Encounters
Barbara Erskine
A captivating volume of over forty short stories full of love, hope, and fear, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Lady of Hay.Barbara Erskine is a born storyteller. The tales in 'Encounters' illustrate her extraordinary talent for capturing the spirit of a place and drawing us into the hearts and minds of her characters. Some are humorous, some thrilling, while others are unashamedly sentimental. Old-fashioned love stories such as 'A Face in the Crowd' follow ingenious ghost stories, and in 'A Step Out of Time' the past and present come together, drawing back the curtain that separates us from our ancestors.No one who has enjoyed Barbara Erskine’s best-selling novels – Lady of Hay, Kingdom of Shadows, Child of the Phoenix and Midnight is a Lonely Place – will be able to resist this gripping collection.
Copyright (#uf3fe027c-6611-5753-baa3-d7c832dcc5de)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd 1990
This edition published by Harper 2017
This collection © Barbara Erskine 1990 and as follows:
‘Cabbage a la Carte’ (Woman’s Weekly) 1976; ‘Feline Express’ (New Love as ‘Cupid Was A Kitten’) 1978; The Consolation Prize’ (Women’s World as ‘A Loving Invitation’) 1984; ‘There was a time when I was almost happy …” (Woman’s World) 1979; ‘Summer Treachery’ (Rio) 1981; Trade Reunions’ (Best) 1988; ‘The Bath: A Summer Ghost Story’ (Living) 1987; ‘The Green Leaves of Summer’ (Woman’s Own Summer Stories) 1979; ‘Encounters’ (Woman’s World) 1977; The Touch of Gold’ (The Writer) 1976; The Helpless Heart’ (Woman’s World as ‘Give Me Back My Dreams’) 1978; The Indian Summer of Mary McQueen’ (Secrets) 1980; ‘The Magic of Make Believe’ (Woman’s World) 1984; ‘A Summer Full of Poppies’ (Secret Story, Robinson) 1989; ‘A Face in the Crowd’ (Woman’s World as ‘Forsaking All Others’) 1983; ‘Flowers Shouldn’t Make You Cry’ (Woman’s World) 1979; ‘Someone to Dream About’ (Woman’s World) 1986; ‘Milestones’ (New Idea) 1980; ‘Marcus Nicholls’ (Red Star Weekly as ‘Windows on the Past’) 1980; ‘A Quest For Identity’ (Woman’s World) 1977; The Heart Will Understand’ (Woman’s World) 1980; ‘A Stranger With No Name’ (Woman’s World) 1980; ‘Just An Old-Fashioned Girl’ (Woman’s World as ‘Love Never Changes’) 1981; ‘All This Childish Nonsense’ (Woman’s World as ‘A Promise is Forever’) 1977; ‘A Love Story’ (My Story) 1976; ‘A Promise of Love’ (Woman’s World as ‘Don’t Tread On My Dreams’) 1978.
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Barbara Erskine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008180904
Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN: 9780007466351
Version: 2017-09-07
Table of Contents
Cover (#ua3d11015-0c53-5d78-8a86-322cd02e9e62)
Title Page (#u4eed2d40-fbce-5fbf-8669-1f3ee4f65d07)
Copyright (#u69f2c09d-a3bb-5871-9747-42f0bac0091f)
Preface (#u4d493484-fe5d-5c9e-a0d6-2d214b60b7ab)
A Step Out of Time (#ube082fda-ebfb-57b6-bac7-c8cfeca255fe)
Visitors (#u6e07fcab-bf94-58e9-ad50-04940828569a)
Cabbage à la Carte (#ud028dddc-084a-5624-bea8-f2acba51c3fb)
Metamorphosis (#uebfbc41c-9fbe-55cc-a44d-d6b47ba7d6ca)
Feline Express (#u24f82028-03b0-50a1-a858-5c92e59881ee)
The Consolation Prize (#u8f2f6631-4833-566c-94d5-af30f6bffa6f)
The Valentine’s Day Plot (#ufeb01410-8370-5b62-b555-73c550866939)
‘There Was a Time When I Was Almost Happy …’ (#uc6a8a933-f005-592b-93e0-0abf4a80b56e)
Summer Treachery (#u1aada504-a819-58b9-943d-8414895667b7)
Trade Reunions (#u1d6c359f-d759-511c-86f4-919395d2908b)
All You Need to Do Is Smile (#uf7f078b7-38fc-5338-9b85-0ffb975b8846)
The Bath – a Summer Ghost Story (#uc8f83e87-e219-5a42-8fab-701ee3236536)
A Private Ceremony (#u4fe651cd-a90a-5cc4-8770-1e3f16413b45)
The Green Leaves of Summer (#u67039ddf-b78a-504d-94b4-05bfd3eb9330)
Encounters (#uf9cacb83-bb51-5c90-a349-4df00c673626)
The Touch of Gold (#uf67ee712-c6fe-5e29-9731-5c253bd2c99d)
The Helpless Heart (#u2d2054ee-09ed-5220-b74a-3c9ae03e5e18)
The Indian Summer of Mary McQueen (#u38b5c658-fd91-5c47-b9fa-93728e0c327f)
The Magic of Make Believe (#u96fd79f8-2eac-520a-9a8a-8b6970760e88)
Destiny (#u1932cf7f-cc4f-5cb3-8250-0e0644add41a)
A Summer Full of Poppies (#u6fd87413-f516-53a8-b938-20e519129235)
A Face in the Crowd (#ua6152a77-a994-54ff-a60b-3c5fe35ce584)
A Woman’s Choice (#ud5d88f46-295f-5d4e-af36-ddf5afaf2c62)
Flowers Shouldn’t Make You Cry (#uf043724e-3687-59de-b33a-300f58be907e)
Footsteps in the Attic (#u08d4f5f7-0fd0-541a-8b84-635a8ce78933)
Someone to Dream About (#u66602b50-6ca5-500f-8fbb-371aad4861f6)
A Fair Revenge (#u14e9e3e7-5084-55ca-a516-fd46dc923fc2)
Milestones (#u9169447f-5d1f-514e-b6d9-9490b5c70298)
The Magic Carpet (#ub4769006-9811-555d-ac55-c6e6c46c3599)
The Proposal (#ufc5e094a-ba5e-5d80-8378-33e06f337378)
Spaces (#u80fb1aa2-adf0-5d6e-8630-3ea868082481)
Marcus Nicholls (#u98ebddee-b3c2-582a-a266-dd8b2c40636a)
Salesmanship! (#u48156b3c-8aa3-5ce4-9e25-31e54bb8f8d3)
A Quest For Identity (#u13229acf-dbe6-5636-9480-4fb09af0f573)
Such a Silly Thing (#u2055f71e-5f86-5176-9355-8d1924eafc46)
The Heart Will Understand (#u71a4e43e-4535-5e82-9665-c0b3a6306368)
Party Games (#ufa94787e-570d-51b1-8fcc-d10d639edea9)
A Stranger With no Name (#u426291be-e9b3-554e-bc86-5b86d5b46c84)
Just an Old-Fashioned Girl (#ubd703148-7e5a-5230-9667-04fe64bf943c)
All This Childish Nonsense (#ue138b9aa-ec20-54db-ad37-65e6347824ab)
A Love Story (#u644c4d02-0ba6-508f-bad0-5471c7e36272)
A Window on the World (#ufda4005d-d040-5f79-aca8-01ebdb682cb2)
A Promise of Love (#u66b54059-a7b7-5029-9db4-e5fe078b98d0)
Excavations (#uf58d7966-4b73-5c7b-ba1b-8128b4bc4355)
Keep Reading Barbara Erskine’s Novels (#u889fa96c-686c-54ad-8542-e99668c59244)
Keep Reading Sleeper's Castle (#ub8f87078-9615-5e1a-89fe-462a5c940e9d)
About the Author (#u14073f53-1aed-5c00-b5be-6f0466fbb1e8)
Also by Barbara Erskine (#u5ecd6e0a-66af-5659-b9f3-60a0936f1362)
About the Publisher (#uc420b72b-99b9-5efd-be9f-652d10afdc57)
Preface (#uf3fe027c-6611-5753-baa3-d7c832dcc5de)
I have always loved reading short stories and, like many authors, tested my literary wings experimenting with them. At first glance anyway, the short story seems an easy route for the beginner, largely because it is, axiomatically, short; one is not aiming for some distant horizon two or three hundred thousand words away. Short stories are self contained, feisty, fun; they are tricky, challenging – compact crystallizations, each of which must have as much substance in its own way as its big brother, the novel.
Having started to write them, hooked by the lure of so many plots, so many characters, so many scenes and the technical challenge of construction, I have found that I cannot resist the form, and this selection is taken from the hundreds I have written over the past fifteen years.
