Real death had suddenly intruded into their lighthearted talk of murder stories, and she felt embarrassed.
“It’s all right,” Billy said. “It’s the war, you see.”
And now he was like his father again. For a while, talking about books, he had been full of boyish enthusiasm, but now the mask was on, and it was a smaller version of the mask used by his father: courtesy, formality, the attitude of the considerate host. It’s the war, you see: he had heard someone else say that, and had adopted it as his own defense. She wondered whether his preference for “true-to-life” murders, as opposed to implausible country-house