Free Last Post by Robert Barnard Page B

continuing relationship.”
    â€œThat does suggest Aunt Ada.” Jean looked suddenly and shrewdly at Eve. “But there was something else, wasn’t there, in the letter. Something you haven’t told me.”
    Eve now didn’t hesitate.
    â€œYes . . . There is a passage of reminiscence about a lesbian affair.”
    â€œA lesbian affair we’d once had, May and I?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAbsolute nonsense,” said Jean, with authority in her voice. “But we seem to come back to Aunt Ada again.”
    â€œIt does seem like that. Do you mind telling me: are you a lesbian?”
    Jean’s mouth puckered up into a moue.
    â€œDo we have to? Oh well, yes. I’ve had lesbian relationships. But not one with your mother.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œIsn’t it obvious? She wasn’t that way inclined.” There was something intense, almost fanatical, about her tone of voice that suggested rejection still rankled. “Can we recap? I need to know exactly the situation. After yourmother’s death you received a letter from someone called Jean who apparently thought May, your mother, was still alive. That letter purports to be from me, or at least contains information that could lead someone to think it was from me, and it described lesbian—what?—practices?”
    â€œMore situations.”
    â€œRight. So what we have here is someone—probably quite old, and male just as possibly as female—who has an obsession about lesbians, and probably gays as well, who knew about May and me and our friendship in the past, knew about my small successes in amateur drama, and—what? Wanted to make trouble?”
    â€œMaybe. If that was it, I wonder why she didn’t write directly to me.”
    â€œSomeone with a sense of drama as well as of mischief. Someone who likes to go at things indirectly. So who could it be? All I can think of is Aunt Ada, but indirect she isn’t. And I suppose there’s the possibility of your father.”
    Eve gaped at her.
    â€œI was always told he was dead.”
    â€œAlways? Since when?”
    â€œSince as long as I can remember. I suppose since I was about five or six.”
    â€œWell, I have no way of knowing if he’s alive or dead, but might there be reasons why she, May, preferred to consign him to the graveyard rather than admit separation or divorce?”
    Eve thought.
    â€œIt meant I was never curious to see or meet him.”
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œIt seems rather extreme to suggest that he was dead ifhe wasn’t. And my mother was not an extreme sort of person . . . You’ve missed out one possibility, by the way: that you wrote the letter, genuinely thinking that my mother was still alive.”
    Jean Mannering looked at her pityingly. Eve had a strong sense of reactions practiced in advance, perhaps by someone who accepts the popular image of an actress.
    â€œEve, you may feel you have to consider that possibility, but I don’t. I know I didn’t. And I think if you go further into this, if you agree that the handwriting isn’t mine, and that I haven’t had any contact with your mother for many, many years—almost as many as your age, I would guess—then you’ll see that the idea is a nonstarter.”
    â€œI expect you’re right.” Eve got up, and Jean Mannering followed her lead sharply. “I really should apologize for coming to see you, and for practically accusing you of—something, I’m not sure what.”
    â€œDon’t mention it.” She went again to the desk. “Let me give you my personal phone number, in case you want to get in touch again. The one in the book is for the professional me. And thank you: you’ve given a little bit of spice to an otherwise pretty routine sort of existence.”
    Eve wondered how sincere she was.
    â€œI suppose my mother would have found retirement