The Wind Off the Sea

by Charlotte Bingham

  As to what she was going to do once she got to the other side Loopy had no real idea, other than to have it confirmed or denied that the big black Humber was their car or not. If it was, she might ask Hugh what in hell he was doing home – and then again, remembering her husband’s line of business, she might not. But if she possibly could she would find out what exactly Hugh might be up to here, in his own backyard, in the middle of the week.

  In line with her instructions, Jed the boatman dropped her well east of the derelict boatyard so that she could not be seen disembarking. Loopy instructed him not to wait for her, so Jed turned the motor dinghy about, to return to the quays. Ahead of her, Loopy could see the big black car parked with its back to her next to the boat shed, to one side of the jetty that ran out from the front of the yard beside the slipway. Unfortunately whoever the driver was had parked the car behind the upturned hull of an old boat so that the number plate was obscured from Loopy’s view. In order to get close enough to identify the vehicle Loopy would have to get to the back wall of the boat shed, from where she would be able to get the clearest of views. Unfortunately to do so she would have to run the risk of being spotted by the driver in his rear view mirror, should he chance to look into it. But, as Loopy realised, that was a chance she would have to take, and if the driver was her husband she would have to somehow convince him either then, or later, that she was out for a stroll, even though she was the wrong side of the estuary, and with the tide still running high a good three miles from their front door.

  It was a fifty-fifty shot and Loopy took it, gambling that there was more than one person in the car. To her way of thinking there had to be, because it seemed unreasonable to believe that if a solo driver wanted to feast his eyes on a beautiful view, some broken old boats and rusting up machinery would hardly be his choice.

  So as quickly and as quietly and as circuitously as she could Loopy made her way to the cover of the boat shed, from where she could observe the car and its occupants.

  She was right – there was more than one person in the car. There were two. On the passenger side, Loopy could clearly see a woman’s elbow resting on the sill of the wound down front window while the fingers of one red-nailed hand drummed a slow tattoo idly on the roof. Beyond the woman, who had her head turned away from her, she could also see the driver, an outline she recognised at once as belonging to her husband Hugh, whose own elbow was also resting on the sill of his open window as he talked to his companion.

  Despite being well hidden from the car, Loopy pulled back further into the shadows. What exactly she was going to do now she wasn’t at all sure, except perhaps just look and listen, which was what she did.

  It was a very quiet spot, the nearest building being Markers which stood a good half-mile down the lane. Apart from the mournful hoot of a distant ship somewhere out in the Channel, the only noise was from the run of the tide, but it was a windless day and the sea was running calm. So from her hiding place Loopy could hear what was being said almost too well.

  ‘But I need you,’ Hugh was saying.

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ came the reply. ‘I don’t think you really need me so much as I happen to be readily available. And, most important of all, I’m still single – but you needn’t start trying that line on me because it won’t wash. I’m not that wet behind the ears any more. Not like before, not like I used to be. I really have no desire to play the heroine any more. Germany was enough.’

  She had known from the very first words the woman had uttered who she was – but even if she hadn’t that last phrase would have revealed her identity. Meggie Gore-Stewart.

  Then she heard her husband laugh, laughing his delighted flirtatious laugh, the laugh that still entranced his wife.

  ‘Your problem,’ Hugh said, his voice carrying to Loopy all too clearly, ‘your problem is that like so many members of your sex since the war, you’ve lost any idea of your worth – of your value. You’d rather people saw you as a social butterfly now than as the person you really are. But I know you better than that. I know the real you. And however much you protest, you’ll come round to saying yes in the end.’

  ‘Do you know what you have, Hugh Tate? A nerve. You really do have a nerve thinking that all you have to do is smile and lift your little finger and I’ll come running back to you. As if I was like a wireless set you just turn on and find it’s still playing exactly the same programme as it was the last time you listened to it. Not me, Hugh. I’m playing something quite different now, and I’m very much afraid you are just not part of my programme any more. Got it? I sincerely hope so.’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Yes I do – and stop looking as if it’s the end of the world. Because it ain’t.’

