Encounters (38 page)

Marta continued peeling. ‘So, Should I be pleased?’

‘I want to marry Faye.’

‘Third time lucky you hope, eh?’ She ran the tap into the colander and then ripped off her rubber gloves.

‘Faye is my destiny, Marta.’

‘Oh my God, Paul. Now you sound like a third rate movie!’ She came over to the kitchen table and reached for a dishcloth, staring at him. There was a moment’s silence. ‘But you’re serious, aren’t you?’ she went on in astonishment. ‘You and Faye, it’s as if it were something different from other people. Deeper.’

He grinned sourly. ‘Romeo and Juliet didn’t have a monopoly, you know. It can happen amongst the filing cabinets just as easily.’

Marta laughed. ‘Touché. But tell me, why have you come to me?’

He glanced at the glass in his hand. ‘Dutch courage perhaps? I never meant to hurt her, Marta. I’ve never struck a woman in my life.’

Marta sat down and poured herself some wine. ‘Funny isn’t it? People like me scream for equality, yet when a man hits a woman we act shocked as Victorian maidens, just because she’s a woman. I told her she should have hit you back. Hard.’

He shrugged ruefully. ‘Unfortunately men usually pack a better punch.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps if she had, she’d have brought me to my senses sooner. I would have stayed. We could have talked it through eventually, now everything is in the open. As it is I can’t blame her for not trusting me.’

‘Nor do I.’ She leaned back in her chair and scrutinized him closely. ‘You look awful. When did you last sleep?’

He picked up the wine bottle and held it up to the light. ‘Last night, in theory. Shall I go round and see her now?’

He split the dregs meticulously between them.

‘Not now,’ she said. ‘Soon.’

Two days later Faye let Paul back into her flat. She gave a rueful smile. ‘Have you lost your key?’ she said.

‘I didn’t like to use it without your permission. I forfeited that right. Did Marta ring you?’

Faye nodded. That was odd. To use her of all people as a go between. ‘I thought you knew she hated you.’

They were standing facing each other, not touching.

‘She cares for you though.’ He was taking in every detail of her appearance, feeding on her nearness. ‘She must have thought you should see me. Either that or she was so adamant that you shouldn’t that she made you angry and you did it as a dare!’ He smiled at last and she felt her mouth go dry.

‘Something like that, yes,’ she said.

She had already decided not to tell him what Marta had said: ‘For God’s sake marry the guy and give us all some peace,’ was the censored gist of what she had advised.

He stepped forward and took her hands gently. ‘She told you that I’m divorcing Clare. As soon as I’m free …’

‘No, Paul,’ she interrupted him. ‘Don’t say any more. Wait until you really are free and then we’ll think what to do next.’ Gently she disengaged her hand from his. ‘Come in properly. We can’t stand here in front of the door. I’ll make you some coffee.’

He watched as she walked to the kitchen door, her head high, her shoulders a shade stiffer than he remembered and he felt a pang of fear. Perhaps not till that moment had he realized just how much he had hurt her. But obediently he sat down and waited while she brought the tray with biscuits laid out carefully in the brown earthenware bowl as if he were a visitor. He didn’t recognize the mugs at all, they had been bought as a gesture of defiance together with a dress and shoes and a large bottle of plonk to drown her sorrows alone. None had worked, but he was not to know that.

‘May I not come back then?’ he asked at last. He did not look at her face.

‘I don’t know, Paul. I want you to, but …’

‘To hell with all the “buts”, Faye. If you want me I’ll come!’ He put the mug back on the tray, then he leaned forward and took her hand, holding it so tightly that she winced and tried to pull away. ‘Don’t you understand, darling. Clare and I are getting divorced! There is nothing to come between us any more. Nothing. No more reservations; no more secrets and nightmares haunting us from the wings.’

Nothing, except her months of pain and her resolution to be strong so that never again would he – or any man – make her feel the anguish and humiliation to which such complete surrender had left her open.

She wavered. She raised her eyes to his at last and half unwillingly allowed herself to go to him.

