No Friend of Mine 1.0

by Lilian Peake

  She jerked away from him, trying to avoid having to answer his question, but he held on to her wrist. She shook her head helplessly. ‘I’m sorry, Lester, I had no idea … But.’ she looked at the scar again and frowned, ‘there’s nothing I can do about it now, is there?’

  ‘Nothing that would have any material value, no. Er - just a thought.’ a gleam came into his eyes, ‘you could do something that might help to heal the wound in other ways.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper, a maddening, gloating whisper, ‘You could kiss it better.’

  She caught her breath and stared at him. ‘You can’t be serious!’

  He saw her doubt and lifted his hand towards her mouth. ‘Go on. After all these years of carrying that unpleasant reminder of you with me, I think I deserve something in the nature of an apology, an act of obeisance, the administering of a balm, by you who inflicted it on me in the first place.’

  Overcome by a ridiculous sense of guilt, she moved as if under hypnosis and her hand stretched out to take hold of his, but as her fingers made contact with his flesh, she became aware of what was happening. He was her big brother’s infuriating friend all over again, laughing at her and taunting her as he used to do in the past. And she had almost fallen into his well-laid trap.

  Horrified that she had even considered doing his bidding, angry that she had almost permitted herself to be lowered into a state of servility because of something that had happened between them so many years before that she could not now accept responsibility for it, she broke away from him violently.

  She stood for a moment staring down at him, incensed beyond words at his subtle manipulation of the situation like a clever lawyer placing the guilt on the wrong person.

  Then she turned and ran from the room, shutting the door on his derisive laughter.

  Elise relaxed on Sundays. She cooked the lunch and tidied up, and spent the rest of the day doing very little at all. Her part-time job at Phil Pollard’s shop left her afternoons free. That was when she cleaned the house and washed the family’s clothes.

  Her father had often told her she need not go to work. With two substantial salaries coming in, he would say - his and Roland’s - he was quite willing to give her all the money she wanted for her own personal needs.

  But Elise had stubbornly refused to accept the role of full time housekeeper. She did not want to be financially dependent on her father and in any case could not regard the work she did in the house as a ‘job’, with her father as employer. She did it, she often told him, because she was his daughter and happened to be fond of him!

  The two men helped her whenever they could. Sometimes, during the college vacations, her father would potter about in the kitchen experimenting with savoury dishes which he saw in Elise’s cookery books and which, he said, looked too mouth-watering to resist.

  Lunch was over and she was on her way upstairs when the doorbell rang. Surprised at having a caller on a Sunday afternoon, she opened the door.

  ‘Hallo, Lester.’ she said in flat tones to the man on the doorstep, and moved back to let him in. She could not understand why her pulse rate should have accelerated so alarmingly just because Lester Kings had come to the house.

  ‘Hallo, Elise, Roland in?’

  She nodded. ‘Upstairs in his room. Would you like to go up?’

  Her voice sounded even and controlled and she deliberately eliminated any trace of warmth from her expression as she looked at him. His smile died away at the sight of her lifeless face.

  He frowned and asked sharply, ‘Which room? The same as he used to have?’

  She nodded again and he sprinted up the stairs. She followed and went into her own bedroom. She heard her brother’s welcome and for the next half-hour listened to their raised voices and their rollicking laughter with envy so powerful it frightened her.

  She had never felt the need for company before. Her nature was solitary -a trait she had inherited from her father. It was a fact she never quarreled with and had never tried to alter. She had always felt different from other girls of her own age. She hadn’t needed friends as they had done. There was an obstacle within her which had prevented the spontaneous interchange of thoughts and words and laughter which seemed to be an essential part of other girls’ lives.

  Her brother had always been there to give her companionship if she felt she needed any. Now it seemed that, almost imperceptibly, and within only a few hours of Lester Kings’ return into their lives, things had already started to change. And the thought filled her with fear - and foreboding.

  She sighed, telling herself not to be foolish. She had intended listening to some records but the mood had passed. Instead, she stared out of the window, watching her father at work in the back garden, seeing the bare branches of the apple trees, still enslaved by the paralytic hand of winter, moving stiffly in the wind. She knew there must be the beginnings of buds on those branches, but they were out of her range of vision.

  Her thoughts turned inwards as she sought for solace inside herself, but her emotions were like rigid leafless branches, stripped bare of foliage, stunted by the iron control she exercised over them every day of her life. She was as dead inside as winter and if any buds existed giving promise of flowers to come then she could not see them.

  Roland’s door opened. He called, ‘Elise, are you in there?’ He knocked and walked in, with Lester close behind.

  Her bleak expression was familiar to her brother and he did not seem to notice it. Lester’s eyes flicked over her face and took in the desolate droop of her shoulders.

  ‘We’re going for a walk.’ Roland said. ‘Coming?’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Your favourite retreat, Dawes Hall woods.’ ‘All right, I’ll get ready.’

  ‘I thought you’d say that. I told you, Lester, didn’t I? She haunts the place.’

  ‘So you said.’

