‘Yes,’ she said, in a way which invited no follow-up. So I didn’t try. It was none of my business anyway, but I foresaw trouble when the time came.
More interesting to me was her relationship with Ferguson. In fact I was very interested in both members of that family in a strange mixed-up way.
Annie disliked me, despised me it seemed, and had almost cracked my skull open. Yet despite this, or perhaps because of it, I was strongly attracted to her. I had never been unfaithful to Jan (what was going on now between Moira Jane and myself I just didn’t count) nor even seriously contemplated it. Now, after just a couple of meetings in the most unpromising circumstances, with a girl who hated me, I found myself considering the shape of a future without Janet.
And Ferguson himself became more fascinating the more I learned about him. I had sneered at the blunt, oracular façade, but had not had much chance to see what lay beneath.
One of the things that lay beneath was a very highly sexed man.
‘Have you known him long?’ I asked more than once.
Sometimes she didn’t bother to answer my questions at all. At best I was permitted to make the minimal break in her routines. But on this occasion she was almost talkative.
‘Nearly twenty years.’
‘And how long have you …?’
‘Been his whore? Seventeen years in October. I’ll tell you the date if you like. And it’s eight years since he finished with me.’
‘You mean he doesn’t come any more?’
‘Oh yes. He still comes. I didn’t finish with him, you see.’
She turned to face me.
‘I didn’t weather very well, did I? I was once middling to fair topped off with a great dollop of devotion. A bit of worship goes a lot further than a classical profile. But it all wore thin. And I wasn’t getting any younger. So I caught poor Reckitt before it was too late.’
‘Was that when it stopped with Ferguson?’
‘Oh no. Not till later. But that was when hopes of an honourable settlement stopped.’
She laughed at her phrase.
‘He’d promised to marry me when his wife died.’
‘His wife?’
‘Oh, yes. There’s a wife. She’s been bedridden for nearly twenty years. Bed-ridden. That’s a funny word. On the point of death, too, from what he said. But it never came to the point. And even if it had, it was too late then. Too late for me. There were others by then. He’d got a taste for it, I think. It can happen. I know.’
‘His wife is dead now?’ I asked.
‘Not her. No, she’ll live for bloody ever. That’s why he still comes to see me. Her and his precious daughter. Plus his equally precious self-esteem. I have photos. Letters. So he comes and he sits and he talks. And I can feel him hating me all the time.’
She turned away from me again and stared at the window.
‘One day I think he’ll try to kill me.’
She spoke flatly, not to me but herself, and I couldn’t read fear or hope or even resignation into her voice.
I left her standing there. I had been interested in Ferguson and in Moira’s portrayal of him as a highly-sexed and potentially violent man.
He too had been on the fells that day last week.
But I had not wanted or expected to hear this ugly story of desire and blackmail. It sickened me and I tried to shut it out of my mind.
It says a great deal for human adaptability and very little for moral consistency that within a few days I was going to find the whole story very useful for myself.
The police came the third day I was there. She invited them into the kitchen and I sat with my ear to the bedroom door, praying that my washing up had been comprehensive enough to remove all trace of my presence. This was a return visit. She had told me that they had been a few hours before my arrival, warning her to look out and report anything strange.
‘But you left the door open,’ I said.
‘I knew you’d come,’ she said. ‘I’m the seventh bastard of a seventh bastard.’
Now the police, disturbed by their failure to net me, were retracing their paths.
‘No, I’ve seen nothing,’ she said.
‘I see. Still by yourself?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought you’d be off on Monday? Didn’t you say you were just here for the weekend?’
‘I changed my mind.’
‘I see. Well, be careful, ma’am. All by yourself here. I don’t want to worry you, but this man could be dangerous.’
‘I can be dangerous myself, Constable. Good day.’
She locked the door after him and came in to me.
‘You could be dangerous,’ she said.
That was the only time we broke our small sexual routine.
I wanted to find out what the papers were saying, but she refused to drive down to the village at the head of the lake and get them.
‘You want them, you go and get the bloody things,’ she said.
There wasn’t even a radio in the house so I had no idea at all what was going on. I sat around all day reading books and magazines belonging to Moira Jane. My clothes now consisted of a pair of her pants – the least translucent I could find, but they still looked obscene – and one of her ‘loose’ sweaters which was a tight fit for me. I asked her if she would help me get some men’s clothes. She replied coldly.
‘Look, you can stay here as long as you want. You’ll get food and drink, you’ll get a bed, you’ll get me. In return, I get you. That’s all you’ve got to give me. You’ve nothing to offer which makes it worth my while to help get you out of here.’
‘I’m going all the same,’ I said angrily.
‘Go. We’ve no agreement. But I warn you, once you’ve gone, I might use you in some other way.’
What she meant by this, I could not imagine. But the fact remained that I had to stomach my own wrath and indignation because my slim chances of getting right away were reduced to hopeless odds if I had to clothe myself as soon as I set out.