Her resolution spun and dissolved. With him she was complete. More than anything she wanted him and she agreed that he could come back. But the pain was still there. She was hurt more deeply than even she had realized. However much she wanted to, she found she still did not trust him; she could not let herself believe that the gods had finished their teasing and turned away to find another prey.

‘Faye, you must believe me,’ he pleaded. ‘I only lied to you because I loved you so much. It will never happen again. The instant I’m free we can be married.’

She knew he was sincere and that his love was genuine, just as she knew her love for him had not changed. But she had no power to overcome her fears. They were involuntary and unwanted. She just had to hope that time would heal the bruises.

And time was what Paul did not give her.

‘She’s throwing my guilt back at me all the time,’ he said to Marta one evening in despair. ‘She doesn’t even know she’s doing it but it’s coming between us like a brick wall ten feet high.’

‘You’ve got to take him back unreservedly, or say goodbye to him,’ Marta told Faye later. ‘You can’t go on turning this into a five act tragedy. It’s making both of you unhappy. It’s very unfair.’

‘Unfair? To him?’ Faye swung round on her.

‘Yes, unfair to him. And to yourself.’ Gently Marta hammered the point home. ‘You are punishing him for something he had already punished himself for enough.’

Faye threw herself down on a chair. ‘So, you’re on his side now!’ she said bitterly.

‘I don’t take sides. I watch from a safe vantage point. But I can see you losing him, Faye and it would break you up.’

For a moment they sat in silence. Marta searched desperately for something to say which would help, gave up and went to find some alcohol. It turned out to be the dregs of a whisky bottle. ‘A snifter each,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Take him back without reservation, Faye. You can trust him now,’ she said softly, ‘and you can afford to trust yourself.’ And she raised her glass.

But it was already too late. It was two days after that he got up as he and Faye were listening to a record in the dark sitting room, their eyes staring into the fire and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

‘I’m going out for a breath of air,’ he said. ‘Don’t wait up. I’ve got a key.’

She sat unmoving for a long time after the sound of the music had died away. Then sadly she went to bed.

In the morning she was still alone.

And now, even staying with Marta she was alone and frozen in the spaces of her anguish. She walked on doggedly up the hill, feeling the cold wind lifting her hair about her ears, feeling the slight skim of ice forming on the pavements beneath her feet, her eyes used to the dark now, picking out details of sleeping houses, a wraith of pale smoke hanging still above a chimney and a holly tree, the berries glistening beneath a lamp, the red washed out of them by the pale light.

It was the first time she had allowed herself to think back to the day she and Paul had first met. They had not needed to speak then. What had gone wrong? Why was there this awful gulf between them now?

Slowly she turned and began to retrace her steps. Even if she had found the answer to her question it was too late. She had lost him a second time.

Marta has left one light burning on the table. The flat was very quiet. Dropping her coat on the chair by the door Faye made for the gently hissing flames of the gas fire and held out her hands to the warmth.

‘Faye?’ Paul was sitting in the shadows, so still she had not even seen him. ‘Marta called me. She said I should come,’ he said softly.

‘Where is she?’

‘In bed.’ He held out his hands to her, smiling. ‘I’ve done so much thinking, Faye. And each time I come back to the same answer. I still want you.’

She did not move. The shade of the lamp was angled so the light fell in a pool on the table. She could not see his face.

‘I want you too, Paul.’ She meant it.

‘I’ll give you time, Faye. I won’t come back until you’re ready. Just tell me when.’

‘You’re so sure?’

He chuckled. ‘Destiny. I once told Marta you were my destiny.’

‘She must have laughed at you.’

‘No, funnily enough she understood. That’s why she rang me tonight.’ He stepped forward at last and took her gently by the shoulders. ‘I’m going now. But I’ll be waiting every second to hear from you. When you’re ready, tell me.’

He didn’t move to kiss her. He just stood looking down at her face and she felt herself strangely at peace for a moment, the pain and the doubt drained out of her. Giving a hesitant smile she put her hand on his arm. ‘Don’t go yet. Have some coffee, Paul.’

‘If I stay, I’ll find it harder to go later,’ he said quietly. ‘My self discipline is strained to the limit as it is.’

