Treacherous Waters

by Treacherous Waters (retail) (epub)

  ‘Richard!’

  The front door crashed closed.

  Annie turned back to the window, watched bemusedly as the tall, obviously furious figure wrenched open the door of the car and flung himself inside, slamming the door behind him. She could not understand – could not believe – the abrupt and bizarre turn the evening had taken. What in God’s name had happened? And how – how? – had it happened so suddenly?

  She watched in miserable disbelief as the big car slid, gleaming, from beneath the lamplight and into the sodden darkness; then she turned, looked around the room. The smell of his cigarette still hung in the air. His empty glass stood on one of the bedside tables. As she moved she caught a gleam of gold from the floor beside the bed. Moving slowly and tiredly, she bent to retrieve a small, heavy cufflink with an ornately etched ‘R’ upon it. She laid it carefully upon the dressing table. Her mind was all but blank with misery; she hadn’t, she discovered, even the energy to cry.

  A half-empty bottle of Champagne stood on the other bedside cabinet.

  She picked it up, carried it into the bathroom and, upending it over the basin, bleakly watched the frothy sparkle of it as it ran down the plughole.

  Part Two

  Summer 1925

  Chapter Nine

  For most of what was left of the night Annie tossed and turned unhappily in the darkness, listening to the rain that drove in torrents against the window. Tired tears came and went; a sodden and dreary dawn light was seeping into the sky before, at last, she slept.

  She awoke with a vilely queasy stomach and a brutal headache. Groaning, she curled up and buried her hot face in the pillow. It took a moment or so before she fully remembered the events of the night before; when memory did return she sat up, altogether too suddenly. The room tilted and spun, her stomach roiled again. With extravagant care she swung her feet to the floor and lowered her face into her spread hands. She felt sick enough to die. What fool, she wondered numbly, had put about the rumour that Champagne did not induce a hangover?

  It was a long time before she lifted her head and squinted groggily through a curtain of hair at the bedside clock. ‘Good God!’ she mumbled. ‘It can’t be.’

  The rain had stopped, the wind dropped. With enormous care she stood up and, fingertips pressed to her burning eyes and thumping forehead, moved slowly to the window and drew back the curtains. There was the faintest suggestion of brightness in the heavy sky. She flinched from it, screwing up her eyes, and turned back to survey the room. Her clothes were still dumped untidily on the chair; the bed looked as if a bomb had hit it. The single gold cufflink lay upon the dressing table. Still moving very cautiously, and wincing at almost every step, she went to the dressing table, lowered herself gingerly onto the stool and picked up the gleaming thing. Last night she had watched Richard’s long fingers as, deftly practised, he had slipped it from his cuff. Last night those same fingers had touched her, stroked her, coaxed her to abandon. Last night…

  She lifted her head to survey her own all but colourless face in the mirror. Unsurprisingly she looked ghastly. Even more unsurprisingly, she felt worse. She ran distracted fingers through her unkempt hair. Her eyes were reddened, her mouth felt like a desert.

  Last night Richard had left her in anger. In anger and in hurt. What was it he had said? ‘I’ve made a fool of myself. Again. I should have recognised the likeness…’ She had hated that. Likeness to whom? The fickle Isobella, who had so obviously betrayed and wounded him? That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t! ‘You don’t trust me,’ he had said. ‘You want me. But you don’t trust me.’ Was that true? Hollow-eyed, she stared dejectedly at her reflection. In all honesty she didn’t know. In all probability she would now not have a chance to find out. Richard did not strike her as a man who would stand still to be slapped twice.

  But – marriage? What in the world had possessed him to spring such a suggestion upon her so precipitately? And to take so badly what she perceived to be her very natural inclination to caution? Had he truly expected her to give no thought, no deep consideration to his proposal? Had he planned to ask her? Or had it been some kind of Champagne-induced impulse? The more she thought about it the more confused she became; and, yes, the more miserably and self-defensively indignant – an indignation, however, that was at the moment powerfully diluted by her fragile physical state. She desperately needed a cup – a pot, perhaps two – of tea and an aspirin. She almost as desperately needed to go back to bed – if possible, she thought with a touch of bleak humour, to die.

