by Wendy Holden
‘Look,’ Nell said. ‘There’s lots going on.’ A large board on the wall displayed notices about ‘Down Memory Lane’ events; also singalongs, ballroom dancing, zumba classes, whist drives and talks on local history. George read them expressionlessly.
‘All your favourite food too,’ Nell added, drawing the old man’s notice to the pinned-on menu whose options included beef stew and dumplings and fish and chips. Still he said nothing.
An elderly lady was playing the piano in the day room. It was filled with light from big French windows through which Nell could see lawns and trees. ‘Looks like a nice garden, George. Shall we go outside?’
Even the magic word ‘garden’ had no effect. George’s shoulders lifted and fell in a dispassionate shrug.
Someone now appeared at their side. A short, wizened creature of some eighty years, in a pale blue raincoat, neatly belted, a headscarf carefully knotted over white permed hair. Her wrinkled face was at odds with her eyes; bright and oddly childlike.
‘I’ve got to get my bus,’ she said. ‘But I haven’t got any money.’
‘Oh,’ said Nell. ‘Er . . .’
One of the residents, she guessed, sliding an anxious look at George. Beneath the bushy brows, the hazel eyes revealed little. But Nell felt sure he was about to refuse to stay another second in the place.
The old lady was now staring up into George’s face. ‘Can you lend me the bus fare, love?’
Oh no. This was all they needed. Nell looked round for help. There seemed to be no one about.
But George’s arm, next to hers, was moving. There was a rattle; he was feeling in his pocket. His hand reappeared with a two-pound coin between his thumb and forefinger. He handed it to the old lady, who snatched it and closed her fingers tightly over it. When she looked back at George, the anxiety had gone out of her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
George inclined his big, neatly combed white head. But still said nothing. Had he acted out of sympathy? Nell wondered. Resignation? Or just confirmation of his worst fears?
‘Hello!’ A grey-haired woman in an electric-blue dress was coming across the day room towards them. ‘I’m Anne.’ She clasped Nell’s hand in a reassuringly firm shake. ‘I’m the manager.’ She extended a hand to George. ‘What do you think of Byron House, Mr Farley?’
Nell immediately felt more hopeful. Anne was very friendly and seemed very capable. Any home run by her had to be a good one. Didn’t it?
‘Shall we take you to your room?’ Anne asked, smiling. ‘Given you one of the best ones, we have.’ She seemed, Nell thought, to have the knack of being friendly without being patronising.
‘I’d like to see it,’ she said to Anne, as George hadn’t replied.
As the three of them moved off, Nell hesitated to take George’s arm. It seemed intimate now the old man’s mood was so hard to read. This was a different George to the one she knew.
Instead she walked in front, with Anne.
‘It takes time to settle in, sometimes,’ the manager murmured.
The corridor upstairs had the same warm flowery scent as its counterpart below. Anne, a few paces in front, led them past a series of doors.
‘Here we are!’ She stopped before a door with the nameplate ‘Mr George Farley’. She pushed it open. ‘There you go, George. You go in first.’
George, in his turn, looked at Nell, who gave Anne an embarrassed smile and stepped over the threshold.
The room was a good size, impeccably clean and contained a single bed facing a wardrobe which had a small shelving unit next to it, on which a small flat-screen TV rested. Nell was poignantly reminded of the college room she had occupied as a student. That room had been all about the beginning of grown-up life. This was about the end.
‘Look, George,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Plenty of space. You can put your pictures out.’
George’s pictures were in his bags downstairs, in the reception area. Nell had packed them as no one as yet had taken his cottage keys off her and there was no one else to do it. She had taken most of the clothes from his bedroom and on the way out had gone into the sitting room and taken the wedding photograph down from the wall where, for so long, it had hung.
Would he want to hang Edwina up here, though? Looking at George’s face, Nell rather doubted it.
The room had a large window and Nell crossed to it. A neat garden lay below, mostly lawn, but with seating areas and paths snaking through it. There was a small greenhouse.