  Roland went out and Elise picked up a comb from the dressing-table and ran it through her hair. Lester lounged against the wall and watched. She wished he would go. She dusted some powder over her cheeks and turned quickly from her own reflection.

  Lester went on leaning against the wall, hands in pockets, watching her, saying nothing. She wished he would talk, would even make a joke at her expense, anything but stand there with that merciless, dissecting look on his face as though he were analysing every particle of her body.

  Her jacket was in the wardrobe and she reached inside to get it, wishing she could hide in there until he had gone. She felt as if the antennae of his mind were reaching down into her very depths.

  She swung round to face him asking sharply, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’

  He eased himself upright and smiled slightly. ‘Since you’ve asked me and since I’m an old friend of the family, I’ll answer the question frankly - yes, there’s quite a lot wrong with you. But that isn’t why I was looking at you. I was just trying to find out what makes you tick.’

  ‘And what’s the answer?’

  ‘I don’t know. You remain an enigma - for the moment.’ He stood back to let her precede him down the stairs. Roland was waiting in the hall.

  ‘I’ve told Dad we’re going out.’ He held the door open for her and Lester, then shut it behind him.

  They walked along the pavement away from the main road and crossed a bridge which spanned the railway line. Soon they were climbing a hill towards the fields and Lester walked with a certainty which revealed that he, like his companions, knew every inch of the way.

  They made for an avenue of elm trees and walked along it three abreast, with Roland in the middle. The broad tree-lined drive was bordered on each side by fields and it bore left to pass a country mansion, now in ruins.

  But they went straight on making for the woods which were an attractive part of the Dawes Hall estate. The former owner had died and the people of the neighbourhood were hoping that the present owners would sell the place to someone who would restore the house-and the fields and woods attached to the prope
rty - to their former glory.

  The public had constant and unimpeded access to the estate, not by order of the present owners, but by custom and neglect. There was not a single fence left intact.

  ‘I remember when we used to come here as kids.’ Lester said, turning to look back at the old mansion standing gaunt and decaying, its windows smashed, its doors swinging loose in the breeze. ‘The place was magnificent then. Now look at it.’

  ‘The old man died.’ Roland told him. ‘His relatives have been fighting over the property for years.’

  ‘I know. My grandfather told me.’

  The woods were long and narrow and were bordered by fields. Winding its way through the trees was a well-worn path, hard and rutted in a summer drought, in winter rains an impossible bog.

  ‘There’s the tree we used to climb.’ Lester walked to the base of a hornbeam and patted its trunk. ‘The footholds are still there. What about it, Elise?’ he joked. ‘You first?’

  She laughed and his eyes lingered momentarily on her face.

  ‘I remember the day she got struck up there.’ Roland remarked. ‘I tried to get her down and she screamed and said she didn’t want me, she wanted you.’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’ Lester said thoughtfully, his eyes still on her. ‘I did get her down, too, partly by persuasion and partly by brute force. After that she insisted on holding my hand all the way home. Do you remember, Elise?’

  She coloured slightly and nodded.

  ‘That must have been before the rot set in, before she began to hate me in earnest.’ He gave her a challenging smile, but she did not respond.

  They moved on and Elise said, ‘I remember going for walks with the two of you and listening to what you were saying and trying to understand, but it was way above my head, intellectually as well as physically!’

  ‘And no wonder.’ Roland said. ‘If I can think back that far, we spent most of our time discussing things like politics and philosophy, didn’t we, Lester?’

  He nodded. ‘We thought we knew all the answers to all the questions in those days. And I remember her.’ he indicated Elise, looking up at us and asking “what’s this?” and “what’s that?” Of course we never condescended to answer. I remember something else, too. She insisted on walking between us and holding our hands like this.’ he caught her hand and held it, ‘and asking us to swing her.’ He grinned at Roland. ‘Shall we, for old times’ sake?’

  ‘No, thanks, Lester.’ Roland laughed. ‘I’ve outgrown it, even if she hasn’t!’

  Elise took her hand from Lester’s and pushed it into her jacket pocket. He tutted softly and said, ‘I thought you were going to hold it all the way home, just like you used to do.’

  She laughed again and he glanced down at her, smiling. She smiled back, feeling the blood racing through her veins and her emotions stirring from their long, long sleep. She was sure the bird song seemed louder and the sun brighter in the clear sky.

  ‘Are your parents still living in Newcastle, Lester?’ Roland asked, talking across Elise who was still in the centre.

  ‘Yes. And after I qualified, I was lucky enough to get a job near home, so I lived with them.’

  ‘And Nina’s their next-door neighbour? That’s convenient, isn’t it?’ They exchanged smiles.

  ‘Very.’ said Lester.

  Elise looked up sharply. A thrust of fear pierced her armour like a bullet. ‘Who’s Nina?’ she asked, dreading the answer.

  ‘My fiancee.’ Lester said.

