Sands of Time

by Barbara Erskine

  The tall man in charge sported the ubiquitous ponytail favoured by many of the stall holders, but his face was a contrast to the rest of his appearance. There was an aesthetic set to his features that intrigued her. She watched him surreptitiously for a moment. He was being assisted by a pretty young girl. Unconsciously, Janet ran a wistful hand through her hair, ruffling it from neat and demure to wild and untidy before she drifted closer.

  ‘Are you interested in singing bowls?’

  She suddenly realised he was talking to her. She blushed and looked down at the small pinky-pewter-coloured bowl he was holding out to her. ‘Go on. Have a go.’ He smiled, a grave, soul-searching smile which seemed to link his eyes to hers. She felt a flicker of sexual excitement in the pit of her stomach – something that had not happened for years, even with Steven.

  She smiled back. ‘How do you have a go at a bowl?’

  He shook his head. ‘I knew you weren’t listening.’ He produced a short wooden baton and, balancing the bowl on the palm of his hand, tapped it smartly. It gave off a deep bronze note like a bell. Then, as she watched and listened in amazement, she saw him draw the baton around the rim of the bowl, stroking the metal until the note caught and rose and steadied, on and on and on, weird and wild and beautiful.

  She listened, enchanted.

  He stopped abruptly, silencing the bowl with his other hand. ‘Do you want a go?’

  ‘You mean I could make it sing?’ She felt breathless and strangely emotional.

  He nodded. He handed her the bowl and the stick, and for a moment she felt the warmth and power of his fingers over hers. And then the bowl was singing. She could feel the vibration of the metal through her palm, up her arm, into her very soul. She went on and on, stroking out the different sounds, until at last she was too tired to go on and she let the singing die away.

  He was watching her again, having served another two customers in the interim. ‘So?’ He smiled.

  She wasn’t sure whether the spell had been cast by him or his bowl. ‘I want to buy it.’

  Instead of looking pleased, his expression clouded. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ It was expensive – she had glanced at the price on the little sticker – but not that expensive. Anyway, what price that kind of magic?

  ‘What did it do for you?’ He still seemed doubtful.

  ‘It transported me. I could see oceans and mountains. Snows. Skies. Towering clouds.’ She paused, embarrassed, wondering why she had said all that, and then realised it was true. For several long minutes the noisy, stuffy hall with its crowds of people and mingled smells of incense and vegetarian hot dogs and talking and laughter and music and Tannoy announcements had faded into non-existence. She shrugged. ‘It would be coming to a good home.’ Why did she feel she had to justify wanting to buy it?

  He had put out his hands for the bowl but she didn’t want to let it go. She cradled it against her chest possessively.

  He laughed. ‘It’s all right. I was only going to wrap it for you. Look, they come in their own special bag.’ He glanced up and their eyes met again.

  That was all. He put the special striped bag inside a white carrier bag. She signed the credit card slip, filled in her name and address for his mailing list and at last, with no excuse to stay longer, fled the exhibition, exhausted but strangely triumphant.

  The bowl was alive. She stood it on the chest in the corner of her living-room and looked at it in awe, then, gently, tapped it with the wooden stick. The note rang on and on, vibrating down through the wood of the chest, up into the air, into the very walls of the cottage. She sat looking at the card which had come with it, describing its history in Tibet and how it was made of a secret amalgam of seven metals, then she picked up the bowl, held it on her hand and made it sing. Later she put on her new dress, ruffled her hair, kicked off her shoes and danced alone in the vibrating silence of the room.

  It was almost no surprise when he knocked on the front door. ‘I’m sorry to call round. My daughter forgot to give you back your credit card. I thought you’d like it back at once.’

  He paused, eyeing her, and she realised he had been expecting to see the demure ex-housewife who had bought his bowl. She laughed in delight. The woman he was seeing instead was barefoot, beautiful, exotic, a confident goddess with eyes that shone and skin that glowed.

