“True enough. What happened to Rob?”
“He got killed during an armed drugs bust three years later. Poor sod. His gun jammed.”
“I’m sorry.”
Annie put her hand to her forehead then fanned it in front of her face. “Ooh, I’m hot. Listen to me go on. I haven’t talked to anyone like this in ages.”
“I wouldn’t mind a cigarette. Would you like to stand outside with me? Cool down a bit, if it’s possible?”
“Okay.”
They went out into the backyard. It was a warm night, though there were signs of a breeze beginning to stir. Annie stood beside him. He could smell her scent. He lit up, inhaled and blew out a plume of smoke.
“It was like drawing teeth,” he said, “getting you to talk about your personal life.”
“I’m not used to it. I’m like you in a lot of ways.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, how much have you told me about your past?”
“What do you want to know?”
“That’s not what I mean. You just wouldn’t think of telling people about yourself, of letting someone in, would you? It’s not in your nature. You’re a loner, like me. I don’t just mean now, because you’re . . . ”
“Because my wife left me?”
“Right. Not just because you’re physically alone or because you’re living alone. I mean in your nature, deep inside. Even when you were married. I think you’ve got a lonely, isolated nature. It colours the way you see the world, the detachment you feel. I’m not explaining it very well, am I? I think I’m the same. I can be alone in a crowded room. I’ll bet you can be, too.”
Banks thought about what Annie had said as he smoked. It was what Sandra had said when they had their final argument, what he had refused to admit was the truth. There was something in him that always stood apart, that she couldn’t reach and he wouldn’t offer. It wasn’t just the job and its demands, but something deeper: a central core of loneliness. He had been like that even as a child. An observer. Always on the outside, even when he played with others. As Annie said, it was a part of his nature, and he didn’t think he could change it if he tried.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Funny thing, though. I always thought I was a simple family man.”
“And now?”
“And now I’m not so sure I ever was.”
A cat meowed in a nearby yard. Down the street, a door opened and closed and someone turned a television on. Emmylou drifted through the open kitchen window singing about losing this sweet old world. Banks dropped his cigarette and trod on the red ember. Suddenly a chill gust of wind rustled the distant trees and passed through the yard. Annie shivered. Banks put his arm around her and moved her gently towards him. She let her head rest on his shoulder.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
“Why?”
Annie paused. Banks could feel her warm shoulder under the thin T-shirt, the ridge of her bra strap.
“Well, we’ve both probably had too much to drink.”
“If it’s the rank thing that’s bothering you—”
“No. No. It’s not that. I don’t give a damn about that, to be honest. As I said, the job’s not my be-all and end-all. I still have a bit of the bohemian left in me. No, it’s just that, I’ve had some bad experiences with men. I’ve been . . . I mean I haven’t been . . . Oh, shit, why is this so difficult?” She rubbed her forehead. Banks kept silent. Annie sighed deeply. “I’ve been celibate,” she said. “By choice. For nearly two years now.”
“I don’t want to put any pressure on you,” Banks said.
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t let you. I make my own choices.”
“I’ll never find my way out of this labyrinth alone.”
“I’d lead you,” Annie said, facing him and smiling, “if I really wanted you to go. But somehow I doubt whether you’re in a fit state to drive. It’s probably my duty to arrest you. Crime intervention.” She paused and frowned, then rested her hand lightly on his chest. His heart beat more loudly. Surely she could hear it, feel it? “There are a lot of reasons for not taking this any further, you know,” she went on. “I’ve heard you’re a bad lot.”
“Not true.”
“A womanizer.”
“Not true.”
They looked at one another for a few moments. Annie bit her lip, shivered again and said, “Oh, hell.”
Banks wished he hadn’t just smoked a cigarette. He leaned forward and kissed her. Her lips yielded and her body moulded itself to his. Then he forgot all about cigarettes.