I began to invent wild schemes for stealing someone’s clothes, schemes impossible not only because of the violence involved, but because the only men I ever saw were anglers from the fishing hotel Moira told me stood at the bottom of the lake, and they were merely distant figures in minute boats, sitting motionless and patiently in the middle of the water. I envied them as they moved away in the evening, visualizing the company, the conversation, the good food and friendship which awaited them.
Reckitt was a fisherman himself, it seemed. There was a rod carefully stowed away in the kitchen and in one of the midnight strolls I permitted myself to take the air, I stumbled across a cockleshell boat, pulled up on the lakeside, which he must have used. I contemplated having a row in it, but closer investigation revealed that it had been out of the water so long, the boards had warped a little in the sun and it looked most unwaterworthy. I gave up the idea and returned to the other half of my nightly ritual.
On my fifth full day there, that is the sixth after my arrival, I lay on the bed staring into space and wondering for the hundredth time what I should do. I suppose in a way I had found the escaped prisoner’s ideal refuge, with food, shelter and a highly-sexed woman. But I knew that unless I decided something, events would decide it for me. I did not delude myself that Melton would remove his attention from this area. Certainly the net would be spread much wider now, but at the same time Melton would be using the reports of people like the constable who had so recently spoken to Moira Jane to narrow down the number of houses where I might conceivably be if I had not left the area. Houses unoccupied or occupied by one person only would come in for a very close scrutiny. In fact for all I knew the house was being watched already. I stirred uneasily. I had half hoped that something might have turned up in the past few days which indicated my innocence, but the policeman’s warning had shattered that comforting illusion. He had spoken as if my guilt was the most certain thing on earth. I idly wondered if I could sue him for slander if I manag
ed to prove myself innocent.
I still did not know whether Moira Jane believed me or not. Or whether she wanted to believe me or not. I ran mentally through a list of friends and business colleagues, trying to work out who would refuse to believe me guilty. Not one, I decided bitterly. And most of them would get a little thrill of pleasure, immediately and sincerely repressed perhaps, at my predicament. As for Jan, she must know by now wherever she had gone. Would she believe me innocent? Why should she? She had been ready to accuse me of sexual deviation with smaller grounds than this in Peter’s case.
I sat up and looked around for something to occupy my mind. I had been right through the magazines which lay strewn around me making the bed look like the table in a dentist’s waiting-room. I began to prowl around looking for fresh reading matter and pulled aside the curtains which shut off one of the corners of the room. Not having any clothes to hang up, I had never had occasion to go behind here before. A bar was fitted across the corner making a triangle with the walls and from it hung a variety of woman’s clothes. I pushed them aside, idly contemplating disguising myself as a woman, a prospect made even more ludicrous than it normally would have been by the fact that, not having a razor, I had grown a stubbly beard in the last week.
My eyes lit up as my search met with unexpected success. Protruding from the pocket of Moira Jane’s rain-coat I saw the familiar colour of a Penguin. I pulled it out and felt absurdly disappointed when I realized I had read it before. But as another piece of information I had registered swum up from my subconscious to my conscious mind, I flung the book aside and dragged the rain-coat off its hanger.
Underneath it was a suit of men’s clothes.
Inside the collar of the jacket I found a tab with the initials W. R. It was obviously Moira Jane’s husband’s. The pockets were quite empty. I pulled on the trousers and felt an absurd sense of power and authority as I did so. The jacket followed and I looked at myself in the mirror. It wasn’t at all a bad fit, a little small perhaps, but not ridiculously so. Even the pullover which was all I had to wear underneath did not look too out of place after I had twisted it round so that the V-neck was at the back.
Luckily Moira Jane had not committed my not-so-stout brogues to the stove, and I dragged them out from under the bed where I had put them after they had sat beneath the kitchen table throughout the policeman’s visit. The leather was now terribly dry but they were better than the woman’s slippers with trodden-down heels I was now wearing. I ruthlessly helped myself to three pairs of nylons, cut the feet off them with nail scissors, just above the ankles and used them as socks. The laces on my brogues had rotted away and snapped as soon as I applied pressure to them, so I used the nail scissors again to cut myself two strips of material from a black dress hanging behind the curtain. These did not look quite right, but I felt that if it got to the stage where my laces were being closely examined, I was finished anyway!
I took a last look at myself in the full-length mirror. I looked very different from the figure I normally presented to the public eye and began to feel reasonably confident of success.
Next I moved into the kitchen and helped myself to what food I could wrap up and get into my pockets without looking too bloated. From the drawer of the kitchen table I retrieved my wallet which Moira Jane had had the sense to remove before consigning my ragged jacket to the flames. It contained about ten pounds which I felt I was going to need if I was to get right away from the Lakes.
Finally I opened the living-room door and stepped inside.
Moira Jane did not turn round but continued her sculpting. She still had on the nylon overall which, despite the good supply of clothing hanging in the bedroom, was the only garment I had seen her wear since I arrived.
I stood and watched her. She had started work on my head a couple of days before and it had been fascinating to see my own features begin to rise out of the stone. But now as I watched, she stopped, put down her tools, loosened the clamp, lifted out the unfinished piece and calmly dropped it with a resounding crash by the wall with the others.
‘So you’re going,’ she said, turning round.
‘Yes.’
‘Goodbye.’
