Ripped by Frederic Lindsay Page A

plane, to be as rich as that. But I overheard you saying to my father, “ oh, he was not one of the gentry. No. He was just an ordinary fellow”.’
    'I know what I mean even if you can't see it,' Mother said. 'Behind all her airs, there's a common woman.'
    Now they had come, she hurried them to the table. She kept the flat tidy and resented the woman whom the brothers paid to come in twice a week. She cooked for herself and enjoyed preparing these Sunday lunches. There was soup first and then sliced ham with peas, tomatoes, potato crisps of which she was fond. Malcolm had developed the habit of bringing a bottle of wine and he would open it and set it on the table, pouring a glass for his mother, Irene and himself. To Murray, who remembered an earlier time, his mother raising the wine glass to her lips, the slight flush that coloured her cheeks, gave him a sense of unreality . For Malcolm, born at the junction time of his father's death, it was different .
    'Pull your chair in,' Mother said. She insisted on serving the meal herself. 'You've pushed your seat back, and I can't get past you.'
    The soup had been eaten, and now she brought through their plates, the portions decided, there was no question of setting out bowls from which they could choose. She gave more to the men, and if one slice seemed sappier, more succulent, it might be that it went to her younger son. For herself, she was at an age when a little would satisfy her, but she expected each of their plates to be cleared .
    'It's the piano,' Murray said, hitching his chair forward.
    'I don't know why you keep it,' Malcolm said. 'There would be plenty of room if you got rid of it, Mother.'
    Irene, however, was not to be diverted. 'I don't know why it should make you so angry,' she said, accepting her plate . 'Usually you like him; I've heard you laughing aloud while you read him . '
    'It didn't make me angry,' Malcolm said. 'Angry, for God's sake!' His face had gone red . 'You asked me to read it – I read it. You're the one who's fascinated by it.'
    Murray didn't have to ask; before Irene spoke, looking across the table at him and smiling, he knew. 'Did you read it yesterday, Murray? What that friend of yours wrote in his column?'
    Mother rested her hand on Malcolm's shoulder . 'What friend is that, Murray?'
    'Billy Shanks,' he told her, but without taking his eyes from the younger woman.
    'Murray knows someone famous,' Irene said laughing . 'Yet I had never heard of him till I came here. He's famous here.'
    'Famous!' Mother exclaimed in what sounded like contempt.
    While her husband was alive, she had lived in isolated places . She had never acquired the habit of newspapers. Now she was addicted to television . Only someone who appeared on television could be famous.
    'A man was killed,' Irene said . Sitting opposite, Murray saw a circle of light surrounding her . The sun had found a gap in a drifting sky of clouds, and struck into this room in the cliff wall of the high-rise to surround her with its dazzling brightness. Like an actor picked out upon a stage, she cried to them, 'He was found dead in Moirhill – near where Murray used to live – where he became friends with the famous Billy Shanks. Years ago. After you ran away from home, Murray – when you were only a boy, really.'
    What was it John Merchant had said? – Anything I know about you, I learned from your brother.
    Malcolm flushed a deeper red. 'It doesn't matter where he was found, does it?' he asked, avoiding Murray's glance . 'Who wants to talk about a murder? We're supposed to be having dinner, for God's sake!'
    'According to Billy Shanks,' Irene said, raising her voice to be heard, 'it's exactly a hundred years ago since Jack the Ripper committed his first murder – that was in Whitechapel, you know – in London. It's exactly a hundred years ago –'
    'It's not,' Malcolm said. 'If we must talk about it, at least get it right . '
    Mother gave Murray, who had unconsciously eased his chair