by A. B. Decker
The Dark Frontier
A.B. Decker
To my wife Penelope
for her patience
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Copyright
Chapter 1
It was a sunny afternoon in early spring. 1972. On any normal day at this hour in late March, Ellen would have been hurrying home across Putney Bridge. Still wrapped in her winter coat against the North Sea chill blowing off the Thames. But this was not London. And Ellen had not known normal for a good twelve months or more.
The sun that was doing its best to embrace Ellen on this particular afternoon shone over Locarno, Switzerland. And it was only now, sitting here on the Piazza Grande, that it finally sank in. She was never going to see Frank again. And the knowledge was driven home with an exquisite sting by the words of Vicky Leandros: ‘Aprés toi je ne serai que l’ombre’. The words wafted out from the café behind her. They sang of a cold dark solitude. A vast pitch-black shadow, made all the murkier by the light and convivial warmth on the piazza around her.
Those lyrics were all she had heard since Marthe first played her the song. Every radio in every café seemed to be playing it now. They kept intruding on Ellen’s mind wherever she went – from the moment she saw the last hint of his existence vanish for all eternity. That was last Friday. Ever since then, the song had been a constant companion on her journey.
It was already a good three weeks since she had last seen Frank himself. Neatly draped on the slab. In truth, the shock of seeing what had become of him after the long intervening months following his sudden disappearance was tempered by his prolonged absence beforehand. An absence that had gnawed deep gaping wounds in her knowledge and understanding of him. And she wondered now whether she had ever known him at all in any real sense of the word. For it had been a whirlwind romance. Barely three months into bliss before they married and then a few more months before he vanished.
Had he really been living a double life all the time, as events seemed to suggest?
The eyes that fixed their gaze on Ellen as she mulled over this history went unnoticed. It was a slightly furtive gaze. And carried a hint of trepidation. Sitting at the table next to Ellen, the elegantly dressed lady opened a large Louis Vuitton bag on her lap. And as if to calm her nerves with a little distraction, she spent the next few minutes busily burrowing inside it. Like a nesting bird.
It was this activity that eventually broke Ellen’s concentration. When she turned her head, the burrowing stopped for a moment. She caught sight of a brief glance in her direction before the elegant lady quickly resumed the search of her bag. Relieved to have some distraction from her own dark thoughts, Ellen watched, wondering what precious object lay hidden inside. And whether it would ever be revealed. She judged the woman to be late fifties to early sixties. Her thick grey hair still showed strong hints of a jet-black mane from years gone by that perfectly matched her black twinset with cream trim. Ellen had seen something very like it in a fashion magazine at Marthe’s place. She fancied it was probably from Chanel. Over the woman’s shoulders there draped a large scarf that hindered her search. And eventually she gave up.
She closed the Louis Vuitton bag, revealing the letters P.R. embossed in gold on the tongue, looked over at Ellen and smiled.
“I saw you in Basel recently. On the bridge in the centre of town,” she said. There was a conspiratorial edge to her words.
Ellen smiled back, unsure she was ready for any kind of conversation.
“You were with a friend and looked a little agitated,” the woman continued. “But it was the boots that really caught my eye.”
She cast a glance down at Ellen’s feet under the table next to hers. Ellen was still wearing the same high-heeled boots with thick platform soles that she had been wearing ever since she arrived in Switzerland. She had bought them at Biba in Kensington High Street just over a year ago. It was the weekend before Frank had flown out to Switzerland. He had been busy working on an assignment all weekend, so she had taken herself off shopping.
“I do admire girls these days. I’m sure I could never have worn boots like that in my day.”
By now, the mournful words of Vicky Leandros had been swapped for the catchy T. Rex melody ‘Ride a White Swan’. It seemed oddly out of place for a quiet Ticinese piazza. And the strikingly beautiful warble of Marc Bolan’s voice did nothing to lighten her mood, but reminded her of Frank with even greater poignancy.
“Is this your first time in Switzerland?” the P.R. lady persevered. Ellen was jolted from her thoughts, and for an instant she gave in.
“Yes. Well no, not really.”
“You don’t seem too sure.”
“I was here last year.” Ellen was conscious of sounding abrupt, but she was in no mood for further explanation and changed tack. “You speak very good English.”
“I had a very good teacher.” The words came with a wistful look that plainly held an entire chronicle of special memories.
Raising her left hand as she smiled across to the woman, Ellen attracted the waiter’s attention. She really had no wish to be drawn any further into conversation and, placing three francs on the table to cover any tip, she got up to leave.
“I have to get back to my hotel,” she said, and continued smiling politely across the table. “It was very nice talking to you.”
With a look of strangely knowing curiosity, the mysterious lady watched Ellen stride across the piazza towards the lake in her platform boots. They lent an air of confidence to Ellen’s walk that belied her underlying anxiety. When she reached the lakeside, she stood for a moment by the water next to a gelateria that was playing the ubiquitous background melody of Vicky Leandros.
