He certainly wasn’t what she could call attentive, or even particularly gentlemanly, although he’d smiled right at her when she’d opened the front door, he’d been kind about her dress, and now and again he called her Blue Eyes, which she liked. But now, at the bar, it was almost as if he’d forgotten she was there.
‘Do you like working at the National Provincial?’ she said at last, making a tremendous effort to end a few long minutes of silence.
He looked at her, and seemed to take a moment to focus.
‘It’s all right, for now,’ he said. ‘What do you do?’
‘Do?’
‘For a job.’
‘Oh! Nothing,’ she said, and blushed. Around them the bar had filled up with couples who laughed and canoodled and tried each other’s drinks. She sipped at her blue cocktail.
‘Nothing?’ he said.
She nodded. ‘I suppose you think that’s feeble?’
‘Nope. I’d do nothing like a shot, if somebody’d pay me for it.’ He laughed as if this was a great joke. ‘Nice work if you can get it,’ he said, and roared again. She was pleased he was amused, even though he was laughing at his own wit, not hers.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘Father gives me an allowance and I can easily manage on that.’
‘I’ll bet.’ He studied her with a frank, assessing stare, so that she had to look away. ‘So there’s only you, at home?’
‘Well, and Father and Mrs Binley, his wife,’ she said.
Yes, yes, obviously, but no brother, no sister?’
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Sorry, no, only me I’m afraid.’
‘Well, aren’t I the lucky one for finding you?’ he said.
She smiled, pinkly.
‘Finish that pop, Blue Eyes, and we’ll see what’s what at the Locarno.’
Obediently she drank up, and when she hopped down off the stool, he steadied her then slung an arm across her shoulders, so that when they walked out of the Leofric everyone could see they were together: a couple. Annie cast her modest gaze downwards, but her heart sang.
Vincent and Annie Doyle moved into an end-of-terrace on Sydney Road; he thought it a little palace, she knew it was a comedown, but it was the best Harold Platt would do for them, and far more than Mrs Binley thought them entitled to. If she had had her way – and she usually did – then the young couple would have managed on their own, just as she had had to do when Ray Binley married her after the Blitz and there was nowhere to rent and no money to rent with. But Harold was a fusspot for how things looked and he wouldn’t countenance a daughter in lodgings. So he bought the little house outright and put it through the bank before his wife properly knew what was happening. He also paid for the modest wedding and for a week in the Lake District, sending them up to Keswick on first-class train tickets to a discreetly plush hotel where mousy little Annie, to Vince’s surprise, showed wonderfully willing in the bedroom.
So Vince had come back to Coventry content, thinking all this was just the beginning of Harold’s largesse, when in fact it turned out to be the end. Vince had thought he might leave his clerking; start up his own little business – a real ale brewery, an independent bookmakers – backed by an affluent father-in-law and further supported by the monthly allowance that came to Annie. But as the first weeks of marriage ground on he began to fully understand how things stood. Annie hated Mr Platt’s second wife with a surprising passion and for her father she appeared to feel nothing at all. Meanwhile Harold, having provided a respectable home for his married daughter in a different part of Coventry from himself, had shut up shop, drawn the purse strings, all but washed his hands of her. A woman with a working husband needed no handouts from her father, Mrs Binley told him, and Harold – who after all couldn’t possibly be accused of miserliness – was inclined to agree. Meanwhile, at the bank, there was no special treatment, no rise in pay, no small privileges to lift Vince above the strictly ordinary. Harold Platt, in fact, barely looked his son-in-law in the eye.
‘Your father’s a stuck-up old fucker,’ Vince said to Annie one evening, his tongue loosened by beer. It was two months into married life and he was giving vent to his disappointment, trying to shock her with profanities.
‘Oh, he is,’ Annie said, with conviction.
Vince, momentarily wrong-footed, gave a burst of laughter. But he was cross as hell that he’d allowed himself to be misled by assumptions, not guided by facts. He was cross, too, that when he suggested she build bridges between themselves and the Platts, Annie wouldn’t budge.
‘I don’t want them here,’ she said. ‘Mrs Binley with her nasty jibes and Father looking at me like he doesn’t remember who I am.’
