Encounters

by Barbara Erskine

  Sue steadied her face with difficulty. ‘I’m sorry, Tony. It just all sounded so unromantic.’

  He grinned hopefully. ‘Not really. The wedding will be nice and the honeymoon. And then. Well, it’ll all be nice, I expect. Put the ring on again. Please.’

  She shook her head. ‘Not yet. Let’s give it a bit more time. I think I need space too.’

  ‘Sue. My parents have asked us to go down for Christmas. They’ll expect to see you wearing it. Dad was furious when I said we’d quarrelled. He said I was spineless.’ Suddenly he looked like a dog that had been kicked.

  ‘We never quarrelled, Tony.’ She bit her lip. ‘Is that why you came back?’ she went on in a whisper. “Because your father told you to?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’d have come anyway. Of course I would. Sue …’ He reached out for her again. ‘Come on, sweetheart.’

  She gave him her hand. She went out to dinner with him and let him bring her home. Then she told him it was over and gave him back his ring.

  The toy department was crowded. Children were everywhere, on and in and under the displays, evading harassed parents, screaming and crying and laughing with excitement. Sue looked at the lavish cardboard castle stuck with sparkling cotton wool at the end of the huge department. There was a queue of mothers waiting clutching the hands of their children. Had she really thought she would dare queue with them, without a child?

  She paid for the small presents she had chosen and stared towards it again wistfully. Father Christmas might as well be in Snowland for real, she would get no nearer to him than this.

  He hadn’t phoned. Why should he? They had met once, passed a pleasant evening, laughed a lot and gone their separate ways. As far as he knew she and her fiancé had made up their quarrel and her life was once more complete. If he had thought about her at all.

  Sadly she walked towards the escalator and let it carry her down back to reality and the office.

  When she got home that evening a small packet had been wedged into her letter box. She gathered it up and let herself into the cold flat. The silver bells she had tied onto the holly in the vase glittered as she drew the curtains and turned on all the lights. She shook the sleet out of her hair and snapped on the TV for company and then turned the parcel over in her hands.

  It was wrapped in white tissue and tied with ribbon. She wondered if it were from Tony to make up, but somehow something about it was not his style.

  Puzzled she tore it open and stared. Inside was a tiny doll’s first aid box. There was a note attached.

  ‘I saw you through the windows of my castle and thought you might be looking for a bacillus-bashing kit. If you think a strong drink would be more effective, I’ll pick you up about nine. F.C.’

  She laughed out loud. Suddenly the evening had lost its bleakness.

  The sleet had turned to snow since she had come home. She stood beside him on the front doorstep and stared out in wonder. In the street lights the air was magical. The treacly slush vanished beneath a crisp white crust which squeaked satisfactorily beneath their shoes and the air was a whirling net of cold.

  She could not resist running her hand along the top of a car, watching the powdery whiteness caking and crumbling on her glove.

  ‘You brought Snowland with you!’

  He raised his eyes towards heaven. ‘I’m never going to live that down, am I? Come on.’ He caught her hand and dusted the snow off it. ‘I’m going to be able to practise on your chilblains too at this rate. You’re turning into a walking case book!’

  The pub was crowded. Squeezed behind a small round table near the dartboard Sue sipped a shandy watching Richard play. He turned to her and raised his glass. ‘Only one game, I promise. Is your fiancé waiting up for you?’

  She was surprised by the suddenness of the question and looked down miserably. ‘There is no more fiancé.’

  He handed his darts to the man next to him, ‘No more squash and Pimms and souped-up MGs?’

  She shook her head, suddenly afraid she was going to cry as he sat down beside her, his burly figure squashing her on the narrow bench.

  He put his hands on hers. ‘The way you told it, he didn’t sound right for you, Sue.’

  ‘I know.’ She sniffed hard, groping for a tissue.

  ‘Come on. I’m taking you for a walk.’

  They walked across the park in the whirling snow, his college scarf wound round and round her neck, his arm linked through hers as the dark disappeared before wave after wave of splintering whiteness.

