A Family Concern

by Anthea Fraser

  Rona caught her breath, a wave of heat engulfing her as she strained to hear Max’s reply. It seemed an inordinately long time coming. Was he aware of her presence?

  ‘Had you been at an office lunch, Charlie?’ he asked with a forced laugh. ‘If so, I’d advise you to take more water with it!’

  ‘Seriously, I kid you not. Saw her with my own eyes.’

  ‘Then she must have come from the next door along.’

  Charlie, whoever he was, remained unconvinced. ‘No way!’ he insisted. ‘I tell you, guys, old Max here has something going! There I was, driving past minding my own business, and this cute little blonde comes dashing out of his house as though the Furies were at her heels! What had you been doing to her, old man?’

  Someone in her group had made an amusing comment, and Rona joined mindlessly in the general laughter. Then, feeling suddenly sick, she extricated herself and, still without glancing in Max’s direction, left the room and made her way to the cloakroom. Having locked the door behind her, she stood stock-still, staring at her reflection in the mirror, cheeks hot and eyes burning bright.

  Was this, she wondered painfully, how wives usually found out about affairs? From apparently harmless jocularity at parties? Because she had positively no doubt that the ‘dollybird’, the ‘cute little blonde’, was Adele Yarborough. Was it to salve his conscience that he had made love to her so passionately last night?

  A sob rose in her throat and, mindful that someone might be passing outside, she hastily turned it into a cough. Did Max know she’d overheard the conversation? Would he refer to it, or wait until she did? What was the accepted norm in these circumstances? She should ask Lindsey, she thought hysterically.

  She walked slowly to the basin and gripped its blessedly cold edges. Suppose he didn’t mention it? Or suppose he did? Suppose he finally admitted that he found Adele attractive, and would prefer to be with her? Yesterday afternoon. While she’d been with Pops, perhaps. Too bad she hadn’t called in at Farthings herself, and caught them in flagrante. Perhaps then she’d be able to believe it.

  Someone tried the door handle, and Rona hastily flushed the lavatory, washed her hands, and, with a last, unseeing glance in the mirror, opened the door, blindly smiling at the person – man or woman, she didn’t register – who waited outside.

  People were starting to leave, thank God. She reached the door of the drawing room as Max emerged from it, clearly looking for her.

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ he said, not meeting her eyes. ‘Are you ready to make a move?’

  She nodded, not trusting her voice, and he searched through the pile of coats on the chair, extracting hers and helping her on with it. Mechanically, Rona thanked their host and hostess and allowed Max to lead her down the icy front path. Several other couples were leaving at the same time, and called goodnight to them as they went to their own cars. Then, as Max climbed in beside her, they were completely alone, with no one to mask the silence between them.

  She felt him glance at her, perhaps not yet sure if, or how much, she had heard.

  ‘Enjoy yourself?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Up to a point.’ A very specific point.

  ‘Give me a dinner party, any day.’ It was an old refrain, and didn’t require a reply.

  The rest of the ten-minute drive passed in silence. Max found a parking space outside the next-door house. Rona went ahead of him up the path, waiting as he inserted his key in the lock. The heat of the hall felt suffocating, and she pulled off her coat and draped it over the banister.

  ‘You heard, didn’t you?’ he said flatly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I bet you are!’

  ‘I mean I’m sorry you found out that way. I should have told you, but—’

  She spun to face him, eyes blazing. ‘Too right, you should have told me! How long has it been going on?’

  He stared at her for a minute. ‘Now look—’

  ‘No, you look! I knew from the first that woman was trouble, but you wouldn’t have it. I told you there was nothing wrong with her, that she was after the sympathy vote. But I never dreamed you’d actually stoop to secret meetings so you could—’

  Max slammed his hand on the hall table, making her jump.

  ‘That’s enough, Rona! Now just be quiet and let me explain.’

  ‘Are you having an affair with her?’ she interrupted.

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘But you’ve at least kissed her. Haven’t you?’

