The Gropes Page 5

  ‘Well, I agree it’s not right to feel the way I do. I know that, but I can’t help myself. He’s always hanging around, imitating me. It’s … it’s like having a doppelgänger.’

  ‘A doppelgänger?’ said Albert, who had as much trouble with the word as he’d had with psyche, perhaps understandably given that his mind seldom left the world of buying and selling cars. And he’d certainly never heard of one called a doppelgänger.

  ‘A double, someone who’s always with you and acts the same way as you do and you can’t get rid of him,’ Horace explained. He paused with a sinister glint in his eyes. ‘Except by killing him.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Albert, now thoroughly alarmed. Horace was clearly as mad as a hatter. ‘Are you telling me you want to murder him?’

  ‘Not want to. Got to. You don’t know what it’s like never being able to get away from someone who’s just like you but isn’t. If only he’d go away for a bit and leave me alone I’d feel a lot safer. I mean, it’s not nice getting this terrible urge to murder your own son. And I’ve got Vera to think of. I’d leave the bank and go away myself if it would do any good, but I’ve got to support her and earn a living and she’s been such a wonderful wife I wouldn’t want to do anything to upset her.’

  Albert Ponson considered the statement and found it difficult to reconcile with Horace’s dreadful urge to kill Esmond. ‘Upset’ was putting it mildly. Vera’s reaction would be far more deadly. In fact, 143 Selhurst Road would go down in the annals of British crime history along with Rillington Place and other houses where there’d been multiple horrors. It wouldn’t do Ponson’s Pre-Used Motors much good either.

  Seeing Albert weaken, Horace struck again.

  ‘I’ve thought of how to do it too. I’d have to get rid of every trace of him of course,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t have bits of him in the garden for instance, or under the cellar floor. So I’d have to dissolve his body in acid. I measured the water butt behind the garage and he’d fit in there easily, lanky limbs and all, and I’ve got a customer at the bank in the acid and chemical business who’d let me have forty gallons of nitric acid cheap.’

  Albert sat down at the foot of the bed with his head in his hands, only half listening to his brother-in-law’s ravings, and all hope of beating a hasty exit back to the relative sanity of the Ponson bungalow disappeared.

  Chapter 7

  By the time Albert Ponson went downstairs, he was a shaken man. His feelings for his brother-in-law had turned from contempt to detestation and fear. The bloody man had described his plans for disposing of Esmond’s remains with a wealth of detail and relish that had been wholly convincing. Horace Wiley might be a bank manager but he was also on the verge of becoming a homicidal maniac. To add to this impression of lunacy, he had interspersed the description of the acid-bath technique with repeated remarks about loving his wife and worrying about her feelings.

  Albert Ponson shared his concerns. The thought of marching into the kitchen and telling Vera that her damned husband had measured the water butt behind the garage with a view to putting her son in it and adding fifteen gallons of concentrated nitric acid to it made his blood run cold.

  ‘It’s a big butt but with Esmond in it I don’t think I’ll need more than twenty gallons,’ Horace had said. ‘I can always top it up a bit later when most of the body is dissolved. And since there’s a lid on it, no one would dream of looking for him in there. That would be the last place they’d look, don’t you think?’

  Albert Ponson had hardly been able to think at all. The most he could do was mutter, ‘I don’t believe what I’m hearing,’ over and over again. But now, as he stood hesitantly outside the kitchen door, he thought furiously and arrived at a conclusion. Vera wouldn’t like it, but she’d have to lump it. It would be preferable to losing Esmond in an acid butt.

  ‘I’ve had a good long talk with Horace,’ he told her. ‘And what he needs is complete rest if he’s to avoid a nervous breakdown. And obviously having Esmond around the house all the time is part of the problem.’

  ‘But he’s not around the house all the time. He’s at school. And anyway, even if he was, Horace isn’t here to be bothered. He’s at the bank. Or the pub. He leaves here at the crack of dawn and then comes home drunk and –’

  ‘Yes, I know all that,’ Albert interrupted. ‘But that’s because Esmond … that’s one of Horace’s symptoms. He’s suffering from … well, from stress.’

