Jennifer trailed a hand across her breasts, remembering Susie’s hand—a hot, sticky hand which knew exactly where to linger. Shouldn’t do it, not even on her own. This was Newcastle’s most decorous hotel. Touching yourself was bound to be forbidden, like a lot of other things—the regulations on the door were almost longer than the Bible by the bed. It would be nice to talk to Susie, giggle over Oz. She ought to phone, in any case, check on the boys, make sure Mrs Briggs was coping, have a word with Lyn. She turned on her tummy, dialled the Putney number.
‘Wormwood Scrubs.’ That was Hugh’s giggle, not Susie’s.
‘Police Sergeant Bloggs here. I’ve just apprehended Jack the Ripper. Want me to bring him in?’
‘Auntie Jennifer! Where are you?’
‘Newcastle.’
‘What, still? I thought you were going to Scotland.’
‘We’ve been and gone—in less than half a day.’
‘Crikey! You must have gone on Concorde. Did you buy me some Edinburgh rock?’
‘Sorry, darling, I was so rushed, I didn’t even see a shop. How are you?’
‘Fine.’
‘Everyone else all right?’
‘Yup. We don’t like Susie’s cooking though. She tried to make a curry and it looked like sort of dog’s mess.’
‘Is Susie there?’
‘No. She went out.’
‘OK, I’ll have a word with Lyn, then.’
‘He’s out, too.’
‘You mean, he’s not back from the office yet?’
‘Well, yes … but then he went out again. Pushed off with Susie. In the car.’
‘With Susie?’
‘Yeah, they took a picnic. Meanies. Wouldn’t let us come.’
‘When, Hugh? When did they go?’
‘Oh, hours ago.’
‘Who’s looking after you, then?’
‘No one. We don’t need looking after. Susie left us some supper—tins and things.’
‘When did they say they’d be back, then?’
‘They didn’t. Not till late, I imagine. They were out till one last night.’
‘One?’
‘Yup. Susie woke me up when she came in. She tripped on the mat and started giggling.’
‘But surely Lyn wasn’t …? I mean, Susie was probably at her Women’s Group. She’s often late back from that.’
‘Yeah. Maybe. I thought I heard Lyn come in with her, but it may have been some other bloke. Hey, want to speak to Oliver? He’s dying to tell you about his …’
‘Er … not now, darling. I’ll phone again later. I … I’ve got to get ready for dinner now. L … love to everyone.’
Jennifer rolled over on the bed. The receiver felt damp and heavy in her hand. She let it fall, stared up at the ceiling. All she could see was Susie—Susie sprawling on the picnic rug, walking the streets with Lyn till one in the morning, kissing in some doorway … No, of course they hadn’t kissed. Lyn had always steered clear of Susie, treated her like a schoolgirl.
So what were they doing out together—alone, without the boys? Picnics and sprees were her-and-Susie things, not Lyn’s. Susie was betraying her, betraying her own views, criticising men and all they stood for, then grabbing her husband the minute she was gone. Yet Susie could hardly help herself. It was almost second nature for her to flirt and taunt and charm—part of her attraction.
The picnic rug had spread right across the ceiling. Jennifer shut her eyes, but she could still see Susie lolling on her back, feeding Lyn with little bits of sausage, giggling through her cider. The rug changed to a counterpane, afternoon to night. Lyn was creeping upstairs in dogged pursuit of Susie, wheedling outside her door, then slipping in and turning the key behind him. Ridiculous. He had never once set foot inside her room. It was an attic room up a little narrow staircase which Lyn studiously avoided. He was usually fast asleep by one. Susie had probably come in with some casual local pick-up, some twenty-year-old with acne and tattoos.
Jennifer swung off the bed, dragged on her dressing-gown, paced up and down between bed and window, bed and chair. That only left the picnic. Was it really so unthinkable that Lyn should go out for some fresh air and a sandwich on a summer afternoon with a girl who shared the house? Except it was no longer afternoon. So why were they still out? And why had they barred the boys?
