‘Larry, I think you should leave.’
‘Because of the quarrel? I said I’m sorry and I meant it. I’ll never doubt you again.’
‘I want you to leave. Now, as soon as you can collect your things.’
He moved towards her, and she was very afraid. She backed towards the kitchen. She saw the concern on his face change to shock as she almost screamed, ‘Keep away from me. Don’t come near me, ever again! I don’t know what your game is, but you aren’t playing it here any longer, d’you hear me? Go!’
‘I can’t leave you like this.’
‘Go, or I’ll call the police and tell them everything that’s happened.’
‘But what has happened? What’s this about tapping? You heard something tonight and think I’m involved, is that it?’
‘That’s only a part of it. Get out, and leave me alone.’
‘Tell me what happened. If you’re in danger I can’t leave you. I love you, you must believe that?’
‘I don’t believe a word you say.’
Larry recognised from the wild look in her eyes, the terrified expression that made a stranger of her, that she wouldn’t listen to him.
‘I’ll go. Of course I’ll go if that’s what you really want. But darling, I won’t be far away. Please remember while you sit trying to unravel this mystery, that I am on your side, whatever happens. I love you. I’ll come like the wind any time you need me. You don’t even have to explain. I’ll never doubt you again. If you say you heard tapping, I believe you. Stranger things than that have happened. And I’ve shared them with you. Do you want to tell me about the tapping?’
The realisation he was humouring her, that he was pretending to believe her to persuade her to talk to him, was the very end.
‘Get out. I’ll put the rest of your things outside the front door for you to collect. I want you out of here.’
‘Like this?’ He attempted a smile as he gestured towards the towel he was wearing, fastened around his waist.
‘Just get dressed, and leave,’ she said more calmly.
* * *
The house seemed unnaturally silent after he had gone. She turned on all the lights and walked from room to room, convincing herself that the atmosphere of menace that had been present in the very air she breathed was gone. Larry’s departure had ended the haunting of her home. It was hers again. Once she had put out all his things, the final vestige of a minatory presence would dissolve with the last of the darkness.
As she had once before, she pulled the covers from the bed and bundled them into a black plastic sack. She might not throw them away, as she had after the intruder had lain on her bed, but she would wash and wash them to get out the last lingering hint of his very existence. She struggled and managed to turn the heavy mattress over. Larry was gone and would never return.
To her surprise, when she pulled back the curtain, it was daylight. She stared at the clock in disbelief. It was past nine o’clock. She was late for work!
She washed, then looked in the wardrobe for something to wear and stared at the two sides of the hanging space. On the right were the clothes she had bought since she had known Larry; bright, fashionable, out-going styles. On the left, were the remnants of her old self: the browns and beiges, the sensible shoes and practical suits. Was she a split personality, being someone for Larry and someone completely different for the rest of the world?
Almost reluctantly, considering it another episode in the ending of her relationship with Larry, she chose from the left. A mid-brown skirt with a cream shirt-blouse over which she put on a dark, long-line cardigan with large pockets. Looking at herself, she saw a dowdy, shapeless young woman, who would continue to look the same until her hair changed to grey and she became old and shrivelled. With a defiance that almost brought a smile, she brushed her hair and piled it into a bunch. Around it she plaited a coloured scarf in greens with touches of yellows and reds. ‘Dead, but you won’t lie down,’ she told her reflection, with a wry grin.
She felt almost light-hearted as she left for work. She glanced back at the house and thought that now she had at last faced up to the obvious, admitted to herself that she had been deluding herself, that Larry was indeed the instigator of all the troubles, the house was no longer frightening. She picked up the key that Larry had ostentatiously handed to her as he left, and tucked it into her handbag. This evening, she would put it back in the shed, where she had always kept it. The danger was faced, dealt with, and could now be put behind her.
Megan was delighted to hear her news. ‘Thank goodness you’ve come to your senses at last!’ She hugged Rosemary. ‘What say we go out at lunch-time and celebrate?’
‘Better still, come home with me this evening and we’ll eat too much and drink too much and forget Larry ever existed.’
‘Still nervous, aren’t you, for all your new bravado? Not that I blame you. It’ll take time for you to realise that it’s all over, that the house is yours again.’
‘I’m not nervous,’ Rosemary smiled happily. ‘I felt a return of sanity the moment the door closed behind him. Honestly! All right! To show you I’m no longer nervous, let’s leave it for tonight, and you come tomorrow night. There, are you convinced?’
‘Convinced! But, is this why you’ve changed your image? To show how easily he’s being forgotten?’ Megan touched the long skirt and turned her head quizzically.
‘I don’t know.’ Rosemary frowned. ‘I only know I don’t want to do or be anything that’s remotely reminiscent of Larry Madison-Jones – or whoever he really is. I’ve had a lucky escape. I don’t know where it would have ended if I hadn’t come to my senses.’ Despite her brave words, she was apprehensive as she undressed for bed that night. Larry’s belongings had disappeared from the front step so she presumed he had called to collect them before she came home from work. Several times she thought she heard the Citroen and her heart began to race, but each time it was only her imagination. She slept without incident until the alarm warned her that it was time to rise.
