Interlude - Wednesday 2:09 pm - 08 Jan
“You're late,” Smythe says, almost under his breath. He pours her some tea and pushes it round the table to its customary point in front of her chair.
“You always say that,” his cousin replies with a smile, as she deposits her heavy coat, hat and bags next to the window.
“That's because you're always late, Toni,” he says, more loudly but with an attempt of a smile of his own.
She looks at him for a moment. The smile stays but a flicker of concern crosses her eyes and brow. It vanishes as quickly as it appeared and she takes her seat and her customary sip of tea while they enjoy their habitual moment of silence together.
“How are you?” he asks, and she looks at him once again. This time she there is surprise and suspicion mixed with her concern.
“We're all well, no complaints,” she responds, smoothing her dress before she takes another sip of tea, “How about you?”
Smythe bites his tongue. He had clearly been asking about her but she had extended it to her whole family, no doubt testing him. He would not fall for it today, he would not be himself for once.
“I'm well enough,” he says, taking another mouthful of coffee and realising by the amount of milk left in the jug he must have nearly drained the pot. Unlike usual she does not wait for the cup to leave his lips. She has sensed he wants to talk and she grasps the situation with both hands.
“You look tired,” she says. It's almost a question but before he can dismiss it she does it for him, “I expect it is your usual routine come early in the week. A new business deal, perhaps?”
“Yes,” he manages. Usually it was him filling the air with business for the next few minutes and her waiting patiently to tell her news and to try to prise from him information on his own well-being. This time nothing came to mind and he just sipped at his coffee.
“Well, that hardly explains the extent of it,” she pours more tea as she talks, adding lemon this time, “I've seen you work yourself ragged so many times, dear, you know that. This is different.”
Toni sips her tea and looks at him, regards him, calmly.
Smythe glances at the cushion next to him, leans forward to press a spot on his tablet requesting more coffee, then sits back. He almost lets his hand rest on the cushion before catching himself and knitting his fingers together instead. His cousin is still watching him.
“Well,” she says, leaving a languid pause as she drinks her tea, “The coffee confirms your need for sleep. Perhaps you're getting too old to burn the midnight oil? Or is this new opponent in another league?”
He bristles, but her smile tells him she is teasing and he chews back his words rather than bite as he usually would. Not myself, he thinks. For the first time he envies her that play of emotion across her face. No, not just the emotion showing on her face, the fact she could show the emotion she wanted to show when she wanted to show it. Perhaps it wasn't all of the time, maybe she could only do it to him, but it he found it an enviable skill all the same.
“It's nothing of the sort,” he begins, sharply.
“I know,” she interrupts, placing her teacup back on its saucer, “You want to talk to me about something and as always you don't know how. Whenever this happens you never approach me when the matter is fresh and instead wait for our weekly rendezvous, then you usually you change your mind and the subject when we ever get near to it. However, this time whatever it is under that cushion is too, let's say ‘important’ to be ignored.”
“Indeed,” is all Smythe can manage.
“Very well,” she picks up her tea again, “Would you like to give me a little introduction or will it speak for itself?”
He hesitates for a moment, then realises he cannot pass this over. He simply reaches behind the cushion, passes the letters to his left hand and holds them out to her. For a moment Toni just looks at them, such out of place objects, two folded pieces of paper with broken wax seals. Unable to let them dangle there she finally reaches out and takes them, a look of outright and genuine bewilderment on her face.
“What are they?” she asks, then gives her head a little shake, “I mean what's in them?”
Smythe shrugs, “Something I have tried very hard to explain and then to ignore. I have had little success with either.”
“May I…?”
“Of course!” he snaps then winces. She is not so stunned as to ignore his regret at his own reaction and simply asks, “Which first?”
“The one on top,” he says, “With the more intact seal.” Just in case she had switched them.
She reads it silently as the coffee arrives. The maid waits a second looking at her and her tea pot. Smythe clears his throat and Toni looks up, realises what is happening and gives the maid a broad smile and a nod. She has barely touched that pot, he thinks, she intends to see this through.
The maid leaves and Toni continues reading. She chews her lip, stifles a laugh, shakes her head and generally reacts to the letter far more than he did. He wonders why she is so intent, whether this is an act to make sure he thinks she is interested, then he realises. I have just given her a letter based around her late father's influence on me, he thinks, and specifically about how people would have been better off without the man. I am as cold as she thinks.
To his astonishment she finishes the letter calmly, albeit with a look of it confusion creased onto her face, and looks at him as if he is as out of place as the wax, paper and ink in her hand.
“I'm sorry,” he says, without further prompt, “I should have warned you.”
“No, it's fine,” she says with remarkable calm, “Really, it’s fine. I always knew the kind of man he was and, I'm the one who's sorry now, the kind of man you are. No offense cousin, I love you and I loved him, but I'm not blind.”
He smiles and shrugs. She just holds the letter.
“What is this, cousin?” she asks. It isn't a calm enquiry now, there is demand in her tone.
He tells her the full story of its discovery, his doubts and analyses. He pauses as the maid returns then continues as they both allow their drinks to go cold. He tells her about the clues and she examines the letter again. Not expecting her to see references to a room he cannot recall her ever entering he lays them out. She looks up sharply when, having left it until last, he mentions the girl. Moving on as quickly as he can he describes his discovery and gestures to the second letter.
Hesitantly she picks it up and he pours them both refills of barely lukewarm drinks. His eyes are scratchy and he foregoes the milk, the odd bitterness of black coffee easily ignored against the backdrop of his weariness.