Nell turned. ‘It really is a lovely garden, George.’ Not the tumble of colour and scent that was his own, admittedly. But better than she had expected.
Anne instantly took the cue. ‘Are you a gardener?’ she exclaimed. ‘Yes? We’ll keep you busy in that case, George.’
But George did not react. Nor did he go to the window.
‘We’ve got some very nice gardeners,’ the manager continued, undaunted. ‘I’m sure they’d be happy to let you lend a hand.’
George had now come to the window but had still not said anything. Despair seized Nell. It was clear that George hated this place and it was all a terrible mistake. But how on earth was she going to get him out of it? And where would he go from here?
Her gloomy gaze fell on an elderly woman walking along one of the garden paths. She was elegantly dressed, with a smooth wave of pale, purplish hair rising from the front of her forehead. She walked with a very straight back, pulling a long-handled suitcase. Nell watched her stop a small knot of visitors. ‘Excuse me.’ Her voice floated up to the window. ‘Could you possibly direct me to Terminal Two?’
Nell felt a movement beside her. George was shifting from foot to foot, trying to get a better look. He wasn’t quite smiling, but he was looking a lot brighter.
Nell left Byron House feeling cautiously optimistic. She and Anne had taken George down to the garden, where he and the lady in search of Terminal 2 had struck up a conversation about airports. George’s stony gaze had seemed less stony after that.
‘He’ll be all right,’ Anne said, accompanying Nell as far as the security doors at the entrance.
There was a bus stop just past the entrance to Byron House. Waiting, Nell took out her phone to check her messages.
Unexpectedly, it rang.
‘I need your help after all,’ Julie said.
‘What with?’
‘How do you feel about spending next Wednesday in a corset? Jed and Carly want a cast of thousands.’
As the bus bowled over the bridge into Pemberton’s park, Nell looked around at the familiar scene. As always, she was struck by its loveliness. Would she ever get used to it, let alone take it for granted? She thought of Rachel and Juno, stuck in the city. Still, they would be back again in a few weeks’ time when Rachel had finished her exams.
Nell now sent her a silent, long-distance message of good luck. Hopefully, once they were over, Rachel’s former good humour would return. Finally she would see the point of Dylan.
The land about her swelled gently in the evening sun, each slope and rise crowned with tall trees. All deliberately placed to provide the perfect setting for the lovely building now coming into view round the bend.
The bus stop was just before the bridge. Nell got off and crossed it. She paused halfway and leaned over the balustrade to look at the silver river. Beneath the stone arches the water rippled and shone, throwing a display of dancing light on the curved underside.
The woods in which Bess’s Tower was hidden rose before her. The tree trunks glowed in the sun as she began the climb. Up and up she went, her footsteps quick with anticipation, through the leaf-shadow shimmering and dancing and the golden sunbeams slashing the way.
Dylan lay in the bedroom of Bess’s Tower. He had been here since Eve had left, and he was drunk. As soon as she had gone, he had hit the bottle. Or rather two �
�� of red supermarket plonk, drunk not with enjoyment, just deadly determination.
Nell had betrayed him. Nell Simpson, Eve had said, had told her where he lived.
Dylan felt savage with disappointment. Once again he had allowed a woman to deceive him; once again he had trusted and had his trust destroyed. And so he had reached for the wine. His goal had been oblivion, and he had got there.
He had drunk himself to sleep. He had not even made it to the bed but just collapsed on the floor of the bedroom, cheek rammed into the scratchy seagrass. The glass he had been drinking from tipped over and spilled, the dark red liquid spreading and seeping into the straw. The vinegary stink filled his nostrils as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
But sleep – or stupor – had brought him no peace. Dylan had dreamt of Nell; her face, her broad smile, her wide blue eyes. Eyes he had been a fool to trust. Then he had dreamed of the fire, of being caught in the blaze, of the searing wall of heat drying out his eyeballs, crackling his hair. He had half-woken, panting, heart painfully hammering, gasping for breath, crying out, only to register that none of it was real, and the heat on his face was only the sun streaming through the little chamber’s latticed window. Then he had subsided once again into unconsciousness.