* * *
On the following evening, Megan – and Sally, who had coaxed an invitation from her – came home to the cottage. By majority vote they went to the local public house to eat. There were several people from the village there, including Muriel and Henry, and they spent the evening chattering and laughing with them. Rosemary relaxed and glowed with the return of her sense of ‘belonging’ that had vanished after her holiday earlier in the year.
‘It’s as if I’ve been away since early June,’ Rosemary explained when Sally commented on her high spirits. ‘I didn’t realise how much I’ve missed them. Gethyn and I used to come over here often before June, we’d sit in the garden or the bar and have a drink. We never stayed long though, he was always so fearful of his mother needing something and not be able to ask him.’
‘How is he coping on his own?’ Sally asked. ‘Has he heard anything more about his house?’
‘I’m ashamed to tell you I don’t know. Of all the friends I’ve neglected, Gethyn is the one about which I’m most ashamed.’
Later, they sat idly watching the late-night film and Sally picked up the newspaper in which Rosemary had been attempting to complete the crossword. She noticed the series of crosses and circles and asked about them.
‘What’s this, morse code?’ she asked.
‘Morse code? I didn’t think of that!’
Rosemary explained that was how she had written down the tapping she had heard on the night when she hadn’t gone to bed. Although doubtful, she reached for a dictionary and found the translation of short and long taps. Sally read the numbers and gradually they began to translate.
‘Four dots, that’s ‘H’. One dot, that’s ‘E’. Two dashes, that’s ‘M’. Two dots and one dash, that’s ‘U’.’
‘It’s nonsense,’ Rosemary protested. ‘What can HEMU mean?’ But Megan continued, and under their startled gaze, the letters revealed the short sentence, HE MUST GO.
Rosemary threw the pa
per from them and watched as it curled up and disintegrated in the flames of the fire.
‘Who’s doing it?’ she cried.
‘Boy Scouts, practising for their badges,’ Sally joked. ‘Forget it.’
It was a long time before any of them slept. In their separate beds they lay listening, half expecting something to happen, becoming wider awake rather than more sleepy as imagination took them in its grip. But the night passed without incident.
The following Saturday, Rosemary called in at number three. Gethyn was there, sitting beside Mrs Priestley.
‘What’s this, another party?’ she asked.
‘There’s a bit of bother we thought you might like to know about, love,’ Muriel said, handing her a drink. ‘Sit down by there, next to Gethyn while Henry gets out the papers and then we’ll tell you all about it.’
Henry shuffled his large frame into a captain’s chair near the window and began.
‘By accident I found out. I was talking to Trevor Trew who works in planning and he told me what was happening, gabbling on about it as if it were general knowledge! I was crafty mind, didn’t let on I was ignorant in case he stopped “gabbling on” and I’d have missed something.’
‘About what?’ Rosemary asked, her mouth suddenly dry. She felt anxious. All her memories of the recent troubles flooded back to haunt her. Was this going to be a return of them? Or an explanation? She wondered which would be worse.
‘Come on, Henry, stop keeping the girl guessing,’ Muriel said giving him a shove. ‘Tell ’em quick now, or I will!’
‘A group of local businessmen is hoping to buy all five cottages and turn them into an hotel. There now, what d’you think of that?’
The news when it came caused the three guests to frown. But in Rosemary’s case, the frown quickly faded as she began to wonder if the hotel scheme had been the reason for the attempt to drive her from her house. This question was promptly followed by the realisation that if it were true, it was the consortium planning the hotel behind what had been happening – and not Larry.
‘Tell me more,’ she said and she tried to hide the relief that had lightened her heart.
‘It seems that when they heard of your plan to sell, then learnt that Gethyn’s house was only rented and with a tenancy no longer valid, they came up with the idea of buying the rest of us out and making the row into a small, exclusive hotel.
‘There’s a fair bit of land at the back, and the stream to add a bit of scenery at the front. It would be a good centre for country rambles, bird watching and botanists. But it’s only a good proposition if they can get the whole bang lot of them cheap. I suspect,’ Henry went on in his deep slow voice, ‘they each planned to make a purchase as a private individual so we wouldn’t catch on and demand a higher price.’
‘How far would they go to make sure we sold to them, Henry?’ Rosemary asked and she saw from the sympathetic look from both Muriel and Henry that her thoughts about Larry’s innocence were shared.
‘I don’t know who is involved, so I can’t answer your question, but I’ll be very surprised if there isn’t some connection between the hopeful purchasers and the things that have been happening to you,’ Henry said with a thump on the table to emphasise his conviction.
‘We think you ought to go back to the police, love,’ Muriel said.
‘No.’ Rosemary shook her head. ‘It’s enough to know the reason. It’s not knowing why, that’s kept me awake at nights. That and the fact I blamed Larry. No, I won’t go back to the police.’
‘I think you should,’ Muriel insisted.
‘I agree,’ said Mrs Priestley. ‘Best we get them businessmen off our backs. I don’t want them to start pestering me.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that!’ Rosemary said with a startled gasp. ‘Of course. If they want mine, they’ll want yours too. Yes, I suppose I must.’
