“Like what?” Rachel teased effortlessly. She’d already planned her next move but it was more fun this way and the less Patrick knew, the less chance he had of forgetting his lines.
“I don’t know… tell her I’ve been at the hospital for tests… I’m overworked, stressed out, dodgy heart… but she can’t say anything about it to me. Play it by ear, lie…” Patrick looked as if he was really going to have a heart attack… “Bloody hell Rachel, after what we’ve all been doing recently, a few more untruths won’t hurt!”
Rachel smiled through gritted teeth and with all the skill of an actress who’d spent three years at RADA followed by another twenty playing every female lead at the Old Vic, prepared herself for her next great performance. But she knew that if her own plans were to succeed, the last thing she needed was for the audience to find out what happened before the end of the play. Like her very own version of The Mousetrap, the less people who knew about the plot, the more successful she might be.
“Ok but it’ll cost you… I want you to promise me that every time you fuck that cheating bitch you’ll think of me.” This time her smile was as false as Patrick’s affirmation of her demand.
“God Helen, you look terrible… Come on sit down over here and tell me why you think Patrick’s playing the field.” Rachel said in her most sincere manner. “Personally, I think you’re just a little overwrought… you know with all the building work. Henri says your pool is fantastic, by the way. I gather he dropped some menus off for Patrick the other day and you kindly dropped everything and treated him to the full tour… showed him the whole kit and caboodle.” Rachel said in the best tradition of a ‘Carry On’ film.
“Err yes, although he didn’t stay long, he said he was busy in the restaurant.” Helen’s face flushed, as she remembered Henri’s visit, although she was sure that neither Rachel nor Patrick suspected anything… they’d been so careful. Suddenly she wished she’d arranged to have lunch with someone else…
“Look perhaps you’re right, why don’t we just forget all about my insecurities.” Helen spluttered, as she shuffled uncomfortably in her chair and tried to avoid her friend’s interrogating eyes.
“Well if it’s of any comfort to you, I don’t think Patrick looks the sort of man that would play around behind your back.” Rachel’s false smile put Helen more at ease.
“Tell me Rachel…” Helen seemed hesitant and a little unsure of herself. “…What would you do if you found Henri was messing around with someone? I mean you and him were… you know seeing each other behind Tom’s back before he vanished, weren’t you?” Helen thought it was a gamble to go down that particular avenue but she guessed if anyone would know about being cheated in love, it was Rachel… and anyway, she had the look of a simple woman who would never guess what was going on right under her nose.
“I trust Henri, whereas I didn’t trust Tom… it’s as simple as that.” She lied convincingly. “Although if I ever found him with another woman I don’t know what I’d do.” Rachel blinked her eyes and fanned her face with her hand, like some southern belle who’d just come over all faint at the sight of her first naked man.
“You could leave him… I mean you’re not married, are you?” Helen suggested hopefully.
“Probably, but not before I’d made the bitch that he’d been screwing around with pay dearly for messing my life up.” Rachel spat out the vague threat and then smiled sweetly.
Lunch with Helen and then a tour of the house had given Rachel all the time she needed to get clear in her head what her next move should be. The money that she was now entitled to after the coroner’s recent ruling, would see her clear close on three quarter of a million pounds… not a fortune, but money that she was adamant no man was going to get his hands on. Even Patrick’s allure had its limits and whilst he was great in bed, even he wasn’t worth three quarter of a million pounds, and as for Henri… well he only wanted to squander the money on his business. No, if anyone was going get fleeced and bled dry it wasn’t about to be her, she decided.
“How was Helen?” Henri asked, as soon as she walked back into the restaurant.
“That’s a funny thing to ask.” Rachel said with a sly smile. If her plan was going to work, she needed to put Henri on the back foot and increase what Tom used to call the ‘O Factor’… so that he’d feel ‘O’bliged to go along with her proposal.
“Is it?” Henri countered hesitantly. “It’s just you said she sounded down and I was concerned for a friend… that’s all.”
“I know and that’s what I love about you Henri. In fact …” Rachel moved closer, took hold of Henri’s hand and knelt down on the hard tiled kitchen floor.
Henri, taken off guard by Rachel’s blatant display of sexuality and the possibility being given a blowjob at four o’clock in the afternoon in the restaurant’s kitchen… a kitchen that had been so recently cleaned, took a bewildered step back.
Rachel though wasn’t about to allow her prize to escape so easily and with her grip tightening around his hand, cleared her throat.
“Henri.” She continued a little coyly. “Do you know what the date is… today? What I mean is do you know what today is?”
“Tuesday?” Henri replied feeling a little stupid but definitely confused.
“Well yes it’s Tuesday… but what’s so special about today’s date?” Henri’s blank expression was the clue that told Rachel she was unlikely to get any help from the man stood in front of her.
“Today Henri is the last day of February in the first year of the new millennium. In short, this year is a leap year and in the true tradition of grand romantic gestures, I was wondering if you would do me the honour of becoming my husband?”