I did not plan to be a short story writer. I wanted to be a novelist – specifically a historical novelist – and it was years ago while a student at university in Scotland that I decided to write my first novel, the story of Robert the Bruce and the woman who set the crown of Scotland on his head. Consumed with excitement as I worked on the outline, spending much more time on it than I did on my studies, I visited the sites of the story and, absorbing the atmosphere, walked alone along mist-shrouded rivers and around the remains of countless castles. I wrote several thousand words, then I stopped. I realized I couldn’t go, on. I hadn’t the experience of writing or of life to cope with the huge task I had set myself. Quietly and sadly I put my manuscript away. I knew I would write it one day – but not yet. (That book eventually became Kingdom of Shadows and, secretly, I incorporated those few thousand words unchanged into it – a debt to that student writer who had felt Robert and Isobel’s suffering but had not then been able to put it down on paper.)
My confidence was shaken. I had wanted to be a writer since I was three years old and yet I had fallen at the first major fence. It was a case of wanting to run before I could walk. Obviously I had an apprenticeship to serve and so came the idea of trying to write short stories. I studied the markets and began to write articles and stories to fit those markets. Miraculously the first story I wrote was accepted and published by the London Evening News. I was much encouraged!
It was when we went to live in the Welsh Borders that again the longing to write historical fiction grew too strong to resist and I recognized consciously for the first time that I was one of those writers for whom the spirit of place is all important. The land around me, the hills, the forests, the seas, evoke echoes I cannot ignore. I have to write about them. I have to try and make my readers see and hear and even smell the landscape and its history as I see and hear and feel it.
Once more I began to plan a novel and this time I felt I had the experience and the confidence to do it. Not the story of Robert and Isobel – I still wasn’t ready for that – but a novel of history and passion and mystery which was born of the mysterious, ancient landscape around me.
While I read and researched and visited the sites which were to become the background for Lady of Hay I went on writing short stories and, eventually, half a dozen short historical romances as well, perhaps to complete my apprenticeship before at last I could start writing the big novel.
But by now I enjoyed writing short stories too much to stop. Heavily involved in a book full of passion and hatred and fear it is nice to come up for air from time to time to write a humorous story, or an unashamedly sentimental one; a modern thriller or a plain old-fashioned love story, and I have chosen some of each of these for this collection. There are also, of course, ghost stories and a couple of stories where the past and the present slide together and the curtain which separates us from the past is temporarily drawn aside. Most of the stories are about places as much as about the people who find themselves within them, and most of them are, in one way or another, about encounters. I hope you enjoy them.
Barbara Erskine
Great Tey, 1989
A Step Out of Time (#uf3fe027c-6611-5753-baa3-d7c832dcc5de)
The house at the end of the long, winding drive was elegant Georgian. The windows, all perfectly proportioned, looked out across sweeping lawns – not quite as smooth as they might have been, but nevertheless beautiful – towards the Black Mountains, brooding in the heat haze of the August afternoon.
Looking through the windscreen Victoria tried to suppress the quick catch of excitement which she felt in her throat. They had already seen so many houses which looked idyllic. Before there had always been a snag. This house, she felt suddenly, would be right; it was as if, in some secret part of herself, she knew it already. She glanced at Robert and saw that he felt it too: the hope, the anticipation, the agitation. When they found the right house it was going to be very special. Their home. The first since he had come out of the army. The place where they could start their new life.
The young man from the house agent was waiting for them, standing beneath the porticoed entrance proprietorially jangling the keys as they drew to a halt. Robert glanced at Victoria and winked as he set about climbing stiffly out of the car. She fumbled with the door handle, not wanting to watch, knowing better than to help. Each time it was easier. Each time it hurt him less. Each time the excitement that this might be The House helped.
They shook hands and the agent, introducing himself as William Turner, inserted the key in the lock and pushed open the heavy door. Beyond it a cavernous hall opened up, elegantly if sparsely furnished, with at the far end of it a graceful staircase winding up to a galleried landing. There was a faint smell of dogs.
‘Lady Penelope is away this weekend.’ William’s voice was reverently hushed. ‘So we can go all over the house as we like.’
They followed him soberly from drawing room to dining room to sitting room to morning room – a room for every hour of the day – and on through to the large north-facing kitchen.
‘Not modernized, I’m afraid.’ William looked round in barely disguised disgust at the unmatched cupboards, the painted deal table and the small electric cooker. The water, Victoria noted with amusement, ran from an old wall-mounted water heater into a deep stone sink.
William was watching her. He gave a broad smile. ‘Grim, isn’t it?’
‘It is rather.’ Victoria liked the young man. He had not mentioned exotic fitted kitchens; he did not pretend it had been left like this for the convenience of the buyer. Besides, after the initial shock, she loved it. The kitchen had a quaint, old-fashioned charm.
‘What’s through there?’ Robert nodded towards one of the internal doors. Beneath the grubby roller towel he had seen a key and three bolts. Three bolts seemed excessive for a door into a larder.
‘Ah.’ William gave his most charming professional smile, followed by a deprecatory shrug of the shoulders. ‘Well, every house has a few drawbacks.’
‘Oh?’ Robert glanced at Victoria. His heart, like hers, had sunk. He flipped through the glossy brochure in his hand. ‘No mention of any drawbacks here.’
‘Perhaps you’d like to see the upstairs first? The principal bedrooms have glorious views across into Wales,’ William said hopefully. He had seen how they felt about the house; he had seen her growing secretly more and more excited. He should have told them from the first. He glanced at them sympathetically. Robert Holland was tall, distinguished, in his late forties perhaps, his upright military bearing marred by an awkward limp. His wife was much younger, attractive, dark haired; slightly reserved, he guessed. The kind he thought of as deep and therefore probably interesting. He prided himself on his character analyses of potential clients. These people were understated, but that did not mean they weren’t wealthy. He had learned that one very early in his career. Money, particularly old money, did not always show. It was new money that liked to flaunt it. They could afford the house; he knew already that they would not buy it.
‘I think we should see the drawbacks first, don’t you?’ Victoria put in firmly.
‘You’re sure?’ His humorous smile was putting them all on the same side – allies against whatever eccentricity was the other side of the door. It also helped to hide his fear.
The key was stiff and the bolts unyielding. He had opened the door some half a dozen times now, but it never grew any easier and he could never overcome his reluctance to go through it. When at last he managed to push it open they peered into a long dark passage. ‘This,’ he said dramatically, ‘is the west wing. Lady Penelope seals it off more or less completely. I think she prefers to forget it’s there. To be honest, the best plan would be to demolish it.’
They could all feel the cold striking up from the dirty stone floor. The rest of the house was hot and airless in the humid summer heat but here it was abnormally cold.
Victoria felt her mouth go dry. Suddenly her optimism and her excitement had gone. ‘I don’t suppose there is any reason to see it if it’s that bad …’ she said uncertainly. A tangible feeling of dread seemed to surround her, pressing in on her from the cold walls.
‘Nonsense.’ Robert stepped into the passage. ‘What’s wrong with it? Dry rot? Again?’ The again was for William’s benefit. It might help to knock a thousand or so off the asking price.
‘No, not dry rot.’ William glanced at Victoria. He gave a tight protective smile as he saw that she had grown pale. About half of his clients seemed to feel it. The other half walked through without any comment, but even they hurried. He motioned her through ahead of him and reluctantly followed her.
With a quick, doubtful look at him she stepped into the passage after Robert. He had pushed open the first door on the left. Sunlight flooded across the empty room and into the corridor showing up the dust and scattered newspapers on the floor. ‘It’s a good sized room.’ Robert walked across to the window, his shoes sounding strangely loud on the bare boards. He peered out. ‘That must have been a formal garden once.’
‘It still could be.’ William was standing near the door. ‘It only needs tidying up. There are seven acres here. The grounds are one of the best features of the house.’
‘Why is there no mention of this room here?’ Robert had turned back to his brochure. The inconsistency irritated him. He wanted room dimensions and particulars at his finger tips.
‘There is.’ Almost reluctantly William went over to him. He riffled through the pages and stabbed at one with an index finger. ‘There. “Behind the kitchen quarters there is an unconverted wing with the potential for fourteen extra rooms”.’
‘Fourteen!’ Victoria exclaimed in dismay. ‘But that would make the house enormous. Much too big.’
‘It does seem a lot, doesn’t it?’ Once more the disarming charm. ‘The wing was added about a hundred years ago. As I said, I don’t believe anyone ever uses it.’ He glanced over his shoulder uncomfortably. The feeling was worse today; it was beating against his head like the threat of a migraine – fear and pain and nausea, gripping him out of nowhere. He swallowed hard, trying to stop himself retching. ‘Look, Mr and Mrs Holland, would you mind if I left you to wander round for a few minutes. I have to make a phone call from the car …’ He didn’t wait for their reply. Already he was edging out of the room and back along the passage towards the kitchen.