  Sighing, she hauled herself to her feet, reached for her dressing gown and went down to the kitchen.

  * * *

  The hangover lifted at least a little; the gloom did not. She trailed dejectedly around the house for the rest of the day, crushingly tired, unable to concentrate on anything, missing Davie.

  Davie. How was she going to tell Davie that she and Richard had quarrelled?

  Every time the thought occurred she quashed it firmly. She could not bear to think about it. Her first instinct – once at least the physical effects of the Champagne and the emotional upheaval of the night before had eased – had been to take a taxi to Liverpool Street and the first and fastest train east, to the calm, comfort and reassuring good sense she knew would be waiting for her. But to do that meant breaking the news of the quarrel to Davie – since he would certainly demand to know what she was doing there – and she wasn’t up to that. Not yet. And anyway, deep in her heart she could not quite kill a tenuous, almost unacknowledged, hope.

  There might in the end be no need to tell him?

  In her imagination she visualised it a million times: a car pulling up outside, quick footsteps on the path, the door flung open – ‘Darling, I’m sorry… I’m so sorry—’ Or more white roses, perhaps? Another tender, clever message? A telegram, even? Abject apologies – an invitation to dinner maybe? A smart lad, pencil in hand: ‘Will there be a reply, Madam?’

  No such thing happened, of course. The day dragged on. It put her at a huge disadvantage that she did not even know where Richard was, let alone what he might be doing. She had never been to his apartment, nor to his office; indeed, had only the vaguest idea of where either was situated. He on the other hand knew exactly where she was and, she suspected, probably had a fair idea of the way she was feeling. Rebelling at that thought, halfway through the afternoon she flung on her coat and went for a walk in the Gardens, dawdling along the still-wet paths, noting with an unwontedly indifferent eye that the colours of early summer were beginning to splash in the beds and that the trees were in bright and vigorous leaf. The damp air blew at least some of the cobwebs away. She stopped for a pot of tea, avoiding almost without thought the table at which she had sat with Richard and Davie. She played a superstitious game with herself: the longer she stayed out, the more likely that there would be a message when she returned…

  There wasn’t. It was nearly six o’clock by the time she got back to the house; a house that seemed echoingly empty as she shut the front door and stood in the hallway taking off her coat and hat. She slung them across the banisters and wandered into the kitchen, opening and shutting cupboard doors. She felt half-heartedly hungry, but could not be bothered to cook anything. In the end she settled for toasted cheese, which she ate in the sitting room, listening to the wireless. Two hours later she was in bed; and a half-hour after that she was sound asleep.

  * * *

  At least Annie felt physically better the next morning, the direst effects of the hangover having worn off. She sat at the kitchen table, toying with a piece of cold toast and seriously considering taking flight to Southwold. Then she remembered: it was Thursday. The day of the Red Cross Bazaar at the Town Hall. She had promised to help with the refreshments for the morning.

  She closed her eyes. ‘Blast it!’ she said aloud. ‘Blast it!’

  In the event, however, the bazaar turned out to be just the tonic she needed. It was difficult to mope in the friendly, if wearing, atmosphere amidst
steaming urns of tea, freshly made sandwiches – which seemed to disappear just as fast as she could make them – and home-made cakes. She did not get back to the house until mid-afternoon. There was no message, no sign that Richard might have called. Annie shrugged; her hope that he might have done had been a half-hearted one at best. She went into the kitchen, stood at the back door, pondering. It was too late to try to get up to Southwold today; she’d go tomorrow. Meanwhile, her gardener’s eye was already noting the damage the wind had done to the garden, the way that rain and sun had caused a surge of growth, especially, as so often seemed the way, among the weeds. John, the man who helped her in the garden once a week, would be coming tomorrow, but there was nothing to stop her making a start today…

  She was engaged in ruthless attack against the stinging nettles that were doing their best to invade the large border that ran alongside the fence when, through the open back door, she thought she heard the doorbell. She sat back on her heels, cocking her head, listening. She had changed into an old skirt and jumper, donned socks and wellingtons and an old pair of leather gloves.