  ‘Stress? What sort of stress? And what about me? You don’t think I’m under stress with an alcoholic husband who comes home and tries to kill my only son with a carving knife and –’

  ‘I know. I know you are,’ Albert interrupted again, desperate not to get into a discussion about Horace’s murderous tendencies. Carving knives were mild compared to water butts filled with nitric acid.

  ‘The point is that Horace needs …’ He paused and searched for a word. ‘He needs space. He’s got a midlife crisis.’

  ‘A midlife crisis?’ said Vera doubtfully.

  ‘Yeah, like … like he’s got the male menopause. Now what’s wrong?’

  Vera had snorted in a most unpleasant manner.

  ‘Male menopause, my foot,’ she said bitterly. ‘He’s had that ever since I married him. He didn’t have to wait till midlife to come up with male menopauses. If you knew what I’ve had to put up with the last sixteen years. If you only knew …’

  But Albert didn’t want to know. He wasn’t a squeamish man, or even a faintly sensitive one, but there were some things he definitely didn’t want to hear about and his sister’s sex life was one of them.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You asked me down here to talk to Horace and sort things out, and that’s what I’m trying to do. And what I’m saying is that Horace is on the verge of a major breakdown. Now, if you want him to lose his job and go on the dole and have him sitting at home in front of the telly –’ He stopped, an idea suddenly coming into his mind. ‘– that is, if you’ve still got a telly what with all the debts he’s piled up …’

  The idea of Horace having debts galvanised Vera just as Albert knew it would. Sentimental she might be but she was still a Ponson and money mattered to her.

  ‘Oh God,’ she said. This was even worse than she’d thought. ‘Don’t tell me he’s gone and got us into debt as well as everything else. He’s been gambling, hasn’t he? First the drink and then the violence and now this. Oh, Albert, what are we going to do?’

  Albert took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. He’d known mentioning money and debts would send Vera up the wall. But, as he’d expected, it was making her listen to him a lot more carefully.

  ‘The first thing is to get him back to work,’ he said. ‘His debts aren’t the main problem, although what possessed him to put all your money into stocks and shares I’ll never know. Never mind that, they say the stock market is on the upturn and once he’s back at work he can get it all sorted out. Now, what he really needs is time and space from Esmond. If not, there’s no saying what the consequences may be.’

  ‘But the school holidays are coming up at the end of the week and how can I stop my own darling Esmond from getting on Horace’s nerves? He’s such a lovely boy and always wants to be helpful and –’

  ‘I’ve thought of that,’ said Albert before she could go into her nauseous sentimental mode. ‘Esmond can come and help me around the garage and give Horace a bit of peace and quiet to get well again …’

  Upstairs Horace Wiley listened to the murmur of voices in the kitchen and felt better. That bit about the water butt had done the trick. Even Albert had gone a funny colour when he’d heard that one.

  Chapter 8

  In the Ponsons’ extensive bungalow, a confection of flock wallpaper, gold Dralon sofas and ankle-deep pink carpets, and where every bedroom had both a bathroom and a jacuzzi, the news that the place was shortly to be infested by Esmond Wiley was not entirely welcome.

  Belinda Ponson, Albert’s wife, was not a large, loud, effulgent
woman like her sister-in-law and she was certainly not a sentimental one. She was best described as quiet and particular – although she had not always been that way – and she was particularly particular about her furnishings. The thought of what an adolescent with muddy shoes and oily hands would do to the flock wallpaper and the Dralon sofas, not to mention the pink carpet, deeply disturbed her.

  ‘I’m not having him spoil the decor’, she told Albert, who always had to take his shoes off in the front porch and put on some special slippers before entering the bungalow. ‘I know what boys are like. That sister of yours has spoilt that son of hers something awful and he’s bound to be unhygienic as well. All boys are. What possessed you to invite him without consulting me?’

  ‘Horace did,’ Albert said tersely. ‘He’s off his rocker.’

  ‘I don’t care what he’s off. He’s never done you any favours so why have you got to do him any? That’s what I want to know.’