  ‘You really have no idea how much I need you. Really, Meggie.’

  ‘Then you’re just going to have to go on needing. Now can we go home, please? I have things to do.’

  Hugh went to say something but he was cut short by his passenger’s suffering a sudden coughing fit.

  ‘You all right?’ Loopy heard him asking anxiously.

  ‘Course I’m not bloody well all right!’ came the angry reply. ‘I’m half choking to death – can’t you hear!’

  ‘That really is a dreadful cough,’ Hugh said, as the fit eased.

  ‘It was that damned winter,’ Meggie spluttered. ‘I got the worst cold, and I’ve never been able to get rid of the cough since.’

  ‘Nothing to do with cigarettes, of course.’

  ‘If it was, that’s got nothing to do with you,’ Meggie replied shortly. ‘Now take me home or I’ll get out and swim, I really will.’

  Loopy waited until the car was completely out of sight before taking another breath, let alone moving. While she waited, she wondered what on earth was the true import of the conversation she had just overheard. Knowing Hugh and his security work it could be anything – but then knowing men it could equally well be something else altogether.

  Meggie and Hugh? It seemed the most unlikely of liaisons. As a rule Hugh, while admiring Meggie’s courage, had only ever joked about her. It was always ‘Meggie-Long-Legs’ or ‘Meggie-Won’t-Settle’. Loopy had always stood up for Meggie whom she very much liked as well as admired, particularly after her heroic actions during the war. Yet Loopy also knew that according to Judy, Meggie could be notoriously unreliable or even, dare she think it, unstable, given to sudden fancies which Judy described as Meggie’s whims.

  So there might be good reason to suppose that her very own husband had been the subject of one of Miss Gore-Stewart’s whims.

  Once the car and its occupants were well out of her range, Loopy began her long walk home. She made no attempt to take any short cuts this time round. She had far too much to think about.

  Chapter Eight

  The fact that Lionel Eastcott was apparently stepping right out of character by accepting Waldo’s invitation to join him in London for a schedule of high stake and standard bridge games was of far less interest to Bexham society than the question of quite was what going on. There was an air of curious disquiet abroad, as if the little seaside port was a pond whose normally tranquil surface had been disturbed by a succession of stones being skimmed across it as their American visitor – who it seemed must now be recognised as having semi-residential status – continued his game of ducks and drakes with their normally placid existences. So although Lionel’s possible temptation was certainly of interest to those who frequented the local bridge tables, it was small beer compared to the rumours and whispers about much more important matters, most particularly the precise nature of the business Mr Waldo Astley was undertaking in Bexham.

  There were all sorts of rumours flying about, the first and most obvious being that Waldo had been Gloria Morrison’s lover but had left her bed for that of another, someone who could possibly be Loopy Tate who was going around behaving really rather strangely. Then there was a very positive notion that Meggie Gore-Stewart was having a torrid affa
ir with a married man, the no-surprise being that the most likely candidate had to be Judy Tate’s husband Walter who had also been seen acting in uncharacteristic fashion (this to include going out regularly on weekend walks all by himself). The ostensible reason for the affair was that Meggie and Walter had always been in love – at least Meggie Gore-Stewart had always been in love with Walter Tate and everyone knew what a man-eater Miss Gore-Stewart was. Then there was the tale that Peter Sykes was trading in cars that his father had stolen during the war and had kept hidden away ever since, the enterprise now given a cloak of respectability by the investment of Waldo Astley who was also deeply involved, an added refinement being that some of the cars were American and contained guns being run for the hoodlums back in Mr Astley’s home country. Then some let it be known that the father of Mathilda Eastcott’s illegitimate child was not some GI Johnny as first supposed but actually John Tate, and that Miss Eastcott was finally blackmailing him into marrying her, while her father apparently had lost so much at the card tables that Waldo Astley had paid off his gambling debts in return for some sort of Faustian deal that involved cheating at high-stake card games.

