Encounters (51 page)

She never saw Angela again.

Christmas was getting close now and the evenings grew dark so very early but from the lights of the street lamps she could see Jeremy and Pam come and go. And now they both waved, and once Pam, her face radiant as her hair blew free of the blue crash helmet she wore as she went pillion on the scooter, looked up and blew her a kiss.

Then one Saturday morning came the awful news. Mrs Benton had opened the door for George who had brought a large exciting parcel. It was for Mr Folkestone.

‘I see your young Mr Hall is leaving us then,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Got himself a new job, I hear and leaving home.’

Mrs Benton felt the tears rush to her eyes. He couldn’t. He couldn’t go and leave her. Not now. She clutched at the door, swaying suddenly.

‘Hey, ma, are you all right?’ Dimly she heard George’s voice, and felt his strong hand under her arm. ‘Here, let’s go and sit down. Where’s your chair, ma?’ He helped her back into the front room. ‘Hadn’t he told you then? I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have said anything.’

Mrs Benton sniffed loudly and groped for her handkerchief. ‘No,’ she gulped. ‘He hadn’t told me; I didn’t really expect him to.’

She sat for a long time after George had gone not even bothering to look out of the window. No more Jeremy; nothing to look forward to in the afternoons when he was due to come home. No more of the cheerful puttering of his scooter engine and waves from him and Pam.

She dabbed at the tears which insisted on running down her cheeks and did not even hear the doorbell. Mr Folkestone must have opened it for the next thing she knew there was a tap on her own door. She looked round to see it being pushed quietly open.

‘Excuse me; can we come in for a moment?’ The girl, still dressed in her blue mackintosh, was peeping round it.

Mrs Benton hastily blew her nose and smiled, her heart giving little irregular bumps of hope and excitement. ‘Come in, my dear, of course.’

Pam came in and she was closely followed by Jeremy. Hand-in-hand they crossed over to the rocking chair. The girl knelt down suddenly and in a spontaneously happy gesture took Mrs Benton’s wrinkled hand in her own. ‘I wanted you to know that Jerry and I are getting married. You really introduced us, you know. We have you to thank for everything.’

‘And we would like’ you to come to the wedding,’ Jeremy added. ‘Please, will you? And here:’ he thrust a small parcel into her hand, ‘a small Christmas present to say thank you.’

Mrs Benton could not answer him. She was crying again. But this time with happiness.

It was not until a little while later when Pam had made them all some tea that Mrs Benton felt better.

Then she could not stop smiling. She made Jeremy sit next to her on the old sofa which she found so hard to get out of with her legs and listened as they told her of their plans.

They had found a small house on the northern edge of the town and they asked her to come and see them as soon as they were settled. Jeremy was anyway planning to sell his scooter and buy a second-hand car, so he would be able to come and fetch her.

By the time they had left Mrs Benton would have called herself the happiest person in the world. Slowly, after they had gone, she opened the small present. It contained a bottle of cologne and two exquisite lace handkerchiefs. She went back to her chair, holding them tight and sat down slowly gazing out into the sunny frosty street. Pam had brought two lengths of yellow ribbon with her and with them Jeremy had tied back her old net curtains.

‘We like to see you sitting here, Grandma,’ he said gently before they left. ‘Not only us, but the whole street love you, you know. They’d miss you dreadfully if you ever skipped a day.’ He dropped a quick kiss on top of her head and with that cheery wave of his hand she had come to love so much, he had gone.

T
here was misty sunshine in the distance now, sending shafts of pale light over the sea. Louise stood motionless, her hands gripping the cold rail on the promenade, watching each wave crash up the steep beach and ebb again, sucking hungrily at the pebbles below the barnacle-encrusted concrete. Her hands were blue with cold, covered in little salty droplets of spray. She had forgotten to bring any gloves.

A heavy shower swept across the empty roadway behind her, soaking her hair, her coat, her shoes. But she ignored it. Her eyes were fixed desperately on a sea suddenly slate-black beneath the rain, save for far out where the light remained. On her cheeks the raindrops mingled unnoticed with her tears. Why, oh why had she come back? What was she seeking from this same cold, cruel water?

The top of the tide had left piles of seaweed, dead and ugly, heaped on the road. It didn’t matter though. There were no cars; no people. The town in February was dead. It didn’t seem possible that she was looking at the same element as the sleek blue summer sea when the world had been happy and perfect and she had quite wilfully ruined everything.

They had been going to stay in a cottage at the end of the town, where the old fishing village was, where the pebbly beach and the harbour gave way to sand dunes which stretched for miles, shifting and changing shape in the wind, so that they, like the sea, were never the same.

John had seen the advertisement in the paper; end of season let. And on the spur of the moment they had decided as the days were still warm, to go.

‘Are you pretending we’re married?’ she had asked as he sealed the letter and he had laughed. ‘Whatever for?’ he said and he kissed her fiercely.

Whatever for indeed, after all this time? She had gone to the long narrow kitchen of the flat they shared and beaten the eggs for the omelette until they frothed angrily, spluttering in the iron pan.

