by Jill Dawson
Smythson-Balby was chattering away about the character of Earl Soham, a place she held in contempt. ‘You ask them, “What do you make of Vietnam?” They’ve been listening to the radio, reading the paper, but they only say: “Oh, it’s a place far away.” Vietnam’s not in East Anglia. That’s as far as their imagination will travel . . .’ The countryside, she gathered, held few charms for Smythson-Balby. It was clear from hints that she’d travelled a great deal and hoped to do plenty more. At any rate, it was easier to imagine the girl in those yellow patent boots in a night-club in London, or perhaps Eve’s bar in Munich (a place Pat knew well), eyes sandbagged in mascara and giggling over a martini with a man on her arm. Or even – here she let herself go a little further – on a spotlit stage with a mike in hand, in a floor-sweeping halter-neck dress, singing ‘An Englishman Needs Time’. Had she seen her in such a role somewhere? Different hair, perhaps, rigged up differently – younger? A show-girl: that fitted. That was where the Christine Keeler thought had floated from. This girl pretended to be a bouncy fresh thing, with no ulterior motives. Pat knew the type. ‘I was just having a good time,’ she would protest. Could it really be her fault if people kept getting the wrong idea?
Ipswich was a town gearing up for something. Small groups of girls and boys formed lines outside the Savoy ballroom on St Nicholas Street, and they were also at the railway station. The boys were smoking and polishing the toes of their shoes with their handkerchiefs, the girls laughing and shrieking in white gloves and courts and fur coats. Smythson-Balby was not impressed. ‘Joe Loss. Cyril Gold and His Pieces of Eight. Not my thing,’ she sneered, as Pat’s eyes followed the young women with their bouffant curls. No, Pat thought. She could picture Smythson-Balby doing a much more extravagant sort of dancing than the ballroom kind.
‘We used to call girls like that round-heels. I guess you don’t know that word any more,’ Pat murmured.
Smythson-Balby remained silent.
Of course, she should turn the tables, hammer Smythson-Balby with a few questions of her own. ‘Who are you, really? A friend of mine claims you have other . . . biographical, book-length intentions, not just an article . . . Matter of fact, would you mind declaring yourself now because I’d like to know what it is I’m confessing to?’ but something prevented her. She believed it impolite to ask personal questions, despite having to endure them so often herself. She wouldn’t dream of voicing them. She found herself wondering over the name ‘Smythson’. Hadn’t she heard it somewhere, mooted as one of the mysterious backers of the Great Train Robbery last summer? The trial was still going on, and the English newspapers’ obsession with the hopelessly bungled crime was undimmed. She puzzled, too, about the state Smythson-Balby had been in when she’d first arrived. What had provoked it? Such a prickle around her, such an overwrought, giddy little drama?
Strange, sickening, really, how other people never thought it rude to ask her those kinds of things and make cracks at her, then had the nerve to complain afterwards about her unwillingness to answer. And they would offer her spiteful quotes and comments on her work and watch to see if she got rattled. And, yes, she was still smarting about the Margaret Marshall quote and who wouldn’t be? Her characters deviant, her work unnatural. Sure, yes, she’d always understood the insinuation. Damn them – did they think she was a fool?
At last Smythson-Balby lurched to a squealing halt in a parking lot and pulled up the brake with a flourish. She explained – slightly breathlessly – where Ipswich High Street was and where she’d find the store that arranged television-set rentals. They rolled up the windows of the car, which had been opened an inch so that they could smoke, and stepped out. The fur collar on Smythson-Balby’s coat was tugged up around her chin; her bright dark eyes seemed to be smiling and she’d pushed the sunglasses onto her head, but her mouth was covered. The young journalist danced from foot to foot, clapping cold hands together. For the first time her brisk summer-camp-leader persona deserted her and she glanced at her watch a little shyly, saying: ‘I could meet you back here in an hour. Unless you would like me to . . .’
‘No, that’s swell, thank you. See you back here at five?’