  The bell rang again.

  Richard…

  ‘Oh, Lord, just look at me!’ But her heart was beating like a drum. She scrambled to her feet, pulling off the gloves, brushing the dirt and moisture from the sleeves of her jumper. ‘I’m coming,’ she called. She ran to the back door, kicked off her boots, grinned at the sight of the heavy brown socks – one of which had a hole in the toe – and ran through the house to the front door.

  The man on the front doorstep looked a little startled at her tousled appearance, but he was nowhere near as taken aback as Annie was.

  ‘Fergus,’ she said, blankly. ‘Hello.’ The disappointment that was welling inside her was all but unbearable. It couldn’t be Fergus, it couldn’t be.

  Fergus doffed his hat. ‘Hello, Annie.’ The words were absurdly awkward. She had forgotten how plump he was, how thin his hair.

  There was an embarrassing moment of silence. ‘I… was passing,’ he said. ‘I thought… I’d pop in and see—’ he cleared his throat ‘how you were—’

  She stepped back, holding the door open. ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Do come in.’ The words, like her smile, were over-bright. She could have wept. She wanted to scream. ‘Tea?’ she asked.

  The hour that followed was an excruciating one. Annie did her best, but the cold stone of disappointment that seemed to have settled in her stomach did not make for sparkling conversation. She wanted Fergus to go, to leave her alone to nurse it. She had tried; she had almost succeeded. But it was impossible to deny that fierce surge of happiness which had so betrayed her, and had made the dashing of her suddenly raised hopes so hard to endure.

  Fergus perched uncomfortably on the edge of the sofa, his cup and saucer balanced on his knee. ‘You look a little pale,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve had a couple of late nights,’ she said absently, stirring her tea, and completely missing the sudden sharpness of his glance at her. ‘And I spent this morning serving tea and cakes to what felt like half of Kew and all of Richmond, so I’ve been on my feet all day. I’m a bit tired, that’s all.’

  He glanced around. ‘Where’s Davie?’

  ‘At Southwold with Mother. It’s half-term. You know they like to have a few days together.’

  He nodded. ‘It must be… lonely for you without him?’ he suggested tentatively.

  Annie shrugged. ‘Would you like another cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She stood, took his cup and saucer and walked to the table. ‘How are things at the office?’ she had begun politely, when there came the clatter of the letterbox.

  Her heart lurched.

  Fergus leaned to look out of the window. ‘Postman,’ he said. ‘I’ll go.’ Annie was astonished at the quick stir of resentment brought by this assumption of a familiarity that in her mind no longer existed. But she bit her tongue and said nothing.

  He left the room, returned carrying a letter: a plain, heavy cream envelope addressed in a neat and regular hand that Annie recognised immediately. She had last seen it on the flyleaf of the book Richard had bought for Davie in Paris. Fergus held it out to her. She took it and, with a composure that she herself could scarcely believe, glanced at it and then tucked it behind the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘It’s nothing important. I’ll look at it later. I was saying, how’s business going?’

  Poor Fergus had known from the moment she opened the door that the impulse which had brought him here had not been a sound one. He struggled on for a while longer before ostentatiously glancing at his pocket watch. ‘Well – I mustn’t keep you any longer.’ He stood up. ‘It’s been nice to see you.’ The words were wistful.

  On impulse she kissed his cheek lightly. ‘And you.’

  ‘But…’ he hesitated, ‘but you haven’t changed your mind?’

  She shook her head gravely, suddenly torn with sympathy for him. ‘No, Fergus. I haven’t.’

  He nodded, smiled a small rueful smile, reached for his hat. Annie followed him out into the hall. ‘Do call again,’ she found herself saying, ‘if you’re passing. We shouldn’t lose touch.’