  There was a moment of silence. He couldn’t see the bowl but he could feel the vibrations in the air. It had been singing to her. Ten years before, when his wife died and he had made his first trip to Nepal, he had felt that excitement himself for the first time and he had been hooked.

  He held out his hand with the credit card. As she took it their fingers touched.

  ‘You looked so …’ He floundered. ‘So unlikely a person to own a bowl. But now …’

  She laughed. ‘But now you’ve caught me as my real self. Thank you for bringing me my card. It was silly of me to forget it.’ She couldn’t leave it at that. Not now. ‘Can I offer you a drink to say thank you?’

  He hesitated. For a moment she thought he was going to say yes, then, regretfully, he shook his head. ‘Perhaps another time. There’s so much packing up to do.’ He stepped towards the door, then stopped and turned round. ‘May I say something?’ His smile was gentle. ‘You should dress like that all the time. It suits you.’ He smiled again and was gone.

  She stared after him, then slowly pushed the door shut. Picking up the bowl, she carried it to the mirror and, her eyes fixed on her image, began to make it sing.

  She was seeing herself as he had seen her. Confident. Attractive. A complete whole. Slowly, sensuously, she began to dance again.

  When the doorbell rang she knew that she had called him back. That was how it would be in the future. She had liberated something in her soul. She liked men. She might even like this one very much indeed. But her destiny was in her own hands now. And from now on she would call the tune.

  Between Times

  Heat fell across the garden like a blanket. Sighing with relief Helen turned her back on the now spotlessly tidy chalet and carrying her cup of tea, a fat paperback novel and a rug she stepped out of the French doors onto the grass. Tim had taken the children to the beach. Ahead of her lay two or three hours of perfect peace.

  ‘Come too, Hen.’ Tim had dropped a kiss on the top of her head. He tried bribery. ‘I’ll buy you an ice cream?’

  No contest. Two hours alone – completely alone – versus thousands of people, shouting children and, the final turn-off, runny ice creams dripping stickily down sun-sore skin. No thanks!

  She spread out the rug in the shade under the small cherry tree, kicked off her flip-flops and sat down cross-legged, the mug on one side of her, the book on the other. The silence was total.

  She adored the children – there were three of them, Jack, Felix and Polly – and she adored her husband, but they were all so noisy, so demanding, so overwhelmingly there all the time, that moments like this were almost non-existent now. Thoughtfully she picked up her mug and sipped at the tea. It was delicious; cooling, even though it scalded her mouth. Cupping her hands around the mug she gave a wry grin. Had she really forgotten how to savour tea; how to sit down in silence?

  This was their first real holiday all together and Tim was being marvellous. Putting thoughts of the office for once behind him and ordering her to do the same, he had marshalled the children; they had tidied their toys, helped wash up, each found towel and bathing costume, and then suddenly there was silence and there was nothing – blessed nothing – to do!

  She took another sip of tea and gazed lazily around her, unwilling even to make the effort to pick up the book. Each of these chalets had their own garden and they had been there long enough to have established hedges and flower borders, ornate trees, neat handkerchief -sized lawns. Nearby she heard the sharp alarm call of a small bird and she screwed up her eyes, trying to see it. The neighbouring gardens were totally silent too – no doubt the other families also o
n the beach. And then she saw it, the tiny brown bird with its ridiculous pert tail and bright eyes watching her from its hiding place in some ivy clinging to the fence near by. She smiled. Finishing her tea she lay back on the rug with a sigh of blissful contentment.

  Did she fall asleep then? Afterwards she always wondered. But of course she had. How else was it all possible?

  As she lay looking sleepily up through the lacework of the leaves, feeling the sun dappling her face, she realised there was someone in the garden with her.

  ‘Tim? Have you forgotten something?’ Her initial reaction was extreme irritation. Could they not allow her just this one small window of peace?

  There was no answer and she turned her head, her arm shading her eyes against the glare of the sun.