Pat strode away from the car with an absurd fear that Smythson-Balby might follow her. Perhaps she would never now shake her off. It wasn’t the first time she had had that thought about a younger woman. ‘You have a new fan,’ Ronnie would say, if he was there. Ronnie was always vigilant. He liked to remind her of how attractive she was, take the glass from her hand, refresh it for her, tell her gently as he gave it back: ‘This will ruin your looks.’ Ronnie. She could have been chopping wood in the garden of Bridge Cottage just now, in fierce fall sunshine, Ronnie with his sleeves rolled up, sharpening the axe.
At ten minutes to six she was installed at Bridge Cottage, a fire chuntering in the grate, a whole pile of chopped logs stacked by the back door and a Scotch in hand. The television set was fixed up and being delivered next week. So she wouldn’t be able to watch it with Sam, but no matter, there would be other occasions, other weekends. This thought, the real reason behind her moving to Suffolk, gave her a jolt of pleasure so strong that she paused, in the kitchen, and noticed it, and wrapped her arms around herself.
She had marked the Scotch bottle, scoring it with pencil at the point she felt she should drink to today, but the visit earlier meant it was almost empty. On the kitchen table two fat steaks lolled. She’d bought them from a butcher in Ipswich (taking care to conceal them from Smythson-Balby: she didn’t want questions about weekend visitors). There was also a fresh lettuce and three tomatoes in a brown bag and some strongly vinegary salad dressing she’d made up in a pickle jar. There was a new warm loaf of bread. The kitchen curtains were tugged closed, but they were a little short of meeting in the middle: there was always a gap with a slit of dark sky in it. The telephone booth across the road loomed in her mind with supernaturally vivid presence. She had not heard Sam’s voice since Paris, since she’d arrived in England, as they’d both thought it risky.
Moments later she stood in the booth, inhaling the faint smell of cat urine and cigarette smoke, her heart pattering as if she had been running.
‘So, what time will you arrive tonight?’ Pat asked. Hearing Sam, she immediately pictured her exactly as she was painting her. She had decided to change from fall colours to a background of intense cobalt blue and red. Sam, the figure of Sam, stretching through those colours like a white orchid (she would put an orchid in the painting, too, she decided) or a swan. Naked, her neck outstretched, winding a strand of her white-blonde hair in one finger. To Pat, Sam had the look of a Modigliani painting, though she couldn’t remember ever seeing a blonde one. Almond eyes, heart-shaped face. Elegant neck, a little longer than is common. And, curiously, this portrait Pat was making of her – unfinished though it was – was easier to conjure up just now than the real Sam.
Sam’s voice was somehow wobbly on the line. A crackle and then a loud, hacking cough.
‘I don’t feel so chipper,’ Sam said, when she recovered. ‘And there’s another problem, darling. Minty’s home for the weekend. She has a fever and the school sent her home. I can hardly leave her here with Gerald.’
Pat groaned and didn’t trouble to disguise it. ‘Gerald is perfectly capable of looking after his eight-year-old daughter by himself for one night, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, but it will look odd. Fair enough, I might go for a weekend by the sea with some old girlfriends from work, but not when my daughter is poorly. It would look . . . strange.’
‘But I’ve been waiting and waiting!’ Pat exploded. ‘I’ve been here days already. Does that mean I have to wait a whole other week?’
‘Well, if Minty’s better tomorrow I might manage Sunday afternoon. Afternoon tea at Aldeburgh and a walk by the sea, and then drive back? Don’t be angry, darling.’
Pat was angry. The Smythson-Balby girl had nettled her, the day’s routine was spoiled and she hadn’t written a single word of her novel. Worse
, she felt an appalling dread that Sam’s resolve was fading. If she mentioned this, Sam would prickle and sulk and nothing would be achieved, so she couldn’t think, just at that moment, what to say at all.
‘I – rented a television set,’ she mumbled, her hand cupping the receiver. That was her last coin being eaten up. Mrs Ingham passed the phone booth, head wrapped in a red scarf like the Queen, walking her terrier in the soft, drizzling rain. Mrs Ingham spied her and waved cheerily.
‘I bought two very nice rump steaks,’ Pat said. The line went dead before she could say: I love you. Would she have said it? She wasn’t sure. She stared at the little black shelf, the fat telephone directory, the sign saying Earl Soham, Woodbridge 6852. What was the point of anything? Sam wasn’t the demonstrative type and in Pat’s experience such lovers needed careful handling if they weren’t to feel too overwhelmed, too ‘smothered’ (as her girlfriend, Ginnie, another cool type, had once witheringly put it).