A lonely bedraggled swan floated adrift beneath the jetty to her left. Ellen smiled and almost unconsciously began to hum the T. Rex melody to herself as she was reminded of the times Frank would take her mudlarking along the Thames when the tide was low. Of the shabby swans that swam past and would inspire him to poetry as he tugged an old camera from the mud. Or a broken vase. Repeated reminders of Frank that left Ellen trapped in the arms of one vast shadow.
She watched the activity around her: young families gathering for their ice cream; an elderly man and a woman admiring each other’s dogs; and out on the water a scattering of white yacht sails bobbing like lost punctuation marks against the backdrop of the mountainside.
Like a boat beneath a sunny sky. Those words from Frank came to Ellen as she watched the yachts out on the lake. They reminded her of the sunlit day they stood on Putney Bridge together. Watching the water. A solitary boat floated silently downstream. And under his breath, Frank whispered: “Still she haunts me, phantomwise / Alice moving under skies / Never seen by waking eyes.”
Ellen recalled gaping at him in bewilderment and saying something like: “Where did that come from?”
It was the first time she had noticed the trace of a soft Lancashire accent in his voice. The lilt brought memories of the L
iverpool poets to mind and of the poetry readings Frank would often take her to. They were a far cry from the Coleridge and Wordsworth that she had read for A-levels. And they fascinated her. But the words he spoke now were a source of complete bemusement.
“Lewis Carroll,” Frank said. He seemed to her to be a million miles away as he spoke. “Like a boat beneath a sunny sky. It’s an acrostic. So beautiful. Such a lovely device.”
“Acrostic?”
“A poem where the first letter of each line spells out a name,” he explained.
Ellen had never ceased to marvel at Frank’s knowledge and his way with words. And he in turn had always been in awe of her memory for the lyrics of every song that she had ever heard in her entire life. He found it hard to believe she had such a total recall for words as she claimed to have. But she never failed any test to which he put her. And for all the mystery of the words that Frank had spoken then, they were no less mystifying to Ellen now, as she slowly repeated them to herself – Still she haunts me, phantomwise / Never seen by waking eyes – and gazed out at the boats beneath a sunny sky on Lago Maggiore.
What did he really mean, who was he talking about when he spoke those words? Ellen wondered.
The white punctuation marks that were yachts on the water had already turned a light shade of grey. The sun was starting to fade. Even the bedraggled swan beneath the jetty had left the water and settled down in the dry. And for Ellen, the dark mountain that draped its twilight cloak right down to the shore on the other side of the lake held shades of menace – like a black glove remorselessly squeezing out every last drop of the day that remained.
Marthe had recommended it as the perfect place to recuperate from all the heartache of the last months. And when she insisted that she would follow in a few days’ time, Ellen was persuaded. But since receiving Marthe’s phone call in the hotel to say that there had been a change of plan and she would be unable to join her after all, Ellen could see no purpose at all in being here. She felt uncomfortable in Locarno. And as she stood at the lakeside now, contemplating that sense of menace, she questioned the wisdom of ever following Marthe’s advice.
For all its beauty and conviviality, Locarno was proving a sombre place that left Ellen feeling deeply disturbed. Far from spreading out in width like Heaven, as Wordsworth might have led her to believe when she was studying for her A-levels, it seemed more like a dark underworld. Recovery seemed the last thing she was likely to find here.
Her sister Beth had suggested she go and stay with her for a few weeks to recover. But after the disaster of the last time Ellen stayed with her sister, this was plainly not an option. So she decided then and there that she must return north to Marthe’s place in Basel the next day. Then straight back home to London, where she could start picking up what pieces of normality remained in her life.
Ellen’s hotel lay about a ten-minute walk away in a narrow side street on the other side of the Piazza Grande and not too far from the railway station. But with time on her hands, she took a circuitous route that skirted around the piazza for fear of running into her cappuccino companion again. With slow deliberation, she meandered through the backstreets. The few little shops here had either closed already or were about to close. And the streets themselves were remarkably empty. The shoppers had either left for home or congregated now on the piazza just a street or two away for their après-shopping gossip. At street level, these narrow lanes that Ellen was negotiating might be considered by most people to be charming and full of atmosphere. For Ellen they spawned a sense of claustrophobic angst. And the echo of her footsteps did nothing to dispel this feeling.
When Ellen was suddenly jolted from her apprehension by another sound – like a ping-pong ball bouncing erratically across a table – she stopped and span round. The street was empty. The echo of her footsteps had been silenced. She was alone. But this only added to her sense of disquiet. Then, just as abruptly, two little boys about fifty metres back down the street dashed out from a door, shouting and laughing as they chased after a ball, then disappeared around a corner as swiftly as they had appeared. Ellen turned and continued on her way at a more hurried pace, keen to reach the comfort of her accommodation.
