A Natural Curiosity Read Free

looked at her in friendly contempt, and they both laughed.
    ‘I don’t know much about archaeological techniques,’ said Alix, in apology.
    ‘I had a letter from my Dad,’ said Paul. ‘He says he’s shut up the shop. My fault, he says.’
    Alix did not want to imply that it was not, so said nothing.
    ‘He blames me,’ continued Paul, experimentally.
    ‘He must be getting on a bit anyway,’ said Alix, as a diversionary tactic, as a semi-excuse. One of these days, Alix fears, Paul will ask her to go and visit his father. She half hopes he will, half fears it. Paul’s father had been pursued by and interviewed by the press at the time of the trial, but had not said much. Would he have more to say now?
    ‘Fifty-eight, he is,’ said Paul.
    A silence fell, during which Alix reflected that she was getting on a bit too and that, though it did not seem so to her, it must seem so to others, including Paul, who was young enough to be her son.
    Paul abandoned the subject of his father, turned another page, and lit on a picture of a coin portraying the vanquished Britannia, elegantly perched. From the next page, the Colchester sphinx with a human head in her forepaws gazed bare-breasted at them. Riddles, mysteries. How to read them?
Was
there any way of reading them? Was this mild amateur scholar victim, villain or accident? The sphinx’s nose was battered, but her wings were powerfully built, undamaged.
    Alix could tell that Paul was pleased with the book, and this gave her pleasure. Though why she should try so hard to please a convicted multi-murderer is a riddle, a mystery.
     
    Ancient crimes. Clive and Susie Enderby contemplated them over a glass of sherry. Separately, together, a whole assortment of them. They were both in a state of mild shock, though neither would have admitted it. The new year had begun badly. This evening, Susie had put on her new mustard-coloured layered coordinates, to cheer herself up, but they hadn’t made her feel all that cheerful. She kept glancing at herself in the carefully angled mirror over the fake marble mantelshelf, to keep up morale. And this was supposed to be a good year, a prosperous year, with Enderby & Enderby in its glittering new premises in Dean Street and Clive in the running to become the youngest ever President of the Chamber of Commerce. A pity it had started off on such an odd note. They should never have gone to Janice’s. It was Janice’s fault. But the mustard was a good shade. And a good dry silky rustly texture too. She stroked her own sleeve. Amber. Amber would look good on the mustard. The false gas fire glowed.
    Domestic tranquillity. The children were playing upstairs, already in their nightclothes, model children. The table was laid in the dining-room, with cloth and candles, for a rare quiet meal together. Susie had looked forward to this evening, had hoped that it might be a small occasion for celebration, for self-congratulation, for closeness. Not that she had consciously thought that she and Clive were growing apart, no, but he was so busy these days, so preoccupied—as indeed he was now, but at least it was by something that she knew about, something that she understood. Susie did not understand Regional Development Grants and European Investment Strategies and Incentive Zones, but she understood all too well what had happened the night before, at Janice’s, and could feel herself, despite herself, drawn towards dragging it up again. Clive couldn’t just go on sitting there, saying nothing, sipping his sherry. And why was he having a sherry anyway? He usually had a gin and tonic. Was it meant to be some kind of comment or something?
    The silence was irritable, painful. It was all Janice’s fault.
    ‘What an evening,’ said Susie, at last, irresistibly. ‘I’m never going to try to make you go to Janice’s again.’
    ‘No need to assume responsibility,’ said Clive. ‘She’s my sister-in-law, not yours.’
    ‘But I was at school with