by Lorna Gray
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘You and I both know you meant to prevent me from speaking to that woman, or rather stop her from speaking to me and yet you still won’t admit it. You’re just going to send me off without so much as a nod towards the confidences that you’ve been working out of me endlessly for the past two days.’
He actually turned his head and looked at me then. Very briefly. Then he added this last point as if it answered everything; as in a way it did. He said gently, ‘You might simply choose to trust me.’
The awful validity of the appeal shattered my resolve. It deflated me. It made me sit back in my seat and blink fiercely at the glass.
After a time, while a few more passengers dashed in and out of the station, I finally managed to say, ‘No.’
I took a breath before adding, ‘Please don’t do it like this. You know I can’t compete on this footing. You know what you’re doing here and this isn’t about trust. You have this wonderful decisiveness that overwhelms – don’t deny it; you know you have – it runs through everything you do. But when you use it now, like this, as a weapon, just so that you can steer me into doing what you want when you know full well you could simply explain and I’d probably agree to almost anything anyway … It makes me afraid that there’s danger here and it isn’t just from those people.’ It wasn’t much of an explanation. I took an unsteady breath before adding the rest. I felt the intensity of his attention. Finally, I managed to articulate what was making me resist so much and my voice grew stronger as I added at last, ‘I can’t stop you from buying my ticket and I expect I’ll let you put me on the train, since it clearly matters to you and I suppose I can guess why. But I don’t think you realise what damage it’s doing. When you could just ask.’
He didn’t reply. I sensed the sudden frown, though I didn’t see it. I felt the temporary dip of his confidence. I’d thought it would help to put my agitation in terms of my desolation. I’d thought it was right that he should understand what this manner of inflicting his decisions upon me was costing me in terms of hope and that fragile independence that I’d been working so hard to nurture. I’d thought it vital to give a hint, too, of what I thought he was risking in terms of his own nature. But I hadn’t quite anticipated how close this came to comparing his kind of instinctive action in the face of a threat to the first hard choices that must have set his brother on his long slide into dereliction. It was an unforgiveable repetition of the cruel misuse I’d just made of his name purely for the sake of reasserting my own bit of control. In its way I thought it was as shamefully manipulative as any of the manoeuvrings of the Mrs Abbeys, the Ducketts and the visiting vagrants of these parts.
So I’d go. And peaceably. But first I found I was speaking again; fighting to remedy the mistake; confessing that I knew he was a man who depended on his power to identify a complication and then to act upon it, and working to cancel out the authenticity of the feelings I’d betrayed by forming some kind of ridiculous excuse for my resistance based around the fate of the goat and the raven.
I heard the springs in his seat squeak as he moved restlessly. His voice was clouded with frank incomprehension. ‘Pardon? Did you say a raven? What on earth am I supposed to have done wrong now?’
There was resignation there rather than the same dip in certainty that had frightened me a moment ago. I worked to reduce my dignity a little bit further by taking a shaky breath and saying in a bitter rush, ‘You’re going to ask Danny to shoot it. Poor thing. I presume its mistake was to take up residency in a set of trees that you’ve just happened to determine are vital for your darling young pheasants.’
I heard his breath go out. With relief, I thought. His manner was suddenly softer. I found I was bracing myself to meet a laugh and further humiliation but he didn’t find it amusing at all. He said seriously, ‘So this is what has been upsetting you? Emily, I’ll just issue a decree that the raven is to be left in peace. There must be at least one permitted use of authority here, don’t you think? And actually, for your information, I don’t care to go blasting pheasants or carrion birds or any other kind of fowl out of existence either. I told you I wasn’t ready to step into my brother’s shoes. He enjoyed the sport. I like to keep it very clear in my mind precisely what weapons are actually for.’
Now, suddenly, this was more like the man I thought I knew. There was humour there. I found myself replying in a stronger voice, ‘I know that you’re trying to tell me that you don’t think death and sport belong together, but actually that’s not quite as reassuring to hear as you might suppose, given that it only serves to reinforce the idea I have of just how much you personally must know about the proper use of a gun.’
I heard the creak of leather as he relaxed. He’d seen the brief show of a wry smile on my lips. I sensed the answering warmth in him. Outside, a train must have been due because a steady stream of cabs was flowing past us and drawing up outside the entrance to the station. People and suitcases and office workers were all clambering out and racing in.
After the rush had passed, I too was calm at last. I broke the silence that had stretched for some minutes. ‘This is an evacuation, isn’t it?’
I felt his hesitation. Then he accepted the term. ‘Why not? Yes. That’s as good an explanation as any. After all, as you just remarked yourself, there is a ferocious bruise on a woman’s jaw and even I can tell no swelling of that kind was ever applied with make-up. So if she’s vulnerable, I really don’t want you to be next. I feel responsible enough as it is, and I am, I suppose, your employer of sorts—’
Exasperation made me interrupt, despite all my good intentions. I said hotly, ‘No, you’re not. You’re the one who keeps mentioning renumeration – remuneration, thank you – and I think you’ll find that I haven’t asked for it once. I had thought I was only being neighbourly. I thought I was being useful.’ My voice caught on that last word and I snatched it back with a sharp intake of breath. ‘You asked me to help. You wanted me to do what I could to make things easier for your father. I’ve been trying to help him.’
