September

by Rosamunde Pilcher

  “Si?”

  “I’m so sorry, but do you speak English?”

  “Yes, a little. Who is this?”

  “My name is Lucilla Blair.” She willed herself to calmness, deliberately spoke slowly and clearly. “I am calling from Scotland. I want to talk to your husband. Is he there?”

  “Yes, he is here. Uno momenta…”

  The phone was put down. Footsteps receded, tapping across a polished tiled floor. From a distance, Lucilla heard her call, “Carlos!” And then a few unintelligible sentences in Spanish.

  She waited. She reached out her hand, and Jeff took it in his own.

  He came. “Dr Macaya.”

  “Oh, Carlos, this is Lucilla Blair. Pandora Blair’s niece. I met you at her house in August. I came with a friend from Palma and you were there drinking tea. Do you remember?”

  “But of course I remember you. How are you?”

  “I’m all right. I’m calling from my home in Scotland. Carlos, please forgive me, but were you Pandora’s doctor?”

  “Yes, I was. Why?”

  “Because…I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid it’s very sad news. Because she is dead.”

  He did not speak immediately. And then he said, “How did she die?”

  “She drowned. She drowned herself. She took all her sleeping pills and then drowned herself. Last night…”

  Another pause. And then Carlos Macaya said, “I see.” Was that all he had to say?

  “You don’t seem very surprised.”

  “Lucilla, I am devastated by your news. But I am not completely surprised. I was very afraid that something like this might happen.”

  “Why?”

  He told her.

  Over the roar of the hoover, Isobel heard Archie’s Land-Rover returning from Relkirk, the familiar sound of its old engine grinding up the hill from the village and then turning down into the avenue. She turned off the hoover, and its din slowly died. Glancing through the tall window, she saw the Land-Rover trundle past, with Conrad at the wheel.

  She left the hoover standing in the middle of the floor and went to meet them. Out through the front door, and down the steps on to the gravel. The two men were already alighting from the Land-Rover, Archie limping badly, which was never a good sign. She went to him and put her arms around him and kissed him. His face was cadaverous, grey with fatigue, and felt very cold.

  She said, “You’re back. Come.”

  She took his arm and Conrad followed them and they mounted the steps and went indoors. Looking at the American, Isobel saw that he too showed signs of strain. She put questions aside, and concentrated on practicalities.

  “You must be exhausted, and hungry as well. I didn’t cook anything because I was waiting for you to come, but it won’t take a moment. You’ll both feel better when you’ve got something inside you.”

  Conrad said, “That sounds like a fine idea,” but Archie shook his head.

  “Isobel, in a moment. I must telephone first. I must ring Edmund Aird, their telephone should have been fixed by now.”

  “Darling, that can surely wait…”

  “No.” He raised his hand. “I’d rather get it over. You two go ahead. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  Isobel opened her mouth to argue, and then thought better of it and stayed silent. Archie turned and slowly, painfully, walked away from them, down the hall, headed for his study. In silence, Conrad and Isobel watched him go, and heard the door close behind him.

  They looked at each other. Isobel said, “I think he probably wants to be alone for a moment.”

  “That’s understandable.” Conrad wore a borrowed pair of green rubber boots and an old jacket of Archie’s. His head was bare, his eyes, behind the heavy glasses, filled with sympathy.

  “Was it very awful?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he told her, and his voice was gentle. “Yes. It was very sad.”

  “Where did you find her?”

  “Just where Willy said she’d be. By the sluice-gate.”

  “Did she…” She tried again. “I mean, how long had she been there?”

  “Only a few hours.”

  “Yes.” Only a few hours. Not long enough to change, swell, putrefy. “I’m glad Willy found her so soon. It was good of you to go with Archie, and bring him back again. I can’t tell you how grateful I am…”

  “It was the least I could do.”

  “Yes. There isn’t really very much anybody can do, is there?”

  “Not very much.”

  “No. Well…” The subject, for the moment, had run its course. Breakfast. “I’m sure you must be ravenous.”

  “I am. But first, if I may, I’ll shed these boots and wash my hands.”

  “Of course. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  Lucilla and Jeff had disappeared, taken themselves off somewhere. Isobel found frying pan, more sausages, bacon, tomatoes, and eggs. She put bread in the toaster, made a fresh pot of coffee, laid two places at the table. By the time Conrad joined her, his breakfast was just about ready. She poured a cup of coffee and set it by his place.

  “Drink it while it’s hot. I just have to fry you an egg. How do you like it? Sunny side up? Isn’t that what they say in America?”

  “That’s what they say. Isobel…”

  She turned from the Aga. “Yes?”

  “I think I should leave you this afternoon. You have enough to think about without extraneous guests hanging around the place.”

  She was horrified. “But I thought you weren’t leaving until tomorrow!”