Six
Matthew and Gloria decided to have a party on Christmas Eve, but first we all went ice-skating on Harksmere Reservoir. Already there were lots of people around and fires burned in braziers set up along the edges of the ice. It was dark and there was something hypnotic about the mix of ice and fire in the twilight—to me there was, at any rate—so I was skating in a sort of trance. If I shut my eyes I could see the flames dancing behind my eyelids and feel flashes of warmth as I sped by the bank.
People started drifting back to Bridge Cottage at about seven o’clock, then the other guests started to arrive, including more airmen from the base, some with their girlfriends. Alice’s Eric was away in North Africa by then, but Betty’s William hadn’t passed his medical, which didn’t surprise me at all, so they would only let him in the Home Guard.
Michael Stanhope came dressed in his usual artistic “costume,” including hat and cane, but he did bring two bottles of gin and some wine, which made him most welcome indeed. He must have had a cellar full of drink. Alcohol wasn’t always easy to come by then, most of the distilleries having shut down, and it was very expensive if you could get it. I could picture Michael Stanhope, knowing a war was coming, hoarding his private stock away, bottle by bottle. I hoped he wouldn’t run out.
Matthew and Gloria had decorated the tiny front room as best they could, with balloons, concertina streamers and fairy lights over the mantelpiece. The whole place had a warm, cosy feel with the blackout curtains up, especially when you thought of the icicles and the frozen puddles outside. There was also plenty of mistletoe and a fake Christmas tree dressed in lights and tinsel.
The only cigarettes we had in stock were Pasha, and Gloria said they tasted like sweepings from the factory floor, which they probably were. The Canadians had some Players, though, so the room soon seemed to fill with smoke. Mark and Stephen had also contributed a bottle of Canadian Club whisky.
Unfortunately for Gloria, John Cooper’s musical taste hadn’t extended much further than opera, so the record collection she picked up along with the radiogram was of little use to her. She didn’t have many records of her own, so we listened to the radio. Luckily, there was a Victor Sylvester concert on that night, and soon people were dancing close together in the cramped space.
Matthew had hardly let Gloria out of his sight for a moment all day, but as the tiny cottage grew more and crowded and noisy, it was harder for them to stay together.
Couples danced or chatted. Cynthia and Johnny Marsden hogged the sofa and kissed one another. Once, I even saw him trying to put his hand up her dress, but she stopped him. Gloria drank too much Canadian Club and then switched to gin. She wasn’t loud or falling down or anything, but there was a sort of glaze to her eyes and a slight wobble in her step. It all got more pronounced as the evening wore on, as did the way she held her cigarette slightly askew as she swayed in time to the music.
I got distracted by an RAF radio operator, who first dragged me under the mistletoe and gave me a kiss that tasted of tinned sardines, then proceeded to explain the intricacies of radiolocation to me. I should have told him I was a German spy. Hadn’t he seen those “Walls Have Ears” posters everywhere?
It must have been close to ten o’clock by then, and the party was still going strong. I suppose quite a few people were already drunk. I had only been drinking ginger ale—well, I did have just a drop
of Canadian Club—but I was feeling light-headed because of all the gaiety. When you had a party in wartime, especially at some important time like Christmas, everything seemed so much more intense. Everyone really worked at having the best time they possibly could, and the fun was just a little louder, a little gaudier and a little more desperate than at peacetime parties.
Michael Stanhope was holding forth to a young corporal about how artists had a duty to shun propaganda in their search for truth. “If governments listened to the artists,” he said, “there would be no wars.” The corporal would probably have moved on ages ago had Mr Stanhope not been topping up his gin every few minutes.
Matthew, I noticed, was leaning against the wall deep in conversation with two men in army uniforms, no doubt trying to find out what military life was really like once the training was over.
I realized I hadn’t seen Gloria for a while and wondered if she were sick or something. She had been drinking quite a lot. I needed to go to the toilet anyway. As gently and politely as I could, I disengaged myself from the radiolocation lecture. It was cold and dark outside, so I put my coat over my shoulders, picked up the torch with its tissue-filtered light and headed out into the backyard.
