Ivoria by Tanith Lee (uplifting novels .txt) 📕

weekend, I followed Mr Lewis by car from this - your - building to a block of flats in the more opulent part of Wimbledon, and there he joined yet another young lady, staying on with her, as ever, through Saturday and Sunday, and only leaving around eleven on Monday morning. Which, in fact, was a little earlier than any of Mr Lewis’s former extramarital departures.”

“So,” Nick pauses. “So - you must have seen him drive on to Richmond.”

“No, I’m afraid I did not. Mrs Lewis had felt by then she had more than enough evidence to supply her lawyers. She requested simply that I take note what time Mr Lewis left the flats, after which my part in the search was over. I duly did note the time and called Mrs Lewis. I then drove to Putney, where there is another very good pub owned by an old friend of mine.”

Nick thinks. He visualises these sketches, scenes, in half tones. All this explains, or confirms, why Angela had not bothered to call Nick until Monday evening, by which time she must have been wondering where on earth Laurence had now got to, and knowing now the rat would soon be out of the bag, she was ready to hit back. (Why she had the idea Nick had led Laurence astray God knew. Or maybe Serena had got the wrong end of the stick.)

Almost idly Nick says, “You say he left this woman unusually early. Do you know why?”

“I can’t imagine, sir. I saw her - I took care to see all the ladies. And photograph them, too. And this one was by far the most attractive.”

Nick, despite all of it - the writer? - says, “How did you see them? You followed them?”

Pond takes another swallow. He is a slow and thorough drinker.

“In the first case at Manchester, I saw Mr Lewis meet her at a restaurant and then go back to her house. The second young lady in the pub was also there for anyone to see. Later she and Mr Lewis went upstairs for the night, and the same procedure for Saturday and Sunday. The third lady I didn’t see, and it seemed likely I might not. I wanted to be sure. I admit I’ve known cases where the guilty party had simply blamelessly been visiting a friend or business associate. Therefore, since this was to be the last active part of my work for Mrs Lewis, and it wouldn’t matter too much if either of the suspects saw me quite well, I went up to the flat whose bell Mr Lewis had pressed, on Friday evening. Another tenant happened to be going in, and let me in also perfectly happily when I said I was calling on a friend upstairs who was deaf. The lady in question opened the flat door. She was a very charming sight. She had come from the shower I expect, and had on a very short bathrobe. Mr Lewis was in the room at the end of the hall, I could see him too quite clearly, drinking coffee and wearing only a towel. Of course I told her the same story of the deaf friend - and additionally that I’d mistaken the flat number. Two old fools no doubt she thought, deaf and blind, we’d only need a dumb one to make up the set.”

Nick finds he is more depressed than gratified to gain these details. He and Pond need to stop gossiping now. Nick needs to tell Pond about the drawer-man and the break-in. Yet, even as Nick decides this, the whole affair seems childish and a sort of embarrassment delays him - long enough, enough of a lacuna, that Pond continues:

“I took a picture of her too, for my client, even in such close proximity - I find some modern gadgetry very ingenious and helpful. A pity I don’t have the photo on me, to show you. When I was a younger man, sometimes at the cinema, on the screen you’d see a woman like that. Or in old films now, on TV. Vivien Leigh, that kind of type, or softer than that, really. Ah, there was an actress, yes, I saw her in a couple of movies when I was in short pants. What was her name? Classic blonde, slim and curvy, dark blue eyes.”

Nick feels the shaky thing in him all at once rear and lash its tail.

But he hears himself, as he had heard himself laugh at Kit’s letter, say coolly, “Claudia Martin.”

“That’s it.” Pond is pleased. “Claudia Martin. English too. Fancy your knowing, sir.”

And stupidly, since Nick believes Pond must himself already know - or did Angela never mention it, Pond never somehow learn? - Nick says, “She was my mother.”

Pond gazes at him, smiling like a friendly sheep. “You’re joking, Mr Lewis.”

“No. Look her up, you’ll see it there. Laurence was her son, too.”

Pond’s face becomes like a plasticene model, but pressed almost blank.

“That’s very odd, isn’t it, when this woman of your brother’s was so like her.”

Nick’s mind gurns in a welter of insane images. Pond seemss to have just said that Laurence was with Kit Price. Kit Price was the woman Laurence had been with in Wimbledon.

Yet what Nick says and does has nothing to do with this either error or revelation. For Nick says again, “He was Claudia’s son, too.”

And then Nick starts to cry. His whole head, his body, must be full of water, tasting of sea, smelling of bonfires. It gushes out like a nosebleed, silly and disgusting. And worst of all, he does not know if he is finally mourning for Claudia -at last, at last, after more than twelve years - or is it Laurence he is crying for? But he cannot control it. He is bleeding or crying to death. The water is even pooling on the floor now, gleaming there in lamplight, like spilled urine or vodka.

12

During the night he wakes twice.

Each