  ‘Because, like I say, he’s off his trolley, and he’ll stay off it and worse if he has the boy around the house. I don’t want Vera on my hands for the rest of her natural. Do you want her living here and interfering and all?’

  There was no need for Belinda to answer.

  ‘Well, all I can say is I’m not having Esmond bring his girlfriends here and lounging about in dirty jeans and messing my house up.’

  Albert helped himself to a large Scotch from a cut-glass decanter with a gold-plated label that said Chivas Regal.

  ‘He doesn’t wear jeans. He goes around in a blue suit and a tie just like his dad,’ he said. ‘That’s what’s driven Horace bonkers. Says it’s like having another him around the house.’

  ‘Another him? What are you talking about? I never heard such nonsense in my life.’

  ‘Like he’s got a dopple … a double. Like he’s a split personality. And seeing Horace is the way he is, I mean the way he looks, it must be bloody horrible to have two of him round the house.’

  ‘If that’s the case, I don’t want one of him,’ said Belinda. ‘Your sister can keep all three of them.’

  ‘Three of them? What the hell are you on about?’ Albert demanded. But Belinda had already gone through to the Poggenpohl kitchen to relieve her feelings on the washing machine.

  Around her the appurtenances of modern living had their usual soothing, emollient effect. They almost disguised her feelings from herself. The blender, the microwave, the split-level oven with revolving spit, the espresso machine and the stainless-steel sink with the separate spigot from the reverse osmosis water filter, all served to assure her that she had some sort of purpose and meaning in life when life with Albert often suggested the opposite.

  Albert could have his swimming bath and his leather-padded bar with its saddled and stirruped stools and Wild West number plates and flags – and even his Yellow Rose of Texas bumper sticker; he could have his barbecues and gas-fired charcoal grills to impress his friends and prove his manliness; in fact, he could have everything he wanted – except her kitchen and her secret thoughts. And her unsatisfied desire. Although come to think of it, he could have her unsatisfied desire if only he’d satisfy it. No, the kitchen was sacrosanct if it only masked other needs.

  Belinda Ponson mused about Esmond Wiley’s coming. If he really was like his father and wore a blue suit and a tie he might be just the antidote to Albert she had been waiting for. Albert was too obvious and too crude. And he’d failed to give her what she wanted above anything else in the world. A daughter. Something she had dreamed of since she was a little girl herself, surrounded by grandmas and aunties and cousins.

  Belinda brightened. Perhaps the lad could be something else. Like a toy boy. She knew for a fact that Albert hadn’t been faithful to her over all the years of their marriage and perhaps this was the very moment to break free of the wretched man.

  If Esmond was like his father then odds were that he would be timorous and biddable and easily influenced. In fact, the more Belinda thought about it the more pleasing the idea of having Esmond around the house became.

  Chapter 9

  Almost precisely the opposite thoughts were going through Vera Wiley’s mind.

  Vera still hadn’t got over the shock of hearing that Horace had got into debt by gambling on the stock market. She couldn’t bear to think of the consequences this would have if he didn’t recover from his breakdown and get back to his desk at the bank and sell whatever shares he still had that would go up when the market rose again.

  On the other hand, the prospect of parting even temporarily with her love child Esmond appalled her. Especially having him go to that cow of a sister-in-law, Belinda. Albert was all right in his own bluff way, even if his business was a bit dodgy, but that Belinda wasn’t a nice person at all.

  ‘If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times,’ she told Horace without exaggeration, ‘that Belinda is a cold fish. What Albert sees in her I can’t think.’

  Horace could, but he kept his thoughts on the subject to himself. Albert’s choice of an expert property lawyer and tax consultant as his bride had been a shrewd one for a man in his line of business in Essex, even if Belinda had apparently retired from the profession on marriage. In his own devious heart, Horace rather envied him. Besides, Belinda was a good-looking woman and had kept her figure, which was more than could be said for Vera. And even more to his liking was that she kept herself to herself, at least when there was company. She was just there in the background, making herself useful in the kitchen and not hogging the limelight like Vera and Albert.