  For the few good people in Bexham who preferred the truth to these Chinese whispers, it was as obvious as ever that the knowledge gleaned under the chestnut tree on the village green was about as accurate as the Reverend David Anderson’s spin bowling during the village cricket match.

  But not so the gossipmongers. And such is the power of gossip that the rumour spreaders were able quite to change the atmosphere of Bexham, an alteration that they all too willingly ascribed to the arrival of Mr Waldo Astley in their midst. Happily the incomer appeared to be totally oblivious of the sensation he was creating, continuing to conduct himself in a way that was, on the surface at any rate, totally without reproach. He greeted everyone with a smile, a touch of his hat or a wave of his hand as he wandered blithely through the streets on his way to or from the Three Tuns, or drove around the lanes and the immediate vicinity in his new Jaguar. His constant good humour might have given the lie to at least some of the rumours, yet the fact remained: everyone refused to take him at his face value.

  For a short while it seemed even Loopy might have begun to doubt his integrity, particularly after witnessing what she now suspected to be collusion between her husband and her new found friend, although she was unable to ascribe such a liaison to any reasonable motive.

  ‘I have to ask you something,’ she said to Waldo one Friday morning when he had telephoned her about her forthcoming art exhibition. ‘You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to – but I believe I saw my husband leaving your house last Saturday, early evening.’

  ‘You saw this from where, Loopy?’ Waldo enquired politely. ‘Were you out sailing perhaps?’

  ‘No, no I wasn’t,’ Loopy said quickly, now well and truly annoyed with herself for saying something without thinking it properly through. She knew what Waldo was going to say next, and sure enough he did.

  ‘The only way you could have seen what you say you saw would be from your house, right? Through field glasses?’

  ‘I was watching some birds on the water. Some egrets I think they were.’

  ‘And you happened to put your glasses up just as Hugh was leaving my house. That’s OK – I don’t have anything to hide.’

  ‘My husband might have. He never mentioned it.’

  ‘Chaps’ stuff, as your husband would say. Men’s palaver.’

  Seeing the door from the drawing room beginning to open and knowing that Gwen was about to emerge and listen in to her side of the conversation, Loopy walked into the porch still holding the telephone and firmly shut the door between.

  ‘Your husband called because he said he needed to talk to me,’ she heard Waldo continuing. ‘Actually not quite true. He needed someone to talk to, would be a whole lot more accurate, and he was passing my house, he saw me out on the stoop as it were – and he stopped by.’

  ‘You hardly know each other.’

  ‘Confucius say – better the ear of a stranger.’

  ‘Can I ask what it was about?’

  ‘If I may make so bold, you should ask your husband. I’m bound by convention not to tell you any more. I really think this is something you must discuss with Hugh.’

  Waldo excused himself with his usual perfect manners, at the same time explaining that the reason he had called was to tell her he had to hurry off up to London to see Richard Oliver on her behalf and as soon as their meeting had been concluded he would telephone her again.

  Puzzled by their enigmatic exchange mid-conversation, Loopy lit a cigarette and returned to the conservatory, which was once again serving as her fine-weather studio. She had made no mention to Hugh of his mysterious midweek appearance at the deserted boatyard, simply because she saw no way to bring the matter up naturally. Her husband had arrived home as usual at his appointed time on Friday evening as if there were nothing untoward. He behaved as he always did nowadays when he got home – pouring himself a couple of large drinks, the first of which he drank far too quickly, before bolting his dinner and then taking himself off to the Yacht Club to meet friends and enjoy a few more drinks. But Loopy knew in her heart that even if the opportunity had arisen to ask Hugh what had been the purpose of his apparently mysterious meeting she would not have taken it for fear of finding out an unpalatable truth. And now, as darkness fell outside, and the landscape she had been painting slowly disappeared into the night, she found herself hoping against hope that Hugh’s meetings might indeed be just part of his work. After all, Meggie had worked for SOE during the war, and Loopy thought it was perfectly possible that Hugh might have been trying to re-recruit her, which would make sense of the conversation she had overheard. But Meggie was also an extremely attractive young woman, perhaps made even more attractive by her courageous underground exploits, and, as Loopy knew too well, younger, prettier, and particularly singular women always posed a threat to any marriage, however stable it had previously been.

