The Long Shadow (19 page)

A
FTERWARDS
, I
MOGEN
COULD
have kicked herself for not realising at once who the woman must be. What an extraordinary coincidence! was all she could think at the time; and even when the stranger, in the very next sentence, referred to the lost children as “my grandsons”, Imogen still only thought, dazedly, that the coincidence had become more amazing still.

It was the cowslips that got her mind functioning again.

“I wanted to show them the cowslips,” the woman said, sadly. “Of course, I know really it’s the wrong time of year, and naturally daytime would be better. But it’s only a little way on from here, and it’s a very special place … it’s where their grandfather and I used to come in summer time, when we were young, and the cowslips were out, and the cuckoos calling. Oh, forty years ago it must be now, since he and I were there together! I wanted it to be me, and no one else, who showed it to our grandsons.”

“Our grandsons.” Hers and Ivor’s. Her own true grandsons, by blood and birth. Not Imogen’s at all.

What a fool I’ve been, thought Imogen. Why did I never guess that after his death, Ivor’s first wife might be turning up again? Just as Cynthia, his second wife, had done. His first wife—Lena, yes, that was her name—why have I never given her a thought all these years? I knew—of course I knew—that she was still alive, somewhere—in a Home, wasn’t it. Some kind of a Home …?

Here Imogen stole an uneasy glance at her companion. They were walking side by side now, in the direction from which the woman—Lena—had been coming. She was taller than Imogen, and though she must be quite old (fifteen years older than Ivor, that made her seventy-four or five, Imogen quickly calculated)
she walked briskly, and held herself very erect. Beneath the
head-scarf
wisps of grey hair escaped here and there; the fine, sculptured profile was pale in the moonlight, and the eyes—huge, luminous, deep-set eyes—were very bright. Once, she must have been very beautiful.

But this was no time for such speculations.

“Where …? When did you last see them …?” Imogen asked breathlessly, hurrying to keep up. “The boys …? How do you know this is the way they went …?”

Lena smiled, a strange, contented smile: and Imogen was
conscious
of a small, inexplicable flutter of fear. How calm the woman was in the face of this crisis!—Too calm. And how smooth, how unlined, was the seventy-four-year-old face, washed by the moonlight! Almost like the face of a young girl.

Almost, but not quite. Imogen recognised in the bland, tranquil features that curious, unused quality, masquerading as
youthfulness
, of those who have spent long years in institutions.

“Don’t worry,” Lena was saying, still smiling straight ahead into the moon, “it’s not far now—you’ll see …” Unexpectedly, she gave a little laugh, and quickened her already brisk pace: “Naughty little things—I
told
them to stay close to me, but you know what youngsters are! But I’m not worrying—they’ll turn up soon enough at the picnic-place. That’s always been a firm rule of mine with the children: ‘If you get lost, go straight back to the picnic-place, and
wait
…!’”

“
Picnic-place
…!” Imogen was beginning—and then decided to close her mouth, once and for all. Question and argument would only cause delay. In all this wide white landscape under the bowl of the sky, the only clue as to the children’s whereabouts lay beneath that head-scarf, behind those shining eyes. All she could do was follow. In the journeys of the mad, sanity can only be a stumbling-block and a hindrance.

Quietly, the two trudged on. Quietly, Imogen took the side nearest the river, whence she could watch the black water, keep an eye on its faint, inscrutable eddies of pale light. So near was
she, sometimes, that her coat brushed against the reeds with a dry, whispering sound.

It was clear that the first Mrs Barnicott had not, as yet,
recognised
the third one; and indeed, why should she? She had already become a more or less permanent hospital inmate long before Imogen had appeared on the scene, and neither had ever met the other. Imogen could see no point in revealing herself now; and indeed, the notion became steadily less and less inviting as they proceeded on their way and Lena began, in a bitter, clenched monotone, to confide her troubles—the prime cause of which, apparently, was her children’s current stepmother, a woman called Imogen. A poisonous woman, a destroyer of family ties; a woman who had alienated her step-children, Dot and Robin, from their own real mother; and not content with this, was now intent on doing the same with the grandchildren.