Robert ignored him, but Victoria watched him disappear, fighting the urge to follow him. ‘He doesn’t like it through here, does he?’ she said softly.
‘It does have a bit of an atmosphere.’ Robert squared his shoulders. ‘You want to see it, though, don’t you? I suggest we hurry round this bit, see the upstairs, then we can drive off somewhere and have tea. I’m frozen.’
‘So am I.’ Victoria shivered. ‘And it’s about 80° out there.’
‘It must be damp in this bit of the house.’ Robert walked back into the passage and peered through the next doorway. ‘Another good sized room. And another. Good God, look!’
Victoria stared over his shoulder nervously. In the corner of the room was an enormous heap of old tin hats. Opposite them, near the window, a dozen long poles were stacked in the corner.
‘Those hats must have been here since the war.’ Robert picked one up.
‘Don’t touch them!’ Victoria was suddenly frightened. ‘Please don’t touch them. Let’s go. I don’t like it here either.’ She could feel the unhappiness, the desperation. It seemed to pervade the room.
‘Don’t be silly. We must see it all now we’re here. Look, the stairs are along here.’
‘No, Robert. Please.’ She felt panic clutching at her throat. ‘Don’t go upstairs. Don’t …’
‘Victoria!’ He stared at her in astonishment. ‘OK. You go back. Go and look at the garden with young Mr Turner. I’ll have a quick shufty up here and then I’ll come and find you, OK?’
‘Robert …’ She raised her hand as if to stop him but already he had set off up the steep stairs, awkwardly pulling himself up by the handrail.
She took a deep breath. At the foot of the stairs a door led out onto the old terrace. She rattled the handle, not expecting it to open, but to her surprise it turned easily. It had not been locked.
The heat in the garden hit her like a physical blow. After the unnatural cold in the house it was wonderful. She threw her head back and raised her arms towards the sun with relief, then abruptly she dropped them to her sides. There was a young man standing on the terrace. Dressed in shabby corduroy trousers and an open-necked shirt, he had his arm in a sling. He turned and grinned at her.
‘Hello.’
Victoria smiled back. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know there was anyone else here.’ She was embarrassed, and at the same time relieved to see him. After the silence and the oppressive atmosphere of the west wing it was wonderful to see another human being. ‘Are you looking round too?’ she asked. She paused and found herself staring at him again. She knew him. Confused, she fumbled for a name, but none came. She couldn’t place him.
‘Looking round?’ He looked puzzled. ‘No. I live here. For the moment.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She was still desperately trying to think where she had met him before. ‘We understood the place was empty.’
‘Empty!’ He seemed to find the word ironic. ‘Well, I suppose it is in a way. I hate it in there. It’s so cold, did you notice? However hot it is out here. As cold as the tomb.’ He shuddered. ‘Why were you staring at me?’
She hastily looked away. ‘I’m sorry, but we’ve met before somewhere, haven’t we?’
He was the most attractive man she had ever seen. Shocked at her own reaction, she was trying to cope with the sheer physical impact he had on her. It confused and frightened her.
He didn’t seem to have heard her question. He was concentrating on the flower bed near them. And he obviously hadn’t seen the admiration in her eyes, for when he glanced back at her he scowled. ‘Not a pretty sight, am I?’ He half raised his injured arm. ‘Don’t look at me. Wouldn’t you like to see the garden?’
‘Yes. Please.’ Desperately she tried to get a grip on herself. Middle aged – well, nearly – women did not go round the country ogling handsome young men and feeling their breath snatched away by waves of physical longing for complete strangers. She concentrated hard on the flowers, as he seemed to be doing, hoping he had not noticed her confusion. ‘The garden is very beautiful.’ She hoped that her voice sounded normal. ‘Mr Turner told us it had gone wild, but it seems very neat to me.’ A crescent of rose beds curved around the neatly mown lawn, brilliant with flowers; beyond them a herbaceous border stretched towards the cedar tree, a riot of lupins and gladioli and hollyhocks.
The young man glanced at her and smiled. ‘A few of the chaps work on it when they’ve got the strength. I’m not much good. I can’t keep my balance without this damn thing.’ As he turned to step off the terrace onto the soft mossy lawn she saw he was using a stick.
‘You look as though you’ve really been in the wars,’ she said gently.
He frowned. ‘Who hasn’t? But I’m lucky, I suppose. I made it back. Look. Look at the roses. God, they’re lovely.’ He stopped and stared at them with a strange intensity.
There was a long silence. Victoria felt uncomfortable, as though she were in the way. He had withdrawn from her into some unfathomable pain. Glancing nervously back at the house, she remembered Robert suddenly and wondered where he was. She wished he would come. He had been there: through the fear and resentment; he knew how to cope with pain.
The house on this side was smartly painted. She frowned. Several windows stood open and from somewhere she could hear the sound of music – a band playing on a scratchy record. Staring up at the windows, hoping to see Robert, she glimpsed a shimmer of white at a window. Her exclamation of surprise brought the young man’s attention back to her.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I thought I saw someone up there. Someone in white.’
He gave a strained smile. ‘Probably one of the nurses.’
‘One of the nurses?’ She stared at him. ‘Do you have nurses to look after you?’ Her eyes were wide with sympathy.
‘Of course.’ His eyes were clear grey, his face handsome, tanned. He glanced down at his arm ruefully. ‘They’re threatening to take this off.’ Just for a moment she could hear the fear in his voice.
She didn’t know what to say.
Visibly pulling himself together he stared at her. ‘You were right. We do know each other, don’t we?’
‘I thought so.’ She forced herself to smile.
‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘Yes,’ he repeated with conviction.
She frowned. Her emotions were sending her conflicting signals. There was something achingly familiar about his eyes, his mouth, his hands; something so familiar that, she realised suddenly, she knew what it was like to have been held in his arms and yet he was a stranger. She turned away abruptly. ‘Perhaps we met when we were children or something.’
‘Perhaps.’ He smiled enigmatically. ‘Who did you come to visit? It obviously wasn’t me.’ There was a trace of wistfulness in his tone.
‘We came to look at the house.’
‘Oh?’ He stopped, gazing down at the grass. ‘Interested in history, are you? It must have been lovely here, before they moved us in.’
Victoria smiled. ‘Your family have lived here for a long time, have they?’
‘My family?’ He looked at her in amusement. ‘No, my family don’t come from here.’ He stepped down onto the soft soil of the flower bed and picked a scarlet rose bud. ‘Here. For you. It goes with your dress.’ He held it out to her. As she took it their fingers touched and the electricity which passed between them left them both for a moment confused. She slipped it behind the pin of the brooch she was wearing.
‘Thank you.’
He was frowning. ‘You’re wearing a wedding ring.’
She looked down at her hand, startled. ‘Yes.’ She bit her lip. ‘My husband is here. He was looking round upstairs. I ought to go and join him, really.’ She hesitated. She couldn’t bear the anguish in his eyes. ‘He was injured too – in the Falklands. He’s out of the army now.’ There was another long silence. ‘I can’t remember your name,’ she said at last.
‘It’s Stephen.’ He said it almost absent-mindedly, ‘Stephen Cheney.’
The name meant nothing to her. Nothing.
‘May I go and bring Robert to meet you?’ she asked after a moment.
He was staring at her again, leaning heavily on his stick, his eyes intense. The silence between them was tangible. It stretched out agonizingly. Then at last he spoke. ‘You and I were lovers once,’ he whispered, ‘in a land, long ago.’
She went cold.
For a moment they were both silent, stunned by what he had said, then he laughed. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. It’s a quotation. At least, I think it is. If not it ought to be. Perhaps I’ll write it myself. Yes, go and fetch your husband. I’d like to meet him.’
Victoria turned and walked slowly back across the grass towards the door into the house. She stopped as she put her hand on the handle and turned to look back over her shoulder. He was standing watching her. Jauntily he raised his stick in salute.
She let herself into the cold corridor with a shiver and ran to the stairs. ‘Robert? Are you up there?’
‘Here. Come and see this.’ His voice was distant. ‘This place is really weird,’ he went on as she found him in the end room. ‘Look at these –’ He broke off. ‘Victoria, darling, what is it?’
For a fraction of a second she hesitated, then she threw herself into his arms. ‘Oh, Robert!’ She buried her face in his shirt, clinging to him. ‘Robert. Where have you been?’
‘Only up here.’ He steadied himself with difficulty and pushed her gently away from him. ‘Victoria, what’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I was suddenly so afraid I was going to lose you.’ She could feel it again; the terror; the pain; the dread. It spun around them in the air.
He laughed. ‘No such luck, Mrs Holland. You’re stuck with me. How was the garden?’