She could see Susie’s hand again, reaching out to Lyn, this time, fondling him instead. Could she be jealous of a woman? She was jealous of them both—angry with Lyn for taking her place as Susie’s mate and confidant, bitter with Susie for sneaking off with a man she denounced as a chauvinist and pretended to despise.
Yet who was she to censure? Hadn’t she echoed all the criticisms, let her own resentment feed on Susie’s? More than that—she had even started borrowing Susie’s fantasies, allowing herself to be tempted by strangers in hotels or flattered by photographers, casual chat-ups, vulgar overtures. Susie was too young and irresponsible to understand the complex bonds of marriage. She was a temporary, a fly-by-night, who would have vanished in a month or so, off to be an actress, or a mistress, charming someone else. Whereas Lyn was hers for ever, marriage was for ever, and she had simply shrugged it off, risking lasting sacred things for the sake of a few cheap thrills.
She trailed into the bathroom, ran the taps. She had to admit she would miss the thrills. She had enjoyed her break at Putney, yet she had enjoyed it at a cost. Lyn had always been excluded, the one outsider in a family of seven. She felt a sudden rush of pity as she saw him sitting on his own at nights, tired and supperless, while she and her new-found siblings shared chopsticks and chop suey in the Yang Tse Kiang or stuffed themselves with popcorn at the Putney ABC.
She stepped into the bath, rubbed her body harshly with the flannel, soaped the make-up off, the sham, the shame. She had only one last dinner left, then she would return and be his wife again, not Matthew’s creature or Hartley Davies’s star—not even Susie’s playmate. Susie was a danger. They must escape her influence before things went too far. She tried not to guess how far they had gone already. Lyn was off sex at the moment, but a younger girl might be just the cure he needed—some flighty little teenager with no hang-ups at all. Susie probably liked the back way, was probably on the Pill, and for all her gripes she had admitted Lyn attracted her. It would be milder in the south, a balmy evening full of scents and stars—the whole of Putney Heath as their double bed …
Jennifer jerked out the plug, drubbed herself dry, returned to the bedroom cocooned in two large towels. Lyn and Susie simply wouldn’t work. She might flirt with him, try to add him to her list of pick-ups, but she would never understand him. He was too sensitive, too complex. That was her role and no one else would snatch it from her. They would have to get away, leave Susie safely behind. Why risk rows and jealousies, ugly complications? Lyn hated it at Putney, anyway, complained about the continual noise—the five competing radios, the stampedings on the stairs, the lack of a free bathroom, the long-drawn-out formal meals. It surprised her, really, he had put up with it so long, especially with their neglect of him added on as well. No wonder he had responded when …
Better not to think about it. She walked to the window, double-netted, double-glazed, pushed the nets aside, looked out at only grey—the sky a traffic-jam of weeping roofs and gutters, rain drumming on the pane.
‘I stayed a night in Newcastle before continuing my journey. I could not sleep for nerves. It rained and rained.’ Jennifer suddenly remembered that entry in the diaries, scribbled in the scrawny green-backed notebook which Hester had brought with her from London to Northumberland, returning there after fifteen years away, to be housekeeper to Thomas Winterton. She had stayed not in a tower-block, but in a humble guesthouse where they burnt the rissoles and rain splattered on the floorboards from a leaky roof.
Next day, the sky had cleared and Hester’s nerves sparked into excitement as she caught the country bus and rumbled away from the city to the hills. Hester had been writing on her knee—wildly l
urching scribbles as they swung round corners or jolted over pot-holes—glimpse of a hare sitting motionless in a field of freckled clover; gleam of a wagtail as it flashed across a burn; grease on the page where she had paused to eat her cheese and pickle sandwiches.
The passage was so vivid, Jennifer could almost taste the pickle on her tongue, see the green and purple hills peering in at the windows of the bus. She pressed her nose to her own pane, the smirch of rain now blurring with a belch of smoke from a distant factory chimney. No tree, no hint of green here, yet less than fifty miles away, the wild and lonely Cheviots reared huge against a wide and free horizon.