‘Well,’ he replied with his gaze firmly fixed on a passing pigeon. ‘Now I’m telling you that you can help us both by going home.’
He shifted in his seat to face me. Here was rejection again, firm and final. The body of the car tilted slightly as he moved. He said reasonably, ‘You told me you don’t like violence. You don’t like distress. What else am I supposed to do?’
‘Ask me.’
I hadn’t meant to repeat that one unresolved argument, but the validity of the point was inescapable. At last he could gauge how far I believed I was fighting here for more than just myself. I might just as well have been asking why he might not simply choose to trust me. It drew an impatient jerk of his head. He really hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t expected to encounter any other reasonable point of view. The adjustment of his thoughts didn’t sit easily in his mind. I might have supposed that he was experiencing the surprise of meeting me as I really was for the first time. But this wasn’t one of those moments when a fearfully domineering male was forced to confront the news that a woman had her own capacity for independent thought. This was more tender than that. I thought instead that in this small moment I was confirming suspicions that he’d long held about my nature but hadn’t before glimpsed the proof.
It was then that I heard him say on a very odd note. ‘Very well. Let’s talk about this. You mentioned my brother’s name. Emily, will you tell me—?’
Then, before I could even begin to grasp that he was beginning to confide the truth, he cut the sentence short and I heard what might have been a mutter under his breath of ‘Oh, hell!’ before, significantly more clearly, he turned instead to the relief of accepting that capitulation I’d offered shortly before.
He said in a very different voice, ‘Look, let’s not do this. You know I meant to talk this through with you properly before you left. There isn’t enough time now. I’ve got a meeting in about half an hour that I can’t miss, not even for thi
s. I’ll come and see you when I’m back in London. Won’t that do?’
My heart gave an uncomfortable jolt that told me that I still felt rather more for him than could possibly be healthy or perhaps even deserved. I was painfully unsure that the feeling wasn’t betraying itself all over again on my cheeks. But this was one concession I wouldn’t submit to. I couldn’t bear the idea of going home and meekly waiting there for the next in his line of rescues, as if there was truly anything for him to actually come for. Miserable pride made me shake that future away and say coldly to the hands clasped in my lap, ‘I don’t think that’s very wise, do you? If you’re worrying about reclaiming the cost of my fare, you needn’t. My father will send it back to you tomorrow.’
I heard an intake of breath. ‘Emily, sweetheart, come on …’
The gentle reprimand brought my head round. In his expression, I actually discovered a trace of amusement of the sort that grows from exasperation purely because he hadn’t meant to let this argument lead me into that kind of rejection. Not quite, anyway.
Suddenly I was wading through a different kind of shame. All along I’d been battling my own insecurities – my sneaking hatred of being made to acknowledge I was still an inconvenient tag-along when I’d hoped the little help I had to offer a person these days would be enough to make me fit to play a part even if I wouldn’t bear arms. But while there was certainly a threat here that had motivated him to act with such unswerving purpose on my behalf, I discovered within the sudden honesty in that reproof that his decision to fling me away wasn’t noble. It wasn’t heroic and it certainly wasn’t because he was trying to shelter a delicate young thing. It was a hard and uncompromisingly desperate act of self-defence.
He was trying to protect himself and, knowing him as I thought I was beginning to, the threat to him had to be something substantial or else he wouldn’t bother to do it at all.
Suddenly I was wishing passionately that I’d let this man talk more about the car and other harmless pleasantries such as the passage of elvers up the River Severn. I swallowed my pride. I managed to look him straight in the eye. I had the sudden disconcerting experience of discovering that he in his turn had been assessing me. It was safe to say that the results of his scrutiny hadn’t been very happy.
Outside the car, newly arrived passengers were flowing from the station and we were the only still people in a sea of motion. I knew I had to do something to make amends; to restore his confidence that his decision about me had been sound if I could; just so, at the very least, he wouldn’t think that the threat came from me.
In the midst of that flood of people, I told him urgently, ‘I’m sorry. Of course I’ll go. I didn’t understand what you were trying to do. I wish I didn’t always get things so wrong; or at least that I could say the right thing more easily.’ His left hand was moving. Not towards me but the little compartment on the dashboard before me, where presumably he’d put his wallet and the funds to purchase my ticket. It paused when I added in a flushing rush, ‘Only, before I relieve you of the cost of my ticket and perhaps beg you for a small loan to cover my lunch too …’
‘Yes?’
I finished in a smaller voice than I intended, ‘I think it’s important you know that I never did want anything real from you. I wasn’t meaning to pry. It’s simply that, for what it’s worth, I wanted you to know that I’m on your side.’
After a moment, his hand resumed its path. But it wasn’t heading to the catch on the storage compartment. I wasn’t entirely sure it ever had. It went to the heart of the dashboard where the starter button lay.