‘It’s beautiful.’ She had to be outside again. She couldn’t bear to be inside another minute. ‘You must come down and see it. I met one of Lady Penelope’s guests. He said he’d like to meet you.’ She knew she was gabbling.
‘I thought what’s-his-name said the house was empty.’
‘He obviously didn’t realize. It doesn’t matter.’ She glanced round again, at the long empty corridor and the silent rooms leading off it and she closed her eyes, trying to stave off the overpowering feeling of unhappiness which swept around her. ‘I saw Stephen’s nurse up here from the garden. Did you meet her?’ The air was stuffy; no windows were open. There was no music. The upper floor echoed with emptiness.
‘A nurse?’ He looked puzzled. ‘No, there’s been no one up here. No one at all.’
They both glanced over their shoulders.
‘That’s strange.’ She bit her lip, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘When I was out there, I could hear music. The windows were open …’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘You must have been looking at another part of the house. Come on, I’ve seen enough.’
‘We’re not going to buy it, are we?’ Suddenly she minded terribly. Irrationally, she wanted the house. She wanted it as she had never wanted anything before.
He shook his head. ‘It needs too much money spending on it, I’m afraid and it is far too large for us, you must see that. Sad, though. It’s a lovely place.’
She bit her lip. ‘I want to live here, Robert. I must live here.’
He stared at her and something in her eyes alarmed him. He was swamped by a sudden sense of foreboding; he could feel the cold coming at him from the walls, threatening to overpower him. Somehow he forced himself to smile; somehow he kept his voice calm. ‘Well, let’s see the rest of the place, then we can talk about it some more.’
At the foot of the stairs she put her hand on the door handle. ‘Come and see the gardens. They’re so lovely.’ Her fear had subsided as quickly as it had come. It had been an irrational, silly moment. She pushed at the door and frowned, rattling the handle. It seemed to have locked itself.
‘Here. Let me.’ Robert shook it hard. ‘You are sure it was unlocked?’
‘Of course I’m sure. It must have latched.’ He could hear the rising panic in her voice again.
‘Never mind, Victoria darling, it doesn’t matter.’ He put his arm round her, pulling her to him. ‘We can walk round the outside before we go.’
Victoria moved away sharply from his strangely alien embrace and with a little sob she turned and ran down the passage.
Robert stared after her in astonishment and fear, then slowly he followed her.
William was waiting for them in the main entrance hall. ‘Ready to go upstairs?’ He glanced at them surreptitiously. They both looked agitated; uneasy.
‘Why not?’ Robert followed him towards the staircase.
‘What did you think of the west wing?’
‘Not a lot,’ Robert smiled tightly. ‘What on earth happened to it?’
‘The house was used as a nursing home during the first war and they used that wing for the operating theatre and wards for the worst injured men.’ William glanced at Victoria who had gone white. ‘When the family moved back in about 1920 they left it as it was. Just closed the door and pretended it wasn’t there until they forgot about it. And I think each successive generation has done the same since. Did you see the stretcher poles? They always give me the creeps.’
‘So that’s what they were.’ Robert shuddered. ‘Something I know a bit about.’
‘It’s an unhappy place,’ Victoria put in quietly.
William nodded. ‘I suspect a lot of young men died here. Luckily the rest of the house seems unaffected. I wouldn’t let it worry you.’ He didn’t give them time to react. Turning, he led the way up the broad unlit sweep of stairs. Halfway up he stopped. ‘Mrs Holland?’
Victoria was standing where they had left her. Her face was drained of colour.
‘The nurse. Stephen’s nurse. She was wearing some sort of big white head dress …’
‘No, Victoria.’ Robert limped back down the stairs towards her. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Just stop it. What you saw was a real nurse. A modern nurse. She probably saw me in the distance and decided to go back downstairs.’
William was frowning at them from the staircase. He felt a shiver touch his spine. What had she seen? One of his colleagues from the firm had seen something when she had stayed to lock up after showing some people around a few days before. That was why she had refused to come this morning. ‘You can deal with that place,’ she had said. ‘I’m not going there again!’
He glanced at Victoria. ‘What happened?’ he asked cautiously.
‘I met someone in the garden, that’s all.’ Victoria said. ‘A house guest of Lady Penelope’s. He’s been in some sort of accident and he has a nurse to look after him. I thought I saw her in the window upstairs, that’s all.’
‘Lady Penelope said the house would be empty.’ William swallowed hard.
‘Well obviously it isn’t.’ Suddenly Robert was impatient. ‘Let’s look round upstairs, quickly, then I think we should go.’
Hastily they trailed through the main bedrooms of the house, through the bathrooms and the guest rooms. The only one showing any sign of occupation was Lady Penelope’s own. There there were piles of books by the bed, a bottle of aspirins and some spare reading glasses. The other rooms were all neat and impersonal and unused. There was no room obviously allocated to Stephen. Or his nurse. Victoria felt a pang of disappointment. His face, his voice were still with her. It was as if for a few short moments he had been a part of her.
‘So. That just leaves the gardens.’ William had escorted them finally back to the kitchen via the second staircase. Checking the door into the west wing, he noted that the bolts were all firmly closed. ‘As you probably noticed when you came in they were once very beautiful. With some care and attention they could bloom again.’
He led them back to the front door and down the steps. The sun was high, beating on the gravel with the white reflective heat more commonly associated with a Mediterranean afternoon than with an English countryside, even in August.
They walked slowly round the south side of the house and wandered across rough uncut lawns, through untrimmed hedges, an overgrown vegetable garden and between rampant woody herbs. The garden was very silent. It was too hot for birds. The only sound came from the bees.
Beneath the cedar tree on the western side of the house they stopped. Victoria looked round expectantly. Then she frowned. ‘I don’t understand. I thought it was here I saw Stephen. It was near this tree. There were rose beds full of flowers and the house was painted on that side, and the windows were open. There must be another tree like this …’
‘No.’ William shook his head firmly. ‘There is only one cedar.’
‘But we were standing there, by the door …’
They all stared at the door into the west wing. It was boarded up.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve got confused. It must have been another door. There were rose beds, and a bank of hollyhocks and a garden seat, and the grass was short. There were daisies everywhere. And music. Music coming from the open windows. He picked a rose for me.’ She hadn’t realized that her voice was rising.
William swallowed. He shivered again.
She had the rose in her hand. It was a deep damask red. Several small thorns still adhered to the stem and as she held it out to Robert one pricked her. A fleck of blood appeared on her thumb. ‘It didn’t mean anything. He just gave it to me. It was a silly gesture.’ She could feel her eyes filling with tears. ‘I … I’ll go and look. There must be another part of the garden we didn’t see. The other side perhaps. Somewhere …’
Before either of the men could say anything she began to run, ducking through the thick laurel bushes which edged the grass onto the gravel of the drive.
William looked at Robert, embarrassed. ‘We have been all the way round the house, Mr Holland. There are no other gardens. There are no rose beds. Not now.’
Robert laughed uncomfortably. ‘Perhaps she fell asleep and dreamed it all. In this heat anything is possible.’
Slowly they walked after her. Both men were thinking of the rose.
‘There isn’t anyone else staying here, Mr Holland,’ William said after a moment. ‘Lady Penelope rang us this morning to say she’ll be away another week. She wanted to check we were locking up properly. She said the house was empty.’
‘Victoria, this is crazy. You can’t go back there. I’ve told the agents we’re not interested. And that’s that.’ Robert threw down the paper. Pushing his hands into his pockets he went to stand in front of the open window, trying to hide his despair.
Since the previous weekend she had not let him touch her. She had been tense, edgy and tearful and obsessed by the house.
‘I can and I’m going to. I’ve already rung Lady Penelope. And I’m going on my own, Robert.’
He stared at her. ‘You’re mad.’
‘It will only take me a couple of hours to drive over there and back. She’s asked me to have a cup of tea with her.’
‘But why? Why go? I’ve told you. We can’t afford it. That house is going to go for more than we could pay. Be reasonable, Victoria.’ He turned to face her desperately. ‘I don’t understand you, darling. What’s happened to you?’ She was a stranger.
She shrugged unhappily. ‘I don’t know. It was meeting Stephen. I have to find out who he is; where I knew him before. I can’t get him out of my mind …’
You and I were lovers once, in a land, long ago.
She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to rid herself of the echo of his voice, the image of his clear, grey eyes.
‘OK. Go then.’ Robert threw himself down onto a chair. ‘Who was he? A boyfriend? You fancied him, did you? He was younger than me, I suppose; not crippled? Are you in love with him?’
