The War Widow Page 12

  So I stumbled to an unattractive stop in the gloom before him and hugged myself tightly, defensively, signifying my alienation even as I craved the comfort of being near him. I twisted anxiously to look back at the unmoving cars and the empty corridor of leafless trees and gasped out, “The car … Adam, that car—”

  I’d thought my panicked race along the path had been near the tipping point into frantic overflowing but it turned out it hadn’t quite conveyed itself like that to him. And he wasn’t as much of a mind reader as I’d thought because now he was covering his own reaction – which was rather cool – by saying firmly but very kindly, “The car is locked isn’t it? I’m sorry; I should have given you the keys before. Here, take them and go and sit down. No, please don’t let’s argue about the car again – Mary won’t be far, I won’t be long and then we can get on our way.”

  He was already ushering me back down the path again. It was done in a way, it must be said, which certainly didn’t include any kind of move to take hold of me. It was a relief of course but I think it was then that it struck me that to any normal man the transformation in my posture must be taken as rejection and this was a man whose past had been in many ways more isolating than mine. I ought to have said something, attempted to restore something of the impression I’d given before of my heartfelt willingness to try despite my apparent eccentricities, but I was already saying with a frightened note of stupidity, “But what if Jim comes?”

  “What’s wrong with Jim?” It was the mild enquiry of a man who had finally realised he was handling another strange outburst from a woman who had already given him one too many.

  I whispered, “I don’t like him.”

  “Well,” said Adam reasonably, “I won’t be long.”

  Those few words restored his worth to me with a jolt. They acknowledged it too. Helplessly, I found myself being piloted back into the open by the silent cluster of gleaming cars and felt the distance between us collapse when he pressed the warm metal of the keys into my hand.

  “Adam—” I finally began in a surer voice but he’d gone. Long gone and I hadn’t the grit to race after him again. Common sense told me how impossible it would be to explain myself convincingly enough to not seem insane. Suspicion nudged in at the corners and I began to wonder if he’d intended to leave me stranded like this all along…

  I glared at the Morris again. There was a relentless pounding in my veins as I wavered by the red wing of Adam’s car, undecided and uselessly defiant.

  There was still, of course, no sign of anyone. After cautiously stalking down the length of the Rover as if it would mask my approach, I crept up to the small back window of the black Morris and peered in. It was empty. A fresh newspaper lay on the back seat and the receipts and the sweet tin had gone. The car was worse than it had been before: this time it was unidentifiable.

  I stood back for a moment, thinking and casting yet another searching glance around, wondering where they might be. They couldn’t be watching, surely? If they wanted me, this was their chance. A little calmer, I stepped round to the bonnet and put my hand on the dirt-spattered metal. It was cool. Now the shelf under the dashboard was occupied by a touring map of the area and a pebble decorated with a painted seaside scene of Aberystwyth.

  Before I knew it, I was dropping between the two cars and forcing the nearside front tyre to surrender its cap. I jammed my fingernail into the air valve and was rewarded with a satisfying hiss as the tyre started to deflate. I let out about half the air before restoring the cap to its place. Then I quickly slipped to the back wheel and did the same.

  To this day I don’t know why I didn’t let out all the air and leave them marooned. Perhaps my own natural sense of responsibility would only degrade so far, or perhaps I wasn’t as ready for the fight as I’d thought. I suspect it was that I still couldn’t remember that crucial licence plate and I couldn’t bear to think of this turning out to be a family car and that there was a junior owner of that gaudy seaside souvenir. This time I drew out my sketchbook and made a note of the registration number in the back.

  Defiance faded abruptly then and left me stranded in the silence. I couldn’t leave and I barely dared wait. I had to climb into the back seat of Adam’s car through the gap between the front seats because somehow I couldn’t find the lock for the rear doors and it didn’t occur to me to reach inside to work the handle. I can’t describe how relieved I was when I heard a familiar female laugh coming down through the woodland.