‘It’ll do you good to go away, Lou,’ her boss had said. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so you have been looking a bit run down. Going with your nice friend from the flat are you?’

She forgot to fold in the carbon as she scrunched it in her fist and her hands became all black. ‘Yes, Mr Fielding. My nice friend from the flat. That’s right.’

They packed and threw their cases in the car and left early to avoid the Friday rush. At the first traffic lights John turned and looked at her with a little smile. He drew his hand, electric, along her thigh. Then the lights changed and he reached for the gear lever, leaving her heart bumping a little at the message she had seen in his eyes. Resolutely she gazed through the windscreen; she hated herself sometimes for loving him still so much; for knowing herself to be so dependent on him while he remained so free.

The cottage was built of stone, sparsely furnished beneath its roof of slate at the edge of the sea. The only colour in the white-painted bedroom under the eaves came from the exquisite patchwork quilt on the bed. Dropping the cases John turned to Louise.

‘At last,’ he said, and held out his arms.

Outside they could hear the whistle and crackle of gossiping starlings somewhere in the heavy-laden apple tree on the lawn at the back.

‘Stop!’ she laughed. She struggled in his arms, pushing him away.

But already his lips were pressed urgently against hers; she felt the edge of the bed behind her and they fell, clinging together on the gaily coloured patchwork.

Then at last he allowed her to push him away. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

She sat up slowly, watching the dust dancing in the shaft of sun which shone through the window. If only she knew how to tell him what was wrong; tell of her fear and her insecurity; of the longing in her heart to hear that he needed her as much as she needed him.

As he got up and wandered over to the window she glanced down at the brilliant colours in the quilt she was sitting on. Some woman had spent hours, months even, of her life stitching the tiny fragments of cloth into this beautiful pattern. Surely the pattern of a relationship between two people who love one another and are prepared to declare their love to the world should be a little like that? Thousands of intricate multi-shaped pieces formed with time and caring into an enduring whole. Gently, wistfully, she stroked the patchwork.

‘Louise?’ He had been calling her name.

She looked up. She saw his hands and rose and went to him, as she knew she always would.

They wandered along the beach beyond the dunes, over the strip of flat wet sand collecting the fluted razor shells which lay nestling in among the scattered weed. The hazy September sun had been warm on Louise’s shoulders as she glanced round the deserted beach. Then her depression vanishing as suddenly as it had come, she began to run, feeling the sand between her toes, the spurts of sun-warmed water beneath her instep. And she laughed as he began to chase her.

They walked for miles, not talking, as the sun sank lower in the sky, watching the tiny high, flecked, white clouds turn pink and gold. Imperceptibly the tide turned and the mother of pearl water crept once more slowly over the evening sand.

Near the point the beach grew steeper and the dry shifting dunes drew near the water. There were no other people in the world. At the water’s edge an oystercatcher ran jerkily through the dribbling tide, thrusting its red beak ramrod straight into the sand. Then it flew arrowlike out towards the distant mistiness of the sun and they heard the eerie sad whistle of its cry.

The sound made Louise shiver suddenly. John looked at her, then he drew her to him, his arms strong. As he said her name there was no mistaking the tone of his voice.

High above them a plane flew straight and sure across the indigo arch of the sky, too high for them to hear it, its vapour trail a ruled line of silent gold. Slowly, his hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him and kissed her. She closed her eyes and he kissed each eye-lid, his kisses growing more fierce and demanding, tracing the line of her lips with his finger. This time she didn’t push him away. Her desire rose at his touch, a new warmth of love flooding through her as she felt the urgency of his love, unconscious of the warm wind which stirred the wiry marram grasses near her head or the thin mist of sand which had blown across her discarded crumpled dress.

They were roused at last by the gentle lapping of the water on the beach. John sat up and looked round him. Then smiling to himself he leaned forward, grasping a shell which lay near his hand and began to draw, watching the crisp curl of sand beneath his sharp strokes. With a sardonic lift of the eyebrow he drew an enormous heart.

Louise, pulling herself dreamily to her knees ran her finger through the crisp tangle of her curls. Then she reached for her dress. She laughed when she saw what he had done. ‘You old Romeo,’ she teased; ‘who’d have thought you were a romantic!’ Snatching the shell from his fingers she added a cupid’s dart and put their initials, LM and JG. ‘There you are. A Valentine heart!’

He grinned wryly. ‘What else?’ A deep haze was drawing in from the sea. The gold of the sunset was distant now, shrugging out of sight beyond the cloud. ‘Come on, it’s time to go,’ he said abruptly. ‘You’ve got to find the food and get us a meal, remember?’

Already the water was nibbling the edge of the heart.

‘You know something?’ she said casually, brushing the sand from her breasts as she buttoned her dress, ‘I had always hoped, a little, that our first holiday would be our honeymoon.’

Seeing him frown she bit her lip. ‘It would be nice, wouldn’t it, John? To be married?’ she persisted gently.

He hesitated, straining the sand through his fingers. ‘For some perhaps. But not us …’ He gazed out to sea, not looking at her.