She let the curtain fall. They could follow Hester, drive to Hernhope, swap the city for the hills. She was almost there, for heaven’s sake. Why return to Putney at all, when Lyn could come up North instead, meet her here in Newcastle and then drive on to Mepperton, now—immediately—or at least tomorrow morning? The idea was so bold and yet so simple, it took her breath away. She sank down on the bed. Always before, she had let Matthew overrule her when she tried to mention Hernhope and her longing to return there. Matthew fussed and quibbled, warned of legal tangles, but they could cut through complications simply by ignoring them. All they had to do was slip away and take over Hester’s house without arguments or lawyers or any more delay. It had been impossible before. She had been tied to the book and Matthew’s apron strings. But now Matthew was half a world away and all the publicity finished save one last evening. The book would sell without her, buoyed by its own momentum. If she flew tamely back in the morning, Putney would close around her like a cage again. A gilded cage, maybe. She had to admit she was still tempted by Susie and the boys, the affection and attraction of a family, but if her new kid sister had designs on Lyn, then it was safer for them to leave.
True, Lyn himself was a problem. He had been strangely guarded about his mother’s house, seemed almost to ignore its existence and his rights there—but then Lyn was strange about a lot of things, especially recently. Living at Putney had only made him worse. It was time she took command for once, stopped listening to his fears or Matthew’s fuss-pottings, and returned where they belonged. A move to Hernhope would solve several problems at once—give Lyn the peace and privacy he needed, remove him from the threat of Susie, remove herself from the grab and glare of London, make a final break with Matthew.
She shifted on the bed, secured the slipping towels. Was that fair on Matthew—to take advantage of his absence, when he was slaving to earn the cash which would make them free of him? Was it fair on the boys to turn her back on them, with their parents both away? Was it even fair on Susie? Could she really leave one scatty teenager to cope with all four children? And how would Anne regard it? Supposing Lyn refused to leave at all or …
Her head was aching with all the complications. She tried to distract herself, picked up the hotel Bible lying on top of the local phone directory, thumbed idly through its pages. It was a new modern translation to match the new modern room. She shut her eyes, opened the book at random, jabbed her finger down. They had played that game at Sunday School when she was still in single figures. You opened your eyes, and whichever verse your finger pointed at, was your personal message from God. Half the time, the passage was irrelevant or they couldn’t understand the King James purple prose, but it had passed the time while they waited for the vicar, or dozed their way through prayers.
She sat there for a moment, Bible on her lap, finger pointing, eyes still closed. She should be getting dressed, choosing her most appealing outfit for her final interview, rehearsing her opinions. Yet she couldn’t settle, couldn’t concentrate. Until she had spoken to Lyn, she was tugged in two.
Slowly, she opened her eyes, stared at the verses underneath her finger. It was Jeremiah—not a Book she knew—chapter thirty-three. She peered at the tiny print on the cheap and grainy paper.
‘The Lord Almighty said, ‘‘In this land that is like a desert and where no people or animals live, there will once again be pastures where shepherds can take their sheep.’’’
The words leapt and dazzled on the page. Despite the flat and casual language, they were so strikingly appropriate, it was as if God indeed had spoken. Herhope was a desert, the farm sold, the house abandoned. Matthew himself had dismissed it as a wilderness. Yet here was a pledge and promise that it would revive again, the sheep return, the life return. Her eye strayed to the verse above.
‘In these places, you will hear again the shouts of gladness and joy and the happy sounds of wedding feasts … I will make this land as prosperous as it was before.’
Wasn’t that a prophecy—that she and Lyn would return to Hernhope as bride and bridegroom, man and wife, and that joy and wealth would follow them? It could be just coincidence, but even so, it was still extraordinary when there were more than a thousand pages in the Bible, more than thirty thousand verses, and when she had just been struggling with her own decision. She didn’t believe in a formal churchy God who spoke through Bibles or thundered out of pulpits, but she did believe in powers and presences shaping people’s lives. It was as if Hester had returned, after months of anger and estrangement to be the guide and spirit she had seemed at Hernhope.
‘Although still queasy from the bus, I took a glass of punch with Mr Winterton on arriving at his house, which is more remote than any I have seen. Some would call it bleak, but I find a peace already here. The view is wonderful.’