  ‘It doesn’t often snow like this before Christmas,’ she said, trying hard to be cheerful.

  ‘It does when I’m in charge.’ He smiled.

  He took her home at last, exhausted, feet soaked through and numb, her nose and cheeks glowing.

  On the doorstep he stamped the snow off his shoes. ‘I’m coming in for five minutes only,’ he said. ‘I’m going to run your bath, prescribe you a night cap and, if I’m allowed, I’ll kiss you goodnight.’

  He was as good as his word, turning on the bath taps, then producing from his pocket a small bottle of whisky which he had bought in the pub. He put it on the sideboard. ‘A slug of that with honey and lemon against the cold,’ he said firmly. ‘Then I must go. I’ve to be in my grotto again by nine in the morning.’ He grinned.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and drew her to him gently. ‘Don’t be afraid to cry, Sue,’ he said softly as his lips came down on hers.

  It was a warm, solid, comforting kiss, a bit shorter than she would have liked, she realized, as soon as it had stopped and quite definitely more-ish.

  But he was fumbling in the cupboard for a glass. He made up her drink and carried it into the steamy bathroom.

  ‘It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow,’ he said.

  She nodded, feeling suddenly sick and empty.

  ‘I won’t have had my last sticky hug from my last toddling admirer till five.’ He sat on the edge of the bath, testing the temperature of the water.

  Firmly banishing the thought of Christmas Day Sue concentrated instead on wondering, since he was in such a masterful mood, if he were going to undress her as well. She rather hoped he was. The thought sent a small interesting tingle up her spine.

  But he stood up again and moved towards the door.

  ‘Get into that water before it gets cold. I’ve got to go now, but I’ll pick you up at six with my tame reindeer. Unless you’ve got other plans of course?’ He raised his eyebrows impishly.

  There was a huge lump in her throat, but she could feel herself smiling blindly. ‘I’ve no plans at all,’ she said.

  ‘Good. Don’t bother to buy any food for the holiday. You won’t need it,’ and with that he was gone, leaving her in the warm bathroom with a glass of hot whisky in her hand. Behind her the flat door banged and she was alone.

  She had to buy him a present, but how could she? She knew so little about him. In the end she bought a bottle of good wine – he seemed to be keen on drink and she suspected he probably knew about wine and on inspiration a pair of terrifying red, white and blue socks. He would never wear them, but they would bring his average of hole-less socks up a bit.

  He was very prompt. She answered the door rather hesitantly, wondering if it were him, afraid he might have forgotten or changed his mind. But he was standing there in the same shabby coat, a broad grin on his face. ‘I was tempted to borrow my red costume from the store, but I thought you might run if I did,’ he said as he came in. ‘Are you packed and ready?’

  ‘Packed?’ She stared at him with a small quiver of doubt.

  ‘Of course. My mother would think it a bit odd if you turned up without a toothbrush. That’s all you need though. We’re very informal.’

  ‘Your mother?’ She was dumbfounded.

  ‘That’s right. The one who lists my socks.’ He grinned. ‘I’ve told her I’m bringing a girl home for Christmas.’

  Sue looked down at her feet. ‘But won’t she assume we’re … I mean
, won’t she think …’ Her voice trailed into embarrassed silence.

  ‘She’ll assume nothing. She knows me better than that,’ he said firmly. ‘Now come on. This is all part of the therapy. A few days in the country.’

  He drove a battered red MG. She stared at it in silence. Then she turned an accusing eye on him. ‘You might have told me you had one too. And you were being so rude about them!’

  ‘I’m never rude about Rudolph.’ His eyes were gleaming maliciously.

  ‘And since when has it been called Rudolph?’

  ‘Since last night.’ He tucked her case in the boot and helped her in.

  The old house was already deep in snow as the car slithered its way up the drive. Sue loved it on sight, as she did Richard’s mother, whom he introduced simply as Maggie and who greeted her with a kiss and a hug and pushed her into a rocking chair by a roaring log fire.

  The ceilings were so low that the Christmas tree had to bend its head as did Richard when he waded through the two cats and three dogs sprawling before the flames to bring Sue her drink.