  He hesitated a fraction too long, and she spun on her heel, ran upstairs into the bedroom and slammed the door.

  Max sat down on the lowest step and put his head in his hands.

  Twelve

  It was a long time before Max came to bed. When she heard his footsteps on the stairs, Rona, who had lain, burning-eyed, staring at the ceiling, turned on her side and lay motionless. She heard him pause briefly in the doorway, go to the bathroom and, minutes later, climb into bed beside her.

  ‘Rona?’ he said softly.

  She did not reply. She knew he was lying as rigid as she was, feigning sleep, but she was too hurt, too angry, to make the first move. Eventually, after what seemed hours, she fell into a deep sleep, and when she woke, daylight was seeping through the curtains and she was alone in the bed.

  Nine o’clock, she saw, peering at the bedside clock. She showered, dressed, and went down to the kitchen. Max was sitting at the table, also fully dressed, the newspaper in his hands. On a normal Sunday, she thought with aching throat, they had a leisurely breakfast in their dressing gowns, working their way through the heavy wad of newspapers.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said tightly.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘There’s coffee in the pot.’

  She poured herself a cup in silence. Max watched her, but she didn’t look at him.

  ‘Are you going to let me explain what happened?’

  ‘I know as much as I want to, thank you.’

  ‘You know damn all,’ he said harshly.

  ‘I know that you kissed her.’

  ‘She kissed me!’

  ‘There’s a difference?’

  ‘Of course there’s a bloody difference!’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to go into it now.’ She picked up her cup. ‘I told you I’m seeing the Tarltons this afternoon; I’ve some things to prepare, so I’m going up to the study.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  She stayed there, staring at the blank computer screen, until the smell of roasting beef drifted up the stairs. Max always cooked Sunday lunch, though she was unsure whether she’d be able to eat it today. She did, however, gather her things together and go downstairs, to find the kitchen table laid and Max in the process of carving. From the set of his jaw and the fact that he didn’t glance in her direction, she knew he was now as angry as she was; though what right he had, she couldn’t imagine. He had tried to ‘explain’, she hadn’t let him, and now, as stubborn as she was, he was determined that she should make the next move. She was incapable of doing so.

  He set her plate in front of her, she said ‘Thank you’, and that was the sum of their conversation. Max had the colour supplement open at his side, and pointedly read it throughout the meal. Rona simply concentrated on getting through it as quickly as possible, and, having eaten as much as she could, tipped what was left into the bin and put her plate in the dishwasher. This is horrible! she thought shakily. She and Max frequently had rows, but none had been as serious or lasted as long as this one. If she’d not been going out, she might have instigated some communication between them, but she was afraid she might burst into tears – which was the last thing she wanted – and she had to keep her mind clear for the coming interview.

  He didn’t look up when she walked towards the stairs, but Gus wagged his tail uncertainly.

  ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back,’ she said.

  It was too early to drive straight to Brindley Lodge, so Rona turn
ed down a country lane off Belmont Road and parked in a gateway leading to a field. Lack of sleep, she realized, was not conducive to clear thinking, and it was imperative that she push Max and Adele out of her mind and concentrate on the Tarltons. The appointment ahead of her might well produce some of the answers she was looking for.

  She switched the radio to Classic FM, leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. Had Kate had the bolts freed? she wondered. Would Lewis resent her questioning? She felt herself drifting off and woke with a start some fifteen minutes later, to find it was almost two o’clock. She started the car and drove the remaining distance to the house.

  Kate led her through to the sitting room where they’d sat before. Lewis was standing in front of the fire, and came forward. ‘I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced,’ he said, holding out his hand, ‘but we both know who we are. I’m grateful to you for helping with this problem.’

  ‘Tell us what Nanny said,’ Kate instructed, as soon as they’d sat down.

  ‘This might come as a bit of a shock,’ Rona began carefully. And she went on to relate the length of time the three-year-old Freya had been missing, and her eventual discovery in the wood.

  They were both looking at her with horrified expressions. ‘How the devil did she get in there?’ Lewis demanded.