  Adam had found Mary but not Jim. He was teasing her, reminding her really without needing to scold, that she still had to keep his literary identity secret. She was clinging to his arm and saying hotly, “Who have I told so far? Who? You’re just trying to pretend that you don’t love the attention when the truth is you’d hate it if no one knew who you were because then you’d have nothing to complain about.”

  I saw his smile as I climbed out to meet them – now I used the interior handle for the back door. Adam’s smile wasn’t his fully warm one but it wasn’t his reserved one either. He said, “Your sister knows. As does Jim … and Kate … Let’s try to keep it to that, shall we?”

  I joined their banter brightly. “Listen to him as he coaches you, Mary. Today has just been a very pleasant and impromptu sight-seeing trip.” And then I had to suppress a grimace. My voice had that awfully giddy pitch of joviality that belongs to a person trying to make the pretence of friendliness when she knows she’s already decided to be permanently a stranger to these people after today. I saw Adam conclude the same when I held out the keys. Intimacy was an experiment that had failed for me. That black Morris Eight by our side was a footnote to the day, bringing my attention sharply back to the real task. This afternoon had only been a dream, a fantasy of escape. I wouldn’t be seeking distraction again.

  In some ways it was reassuring to retreat once again into cold calculating reason. The eyes that waited to meet mine as Adam lifted the keys from my open hand were gravely enquiring but they slid away swiftly enough once I mustered the nerve to satisfy him that the last outburst was under control once more. Then he walked round and opened the other rear door for Mary, unlocked the passenger door in anticipation of Jim’s return and dropped himself into the driver’s seat. We waited for five minutes or more before finally Jim sauntered into view. He’d been walking in the lane somewhere. There was dirt on his trouser hems.

  There was still no sign of the owners of the black Morris as at last we reversed out of our space. We turned in a gentle arc and then we were running, trundling in a happy chatter about the view, the setting and the adventure of visiting a real castle back towards the gated lane, and no one followed us on the main road south to Aberystwyth.

  Chapter 9

  I learned that I had slept for the last part of the journey when I stirred to find myself crushed in the corner where the seat met the doorframe. It was intensely disorientating. Particularly when I surfaced into the darkness of early night with the disturbing fantasy that we were descending a hill into an entirely different town. Such as Cirencester.

  We weren’t. A blink or two later and I knew this was Aberystwyth and my neighbour, instead of scowling sinisterly at me through the gloom of the back seat, was only smiling a cheery greeting. I had a horrible feeling that I’d made a squeak as I’d jerked from dream into alarm and from there into wakefulness. In the seat in front of me, Adam’s attention was naturally fixed upon the road ahead but my rousing drew Jim’s attention. By the glare of amber street light I saw the gleam of that man’s face – admittedly moulded into friendliness – as he turned in his seat to peer back at me. My handbag had slipped away from me towards the floor and I distracted myself by reaching to reclaim it.

  As before, Adam left us as we neared the hotel for the sake of that telephone box. And true to form, Mary’s joviality was forceful enough that it carried the rest of us along with her. Even me. I had her hand linked under my elbow. Her other hand was linked under Jim’s arm. It was like walking in a coco
on of girlishness. Those men with that car would never dare to invade it. And then we were safely past the turn by the gaudily lit pier and climbing the steps into the hotel and Mary was being true to her word and dropping us all in favour of her sister.

  I didn’t sit with Jim of course. I found myself a spare seat beside young Samuel, who had apparently decided I was his friend after our brief interaction in the lounge last night. His rather significantly less noisy mother was now able to speak to me too, owing to the fact that I’d proved my value during that previous encounter by giving her son a small supply of blank pieces of card with the instruction to decorate them for suitable relatives. I always kept cards to hand in my sketchbook, ready for the inevitable crisis when I remembered at the last possible moment that I’d forgotten a valued friend’s birthday. Samuel had, I was told in some detail, spent a very serious hour or two before lunch adorning these cards with incomprehensible illustrations of the many daredevil adventures he’d encountered on the seafront and then this afternoon he’d spent another serious hour buying sufficient stamps to send them.