‘How could I be? I only saw him for a few minutes.’ She realized suddenly what he had said and for the first time she saw what she was doing to him. ‘Robert!’ She ran to him and put her arms around his neck. ‘It’s not like that. Perhaps he didn’t even exist! Perhaps he was a dream! I don’t know. That’s why I‘ve got to find out, don’t you see? And he was crippled, as you call it, too. I told you. Look,’ she hesitated. ‘Come back with me. Come and meet him yourself. Please.’
He shook his head and tried to smile. ‘No. You go. Whatever it is you have to prove, Victoria, you have to do it alone.’
Lady Penelope opened the door herself. She was a slim, elegant woman in her early eighties, with bright intelligent eyes. Once she had poured the tea she sat quite still behind the tea tray listening with complete attention as Victoria told her story.
When Victoria finished there was a long silence. ‘Stephen Cheney,’ she repeated at last.
‘He and I knew each other once,’ Victoria said softly. She looked down at her hands, covertly twisting her wedding ring around her finger.
You and I were lovers once, in a land, long ago.
‘You do know him?’
‘Oh yes, I know him.’ Lady Penelope frowned. ‘After tea, I’ll take you to him.’
‘He looked so ill.’
‘Yes, poor boy, I expect he did.’ Lady Penelope glanced up at Victoria. ‘What made you and your husband come to look around this house?’
‘The agents sent it. My husband has just been invalided out of the army and it seemed the sort of place we would like to live. We inherited Robert’s father’s house in London and neither of us wanted to live in town, so we sold it. But I’m afraid this is going to be too expensive.’ She smiled anxiously. ‘Mr Turner from the agents said you’d already had offers above the asking price.’
‘Even if I hadn’t I wouldn’t sell it to you, Mrs Holland.’ Lady Penelope’s smile belied the harshness of the words. ‘This is not the house for you, my dear. You’ll see why presently.’ She stood up. ‘Now. If you’ve finished your tea, I’ll take you to see Stephen.’
The heat wave had broken at last and the air was cool and damp after a night of rain as they walked slowly round the side of the house, through the laurels and across the lawn beneath the cedar tree. The west wing was still tightly closed up. No music rang across the grass. Victoria stopped and stared at it. The whole place gave off a sense of deep sadness. Lady Penelope watched her, but she said nothing and after a moment she moved on. Victoria stayed where she was. He had been here. On the grass. Near the flowers. She closed her eyes. She knew already where they were going.
Her hostess moved with deceptive rapidity in spite of her eighty years and Victoria found herself almost running to keep up with her as they cut through the shrubbery and found themselves on another unkempt lawn. Beyond it a high yew hedge separated them from the church.
Opening a gate in the hedge Lady Penelope glanced at Victoria. ‘I hope you’re strong, I think you are.’
She set off up a path between huddled gravestones, overgrown with nettles, some of them lost beneath moss and lichen. One of them had been recently cleared. They stopped in front of it.
Stephen John Cheney
Born 20 June 1894. Died 24 August 1918
in God I trust
‘I remembered the name when you mentioned it on the phone.’ Lady Penelope poked at the grave with her walking stick. ‘I came up yesterday to see if I was right, and cleared the stone. Then I went back to the records. We still have the nursing home ledgers in the house. My son found them years ago. I suppose they got overlooked with all the other stuff at the end of the war. Stephen died two days after they amputated his arm.’
‘No.’ Victoria stared down at the grave. ‘No. You don’t understand. I saw him. I spoke to him.’
‘There is no Stephen Cheney now, my dear.’ The old lady’s voice was gentle.
You and I were lovers once, in a land, long ago.
‘It’s not possible.’ It was a whisper. ‘He gave me a rose.’
‘Everything is possible.’
‘Perhaps it was his son – or his grandson,’ Victoria said uncertainly.
The old lady shrugged. They both stood, staring down at the mossy tombstone. Both knew somehow that Stephen had had no son.
‘I learned the names on all these stones, walking to church every Sunday over the years,’ Lady Penelope said slowly. ‘My family have lived in this house for more than a century. We had to move out during the last war, just as we did during the first one. But they didn’t use the place as a hospital again. The last time round it was the home guard. I brought my husband here in 1940, but we never lived here. He was killed in 1941, before our son was born.’ She paused for a moment. ‘The house is too much for me now. And my son doesn’t want it. So, sadly, it must go.’ She smiled. ‘Are you all right? Do you want to sit down?’
Victoria was fighting back her tears.
‘I’m sorry. It’s such a shock.’
‘There was no gentle way to tell you.’
‘You must think I’m mad.’
‘Oh no, my dear. I don’t think you’re mad. Far from it. On the contrary. I’ve heard their music from the old gramophone. I’ve smelt the Lysol in those wards. But I‘ve never seen any of the boys. You are lucky.’
‘Am I?’ Victoria tried to smile through her tears. ‘Why did I know him? Why did he know me?’
He had touched her; given her a rose. She could hear his voice … see his eyes. She stared down at the grey stone, seeing it swimming through her tears. ‘How?’ she whispered. ‘How?’
There was a long silence. Lady Penelope was staring across the churchyard into the distance where, through the trees, they could see the hazy mountains bathed in the afternoon sun. ‘Maybe you knew one another in a previous life,’ she said at last. ‘Maybe you should have known each other in that life – his life – but he died too soon and you missed one another on the great wheel of destiny. Who knows? If it is still meant to be, you’ll have another chance. You both stepped out of time for a few short minutes and one day you’ll find each other again.’ She put her arm around Victoria’s shoulder. ‘When you reach my age you know these things. Life goes round and round like the records those boys used to play endlessly on those hot summer afternoons. Once in a while the needle slips; it jumps a groove. That’s what happened when you walked out through that door onto the terrace. You and Stephen heard the same tune for a while – then the needle jumped back. If it is meant to be, you will see him again one day.’
‘You really believe that?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘But it won’t be in this life, will it?’
‘You have a lover in this life, Victoria,’ Lady Penelope pointed out gently.
‘You mean Robert?’
‘If he is your lover as well as your husband.’
‘Yes, he is my lover as well as my husband.’ How could anyone doubt it? How could Robert have doubted it? She had left him alone, his face a tight mask of misery. But he had made no further attempt to stop her coming.
‘Then don’t hurt him.’ It was as if the old lady knew what had happened. ‘Stephen has had his life; now you must live yours.’
‘How does it work? How could I see him? Was he a ghost?’
Her companion shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter what he was. He was real. For you. And for me.’
They were both looking down at the grave.
‘He told me he was afraid they would take off his arm,’ Victoria said sadly. ‘He was so frightened. I wish I’d said something to reassure him.’
‘Your being there reassured him.’
‘Did it?’ Victoria bit her lip. ‘Do you mind living in a haunted house?’ she asked after another long silence.
Lady Penelope smiled. ‘Every old house has its ghosts, my dear. You grow used to them. I’m fond of mine. But that poor boy from the agents hates it here. He doesn’t understand.’
‘Why did you say we couldn’t buy the house?’
Lady Penelope smiled. ‘If you hadn’t seen Stephen, it wouldn’t have mattered. But you have and you recognized him. You cannot live in a house with two lovers, Victoria. It wouldn’t be fair to your Robert, or yourself. Or to Stephen for that matter.’
‘But fate must have brought me here.’
Lady Penelope smiled. ‘There are times, my dear, when we have to turn our backs on fate. For the sake of our sanity. Always remember that.’ She glanced towards the house. ‘I’ll go on back, my dear. You catch me up when you’re ready.’
Victoria stood looking down at the grave for several minutes after the old lady had gone. She made no attempt to reach him. Her mind was a blank. The churchyard around her was empty. There were no ghosts there now. Wandering on down the path she passed a wild climbing rose, scrambling over some dead elder bushes. Picking one perfect bud she took it back and laid it on his grave. Then she turned away.
As she walked back across the lawn she glanced up at the windows of the west wing as they reflected the late afternoon sunlight in a glow of gold. One or two of them were open now, she saw, without surprise. And, faintly, she could hear the sound of music. But the gardens were empty.
Visitors (#uf3fe027c-6611-5753-baa3-d7c832dcc5de)
‘You know, I’m not sure that I do want to see you again after all, Joe.’ I leaned back, beginning to enjoy myself, and shifted the receiver to the other hand. ‘How long did you say it was?’
‘Oh, come on, Pen. Don’t be like that.’ His voice was starting to sound the tiniest bit tetchy.
I hoped the smile on my face didn’t come over in my voice. ‘OK, then. As it’s Christmas. You can come for the night. Spare room.’
‘Spare room?’
‘Spare room.’
I put down the receiver and stood up. Twenty minutes, he had said. Twenty minutes to tidy up, fix my hair and nails, slip into something infinitely casual and arrange to be very, very busy when he arrived. I glanced out of the window. The village street glistened beneath the dusting, melting snow. Rather as it had been when he walked out on me three years before. I had sworn I would never see the swine again.
