The Skull Beneath the Skin by P. D. James Page A

who had his own ideas about his son-in-law’s future.
    She said in a voice that was almost a wail: “What is Clarissa going to think?”
    “Well, isn’t it rather what she’d think if I did come? She knows I’m married. I mean, you must have let that drop. Wouldn’t it look rather odd, the two of us arriving together? And it’s not as if we could have shared a room or anything like that.”
    “By anything like that I suppose you mean that we couldn’t have slept together. Why not? Clarissa isn’t exactly a model of purity and I don’t suppose Ambrose Gorringe creeps down his corridors at night checking that his guests are in their own rooms.”
    He muttered: “It’s not that. I explained. It’s Stella’s father.”
    “But this weekend might have freed you from him and her. I thought we could have spoken to Clarissa, told her about the shop, asked if she couldn’t help. That’s why I wangled the invitation. After all, a third of her money comes to me if she dies without a child. It’s all in Uncle’s will. It wouldn’t harm her to part with some when it’s most needed. We’d only be asking for a loan.”
    She tried not to see the hope brightening in his face. Then it faded. He said sulkily: “I couldn’t ask a woman for money.”
    “You wouldn’t have to. I’d do the asking. What I thought was that she’d meet you, like you. She’d be seeing you under the best possible conditions. Then I could speak to her when the time seemed right. It’s worth a try, darling. Even twenty thousand would mean all the difference.”
    “What would you get if she died?”
    “I’m not sure. About eighty thousand I think. It could be more.”
    He turned away. “And that’s about what we’d need if I were to leave Stella, get a divorce. But Clarissa isn’t going to die just to convenience us. Twenty thousand might just save the shop. But that’s about all it would do. And why should she part withit? Anyone with an ounce of financial sense would see that it would be throwing good money after bad. It’s no use. I can’t come this weekend.”
    Above them the floor creaked. Someone had come into the shop. He said quickly, gratefully: “Sounds like a customer. Look, I’ll close promptly at five if there’s nothing doing and give you a hand down here. We’ll get this room together somehow.”
    When he had gone she went over and stared out of the window, standing rigidly, grasping the edges of the sink so tightly that her knuckles were white. Her eyes were unfocused, staring beyond the railings, the crumbling stucco on the basement wall, to where the brightly patterned reds, greens and yellows of the fruit stall on the opposite pavement fused and shivered. From time to time feet passed, voices called, the narrow street broke momentarily into life. And still that silent figure at the window stood unmoving. Then she gave a little sigh. The taut shoulders relaxed, the fingers loosened their grip. She took up the woodcut from the draining board and studied it as if she hadn’t seen it before. Then she opened her shoulder bag and folded it carefully away.

6
    Simon Lessing stood at the open window of his study at Melhurst and gazed out over the wide lawns to where the river cut its slow stream between the horse chestnuts and the limes. In his hand he held Clarissa’s still unopened letter. It had arrived by the morning post, but there had been an excuse for not opening it then. He had had an early practice period. And that had been followed by the sixth-form seminar. He had told himself that he would wait until break. But the morning had passed and now it was the lunch hour. In less than five minutes the bell would sound. He couldn’t delay indefinitely. It was ridiculous and humiliating to be so afraid, to stand like a first-former holding a dreaded school report, knowing that, however long and cunningly deferred, the moment of truth must come at last.
    He would wait until the bell actually sounded, and then he