  Having washed and dried her paintbrushes she covered her canvas and took herself inside for a drink. As she sat sipping her whisky and smoking a chain of Du Maurier cigarettes, she tried to put all suspicion out of her head, but finally found it impossible. The trouble was that anyone engaged in undercover work for the government was more or less untouchable. Other than your superiors, no-one had the right to know what you were doing and when and why, so as Loopy very soon concluded security work was surely the greatest cover for having an affair ever invented.

  She finished her drink, stubbed out her cigarette and went out onto the terrace for a breath of the fresh night air. She stood gazing up at a star-filled sky and came to her conclusion, namely that she would believe that Hugh was innocent until proved otherwise. She must and would believe that whatever he was doing was for the best reasons, and above all she would always believe that he loved her as much as she loved him. To do otherwise would not only be unfair, it might well destroy their happiness.

  Hugh was late driving down from London that evening, and by the time he got in it was midnight and Loopy was fast asleep in bed. He went straight to his dressing room rather than disturb Loopy, who must have guessed that he would, because on his pillow he found a handwritten note. It simply said I love you – as always – Night and Day.

  He sat slowly on the edge of his bed with the note in his hand, staring at it.

  I love you – as always – Night and Day.

  Then screwing the scrap of paper slowly up he lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, worrying yet again that the figure he thought he had caught a fleeting glimpse of ten days ago, half hidden in the shadows behind the old boat shed, might possibly have been his wife.

  Waldo was hardly able to contain his delight when he arrived at Shelborne the following Wednesday with news from London. It seemed that although Richard Oliver had been called away on business to New York and thus could not make his planned personal visit to see Loopy’s work he was ne
vertheless perfectly happy to take Waldo’s word for the quality of the rest of her portfolio and so to let him go ahead and make all the arrangements for the exhibition in his absence. Moreover there was a week that had suddenly become free in October so Waldo had taken the liberty of pencilling Loopy’s exhibition in for that date.

  Such unexpected news at once threw Loopy into a state of panic and she began to hurry round her conservatory studio going through the paintings Waldo and she had selected for the show, now rejecting half of them and worrying aloud about the remaining half.

  ‘None of these are any damned good, let’s face it!’ she exclaimed, putting one small canvas after another to one side under a notice she had long since pinned to the wall that said Rejected. ‘In fact when you take a good look, it is all just amateur rubbish.’

  Waldo laughed, retrieved the rejected paintings and put them all back under the other pencilled notice that read Selected. From that moment neither of them took any further notice of the other. Loopy continued to move her paintings from one set to another while Waldo quietly returned them to their rightful stack.

  ‘My dear Loopy,’ he finally sighed, taking her by the hand and leading her outside into the garden and well away from her paintings. ‘We have to talk. Come out onto the terrace and let’s sit down, shall we?’

  Outside they sat at the small iron table and Waldo helped them both to some more coffee from the Thermos flask that had been keeping it warm. Loopy lit a cigarette and sat back with her eyes closed, exhaling her first deep draw. Waldo smiled to himself, shook his head, carefully cut the end of a fresh cigar and slowly lit it, examining the end to make sure he had done a proper job before sticking it in the side of his mouth and drawing thoughtfully on it.

  ‘I want you to know that I understand how you feel at this moment,’ he said after several long, pensive puffs. ‘I really do, but even so – in spite of my great and infinite compassion and understanding – you are going to have to take hold of yourself and not give in to your feelings, which I imagine you would describe as doubts and anxieties.’