“‘Granny’, she’s taught them to call her! ‘Granny’—and she no relation to them at all. Whereas I, who really
am
their
grandmother
—they hardly know me. I’ve only been allowed to see them a couple of times in all the months since I came out of hospital; and even then they weren’t told I was their grandmother. It’s wicked—it’s cruel: and all the time it’s
my
house they’ve been living in—the house Ivor and I bought when we married and went to live in Twickenham. I’m not even allowed there as a visitor any more—can you believe it? ‘I’m scared’, my daughter says: ‘I’m scared to let the children be in the same house with you, Mother….’ What do you think of
that
?
My own daughter, scared to leave her children with their own grandmother …! She’s not scared to leave them with the Imogen woman, though.
Oh
no, with her, it’s ‘Granny’ this, and ‘Granny’ that … And calling out for her in the night … how do you think I felt when I heard a little voice calling ‘Granny! Granny!’ in the middle of the night, and it didn’t mean
me,
it meant
her.
And she a total stranger, no relation at all … And when I, his
real
Granny, ran to the little boy, leaned over to kiss him, you know what he did?—he hit me, and screamed! Screamed and screamed, until she came to console him. If I could lay my hands on that woman
… if I could get her by herself … just for one minute … even at
my
age….”

*

Imogen was keeping very, very quiet: just saying “Mm?” now and again, and “What a shame”, as they walked side by side in the moonlight. By this means, she tried not to exist, and yet keep the woman talking. Somewhere, buried deep among these
miscellaneous
grievances would be the map they were going to need tonight; the eerie, terrible moonlit map, with the children’s
whereabouts
marked on it with an X.

*

“… and Dot—my own daughter Dot—is putty in her hands,” the bitter, powerful voice drove on. “Between them, they saw to it that I wasn’t invited even on Christmas Day. I’d bought presents for the children—I’d even looked out the old Father Christmas outfit that Dot herself used to be so thrilled by when she was a tiny girl, and her father came in all dressed-up, sprinkled with snow, and loaded with presents…. Those were the days when we were so happy still, Ivor and I … so happy….”

There was a far-away look in the wild, brilliant eyes; and Imogen, cautiously, tried to bring her back to the matter in hand.

“And so what happened?” she prompted, “About the Father Christmas outfit, I mean …? Did someone wear it in the end?”

“Oh yes. Someone wore it, all right.” Lena gave a harsh laugh. “
I
wore it! I had to sneak into the house secretly, though, to do so. I came in like a burglar that first time, through a window; but afterwards I used to come in whenever I liked, through the front door. Searching around the study, you see, I found my husband’s keys, the bunch of keys he always used to carry; and luckily, the Twickenham key was among them as well. And so after that, you see, I was able to get into both the houses whenever I chose, without any of them knowing a thing about it. I was able to stay in the Twickenham house … look after my cat….”

“But Christmas—the Father Christmas outfit?” Imogen once more ventured, and again Lena laughed, bitterly.

“Ah, yes. Christmas! My first Christmas out of hospital, and
there they all were, eating the Christmas dinner that I hadn’t been invited to; enjoying themselves without me. I’ll give them a
surprise
, I thought, I’ll give them the shock of their lives, and please the children at the same time. I had it all worked out: I’d change into the Father Christmas outfit in the study, while they were all still in the dining-room, and then, as soon as they’d finished their dinner, I’d make my entrance, just as Ivor used to…. All in my red cloak and beard, and with my arms full of presents … after that, they could hardly shut me out of the festivities, could they?

“But it didn’t happen like that. I’ll tell you.

“I was ready much too early—that was the thing. They were still in the dining-room eating, and so, to pass the time, I began looking through my old books, my Greek texts that I’d let Ivor have when he was young and poor. It was strange to be handling them all again … my precious leather-bound Sophocles … my complete works of Plato … and my own old Liddell and Scott, that I’d used ever since I was a student…. Of course, the print is too small for me now, my sight isn’t what it was, but luckily I found in the desk a pair of reading-glasses that must have been Ivor’s; but anyway, they seemed to suit well enough, and soon I was deep in the
Bacchae.