Bridge Cottage had two outbuildings; one was the toilet and the other was used for storage. I could hear the radiogram playing “In the Dark” from inside the house as I made my way down the flags to the toilet.
Suddenly, I heard sounds nearby. I paused, then I heard them again, a grunt and a muffled, little voice calling out. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from at first, then I realized it was behind the outbuilding. Puzzled, I tiptoed over and pointed my torch at the wall.
What I saw made my skin tingle. Even in the poor tissue-weakened light, I could see it was Gloria pinned to the wall by Mark, the Canadian airman. Her back was against the large V sign someone had chalked there during the summer Victory campaign. Her dress was bunched around her waist, and the pale white flesh of her bare thighs above the stocking-tops stood out in the darkness. I remember thinking she must be freezing cold. Mark was crushed forward into her, one hand over her mouth, the other fumbling at his waist.
Gloria was calling out in a muffled voice, “No, please, no!” over and over again, trying to struggle against him, and he was calling her filthy names. When he saw my light, he swore at me and took off around the front of the house.
Gloria leaned back against the wall, gasping and sobbing, not looking at me, her hair and clothes in disarray. Then she straightened her dress, leaned forward with her hands on her knees and was sick right onto the garden. It was warm and made the ice crack. I could see the chalk dust from the V on the back of her dress.
I didn’t know what to do. I knew nothing about these things back then and I wasn’t even sure what sort of scene I had witnessed—except that there was something very wrong about it.
All I knew was that Gloria looked hurt, upset and in pain. So I did what came naturally; I opened my arms and she fell into them. Then I held her close and stroked her hair and told her not to worry, that everything would be all right.
The birds struck up the dawn chorus first, then the milk-man’s float rattled by, and soon Banks was listening to the myriad strange sounds of an unfamiliar street through the half-open window of Annie’s bedroom. A baby cried for feeding; someone slammed a door; a dog started barking; a letter-box snapped shut; a motorcycle revved up. Everything sounded all the more foreign since Banks had got used to the silence of his new cottage.
Annie lay beside him breathing softly; she would be silent for a while, then let out a soft exhalation part way between a sniff and a sigh. There was enough light through the thin curtains for Banks to see her. She lay on her side, curled away from him, hands clasped in front, where he couldn’t see them. The single white sheet had slipped down far enough for him to see the curve of her waist, follow it up to her shoulders and hair. She had a small mole about halfway. Gently, Banks touched it. Annie stirred a little but still she didn’t wake.
Banks lay on his back and closed his eyes. His only fear last night, what almost held him back until that intimate moment in the backyard, when his arm moved of its own volition, was that he would feel the same way he did when he slept with Karen after Susan Gay’s farewell party. He should have known better; he should have known this was different. He did know. But the fear was still there.
Their love-making had been a little tentative at first, but that was only to be expected. It never happened in real life the way it did in movies, with both lovers exploding together in a climax of Wagnerian proportions as fireworks burst, orchestras crescendoed and trains rushed into tunnels. That was pure Monty Python. In real love-making, especially with people new to one another’s bodies, there are disappointments, mistakes, hesitancies. If you can laugh at these, as Banks and Annie had, then you are halfway there. If you find yourself looking forward to the hours of practice it will take to learn to please one another more, as Banks did, then you are more than halfway.
Afterwards, skin warm and damp and tangy with sweat, she had rested in the crook of his arm and he knew then that he wouldn’t wake with a burning desire to be alone.
Just for the briefest of moments he gave in to a wave of paranoia and wondered if this was a trap Riddle had set for him. A new approach. Give him enough rope to hang himself. Were there hidden cameras in the bedroom walls? Was Annie Riddle’s secret mistress? Were the two of them plotting Banks’s final downfall? The thoughts scudded across his mind like cloudshadows over the daleside. Then, as quick as it came, the paranoia was gone. Jimmy Riddle obviously didn’t know who DS Cabbot was, or what she looked like. He clearly didn’t even know her first name, otherwise he wouldn’t have sent Banks within twenty miles of her.