She tried to slam the phone booth door behind her but it was on some kind of powerful hinge and closed in its own sweet time, so she stomped back to the house, reaching for the new bottle of Scotch before she’d even taken her coat off. The fire – so lively only a short while ago – was now completely out, the logs powdering to soft grey ash that a poke wouldn’t ignite. She gave it a kick and a cloud of pale dust billowed. The room was pretty chilly; Pat’s habit of keeping the curtains closed against nosy neighbours also prevented any sunlight warming it during the day, so she took herself upstairs with the drink to the bedroom, facing out over the back garden – looking onto Mrs Ingham’s house, in fact. The room was north-facing too and wasn’t any warmer. There was the portrait Allela had done of her, glowering, scowling, facing the bed.
She was about to fling herself under the covers when she noticed the two snails on their saucer on the window ledge. They were moving, swaying. Pat bent close and studied them. Now they were kissing. There could be no other word for it.
The Scotch bottle in her hand, she poured a generous shot into the tooth-mug she found herself holding. The entranced creatures in the saucer fascinated her. Look at that, she longed to say to Sam, who was a keen gardener and bird watcher. (She pictured Sam as she thought it, kneeling in front of a flowerbed, her slim spine curved over, wearing something blazing in peacock-blue and red, sunlight surrounding her in a frill of golden light.) She needed to get a book from the library about snails. That was her last thought before she tumbled into a bottomless pit of sleep, slipping under the top counterpane, still dressed in her jeans and shirt.
Thumping at the back door woke her. She glanced at her travel clock beside the bed at the green numbers: 3 a.m. Crazed, frantic banging, from a fist, Pat thought, small and desperate, like a child’s. And then a voice, a woman’s voice, calling. Pat felt for her pyjamas under her pillow. She didn’t want whoever it was to think her ready to go out, or just arrived home, at this hour. If it was Sam, she had some crazy jealous thoughts sometimes. She took a second to step into the pyjamas before hurrying downstairs – banging her head on the low ceiling – and rushing to the kitchen door.
‘Oh, Miss Highsmith, I’m so sorry to disturb you this late but – there’s – oh . . .’
Her neighbour, Mrs Ingham, was standing in the back garden bathed in the light she had just flicked on in the kitchen, which dazzled them both. The older woman was chalky-faced, wearing slippers and a navy-coloured bathrobe over something incongruous and lacy, her elderly chest horribly on display. Pat motioned her into the kitchen – the slippers were wet and muddy – and Mrs Ingham breathed audibly, struggling to regain some composure.
Pat stood at a loss, then thought to offer a glass of water. Mrs Ingham glugged the water and dabbed at her eyes with a cotton handkerchief from the pocket of her bathrobe.
‘Would you go to the phone box outside and call the police for me? I hear someone in the garden! I don’t have a telephone in the house and I daren’t go around to the front but you could from your front door without being seen . . . in case he’s still there,’ Mrs Ingham whispered, cringing towards the wall as if whoever it was might join them.
Pat looked round the kitchen and took a step back from her.
An intruder. A burglar – or an obsessive, a fan? Stanley – Brother Death – had he found her?
‘Are you sure? Did you see anyone?’
‘I heard – oh, terrifying sounds in the garden. You know, a plant pot being knocked over and scrabbling sounds by the chicken coop. I imagine he was trying the windows but I didn’t actually see him . . . There used to be a torch that I kept by the window for, you know, such occasions, but I seem to have mislaid it. Oh, I’m so sorry again to trouble you.’
‘Not at all.’ The two women were both standing in the kitchen; Pat’s bare feet were cold on the tiles. She tried to usher them both through the open doorway into the living room, where she’d flung her coat and brogues on the sofa. She grabbed her own large flashlight from upstairs, and from a drawer next to the bed she pulled out her switchblade, used for grooming plants, and slid it into the coat pocket. She put her shoes on.
Downstairs, Mrs Ingham was standing by the window in the living room, not quite brave enough to lift the curtain and peer at the darkness. She made a little gesture, anticipated by Pat, to clasp Pat by the arm, like a maiden in despair, but it was skilfully deflected with an almost imperceptible jerk away.