  “I can call a taxi, get myself to Turnhouse…”

  “Oh, Conrad, please don’t feel you have to go…”

  “This is not a time for visitors…”

  “I don’t think of you as a mere visitor. I think of you as a friend. And I would be very distressed if you felt you had to leave us a day early. But if you would prefer to do that, I shall quite understand.”

  “It isn’t that I would prefer it…”

  “I know. You’re thinking of us. But you know, at the moment, it’s good for us to have friends around. This morning, for instance. What would we have done without you? And I am certain that Archie will want you to stay. At least for one more night.”

  “If you really mean that, I would like to stay.”

  “I do really mean it. And when I said I think of you as a friend, I really meant that as well. You came as a stranger to Croy, and we none of us knew you or knew anything about you. But now, after just a few days, I feel as though we’d known you all our lives. I hope you’ll come back again and visit us some other time.”

  “I’d like that. Thank you.”

  Isobel smiled. “And you can bring your little daughter. This is a good place for children.”

  “Watch out. I may take you up on that.”

  Isobel professionally broke the egg into the pan.

  “When are you flying back to your little daughter?”

  “On Thursday.”

  “And Virginia’s coming with you?”

  “No. Not now that Henry’s home again. She’s cancelling her flight, and calling her grandparents to explain. She and Edmund will maybe come out next spring, and we’re all going to get together then.”

  “That’s disappointing for her. But perhaps better. More fun to go on holidays with your husband.” She stooped to take his plate out of the low oven, added the egg to the pile of goodies already on it, and then set the lot in front of him. “Now you wrap yourself around that, as my son Hamish always says.” She glanced at the clock. “What is Archie doing? I think I’ll take him a cup of coffee. You don’t mind being left on your own, do you?”

  “No, I’m perfectly all right. And this looks like the best breakfast I’ve ever eaten.”

  “You’ve earned it,” Isobel told him.

  Archie sat at his desk, in his study, in his father’s chair, and surrounded by his father’s possessions. The room faced west, and so, on this bright morning, was sunless. For th
e moment, he was grateful for quiet and solitude. Deadened by fatigue and his own despair, he waited until such time as he could muster enough moral courage to pick up the telephone, dial the Balnaid number, and speak to Edmund Aird.

  From the moment that Willy Snoddy had finally managed to find the words with which to relay his dreadful tidings, Archie had experienced the grip of a mental numbness that precluded all intelligent incentive. Somehow, like a sleepwalker in the throes of a nightmare, he had gone through the motions of doing what he knew had to be done.

  Waking Isobel, having her there beside him, had been the first priority. Only with Isobel could he share his grief. Then, together, they had gone to Pandora’s bedroom, disordered in characteristic fashion, as though she had, just that moment, gone from the room. It was Isobel who had drawn back the heavy curtains and opened all the windows to set free the suffocating odour of the spilled and wasted perfume. It was Isobel who had spied the envelope on the desk, and handed it to Archie.

  And, together, they had read Pandora’s final letter.

  After that the inevitable, painful procedures. Ringing the police, and the seemingly endless wait until the official vehicle, with the police doctor on board, arrived. The long drive to the loch, crawling with agonising slowness up the steep and bumpy track. The gruesome and heartbreaking operation of retrieving from the loch his dead sister’s body.

  The irony of the situation was his own hopelessness. No sooner, it seemed, had he come to terms with his memories of Northern Ireland than he was fated to be burdened by this new horror. The sight of Pandora, like a sodden doll, washed up beneath the sluice-gates. Her face bloodless, her wet hair wound, like silken cords, around her neck. Her white arms, thin and bleached as drifting twigs, the skirts of her dress tangled in a flotsam of broken branches and broken reeds.

  How great it would be if the impossible were rendered possible, and he could blank the image from his mind’s eye for ever.

  He sighed, and drew her letter towards him. The thick blue paper embossed with the Croy address, and Pandora’s scrawly handwriting, unformed as a child’s. A ghost of a smile touched his lips, because he remembered how she had never bothered to learn to do anything properly, and at the end of the day, she still could scarcely write.

  Friday evening.

  My darling Archie. I once went to a funeral and a man got up and read something so nice, about dead people having just slipped away into the next room, and not being miserable nor sorry, but going on laughing at the same old jokes. If, by chance, you give me a lovely Christian funeral (and who knows, you may be so cross, you’ll just toss me on to Isobel’s compost heap), then it would be nice if somebody could read that about me.

  He laid the letter down, and gazed unseeing, over his spectacles, at the opposite wall. The strange thing was that he knew exactly the passage that Pandora referred to. He knew it because he had read it aloud in church during the course of his own father’s funeral service. (But Pandora did not know that, because Pandora had not been there.) And moreover, wishing to be word-perfect and not make a hash of his emotional duty, he had privately rehearsed the reading a number of times, and ended up knowing it by heart.

  Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well.

  All is well.

  But then old Lord Balmerino had not taken his own life.