‘I’ll risk it,’ she replied. Her mouth had gone dry just as it always had in the past and her heart had begun to pound uncomfortably below her ribs, but it was not with fear. For a moment longer she stood looking at him, realizing what had happened, then she turned away. She had been given a third chance; the gods had removed their veto. This time she could, and would, trust him with her life. She went into the kitchen and turned to the light, smiling.

An extra place had been laid at the table around a token cornflakes packet. Beside it was a note scrawled in red felt tip:

I shall expect there to be three of us for breakfast! M.

Faye laughed quietly. ‘Just this once, Marta,’ she whispered. ‘I think we really will do as you expect.’

I
was fourteen when it happened. But the memory still gives me nightmares, even after all this time. And still, when I go back to Camber, I avoid the stables if Duncan and Cathie are at home.

The summer had been unspeakably hot that year, with heavy thunderheads building up towards evening day after day, to deluge the countryside with humid storms which did nothing to clear the air.

I suppose if Aunt Flavia had been with us then, she would at once have said that the atmosphere was right for psychic activity; as it was, the three of us, Duncan, Sandy and myself, concentrated on staying in the neighbour’s swimming pool as much as we could and on riding of course. We got up at six in the morning to ride before it became too hot and then turned the ponies out each day in the old orchard where there was plenty of shade.

Our parents felt the heat even more than we did, I think; our father worried about what the rain was doing to his standing corn and mother was worried about her mares – she breeds Welsh ponies. For us, although we helped on the farm and worked till we dropped, it was still the long summer vacation and we revelled in it. My brother Duncan was reading accountancy at university and Sandy was studying music. I was still at school, but there were weeks and weeks before I had to go back.

It was on Mother’s birthday that Jan Fleming arrived to stay. She was Sandy’s girlfriend – a lovely slim redhead whom I worshipped and hated and would have given my right arm to look like! And with her came a stranger.

‘I do hope you don’t mind, Mrs Nicholls, I really hope not; I knew you have lots of room at Camber Court and you’ve often said I could bring someone, so I wondered …’ Jan’s voice petered out, embarrassed and the stranger stepped forward. She too was tall and slim but dark haired, with enormous hazel eyes. Her mouth was rather large and her skin gypsy dark and I, standing in the shadows, saw Duncan’s face as he watched her and I knew he had fallen for her on the spot.

‘I’m Cathie Steuert,’ she said in a low, musical voice. ‘I’m a friend of Jan’s from London and when she said she was driving down to the West Country I begged a lift. I certainly don’t want to impose on you though …’

Duncan pushed past Mother hastily. ‘We’ve plenty of room, Jan’s right. Of course you must stay. Are you on holiday?’

She laughed. ‘No. Believe it or not I’m here to work. I’m a photographer and I’ve got to photograph various houses – including yours – for a book a colleague of mine is writing about historic old houses in the west.’ She glanced around. I could see her eyes taking in the carved oak staircase with its lovely half landing and the leaded windows which open onto the rose gardens at the back of the house. ‘It’s so beautiful here,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t believe it when Jan said she was actually going to stay in the house. I just had to make her bring me …’

‘You realize she’s probably a burglar or a con woman or something,’ Sandy said later to father, ‘tricking her way into the house.’

But we all liked her immediately and it wasn’t long before my parents had suggested that she make Camber her headquarters for the three weeks she would be in this part of the world.

I had already transferred my allegiance from Jan to her. After all, she was dark and so was I.

It happened about a week later. The day was overcast and the temperature up in the nineties all day. They were harvesting in the back meadow and the last of the corn to come in was being cut. Jan and I helped prepare the food and lay the long refectory table in the dining room for a large party for all the farm workers that evening. It was growing dark long before they arrived, hot and dusty from the fields, but soon the house was noisy with laughter and shouting.

Cathie had borrowed Jan’s car again that day and gone over to Pincton Manor. Watching from my window I had seen her drive in at about nine and climb wearily out of the car with her bag of cameras. I heard her come upstairs and go into her room, then I heard the bath running. She came down to supper a bit late but looking very refreshed in pale red jeans and a cream linen shirt and I saw several eyes besides Duncan’s on her.