She reads and some colour leaves her face, highlighting her sparse rouge and lipstick.
“This…,” she begins, “This is terrible. The first was odd, weird, and of course wrong about that night. But this? Who did this?”
“I don't know,” he blurts in reply, “I honestly don't know. I have my suspicions but nothing really fits, nothing explains this. I have to confess, cousin, that I have begun to entertain some wild ideas in the last few nights.”
Toni looks at him as if something else has suddenly taken his place. She places the letter on the table on top of the first and picks up her tea but it never reaches her lips. She just holds it and looks over the cup at nothing in particular.
He waits but she does not say anything. He drinks his cold coffee but he cannot taste it. Tasting it isn't keeping me awake, he thinks, drinking it is, and he drains the cup. As he adds milk to his next cup she suddenly speaks.
“What do you think, I mean… wait," she looks at him and puts down her cup with a clatter, “I mean who could have written this, and hidden it? Clearly it went wrong, at least for them, because we're reading it, them, now but…”
He watches her wrestle with the second letter, just as he had the night before. She even picks it up and holds it almost at arm's length, glaring at it. Even as she does so he can't help but notice her eyes darting to the other letter on the table. He goes back to his coffee and is about to drink when he realises she is looking at him. After a moment he realises the look is a stare.
“What is it?” he asks, rather sharply as he now feels he has become the thing for consideration.
He is right.
“You did this,” she says. It's not quite an accusation but he bristles nonetheless.
“I did no such thing,” he blurts out, “Why would I…”
“Wait, sorry,” she says, holding up her hand and wincing at the tirade she is expecting and trying desperately to prevent. To her surprise he has gone quiet and is unexpectedly fussing at a tiny amount of coffee that he has spilled. She puts down the letter and moves over to him, removing the cushion which had hidden the letters and fitting her thin frame on the seat next to him. She puts her arm round him and for once he does not stiffen, he just sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I am sorry,” he says, “My shock is only that you accuse me and I did not do it. You are quite right to name me after reading them but I assure you I have not written these.”
She does not say anything. Her presence next to him relaxes him but that relaxation makes his head spin with exhaustion. It takes him a moment to regain his sense of self and reach over once more for his coffee cup. As he takes a drink he realises it contains only milk and as he busies himself adding coffee he realises his cousin has moved away then returned once more to his side with her tea and the letters.
“Don't worry,” she says, “I'm not going to make you reread them just yet. I'm only saving myself the trouble of getting up again.”
She opens the letters side-by-side and looks over them. He can't help but do the same and he wonders what she is trying to achieve. The handwriting is the same, but the second letter seems more hurried, frantic. And he has to admit to himself the handwriting looks like his. Not many people write now, he thinks, and I write so that people used to reading computer typeface do not struggle or misunderstand. Unfortunately, it made his handwriting easily forgeable and someone had clearly taken the opportunity. He told his cousin add much.
“You're probably right,” she says, and he is not sure whether she is convinced or just trying to appear so. “After all, they get something wrong in the first letter. That's not like you.”
He can't help but laugh, although it comes out as a snort. It seems to satisfy her and she gives him that beaming smile that says 'See, I can still make you laugh’.
“I think you can consign these to the bin, cousin,” she says, throwing them gently to the table, “Whatever they were they have lost their edge. This second one goes on about mistakes made, maybe it is the forger’s guilt breaking through. I sincerely hope that this is not a trilogy, but perhaps their third letter will be an awkward apology?”
“Perhaps,” he says, “But if that's the case, what's the point, what were they trying to achieve? Is this just to annoy me?”
“That's how pranks work cousin,” she says, giving a wave to the letters, disregarded and unfolded on the table, “You're not naïve, you know people do this just to get under the skin of their victim.”
“So I'm a victim now?” he says, some venom entering his voice.
“Only if you let these get to you,” she replies, some steel entering her voice as well.
“These may be the only letters but I doubt the prank ends here,” she says, (that's comforting, he thinks), “But your consideration of it should. Let it go cousin, you have far too much in your life to let this in. By all means, take its advice,” her voice softens, “I'd welcome that, a lot of people would welcome that, but otherwise let it go.
“After all,” she continues, “If this was continuing in its current theme there would be clues to a third letter, wouldn't there. I can't see them here, not like the ones in the first, anyway.”
“Yes, there are clues in that letter,” he says at least, touching the first one, “Leading to this one. If there are no more clues in the other then, yes, the trail goes cold and I can leave it.”
“Ah, cousin,” she sighs, “That's not my point. Just stop, please don't say ‘if’, please don't look. I know you're trying to say you want proof one way or another but these aren't part of a business deal or a supplier contract or a due diligence file. It's a prank and it wants your time and energy and irritation. Let it go, my dear, stop now, stop entertaining it. Please.”
He sighs and she leaves his side heading for her coat and things.
“I'm late again,” she says, “And for once it's for your sake that I'm keeping someone waiting, rather than the other way around.”
She sees his frown and she beams at him once more.
“And I'd always keep someone waiting for your sake, cousin. Just ask.”
He cannot think of anything to say, he just stands and knits his hands together behind his back. He shuffles awkwardly as she comes over to kiss him on the cheek.
“I'll see you soon,” she says, and taps him on the temple, “Get back to business, cousin, use this for something productive. Store those things away, out of sight out of mind. If you must then solve them when you retire.”
And with that, and not a word from him, she leaves.
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