The Jealous One

by Celia Fremlin

  ‘Let’s not go along the railway path, let’s go back by the road,’ begged Rosamund, trying to keep the trembling out of her voice. ‘It’s quicker.’

  ‘Is it? O.K.’ Basil turned back on their tracks readily enough. She was thankful that he did not query her change of plan, or seem in the least bit interested in the reasons for it. For she could not possibly explain them to him—or indeed to herself. She was simply aware of an overwhelming and totally irrational terror at the prospect of going down those steps and along that little, narrow fenced-in path that led into the main road.

  They walked home more quickly than they had come, talking, as if by mutual consent, of trivialities. Only when they reached Rosamund’s gate did they speak again of the avowed reason for Basil’s visit.

  ‘Oh dear! It looks as if Eileen still isn’t in,’ said Rosamund, looking up at the blank, black windows of the next door house. ‘What would you like to do? Would you like to come in and wait at our place for a bit, till she comes?’

  ‘Well—no——Thank’s very much,’ said Basil. ‘It’s very kind of you, but if you don’t mind I’d rather wait at Eileen’s. I’d like to be there when she comes in…. You know——’

  So she handed the keys over to Basil, and Shang Low too; and then she let herself into the darkness of her home and closed the front door behind her.

  CHAPTER XVI

  And once again, the telephone was ringing. As she closed the front door and fumbled her way through the darkness to the light switch, Rosamund had time to feel sure that it was Geoffrey, and then to feel sure that it wasn’t. She could not tell how long ago the ringing had started, but anyway it must have been just too long, for as she reached out her hand towards the instrument, it stopped. At that, she felt sure all over again that it was Geoffrey. How anxious he seemed to get in touch with her this evening! Had something happened? Some news of Lindy, good or bad? Was that what was keeping him out late? Rosamund reflected that Eileen, too, was late: had they both heard of some news? No doubt this was why the telephone had been going all the afternoon—one or both of them trying to tell her about it. If only she had roused herself sufficiently to answer at least one of those neglected calls! She went upstairs and to bed determined to leap out again immediately, however sleepy she might be, at the very first ping of the telephone bell.

  Not that she expected to go to sleep very soon, anyway; it was only a quarter to ten. But once in bed, she found that the three aspirins she had taken had not only dulled the headache, but seemed to have filled her whole body with drowsiness, particularly her eyes … the print of her library book, which she had taken with her to read, was dancing before her eyes, and she could not make out at all where she had got to in it. She knew that she had started the book already, two or three days ago, but it seemed impossible to find her place. She was puzzled, for it was a perfectly ordinary novel, not significant in any way—everyone knows that the more significant a book, the harder it is to find your place in. She found it difficult even to recall who the characters were—was Evelyn a man or a woman? The whole book seemed to be about Evelyn and his—no, her—disagreeable mother … funny that she couldn’t recollect one single thing about either of them.

  She was too sleepy, that was the trouble; but all the same, she mustn’t fall asleep and risk missing the telephone bell. Telephone, she said to herself severely, as her vision swam into sleep, and her eyes closed…. I must wake up if the telephone goes again….

  But it was not the telephone that broke into her dreams. Rosamund did not know how long she had been lying there, in a light, uneasy sleep, before she became aware that someone was looking at her. It was not a sudden awareness—she had no feeling of having been woken by any sound or movement; it was just a gradual, growing consciousness of being watched. At first, this did not seem to her an extraordinary thing. As she lay there, on the very edge of waking, she accepted the fact of being watched simply as one more of the facts that she knew about the familiar world that lay, so near and yet so inaccessible, just beyond the border-lines of sleep. She knew quite well that she herself was lying in this familiar world; that the bedside light was still on, shining down on her, showing up her sleeping face, her fast-closed eyes, to the watcher by the bed. The watcher, she knew, was bending over, was examining her face with silent intentness from only a foot or two away; and she knew, without surprise, that the watcher had been standing exactly thus for a long time. For minutes? Seconds? Fractions of seconds? How can one measure the long, long tracts of time that stretch from dream to dream and back and forth along the winding boundaries of sleep?

