Pam Pheasant

 

Chapter 1

 

“Duncan.  Damn you.  Where have you got to now, you idiot?”  Duncan Hollingshead gave up on his efforts to pick off one by one the generous coating of creamy yellow hairs that clung so persistently to the dark trousers of his smart business suit and rose from the Queen Anne style chair that graced his sister’s elegant sitting room.

“I’m in here, Marcia.”  He moved clumsily towards the door, tripping and nearly measuring his length over the edge of the Persian rug.   

“Not you, stupid.  Why should I mean you?  For God’s sake, get a life.  It’s Duncan.  He’s disappeared again.  Oh my God no.  How did he get out there?  Did you open the backdoor?  Oh no …..”  Her voice, which always carried well, rose to a pitch that threatened the sparkling cut glass rose bowl that caught the light on a low table by the French windows.  Looking out through the windows, the cause of her anguish was obvious, a large yellow Labrador dog, rolling with joyful abandon in one of a number of freshly dug flower beds.  A gaping brown scar disfigured the carefully laid turf of the new lawn.

“Oh no.  James will be livid.  Just look at him.  I bet you let him out.”

“I may have let him into the yard.  He was asking and I think he’s setting off my asthma.”   Admitted Duncan, rubbing his shin and wondering how much skin contact with the corner of another low coffee table had removed.

“You’re such a wimp,” said his sister, more mildly, but with disdain.  “You obviously didn’t check that the gate was shut.  He can’t jump six foot.  I suppose with your asthma you won’t be able to get him in and clean him up.  No, don’t bother.  I’ll sort him out.  You’ll get in more mess than you are already.”  

“I can’t think why you called him Duncan; it’s so confusing;” grumbled Duncan, watching his sister crooning to the big dog as she expertly removed the worst of the mud.  What really annoyed him was the fact that when she had finished her tawny silk trouser suit still looked immaculate and not a hair was displaced from her expertly casual hairstyle. 

“I don’t know.  He was such a pathetic little bundle when we got him from the rescue centre.” 

Duncan chose to ignore, the inference.  “Whatever is that you are spraying on him?  Smells expensive.”

“Dog deodorant.  Try it if you like.  I wouldn’t use it myself, but it may suit you.”

“No thanks.  Wow, it’s a bit overpowering.  Not sure I didn’t prefer eau de wet dog.”

“It wears off and James definitely doesn’t care for chien au naturel.”

They met James for lunch in the trendy restaurant attached to what had once been the local public house of the Victorian South London suburb.  The suburb had degenerated into a slum by the nineteen-fifties, but was climbing back up the social ladder.  It was just the sort of place for a go-ahead management consultant like James to start out, with a good train service into or out of town.

“What’s your next big assignment?”  Although James followed Marcia’s tendency to disparage her younger brother, he was in some awe of his expertise with computers and often treated him as a free help desk. 

“A local one, thank goodness.”  Duncan was relieved that his brother in law at least was sensitive enough not to plunge in with a painful enquiry into his personal affairs.  “It’s a strange place, called Willenshaw House, a great big rambling mansion divided up into serviced offices.  Each of the companies has got its own system at the moment, quite primitive some of them.  The agent, who is a bit of a cold fish, wants them all to subscribe to a single networked system.   I think there is some reluctance, but he seems to be having his way.   It’s an odd set up.”

“What do you mean?”  James was not really interested.

“I am not sure,” said Duncan thoughtfully.  “It’s strange, but when you go into a place like I do, as an outsider, you pick up all sorts of undercurrents.  It can be quite interesting sometimes working out the relationships.  People talk to you because you’re not permanent, not really involved, so they feel safe.”

“You never do get involved.  What did they say to you?  Why do you think it’s an odd set up?”  Marcia sounded mildly interested.  “Come on.  Dish up the dirt.”

“Oh, it’s more what they didn’t say.  There was a round the table meeting to introduce me.  Everyone was extremely polite.  That’s not normal.  There should have been some banter and teasing, but there was nothing.   I had a feeling they didn’t really like each other.  They all seemed to defer to Alistair Robbins, who is “the agent”, whatever that means.”

Seeing that he still had his sister’s attention, Duncan continued:  “It’s unusual too, to have a set up like that in the back of beyond.  Usually, if they are not in the centre of town, they’re in these new, purpose-built business developments on a ring road or just off the motorway.  Most of the tenant companies at this place are small partnerships, consultants, solicitors, accountants and the like.  Then the west wing, I think they call it, belongs to an event management and marketing company.  I imagine they will benefit the most from the new system and from being able to get an interactive website up and running.  God knows how they’ve managed to run their business without the benefit of an interactive website.”  Duncan sounded shocked.  “The telephone system will have to be replaced first.  I’ve given them a couple of weeks to think over what they need.  Then I’ll go back in and work out what they can have.”

