She said no more, contenting herself with this probe. Her niece, child of her younger sister, long dead, was called Valerie, which Mrs Zeman regarded as an awkward, unlucky name. Valerie had certainly been some witness to the truth of this belief since she had been a failure as an artist (she had a wooden studio in Aunt Kay’s garden, rent: looking after her aunt), and as a woman with a string of abandoned relationships behind her.
‘You must try and attract someone, Val, hold on, instead of being always a failure.’
‘A lucky failure,’ she retorted at once to this probing sally of Aunt Kay’s, ‘because I’ve ended up happier than you by a long shot.’
Katherine Zeman did not believe this: in her eyes no woman was happy without a settled marriage and at least one son.
‘Happiness is not what an adult expects,’ she replied. ‘A woman should hold on to her man. I held on to mine. You did not. You are a bad chooser.’
‘Someone will kill you one day, Aunt Kay,’ said Val, ‘and it just might be me.’
Mrs Zeman poured another cup of tea. Milk first, she always said, otherwise it stains the cups. Her son had told her that her tea, dark and strong, had long since stained her gullet and stomach deep brown. She did not believe him. Her body would naturally not allow such liberties. She and Val, both strong characters, enjoyed, in fact, a happy relationship in which their sharp differences of opinion were not only allowed but pleasurable. Each knew the frontiers over which not to step and if Mrs Zeman sometimes, as now, strayed too far over them, then she felt it allowed to her as an old woman. It was one of the taxes she levied on Val’s good humour, part of her rent.
‘The girl wasn’t one of Leonard’s patients, was she?’
Valerie occasionally acted as Dr Leonard Zeman’s receptionist and secretary, keeping his records in her fine clear handwriting, so she knew who was on his list.
‘No, I believe she’s with the Elmgate practice.’ The Elmgate Health Centre was a large group of some six doctors near to the Spinnergate Tube station, and was popular with all the company at the St Luke’s Workshop theatre. Dr Greer was the company physician. ‘But Tim knew her, of course.’
‘Sweet on her, was he?’
‘I don’t know, Auntie. She was very pretty.’
‘Wouldn’t be surprised, then.’ In fact, surprised if not. Tim Zeman had an eye for the girls, thought his grandmother complacently. She knew less about Tim than Val did. ‘Well, he wasn’t with us that day.’
‘No, Auntie.’ In fact, they hadn’t seen him for some time. Old Mrs Zeman minded, although she hated to admit it. ‘I believe he was with some friends in Kent.’ The young Edens, Angus Eden had been at school with Tim. He had an even younger and prettier wife.
‘Have you seen him since?’
‘No, he’s been keeping himself to himself.’
‘Upset, I expect.’
‘I think he’s just working for his exams, Aunt Kay.’
‘Certainly what he ought to be doing. Pour some more tea, dear.’
Another cup of dark liquid went down to join the buttered tea-bun and the toasted tea-cake. Yet she was not fat, as Valerie, who put on weight quickly, noticed and thought unfair.
‘Anyway, it’s not Tim, I’m worried about.’
‘I didn’t know you were worried.’
‘I am always worried.’
‘All right. Who especially this time?’
‘I’m worried about Leonard.’
Val drank some tea. ‘Why Leonard?’
‘I don’t think he is happy. And I am sure that Felicity is not.’
‘Well, it’s probably her job. Always dealing with sick babies. It’s a wounding profession.’
‘She cures them.’
‘Sometimes, but not always. Not often, probably. She gets all the serious cases.’
‘It’s her marriage. Something wrong there. I feel it.’
Valerie shrugged. If Aunt Kay Zeman felt it, then she would go on feeling it, and nothing would shake her.
‘Do you think she’s got a lover?’
‘Really, Aunt Kay, I don’t know.’
‘And wouldn’t say if you did know,’ said Mrs Zeman in a not unamiable way. ‘I like loyalty in a woman.’
Val shrugged. So did she, but it was a hard commodity to come by. ‘Sex isn’t always the trouble.’
‘It mostly is. Think of that poor girl. Sex killed her.’
‘All right. I suppose it did. Being the wrong sex.’ Boys got killed too, of course, but not so often. Not nearly so often. And hardly ever by girls, usually by a member of their own sex.
‘So what do you think is the trouble with Leonard?’
She wasn’t going to give up, this was developing into what the family called ‘searching sessions’. Search being the operative word.
‘Do you think he’s got a lover?’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘I did, and he just laughed. His father wouldn’t have laughed. I didn’t know what to make of it.’
‘I expect the answer is No, then,’ said Val, ‘and he just didn’t want to disappoint you.’
‘He’s very in with that theatre crowd,’ said Mrs Zeman broodingly. ‘And so are you. Get me tickets for their next production, will you? I don’t trust that Pinero woman. Got a roving eye.’
‘Oh, Aunt Kay,’ said Val. ‘People don’t talk that way any more.’
‘They act that way, though,’ retorted Katherine Zeman with grim pleasure.
Val took the two tea-trays through into the kitchen. Her tray with the china pot of Earl Grey tea from Fortnum’s and the thin coconut biscuits from the same shop, and Mrs Zeman’s large silver teapot of the best Darjeeling with the covered dish of hot tea-buns. They occasionally raided each other’s supply of eatables (there was a rich chocolate biscuit cake which they both liked) but never the teapots.
Through the open kitchen door Val could see down their garden to the garden across the way. The Annecks, that would be. Their lilac tree was in full bloom, a pleasure to behold, but in return the Zeman roses would presently be scenting the air for the Annecks.
On the skyline she could see the tower of St Luke’s old church, now called St Luke’s Mansions, where dwelt, among others, her friend Stella Pinero whose reputation she had just defended. There was a small Theatre Club in Feather Street of which she was secretary; all of them were Friends of the St Luke’s Theatre and got special rates for a season’s subscription.
She poured a bowl of tea and milk for Bob, the black and white dog; he liked Darjeeling, liked it weak and lukewarm. Now he tongued it up with great slurping noises, he was not a neat dog.
The telephone rang on the wall in the kitchen. All callers were well aware that Kay Zeman, wherever she was in the house, might grab an extension.
Val lifted the receiver. No, she couldn’t hear Aunt Kay’s breathing, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t there.
‘Hello?’
‘Leonard