The Silkworm(21)

No,' said Strike, I don't.'

So this was why Lucy had wanted to check whether he was bringing anyone with him; this was the sort of woman she imagined him falling for, and living with for ever in a house with a magnolia tree in the front garden. Marguerite was dark, greasy skinned and morose-looking, wearing a shiny purple dress that appeared to have been bought when she was a little thinner. Strike was sure she was a divorcée. He was developing second sight on that subject.

Hi,' she said, while thin Nina in her strappy black dress chatted with Greg; the short greeting contained a world of bitterness.

So seven of them sat down to dinner. Strike had not seen much of his civilian friends since he had been invalided out of the army. His voluntarily heavy workload had blurred the boundaries between weekday and weekend, but now he realised anew how much he liked Nick and Ilsa, and how infinitely preferable it would have been if the three of them had been alone somewhere, enjoying a curry.
 
 

 

How do you know Cormoran?' Nina asked them avidly.

I was at school with him in Cornwall,' said Ilsa, smiling at Strike across the table. On and off. Came and went, didn't you, Corm?'

And the story of Strike and Lucy's fragmented childhood was trotted out over the smoked salmon, their travels with their itinerant mother and their regular returns to St Mawes and the aunt and uncle who had acted as surrogate parents throughout their childhood and teens.

And then Corm got taken to London by his mother again when he was, what, seventeen?' said Ilsa.

Strike could tell that Lucy was not enjoying the conversation: she hated talk about their unusual upbringing, their notorious mother.

And he ended up at a good rough old comprehensive with me,' said Nick. Good times.'

Nick was a useful bloke to know,' said Strike. Knows London like the back of his hand; his dad's a cabbie.'

Are you a cabbie too?' Nina asked Nick, apparently exhilarated by the exoticism of Strike's friends.

No,' said Nick cheerfully, I'm a gastroenterologist. Oggy and I had a joint eighteenth birthday party-'

-and Corm invited his friend Dave and me up from St Mawes for it. First time I'd ever been to London, I was so excited-' said Ilsa.

-and that's where we met,' finished Nick, grinning at his wife.

And still no kids, all these years later?' asked Greg, smug father of three sons.

There was the tiniest pause. Strike knew that Nick and Ilsa had been trying for a child, without success, for several years.

Not yet,' said Nick. What d'you do, Nina?'

The mention of Roper Chard brought some animation to Marguerite, who had been regarding Strike sullenly from the other end of the table, as though he were a tasty morsel placed remorselessly out of reach.

Michael Fancourt's just moved to Roper Chard,' she stated. I saw it on his website this morning.'

Blimey, that was only made public yesterday,' said Nina. The blimey' reminded Strike of the way Dominic Culpepper called waiters mate'; it was, he thought, for Nick's benefit, and perhaps to demonstrate to Strike that she too could mingle happily with the proletariat. (Charlotte, Strike's ex-fiancée, had never altered her vocabulary or accent, no matter where she found herself. Nor had she liked any of his friends.)

Oh, I'm a big fan of Michael Fancourt's,' said Marguerite. House of Hollow's one of my favourite novels. I adore the Russians, and there's something about Fancourt that makes me think of Dostoevsky … '

Lucy had told her, Strike guessed, that he had been to Oxford, that he was clever. He wished Marguerite a thousand miles away and that Lucy understood him better.

Fancourt can't write women,' said Nina dismissively. He tries but he can't do it. His women are all temper, tits and tampons.'

Nick had snorted into his wine at the sound of the unexpected word tits'; Strike laughed at Nick laughing; Ilsa said, giggling:

You're thirty-six, both of you. For God's sake.'

Well, I think he's marvellous,' repeated Marguerite, without the flicker of a smile. She had been deprived of a potential partner, one-legged and overweight though he might be; she was not going to give up Michael Fancourt. And incredibly attractive. Complicated and clever, I always fall for them,' she sighed in an aside to Lucy, clearly referring to past calamities.

His head's too big for his body,' said Nina, cheerfully disowning her excitement of the previous evening at the sight of Fancourt, and he's phenomenally arrogant.'

I've always thought it was so touching, what he did for that young American writer,' said Marguerite as Lucy cleared the starters away and motioned to Greg to help her in the kitchen. Finishing his novel for him  –  that young novelist who died of Aids, what was his-?'

Joe North,' said Nina.

Surprised you felt up to coming out tonight,' Nick said quietly to Strike. After what happened this afternoon.'