  From where she lay she realised suddenly that she could see through a gap in the hedge into the next door garden. A man was standing there watching her. She sat up hastily, knocking over her mug as she did so.

  ‘Sorry. Did I startle you?’ He stepped forward between the laurels and she saw that he was a man of middle height, handsome, tanned, his hair bleached almost white by the sun. ‘The children are on the beach and Mary is asleep. How are you?’ He sat down opposite her on the grass and leaned across to lay his hand for a moment over hers. It was a curiously intimate gesture. Not in any way threatening. He smiled at her and she found herself smiling back. Her initial indignation at his presence had disappeared. He wasn’t a stranger. She knew him well.

  ‘It’s blessedly peaceful without them for a while, isn’t it?’ she said quietly. Her eyes were, she realised, still staring into his; she was drowning in his gaze. Drowning. She had read that expression in one of her novels, and not quite understood what the cliché meant. Now suddenly she knew. She could see into the depths of his soul and she could see that he loved her. He loved her with tormented, agonising, passion.

  ‘My dear.’ She turned her hands upwards to meet his and their palms touched, their fingers intertwined. ‘How long will they be away?’ She couldn’t remember his name, this man whom she had loved forever and to whom she realised suddenly she was going to make love, here in the back garden of a rented holiday chalet in a place she had never been to before.

  He smiled at her. ‘Long enough.’ His hand strayed to her shoulders and he twisted a strand of her hair around his finger. ‘I go back tomorrow. This will be our last chance to be together. Perhaps for ever.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘You’ll come back; we’ll both come back.’

  He was wearing an open-necked shirt, the sleeves rolled up above the elbows, and she found herself reaching for the buttons, unfastening them one by one. Her hands, resting on the hot skin of his chest, encountered a rough, newly healed scar. She touched it gently and leaning forward, kissed it. ‘My poor darling. I had hoped it was bad enough to keep you here. Safe.’

  He shook his head ruefully. ‘Let’s not talk about it. Let’s make the most of the time we’ve got.’

  As he drew her to him she remembered thinking with some distant part of her brain, How strange. I still don’t know his name, before she surrendered to his urgent kisses, pushing his shirt back from his shoulders, helping him undo the leather belt and the buttons of his trousers, slipping down the straps of her own brief sundress, until they were lying together naked on the grass. Once or twice she seemed to glimpse a huge tree overshadowing them, sensed its shade, its privacy, then she was lost in the ecstasy of their love-making. When at last they lay exhausted side by side she looked up into its spreading branches with a long contented sigh and realised she was smiling. Her body felt heavy and unutterably content.

  ‘Helen?’

  The voice seemed to come from hundreds of miles away.

  ‘Helen, darling?’

  She turned her head lazily towards the man beside her. Her hand touched the closed pages of her book, lying on the grass.

  ‘Helen! For goodness’ sake!’

  It was Tim’s voice she could hear, and then the children’s giggling. ‘Mummy’s got no clothes on!’ It was Felix. She heard the rush of feet.

  ‘Mummy, you’re getting burned.’ It was Polly, solicitous, a little embarrassed, gathering up Helen’s dress and pushing it at her. ‘The man in the next chalet could see you!’

  Grabbing the dress, Helen pulled it over her head. She didn’t remember taking it off. She must have been sunbathing, taking the opportunity in the solitary little garden for an all-over tan. She glanced at Tim and shrugged, but Tim was staring at her strangely. He looked angry. She looked back towards the hedge, and suddenly she remembered. The man in the next chalet, Polly had said. The man to whom she had been making passionate love only minutes before. Was he still there? Had Tim seen him? Or had the whole thing been a dream?

  The hedge looked solid from here. There was no possibility of someone seeing into the garden from the windows of the single storey building next door, nor of coming through the hedge without doing both themselves and the hedge considerable damage.