Well, three years and a couple of morale-boosting affairs can do a lot for resolutions like that one. Anyway, I was curious. What had happened to my Joe in the last three years? I put a couple of logs on the fire and poured myself a drink.
I stayed where I was at my writing desk when I heard the car drive up outside. I counted to ten when the bell rang and then, slowly, walked to the door.
Damn. The sight of him could still make my pulses race. I stretched out a hand. ‘It’s good to see you again, Joe.’ There were tiny unmelted snowflakes caught in the crisp curl of his hair. But his eyes were the same. Mocking; insolent; irresistible … ‘Come and have a drink.’ I put my hand on the door behind him to push it closed, but his foot was in the way.
‘Pen, I’m not alone …’
As his voice tailed away I felt my nerves begin to throb warningly. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve brought a woman, Joe.’ My voice was melodious, but I could see it made him uneasy.
‘Of course not, I told you. It’s all over. There’s no one. But …’
Never in all the time I’ve known him have I seen Joe look shifty before. His eyes skidded away from mine and fixed, concentrating, on the battered coal scuttle on the hearth. I was taut with suspicion.
‘I’m all alone, Pen,’ he had said, on the phone. The liar. ‘All alone, and it is Christmas Eve. Couldn’t I come?’
I had been trying to forget it was Christmas Eve, in spite of the cards around the room, in spite of the coloured lights around the church and the village pub. Christmas is for families, not for the orphaned unmarried like me, however sociable we might be the rest of the year. But the crackle of sentiment in his voice had got to me.
‘Come on in, Joe,’ I said now, wearily. ‘The house is getting cold. You’d better ask her in. One drink and you can go to the pub. Both.’
I turned my back on the door and stood, folding my arms defensively around me, in front of the fire. What did I care how many women he brought. No doubt he’d come for my approval before popping the question to someone who had finally been fool enough to say yes. It was the sort of crazy tactless thing Joe might do. I kicked a log and watched the shower of sparks. Whoever she was, she was a bitch.
There was a click as Joe quietly pushed the front door shut behind him with his foot. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten …
Slowly I turned.
Nobody. He was standing there with a basket in each hand, and he was looking sheepish again. What the hell was he up to?
‘OK, Joe. Have a drink.’ I sighed and went for the bottle as he set down the two baskets and came forward.
He took the glass from my hand. ‘You’re a real brick, Pen. Did I ever tell you that?’
Of course, I could have stepped back in time to avoid that kiss; as it was I stepped back just a little too late. As an experiment it was a success.
‘I like your hair long. You look fabulous; really good.’ He took a deep drink from his glass. I waited smugly for his eyes to water as he swallowed, but they didn’t. I was impressed. It was neat and he had taken a big gulp. Perhaps he had been practising.
‘Happy Christmas, fella,’ I whispered. ‘Now, stop flannelling and show me this friend.’
‘His name is Paul.’ He set down the glass.
‘Paul?’
I watched as he went to the shopping. One of the baskets was stuffed with blankets and – I felt my eyes growing enormous – a small baby.
I stood there, for the first time in my life speechless, as Joe tenderly scooped it up and brought it to the fire. It had delicate, tiny features and warm pink cheeks. It was asleep.
‘Isn’t he beautiful?’ Joe’s voice was very gentle.
‘Whose is it?’ I don’t think my voice was as harsh as it should have been. It really was, now he came to mention it, rather beautiful.
‘This is my son.’ There was no mistaking this time the pride in his voice.
And there was no mistaking the jealousy and disappointment that swept through me as he said it; silly fool that I was, still caring for a man like him.
‘Do you want to hold him?’ He spoke with the voice of one about to bestow a rare and lovely treat. I stepped back and firmly picked up my glass again.
‘I’m not used to babies,’ I said. ‘I’d drop him.’
‘I expect you want to know where he came from?’ The shifty look had gone and the old mischievous grin was back, teasing me.
I raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ve no doubt you have as many gooseberry bushes in town as we do here.’
‘His mother doesn’t like children. We had a conference when we split up and she said I could take him. So I did.’ He was grinning all over his face.
‘So you did.’ I was stunned. ‘Do you know anything about babies, Joe?’
He shook his head. ‘She gave me a manual. It’s quite straightforward, really. I’ve got all the gear. It’s in the car, actually.’
‘But, Joe, what’ll you do when term starts? Who will look after it then?’
Joe, like me, teaches.
He shrugged. ‘I’ll find someone to keep an eye on him.’
Gently he laid the child down on the sofa and unwrapped a layer of shawl. I was torn between indignation and curiosity.
‘Hadn’t you better tell me who his mother was? Is?’
‘Was. It has all been made legal. A lovely lady, Pen. You would like her …’
Like hell, I thought.
‘… She’s tall and dark and quiet, but absolutely set on being a top dancer. And she’ll do it. She’s good. And she’s definitely not the maternal type. She nearly killed me when she got pregnant. Lovely girl.’
He positively licked his lips.
‘You are a swine, Joe.’ I thought it was time I said it out loud.
He laughed. ‘You know, none of them have ever been like you, Pen. None of them.’
It was my turn to look modest. ‘And how many of them have there been, if I might enquire?’
He shrugged. ‘Trade secret, love. Who’s counting? It’s you I’ve come back to.’
‘You and who else,’ I said.
When he went to unpack the car I had a look at the baby. It was very like him, I had to admit.
I pulled back the shawl to have a better look and the infant Nureyev opened its eyes – and then its mouth. I leaped back as though it had bitten me. The squalling was deafening.
Joe was beside me in an instant. ‘Did Penny frighten you, den?’
I put my hands over my face. ‘Joe! I don’t believe it. Not you. Not baby talk. Surely your son is an intellectual?’
‘Of course he is.’ Joe drew himself up. ‘Who is an intellectual, den? Daddy’s boy.’ He laughed. ‘You should see your face, Pen.’ He put his arm around me and gave me a squeeze. ‘Come on. Are you going to feed him? It’s time he was asleep.’
‘Me?’ I hit an unseemly falsetto. ‘I couldn’t feed him.’
‘Why not? Women do these things by instinct.’
‘Evidently his mother doesn’t. And neither do I,’ I said firmly. ‘It’s all up to you, Joe.’
I watched fascinated as he bent and, rummaging in a paper bag, produced a feeding bottle.
‘It’s only got to be warmed up.’
‘Can’t we give it brandy, or something, just this once?’ I quavered. Babies, it seemed, unnerved me completely.
He remembered where the kitchen was; and the kettle; and the mixing bowl. Damn him, he was completely at home!
I hovered ineffectually, listening with increasing unease to the baby’s screams from next door.
‘Pick him up, will you. Tell him it’s coming.’
I had been afraid he would say that. Nervously I edged an arm under the convulsed little bundle and heaved it up. It was surprisingly heavy. To my amazement it stopped crying at once, and after a moment, beamed at me. I found myself beaming back. I felt ridiculously pleased.
‘See, he likes you.’ Joe appeared with a towel wrapped around his waist, the bottle in his hand.
I watched goggle-eyed as he stuffed the teat into the baby’s mouth and tipped the stuff down and I almost asked if I could have a go myself.
‘I knew you’d turn up trumps, Pen.’ Joe took his refilled glass from me and raised it in salute. We had made the baby a bed in a drawer upstairs after he had changed its nappy – blessedly out of sight, to save my sensibilities – and it had gone off to sleep at once. Its mountain of belongings tidied away, my cottage began to look familiar again.
‘You can’t keep it, Joe. It’s got to go back to its mother.’ I looked at him earnestly.
‘Rubbish. It’s mother doesn’t want it.’ Joe grinned affably. ‘When are we eating?’
Men!
He had to make do with an omelette; hardly Christmas fare, but he produced a bottle of wine from one of his paper bags, so I made the effort to go into the garden where the snow was beginning to settle a little and I cut some frosty thyme. One fine herbe at least. He sniffed over my shoulder as the eggs sizzled in the pan.
‘None of my other women have been able to cook like you. You know, I sometimes used to lie and dream about the nosh I got in this cottage.’ He licked his lips and I had to laugh.
‘I should kick you for talking about all these other women all the time. Why on earth did you leave if I’m such a paragon?’
‘You were a bitch as well.’ He was warming the wine, like the feeding bottle, in a basin of hot water. ‘And I wasn’t mature enough to cope with you. Besides, you were becoming too set in your ways. I could see you getting bossy. My God! You’ve moved the glasses.’ He straightened from the cupboard in the corner. ‘Do you know, Pen, that is the first thing that’s been different in this cottage. Three years and not a bloody thing has changed. That’s what I mean about being set in your ways.’