  Rona said tactfully, ‘Miss Gray thought the gate couldn’t have been bolted,’ and saw him flush.

  ‘Mea culpa, no doubt. My friends and I often played in the woods.’ He paused. ‘Is that why you wanted the bolts freed?’

  ‘Yes; I thought it might be helpful to have a look for myself.’

  ‘I can’t imagine why. No one’s been there for years – or at least, not from this side. The public access is from Woodlands Road, which, as you probably know, runs parallel to Belmont, but I don’t know if anyone still uses it. Possibly courting couples; I know they used to.’

  Kate stood up. ‘Let’s go and look, then.’

  They collected their coats from the hall and set off down the garden. This time, the bolts, top and bottom, slid smoothly back and, at a brief push from Lewis, the old gate creaked open. ‘God,’ he said, ‘I wonder when I was last here.’

  Brambles and bushes clogged any footpath there might have been, and they all stood uncertainly, looking about them.

  ‘Did you play anywhere in particular?’ Rona asked.

  ‘Yes, we’d made a tree house in one of the clearings.’ He gave a brief smile. ‘That’s how I know about the courting couples. We had a good view.’

  ‘Horrid little boys!’ Kate said.

  Rona, though, did not smile. A pulse had started to beat at the base of her throat. ‘Can you remember whereabouts it was?’

  ‘I think I could find it, though everywhere’s so appallingly overgrown.’

  He looked about him for a minute, then set off slightly to the right, holding back overhanging branches for the women following him. They pushed determinedly through the undergrowth, their clothes caught in brambles and their hands and faces scratched, but eventually the trees grew wider apart and they found themselves in a clearing.

  ‘The house was up there.’ Lewis gesticulated at a tree that stood slightly apart. ‘My God!’ he said wonderingly. ‘It still is! See that rotting board in the fork up there? That would have been the platform. And look at this.’ He bent forward. ‘The remnants of the rope ladder are still here, too.’

  Kate and Rona turned from the slanting board to the frayed rope in his hand. Rona said with an effort, ‘Did Freya ever come here with you?’

  ‘Freya? Good Lord, no. She was only a toddler. We were all ten years older, and didn’t want her trailing after us.’

  ‘Could she have followed you, without your knowing?’

  Lewis stared at her, then moistened his lips. ‘She certainly tried to tag along, but we’d never let her. It’s possible she could have followed us, because, of course, while we were in the wood, the gate was left on the latch. When we came back, though, it was a strict rule that we should bolt it top and bottom. The bolts were a bit stiff even then, and the top one was too high for her to reach. God knows how it came to be unlocked that day.’

  ‘You’re thinking about the dream, aren’t you?’ Kate said in a strangled voice. ‘Being high up?’

  Rona nodded. ‘Suppose, when Lewis was at school, she found the gate unbolted and decided to go to the tree house by herself. I’d wondered about trees before, but it seemed unlikely so young a child could climb high enough to be hidden from below. But if there was a rope ladder, it would have been much easier.’

  There was a silence, while the three of them looked from the rope in Lewis’s hand to the decaying planks of the house, still wedged in a crevice of the branches above them. Then Lewis said, ‘You’re thinking she might have climbed up there, then someone came into the clearing and frightened her? Who, exactly?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Miss Gray thought it might have been a tramp.’

  ‘They’d stopped coming by then. My father told me that when he was young, beggars, tramps and so on regularly went into the woods, principally to drink from the well, but often staying to doss down for the night. There was one of those iron cups on a chain, to scoop up the water. Can you imagine how unhygienic that was? But the spring that supplied it dried up during the war sometime, and the council boarded it up.’

  ‘Where is the well?’

  ‘A bit further along. So –’ he finally let go the rope he’d been holding, and it fell back against the tree trunk – ‘I don’t think there’s much more to see. Has it been any help?’

  ‘It could have a bearing on the dream,’ Rona said cautiously, ‘but without knowing what, if anything, she saw while she was up there, we’re not much further on.’