A thin trickle of water was flowing round the heart in the sand, blurring the edges, gently smoothing away the J. She didn’t notice. ‘There isn’t any reason we shouldn’t get married is there? We love each other so much …’ Her voice trailed away.

‘No reason, except that I don’t want to. We’re happy as we are. Marriage would spoil it. I don’t want to be labelled and slotted into the system …’ He turned to her, narrowing his eyes and took her hands in his. ‘I thought you felt the same. We don’t need marriage. Haven’t we proved it after all this time?’

The lapping water had washed the sand again. Both John’s initials had gone. It was growing cold.

Louise leaned towards him, frowning a little; intense. ‘John you did say a long time ago that we would get married. One day.’

He looked away, a little guiltily. ‘Did I? Well one day perhaps we will. But not yet.’

But she couldn’t leave it alone. Some demon had made her go on.

‘John. I want to get married. Now.’ She rose to her feet, her toes sinking a little into the soft sand.

‘No.’ He cut her short. ‘No, Louise. I’m sorry.’ He glanced down angrily.

The drawing had gone. The transparent tide rippled gently over the place where the pierced heart had been, a strand of sea-weed fluttering gently in the bubbles in the half-light.

John said nothing. Then slowly he turned to her. She was crying suddenly, blindly gazing down. ‘It went so fast,’ she sobbed. ‘And you think our love is like that. You think it will disappear like a drawing in the sand …’

‘No, of course I don’t.’ He was impatient. ‘Come on, Louise, nothing stays the same for ever, you know that. What if the sea does take away the heart? Well draw another. Well come back on Valentine’s Day itself, if you like. Come on; stop crying. You can’t trap things. You can’t freeze them and preserve them. Relationships change; love develops. It needs to be free, don’t you see?’

She shook her head wordlessly as the evening breeze teased the blues and greens of her skirt in the dusk, thinking suddenly again of the patterned patchwork in the bedroom of the cottage. The sea knew. The sea knew it couldn’t last.
Your love
couldn’t last.’

‘Louise, that’s rubbish. Stop making a scene.’

‘I’m not. How long have we lived together?
Years,
John. If you’re not sure now, you never will be.’

He shrugged bitterly. ‘Then you must look for someone else. If the security of my love isn’t enough, you must look for someone who can give you more.’ He turned away from her suddenly, his voice grating, and stood, his hands in his pockets, staring hard out to sea.

She took a step towards him, frightened by the bleakness of his voice, but the uncompromising line of his jaw stopped her. Her eyes were full of tears.

‘All right then, I will.’ Her voice broke on the words. She hesitated, but he didn’t move and suddenly overcome with misery and hurt she turned and stumbled away from him up over the shifting sand of the dunes and half ran, half staggered back towards the lights of the town. She didn’t look back. In any case he was soon lost to view behind the dunes. She didn’t turn, didn’t see the look in his eyes as he gazed after her.

The cottage was in darkness. She lifted the latch with shaking fingers and stepped in, her heart thumping. Then she picked her way slowly up the stairs, dashing away her tears and clicked on the light in the bedroom. Their two cases still stood side by side on the carpet where John had dropped them. She had never even unpacked. Listening for his step in the garden she ran to the window and leaned out, but the dunes beyond the hedge of osiers at the edge of the lane were silent and empty.

‘I must go. Now. I must,’ she had murmured.

She bent to pick up her case. If he came she knew she would weaken; if he took her in his arms and kissed her she would be lost.

She hesitated, praying he would come, knowing she must go.

Then at last, when she knew he wasn’t coming she carried the case down the stairs and walked out into the misty night towards the station.

John did not return home to the flat the next day, or the next, so she packed her belongings slowly and miserably and took a taxi to her sister’s flat. There she waited, desolate, for him to ring her. A hundred times she picked up the phone herself and began to dial his number – the number which had been hers as well. But something stopped her. Pride? She supposed so. Bather desperately she began to go out with other men, but each date was a hollow meaningless pretence and not repeated. She grew thin and permanently sad. And almost every night she would lie awake thinking of that evening on the beach. If only John had turned and called her back. If only he had smiled. If only …

Christmas came and went without a word. Not even a card. And now it was February. Drawn irresistibly by the memory of the heart in the sand, masochistic, longing, she had come back. It was the fourteenth. Later, when the tide had gone down a little, she would walk back alone down the beach and look for the place where the heart had been and they had made love for the last time.

‘Louise!’ The voice sounded close to, but she dismissed it from her mind as she always did. Her hands had grown numb from gripping the ice cold railing so long. Shakily she raised one of them to brush away the tears which were hot on her cold face. The tide had withdrawn a little now, leaving a strip of shiny glossy pebbles. The sunlight in the distance had come closer too.

‘Louise!’ Again she heard the voice and again, ‘Louise …’ She could hear feet on the road behind her. Incredulously she turned. It wasn’t a dream. It was John.

‘Hello,’ he said. He was looking down at her, his face very close to hers, his dark eyes anxious, but warm and loving. ‘It’s Valentine’s Day. I didn’t dare hope you would remember.’ Hesitating a little he held out his hands.