  Fergus fingered his hat brim, watching her for a moment, then he settled it on his head and smiled brightly. ‘No, of course not. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye, Fergus.’ Annie watched the stout figure down the path, then closed the door and leaned against it for a moment. Through the open door of the sitting room she could see the mantelpiece, the clock, the envelope tucked behind it. From the moment she had seen it she had been all too aware that there could be no foregone assumptions about its contents. An apology? A goodbye? More bitter recriminations and hateful comparisons? She clasped her hands behind her back and walked to the mantelpiece, stood looking at the envelope. At last, carefully, she reached for it. Even then she did not immediately open it. Almost superstitiously she fingered it for a moment; while unopened, it held threat and promise in about equal shares. Once opened, there would be no going back.

  The letter was short and to the point. It was not effusive, and contained only the mildest hint of an apology, though the tone was pleasant enough and the touch was light…

  Dear Annie,

  I neglected to ask, before my somewhat precipitous exit the other evening, if you might find it interesting to visit the new ‘Modern Foreign’ exhibition at the Tate? I’ve visited it once – it’s quite wonderful, much too much to take in all at once. Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Van Gogh, Matisse, Renoir, Lautrec – they’re all there. What do you think? I would, of course, be the last one to blame you should you have discovered over the past couple of days that your enthusiasm for the Impressionists and all their works had waned a little. Or even a great deal. That would be a pity. In the hope that it has not, I’ll wait at the entrance tomorrow (Friday) afternoon at three.

  Love,

  Richard.

  Annie re-read the letter, then lifted her head to regard herself in the mirror that hung above the mantelpiece. ‘Love, Richard,’ she said, indignantly. ‘He’s got a bloody cheek! If he thinks I’m going to his beastly bloody exhibition with him at the drop of a hat—’ She stopped, laughing aloud at herself.

  Perhaps, after all, she would give a little more serious consideration to her decision to go to Southwold tomorrow…?

  Humming, and still in her stockinged feet, she went into the kitchen to prepare herself some supper. Suddenly, and unexpectedly, she found that she was famished.

  * * *

  It was a cool, sunny afternoon, with a slightly chill breeze blowing from the river. Annie, determined not to be early, sauntered along the Victoria Embankment, pausing every now and again to lean against the parapet and watch the bustling activity on the Thames. She was wearing green and cream, a pretty, short-skirted dress that she knew showed off her legs to good advantage, and a hip-length matching jacket. As a gust of wind blew again from the water she lifted a gloved hand to her narrow-brimmed hat, entirely unaware of
the appraising glances of a group of young men sitting on one of the elaborate cast-iron benches that were set at intervals beneath the trees lining the wide pavement. A pleasure boat crowded with sightseers chugged by. She watched it for a moment before turning to continue to stroll towards Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. She glanced at her watch. Five to three. Despite herself, faint anxiety lifted. Perhaps she shouldn’t be too late? She quickened her pace.

  Richard saw her coming before she saw him. One of the first things he had noticed about her was the way she walked: straight-backed, long-legged and graceful. Her heavy, straight hair blew a little in the breeze, and her cheeks were bright with colour in the wind. He smiled. The cream and green outfit, with its carefully matched accessories, was very becoming, very fashionable. But, no matter how she tried, Annie’s special charm did not fit the conventions of the day. She was too tall for fashion, and too shapely. Her face was too open, her smile too quick; she was no sophisticate, nor ever could be. Yet that unconsciously graceful walk was almost provocative. His blood stirred.

  She caught sight of him, smiled a little awkwardly as she joined him.

  He had anticipated that. He kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘An apology,’ he said, before she could speak, ‘then the exhibition. Then we’ll talk. How does that sound?’

  She watched him steadily for a moment, then nodded.

  ‘Right. The apology first. I’m sorry I hurt you the other night. I didn’t intend to, I promise. I got… carried away. A little too much Champagne, perhaps—’

  Ruefully she put a hand to her forehead. ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘I had no right to lose my temper with you. I had no right to say some of the things I said. Can we start again?’

  She did not have it in her to prevaricate. ‘Yes.’

  He smiled, held out his hand. ‘Good. Let’s go and look at the pictures.’