‘I’m so sorry to trouble you like this,’ she whispered again. Pat suspected the old snooper was enjoying herself. Probably a long time since something had happened in her life in the wee small hours. ‘I’ll wait here and re-lock the front door once you’ve run out to the phone box,’ Mrs Ingham said breathlessly, then – ‘Wait! I think I heard him again.’
Both women stiffened, listening intently. The tinny sound of something – perhaps the watering can – being kicked over in the back garden made them turn around and head back through the doorway towards the kitchen. It was irritating and ridiculous, the way Mrs Ingham followed her, as if she was one of those plastic toys, attached at the waist. The kitchen light was still on and the gap between the curtains made it possible they could be seen, so Pat hung back a little and Mrs Ingham quickly followed suit. Better to surprise him, not the other way around, once the door was flung open. They were behind the door now, breathing heavily, Pat with her hand on the wooden handle. There was an unmistakable scream, a horrible squeal as Pat shoved the door open.
The kitchen light pooled over a knocked-over plant pot, black soil heaping on the path. Pat let out her breath slowly, staring at the path that led to the lawn to Bridge House, Mrs Ingham’s place. Did she see a shape? A dark figure anywhere? She wasn’t sure. Her heart scampered a little, but not too fast. She saw some black smears on the path from the plant pot and went to put it upright. Then something else: a grey lump with ears. Mrs Ingham, still inside the kitchen, crumbling at the doorway, squeaked a little cry as Pat tiptoed towards it and nudged it with the toe of her shoe.
It was the severed head of a rabbit. Black eyes. Neck straggling with black blood that smudged over the path.
Mrs Ingham’s pet rabbit: Bunnikins.
‘No need for you to see this,’ Pat said, stooping closer to look, then straightening up. She went back into the kitchen, passing Mrs Ingham, but managed with the tone of her voice – horribly paternal, even Pat was aware of it – to prevent her neighbour going outside. She fetched newspapers from the basket next to the fire, copies of the Ipswich Star, to wrap the little head in.
‘I’m afraid our intruder was probably a coyote or some such. Do you get them in England?’ Pat dimly remembered that they didn’t. ‘Or a fox.’
‘Yes, foxes. Oh – did it get in the hutch? The wire was rather weakened. Did it hurt Bunnikins?’
Pat’s instinct for an honest reply got the better of her as usual.
‘I’m sorry but it did. Must have bitten through the wire at the top of the hutch. I reckon you’ll need to check the chickens too.’
Mrs Ingham nodded, grimaced and, with Pat beside her, padded outside in her slippers to check. Strangely, the chickens, although beady-eyed and dazzled awake by the flashlight now spraying at them, appeared unharmed; they immediately began scratching at their feet, as if grateful for the sudden light to eat by. The limp body of Bunnikins was discovered, wet and flopping, across the grass.
Once back inside Pat offered her neighbour a shot of brandy to calm her nerves.
‘Well. You must think me quite the fool,’ Mrs Ingham said, sipping from an expensive bowl glass that Pat had unpacked when she had been expecting Sam. Pat assured her she didn’t.
‘I’ve lived on my own for so long. Not used to Bridge Cottage being occupied. Lucky that you were here. It’s a big wild garden, isn’t it? Have you been to the bottom, where the stream is? Always found it creepy myself but when my husband was alive it wasn’t such a problem. And if there were strange noises – new sounds, you know – Alf would check on them. Poor Bunnikins. I don’t care for him myself. I keep him for when my grandson, Paul, visits. He’ll be heartbroken.’
Mrs Ingham’s eyes glittered.
‘I’ll fix us another drink,’ Pat said. Mrs Ingham seemed to be recovering rather well from the night’s excitement, Pat noticed. This told her two things: the old snooper was not as dumb as she seemed and she was nosy as hell. The brandy made her voluble. A bit more drivelling – Oh, you’re a writer aren’t you, how lovely . . . and American, I believe, but you don’t talk like one, do you? Did you know there’s a mobile greengrocer and a mobile butcher too, Wednesday afternoons? How soon would it be acceptable for Pat to yawn and hint that she really must get back to bed?
It was a good half-hour. Yawning and hints didn’t do it. Pat practically had to shove her through the kitchen door.