‘He’s worth a bob or two, though.’
‘That’s of no account.’
‘Might not be to you, but it is to me.’
Annie looked at Vince, long and hard. ‘You’re after his money,’ she said, in the flat voice of a woman on whom a hard truth had just dawned.
‘Well who’s he going to give it to, if not you?’
‘I don’t know. A rest home for elderly parrots, perhaps.’
‘What the bloody hell are you going on about?’
‘Don’t shout, there’s no need.’
‘There’s every need, you silly cow. I’m not slaving in his bank for the pittance he pays while he’s sitting on a small fucking fortune. Why do you think I married you? For your show-stopping looks? I don’t think so.’
Vince took some small pleasure in finally making Annie cry, but it didn’t alter the fact that he was stuck with a wife he barely knew and didn’t much fancy unless the lights were out or his eyes were closed. He felt a wash of panic, followed swiftly by the more familiar sensation of steely resolve. Annie was weeping in the way a small child would cry, screwing her fists into her eyes and sniffing. She’d been baking when he stalked into the house. She had a floral pinny on and flour on her hands and now it was all over her face, too.
‘You’re just as horrid as everyone else,’ she said, through her sobs. ‘I was making you a sponge cake. I was being nice.’
‘Oh shove it,’ Vince said, and he walked back out of the house.
His voice these days was coarse and harsh and Noël Coward was gone for ever from Annie’s life. All she had was Vincent Doyle, and she didn’t really have him, either.
Vince was gone for almost two weeks, and Annie didn’t tell a soul. She didn’t know where he was or even if he was still in Coventry, although she knew he wasn’t going into work because every morning she left the house to lurk near the National Provincial with the hood of her mac pulled low over her brow, watching the employees arrive and pass, chatting and laughing, through the Doric columns of the bank’s imposing entrance. She saw her father too, of course. He arrived by car, although he no longer drove it himself. Instead, a chauffeur in a peaked cap drew up in the Rover then got out and walked around to hold open the passenger door for Harold Platt, who climbed out onto the pavement and walked into the bank without a word of thanks or a backwards glance.
‘Stuck-up old fucker,’ Annie murmured under her breath and then wondered what was becoming of her. It didn’t cross her mind to follow Harold and ask for help. Instead, she went home and waited for Vince, believing that he’d come back because the alternative was too dreadful to contemplate.
And he did return, coming through the house with his playboy swagger, whistling a jaunty tune as if all he’d done was nip out for a packet of Benson and Hedges. Annie didn’t ask him where he’d been, but instead blurted out the astonishing news that she was expecting their first child. A honeymoon baby, she said, feeling suddenly shy. Due next August.
‘Right,’ he said, without much interest. ‘Well, I’ve news too. I’ve left the bank, got a job as regional sales rep for Whitbread.’
‘The brewery?’
‘The very same. Better money, better prospects, and well out of range of your poisonous old man.’
‘Oh,’ Annie said. She felt pleased, actually: exci
ted. A handsome husband, a baby to love, a new job.
‘It’s in the north-east,’ Vince said.
‘What is?’
‘The job. Regional rep, north-east.’
‘North-east Coventry?’
‘North-east England,’ he said, as if explaining to a simpleton. ‘Newcastle and thereabouts. You can stay here, though. No need to uproot. I’ll come back now and again. Send you money, that kind of thing.’
Annie’s face was stricken.
‘What?’ Vince said, as if he was truly baffled: as if he was offering her paradise and still she wasn’t happy.
12
Finn had disappeared. They were crunching happily along gravel paths in the grounds of the old stately home in Josie’s village, and he’d been there, dashing about at choppy angles, lunging this way and that as if his tail was on fire. And then, without anyone seeing the direction of flight, he’d vanished.
Annie, rooted to the spot, turned a slow full circle, and the colour drained from her face.
‘He won’t be far, Annie,’ Josie said.
‘He can’t be, we’ve only been out of the cars for ten minutes,’ said Sandra. ‘And he was with us for eight of them.’
But Annie was quiet because she was concentrating; willing Finn to appear; bringing him back through the power of thought.
