‘Do you know, I’d rather not. Sometimes I’m glad that my friends are so attentive and caring. But not all the time!’
He gave me his telephone number and I folded the piece of paper into my purse. We paid for our goods and left the shop together, stepping out into Waltham Square. The sky was the most extraordinary blue. I’d never seen anything like it. I expected a portent of some kind, a comet so bright it could be seen in daylight. The nearest thing to a comet was the weathercock. Motionless today in the still, mild air, its tail caught a sunbeam and slung it down to me, a flare of rosy gold that closed my eyes.
I heard him say, ‘So who is the youngster you’re looking after?’
The cobbles in the square pressed against my shoes. The plastic shopping bag pinched my fingers. I felt uncommonly solid. Surrounded by another solidity, the town of Waltham, whose every brick and stone I knew.
‘Ellen? You said you had a child at home.’
I opened my eyes. The cobbles of the square lay shining; the buildings high and beautiful in the bold, searching, morning light.
‘I love this town,’ I said. ‘It’s been everything to me, you know. It saved me from despair. Gave me a job. Taught me how to be happy. Brought me my husband.’ I glanced up again at the flash on the town hall’s pitched roof. ‘William Kennet made that weathercock. Has anyone told you?’
‘I only knew that he was a gardener at Upton Hall.’
‘Before that he beat copper. As a very young man. But the Great War put paid to that. He lost so much. Many of us here have lost so much. I think you should know that, James. Now that you’ve come among us, to be our shepherd.’
He nodded. ‘I do know it. Ellen …’ He came a little closer. ‘Would you like to sit down for a moment? The bus shelter’s just over there.’
‘Why would I want to sit down?’ I laughed. ‘I’m not the least bit tired. Actually, I haven’t felt so full of vim for a long time.’
He fingered his chin, gave me his lidless, intelligent stare. ‘Yes,’ he said gently. ‘You do seem … uncommonly full of vim.’
We both laughed at the old-fashioned word.
‘Anyway,’ I said. ‘I need to get back.’
‘And I … I think I need to make a couple of phone calls. Take care of yourself, Ellen. I hope I’ll see you on Tuesday.’
I watched him hurry away, vanish into the shadow of the side street. Then I began to walk back across the square. As I did so my happiness caused my soul to rise high in the air, level with the weathercock, its burnished plumage and its proud, fierce eye. Far below a young girl trudged over the cobbles to the Infirmary, her head bowed, the burden too great. Then the girl ran across the cobbles to the town hall, careful not to make creases in the toes of her shoes. And she stepped off the pavement, her dress flying in the warm breeze, and bumped into a man and dropped her books, and they embraced on the stones, and they married on the steps. Two small figures in the sunshine. Two small figures, and then a child, tagging along, skipping ahead.
I drove home through the glorious crisp air. The day was as perfect as a pearl in a shell.
*
I knew the house was empty before I even called ‘Hello’. Something about the stillness and shadow in the hall told me so. I hurried into the kitchen, put our shopping down on the table, went out of the back door to find the hens shut up securely, the last grains scattered in the mud, and her wellingtons leaning against each other by the back step. I came back inside, strode through the empty sitting room where the husks of burnt logs lay cold in the grate, and ran upstairs.
There were no clothes on the floor, no rumpled sheets. The coverlet was tucked tight on the narrow bed in the dressing room and her suitcase had disappeared.
The only sound the ticking of Selwyn’s little clock.
I went back into the big bedroom. The playing cards were still on the counterpane, some scattered on the floor. A few had been pushed under the bed. I bent to pick them up and came upon a crumpled torn scrap of paper. I scanned the typewritten words.
Pamela, there’s been a flood. Did it wash you back
my darling
looked again it was only Penny
I ran downstairs and out into the lane. There was no sign of her. I turned back to the house and looked in the garage. The bicycle was nowhere to be seen.
Althea answered her telephone at the fifth ring. ‘Althea, it’s Ellen—’
‘Dear girl. James Acton has rung. We were wondering if you’re quite—’
‘Never mind about all that. Pamela’s gone. She’s disappeared.’
A second or two of silence.
‘Ellen, I’m going to ring up Margaret Dennis—’
‘Yes, you should do that. Get William too. I’m going out to search for her. She took the bike, you see.’
30
SHEETS OF WATER stood at the bottom of the farm track, reflecting the sky. Beacon Hill rose up above me, a quiet line marred by humans, their dips and hollows mined out before the coming of Christ. Huddled in the heights with their dewponds and defences. The ramparts worn down now by the wind, by sheep.
The bicycle lay at the foot of the track. Flung down insolently. I half-expected to see a wheel still spinning.
The track was white, the fields a light white-speckled brown. The chalk skimmed just under the turf here. It was nibbling ground, not planting, but ever since the war the farmers had ploughed all up the slopes, the furrows a regular weave swerving over the shoulder of the hill and on again. Thin soil and dry, the hedges at the field boundary stunted and made sparse by the soil and the wind.
‘Ellen. Ellen.’
The voice came from behind me. I turned to see him halfway up the track, further away than I had imagined. The wind must have carried his voice. He laboured on, a dogged old man. Even now, coming for me. Who told him? Althea? James? It had to be James. He wouldn’t have reached the hill yet, if it had been Althea.
Always, all these people. Selwyn, Aubrey, Althea, William. William, as the blur resolved into barbed wire and we fell and skidded over the road. I should have fought him off, grabbed Pamela, run, in spite of my ankle, into the field. With the bicycle. And then onward, down the hill to the sea.
‘Ellen. Stop.’
Here he was now, his eyes in shadow under the brim of his hat, his mouth a line. He wasn’t panting, even at that pace. I turned away but he took hold of my hand, clasped it in his, a firm crab-like pincer.
The anger uncoiled inside me. ‘Let go of me.’
He did not. With my free hand I buffeted him on his chest, on the lapel of his ancient tweed jacket, my fist rounded. I shook my head, shook the hair out of my eyes. ‘You could have helped me push the bike through the field. Torn your shirt up, to bandage my ankle – do you remember, I twisted it?’ I pummelled him again. ‘A true friend would have done that. Sent us on our way, God speed. But you caught us instead, and took us back, and here you are again! And I’m losing her – losing her –’
I gave him another blow, and another. A yelp came from my throat. He trapped my hitting hand in his.
‘Come now, woman!’ He gave me a shaking, his voice a gentle roar. ‘Come to your senses!’
I stood in front of him, weeping. My grief was packed deep like rock salt, the tears concentrated and stinging, hard to shed. I wrenched them out all the same with high, keening sobs. When I began to sway on my feet, his hands closed firmly round my upper arms. He continued to hold me in this way, though the crying took a long time.
Finally, I fell silent, and he released me. ‘Put up your hair now, Ellen,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Skirling around like a banshee, and your hair all tumbling down. You’re a proper disgrace.’
Stunned, I wordlessly obeyed, fumbling around my neck, the back of my head. My clip was gone. That brought me near to weeping again. ‘I can’t.’
He tutted gently. ‘Make it neat, then.’