  The boy followed me into the lounge for drinks too. There I was allowed to discover that today’s other excitement had featured the near-capture of a seagull on the rocks under the pier. His stalking skills, he conceded with due humility, were second to none.

  “Here. You’d like one of these I should think.” A full-grown man’s voice took advantage of the boy’s belated pause for breath. I looked up to discover Jim offering me a cup of coffee. He settled with his own on the low sofa that stood against the wall and then amiably set about wondering whether Samuel’s hunting skills had yet extended to catching anything edible.

  “Aren’t children just darling!”

  Mrs Alderton’s exclamation was so abrupt that it was very nearly a shout. She was sitting with Mary on their customary spot near the wireless. She was dressed in something very expensive and black and very, very tight around the middle. It made her look brittle and all sharp edges. Rather like her voice. It effectively silenced the man and boy’s debate on the techniques of crab hunting and, satisfied, Mrs Alderton announced grandly, “Mary here is fabulous with children. She’s naturally very loving.”

  Beside me, Samuel’s mother was nodding with that anxious agreement people adopt when they receive the slightly bewildering benevolence of a person of higher social class. Then it seemed to dawn on Mrs Alderton that the usual object of her exuberance had still not returned from his telephone call and there was something very odd about the turn of her expression. I didn’t know what she thought she had learned from Mary about our day but it was making her faintly manic, like ambition had tasted a tantalising morsel of success. I could only hope Samuel’s mother, who was just beginning to herd her unwilling boy towards the stairs and bed, was out of earshot before Mrs Alderton’s shifting mood led her to muse instead upon the absence of the boy’s father and how the noisy habits of a child might perhaps give one the smallest, tiniest hint about the condition of his parents’ marriage. I presume she was wondering whether the lady was a divorcee but since none of us had thought to enquire, we couldn’t really supply the answer.

  I was just concluding that it was high time I retreated to my own bed when one of the Miss Bartlemans abruptly launched her own shout across the assembled room, “Excuse me, Miss Ward; I hope you won’t mind my asking?”

  It was the elder Miss Bartleman and this was all she said.

  Her hands met nervously across her bosom. She blinked at me, wide-eyed and beaming and I wondered if she had been building up to this for a while. Her lipstick was a little lopsided and her attire was the exact opposite of Mrs Alderton’s. It was blue with heavy lace collars and cuffs, and had absolutely no corners at all. I smiled encouragingly and after a while she added in that same carrying muddle, “I gathered from something Miss James – Eh? Very well dear, we’ll make it Mary if you insist – said that you paint beautifully and I wondered … Well, if perhaps you might …? If it isn’t too much trouble, that is.”

  It took me a while longer to extract the request from her but eventually I managed by degrees to decipher that she wanted me to make a card for some family friend whose birthday she had forgotten. She had seen me give the card blanks to Samuel and hoped that if I had any left, I might save her the embarrassment of being late. Her manner of asking made it all seem very complicated but I just about understood that some friends would be leaving on the early train in the morning, before any shops were open, and those good people would be able to post the card when they changed at Birmingham for it to arrive on time the next day. “… Because it could take more than a day for something to go by post out of Aberystwyth and her birthday is the day after tomorrow. I’m frightened we’ll miss it … Do you really think that you might be able to help?”

  “What’s that? A birthday?” Mrs Alderton’s odd hysteria burst out of her again. “Mary, you remember the one I—?”

  “Of course I can help.” This was one of those silly moments when two people speak together; it was just unfortunate that it had to be her. I reached under my seat for my bag while the Miss Bartlemans launched into a seamless string of self-congratulatory compliments to one another on the success of their plan.