  He grinned at her. ‘No strings,’ he whispered. ‘Just enjoy yourself.’ He winked.

  While he was fetching logs from somewhere in the garden, lops that spluttered and hissed and exploded and smelt like summer nights by the Mediterranean, his mother sat down beside her.

  Like her son she was tall, with deeply caring eyes and a warm smile.

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t brought you a present,’ Sue said awkwardly. ‘Richard only told me we were coming here an hour or so ago.’

  Maggie laughed. ‘How like him. He told me a week ago.’

  ‘A week ago?’ Sue stared. ‘He can’t have. I’ve only known him a few days.’

  ‘That’s right. He rang up the night he met you and said there would be one extra for Christmas. “I’m bringing the girl I’m going to marry,” he said.’ She smiled. ‘That’s present enough for me, my dear, a thousand times over.’ She stood up. ‘I’ve been in a ferment of curiosity to meet you. But now I have, I’m so happy. Welcome.’ She dropped a kiss on the top of Sue’s head.

  That night she had snuggled beneath the huge old-fashioned eiderdown and given up the struggle to evict a fat and very determined cat from the end of the bed when she was awakened by the door opening. A tall figure tiptoed towards the bed. She lay still watching as, with some difficulty it pinned a bulging stocking to the end of the counterpane with a huge safety pin. She heard a smothered curse as the pin must have driven into his finger and silently she managed to stifle a giggle.

  Richard had turned back towards the door and was tiptoeing back towards the dim crack of light thrown by the landing lamp when she sat up. ‘I never believed in Father Christmas before this year,’ she whispered. ‘Or since I was very very little. But I do now.’

  He turned and came towards her. ‘Go to sleep,’ he said sternly. ‘You’re not supposed to have seen me.’

  She held out her arms. ‘Can I have a Christmas kiss?’

  He sat down on the eiderdown and put his arms around her. He had just shaved and his cheeks were smooth and smelled of cologne.

  ‘You invited me here under false pretences, didn’t you?’ she murmured, her lips against his. This time the kiss was of a very satisfactory duration.

  She felt him smile.

  ‘That would be against my principles,’ he said softly.

  ‘But you let your mother think you were going to marry me.’ For some reason her chest had gone very tight and she couldn’t breathe properly as she tried to see his face.

  ‘Mother and I are always straight with each other. That’s why we get on so well.’ He smiled.

  ‘But you didn’t even know you were going to see me again.’

  He smiled, touching her hair gently. ‘I knew,’ he said.

  Several minutes later he started to stand up. ‘I must go, Sue,’ he said softly. ‘If I stay any longer I may find it hard to leave,’

  ‘But we’re going to be married.’ She started the sentence as a joke, but by the time the words had been said, spinning out into the silence of the old room beneath the thatch she knew they were true. The shortness of the time they had known each other did not matter. Tony, with all his show and his attraction did not matter. This was something so different, so right, that she was sure as she had never been, deep down, with Tony. Sure and content and very, very happy.

  ‘Don’t go yet.’ She put her arms around his neck. ‘Besides, haven’t you noticed how unprincipled I am? I am already sharing my bed with one gentleman.’

  In the distance, as Richard took her in his arms, the midnight bells began to ring, far away in the village. He kissed her gently. ‘Do you think the other gentleman would move up if I asked him nicely?’ he said softly.

  And they both laughed quietly as, as if on cue, there was a deep contented purr from the end of the bed.

  Destiny

  On bitterly cold days I often went to the Palm House to warm up. Those heavy double doors were a passport to a tropical climate where hibiscus and bougainvillaea trail among the palms. My hands would come frozen out of my pockets, my chin out of my collar and I could walk tall and relaxed, breathing more easily after the paralysing cold outside.

  Two lovely wrought iron spiral staircases lead up through the jungle towards the dome. One is marked ‘up’ and one ‘down’ and it was there that I met him. He was walking slowly, meditatively, down the ‘up’.