‘A lot has changed.’ I could feel myself getting defensive. He had caught me on a sensitive spot. I knew I was in a rut without him spelling it out. ‘The walls have changed colour for a start. There are new curtains in the sitting room. I’ve got new chairs and …’
‘Stop!’ he raised his hands in surrender. ‘Stop. I didn’t mean it. Forgive the old campaigner the gaps in his memory.’ He grinned again. ‘So, where are the glasses these days?’
‘On a tray next door.’ I flipped the omelettes onto two warmed plates and piled some French bread and salad round them. At least he wouldn’t starve.
We were half-way through supper when the carol singers came. It was the moment I had been dreading most before Joe arrived. The year before, I had put out all the lights as I heard them down the street, put my head under my pillow and wallowed in self pity as they missed my darkened porch, as I had intended they should.
This time we listened. Happy. The joyous sounds were slightly off key, but who cared.
I hadn’t any change.
‘My God, woman, you’re still after my money!’ Joe groped in his pocket and produced a pound coin.
‘Joe, that’s too much!’ I murmured, but it was too late. And it was worth it.
Oh, it would be so easy to have Joe back. So very easy.
We whispered so as not to wake the baby as we made up a bed for Joe in the spare room. ‘You’re right about things not being the same round here,’ he muttered ruefully as I pulled the blankets over.
‘Dead right, they’re not,’ I hissed back. ‘You promiscuous so-and-so. You keep your child company.’
I didn’t lock my door, though, and I was quite disappointed when the dulcet tones of Joe’s snores began gently to vibrate across the landing.
‘Happy Christmas, darling.’
I was struggling up through layers of exhausted sleep, clutching at daylight. It was dark.
I could feel Joe’s arms around me. ‘What time is it?’ I managed to ask before his mouth closed onto mine. After a moment – a lovely moment – he replied, ‘About three, I should think. I’ve just fed Paul.’
I sat up abruptly, pushing him away. It wasn’t going to be that easy for him. ‘Three in the morning? You’re mad. Go away!’
‘But Penny …’ his voice in the dark was hurt and pathetic.
‘Get out, Joe. I told you.’
I was indignant. Three in the morning is not on, by anybody’s standards. Not after three years. Not after all those other women who didn’t know how to cook.
He went.
At breakfast he was looking innocent again. Dangerously so.
‘Happy Christmas, darling.’
‘You’ve said that once today already, if I remember.’
‘Have I?’ He smiled. ‘I’ve got a present for you.’
In spite of myself I was excited. ‘Really?’ I should have been suspicious.
‘Really.’ He looked suddenly serious. He felt in his pocket and produced an envelope which he pushed across at me. Hesitating I took it. It had something small and hard in it. Without looking I knew what it was. The ring I had thrown at his head so long before. I pushed the envelope back.
‘No, Joe, it wouldn’t work.’
‘It would. I’m more mature now.’ He smiled wickedly and left the envelope on the table.
‘It wouldn’t.’ I got up to make the toast. ‘So, when are you leaving?’ I bent down to light the grill pan. It meant my face was hidden and he couldn’t read my expression.
Ten years, or so?’ He sounded hopeful.
I laughed. And in spite of myself my heart leaped. ‘We’ll try it until lunch,’ I said.
Cabbage à la Carte (#uf3fe027c-6611-5753-baa3-d7c832dcc5de)
Kate pulled the mini thankfully into the parking space and switched off. For a moment she rested her forehead against the cool rim of the steering wheel, breathing deeply. Her hands were shaking. The first, The lesser, part of the ordeal was over – driving the borrowed car through the overcrowded streets on market day and finding a meter. She leaned over to glance in the mirror and check her hair. Her face was pink and shiny again, her lipstick had turned too red.
She grabbed for her tapestry bag and applied a new layer. It looked artificial and hard. She wasn’t used to bothering with make-up. She never usually dressed up. She had never owned her own car. But today she was endeavouring to be someone quite different. Kate Millrow, painter, recently – very recently – of St Agnes’s School of Art, would never dare to try and sell her paintings to a smart town gallery.
Miss Rowmill (she was especially pleased with the name), artists’ agent and talent spotter would be able to do it every day. Think yourself into the part, Kate, think yourself into the part,’ she muttered desperately as she climbed out of the car and groped for the money. The coin, so carefully hoarded for this occasion, slipped from her fingers and rolled away towards a gutter. Frantically she leapt after it and caught it up before it disappeared down the grille. Even putting the money in the parking meter once she had recaptured it was something of an ordeal. She studied the thing intently, reading the instructions. The slot seemed to be the wrong way round. She couldn’t get the money in. Then at last the needle buzzed across and she found herself with two whole hours in which to carry out her mission. She pulled out the portfolio, locked the car and made her way slowly towards the gallery. She knew it didn’t open until ten so she made her way slowly towards a coffee shop, clutching the cardboard folder awkwardly. Its sharp edges at the top cut into her armpit, at the bottom they sliced into her fingers.
Sitting down thankfully with an espresso she set down her burden. By rights she ought to be at college now, settling into her final year. What had possessed her to think she could make it on her own? The offer of the cottage in the country? Somewhere where she could really paint? There’s nothing much else to do there, Kate. It’ll keep you at it. Then we’ll see what you’re really made of,’ John had said as he handed her the key before setting off on his trek to Katmandu. For a year at least she had the place, rent free, to herself. It was a dream come true. Only John hadn’t mentioned the fact that the rain came through the roof, there was no electricity and the nearest neighbour was half a mile away.
She had been shocked, afraid and then angry in that order when she first saw the cottage. Was it for this that she had thrown up college and antagonized her family? Then eventually she had begun to see the funny side. Perhaps fate had presented her with a challenge. Anyway it was too late to go back. There was nothing to do but weed cabbages (‘You won’t starve, love, help yourself from the kitchen garden’), eat cabbages and set up her easel.
And surprisingly she had painted. She had painted non-stop day after day, as long as there was light. But the moment had come when she realized that she could not live on cabbages for ever, and even if she could she had to pay for the calor gas to cook them, and oil for the lamps.
Nervously she had painted a board, ‘Millrow Studios’, and hammered it to the gate, thinking someone might come and buy at the cottage. She had waited heart-thumping for half an hour for a car to come down the lane and then she had run out and torn down the notice before anyone could see it.
Her only visitors had been her nearest neighbours from the form up the lane. They had been kind and helpful and once brought her a chicken and often eggs, and now today she had borrowed their mini. They had looked at her pictures, made noises of polite incomprehension and suggested the gallery in town. They knew it opened at ten (‘Lazy devils; don’t know the meaning of the word work’) and directed her to the coffee house. (‘The pubs aren’t open then, but if you need a stiffener, that’ll be the next best thing.’)
It was ten past ten. Her knees wobbling, she paid her bill and crossed the road.
The girl in the gallery had round moon glasses and an expression of disdain. Kate forgot she was Miss Rowmill, agent and became shy and diffident Kate Millrow, beneath the girl’s supercilious gaze.
‘Are you the owner of the gallery?’ she asked in a strained falsetto, totally unlike her own voice.
To her surprise the girl gave her a friendly smile. ‘No, but he’ll be back any minute. Take a seat.’
Kate sat numbly, the portfolio balanced against her knees. The paintings on the walls of the gallery were to her eyes mannered and uncomfortable. But they were good and very professional. And, dear God, they were framed! Perhaps she should have tried to frame hers before she brought them in? She started to shake again, wishing she hadn’t come.
Then the door opened and the owner appeared. He was a young man, tall and arrogant-looking. His lips, she decided instantly, were mean beneath the thin moustache.
Her only concern now was to get out as soon as possible, with the least embarrassment for everybody, especially herself.
The other girl had her coat on as soon as the man appeared. ‘Here’s Mr Chambers now,’ she announced and she was gone without a word to him.
‘Ask her to watch the place for five minutes and she acts as if I’d told her to swim the channel, the silly bitch,’ he muttered angrily at her retreating back. ‘Now, what do you want, young lady?’ He sounded irritated.
He didn’t seem to realize that she was Miss Rowmill, artists’ agent. Nettled, she told him.
He was not impressed. ‘We’re fully booked well into next year,’ he said coolly. ‘But let’s see what you’ve got.’
He leafed through the paintings and sketches casually, taking hardly any time to study them. Occasionally he muttered ‘humph, not bad,’ or ‘weak, weak,’ or ‘very derivative’. Kate was mortified.
‘They’re all by the same girl?” he asked, not raising his eyes.
‘Yes.’
‘Where did you find her, art school?’
She was furious. ‘No. She’s a local girl. I think she has great talent, a great …’ She hesitated, trying to think of a word.
‘Potential?’ He glanced up at her, smiling suddenly.
‘Exactly.’ She felt she wasn’t playing her part sufficiently convincingly. ‘I like to watch out for up and coming new names, and so,’ she added pointedly, ‘do most of my clients.’