‘Shall we try those trees?’ Josie said. ‘See? That coppice over …’
‘Shush,’ Annie said. She closed her eyes and Sandra grimaced at Josie, who shrugged. Fritz thought the walk was over already and lay down gratefully, but Betty, who’d been sitting on Josie’s feet, suddenly stood, her lithe little body tense with coiled energy, her ears up, her eyes bright. She gave three shrill barks, which bounced back at them from the hills as if another little collie was out there answering.
‘Betty?’ said Josie.
‘Good grief,’ Sandra said. ‘She can bark.’
‘Look,’ Annie said with a satisfied smile. She pointed at Finn. He was streaming towards them from the distant fields, further away than any of them had expected, except he wasn’t alone. A small grey terrier came too, matching him for speed even with his short legs. Together they hurtled towards Annie and she grabbed Josie’s arm, for fear of being skittled off her feet, but then the dogs made a sharp right turn, circled them twice, then ran off again in the direction they’d just come from. Annie, stunned, watched them go in stricken silence.
‘Okay,’ Josie said. ‘Let’s go that way, shall we?’
Years ago, when Annie had taken Finn to puppy school, the trainer – a former policeman, big on canine psychology – had told the class that an owner should never follow an errant dog. ‘Walk the other way,’ he’d said. ‘Show the dog that you decide the route, not him.’
Like all the other advice she’d been given at the time, Annie had forgotten it. And anyway, Finn’s precipitous departure just now seemed distinctly purposeful. They set off after him.
‘He should really be on a lead,’ Sandra said. ‘There’s signs everywhere. There’s a gamekeeper here, y’know, and he’d take a dim view. Dogs like that, loose on the land.’
Annie’s eyes threatened tears and Josie said, ‘Oh Sandra, hush. He’s fine.’
‘Well, it’s only the truth.’
Josie ignored her and picked up the pace. Finn and the grey dog were still visible, but only just: a golden streak, a grey smudge. Annie had pulled a whistle from the depths of her fleece but it hung useless from the corner of her mouth like an unlit cigarette; she was out of puff trying to keep up with Josie, and it made feeble wheezing noises with every outward breath. Sandra, walking at Fritz speed, fell behind, but she followed the same route as the others, off the path and onto the wide grassy expanse of the great house’s stately grounds.
‘They’re headed for the fields,’ Josie said, over her shoulder. ‘He’s not in the coppice – he ran that way.’
There was no sign of the dogs now. Annie stopped for a breather and scanned the landscape with terrified eyes. Never, for all his boundless energy and high spirits, had Finn actually run off like this. What he did was gallop back and forth, not gallop away and disappear.
Josie strode on with Betty, who was on red alert, fully aware that a search was on, although for what, she had no idea. At the coppice Josie took a left, just as she’d seen Finn do. Annie trotted behind on wobbly legs and Sandra, remarkably, wasn’t too far behind. She pulled on Fritz’s lead and even he seemed to be responding to the whiff of drama, pushing himself onwards and upwards with a stiff, effortful gait.
Ahead, there was a sagging metal fence topped off with a nasty spiral of barbed wire. Puffs of dirty white wool clung in clumps to the spikes. The field sloped sharply downhill and from where they stood there was still no sign of Finn. Josie and Betty stopped and let Annie catch up.
‘I think he’s out there somewhere,’ Josie said. She cupped her hands round her mouth and called his name, once, twice, three times, but her voice sailed unanswered into the autumn sky. Annie gave a plaintive blast on her whistle. Then they listened. Somewhere far off, a shot rang out and Annie screamed.
‘Crow scarer,’ said Josie, and Annie was fairly – but not entirely – certain she was right. ‘Just listen, there’ll be another in a few seconds.’ They waited, holding each other’s gaze, until, just as Josie had said, a second gun crack split the silence. ‘It’s only a farmer’s gadget,’ Josie said and Annie nodded. ‘I’ll have to climb over, Annie,’ Josie said. ‘Do you want to hold Betty and wait here?’
Annie’s fence-vaulting days were long past, if they’d ever existed at all. She nodded dumbly and took the lead.