The view is … Jennifer stared across at stained and puking chimneys, the sprawl of ugly roofs—the spew and dross of Newcastle’s bird’s eye view. Was it any wonder that Hester had kept her distance, when she had cut herself off from all that she had stood for, left her house to rot? If she had harboured any doubts, they were now completely stifled. The finger which had pointed to the verses was somehow Hester’s finger, the prophecy her gift. She and Lyn must return to hill and forest, find Hernhope’s peace again. She would phone Lyn after dinner, share her plan with him, coax him up to Newcastle in the morning. All the reporters assumed Hernhope was her home, even if they attacked her for turning her back on it. Well, this time, they’d have no reason for attack. She would complete her last interview, then drive back home to Mepperton to be the Country Woman they had hailed and publicised.
She lay back against the pillows, closed her eyes. She could already see lights beaconing from the windows, cheeses in the larder, flowers softening the stone …
‘Jennifer?’
She started, clutched the towels around her. Jonathan was knocking at the door. He would never presume to enter, but she recognised his purr, his unobtrusive tap.
‘Sorry to rush you, but remember we’re meeting early for a drink. So if you could be down in just five minutes …’
Jennifer dashed to the wardrobe, took out the soft blue shirtwaister which had always been Lyn’s favourite. She would dress for him tonight, not for the book or Newcastle’s leading newspaper. Her face looked nude without its make-up, but she refused to hide behind it. It was only false and she was herself again—and Lyn’s. Her cheeks were glowing, anyway, with the excitement of her plan.
This time tomorrow they would be back in Hester’s house.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Absolutely fantastic!’ Jonathan thrilled. ‘That was the best interview I’ve ever heard you give. I could almost see Hernhope, the way you described it. That chap was totally captivated. What luck he was a Borders man himself. I hardly had to say a word this time, with you two bubbling over. You sounded so elated.’
‘Yes. I am.’
‘At going home, I suppose?’
‘Yes.’ Jonathan meant Putney. She meant home, real home.
‘How about another drink, then? To celebrate a really sparkling interview and a most successful tour. We could go on somewhere different, if you like. I know a nice little bar just across the …’
‘If you don’t mind, Jonathan, I’d rather call it a day now. We’ve got to be up early for the plane and …’ She hadn’t
told him yet that she didn’t intend to catch it. No point worrying him. Matthew had instructed him to shepherd her safely back to Putney, so how could he allow her to drive the other way? Better to talk to Lyn first, make her plans with him, then simply inform Jonathan in the morning.
She floated up the stairs, drunk not only with her last after-dinner cocktail, but with the relief of her decision, the success of her interview. Naked-faced and ordinary, she had somehow become the star she had never managed in all her paint and plumes. It hadn’t been an effort. She had simply poured out her excitement, the strange dazzling promise of the Jeremiah verses, her faith and joy in Hernhope, in Hester’s return.
The bedroom seemed confining after the sweep and swank downstairs. She kicked off her shoes, removed her watch and bracelet. The paper bags of vegetables were still lying on the chest of drawers where Jonathan had left them. She drew out a carrot, a swollen head of corn. Lyn had grown corn and carrots up at Hernhope, tiny seedlings fighting bare and stony soil. When they left, they had been a flare and boast of green above the stones. It was too late to plant a second crop, but diey could prepare the ground for autumn, plan a bumper harvest, make up for all those months of negligence.
She lay on the bed to make her call. Her legs were made of cocktails. The phone seemed to ring for ever until its shrill changed to a grunt.
‘Who is it?’ Grudging male voice not deep enough for Lyn’s.
‘Auntie Jennifer here. That you, Charles?’
‘Mm. You woke me up.’
‘I’m sorry, love. How are you?’
‘Tired.’
‘Well, you can go straight back to sleep. Just get Lyn for me, would you darling?’
‘Lyn’s not here.’
‘Not there?’ So the picnic had gone on. ‘Where is he, then?’ Copses, bushes, double beds, flashed across her mind like crude and out-of-focus snapshots.
‘Well, he did come back and then pissed off again.’
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