Nick was, regrettably, a Spurs fan.

Greg, who had returned carrying a joint of lamb and had overheard Nick's words, immediately seized on them.

Must've stung, eh, Corm? When everyone thought they had it in the bag?'

What's this?' asked Lucy like a schoolmistress calling the class to order as she set down dishes of potatoes and vegetables. Oh, not football, Greg, please.'

So Marguerite was left in possession of the conversational ball again.

Yes, House of Hollow was inspired by the house his dead friend left to Fancourt, a place where they'd been happy when young. It's terribly touching. It's really a story of regret, loss, thwarted ambition-'

Joe North left the house jointly to Michael Fancourt and Owen Quine, actually,' Nina corrected Marguerite firmly. And they both wrote novels inspired by it; Michael's won the Booker  –  and Owen's was panned by everyone,' Nina added in an aside to Strike.

What happened to the house?' Strike asked Nina as Lucy passed him a plate of lamb.

Oh, this was ages ago, it'll have been sold,' said Nina. They wouldn't want to co-own anything; they've hated each other for years. Ever since Elspeth Fancourt killed herself over that parody.'

You don't know where the house is?'

He's not there,' Nina half-whispered.

Who's not where?' Lucy said, barely concealing her irritation. Her plans for Strike had been disrupted. She was never going to like Nina now.

One of our writers has gone missing,' Nina told her. His wife asked Cormoran to find him.'

Successful bloke?' asked Greg.

No doubt Greg was tired of his wife worrying volubly about her brilliant but impecunious brother, with his business barely breaking even in spite of his heavy workload, but the word successful', with everything it connoted when spoken by Greg, affected Strike like nettle rash.

No,' he said, I don't think you'd call Quine successful.'

Who's hired you, Corm? The publisher?' asked Lucy anxiously.

His wife,' said Strike.

She's going to be able to pay the bill, though, right?' asked Greg. No lame ducks, Corm, that's gotta be your number one rule of business.'

Surprised you don't jot those pearls of wisdom down,' Nick told Strike under his breath as Lucy offered Marguerite more of anything on the table (compensation for not taking Strike home and getting to marry him and live two streets away with a shiny new coffee maker from Lucy-and-Greg).

After dinner they retired to the beige three-piece suite in the sitting room, where presents and cards were presented. Lucy and Greg had bought him a new watch, Because I know your last one got broken,' Lucy said. Touched that she had remembered, a swell of affection temporarily blotted out Strike's irritation that she had dragged him here tonight, and nagged him about his life choices, and married Greg …  He removed the cheap but serviceable replacement he had bought himself and put Lucy's watch on instead: it was large and shiny with a metallic bracelet and looked like a duplicate of Greg's.

Nick and Ilsa had bought him that whisky you like': Arran Single Malt, it reminded him powerfully of Charlotte, with whom he had first tasted it, but any possibility of melancholy remembrance was chased away by the abrupt appearance in the doorway of three pyjama-ed figures, the tallest of whom asked:

Is there cake yet?'

Strike had never wanted children (an attitude Lucy deplored) and barely knew his nephews, whom he saw infrequently. The eldest and youngest trailed their mother out of the room to fetch his birthday cake; the middle boy, however, made a beeline for Strike and held out a homemade card.

That's you,' said Jack, pointing at the picture, getting your medal.'

Have you got a medal?' asked Nina, smiling and wide-eyed.

Thanks, Jack,' said Strike.

I want to be a soldier,' said Jack.

Your fault, Corm,' said Greg, with what Strike could not help feeling was a certain animus. Buying him soldier toys. Telling him about your gun.'

Two guns,' Jack corrected his father. You had two guns,' he told Strike. But you had to give them back.'

Good memory,' Strike told him. You'll go far.'

Lucy appeared with the homemade cake, blazing with thirty-six candles and decorated with what looked like hundreds of Smarties. As Greg turned out the light and everyone began to sing, Strike experienced an almost overwhelming desire to leave. He would ring a cab the instant he could escape the room; in the meantime, he hoisted a smile onto his face and blew out his candles, avoiding the gaze of Marguerite, who was smouldering at him with an unnerving lack of restraint from a nearby chair. It was not his fault that he had been made to play the decorated helpmeet of abandoned women by his well-meaning friends and family.
 
 

 

Strike called a cab from the downstairs bathroom and announced half an hour later, with a decent show of regret, that he and Nina would have to leave; he had to be up early the next day.