‘I won’t move. Ever,’ Mrs Priestley went on. ‘I need to stay in case — well I suppose it’s a foolish dream after thirty years, but I won’t move no matter how good the offer, in case my son comes home.’
‘What about you, Henry?’ Gethyn asked.
He was very pale. Rosemary guessed that for him the news made it extremely unlikely that the tenancy would be transferred. It was the death of his hope to stay in the cottage that had been his only home.
‘I don’t want to let you all down,’ Henry said, ‘but we have been thinking about selling and moving to Bala. And this might mean a better offer than we’d otherwise have.’
‘We won’t go yet though,’ Muriel said. ‘We’ll delay as long as we can. Perhaps if they know that Mrs Priestley is definite about staying, and the Powells won’t want to sell and have nowhere to come home to when they leave Australia, they might give up the idea and look elsewhere. And you, Rosemary. Will you be staying now you know the reason for the incidents?’
‘I honestly don’t know.’
Her mind was less on what was being said than on places she could try to get in touch with Larry. The problem of someone buying up the cottages was far below the top of her list of priorities now she knew that Larry wasn’t involved. There were still many things unexplained, but knowing she had been wrong about his causing the things that had frightened her was lifting her spirits like a runaway balloon.
‘What do we do?’ Gethyn asked. ‘I’ve sent a request for my tenancy to be confirmed but there’s little chance they’ll agree. You see, my house is owned by the same people who own the local pub. It’s the same sort of business, leisure industry they call it, and they won’t let go to please someone as unimportant as me, will they?’
Muriel suggested letters to the paper, and a bit of local stirring, believing that publicity of any kind would harm the prospects of the consortium succeeding.
‘They’ll only have to wait for me to die, they’d get my place then for sure,’ Mrs Priestley said with a wan smile. She stroked the cat and shook her head as the others began to protest. ‘No, I’m getting on in years and it would only take a push at the wrong time if they really wanted me out of the way. I’ll be the stubborn one you see, renting and not having any money to make out of moving.’
‘A push at the wrong time! Don’t start worrying about things like that, love,’ Muriel said. ‘They aren’t murderers for heaven’s sake! If they did plan a few shocks for Rosemary, it was only to get things started. They wouldn’t have gone to any greater lengths than a few tricks.’
‘Perhaps.’ The old lady’s eyes wandered briefly to Gethyn, and she said quietly, ‘But you won’t get me wandering up on the mountain on my own for sure.’
‘Whatever did she mean by that?’ Gethyn asked as he and Rosemary left. ‘She doesn’t think Mam was attacked so someone could buy the house?’
‘No of course she doesn’t!’ Rosemary spoke with a conviction she didn’t feel. ‘She’s afraid of dying before her son returns, that’s all. Fear of a bad fall is always in the minds of the elderly. It’s the biggest danger to their mobility and mobility is what they value most.’
‘Perhaps you’re right.’ Gethyn didn’t look convinced.
‘I was intending to come and see you tomorrow morning,’ Rosemary said to change the subject. ‘I wondered if you’d like to come for lunch? Since I went on holiday we haven’t had a good long talk.’
‘Is the American likely to be there?’ he asked with an attempt at lightness.
‘Larry has gone. It – didn’t work out,’ she said.
‘Gone for good? Not just gallivanting off somewhere?’
‘Gone for good.’
‘Thank you, I’d love to come. About half-twelve?’
‘I’ll look forward to it.’
But in fact she almost forgot it. She spent all evening and most of the following morning trying to get in touch with Larry.
* * *
Gethyn arrived on the dot of 12.30. She was pleased to note that his clothes had improved. He wore a pair of jeans and a smart shirt and no tie. His shoes were comfor
table trainers. He looked at her with open admiration in his dark eyes and he seemed more confident, more sure of himself. And, she surprised herself by thinking, far more attractive than she had realised.
‘Gethyn, you look super,’ she smiled as she invited him in.
‘So do you. But you always look beautiful, Rosemary.’
She handed him a drink and he sat on the settee where he could watch her through the kitchen door as she put the finishing touches to their lunch. On the floor beside the settee was the telephone book and a paper on which she had been scribbling lists of phone numbers then crossing them off.
‘Been trying to find someone?’ he asked casually.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.’
‘The American?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. Larry. His name’s Larry.’
‘Then don’t! Rosemary, it’s really best that you don’t.’
‘I have to, I owe him an apology.’
‘Then don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
He stood up and was watching her with a slight frown on his face, his handsome face, she realised with a start of surprise. Gethyn was really rather handsome and in this new, more positive mood, perhaps more than just the boy next door.
15
Rosemary spent most of her spare time during the following weeks trying to locate Larry. She tried the numbers he had given her at various times, over and over again in case he had made contact. She asked everyone she could think of if they had seen the red and white Citroen.
She also spent some time with Gethyn in spite of her fears that he would misunderstand and read more into her visits that she intended. The night when she had heard that frightening tap-tapping, she had seriously considered the idea of the mysterious visitor being the ghost of Gethyn’s mother. That crazy explanation for the visitation vanished as the dawn pushed the darkness aside, but there remained the guilty feeling that she had ignored Gethyn in his grieving. She had let him down.
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