  Archie, I have been very practical and sensible and made a will, and left all my worldly goods to you. Perhaps you should get in touch with my New York lawyer. He is called Ryan Tyndall and you’ll find his address and telephone number in my address book. (He’s terribly nice.) I know I’ve seemed to spend money like water, but there ought to be lots left in the Bank, as well as various Stocks and Bonds and even a little California Real Estate. And of course, the house in Majorca. You can do what you want with this, sell it or keep it. (Lovely hols. for you and Isobel.) But whatever you do, just be sure that dear Seraphina and Mario are all right.

  I like to think that you will use some of this money to turn the stables or the barn into a workshop, start manufacturing your clever little wooden people, and sell them all over the world at a socking profit. I know you can do it. It just needs a bit of get-up-and-go. And if the business side of it seems a bit daunting, I am sure that Edmund would help and advise.

  Darling, I’m so dreadfully sorry about all this. It’s just that everything’s suddenly become so complicated and such an effort and I haven’t the energy to fight any longer. I was never much use at being steadfast and brave.

  It’s been a funny old life.

  I adore you both and I leave you my love.

  Pandora

  I am sure that Edmund would help and advise.

  Back to Edmund.

  He thought of the other letter, safe in the drawer of this desk. He found the key, and unlocked the drawer, and took out that letter. The airmail envelope, creased and dog-eared, addressed to himself in Berlin; the post-mark 1967.

  He withdrew the two flimsy sheets, scrawled with the same immature handwriting. Unfolded them.

  My darling Archie. It was such a lovely wedding and I hope you and Isobel are happy, had a lovely honeymoon and are happy in Berlin, but oh, I miss you so much. Everything is horrible, because everybody I love has gone away. I have got nobody to talk to. I can’t talk to Mama and Pa because it’s about Edmund. This doesn’t surprise you, does it, because you must have known. I don’t know how I never knew it, but I must have loved him for ever, because when I saw him again, the few days before the wedding, I suddenly realised that there never had been, nor could be, anyone else, ever again. And the ghastly, tragic, unbearable thing is that he’s married somebody else. But we love each other. I can write it in big letters. WE LOVE EACH OTHER. But I’m not allowed to tell anybody because of him being married to Caroline and having the baby and everything. He has gone back to her, but he doesn’t love her, Archie. He loves me, and I am without him, stuck here, and I need you so badly and you’re in Berlin. He said that he would write but he’s been gone for a month and I haven’t heard a word, and I can’t bear it and I don’t know what to do. I know it’s wrong to break up a marriage, but I’m not doing that, because I had Edmund long before she did. I know you can’t do anything to help but I just had to tell someone. I never knew Croy could be so lonely and I’m horrible to Mama and Pa, and I can’t help it. I can’t stay here for ever, I think I shall go mad. There’s only you I can tell. With lots of love and tears, Pandora.

  Before, he had always found the adolescent despair immeasurably poignant. Now, in the light of the morning’s tragedy, it took on an even graver significance. He covered his eyes with his hand. Behind him, the door opened.

  “Archie.”

  It was Isobel. “I’ve brought you some coffee.” He did not turn. She reached over his shoulder and laid the steaming, fragrant cup on the desk in front of him, and then put her arms around his neck, and stooped to press her warm cheek against his own.

  “Why are you taking so long? What are you doing?”

  “Just reading.” He laid the letter down.

  She hesitated and then said, “That’s the letter Pandora sent y
ou just after we were married.”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know you’d kept it. Why did you, Archie?”

  “I didn’t have the heart to tear it up and throw it away.”

  “So sad. Poor little girl. Have you telephoned Edmund yet?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “You don’t know what to say, do you?”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Perhaps she was still in love with him. Perhaps that’s why she came home. And then she saw him again, with Virginia and Alexa and Henry, and she realised it was hopeless.”

  She was voicing his own fears, his own unspoken dreads. He could not have spoken them, and hearing Isobel say the words aloud, bringing their shared suspicions out into the open, filled him with loving gratitude for her fearless good sense. Because now they could talk about it.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “She was such a little sorceress. Always enchanting. Generous and funny. But you know, Archie, she could be ruthless. If she wanted something, she could be ruthless to get it. If she set her heart on something, other people didn’t matter.”

  “I know. It was our fault. We all spoiled her, indulged her…”

  “I think it would have been impossible not to…”

  “She was only eighteen when they had that affair. Edmund was twenty-nine. He was married and he had a child. I know Pandora flung herself at him, but instead of backing off, he reneged on his responsibilities, threw them to the wind. She was like a fire, and he added his own potent fuel to that fire; the result was an explosion.”

  “Have you ever talked to Edmund about it?”

  “No. Once, I could have. But not after that. He was the reason she ran away. He was the reason she never came back.”

  “You’ve never forgiven him, have you, Archie?”

  “No. Not really.” It was a bleak admission.

  “Is that why you’re hesitating now? Is that why you haven’t rung him?”

  “If all our conjectures are true, I would be unwilling to unload such a burden of guilt on to my worst enemy.”