‘Indeed.’ She did not like the way he raised one eyebrow.
He reached the end of the pictures and began to shuffle through them again. ‘Did she have any oils, this Kate Millrow?’ he asked casually.
‘Oh yes.’ Did she sound too eager? ‘I didn’t bring any today, but I could arrange to collect some.’
‘No, no,’ He held up his hand. ‘I’ve seen enough. I’m afraid, Miss …’ he hesitated over the name. ‘Rowmill was it? I’m afraid these are not really suitable for this gallery. However,’ he glared at her as he saw her about to speak, ‘however, I do believe like yourself in giving an encouraging help to the young occasionally, so,’ he pulled out a watercolour and looked at it closely, ‘I will take a couple of these if you agree. I’ll have them framed and hang them in my next show. I’ll take framing expenses plus ten per cent, agreed?’
Kate was speechless with joy. It wasn’t the praise, the one man exhibition she had dreamed of, but it was something. Excitedly she gave him the address of the cottage.
‘And now your address, Miss Rowmill. I generally prefer to deal through an agent direct if there is one.’ He looked at her closely and waited, his pen poised. It nearly stumped her. She thought fest and then gave him her sister’s address in London. It seemed to impress him.
It was not until she was nearly home that she realized that in real terms she had achieved very little. The condescending acceptance of two pictures by a stuck up opinionated gallery owner, out of charity rather than anything else, and a lot of quite unjustified rude remarks. ‘Horrible prig!’ she muttered to herself as she turned up the lane. And what was worse she realized, she still hadn’t actually earned any cash, and her desire for some rather more exotic food than eggs and cabbage was increasingly daily, if not hourly.
Reluctantly, nervously, she rehung the notice on the gate before she changed and took the car back to the farm. If Miss Rowmill could hang the notice up, she hoped desperately that she could persuade Miss Millrow to leave it there.
Once more dressed in jeans and barefoot, she selected the paintings Mr Chambers had made the least derogatory noises over and put them prominently round the room.
Then she sat back to wait. No one came. She left the notice on the gate, refused to be discouraged, went to dig some potatoes and then at last settled down to paint again.
‘Derivative indeed,’ she snorted. ‘The man was an ignorant fool.’
It was on the Saturday afternoon that a car drove by, slowed and backed to the gate. Two people got out and wandered up the path, exclaiming at the honeysuckle and roses, pointing up at the fields behind the cottage.
Kate felt sick.
They knocked and she let them in, wishing she wasn’t quite so shabbily dressed and that her toes weren’t quite so grubby from the garden.
But they obviously liked to see her like that. She saw suddenly through their eyes a glimmer of the so-called glamour of the artist in the garret, and glad that for once she had got rid of the smell of cabbage from the house, she was content to let them wander around the room she used for a studio.
She crossed her fingers, praying they would buy something, but they completed a round of the paintings without seeming to see anything in particular.
Then the man turned to her hesitantly. ‘Is anything for sale, Miss Millrow?’ he asked.
Anything! He must be joking.
She smiled politely. ‘Well, some of my best work is away on exhibition,’ – was that Miss Rowmill talking? – ‘but most things here are for sale, yes.’
She desperately tried to think of prices. Too high and they would be scared off; too low and they would think her valueless.
‘I’ll give you ten pounds for this, I love it.’
She could not believe her ears. Ten pounds for a tiny painting of a posy of spring flowers. It wasn’t even modern in style.
‘That seems very fair.’ She smiled as graciously as she could.
She sat for a long time after they had gone, gazing at the two fivers on the table. Could it be true that at last she was earning her living by painting?
Two hours later she was chopping vegetables in the kitchen when there was a knock at the door. She opened it to find Mr Chambers standing on the doorstep. Her heart sank with embarrassment but he held out his hand blandly with absolutely no sign of recognition on his face.
‘You must be Miss Millrow. How do you do.’
Had her make up been so good then? She stammered a greeting in return and showed him at his request into the studio.
Reaching into his pocket he produced an envelope. ‘I’m glad to say I’ve managed to sell one of your paintings, Miss Millrow.’
‘Already?’ her voice came out in a squeak.
‘Already.’ He grinned at her amicably. ‘It was lying on my table after you, that is your agent,’ he corrected himself quickly, ‘had left it with me and I had a buyer almost at once. It seems my initial judgement may have been a little harsh.’
‘I’ll say it was,’ she muttered under her breath, and then out loud she asked. ‘How much did you get?’ She took the envelope with shaking fingers.
‘There’s thirty-five pounds there. I’ve already taken my commission.’ He grinned again. ‘I imagined that under the circumstances you would rather pay your agent her commission yourself.’
Kate felt herself blushing crimson. ‘You must think I’m an awful fool.’
‘Not at all. You’d be surprised how many people come in with pictures they say a “friend” has painted. Mind you,’ he looked her up and down pointedly. ‘Not many of them go to the lengths you did for a disguise.’
She blushed again. ‘I’m afraid I’m rather a mess at the moment. I was cooking.’
He nodded. ‘Cabbage. I had guessed.’
She smiled ruefully. ‘I’m afraid I live on it.’
‘Why don’t you go and continue while I poke around here for a bit and investigate your,’ he paused and winked, ‘your potential.’
She fled.
It took only a few minutes to throw the vegetables into a pan and scrub her hands and then she ran upstairs to comb her hair and change her skirt. When she came down he had piled several canvases on the table.
‘I’ll take these next,’ he said without preamble. ‘Sale or return of course, and I’ll buy this one myself …’
Again it was flowers, she noticed amazed.
‘… if it’s not exorbitantly priced. Now,’ he looked at her again. ‘Could that concoction you were making wait do you think? If you were to transform yourself, not into that hard hitting woman Miss Rowmill, but perhaps into a slightly tidier version of yourself I could take you out to dinner to celebrate your sales.’
She looked at him amazed. She had got the firm impression he despised her and her kind, and she certainly disliked him. So why ask her out? And anyway he was insufferably rude. A slightly tidier version of herself indeed. She curbed the desire to stick out her tongue at him. Instead she lowered her eyes meekly to the floor. ‘That would be nice,’ she said. ‘Much better than cabbage.’
She had a Laura Ashley dress upstairs and pretty Venetian sandals. Her hair beneath its gay scarf was at least clean. Oh yes, Mr Chambers. She could be tidier when she tried.
She debated over lipstick for several minutes in her bedroom and then decided against it. Miss Rowmill might wear lipstick, but she did not. She clipped on the silver bangle her parents had given her for her eighteenth birthday and gazed at herself in the stained old mirror. The image, she had to admit, was rather attractive.
Mr Chambers evidently thought so too, for he stopped being rude, told her his name was Derek and ushered her out to his car with exaggerated care. He even helped her with the seat belt.
‘I have a ten per cent interest in you, my dear Miss Millrow,’ was his only comment when she protested.
They drove back into town and he took her to the most delightful French restaurant she had ever been to. He almost talked her into having something called Dolmas Maigre, but the suppressed glee in his expression led her to guess it might have something to do with cabbage and to his chagrin she checked with the waiter before she ordered. Once that hurdle was over the evening continued fairly well. She found herself telling him about art school and John’s offer of the cottage and her parents’ anger when she had ‘dropped out’, as they of course put it. To her surprise he threw his head back and laughed.
‘Dropped out, a prim little miss like you? Nonsense. Besides, they ought to be proud of you. You have a great deal of talent. And not only for painting. If you ever get bored with that, you could go on the stage.’
She looked at him to see if he was taking the micky, but his expression was all innocence. He quickly topped up her wine glass. ‘Yes, Miss Millrow, you have a great deal of talent.’
To her annoyance she found herself blushing although she was quite sure he was teasing. His fingers had strayed towards her own on the blue table-cloth and as they so very casually, almost by accident, made contact, she snatched her hand away. She was not going to be that easy to placate. She took a gulp of wine.
When they parted that evening, however, it was on the understanding that they would meet again the following Saturday and that, if she could face the bus ride into town, she would go to see him at the gallery even before then.
‘Now,’ he said, looking up at her mischievously from the driving seat as he started up the engine. ‘About what you wear when you come. Shoes, yes. Lipstick, no. Jeans, yes if decent. Right?’
She grinned. ‘And next weekend?’
‘Next weekend, if you’re cooking for me, a large plastic apron, which I will personally provide.’
‘Nothing else?’ Her eyes widened.
He laughed. ‘That, my sweet Kate, is up to you. But I’ll live in hope.’
She stood waving as he drove off down the lane and then slowly she made her way back into the shadowy cottage where he had lit the oil lamp for her and left it, flickering slightly on the table. She was unbelievably happy.
‘Damn cheek,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Who does he think he is?’
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