Henri’s whole body froze. He wanted to move, to wake up from the nightmare he was living but felt bound by some invisible force. He wanted to say no… of course not, he loved Helen and at some point they planned to be together. He wanted to tell Rachel that she was only a temporary aberration in his life… that he didn’t love her… that’s what he wanted to do… but instead the word that fell from his lips betrayed him…
“Yes.”
~~~~~
Donald didn’t know what to say. If the hotel had only been open a few weeks the card he’d had in his pocket couldn’t have been from that hotel.
“Excuse me.” He asked the girl on the reception desk whilst Samantha went off to pay for the tea and cakes. “Could you tell me where I could use this code please?” He placed the slightly-worn and well-thumbed card on the desk and waited, more in hope than with any great expectation of success.
“Well it looks like one of ours but I don’t recognise the code. Sorry.” She pushed the card back and continued working on her terminal.
“But the card is identical to this one. You must know where it’s come from.” Donald placed the two cards next to each other and waited. Slowly and methodically the receptionist turned each one over and then from under the desk produced one of the hotel’s leaflets, which she placed down on top of the cards, as if she’d just trumped whatever hand Donald had just played.
“Sir. We have six hotels in the chain. Your card could have come from any one of them… except this one of course. If you look through this leaflet, it gives details of each hotel. I’m sure if you ask them, they will be able to help you further… which unfortunately is something I can’t do. Now if there’s nothing else…”
“So where are the other hotels?” Samantha asked as they took their seats on the bus back to the Ambleside Clinic.
The number 34 had been deserted when they’d put their hands out to stop it and so they’d asked the driver if it would be possible to be dropped outside the main gates rather than at the normal return bus stop, which was a brisk walk away and catered more for the tourists who walked around the lake than Dr Woodrow’s patients.
“Don’t you worry yourselves.” The man, who was obviously a native of Wales had sung out as they’d paid their fares. “You’re guests of the doctor are y
ou?” He’d asked, as he handed Samantha her change. “Lovely man the doctor and very good at his work too, they do say.” At the end of each sentence his voice rose and then fell in pitch, like a row boat on a rough sea. “Go on now you pair of lovebirds, I’ll let you know when we get there, you just enjoy the ride.”
“No, you’ve got it wrong.” Donald protested mildly, as he waited on the steps to board the bus behind Samantha. “We’re not…” But before he could add any further protestation, Samantha grabbed his hand and tugged him down the length of the bus to the rear seats. The driver watched the pair skip hand in hand down the aisle and simply shook his head with a smile and a knowing wink… he still remembered what it was like to be in love… before he’d married Mrs Jones. Maybe one day, before he retired he mused, he might ask the good doctor if he wouldn’t break his medical oath and help him to forget the last forty five years of his life and Mrs Jones in particular.
“Well if we forget about the Black Isle and Ambleside, we’re left with hotels in North Wales, Oxford, Cambridge and Padstow.” Donald said, as he handed the leaflet to Samantha.
“They seem to have spread themselves all over the country don’t they? I mean Padstow is way down in Cornwall I think and then they go right up to Cromarty where you turned up. It’s a really weird mix of places don’t you think? I mean do any of them ring a bell?”
But Donald wasn’t paying attention, as the driver’s words were still ringing in his ears and he felt ashamed and guilty for cheating on Martha. He’d only just posted the letter to her and already the bus driver thought that he and Samantha were an item. How would he ever look Martha in the eyes again and they were such beautiful eyes… brown, soulful and full of love with just a hint of mischief. He cursed himself for ever agreeing to visit the clinic, right at that moment he wished he’d stayed in Scotland…
As the countryside flew by his eyes tried to focus on the next tree and then the next… until all he saw was a blur of greens and browns. Suddenly he was back in Cromarty, stood on the beach at the back of the Monroe’s house… it was deserted except for the usual group of ten seals all sunning themselves on the pebbly shoreline.
Unlike many humans, he felt certain that the grey seals mated for life… but no sooner had that thought flashed into his head, than another filled his mind with doubts, and the idea that maybe it was albatrosses not seals that pair bonded. Silently, he cursed himself for not being able to remember which it was, but no sooner had he decided that it must be the albatross, than he was once again transported back to the beach and was standing at the entrance to the garden. In that dreamlike moment, he turned his head and looked back down the beach towards the spot where the seals were languishing on the shore…
Donald closed his eyes and as his body moved in time with rolling motion of the bus, he thought that on the whole he would be happy living the life of a seal… being married to Martha for the rest of his life, irrespective of what he knew about his past, seemed to be the ideal solution.
The soporific motion of the bus, as it felt its way around the small country lanes, kept Donald imprisoned in his own silent dream world. It was a world where Samantha and the clinic didn’t exist and where he was stood on the Monroe’s garden path, acting like some sneak thief and trespasser.
He didn’t understand what it meant but something in his daydream was different about the house… surely in the few weeks that he’d been away, the house couldn’t have changed so much, it was impossible… unless of course it wasn’t Martha’s house but a different one altogether.
No it wasn’t the house… it was the ivy that was different. The wall was covered with ivy… now he recognised it. He’d definitely chosen the right gate and it was the same house, just the wall was covered, from its foundations to its roof with the twisting threads of the shiny evergreen. It had branched and crept over every square inch of the house, leaving only the windows free from its smothering clawing effect.