  ‘You said there was a man?’ Helen pushed the hair back from her face. She frowned at her daughter. ‘What man? No one can see me from here.’ She was agitated. Uneasy.

  ‘The man next door. I saw him walking away from the gate.’ She pointed at the hedge.

  ‘There’s no one there, Pol,’ Tim said sternly. ‘Your mum was asleep. No one could see her. I was just worried she would be sunburnt, lying spread out like that.’ He held Helen’s gaze for a moment and she saw the puzzled hurt in his face.

  ‘Polly’s making it up.’ Felix could sense that something was wrong. He pinched his sister’s arm. ‘There’s no gate there.’

  ‘Well, I saw him!’ Polly stamped her foot, rubbing furiously at the spot her brother’s small fingers had so expertly tweaked. ‘He was getting dressed; he put on a white shirt and brown trousers and he had blond hair like mine!’ She was by far the fairest of the three children and Helen found herself staring at her daughter. No, the little girl was wrong. He had been fairer than Polly. Much fairer.

  ‘Who was he?’ It wasn’t until the children were in bed that evening and the dishes washed and put away that Tim broke his tight-lipped silence.

  ‘There wasn’t anyone, Tim.’ She had pulled a cotton shirt on over her dress as the sea breeze, coming in through the window, turned cooler.

  ‘Don’t give me that!’ Tim’s voice was hard. ‘If you could have seen yourself lying there, your legs apart; it was disgusting. You reeked of sex!’

  She shook her head. ‘Tim! It’s not true. There was no one there. I swear it.’

  ‘So, Polly was lying?’

  ‘She has a good imagination, Tim. You know there’s no gate. How could there have been anyone there?’

  But Polly had described him.

  ‘It was so hot and peaceful in the garden I thought I could sunbathe. What’s so wrong with that?’ Suddenly she was indignant. ‘No one could see me! If I hadn’t fallen asleep I would have made sure I was dressed before you all came back. Not that it matters. The kids have seen me with no clothes on before –’ They both wandered round the house at home nude in front of the children from time to time. They had discussed it and decided that probably it was the right thing to do – to demonstrate modesty, but no shame in the human body.

  ‘You had love bites on your neck, Helen.’ His voice was so cold she felt herself shiver. ‘I didn’t put them there.’

  For a moment she stared at him in silence, then she walked over to stand in front of the mirror which hung over the sideboard. Pushing back the shirt she lifted her hair off her neck and stared at herself in the glass. The two flaring red marks were obvious and unmistakable.

  Charles.

  Charles Douglas.

  The name came to her suddenly out of nowhere.

  ‘He was going back to the front,’ she said, frowning, puzzled by her own sudden unexpected remembrance. ‘It was our last meeting. He was killed three weeks later. On the Somme.�
� She turned back to Tim. ‘I remember now. He was so young. So handsome.’ She shook her head, dazed, aware of the anger and incomprehension on her husband’s face. ‘It was a dream, Tim. I was dreaming about him. It wasn’t real.’

  But the marks on her neck were real. Silently she turned back to the mirror and raised her fingers to touch them. They felt bruised. Painful.

  ‘And you dreamt those into being I suppose.’ He was still angry.

  ‘I suppose I must have.’ She shrugged. ‘Tim, please. You know there’s no one else. I love you!’

  ‘I thought so.’ The hurt in his voice was palpable.

  But she had known she was cheating on him when she had turned to Charles and unbuttoned his shirt even as Charles had known he was cheating on his own wife and children.

  She sat down, realising suddenly that she was shaking. ‘It was so real.’ She shouldn’t talk about it. She shouldn’t say any more, but suddenly she couldn’t stop herself. ‘He was so frightened. So lonely. He knew he was going to die. They must have all known they were going to die. He was living on borrowed time and his wife didn’t understand him. She was a stupid, vain woman, who was only interested in herself and her own imagined ills. She wasn’t there for him, Tim, when he needed her. When she saw the terrible scars on his body she shuddered and turned away.’