  CHAPTER 2

  WHEN they arrived home from their walk, Elise made tea for them all. Her father came in from the garden and they drank it in the firelight. Elise curled up in her favourite armchair while the men talked. She did not attempt to join in. Instead she watched the flames licking and darting greedily round the logs her brother had thrown on the fire.

  Her face reflected the melancholy of her thoughts. She could not understand why the sun, which had seemed to be rising on her world, had set again so finally and irreversibly. She felt she had lost something she never even knew she had and the feeling tormented her.

  The men were discussing Alfred Kings, Lester’s grandfather.

  ‘So he’s called you in to pull him out of the mess?’ Harold was saying. ‘I don’t know whether you know it, but he’s got a name in these parts for being an old rascal.’

  ‘You’ve got a lot to live down, Lester,’ Roland commented, holding out his cup for more tea.

  Elise unwound herself from her comfortable position and refilled his cup, then her father’s. She looked at Lester, pointing to the teapot and raising her eyebrows in query. He nodded and she filled his cup, too. She handed it back and he smiled at her, murmuring his thanks. She felt a warmth flooding through her which she knew was not caused by those flames roaring up the chimney, and which were methodically destroying the logs now charred almost beyond recognition.

  ‘I’ve chatted to a few people already,’ Lester said, ‘and I’ve got some idea of local opinion. But my methods are radically different from my grandfather’s and I certainly don’t intend to follow in his footsteps.’

  ‘One thing he can’t seem to do,’ Harold said, ‘is keep his best workers. In my job - you know I teach surveying at the technical college? - I hear these things on the grapevine via the building students, and the best ones say they wouldn’t work for “old Kings”, as they call him, for a fortune.’

  Lester shook his head, staring at the fire. ‘I didn’t know that. But I do know that his relations with his employees are bad. It seems he was constantly overruling his site manager and ordering stuff when it was not needed or at the wrong time, so they were getting deliveries of materials - tiles, cement and so on - long before they were necessary. Nor had he kept the accounts properly because he was trying to do it all himself.’

  Elise gathered the cups and saucers on to the tray and carried them to the kitchen. She washed them and left them to drain. She could hear the men’s voices and knew they were too absorbed in their discussion to miss her.

  She went up to her bedroom and shut herself in. She sat on the bed and looked round the room which had been hers since childhood. There were books on the shelf her father had put up. The table, once piled high with children’s comics, schoolgirl magazines and dolls’ clothes now boasted proudly among the magazines and leaflets, a transistor radio, a portable television set and expensive hi-fi equipment.

  She leaned on the window sill and stared out at the garden. Down there on the lawn she could remember the scars - the grooves and ridges they had inflicted on it as children. She recalled how they used to scrape the lawn with the soles of their shoes and dig into it with their heels as they moved to and fro on the garden swing they used to have.

  She could remember Lester tormenting her on it, pushing her on it so high she had been forced to scream to make him stop. Sometimes he had scrambled up and swung from the top bar, kicking out with his legs and threatening to drop down and land on her head if she didn’t get off the seat.

  More than anything else about him she remembered his taunts and his teasing and even now the feeling of resentment and hatred welled up in her as she remembered the Lester of long ago. Time had not thrown out the memory, it clung to her still.

  She turned away from the window and sighed. This room was her world, the centre of her existence, the pivot round which her life revolved. There she could be herself, relaxed and at peace. It was her sanctuary, her hiding place and as such, she would share it with no one.

  She changed into black trousers and an old black ribbed sweater which seemed to have tightened with each washing. But it did not matter what she looked like. She would not

  go downstairs until tea time and by then Lester would have gone.

  She combed her hair until it fluffed out round her cheeks and slipped on a wide blue band to keep it tidy. She could not understand why, but there seemed to be an unmistakable improvement in her looks. She shrugged and turned away from the mirror.

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nbsp; She selected a record from the rack, placed it carefully on the turntable and extracted her elaborate and expensive headphones from the pile of leaflets under which they were buried. She lowered the headphones carefully over her head, kicked off her shoes and stretched out on the bed, raising her hands to support her head. She closed her eyes and escaped into the magic world of stereophonic sound.

  She lay there for some time, cocooned in the music, wrapped in a blanket of pleasurable tones and harmonies.

  Something alerted her, some warning bell in her brain started ringing. Someone was in the room. She held her breath and opened her eyes. Lester was standing beside the bed, hands in pockets, legs slightly apart, looking down at her. There was no smile on his face, not even the teasing glint in his eyes to which she had become conditioned since childhood. He was looking at her instead with a pity, a depth of compassion which dismayed and frightened her. She would rather have had his taunts and his mockery than his pity.

  She sat up, swinging her feet to the floor. She lifted off the headphones and leaned across to stop the record player. Lester lowered himself on to the bed beside her. He was smiling now.

  ‘I did knock, but when you didn’t answer I took an old friend’s license and walked in.’ He looked at the headphones now lying on her lap. ‘So you’ve achieved your ultimate goal - you have totally and uncompromisingly shut out the world.’ He shook his head. ‘You know, you are the most extraordinary female I’ve ever come across.’