Perhaps her mother had bet her life on it. And lost.
By this time Teddy, always bold and impatient, had gained a considerable distance ahead of Agatha and Honoria. Sunningdale, in Berkshire abutting Surrey, was an easy distance to London by train. The houses were far apart from each other and private, with lovely gardens. The roads weren’t paved, and dust flew up when the occasional carriage or bicycle or automobile went by. The two women were not hoverers by nature and were happy to let Teddy meander ahead. They didn’t worry when she crested the hill and disappeared.
As Honoria and Agatha caught sight of her again, a good way down the road, they could also make out the figure of a man, kneeling on the ground, talking to her.
‘Do you know him?’ Agatha asked Honoria. For all she knew this was someone they ran into regularly, part of their daily routine.
‘No. I don’t believe I do.’
Both women shielded their eyes from the sun with their hands. Strangers always seemed to take to Teddy. Once on the beach at Torquay a woman had scooped her up and hugged her.
Agatha could see the man patting Peter’s scruff with both hands in a way that made her feel he must be the right sort. Then the man stood. He was tall – taller than Archie – and young. Seeing the women, he raised his hand to his forehead in a salute. Instead of heading towards them or away from them on the road he stepped into the hedgerow.
‘How peculiar.’ Agatha watched the spot where he’d stood, as if he’d been a mirage she could make reappear by squinting into the sun.
‘Teddy,’ Honoria called. ‘Stay where you are now, you hear me?’
By the time they reached her the man was nowhere in sight. Teddy waited, shifting from one foot to another. ‘It’s too cold to stand still,’ she said. In her mittened hands she held a little figure, carved from wood recently; Agatha caught the scent of sawdust as Teddy held it up to show her.
‘How lovely,’ Agatha said, though her brow furrowed in consternation. ‘Is it a dog?’
‘It is,’ Teddy said. ‘Mr Sonny gave it to me.’
‘Is that who you were talking to? Mr Sonny?’
‘Yes. He said I could call this dog Sonny, too, if I like.’
‘Well, then you shall.’ Agatha took the little girl’s hand.
‘He says in America all dogs are named Sonny.’
‘That hardly seems likely, does it? Was he American?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We’d better get a move on,’ said Honoria, ‘if we’re to get to school on time.’
‘I think I’ll go home,’ Agatha said. ‘See what I can get done.’
‘You won’t go anywhere?’ Honoria cautioned, meaning, you won’t go to Archie. ‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
Agatha stood in the road as Honoria and Teddy walked on. She watched them until they disappeared, Teddy with a jolly skip in her step, holding the hand-whittled dog high in her hand. Agatha found herself racked with inordinate worry and regret. She should have taken the dog herself, put it in her pocket, to make sure it wouldn’t be lost.
Perhaps Archie will come home, she thought. Perhaps during the day he’d remember all that passed between them last night – and all these last years – and return to his senses. Become, once more, the man who’d pressed so urgently for her hand in marriage. When dinnertime came round, he would march through the door, suitcase in hand, no use for it now, as he’d decided to come home to stay.
You may well wonder if you can believe what I tell you about things that occurred when I myself was not present. But this is as reliable an account as you can ever hope to receive. Think for a moment. Don’t you know about events that pertain to you, but which you didn’t witness? Don’t you find yourself, sometimes, recounting them? There’s plenty we remember that we never saw with our own eyes, or lived with our own bodies. It’s a simple matter of weaving together what we know, what we’ve been told and what we imagine. Not unlike the way a detective pieces together the answers to a crime.
For example, Inspector Frank Chilton, who’s not yet important to this story but who will soon become so. The two of us have stayed in touch, written letters to each other about the different ways we remember this time, recreating for each other what little we didn’t already know. And then there’s everything Archie and Agatha have told me. And what I know about both of them.
Some reports of this day, the one which would turn into the night Agatha disappeared, claim Agatha paid a visit to Archie’s mother. But Peg – who meted out admonishments in her thick Irish brogue – was the last person Agatha would have wanted to see. Peg had never been on Agatha’s side, not a single time. Like my father, Peg hailed from County Cork. Her answer to all ills was a dismissive admonition: You must get over it. Why visit someone who’d tell Agatha what she already knew? There was no choice but to get over her mother’s death and the defection of her husband. Agatha was brought up to get on with things, to keep her head and never make a fuss.
But that evening, the clock’s chimes persisted, one after the other, and her husband didn’t return. How she lost her head. How the fuss rose up inside her.
Agatha locked herself in Archie’s study, feeling torn to pieces over the battle between what she wanted to happen (Archie striding through the door) and what was proving to be true (Archie somewhere else, gathering me in his arms instead of her).
No, no, no, no.
Who hasn’t heard that word, ringing through the body, rebelling against events unfolding contrary to our dearest, most desperate wishes? No matter what happened in Agatha’s novels her characters always reacted with admirably low affect. ‘It’s a bad knock,’ one of them might say, upon discovering their loved one’s murder. In my experience loss is seldom taken so lightly, even by those who pride themselves on cool heads and unquavering lips. When something unendingly dear to you is taken away, with no hope of return, wails can’t help but ensue.
Somewhere in the midst of her sorrow Agatha stopped to make an inventory. The things she couldn’t live without. Her car – the wonderful car she’d bought all on her own. The typewriter that had made it happen. Her child and her dog. What if she did lose Archie? Given all the pain he was causing her, might Nan in fact be taking her biggest problem off her hands?
No. That wouldn’t do. It couldn’t be borne. Archie was hers. Her own husband. She would never give him up, never.
‘The only person who can really hurt you in life,’ she would write, many years later, ‘is a husband.’