Echo of Barbara

by John Burke

  ‘No,’ said Sam very gently, ‘there’s nothing here for you.’ He studied her for a long moment. ‘I rather like you,’ he said. ‘You’ve got guts. And one hell of a stiff neck.’

  Barbara gave a slight, histrionic shudder.

  Paula said: ‘Please, you must —’

  ‘We’ve got a lot of sorting out to do,’ said Sam, talking her down. Barbara was grateful to him. She wanted no emotion, no urgent appeals. ‘Things haven’t been normal here. Now perhaps they can be. We can take our time. We can do things quietly . . . get to know one another.’ He was not looking at his wife, but there was a faint dry note of something like humility in his voice. ‘There’s a lot to be done,’ he said.

  Adam got up and thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘You’re right there.’ He stared gloomily down at Sam’s head. ‘How the blazes am I going to report back on this? It’ll be the devil of a job to persuade my folk that there aren’t any Mannerlaw diamonds any more.’

  ‘And if you succeed in doing so,’ rapped Sam, ‘all you’ll do will be to make things extremely unpleasant for young Mannerlaw. I don’t know what action your insurance company would take in such circumstances — but I’m convinced Mannerlaw would be the one who’d come out of it worst. That’s one reason why I said the fake diamonds should stay where they are, and be forgotten.’

  ‘Out of the goodness of your heart!’ Adam quoted sardonically. ‘But what do I say? Just that I’ve been unable to trace the confounded things —’

  ‘And don’t believe anybody ever will trace them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t feel happy about doing that.’

  ‘Oh, my God.’ Sam ran one hand through his hair. ‘Another stiff-necked one!’

  ‘And if I marry Paula, and it gets out — as it will — that she’s been connected with you —’

  ‘Who says you’re going to marry her?’

  Adam looked across the room into Paula’s eyes. They met his gaze and held it.

  He said: ‘I say so.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Sam. ‘She’s going to stay here for a while, until I’m sure you’re good enough for her.’ He glanced tenderly at Paula’s shock of gashed hair. ‘I want her to myself for a little while,’ he said.

  ‘Now look here . . .’

  Barbara got up, yawning. ‘Bed for me,’ she said. ‘What time is there a train from Easterdyke in the morning?’

  ‘There’s a seven-thirty,’ said Roger. ‘I’ll run you in to the station,’ he added eagerly.

  ‘And get rid of me?’

  ‘Speed you on your way,’ he said with acid pleasure.

  She went towards the door. There were polite good nights. She looked back at them all once, as she opened the door. They all looked far away. She was detached from them, and glad to be so. Yet there was something . . .

  Something she would not admit was envy. As the door closed she was aware that they were building up between them a tangled, exasperating relationship that offered possibilities she would never know. It made no sense. There were no values here, no standards.

  They were creating something to which she could not belong.

  When she lay in bed she could hear the companionable buzz of their voices rising from below. They were still talking as she drifted off into sleep.

  Tomorrow she would get back to her neat, sensible life, away from these people who were always making difficulties for themselves — the blunderers, the clumsy ones. They would never learn. This time she would not come back. She did not even want to know what happened to them.

  She slept, sure of herself. The others, less sure, stayed volubly awake for a long time.

  *

  THE END

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