Annie stirred and he ran his hand slowly all the way from her hip to her shoulder.
“Mmm . . . ” she murmured. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
“I see you’re awake.”
“Have been for hours.”
“You poor man. You should have got up, made some tea.”
“I’m not complaining.” Banks hooked his arm over her side and rested his palm on her stomach, easing her closer. He kissed the soft flesh between her shoulder and neck then slid his hand up to cup her small breast. Last night he had discovered that she had a tiny red rose tattoo just above her left breast, and he found it incredibly sexy. He had never slept with a tattooed lady before. Annie sighed and pushed herself closer back towards him; curved bodies moulding to one another, skin touching everywhere it possibly could touch.
He stroked her shoulder gently to turn her towards him.
“No,” she whispered. “Like this is just fine.”
And it was.
“The other night,” said Gloria the next time I saw her alone. “At the Christmas party. I want to thank you. If you hadn’t come along, I don’t know what would have happened. I just don’t want you to think it was something it wasn’t.”
“I don’t know what I think it was,” I said. I felt embarrassed, her talking to me like this. Cold, too. We were in the High Street and the icy wind whistled through my old coat as if it were full of holes. Which it probably was. I pulled the collar up over my throat and felt my bare hands freezing around the handles of the carrier bag. Foolishly, I had forgotten my mittens.
“I was just going to the toilet,” she said, “and he followed me out there. Mark did. I know I’d had a bit too much to drink. I didn’t mean to, but I suppose I might have given him some encouragement. He called me a tease, said I’d been leading him on all night. Things just got a bit out of hand, that’s all.”
“What do you mean?” I started shifting from foot to foot, hoping the movement would keep me warm. Gloria didn’t seem to feel the cold at all. Still, the land-girls were provided with warm khaki overcoats.
“Earlier in the evening,” she went on, “he got me under the mistletoe. Everyone was doing it. I didn’t think anything of it but . .
. Gwen?” She chewed on her lower lip.
“What?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Men. Sometimes, it’s just . . . I don’t know what it is, you try to be nice to them, but they get the wrong idea.”
“Wrong idea?”
“Yes. I was only being friendly. Like I am with everyone. I didn’t do anything to make him believe I was that kind of girl. Men sometimes get the wrong impression about me. I don’t know why. It seems like they just can’t stop themselves. They’re so strong. And believe it or not, sometimes it’s easier just to give in.”
“Is that what you were doing? Giving in?”
“No. I was struggling. I was trying to call for Matt, for anyone, to help me but Mark had his hand over my mouth. Maybe before, I would have given in. I don’t know. But now I’ve got Matt. I love him, Gwen, I didn’t want to cause a fuss, get Matt upset, start trouble. I hate violence. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come along. I didn’t have much fight left in me. Do you know what I mean?”
“I think so,” I said. I had given up on ever getting warm now. Luckily, I was so numb I couldn’t feel the cold any more.
“Can we just forget about it?” Gloria pleaded.
I nodded. “That’s probably for the best.”
She gave me a hug. “Good. And we’re still friends, Gwen?”
“Of course.”
After Banks had gone, Annie did her usual twenty minutes of meditation, followed by a few yoga exercises and a shower. As she dried herself, her skin tingled and she realized how good she felt. Last night had been worth the risk. And this morning. That celibacy business wasn’t all it was cracked up to be anyway.
They definitely needed more practice. Banks was a little reticent, a bit conservative. That was only to be expected, Annie thought, after twenty or more years of marriage to the same woman. She thought back to her love-making with Rob, and how natural they had become. Even when they had been apart for a year or two, they had picked up the rhythm again without any trouble when they got together in Exeter.
In a Dry Season Page 14