  They were still going strong when I reached in and fumbled absently through the collection of purse, diary and other bits and pieces that were collected there. I was already thinking through my usual designs and trying to decide which their friend might like, so it took a while to register the fact that so far my probing fingers had not closed upon the sturdy cover of my sketchbook. Then impatience made my mind actually concentrate on the job at hand and I set the bag down on the neighbouring seat to carefully run my hand over the assorted rubble within. Pencils, brushes, diary, small flask, scraps of paper, my purse, revolting lipstick that I never used, nice lipstick that I did use and a hat pin all mingled chaotically within but it was no use. The sketchbook was not among them.

  With a sick feeling that would have seemed a gross overreaction to any non-artist, I cast my mind back to the castle and pictured myself packing my brushes away. I could clearly recall testing that the paint was dry before putting the book in my bag and moving to join Adam. I know I of all people couldn’t claim perfect recall but surely even I couldn’t be mistaken about that. I wondered then if it could have fallen out in the car while I slept but given that the bag’s fastening was a heavy clasp and this had been securely closed, it seemed highly unlikely. And thankfully so, because I had no desire to bother Adam yet again.

  My heart began to beat.

  I didn’t even quite understand why yet but that heavy pulse grew to a crescendo as I slowly reclosed the fastening. And then, suddenly and with a swiftness that surprised even me, I was on my feet and standing in the heart of the room.

  “Good gracious!” The younger Miss Bartleman gave an exaggerated start. Her dining wear was a deep brown silk that looked like it had been reworked from an Edwardian gown. “Whatever is the matter, dear?”

  I stood there at the heart of the fading carpet, eyes scouring one glowing face after another as they in turn examined me. My lips moved to tell the nearest old woman, “My sketchbook’s been stolen.”

  She didn’t actually hear me properly the first time. She said, “Pardon?”

  Her older sister repeated my words. The younger said again, “Pardon?” and finally the elder Miss Bartleman snapped crossly, “Her book, you silly woman. It’s gone.”

  “It’s gone?” The youngest Miss Bartleman echoed at last. “Oh dear. That is a shame.” She reached out to pat my hand where it gripped my bag, found it cold and unresponsive and decided not to bother. “Well, never mind dear, I’m sure you can get a new one. And don’t worry about the card, we’ll just have to be a day or two late that’s all.” She beamed complacently before casting a sweeping nod around the room and absorbing the presumed general approval for a practical response.

  I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t give a fig for her card. I w
as clutching the bag to my chest as if it were a shield and with an effort I reclaimed my seat to perch on the very edge. I felt utterly claustrophobic. The room was full of people. The void of the archway into the dining room was dark and empty. The places were set in there ready for tomorrow and just discernible in the gloom. My eyes were running blankly over every corner and as ever finding no tangible proof, while my mind searched for any other possible explanation and discovered only fear.

  They were in the hotel.

  Memory was flooding my mind with those old sinister, searching, grasping words: Where is it?

  But this wasn’t the stuff of my dreams now; this was real. And yet, when precisely were they supposed to have slipped in to make their spot of thievery? While I was dining and the bag was on my chair? Or just now while I had been talking to Samuel and the bag was nestling behind my feet? And was I now to believe that all along they’d simply wanted my sketchbook? It didn’t make any sense.

  “Are you sure? Quite sure it’s gone? Perhaps you left it somewhere?” Jim was staring at me with an odd expression on his face, which may have been a peculiar reflection of mine.

  “No … No, I couldn’t have,” I assured him breathlessly, only to find that my racing blood turned cold.

  All of a sudden I was standing in the centre of the floor again. I knew exactly why Jim might be keen to suggest I’d left it somewhere. I had been right about his involvement after all – he had been asking to see my sketchbook for days and at long last my careless slumber in the car had offered him the perfect chance.

  I was standing there, icy, raging with hands as fists by my sides and looking rather absurd. My handbag was hanging hard from its strap against my thigh. “You took it,” I hissed. I could see for myself that he hadn’t got the sketchbook beside him now. That smart jacket wouldn’t hide that sort of bulk in its pockets. But I could recall his absence after dinner and I was perfectly capable of calculating all the opportunities he must have had for secreting it away for perusal later.