I wasn’t sure his confidence had ever needed my meagre restorative efforts either. He wasn’t me, after all. His self-assurance didn’t ebb and flow with every word of mine. The engine growled into life. Without a word, while a train steamed its way messily out of the station, the car was sent forwards gracefully into a wide loop down the slope once more. It hesitated at the junction. Then the traffic eased and we moved gently on towards the town. It didn’t escape my notice that with the same precision with which he had previously decided I wouldn’t stay, he had now decided to ignore my resolution to go.
I was brave enough to ask him about it when we parked the car at the point where a busy shopping street gave way to offices and workshops. It was reasonably near the hospital, he’d told me, and we were to meet back at the car in about an hour. It was all done in a very friendly fashion. Politeness reigned between us. He seemed as much a capable man as he ever did and I, for once, felt more like a woman than a naïve girl when I climbed out onto a sun-scorched pavement made deafening by the flow of city traffic. Petrol rationing didn’t appear to hold much sway here and noise shrouded me as I stood to one side while he came round to lock my door. While he did it, I risked unseating our renewed truce by asking tentatively, ‘Why did you let me stay? I mean, thank you very much and all that. But why did you?’
He paused in the midst of reaching into an inside breast pocket for his wallet and a note that would buy my lunch. His head turned to me. ‘I thought you’d decided that one for yourself?’
I raised an eyebrow at him. It said everything that needed to be said.
He handed me my loan and then returned the wallet to its place. His eyes were grave, but there was also a flicker of a lighter feeling playing there. I didn’t know what the difference was in my voice now, but he’d noticed it too.
‘Very well,’ he said, putting out a hand to my sleeve to warn me that someone meant to pass us from behind and to keep me from straying into their path. He let them go past and then dropped his grip. We were standing in the space between the car and the soot-stained stone of an office of some sort. Heat blazed off every surface.
He returned his attention to me. ‘It’s because you lied yesterday when you let me believe your greatest terror is that the peace means nothing and it’s your turn now to face something dreadful. I wondered at the time about it, but let it pass. I can’t let it pass again today. You gave yourself away just now when you made your sudden about-turn to tell me about that unfortunate raven. You did it just at the very moment that I was about to have to acknowledge how badly I was behaving, and I realised just how much you are in the habit of making endless calculations about what other people want, and then modifying your own wishes just so you don’t harm them.’
He cast a swift glance over his shoulder to be sure that no one else was coming past. No one was. The only bustle at this end of town came from the rumbling traffic as he confided gently, ‘I think I would even go so far as to suspect that yesterday the impulse led you to play to my own preconceptions when you let me believe you needed to be shielded from the distress of a violent scene. I suppose you were honest in as far as it goes, but I’ve also noticed that you’ve been regretting leaning on me ever since … Haven’t you?’
He was doing it again; this was like that instant by the bicycle outside the tithe barn. It was a disorientating swoop into a fuller empathy presented as a shatteringly perceptive portrait of myself. And again, just like the other time, I wasn’t sure he knew how close his judgement was cutting to the bone.
It felt as though someone else’s body were moving when I conceded the point with a faint tilt of my head. Then he added, ‘I think your real terror is the act of being sheltered itself. In part it’s just as you said: you’re afraid because the fact someone would even think you needed help must mean that aggression is close by. But I’m beginning to suspect that the real issue is that you believe that when nastiness does finally break, it won’t matter what you’ve decided you’re prepared to do. Other people will always set the rules for what counts as a valid intervention, and any effort of yours is, and will remain, perpetually below par.’
Suddenly I was smiling and shaking my head. Not because it wasn’t true but because he really wasn’t saying this to wound. This wasn’t quite as perceptive as I’d feared either. He wasn’t making me confront anything I wasn’t ready to admit and the discovery left me room to fe
el a powerful and disabling appreciation of the exact worth of this man who would act to save a person, even from an emotional hazard. Because this was what he was doing here. He was undoing all those parts of the argument that had worked upon my sense of being small and useless. He was letting me know that he would find a role for me if I wanted it.
Suddenly I was a step closer and my hand was on his sleeve. And, trying hard to avoid the agonised tones of our last conversation, I was telling him very earnestly, ‘This is going to sound terribly crass after the fuss and guilt I’ve just inflicted upon you about staying, and I’m certainly glad I’m here now so I’m not trying to turn this into yet another discussion on the state of my self-esteem. But please, I mean what I say. I don’t want my name to be added to your list of responsibilities. Your perception of this part of me is wholly accurate. I refuse to be made the object of any more grand gestures when I know full well it is impossible that I’ll ever be able to reciprocate and—’
‘Any more grand gestures?’ He queried the count as well as the term.
‘I won’t be indebted.’
I stalled there. He didn’t understand and I was straying into an explanation of those things I didn’t mean to lay bare. I shook it away and found my eyes had settled upon the grey fabric of his suit jacket where it ran smoothly beneath my fingers. My body was still feeling like it was something distant from me. Without really thinking that I ought to drop that hand, I lifted my head properly. I told him boldly, ‘To be perfectly frank, Richard, I think you’ve got quite enough to deal with as it is, without adding my silly insecurities to the list; what with your father and that house, and the very real antics of everyone else too.’