Outside the window lightning flickered on and off and there were occasional low rumbles of thunder.

‘Perhaps the weather will break properly this time,’ my father was saying to someone down the table and I saw him wipe the back of his hand across his forehead. The enormous jugs of cider on the sideboard were already nearly empty. There was a burst of laughter from the far end of the room and the chink of cutlery and china – it was all very comforting and ordinary and happy.

The storm broke immediately overhead. One moment there was laughter and conversation and the heat coming through the long low windows which had all been thrown open onto the garden and the next with a terrifying crash the heavens opened and the rain began to empty itself onto the house and fields. I saw more than one person look scared for a moment, at the sheer ferocity of that storm. It was hard to talk because of the noise of the thunder which was almost incessant, but after the initial shock of the noise most people went on eating and drinking as before. We didn’t even have to close the windows, I remember, because the rain was coming straight down; it looked like silver green needles in the lightning flashes which lit up the lawn.

Then there was an extra bright flash, accompanied by a sizzle and a crack and the house seemed to rock on its foundations.

‘That’s a strike,’ I heard my father say calmly. ‘I’d better see what the damage is.’ He walked out into the hall and pulled open the front door.

Mother rushed after him shouting, ‘Henry, don’t go out, you’ll get hit, don’t go out!’ and Cathie, who had been standing near the door, ran after her.

I still don’t know quite what happened. We could see straightaway that the east end of the stable range was on fire. It had a hay loft over it and it was very very old – about 300 years, nearly as old as the house. Mother screamed, ‘My horses!’ and everyone started to run.

Cathie was in front. She tore across the courtyard with Father and Sandy and Duncan just behind her, pulling open the stable door and disappearing into the smoky darkness.

Minutes later as the other men raced for buckets and ran round the back of the stable to reach the hay loft, which had great double doors opening away from the yard, two horses released from their stalls appeared at the door and careered panic-stricken across the courtyard towards the orchard. Then Sandy appeared, leading another which he had blindfolded with a length of old rag. He pulled off the blindfold and sent the terrified horse off out of danger with a gentle push which sent it galloping into the darkness.

‘One more,’ I heard my mother saying, anguished. ‘There’s one more; Suki is in the box at the end, under the loft.’

Father was still inside with Duncan and Cathie as Sandy dodged round to help the men tackle the blaze from the rear. The rain was pelting down, bouncing off the cobbles, soaking our clothes and hair, turning shirts transparent against the skin.

And then I heard the scream. The most terrible sound I’ve ever heard. It went on and on.

The men running with buckets of water and Jan and Mother and I all stopped dead for a moment and looked at each other. I felt suddenly very sick.

The figure of a horse appeared at the stable door, lit up in a flash of lightning, her black coat gleaming in the wet, her hooves striking sparks of light as, ears back, she galloped half crazed out of the stable and away down the drive out of sight. I remember, even in my fear, vaguely hoping that the gate into the lane was shut.

Behind the horse I suddenly saw Father and Duncan appear at the door of the stable half carrying Cathie. She was sobbing uncontrollably. Father was ashen: he looked dreadful; so did Duncan. And Cathie was hysterical. Leaving her clinging to Duncan, Father came over. ‘Beth, you and Jan take Vicky to the house quickly,’ he said urgently to my mother. ‘No one is to go into the stable; something’s happened. The fire’s out – they’ve pitched out all the hay now; there wasn’t much in there luckily – but I don’t want anyone going in there; not anyone, understand?’ Already he was going back to Cathie.

‘What is it? What’s happened? Where’s Sandy?’ I could hear the fear in Mother’s voice as she ran after him.

‘It’s all right; Sandy’s round the side with the men. Go inside, please.’ I could hear the strain in Father’s voice as he snapped at her.

Duncan had his arm round Cathie. She was still crying brokenly as he tried to urge her towards the house. Another flash of lightning tore the sky open and I saw her face for the first time. I’ll never forget the horror and anguish I saw there.

‘Oh my God; oh my God! That poor man; oh God! Oh God!’ She kept repeating it over and over. ‘That poor, poor man. How could anyone; how could they? How could they?’