Nell, meanwhile, was walking up through the woods. She was near the top now and had expected it to be cooler. Instead it was close and still. Dry leaves cracked beneath her feet and a column of flies twisted above her head.
She wondered if a thunderstorm was imminent. It had not rained for some time and it would be useful if it did, particularly for George’s garden. The flower beds next door were, despite her dutiful watering, wilted and heat-parched. Rain! she urged the sky, looking up at what she could see of it through the canopy of leaves overhead.
Thoughts of his garden lead to thoughts of George in Byron House. Hopefully his first evening was going well. What would happen to his cottage now? Perhaps, Nell thought, she should consult Angela about it. There would be his things to clear out, too. Who would do that?
She was approaching the top of the twisting tarmac track now and Bess’s Tower was appearing through the tree trunks. She slowed to admire the decorative front of the building with its pepper-pot towers, lattice windows and the flagpole at the top. Then, putting on a spurt of pure, excited energy, she bounded across the grassy glade to the steps of the tower and up them to the front door.
She tried the handle; it was open. He was in! Within minutes – seconds – she would be in his arms. ‘Dylan?’ Nell called, running from room to room downstairs.
Dylan, in the bedroom, was coming slowly back to consciousness. His head felt tight and his fuddled thoughts moved slowly in his brain. Snapshots from earlier in the day glowed and faded: Eve’s disappointed face, the sight of her walking away, shoulders hunched, down the track.
Nell was running up the spiral stairs now. ‘Dylan?’
Her nose wrinkled; there was a strange vinegary smell in the air. The door of his bedroom was ajar. ‘Dylan?’
She pushed it open further, gasping as she saw the body on the floor, the head in a dark pool of red. ‘Dylan? Dylan!’
CHAPTER 57
Jason, in his cubbyhole in the Edenville Arms, was wondering whether it was the weather. The closeness, heat and mugginess that had characterised the day had only intensified as evening approached. His customers were exhibiting behaviour that reflected a pent-up atmosphere suggestive of impending disaster.
To some, it seemed, the disaster had already happened. The publishing woman, Eve, had clearly had an eventful afternoon, and not in a good way either. Jason had seen her drive off earlier looking full of excitement. Only to return an hour later in an obviously very different mood. Her face was a picture of gloom and things did not seem to have improved since. He could see her now at one of the garden tables, talking tersely into her mobile under a sulky yellow sky.
Jason wondered if it had anything to do with Angela and the conversation he had seen the two women have in the car park at lunchtime. But both of them had seemed very pleased and excited then.
Like Eve, Angela had driven off all smiles; so much so that Jason had wondered, with a stab of jealousy, whether Eve had offered her a publishing contract. Although on what subject Angela could write a book was anyone’s guess. He had never even seen her read one.
Jason, on the other hand, had been gathering stories for years about recalcitrant guests and difficult diners. He could have written ‘Confessions of a Manager’ at a moment’s notice.
Perhaps he still could, although he wouldn’t mention it now. There was something about Eve’s expression, as she approached his flap, that suggested such overtures might not be welcome.
‘I won’t be staying the night, after all,’ the editor said shortly, rummaging in her bag, producing the key to Spigots and laying it on the shining mahogany surface. ‘I have to go back to London.’
Her tone, while friendly, did not invite further questions and Jason accordingly did not ask them. Nor did he point out that cancellation without notice obliged the cancellee to pay the rate in full. He wished to keep his publishing hopes alive in some shape or form.
His phone now rang. Jason, half-dreading it would be Angela, was relieved to find, on the other end, Julie from Weddings. Her voice lacked its usual cheeriness, however.
‘I’ve got a complete clusterfuck on my hands,’ she told him.
Wincing at this over-graphic description, Jason braced himself for some wedding-related problem. It would be something and nothing, it always was, and to give her her due, Julie could usually see these difficulties for the storm in the teacup they were. It was unlike her to get in a flap, but, given the permanent flaps her client brides were always in, perhaps the occasional lapse was inevitable. He applied himself to helping Julie regain her sense of perspective.