  In sudden terror, Rosamund awoke. There was a flurry of movement, of sound, as she started up from her pillows; as the library book thumped to the floor; as her hands, released from nightmare, clutched convulsively at the slipping blankets. Her eyes were open at last—she was awake—her glance swept the room; but already there was no one there.

  Had there been anyone? In every bone, in every inch of her flesh Rosamund knew that there had; but her brain, ready and eager as brains always are to introduce doubt where none was, began at once to speculate on the deceptive nature of nightmare. Though it hadn’t been a nightmare, exactly, for until the very moment of waking she had felt no fear. Until then, she had been held fast in the bonds of senseless unsurprise, of unreasoning acquiescence, as paralysing as the bonds of sleep itself. The shock, the terror, the racing unanswered questionings, had come only with full awakening.

  Had it perhaps been Geoffrey, trying not to wake her? Her bones, her flesh, already knew that it hadn’t, and even her questing brain accepted it quite quickly. It just isn’t possible for a woman who has been married for eighteen years not to know exactly what it sounds like when her husband is trying not to wake her. Nor could it have been Peter. He wouldn’t have come in here to seek her out unless it was something really important, like could he finish all those cold sausages and the rest of the apple pie; and if it was as important as that, then he would never have crept considerately away without having extracted a favourable answer.

  How late was it? Rosamund looked at her little clock, and was surprised to find that it was only twenty-five to eleven. She felt as if she had slept so long—as if so much had happened—since she had last looked, and it had said quarter past ten. Reassured by the earliness of the hour—by the comfortable feeling that everyone up and down the road was still awake—she got out of bed, put on her dressing gown and slippers, and prepared to search the house.

  Nothing. Nobody. Four rooms upstairs, three down—it didn’t take long to ascertain that they were all empty, and all pretty much as she had last seen them. You would have to be a much more meticulous housewife than Rosamund to be able to say with certainty that those battered magazines hadn’t been piled on the piano stool before; that two pairs of gloves and Peter’s old scarf hadn’t been spilling out of their usual repository in the hall chest; that the lid and the bottom drawer of Geoffrey’s desk hadn’t been open all along.

  Rosamund shrugged. Fear cannot live on nothing. Confronted by this total lack of supporting evidence, it could only wither away. A clamour of young voices, girls and boys, swung by; the next door people but two were bidding loud goodbyes to some talkative and unhurried friends who seemed to be having trouble making their car start. Everywhere people were awake, friendly, accessible; you couldn’t really go on feeling frightened. Rosamund exercised caution so far as to lock the back door—a thing she didn’t usually do when Peter was out, because he had nearly always forgotten his key, and would drag them out of bed by knocking and ringing at some fearful hour; but it couldn’t be helped. Having done that, she felt perfectly safe and reassured; so much so that when she came back in to her bedroom, she didn’t notice anything different about it. She got back into bed and settled herself for sleep still without any notion that something had happened.

  CHAPTER XVII

  Rosamund never knew what time Geoffrey had come in that night. He had not woken her, and she h
ad no consciousness—or at least no recollection—of his arrival. When she woke in the morning he was already up and dressed. As soon as he heard her stirring, he came over from the window and sat on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Rosamund,’ he said, grave and puzzled. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that Lindy meant to go down to Mother’s the day before yesterday? I kept asking you if you knew anything about what she’d been doing.’

  ‘The day before yesterday?’ Rosamund sat up, blinking stupidly, and trying to collect her thoughts. Don’t look at me like that, she nearly added, but could you blame him, when she kept being so blank and useless whenever he asked her anything? Just as if she was trying to obstruct and slow down all his efforts to solve this unhappy mystery.

  ‘I’m sorry—I’m just trying to sort out the days. She went down to Mother’s on Monday, I know—I remember she left Norah’s coffee morning early to finish some typing before she went. But you knew that, Geoffrey! You saw her that same evening. That was before all that——’

  ‘No, Rosamund.’ Never, in all their married life, had his voice sounded like this when he spoke to her. ‘No, she didn’t go that afternoon, it was too foggy. She told me that she’d had to ring up Mother and put it off. But she didn’t say anything to me about going on Tuesday instead.’