I stood still, shivering in the rain. What man? What was she talking about? Father had his arm round her too now and he and Duncan were half carrying her between them.

‘Beth!’ Father yelled after Mother. ‘Ring Doctor Armstrong. Tell him to get here at once. And get that child inside!’

That was me!

I took one more look at the stable range and turning, ran after my mother.

Everyone else was still at the back of the stables, dealing with the fire, so the sitting room was deserted. Father carried Cathie in and laid her gently on the couch by the empty fireplace.

‘Get the brandy, Vicky, please,’ he said, seeing me standing nervously in the doorway, my eyes fixed on Cathie’s limp form; her jeans and blouse were dark with rain and streaked with soot. In the hall I could hear my mother talking to Doctor Armstrong.

Cathie clung to Duncan and my father in turn. She was shaking so violently I thought for one minute that she must be putting it on, but one look at her face told me she wasn’t. My own hands had started to shake as I poured out half a tumbler of brandy and took the glass to Duncan. He had his arm round her shoulders and raised her gently, putting the glass to her lips. She took a sip and then pushed it violently away.

‘Christ! I could do with some of this myself.’ Duncan took a drink from the glass and passed it on to Father. ‘What do we do, Dad? He …’ he hesitated, ‘he wasn’t alive, was he?’

Father shook his head and took another gulp of brandy. He held out the glass towards me and I ran forward with the bottle.

I felt sick. I was scared. Anything that could shake my father and my twenty-year-old brother like that had to be bad. And what had Duncan meant, ‘He wasn’t alive?’ Who wasn’t? Nervously I looked again at Cathie. Her normally tanned face was white. She clutched at Duncan convulsively.

‘It was so awful,’ she cried. ‘The lightning came and I saw him there – three feet from my face. His eyes were open. Oh God. Oh God!’ She was getting hysterical again, clinging to Duncan till I saw the skin of his forearm whiten beneath her grip.

‘I know; I know, darling. I saw him too.’ He was rocking her backwards and forwards in his arms as Mother came in with a rug.

‘Keep her warm,’ she said. The doctor is on the way. Now, tell me what’s happened.’

For a moment there was silence as Father and Duncan looked at each other. Then Cathie, her voice rising desperately, sobbed: ‘In the barn. In the barn. They’ve hanged someone. He’s dead and his hands, oh God his hands …’ Her voice had practically risen to a scream.

Mother reeled backwards as if she’d been hit and looked at my father.

‘It’s true, Beth. Duncan and I were right behind her. They’ve used the beam in Suki’s stall; I’m surprised the horse didn’t break out earlier. When we got there she panicked and flattened the wooden partition in the box. I was going to go after her when I saw it; we all saw it. The lightning showed everything for a moment. As soon as Armstrong gets here I’ll get on to the police.’ He sat down and put his head in his hands. ‘Dear God. I went right through the war and I never saw anything so barbaric; never.’

It was a strange sight. The group of frightened, shaking people in their wet clothes, their hair flattened and blackened on their heads from the rain, their faces staring. Each time the lightning flashed the lights in the house dimmed for a second and flickered and then shone brightly again.

The doctor arrived in about fifteen minutes, roaring up the drive and swinging round to the front door where he left his car on the cobbles. He jumped out bag in hand and pushed through the open front door.

It didn’t take him long to size up the situation. He gave Cathie an injection and ordered Jan and Mother to undress her and put her to bed with a hot water bottle. Then he went with Father and Duncan into the study. They shut the door.

I had been forgotten.

My curiosity got the better of me and I tiptoed out into the hall where I could hear them talking quite clearly as I sat on the bottom step of the stairs, shivering in my soaking shirt and jeans.

‘I don’t think he’d been there very long,’ I heard my father’s voice. The neck was obviously broken though. But to cut off a man’s hands like that –’, his voice broke, ‘words fail me, Armstrong.’

‘Have you rung the police?’ The doctor’s voice was professionally calm.

‘Not yet. Cathie was so hysterical and I wanted to get the women away.’

‘Quite so. Well, if I may suggest, I’ll go and have a look myself. No – you needn’t come with me. I’m probably more used to these things than you; although, in this case …’