“I don’t know how much later it was—it seemed like only a few minutes—when suddenly, without warning, one of the little boys burst in—the littlest one. It was very sudden, I was engrossed in that lovely chorus that begins, ‘the white-footed dancers in the dewy midnight air’ … at first, I could scarcely collect my wits. Still, I was delighted, of course, and I jumped up to hug him, to wish him a Happy Christmas from his very own
real
Granny—and do you know what happened? Do you know what he did? He ran away! Ran away, as if I was some kind of monster! That’s what she’s taught them—that I’m some kind of a monster! Where love should be, she has planted hate; instead of trust, she has inculcated fear. It was in that moment, as the child—my own grandson—rushed out of the room in terror, that I began to realise that if ever my grandsons were to learn to love me, I must get them right away from these people, if only for a few hours.
I began to plan and scheme … how I could take them out for some sort of a treat or outing all by themselves, just me and them. That’s how I meant it to be tonight … this picnic by the river….”

Imogen caught her breath. Here—any moment now—would come the revelation she had been waiting for:
where
the boys were, and what they were doing. She waited, not daring to distract the speaker by so much as a murmur of enquiry.

But it is possible to be
too
tactful. Without the stimulus of question and comment from an involved listener, Lena began to lose the thread of what she was saying. Half a lifetime of stored-up bitterness is not conducive to clear, consecutive narration, and soon the multifarious grievances and injuries began to boil and seethe in unselective confusion, now one and now another bubbling randomly to the surface.

“… and you know something else? She’s hidden my
manuscripts.
Buried them away in the attic, under mountains of other stuff. They should have been in the bedroom, we always kept our manuscripts in the bedroom, for safety. And so back to the bedroom I brought them, back where they belonged. Quite a job it was too, up and down those attic stairs with armful after armful of papers—I was terrified that someone would see me, though of course I was being as quiet and careful as I could.

“Half way through, I had a brain-wave. There was a black cloak kind of thing hanging behind one of the attic doors, I put it on and pulled the hood right up over my head so that even if anyone
did
get a glimpse of me, I could still get away without being recognised. I found out later that it belongs to a girl who never speaks, so even if they’d actually challenged me, it wouldn’t have mattered: they all know that she’s quite rude enough not to answer when spoken to, I could have pushed past them without a word, and no one would have been surprised in the least.

“But in fact, no one
did
see me, at least I don’t think so. I got most of it done during one Sunday lunch-time, when they were all downstairs. I loaded all the papers on to the big four-poster bed, and then I drew the curtains round me like a little fortress, and
sorted it all out. It was amazing what I found: notes, and articles, and translations that I’d forgotten all about. And among all the rest—would you believe it?—I found my
book
!
My book on the Minoan scripts. The book that would have made my name, I know it would, if only I’d been able to finish it…. But after I married Ivor, I never again finished anything… never.
Sometimes
, when I think of the career I might have had … the fame that was waiting, only just round the corner….”

*

The catalogue of disappointment, spanning more than a quarter of a century, seemed as if it might go on for ever as they plodded forwards under the moon; but presently something in the quality of her companion’s silence must have caught the speaker’s attention, for she came to an abrupt standstill, and turned to peer full into Imogen’s face. Floodlit under the moon, every feature must have been clearly etched.

Had
this angry, embittered woman actually ever seen Imogen’s face, during her secret peregrinations up and down the house? And, having seen it, would she still recognise it in this eerie half-light?

Imogen stared stonily ahead of her, and waited.

“I’m sorry, I’m boring you,” Lena apologised at last. “It’s so long, you see, since I’ve had anyone to talk to … you’re very kind…. And do you mind, now, being rather quiet? We’re almost there….”

It was quite hard to keep up with the agile old woman as she swerved, suddenly, off the path, and struck away from the river into the moon-drenched meadows. The tufts of withered grass were black and treacherous in the moonlight, but it was Imogen, not the older woman, who stumbled as they made their way, swift as a dream, towards the black, frost-bitten hedgerow where, in summer, the dog-roses would be blooming, and the cow-parsley, nearly three feet tall, would be scenting the warm air.