“How many staff are there?  What are they like?”

“Didn’t meet them all.  The office manager seemed a pleasant lady – very smart, well spoken, about my age.”  Duncan recognised that his sister was probing and probably wondering if this new environment housed a substitute for Sue.  “Pity about her squint.”  He couldn’t resist teasing a little, but instantly felt ashamed.  The poor woman couldn’t help her deformity.  He of all people should sympathise with someone who didn’t look quite normal. 

Embarrassed by this faux pas and sensing a growing lack of attention in his audience, he rushed on:  “Oh yes and there’s a small design and print shop in the stables.  That seems to be a one-man band.  The chap that runs it came in late.  He was the only one who knew anything about computers, but he didn’t seem quite with it.”

Marcia, who had definitely lost interest in Duncan’s revelations about his new job, began to regale her husband with the latest gossip from the advertising agency where she worked part time.  She could be very amusing and serious James soon relaxed into laugher.  Watching her, Duncan thought again how odd it was that they should so different.   All his life he had suffered from the obvious comparisons.   Marcia’s school reports were spattered by understated comment such as “needs to express her views in a more moderate manner” or “bright, but could be less abrasive.”  Conversely, his reports said “timid, needs to assert himself” or “too easily satisfied, could make more effort.”  

Lingering in the gents, Duncan studied himself critically in the glass.  Marcia had the stunning looks of their mother.  Perhaps he took after their unknown father.  Perhaps their Dad had been a tall weedy specimen like himself, not very articulate and poorly co-ordinated with wiry black hair that stuck out at right angles if allowed to grow more than an inch in length.  Their father had died when Duncan was a baby and even Marcia, who had been two, had not the smallest recollection of him.  The only photographs showed him as a man of advanced years who obviously didn’t like having his photo taken.  He had left his wife and children very well provided for, the money tied up in trusts that prevented their flighty mother running through the capital.  Then, as Marcia said, he had done them all a favour by dying and saving them the embarrassment of having to own to a dribbling relative at parents evenings and on sports days. 

Marcia had always been forthright and a bit insensitive.  Nonetheless it was Marcia, not his mother, who had dragged him to the school doctor and forced the humiliating admission that he could barely see the blackboard let alone read what was written on it.  After he had been diagnosed as asthmatic, she had probably saved his life on one occasion when he had dropped behind on a school outing when he felt a major attack coming on rather than make fuss.  If she was a bit bossy, at least she didn’t patronise or mother him. 

“Whatever were you doing in there?  You always take so long.  Hurry up now.  James has gone to get the car.”  Duncan looked at his sister with affection.  It was good of her to take the day off to help him shop for some of the basic commodities of life that Sue had taken with her when she moved out.

Nonetheless, it was with relief that Duncan parked his BMW in the narrow lane that evening and contemplated the climb before him.  He and Sue had been delighted to discover this unpretentious house perched high on the slopes of the downs, with no immediate neighbours.  Forty steps up from the road to the front door were a bit trying for an asthmatic, but not nearly so exhausting as the day spent in his sister’s company had been.   You could pace yourself with steps.  There was no pacing Marcia.  Thank goodness his mother was still abroad.  She would have been more sympathetic, but like his sister, she would have considered the split up between himself and Sue was bound to be his fault. 

He had wondered what the house would feel like without Sue.  Would it still be home?  He had been surprised to find it was.  It seemed a bit colourless and empty with pictures missing from the walls and the knick-knacks that Sue could never resist from the shelves, the general comfortable clutter that surrounded Sue having departed in her wake.  He wasn’t about to replace the clutter, but he did miss the electric can opener.  He’d twice cut his hand using the vindictive ancient device that had been in the dresser drawer when they moved in.   The kitchen had been Sue’s domain and she had brought most of the equipment, so he supposed it was fair enough that she should make a clean sweep.  She needed to equip and furnish her new flat.  His sister and mother thought he should move back to town, he knew, but he wouldn’t do that.  He would stay here, lick his wounds and think about what to do with his life. 

“Get a life!”  Marcia said that to him ten times a day.  Well that’s what he would do.  There would be no more relationships.  He was sure of that. After four failures, he was not about to risk a fifth.  Sue had really seemed the one, attractive, loving and committed.  He hadn’t been able to believe his luck.   Even now, he was not sure what had gone wrong.   She had been an amazing looking girl, but she had also been the motherly type, inclined to boss him about.  He hadn’t cared for that.  There had been too many bossy women in his life, always knowing what was best for him and being disappointed when he didn’t live up to expectations.  The undemanding quietness of the house closed around him.  He savoured it.