The Bridesmaid Read Free Page B

ex-wife bought it in a garage sale.”
    Philip blushed. His efforts anyway had done nothing to stem the tide of Fee’s forensic narrative. “She’s probably dead already, and they’ve found the body and are keeping it dark. For their own reasons. To trap someone.”
    “If that’s true,” Arnham said, “it will come out at the inquest. In this country the police don’t keep things dark.”
    It was Cheryl who spoke, who hadn’t uttered a word since they came back from the garden. “Who are you trying to kid?”
    Arnham made no reply to that. He said very stiffly, “Would you like a drink?” His eyes ranged over them as if they were a dozen people instead of four. “Any of you?”
    “What have you got?” This was Fee. Philip had a very good idea this wasn’t a question you asked people like Arnham, though it might have gone down perfectly well in the circles Fee and Darren moved in.
    “Anything you will be able to think of.”
    “Then, can I have a Bacardi and Coke?”
    Of course that was something he didn’t have. He dispensed second choices, sherry, gin and tonic. To Philip’s astonishment, though he knew she could be strangely insensitive, Christine seemed unaware of how frigid the atmosphere had grown. With a glass of Bristol Cream in her hand, she continued along the lines Philip himself had set and made admiring comments on various items of Arnham’s furniture and ornaments. Such and such a thing was nice, everything was very nice, the carpets were particularly nice and of such good quality. Philip marvelled at her transparency. She spoke as one humbly grateful for an unexpected, munificent gift.
    Arnham said harshly, smashing all that, “Everything will have to be sold. There’s a court order that everything has to be sold and the proceeds divided between myself and my ex-wife.” He drew a long breath that sounded stoical. “And now I suggest you let me take you all out for a meal somewhere. I don’t think we can quite manage anything here. The local steakhouse—how will that suit?”
    He took them in the Jaguar. It was a big car, so there was no difficulty about their all getting into it. Philip thought he ought to feel grateful to Arnham for taking them all out and paying for their dinner, but he didn’t. He felt it would have been better for him to come out with the truth, say he had only been expecting Christine, and then entertain Christine on her own as he had originally planned to do. He and Fee and Cheryl wouldn’t have minded; they would have preferred it—at any rate he would—to sitting here in the glowing dimness, the pseudo-country manor decor, of a second-rate restaurant above a supermarket, trying to make conversation with someone who was obviously longing for them to leave.
    People of Arnham’s generation lacked openness, Philip thought. They weren’t honest. They were devious. Christine was the same: she wouldn’t speak her mind, she would think it rude. He hated the way she praised every dish that came as if Arnham had cooked it himself. Away from his own home Arnham had become much more expansive, talking pleasantly, drawing Cheryl out as to what she meant to do now she had left school, asking Fee about her fiancé and what he did for a living. He seemed to have got over his initial disappointment or anger. The interest he showed in her started Cheryl talking about their father, the least suitable of all possible subjects, Philip thought. But Cheryl, who had been closer to Stephen than any of his children, hadn’t, even now, begun the process of recovering from his death.
    “Oh, yes, it’s quite true, he was like that,” Christine said with a shade of embarrassment after Cheryl had spoke of their father’s love of gambling. “Mind you, no one suffered. He would never have had his family go without. Really, we benefited, didn’t we? A lot of the nice things we’ve got came from his gambling.”
    “Mum got her honeymoon paid for out of Dad’s Derby win,” said