First Maureen and Lindy turned up. Allowed to visit her after anxious telephone calls between the Mums. ‘You won’t—well, tell them anything about all that, darling? They might not understand. Of course they’re older than you are, but still…
So it all had to be told in whispers; not about the Blue Bar, of course, best to keep that entirely to oneself—it was quite rivetting enough just pinned on to poor Simon (who ever would have thought that proper little cousin of Daffy’s would have had such kinky ideas?). But when she mentioned Mardon’s bench, Maureen responded immediately: ‘You can’t have been on that bench, because we were. We were there half the night with the Frazer boys.’
She didn’t think of the come-back quick enough. She drew a red herring. ‘I didn’t know you even knew the Frazer boys.’
‘Good lord, Daffy, Maureen and Roddy Frazer have been having it off for weeks. Haven’t you, Maureen?’
‘He’s terrific,’ said Maureen.
‘Eddie’s not too bad,’ said Lindy. ‘But inexperienced.’ She wouldn’t have bothered with him, she added, but they wanted to make up a foursome.
‘I went with him once and I thought he was absolutely dreary.’
‘Oh, well, we know your standards, Daffy,’ said Lindy laughing:
‘But anyway, why all this drama with your cousin, Simon? Why not just let him?’ And she laughed again and said that heaven knew, kinky or not, Daffy hadn’t exactly had anything to lose by it.
‘He happens to be dead,’ said Daffy stiffly; drawing the subject ever further from the bench by the river.
‘Oh, well, yes we know that, darling; and of course it’s too frightful. And about your father and all that. My God, it’s frightful!’
‘Why on earth did you have to go and tell your father, Daph?’
‘He caught me sneaking in. I was in such a mess, I had to say something. And anyway, I was pretty steamed up. I did have an awful time. I mean, look at these bruises.’
‘I can’t see why you should struggle? Why not just let him get on with it?’
‘Well, good heavens, he was like a sex maniac! He’d been smoking all evening and heaven knows what this pusher at the bar, well I mean in the café, had sold him. He was stoned clean, he just did his nut. Of course I couldn’t tell my parents I’d let him. I had to say he’d forced me.’
‘Good lord—poor Simon!’
‘Yes, but he did knock me about. Of course it’s awful about Daddy shooting him, but still he did knock me about.’
‘All the same, Daphne, it wasn’t on that bench outside Mardon’s,’ said Maureen, coming back to cases. ‘Because we were there ourselves.’
‘I didn’t say the bench outside Mardon’s. I said it wasn’t the one outside Mardon’s. The one we went to was the one further down, by the warehouse. You know I always go to the warehouse one, at least I always used to with Tom.’
‘What’s Tom going to say about all this poor-little-raped-virgin stuff, when it comes out?’
‘For that matter, Daffy, what’s everyone going to say? I mean, everyone knows about you.’
‘Well, then everyone will just have to shut up, won’t they?’ said Daffy. She gave them that sly little sideways glance of hers, the meaningful glance that had finally blackmailed poor Simon into giving way and taking her to the Blue Bar. ‘Otherwise I might start talking in self-defence. I mean, if they knew how everyone at school was doing it, not to mention the pot and all the rest of it—if they knew the temptations I’d had and the example that had been set me by—by older girls than me: well, I wouldn’t be so much to blame, would I? So everyone had better just shut up, hadn’t they? And I didn’t say I was down by the river near Mardon’s, I said “we were on that bench, not the Mardon’s one but the other bench”. Or would you like to get up in court when they’re trying my father for murder and say that you know I wasn’t at the Mardon’s bench because you were there yourselves all night, having it off with a couple of boys?’
‘My God, that young Daphne, she’s a cool one!’ said Maureen to Linda as they hastily went away. (All the same, she had said she’d been outside Mardon’s.)
Daphne herself was not too pleased with the way she had handled it. She should have thought of that threat earlier. Because one day she was going to have to face Daddy and she’d definitely told Daddy that she’d been by the Mardon’s bench; and he’d commented that that wasn’t on the way home—he wouldn’t forget that, you couldn’t just slur it over with him. Had Mummy heard? No, she hadn’t come downstairs by then. So only Daddy would know. A thought flicked through her mind and flicked out again. If Daddy knew she’d told one lie, would he begin to wonder if, after all, Simon had been innocent?