  Not that the Wileys had been invited to many of the Ponsons’ parties, and the ones they had gone to had been too rowdy for Horace’s taste and his reputation as a respectable bank manager. And by all accounts they had been tame affairs compared to some Albert had boasted about. Even Vera had been shocked by her brother’s accounts of mixed couples in jacuzzis, though Horace had privately suspected her of a good deal of envy. Which made it all the more surprising that she was prepared to let Esmond go and stay at Ponson Place for the summer.

  Horace lay in bed, nursing his hangover and resisting the urge to cover his ears as Vera rattled on. He wondered what the hell Albert had told her that had been so persuasive. Obviously he hadn’t mentioned the water butt behind the garage. Vera would have gone out of her mind with rage. But instead she was harping on about what a cold fish that Belinda was, and not being sure about Esmond being happy with going away to Essex. And how would a woman who couldn’t have children of her own know how to feed a growing boy like Esmond? Esmond was so fussy about his food and besides he was delicate and …

  Horace listened to her and tried to look even sicker than he felt. As far as he was concerned, Belinda Ponson could starve his ghastly son to death or make his life utter hell as long as she didn’t drive the brute to come home.

  ‘I just need to rest,’ he whimpered, partly as an answer to his own unspoken thoughts, and was relieved to hear Vera sigh and most surprisingly agree, without the added comment that if he would come home stinking drunk he’d got what he deserved. Instead she went downstairs and waited for Esmond to come home from school to tell him that Uncle Albert and Auntie Belinda had very kindly asked him to stay for the summer holidays.

  All the same, Vera’s doubts remained. Something was wrong and that something hadn’t anything to do with Horace getting drunk or coming home late and talking about Esmond being him. It wasn’t even the inconceivable idea of Horace gambling on the stock market. There was something else niggling away at her.

  Sitting at the kitchen table with Sackbut staring out the window from his customary place by the cactus, it slowly dawned on her what that something might be. And if she was right, then Horace’s behaviour, odd and mad as it had seemed, was actually calculated and purposeful and made complete sense. What if Horace had another woman or, as the romances she read put it, a mistress? That would explain everything, his leaving the house early and coming home later and later, his drinking and how he�
�d got into debt. It even explained his horrid behaviour to Esmond; he hated him because Esmond was a constant reminder of his duty as a father and a husband. And of course it explained why he was no good in bed and she’d always had to do all the lovemaking.

  As this terrible conviction hit her and she knew herself to be a wronged woman, nay, a betrayed wife, and Horace no more than a philanderer, conflicting tidal waves of emotion crashed over her. Her first impulse, to rush upstairs and confront the faithless Horace with his guilt, was succeeded by the thought of the effect on her darling Esmond. The poor lad would be traumatised.

  It wasn’t a word that came at all easily to a woman who lived an emotional life almost entirely based on early-nineteenth-century Regency bucks who crushed maidens to their manly breasts, fought duels after dancing till dawn and then rode great black horses post-haste, etc., but she’d heard it on the telly and it came to her now.

  She couldn’t allow Esmond to be traumatised. She had to do her duty as a mother, and if that meant sacrificing her own feelings, at least for the time being, she would do so. Which didn’t mean she wasn’t going to express her fury the moment Esmond had left for Ponson Place. Oh, she’d have something to say to Horace then …

  She was stopped by another thought: the cunning and skill with which Horace had managed to get Esmond out of the house. He had said something to Albert, something that had so shocked that bluff man that Albert had come down to the kitchen clearly shaken to the core by what he had just heard. Vera had never seen her brother so ashen and Albert was not a man to be shocked easily.

  Of course, of course, Horace had confessed everything to him. Albert had forced Horace to tell him everything about the other woman who haunted his dreams. Or Horace had boasted to Albert about his mistress who exhausted him nightly, which is why he was always late home with nothing left for Vera, his loyal wife.

  For a moment Vera’s fury nearly sent her dashing up to the bedroom to have it out but the combination of Esmond being traumatised and the feeling that she had more to gain by pretending to know nothing prevented her. Instead, she went out into the garden and sauntered tragically among the pink aubretia, the pelargoniums so red and the trailing lobelias so very, very blue. Here, among the bedding plants and the striped and weed-free lawn, she could weep unseen those tears her new role required.