  Had I taken notice, had I had my wits about me, I would have been warned; I would have seen the danger signals within myself, but as it was I was unprepared and so somehow it happened.

  I saw the shoes first as I climbed with my hands on the curving rail. They stopped about four steps above me and automatically, because they were facing me, I stopped too. I lifted my face slowly, my eyes travelling up the jeans, clean but washed-out, the T-shirt – no rude or meaningful messages emblazoned in those days – with behind it a hint of muscular chest, a heavy lumber jacket and then a face. Automatically my eyes prepared themselves to slip sideways and simultaneously I sidestepped to pass him, putting out my hand to grab the central newel post. Of course he, at the same moment, did the same, and we both clung precariously on the narrowed end of the wedge-shaped steps, my chin nearly touching his knees.

  There was a moment’s silence, then as we both moved back to the outside edge of the stairway there was a muffled snort from above me.

  ‘Say – do you tango too?’

  I could feel my colour rising. I hate sarcasm in any form.

  ‘This is the “up” staircase,’ I muttered stiffly, my head now level with the furry edge of his jacket.

  There was a soft slither of snow far above our heads on the glass dome and somewhere to my left a sparrow started cheeping plaintively in the frondy palm tops. I raised my gaze reluctantly – our relative positions on the stair left me at a neck-cricking disadvantage. He had brilliant blue eyes and a ski slope tan. His face was very serious. Not angry; just concerned and really very pleasant.

  ‘You know, you shouldn’t always follow instructions so blindly,’ he said conversationally. ‘Had you looked up you would have seen me already on my way down.’

  ‘If you deigned to follow instructions at all I should not have needed to,’ I retorted. I took a deep breath. ‘Anyway. It is perfectly possible for us to pass. There is plenty of room for two.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘So this has happened to you before?’

  ‘Frequently. But usually people manage to pass without making an international incident of it!’ It had not escaped my notice that he had some sort of mid-western accent.

  ‘OK.’ To my amazement he proceeded to sit down on the wrought iron steps. He reached into his jeans pocket, extending a long muscular leg past me in order to reach down into it. ‘Let’s settle this in time-honoured fashion, as when two heads of state confront on a battlefield!’

  I fully expected him to draw a gun, but it turned out to be a coin. “Heads I go back; tails
you go back, OK?’

  I gave a helpless sort of tolerant smile – the kind of smile one gives to a child when indulging it disgustingly – and watched him flip the coin. It disappeared into the sea of greenery around our feet.

  ‘You’re supposed to catch it,’ I said acidly.

  For the first time he grinned. ‘I’ll go and get it,’ he said. He stepped lightly past me and proceeded to run down the stairs.

  I stared at him, speechless. He couldn’t be serious. But he was. He was coming right back up again, dusting soft black leaf mould off the coin.

  It was his turn to look up at me and he did so shrugging. ‘I guess you think I’m nuts.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Can I buy you a cup of coffee to make up for it?’

  It was a tempting thought. I hesitated, and I was lost.

  ‘All right, why not!’ I laughed and solemnly we both turned and made our way down, passing straight-faced two hapless visitors meekly climbing up the ‘up’.

  We met twice more after that, by appointment – once by the frozen lake where the ducks skidded ridiculously with much complaint on the blue ice and once in the museum in front of a case of grotesquely ugly wax vegetables and we talked and laughed and I felt we had known one another all our lives. He was outrageous and irritating; irrational and domineering and I found myself liking him more and more until I knew that I could never live without him.

  The third time he did not come. I walked for nearly an hour, my feet frozen, looking at the spiked fringes of frost which had turned every growing thing into silvered gorse and my heart was inexplicably heavy. I knew so little about him. His name was Peter and he came from St Louis and he was working in England as a journalist. I didn’t even know his second name. It had seemed too conventional a thing to ask him. And he didn’t know mine.

  What I did know was what he liked to read: Walt Whitman and Donne; what he liked to hear: Al Jolson and Britten; what he liked to smell: wet earth and burning leaves; and that his favourite place, like mine, was Kew Gardens. And I knew that inexplicably his absence had left an empty place inside me.