I took a step forward.
‘Look, Moira Jane, I’d like to …’
‘Shove off, Bentink. I’m not getting sentimental. You’ve been useful. You’ll still be useful when you’ve gone.’
I turned and left, slamming the door behind me, stalked out into the open with no effort whatsoever at concealment but had gone only twenty yards or so before I cursed myself for being such a stupid arrogant fool. What if she had known about the suit all along? What if she had been insufferably rude? I owed her much.
I turned round and trotted back to the cottage and in through the still open door. At the living-room door I stopped. I could hear someone speaking inside. I turned the handle quietly and peered in.
Moira Jane was sitting on the floor with the telephone in her hand. She had taken off her overall and was squeezing her right breast till her fingers left ugly red weals.
She spoke into the phone.
‘Yes. He’s been here. He’s assaulted me. Yes. He’s gone now. I’m not sure. South along the lake, I think. Yes, I’m hurt. Please hurry.’
And as I watched she picked up her chisel and drew the sharp corner diagonally across her body from the left shoulder to the right thigh. She did it slowly and carefully and I saw the red blood start up behind it.
Then she looked up and saw me standing there. Her face was as ever expressionless. She put down the phone and waited.
I closed the door gently behind me and sat down in the kitchen. I was trembling like a frightened puppy.
TEN
No noise came from the living-room and I had no intention of going back there. The question was, where did I have any intention of going? It would take the police some time to get here. The only road to the cottage twisted round through the fells behind, unmetalled for much of the way, and finally turned into the Forestry Commission track which skirted the edge of the lake.
I had all the time in the world to make good my escape up into the hills. But my whole being revolted against the thought. I could not face another game of hide-and-seek up there, even if the sun did happen to be shining at the moment. I suddenly wanted to be near buildings and people; I wanted to know what had happened to Peter. I felt the same stirrings of guilt every time I thought of him and how I had abandoned him. I wanted to be in London, to know that the city stretched for miles in all directions. I wanted to explain my innocence to Jan, to Annie Ferguson, to Melton.
But I didn’t want to go to gaol.
It looked as if it would have to be the fells after all.
I stood up and pushed the chair against the wall. Something clattered to the floor. It was Reckitt’s fishing rod. My mind lit up in a blinding flash of what is inspiration or lunacy depending on how things work out. I picked up the rod and headed for the shore.
Fifteen minutes later I was sitting in the cockle-shell in the middle of the lake, watching with calm patience the drift of my baitless line over the water. I paid as little attention to the two cars that bumped along the Forestry track to the cottage as I hoped they paid to me. In fact, it was not difficult to look unconcerned about the police. My main concern was much more immediate – it was to devise a way of stemming the flood pouring in through the bottom of my boat. For a wild moment, I laughed at the picture of myself sinking like Buster Keaton beneath the surface without a flicker of emotion, not daring to call for help.
There were several other boats on the lake and I wondered if anyone had remarked on my stealthy progress from the shore. There was a light haze on the water which protected me from too much attention and as the afternoon drew on the declining sun laid the black shadow of the heights to the south-west across the water. I could hardly see the cottage now. It seemed unlikely that they could have noticed me.
The water problem seemed to have solved itself, or at le
ast disaster seemed to have been postponed. There was a good six inches of water in the boat; my behind was feeling damp and my feet were soaked, though this did not worry me too much as I felt that a bit of damp could only do good to the dried-out leather of my brogues. I reckoned that the warped planks of the boat had absorbed so much water that they had swollen back into place. Or nearly, anyway. It was probably still seeping through. The danger was going to come when I started rowing again. I noticed that at least one of the other boats was pulling away down the lake in the direction of the hotel. I had no desire to be left in splendid isolation all night.
I took off a shoe and began to bail. This was a long job as I had to do it surreptitiously in case I was observed, and by the time the boat was manoeuvrable again, the last of the real fishermen was moving off. I hastily pulled after him, noting with dismay after a few strokes that this relatively violent activity had opened up new wounds in the bottom of my boat. I decided that speed was my best bet now and threw myself at my oars like an Olympic sculler. I didn’t exactly race across the water, but I had almost caught up with the last angler by the time we reached the stone wall which fronted the hotel. He turned to watch me ashore and kept a remarkably poker face as he saw the water swishing about in my cockleshell. I stood up and leapt casually on to the steps.
Behind me with a sad gurgle Reckitt’s boat sank beneath the surface.
‘Close,’ observed the angler.
I laughed inanely.
‘It adds a bit of spice to the sport, eh?’
He nodded and turned away. I quickly fell into step beside him – he was the only bit of cover I had. I felt he would be glad to shake me off, and hoped I could depend on that terrible need to be polite which is the essential creed of the English bourgeoisie.
He stopped by an Austin 1100 parked alongside the hotel.
‘If you’ll excuse me, I want to pop along into the village before dinner,’ he said, unlocking the door.
I didn’t know whether this was a real desire on his part, or merely an overcomplicated way of shaking me off. Not that it mattered; I couldn’t go into the hotel alone. I couldn’t really have gone into it in company, I suppose, but alone, it was out of the question.
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