Her hotel was a small family-run place. An unpretentious building that bore no comparison with the grandiose Lombard-style architecture and inviting porticos around the piazza. And while it offered the seclusion she was seeking, it also reflected the same sense of dark menace she felt emanating from the mountains around the lake. It had been a bad choice to stay here. And this probably helped nurture her decision to return. The owner of the hotel was Signor Sciarone.
A portly, avuncular sixty-something with a bushy grey moustache, thick flowing hair to match and a perpetual twinkle in his eye, he seemed affable enough. He was at the desk when Ellen arrived back at the hotel. And he reached down the key to her room as he saw her coming through the door.
“Buona sera, signora.” He handed Ellen the key.
“It is so nice to have an English lady as our guest.”
Ellen smiled politely.
“I love your country,” he continued. “A lovely country. But such a tragic place. Like a – how you say tentatrice – she draw so many people to an early death.”
Ellen stopped in her tracks. She shot a startled look across the desk at Signor Sciarone. The twinkle in his eyes had gone.
He pointed to the wall behind him. It was covered in faded photos, ragged newspaper cuttings browning at the edges and one that appeared much cleaner and fresher. Ellen recognised the picture in this one instantly. She recalled the iconic image plastered across the front pages of every newspaper just a few years previously. The arms of the Bluebird rearing up out of the lake at Coniston like a crab out of water.
“That’s Donald Campbell’s awful crash,” she said.
“I meet his father when he make record here on Lago Maggiore,” Signor Sciarone nodded, and pointed to the most faded of the cuttings. “Thirty years before. Such a beautiful sunny day. Now they go to England to make records. And die there.”
Stepping back towards the wall, he planted a deliberate stubby forefinger on a face that meant nothing to Ellen.
“Jo Siffert. Another great driver. He win Grand Prix in England. And three years later he also die there.”
Signor Sciarone banged a huge fist down on the reception desk as he spoke these words. Ellen jumped. The brutal violence of this fist on the desk was totally at odds with his affable manner. She found this other side of him disconcerting.
“I don’t follow the sport,” she whispered timidly. “But I do recall reading something about the accident a few months ago.”
She was about to turn and climb the stairs to her room, then added “It’s very sad” in an effort to comfort her host. But he had already turned his back and was shuffling off down the corridor to the back of the house.
The dimly lit stairwell was steep and narrow, and by the time she reached her room on the third floor she was quite out of breath. The room itself had also seen better days. There was a slight mustiness about the air in the room as she entered. But it was not unpleasant. It lent a sense of history to the place. And Ellen could imagine the many travellers who must have passed through here over the decades. Single ladies in lace with matching parasols. Salesmen with suitcases packed full of their sample products. And lovelorn writers escaping the heartbreak of being dumped. The age and history that seeped out from the furniture and the heavy curtains over the window gave Ellen a feeling of comfort, a sense of not being quite so totally alone.
She drew back the curtains and opened the doors onto the narrow balcony to let in what remaining light there was. Sadly, although she was on the third floor, it did not offer the view over the lake that she had hoped for when she checked in. Instead she had to make do with a view of the balcony on the other side of the street – almost close enough for her to leap over with little trouble. This intimacy with the neighbourhood increased Ellen’s sense of vulnerab
ility. She went back inside, closed the curtains, removed her platform boots and lay down on the bed.
Holed up in this history-laden room with not even a view to speak of, Ellen let her thoughts turn to the events and non-events of the last months. To Frank’s protracted absence. To what he had been doing here in the first place. And who he even was.
She recalled him in her arms that morning, just before he left, as they lay bathing in the spent tension of their bodies. Their languid limbs still tangled together. His drenched body wedged between hers. With the memory of that moment she felt a tingling sensation course through her body. During all the time that Frank was away, she had been too pent up with worry even to recall the many wonderful times they had enjoyed together – let alone try to get to know herself. But for the first time in a long while she conjured images of Frank’s slightly tanned, perfectly proportioned body – and she began to remember who she was. A frisson of electricity, like the static of a nylon blouse, began tingling again with the memories. The feel of his velvet skin on hers. That perfect smell. The tenderness of his lips on her neck. She let the tips of her fingers dance lightly over her skin.
The suddenness of the knock on her door dragged Ellen brutally back to earth. She got up, adjusted her clothes and went to the door. She was greeted by the figure of Signor Sciarone, wheezing slightly from the climb up the stairs and holding two neatly folded towels.
“I forget towels for bathroom.”
Ellen raised a hand to take them and thank him for his trouble. But before she could get the words out, he had brushed past Ellen and into the room. Placing the towels on the end of the bed, he ambled over to the other side of the room, drew back the curtains and opened the doors onto the balcony. Then pushed wide the door just next to it to inspect the bathroom. Slowly he turned to face Ellen again and continued his inspection. He scanned the dressing table, the room, the bed – then smiled at Ellen in a way she found more unsettling than friendly.
“The room need light and air,” he said, moving back towards the door and brushing past Ellen as he went. Ellen backed up nervously against the wall to let him pass.