  Slowly they retraced their steps to the garden, and Lewis bolted the gate behind them. Rona shivered. There was a cold breeze and she was glad to leave the confined silences of the woods.

  ‘After-lunch coffee?’ Kate suggested. ‘A bit late, but it would warm us up.’

  When they were seated round the fire, Lewis returned to the subject of the unbolted gate. ‘I feel dreadful,’ he said. ‘Just a moment’s carelessness, and the result was years of distress for Freya.’

  ‘If Nanny hadn’t fallen asleep,’ Kate said sharply, ‘no harm would have been done. It was her fault, not yours.’

  ‘How much do you remember of the day your mother left?’ Rona asked him.

  Lewis sipped his coffee thoughtfully. ‘My clearest memories are of what came afterwards. I used to spend hours trying to recall exactly the last time I’d seen her, and exactly what her last words to me had been. And wondering if something I’d done had driven her away.’

  Kate reached for his hand, and Rona said, ‘You were at school, of course?’

  ‘Yes. When I got home, I found a parcel on my bed, which turned out to be an engine I’d been wanting for my train set. There was a little card that said, “With love from Mummy.”

  ‘I ran downstairs to thank her for it, but of course she wasn’t there. Dad came back from the shop, and we held back supper for a while, but Mum didn’t come, so eventually we had it. When we’d finished, Dad went up to say goodnight to Freya. Then went into his bedroom and – found the note.’

  Lewis stopped speaking and they sat in silence. ‘He didn’t tell me, mind you,’ he continued at last. ‘When he came back downstairs, he looked very pale and I asked if he was OK, and he just nodded. Then he wanted to know if I’d any homework, and when I sat down to do it, he went to the phone. I think he called Bruce and Jan, but I didn’t hear what he said, and of course at that stage I wasn’t really interested.’ He paused, and added reflectively, ‘I’ve always thought he didn’t tell me for so long, because he kept hoping she’d change her mind and come back.’

  ‘Will you tell Freya about the tree house?’ Rona asked.

  Lewis frowned. ‘I’m not sure. I’ll have a word with my father. We don’t want to add to her stress, and we
might be way off-beam.’

  Rona nodded, but she didn’t think so. She was relieved, though, they didn’t want her to break the news.

  Kate said thoughtfully, ‘If courting couples went there, she could have seen a lovers’ tiff.’

  Lewis shook his head. ‘It would have to have been pretty violent, to leave such an impression.’

  ‘If they were making love, it could have looked violent to a young child.’

  It seemed no one else had anything to offer. Rona picked up her handbag. ‘I’d better be going,’ she said. ‘I’ve taken up enough of your Sunday.’

  They didn’t try to detain her. As she drove out of the gate, she saw them standing in the open doorway, Lewis’s arm across Kate’s shoulders, and felt a sharp pang of envy. Oh, God, she couldn’t face going home to Max’s stony silence.

  She pulled in to the kerb, took out her mobile, and dialled Lindsey’s number. It rang and rang, then the answerphone came on. She tried her mobile, but it was turned to voice-mail. Damn! Rona thought. Where are you, when I need you?

  In desperation, she pressed the key for the Ridgeways, and was rewarded by the engaged tone. At least that meant they were home. Rona snapped her mobile shut and, emerging from Brindley Grove, turned in the direction of the town centre.

  There were lights in the downstairs windows when she drew up outside the house in Barrington Road. She went up the path and rang the bell. It was Gavin who answered it.

  ‘Rona! Hello! What a pleasant surprise!’

  The sight of his familiar figure, and, behind him, the house that was like a second home to her, caught her off guard and her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Hey!’ Gavin’s smile faded and he reached for her. ‘Come in, love. What’s the matter?’

  She shook her head blindly and felt his arm come round her as, minutes before, she’d seen Lewis’s encircle Kate.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m all right. Really. Just …’

  Magda’s voice called, ‘Who is it, darling?’ and she appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  ‘Rona!’ Then, sharply, ‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’