  ‘Well, she didn’t to me, either,’ said Rosamund, rather crossly. ‘I didn’t even know that she’d cancelled the Monday time. You seem to know much more about it all than I do!’

  ‘Rosamund!’ There was terror in his voice now more than reproof. ‘Do—please—tell me what’s going on? I went down to Mother’s last night after I left the office—I knew she and Lindy had been seeing quite a lot of each other lately, and I wondered if perhaps Lindy’d mentioned anything—told her of some plan or other. Anyway, it seemed worth trying. So I went. And you know what Mother says?’—he gazed intently, desperately into Rosamund’s face, as if he was seeking comfort rather than launching an accusation—‘She says that you—you rang her up on Tuesday afternoon to say that Lindy wasn’t coming after all, but that you were. Straight away, that same afternoon. You were just on the point of starting, you said——’

  ‘I rang up?’ The total incredulity in Rosamund’s voice must have been convincing, for a flash of hope came into Geoffrey’s face. It was clear that he desperately wanted to be convinced that his suspicions—whatever they were—were unfounded. He leaned forward eagerly—almost beseechingly, as if pleading with her to succeed in convincing him, by whatever means.

  ‘Didn’t you, then? Wasn’t it you?’

  ‘It most certainly wasn’t!’ declared Rosamund. ‘I’m surprised at Mother! She doesn’t usually muddle telephone messages like that! Besides, she should know my voice by now, after nearly twenty years!’

  ‘So you didn’t ring at all? Not about next Sunday, or something like that? Something she could have misheard——?’

  It was as if Geoffrey was frantically offering her all the let-outs he could think of—begging, praying her to make use of one or other of them. But Rosamund could only tell the truth as she saw it.

  ‘No. I didn’t ring her. There was nothing to ring about. But surely she must have realised, when I didn’t turn up—Or do you mean that Lindy—?’

  ‘No. No, that’s the point. Neither of you turned up.’ For a second Geoffrey was grave again, then seemed forcibly to recover his precarious optimism. ‘Mother didn’t really worry, of course, she took for granted it must have been the fog again. But she did think someone might have rung and told her.’

  ‘And my impersonator didn’t bother, eh?’ enquired Rosamund flippantly. ‘Well, I think they might have, after having created all the fuss!’

  For a moment her flippancy jarred on both of them. The situation was too serious for this. Then, with one accord they seized on the flippancy, grasped it in both hands, as a lifeline in these unfathomable waters, in which both equally were slipping out of their depth.

  ‘No manners, that’s the trouble with your impersonator,’ grinned Geoffrey: and: ‘I’ll demand references next time!’ responded Rosamund, and the terrible moment was over.

  No reason, really, why it should be. Nothing had been solved, explained, vindicated. It was all as mysterious as ever. But they had both simultaneously decided ‘let it be all right’, and so it was all right. Such was their united strength, even now.

  After breakfast, after Peter and Geoffrey had left the house, Rosamund sat down again in the kitchen, elbows on the table, chin in hand, and stared out across the toast crumbs, and the marmalade, and the bacon plates, into the strange new darkness that seemed to be encroaching on their lives.

  For the mystery was growing. The fact that Geoffrey and she had succeeded this very morning in skipping away together from its advancing shadow did not mean that they would always be able to do this. The shadows would sweep towards them darker, faster, more relentless with every hour that Lindy did not return.

  But it must be all right. Rosamund felt that she simply wasn’t the kind of person who could do a thing like that, temperature or no temperature. That curious, vivid dream must have been sheer coincidence; and as for all the other clues, they were really too baffling to prove anything, one way or the other.

  And now what about this story of her telephone call to her mother-in-law? How, if at all, could that be fitted into the bewildering, impossible picture?

