Tussocks of grass clutched at her feet, and big gravestones loomed up to hit cruelly at her shins, tearing her skin in painful grazes, but she ignored them, for now the footsteps could be heard again, not crunching on the gravel of the pathway beside the church wall, but thudding on the turf of the graveyard – running footsteps now, coming closer.
She ran faster, ignoring the hazards of humped graves and leaning moss-covered stones, until suddenly she found herself at a railing, and turned, almost weeping with fear, to scramble alongside it, seeking for a way out like a hunted animal that hears the hounds baying at its heels.
And then there was a small gate, swinging on rusty hinges, and she pushed on it, almost screaming with terror when the old metal shrieked protestingly, but she was through, into a badly lit side street. Now she could run in good earnest, and she fled up the centre of the little road, past shuttered shabby shops, over greasy hard cobbles, from one pool of light thrown from each weak street lamp to the next. And the running footsteps came after her, coming closer–
It was as though she had been running all her life, as though she would go on running until she fell dead of exhaustion onto slippery grass beneath her feet. For the road had come to an end and there were no more street lights. She was in an open space, a small hilly place, with only dim starlight to guide her, and those thudding footsteps coming closer and closer, until there were right behind her, and a heavy shape came up and loomed over her, untill she could hear another person breathing heavily, above the tearing gasps that were ripping her own body into strings of pain.
And her terror made her try to push her failing body that little bit harder, made her try to pump her trembling legs into another spurt of speed – and failed. She was falling, her right foot clutched agonzingly, twisting her ankle as she felt her body swoop forwards. But before she hit the ground, even as she flinched from the blow she knew was coming from the earth beneath her, she was caught, was pulled up and away from herself, felt herself poised in mid air, and then held aganst a warm body in a hard strong grasp.
She had lost her freeedom, had not found the oblivion of a hiding place, and she felt hot tears fall down her face as she struggled helplessly against the grip that held her so firmly, heard her own voice saying, ‘No-no-no–’ with a sick husky repetition that sounded as though it were coming farther and farther away–
Someone was crying, with thick tearing sobs, crying piteously. Poor thing, thought Abigail. Poor, poor thing. It hurts her so to cry like that. Hurts her chest and her throat and ankle, why doesn’t she stop crying like that, poor thing? And then she saw the dark sky above her, with its powdering of stars, and realized, almost with surprise, that it was her own chest and throat and ankle that hurt so dreadfully, her own sobbing she was listening to.
Gradually, the crying stopped, gradually the pain in her chest and throat subsided, although her ankle still throbbed sickenly, and then she was lying, almost comfortably, staring up at the sky above her and wondering disjointedly why she was lying there at all, and what had happened, and from where the warmth that comforted her aching back was coming.
“All right now?” The voice came from behind her, and startled, she turned her head and looked up, and discovered that she was lying with her head against Max’s chest, with his arms holding her, and that it was the warmth of his body that she could feel.
“What?” she said stupidly, her voice thick and husky.
“Are you all right now? Have you hurt yourself anywhere?”
“I don’t – what happened? Where –” and then she remembered, and struggled to sit upright, to pull away from him.
“Where is he? That Inspector – he was running after me. Where is he? I’ve got to get away – he was trying to catch me–”
He pulled her down again, almost roughly. “You young idiot. There’s no Inpector chasing you–”
“I heard him – you –” And then she remebered the way Max had talked to the man in the hotel, and her terror came back, and she began to struggle against his firm grasp. “You – it was you. You were telling the police about me – telling them where I was–”
“No I wasn’t!” he said roughly, and almost shook her. “Don’t be so bloody stupid. If I’d wanted to hand you over to the police I could have done so any time this past twelve hours. I told him you’d gone – told him I’d seen you at the railway station this afternoon – and he’d have believed me if you hadn’t suddenly gone galloping past the hotel with your ears laid back like some bolting rabbit. But after that, I managed to head him off. I imagine he’s still belting around town somewhere. It was me who ran after you – trying to stop you before you ran head first into his arms.”
He lifted her then, so that she was held against him even more closely, with her head resting on his shoulder, and his grip was still firm, but warmer now, more comforting than frightening.
“You silly child,” his voice was little more than a whisper. “Silly, silly child, running like that. You could have killed yourself, you were so panic stricken–”
The gentleness on his voice was so warming, so very much what she needed at that moment that she clung to him, burying her hot tear-streaked face in his neck, making her clutch at him, so that he began to rock her, as though she were a baby needing soothing. And after a moment she raised her head, and tried to look into the face that was so near, tried to explain how frightened she had been–
For an interminable moment they stared at each other in the darkness, and then almost against her will, she put up her hand to touch his face. Her fingers brushed his lips, and then his head came down, and they clung together in a kiss that made her body dissolve and reform into a desperate tearing need of him, made her tremble with an intensity of wanting so strong that all her pain and misery melted away as though it had never been.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Oh my God,” she said, and then, absurdly, giggled.
There was a pause, and then Max said softly, “I didn’t mean that to happen. I promise you I didn’t mean that to happen. But you looked so – bereft, so miserable. I’m sorry.”