‘Don’t tell me,’ he said gaily. ‘Someone’s decided they want melon balls instead of prawn cocktail?’ He wished to transmit his awareness that Seventies starters were making a comeback.
‘If only it were that simple,’ Julie sighed. ‘But it’s not. Tell me, Jason,’ she added. ‘How do you fancy spending Wednesday in a pair of breeches?’
‘I can’t,’ Jason said, not without regret. The coming week was a busy one. A big bridal party. ‘I’ve got some Americans coming,’ he began.
‘Tell me about it,’ snapped Julie.
Jason had barely replaced the phone when he saw Angela’s car turn into the car park. Her expression did not bode well: it looked as angry as the grey-black clouds now massing in the sky. The heavens were clearly about to open.
Jason watched her trudge purposefully across the car park and gathered his courage, such as it was.
‘Cheer up, it might never happen!’ he exclaimed.
Angela glared at him. ‘It has.’
‘Julie’s been on to you too? Getting you dressed up on Wednesday, for the candlelit ball? All hands on deck, I understand.’
Jason found himself looking at Angela’s back as she marched into Pumps. ‘Triple gin and tonic,’ he heard her bark at Ryan, who immediately started to drop glasses. Jason winced as he heard them hit the stone floor.
He rushed to his protogé’s rescue. ‘Triple?’ Jason enquired, swooping smoothly into the bar, dismissing Ryan and busying himself with the optic. ‘Ice and a slice?’
Angela downed it in one and asked for another. Her appearance, Jason thought, was even more unkempt than it had been at lunchtime. Her make-up, especially round her eyes, was smudged. She looked as if she had been crying. But that was obviously impossible. Angela never cried.
‘Everything OK?’ he asked, concerned.
‘Not really.’ Angela grabbed the second drink out of his hand. ‘I’m not very well. Not very well at all.’
Her voice was so low and bleak he wasn’t even sure
she had said it. The manager stared at his old sparring partner. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said simply.
He felt all his fear and resentment disappear as if it had never been. Quite suddenly he saw before him, not the all-powerful Director of Human Resources, but a vulnerable human being.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ he asked.
But Angela just shrugged, turned away and started to walk towards the doorway. Then she stopped.
‘You can do one thing,’ she said in the same low voice. ‘You can tell me how Dan Parker is.’
‘I think he’s getting better,’ Jason began, but his voice was drowned in an enormous clap of thunder, followed on the instant by rain which sounded on the pavement and the parked cars outside like the roll of a thousand drums. The view outside became a sheet of hissing grey.
The storm had broken.
At first Nell had thought Dylan was lying dead in a pool of blood. But the red circle surrounding his head had proved to be merely wine. Dylan was drunk.
Not so drunk that he could not recognise her, however. At her gasp of horror he had slightly raised his head and looked through the hair plastered to his yellow, sweating face. She had been shocked to recognise the expression in his red eyes as hate. He had hurled at her a stream of drunken invective, some of it so slurred she could barely understand the words, although the meaning was clear enough. He was accusing her of betraying him, of failing him and abusing his trust.
Slowly she worked it out. Eve, the woman from the publishers, had been at the tower. She had found him. And Nell had helped her.
‘But I didn’t! I never told her where you lived! I’ve never met her!’ Nell gasped.
‘She shhaid you did. She shhhaid Nell Shhimpshhon . . .’
She did not recognise this man raging bitterly on the floor, drooling and dribbling into a stinking stain. This was a different person from the Dylan she knew. A frightening one full of hate and resentment.
In the end, unable to bear any more, Nell had turned and rushed down the stairs. The front door had still been open and she ran out. Ignoring the gently winding path back into the park, she had plunged down between the trees, her feet crashing into dry leaves as the branches tore at her hair and the sharp-thorned brambles caught and clawed her bare legs.