As he continued to stare up at its walls, he seemed to be drifting down the garden. It was as if he was floating, not walking. There was no effort required and just as he reached the back door it opened and Martha appeared…no it wasn’t Martha, it was someone else… someone who from the warm smile on her face knew him but he couldn’t put a name to the face.
Then, just as he got so near that he could almost touch her outstretched hand, she called out a name but it wasn’t his name, it was another strange sounding name that he didn’t recognise or understand. But before he could ask her who she was, he started to float up… away from the ground and the woman and the ivy covered wall. He was rising vertically into the sky and the higher he went, the darker the clouds became until finally he could see nothing and all he could sense was a movement.
It was as if he was floating, as if he was dead… but dead men don’t hear and he could hear a noise. It was a loud, regular droning sort of noise, like a motor and it wouldn’t stop… no matter how he tried to block out the sound, it just kept going until finally in the dark it faded away into nothing.
“Donald! Donald!” Samantha shook her friend. “Jesus you were miles away. What’s wrong, you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” Samantha asked excitedly. “You didn’t, did you? ...I mean see a ghost.”
The veil that had covered Donald’s eyes, slowly lifted and as it cleared so did his vision and as the world came back into focus, he turned his head towards the noise, which wasn’t regular like before… now it sounded like a muffled, gagged voice and as the gag was slowly removed, so the words began to make sense.
“Sorry…” He spluttered, shaking his head and blinking furiously to clear the dark fog that had seemed to cloud his vision and muddled his hearing and his mind. He rubbed his eyes and his face with his hands to restore the circulation and revive his flagging senses. “… I was in Cromarty, I think with Martha but it wasn’t her there was someone else… someone I think I must have known before… before I lost my memory but I have no idea who she was and then I was floating upwards, as if I was dead.”
“Dead?” Samantha’s eagerness to meet someone from the spirit world suddenly evaporated as the possibility of it happening took a step nearer. “Perhaps we ought to go straight back and let Petrie know. After all, Woodrow’s Rottweiler was interested in keeping tabs on the both of us just in case anything extraordinary happened and thinking you’re dead seems to fit that bill.” Samantha said with more concern for herself than for Donald. She liked him and he certainly had more potential than some of the others, but not at the expense of her own plans.
“Maybe we should… and maybe we ought to tell her about the hotels. They might be able to help.” Donald said drowsily, as his head still felt light but awkward, like a balloon that was trying to float upwards but couldn’t.
“Did you see anything else in this dream-like state you put yourself into? You know place names or anything that could identify where you were?”
“Well there was a beach and the seals were watching me… but you know, now I’m thinking more clearly, I’m not sure they were seals.” He closed his eyes and tried to recall exactly what he’d been thinking about. “Perhaps they were people and I just thought I saw seals. Ancient mariners used to tell tales that they’d seen girls with tails laying on rocks sunbathing… its where the stories of mermaids came from I think… anyway all that the old sailors had actually seen were what we now know as Sea Cows or Manatees. Oh and there was a wall which was completely covered in ivy.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way Donald.” Samantha said worried at his expression and apparent ramblings. “But did the doc give you anything to take? You know like pills or potions? Perhaps you’ve forgotten to take them or maybe you’ve taken more than you should have?”
“No Samantha there are no pills for me to worry about… just the past, that’s sufficient.”
The driver was as good as his word and stopped the bus right outside the main gates of the Ambleside Clinic.
“Be sure to say hello to Dr Woodro
w from me, won’t you?” He said with a cheery wave. “And good luck… I hope you don’t regret finding whatever it is that you are looking for.” He added with an enigmatic nod of his head. Donald froze on the steps and looked back at the driver. It was a strange thing for him to say but it would be stranger still if he wasn’t made to explain himself.
“What do you mean?” He asked politely.
Samantha, unaware of the driver’s best wishes, had already reached the gates before she noticed that Donald was still stood on the bus talking to the driver. Eager to get back to the clinic but happier to be free of the bus’s claustrophobic interior, she merely leant her back against the large slate gatepost and waited. In her pockets, her hands turned and caressed the small, claret box that held the two diamond ear studs. There was something about Donald, which drew her towards him. It was as if there was some invisible force that bound the two of them together, but a force which only she felt and which was unlike the normal urges she got when a man came into her life… oh for sure she’d decided from the moment of their first introduction that she’d get the man into bed and each night since then she’d dreamt about Donald lying next to her… but this sensation was something new for her. Since her accident, she’d not felt like this about any man and that worried her nearly as much as it excited her because she didn’t seem to be in control and the one emotion that she’d nurtured ever since the crash had been the one that put her in control of everything around her… especially the men in her life.
As she turned the small jewellery box over and over in her hand, like a gambler about to shoot dice at a crap game, her eyes never left Donald. The ear studs were to be her present to him, like a bull’s ring pushed through its nose. She wanted him to feel some link to her, as she certainly did to him, so that wherever he went, the studs would be a reminder of her and the control she so wanted to exert over him.
Stranger at the Wedding Page 23