“It takes two,” she said, and put her hand up again to touch his cheek, and he turned his head and kissed her hand, sending another ripple of delight through her. “Don’t say you’re sorry. I couldn’t bear it if I thought you hadn’t really wanted to.”
He laughed then. “Oh, I wanted to, I’ve wanted to kiss you all day. That’s why I was so surly this afternoon. Why I bit your head off every time you said anything. It’s easier to hide your feelings behind a display of bad temper. But I’m still sorry. Not for kissing you, but because this complicates things so–”
She pulled away from him, and looking up at him in the darkness, trying to see the expression of his face. And then made a little grimace herself.
“I – suppose it is. I’m – I mean, we’re looking for my stepson, aren’t we? I’m married–”
“Yes. You’re married. And now you’ve remembered that, how does it make you feel?”
“But I haven’t remembered it! I mean, I’ve remembered that you told me I’m married, but I can’t remember the fact. I can’t remember my – husband, or how I feel – felt – about him, or anything. All I know is that it couldn’t have been – I mean, couldn’t be much of a marriage.”
“An involved speech, that. How can you be so sure it isn’t much of a marriage if you remember nothing about it?”
“Because you made me feel the way you did when you kissed me,” she said simply. “If I’d been in love with someone else, even someone I couldn’t remember, being kissed by you might have been pleasant, on a purely – well, physical level. But it couldn’t have been what it was.”
“And just what was it?” and he whispered the words.
She swallowed. “I can’t explain properly. Special. Not just – a physical thing alone, but – well, special–”
And then his arms went round her again, and again they merged into one straining creature, again clu
ng together so closely that it seemed they would never be able to separate. And when, breathess she tried to pull away from him, he went on kissing her, her face, her eyes, the corners of her mouth and her neck, and she lay helplessly against him, caring nothing for yesterday or tomorrow, only letting herself be swept along in the heaven of now.
“Abigail. Abigail,” he was murmuring, saying her name as though it were a caress. “Dearest Abigail. We’ll sort this out, I promise you. It will be all right, I promise you that, and then nothing ever will spoil this for us, nothing at all. I promise. Abigail–”
His words pulled her down from her peak of joy then, and she pulled away from him, putting her hands flat against his chest and pushing so that he had to stop.
“Max – don’t. No more. Please, Max–”
“Why? Isn’t – isn’t this special any more?”
“More special. That’s why. We – we can’t just be us, not yet. We’ve no right to. We’re only making it worse for ourselves, going on like this. Aren’t we? And anyway – the middle of the Humpy-Dumps is no place to make love–”
He stopped then, and in the darkness, she felt rather than saw him stiffen. Then he said softly, “All right, my love. All right. So where do we go from here?”
She moved her injured leg tentatively, and very carefully got to her feet, Max helping her, so that she stood leaning against him, his arm round her. For a moment the sky swooped, and then regaining its equilibrium, and she lifted her face and took a deep breath.
“Come on,” she said, and rested her head against his comforting chest. “There’s a way out to the road over there – where those trees are – can you see?”
Slowly they started to walk, pushing the rough grass away beneath their feet, and the pain in her ankle dwindled and became no more than a pleasantly exquisite pang each time she put her foot to the ground. She felt dreamlike, as though she were moving through a mad grey landscape in her mind, while her body lay wrapped in peace and comfort and happiness far away in a deep black bed. Even his voice sounded remote and dreamlike in her ears, even the voice that could make her body respond with the same pleasure that his touch did.
“Abigail –” he murmured. “Abigail. You’ve remembered. Tell me what you’ve remembered. Where are we going?”
“There’s a short cut across there,” she said, almost in a surpirsed way. “Just across there. A short cut. You’ll see–”
And even though she knew where the short cut was, even though she knew now that they were on the Humpy-Dumps, that undulating grassy stretch on the outskirts of the town, she couldn’t have said how she knew, or where she was letting her feet take her. Just that she had to follow the short cut until they got there, there where the answer was waiting for them.
And when they reached the uneven road, still she knew where her dreams wanted her to go, and turned to the right, hobbling along the tarmac between low grey hedges, with Max, big comforting Max holding her up safely and peacefully and wrapping her in a love she felt she had been waiting for her all her life.
The road turned, and narrowed, and she stopped, and Max, silent and attentive, stopped too.
“In there,” she whispered. “In there.”
And she stared into the darkness at the shape she knew so well. A cottage, the grey of its stone only marginally lighter than the grey of the night sky. Forsythia, pale grey now, but flaming yellow in daylight, growing beside the broken gate. A green painted gate, she knew, though here in the night it was just another shade of monochrome. Trees, whispering droopingly elegant laburnums, and stumpy cheerful apple trees, and a Japanese cherry that exploded in April into puff balls of sterile pink lossom.
“The bossom fell early this year,” she whispered. “So early. It was all gone when we got here–”
She felt Max rigid beside her. “When we got here?” and his own voice was a whisper, no louder than the gentle soughing of the night breeze through the laburnums.