  Suppose—just suppose—that it was true. Suppose she really had set off for Ashdene that afternoon, instead of Lindy. Or as well as Lindy, perhaps. Suppose they had set off together, and had driven on and on, not to Ashdene at all, but on past it, through the towns, and the villages, and the council estates, nosing through the dripping winter lanes, flying over the glistening tarmac, on, on, swift as migrating swallows, over the great bare shoulders of the downs until they reached the sea?

  Rosamund almost laughed as she sat alone in the untidy kitchen. For of course it hadn’t happened. None of it had happened. Apart from all the other improbabilities, Lindy’s car had been standing untouched outside Lindy’s front gate during the whole of the upheaval, and was standing there still. Whatever had happened during that lost afternoon, it couldn’t have involved going anywhere in Lindy’s car.

  Train, then? Suppose they had gone by train because of the fog? If the fog had been bad enough to prevent driving on Monday, then it would have prevented it on Tuesday too, it was still just as thick as ever. All right; so they had gone by train. They hadn’t got off at Ashdene station, but had travelled on through the wintry countryside, stopping at every station, changing at Canterbury or somewhere, then on and on through——

  Through fog, of course! The sudden illumination of this thought, the breathtaking release from fear, made Rosamund feel quite dizzy. Here at last was proof, final and complete, that her dream could have had no basis in reality. For where, on a damp, foggy December night, could there have been a wild wind blowing? How, in such weather, could she have seen stars, bright, big stars, wheeling in a black sky? And if these details of the dream were undoubted nonsense, then why give any credence to the rest? In a joyful resurgence of hope and confidence, Rosamund jumped up from her chair, cleared the table, and plunged zestfully into the washing up.

  It was only when the downstairs work was finished, and she was about to go up and make the beds, that Rosamund felt uneasiness returning. For upstairs, in the bedroom, where her work was now about to take her, Lindy’s battered bag still lay, unexplained, stuffed pell-mell out of sight into the wardrobe. And the muddy shoes, and the coat. These were not dreams. If she, Rosamund, had had no hand in Lindy’s disappearance, then what on earth was going on? Still standing at the foot of the stairs, looking at them fearfully, like a bather confronted by ice-cold water, she tried to assemble some sort of theory that would explain all these extraordinary bits of incriminating evidence.

  It would have to be a fantastic theory, of course, that much was plain right from the start. Well, then: suppose someone was planning to mu
rder Lindy, and wanted Rosamund to be accused of it? Before they embarked on the crime, they could have dressed up in Rosamund’s shoes and coat so that the footprints and the bits of fluff and what not found near the body would be Rosamund’s and not theirs. Then they could have put the bag in Rosamund’s room for the police to practically fall over when they were called in; and then, to back up some complicated alibi, they must have put through a phone call to Mrs Fielding, imitating Rosamund’s voice. That was a stumbling block. Mrs Fielding was no fool, she’d have known Rosamund’s voice perfectly well.

  But had it been Mrs Fielding herself who’d taken the call, or had it been Jessie? Rosamund tried to recall Geoffrey’s exact words—had he implied, or definitely stated, that it was his mother, and not Jessie, to whom Rosamund was alleged to have spoken? But Jessie would have known her voice too…. Or was Jessie herself involved in the ever more tangled plot, perhaps innocently? All those relations of hers in Australia, for instance: there is something about relations in Australia which makes almost anything seem possible. Suppose Lindy had one of those millionaire uncles who are always dying in Australia and leaving their millions to unknown relatives on the other side of the world? And suppose the wicked nephew who would otherwise have inherited the money happened to be married to one of Jessie’s nieces, and together they had come over to England to persuade Jessie that unless she pretended to have had a phone call from Rosamund, then her beloved mistress would be placed in terrible danger….

  By now it was clear even to its author that the story was getting out of hand. Perhaps, after all, the best thing to do would be to abandon all attempt at rational explanation: to succumb to the temptation of last night, and simply get rid of these nagging clues. They were after all doing no good; leading to nothing, solving nothing. Full of determination now, Rosamund set off upstairs, hurried into the bedroom and over to the wardrobe.