Josie clambered over the wire and into the field and walked forwards, wondering bleakly why, if there was evidence of sheep on the fence, there were none to be seen in the field.
Then there they were, packed in a huddle at the bottom corner of the lower field, invisible from Annie’s vantage point but perfectly evident to Josie, who stopped walking, horrified and mesmerised by the scene she beheld.
The strange amber eyes of the flock were fixed on the two dogs, which were a few feet away from them, standing over the prone body of a solitary sheep. Finn had it pinned, although the possibility of its escape had long passed. There was blood on his muzzle, but his head was raised and turned away, as though he couldn’t bear to watch his accomplice, busy at the rear, pulling entrails from the lifeless animal with casual savagery. The flock, like Josie, watched in rigid shock, but then at some silent primal signal they suddenly scattered in a dozen directions and the terrier was off, abandoning his dead quarry for the thrill of a new chase. Finn stepped back and stared about him, as if uncertain where he was, or why, and Josie screamed his name, but the dog was deaf to everything but the call of the sheep; their toneless bleating filled the air and they blundered stupidly across the coarse grass on spindly legs that hadn’t evolved for flight from danger.
Easy enough, then, for Finn to suddenly launch himself at another one and bring it immediately to its knees. The terrier, quick as mercury, surged across the field to where Finn now held the new victim. The sheep bucked and rolled its eyes but Finn was a strong and steady captor; his gentle giant paws were sunk deep into its woolly haunch.
The thin, piping, ludicrous note of a dog whistle drifted on the breeze and Josie, remembering Annie, dimly wondered how all this would end, while still doing nothing, nothing at all, to bring it to a conclusion. Then behind her she heard the thud of hooves, felt the turf under her feet vibrate, and it seemed perfectly plausible in this waking nightmare that a horse was coming at her, intent on mowing her down, but it was only Sandra, who ran past her into the melee and put Josie to shame.
Sandra was wielding a stout stick, brandishing it like a cave woman with a club. She hurled herself at Finn, kicking and cursing, and the dog drew away from the sheep at once and stared at Sandra with wide white eyes. She brought the stick down across his back and he sprang away further still, then she turned on the terrier, kicking
its soft underbelly with the toe of her boot to bring it off the sheep and flailing wildly with her stick, matching its savagery with her own. The sheep, bleeding from its hind quarters, staggered to its feet and barrelled off to the flock and the little dog spun away with a shrill, unnatural scream, then turned back to face his assailant with bared teeth and narrow, wicked eyes. His face dripped blood and though he was only small he seemed in this moment more wolf than dog. His hackles were high and he inched towards Sandra with evil intent.
‘Don’t you even fucking think about it,’ she said, showing her own teeth, and snarling too. She lunged and whacked him again with a great roar of fury, and this time he bolted, tearing up the field, far away from Sandra’s reach, making his escape. Just once he stopped and turned, meeting Sandra’s wild eyes with an insolent stare, then glancing at Finn with a sort of disappointed canine contempt. And then he was off: wiry, wily, and fuelled by bloodlust, lost from sight in mere seconds. Sandra turned back to Finn, who shrank from her in terror. He flattened his body on the grass, and his eyes seemed suddenly to fill with abject sorrow. Sandra, looking exhausted, dropped the stick.
One dead sheep, one injured, and the stink so strong that Josie could feel it on her skin. Fear, blood and sheep shit. When Sandra turned away to walk up the hill, Finn slunk along behind without being told and without once looking back.
Annie, her face screwed up in concern, was waiting behind the fence with Betty and Fritz, but when she saw the others approaching she beamed. That was before she spotted the blood on Finn.
‘He’s hurt,’ she said. ‘Where’s he bleeding? Was it this barbed wire?’
Sandra said nothing. She felt nauseous, that was the truth of it: shaken by the sight and the smell of fresh death down the hill. She climbed over the fence with scant regard for the barbs and then flung herself onto the floor next to Fritz, who was fast asleep. Annie stared at them. Josie, still in the field, said, ‘Annie, they killed a sheep.’ How else to say it? There was only this way: swift and to the point. Annie looked at her, stupefied.
This Much is True: How far will a mother go to protect her shocking secret? Page 10