“Yes – all fallen and brown and slippery on the path,” she said, and started to move forwards again. The gate swung awkwardly and creaked as she pushed on it, and somewhere, as though in answer, an owl called mournfully, and then repeated its cry a little farhter away, seeming to flee from them as they moved up the stone flagged pathway towards the heavy door lost in the blackness of the wooden porch that hung over it so secretly.
“In there –” Abigail whispered again, and Max put out his hand, and pushed on the door. It opened, creaking just as the gate had, and again, as if on a pre-arranged cue the owl hooted, so far away that the sound died and fell even as it reached them.
Beyond the door was an even deeper more velvety blackness, and Abigail stood poised, still feeling like a remote observer of her own dream, still feeling her own body wrapped in the depths of sleep somewhere far away. Max moved beside her fumbling in his pockets, and then there was a scratching sound, and a light sprang up, so bright and flickering that unvoluntarily she shaded her eyes against its brilliance.
He cupped the match in his hand, and held it high, peering beyond the small area illuminated towards the interior of the cottage.
“In there –” Abigail said yet again, and moved forwards. Quickly, Max pulled her back, and went in first. As they stepped over the sill of the door, the match spluttered and went out, and Max caught his breath in pain as with its dying spurt it singed his fingers. He lit another, and round his shoulder, Abigail could see the room that the door led directly into, the table in the middle, the long horsehair sofa with the shiny black cover and big buttons and the curly head rest, the dead kitchen range with a few cold ashes scattered in the hearth.
Max moved away from her, into the centre of the room. “There’s a cradle here –” he said, and after a moment, the room filled with the soft yellow light of wax, and she saw he had lit a small stump of candle that had been jammed into an ancient brass candlestick. And she could see the rest of the room, the heavily rose-patterned old wallpaper, the deep window with rose patterned curtains, and a glass jam-jar full of drooping dying bluebells on its broad sill; the rocking chair with its patchwork cushions; the dresser with its rows of willowed patterned plates and saucers, and matching cups dangling mutely from a row of white hooks; the tea caddy with a picture of Windsor Castle on each of its six sides. But no living person apart from themselves.
“He’s gone –” she said stupidly. “He’s gone–”
Max moved swiftly then, coming to face her and take her elbows in his familiar firm grip, putting his face close to her’s: “Who’s gone, Abigail? Tell me. You’ve got to – who was supposed to be here?” And his voice was peremptory, not whispering any more.
And then the bubble burst, the dream she had been moving though so peacefully this past half hour or so, and she felt her head swim sickeningly, felt the pain in her ankle more vividly, and she stared round in terrified bewilderment at the room. And put her hands up to her face and wept like a baby, all the weariness and terror and excitement she had gone through collapsing into sick anticlimax.
He almost carried her to the horsehair chair couch, stretching her aching trembling body on it and sitting beside her, stroked her face gently until her tears stopped, and she lay exhausted and shaking, staring up at him.
“What is this place, Abigail?” he said gently. “How much can you remember? Put it into words, my love – you’ll find it easier to remember if you do–”
“I’m trying to –” she said piteously. “Truly I’m trying to – just give me time – I’m trying to.”
He nodded, after a moment, and got up and began to prowl around the small room. Only the table had anything on it that seemed to show signs of recent human occupation. Apart from the stump of candle in the wax spattered candlestick there was half a bottle of milk, the cream on top of it settled into a sourly wrinkled yellow layer, and a greaseproof wrapped package. Max picked it up, and a couple of curled sanwiches fell out. He turned the paper over, and was just about to put it back on the table when he stoppe
d, and peered at it more closely. Then he picked up the candlestick and came to sit on the sofa again beside her.
“Look,” he said, and his voice sounded crisp and loud in the silence of the cottage. “There’s something written on this.”
She pulled herself up, and looked over his shoulder, trying to read the round uniformed letters that sprawled across the grease stained paper. The candle leapt as her breath disturbed it, and settled again, and she could see the words more clearly.
I’ve gone home to Auntie Cissie. She won’t let him hurt me. If I stay here with you and he finds me, then he’ll find you too and maybe he will hurt you as well and I wouldn’t want that to happen. I can’t look after you properly so I must go back. Auntie Cissie will think of something to help us. If she can’t herself then she can always ask M who likes me I think though like I told you I like you better than both of them.
Love
Danny
As she read the words memory came surging back into Abigail, making her almost breathtless as a few more pieces of the jigsaw clicked into place – even as the memories swirled and settled, a sense of almost overpowering fear followed them, and made her clutch at Max’s arm so that he winced.
“He mustn’t go there,” she cried, her voice shrill and urgent. “He mustn’t – it’s dangerous – we’ve got to get him back – he’ll be–”
And now Max firmly lay her back against the cold surface of the sofa, and said very crisply, “Abigail! Pull yourself together. Tell me exactly what you remember – right now. It’s imperative you tell me, d’you hear? Right now–”
She turned her head fretfully from side to side. “I can’t remember a lot – just bits and pieces. Listen. There’s a house. A big old house. It smells old. In London somewhere – I can’t remember where, but it’s in London. it’s that name – Cissie – it makes me remember that house. Cissie – I can’t remember who Cissie is, but it makes me remember that house, and I’m so frightened – so frightened Max. Why am I so frightened? Who is Cissie?”
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