“Come on, Clare, we’ve made some tea. They won’t get back any the sooner for you standing mooning at the gate, you know!”
Rhoda’s bracing voice recalled me from my uneasy musings, and I joined the others round the kitchen table for what turned out to be a really quite relaxing half-hour of idle chatter. Sally talked about the hotel she and Richard were staying in, with its darling little mobiles just inside the front door. Rhoda talked about the teenage drug scene in villages other than this one: and My Woman talked about her back, and how it wasn’t too bad on the level, it was going up and down stairs that gave her gyp: while Phoebe didn’t talk at all, but got on with the homework she had somehow failed to find a way of missing.
By now, Barnaby’s afternoon rest was coming to an end. The bumps, scrapes, rattles and thuds that had marked its continuance abruptly ceased, and he was now on his way downstairs, singing loudly to himself, and raring to go.
Go where? Well, there was quite a bit of sunshine still left, Sally calculated, so she could take him on the beach for an hour or so. The plane was bound to be late, Richard wouldn’t be back for ages, and if by any chance he did turn up, then one of us could tell him he’d find her on the beach. With which carefree assessment of the situation she set off, with Barnaby in her wake, clonking his spade across the cobbles of the stable-yard as they went.
Too many cooks were by now gathering to spoil the coq au vin which I’d planned for Leo’s home-coming. It was Rhoda who had come to our rescue in the first place, fetching chicken pieces out of her deepfreeze, and this of course entitled her to interfere in a big way with my plans for cooking it. No, she said, leaning across me, marinading them in the wine and bay leaves before cooking wasn’t at all necessary, she never bothered with it herself. And why only bay leaves? Surely mixed herbs would give more flavour? And the onions should go in whole, not chopped like that.
And My Woman wasn’t much better. Naturally enough, she felt herself to have long-established rights over this kitchen, and to every utensil I touched, every pan I reached for, she would say: “No, no, Mrs Coburn always uses this one.” The problem was compounded by the fact that I didn’t know if she was officially back at work, being paid by the hour for hanging about like this, or whether she was just filling in time in order not to miss the excitement of Mr Coburn’s return, with his leg in plaster, or so she’d heard and whatever else. In any case, it wasn’t for me to say Well, thank you very much, I think that’ll be all.
The dispute about the chopping and the non-chopping of the onions had just about reached deadlock. It was no longer any use for me just to give in about it, because by now the two of them, Rhoda and My Woman, had established entrenched positions one on each side of the great divide. And so it came about that I felt nothing but relief when the telephone interrupted our preparations. I abandoned the battle-front with alacrity. Let the best chef win.
A lightening strike of air-controllers at some distant airport. Leonard’s departure indefinitely delayed. Nothing for it but to come straight back, and wait for further information.
Richard’s cool, clipped voice down the telephone gave nothing away of what he was feeling; but obviously he must be considerably put-out and concerned. It came to me that Sally really must be here to greet him when he arrived back, disappointed and on edge. For him to be greeted merely by the casual message that he’d find her on the beach didn’t seem a good idea at all.
Come to that, I’d expected them back before now myself. The sun was gone, a chill wind had come up, and clouds were gathering.
*
At first, as I came down the dunes on to the beach, the place seemed totally deserted. As far as I could see in each direction there was nothing but a grey-brown waste of sand, gleaming wetly where the grey waves rolled in, whipped by the wind into spiralling twists of foam.
And then I saw them. Far out on the heaving water, close alongside the wreck. The little boat was tossing and heaving perilously, and the two figures within it leaned and swayed this way and that as they desperately plied their oars. Well, it looked desperate from here, but maybe they knew what they were doing? Edwin has never been what you could call a rowing man, but on our occasional boating trips on holiday, he had always seemed to acquit himself well enough. Until, that is, Jason became old enough to take one of the oars, after which these trips became a nightmare of shouts and scoldings, with Jason, ceaselessly reprimanded, becoming sullen and nervous and beginning actually to do the wrong thing, his steering all to pieces, the boat spinning out of control.
But of course it wouldn’t be like that with Sally. Whatever she might be doing wrong out in that pitching little craft would be smilingly forgiven — unless, of course, they actually were in danger? In which case …
My heart lurched. Barnaby …? Was he there, with them? Had they ventured to take him, too, on this scatterbrained jaunt? I remembered what Richard had said this morning about the possible danger from currents, the powerful underflow around the wreck. Had it right now got them in its grip, dragging them relentlessly — whither? To their deaths, sucked unstoppably beneath those huge, rotting timbers?
Over the rolling expanse of intervening water I could just distinguish their voices, which at first had so blended with the cries of the gulls and the swirl of the hurrying surf that they had not registered on my hearing. Even now I could not hear what they were saying, nor even the tone of voice, whether of panic or enjoyment. Except, suddenly, Barnaby’s voice, shrill and unmistakeable across the racing water:
“Again, Edwin!” I fancied I heard him shriek. “Again! Again!”
So it was all just fun after all? An amusing little adventure, no cause for panic? Or was it just Barnaby who was unaware of any cause for panic? For his sake, were they repressing signs of terrible fear?
The repressing of feelings was not characteristic of Sally; and Edwin, though he did try when it was to his advantage, was no good at it. So perhaps they were all right? And now, at last, I began to breathe more freely. The distance between me and the little tossing craft was visibly diminishing. Slowly, and perhaps with some difficulty, they were making it to shore.
“Oh, Clare, it was such fun!” cried Sally, struggling up the beach, hair, sweater, jeans all soaked with spray. “It was so exciting! We thought we were absolutely going to capsize, didn’t we, Edwin, when that great wave threw us right smack into the wreck? I thought it was going to swallow us, it looks so huge when you’re close to, you’ve no idea! I thought we’d never get away from it; we rowed and rowed, and every time a great wave would come and heave us back —”
“Like on the swings!” broke in Barnaby. “Right up, high, high, and then down again! Edwin turned us sideways, so that the big waves could throw us against the wreck, didn’t you, Edwin? Four, five, six, lots of times!”
How much of all this Richard had heard I will never know. He came behind us noiselessly — or was it that the wailing of the wind and the surge of the incoming tide blotted out the sound of his footsteps in the sand?
His voice, slashing into our midst like a hand grenade, was the first we knew of his approach.
Never had I seen him so uninhibitedly angry. His fury extended even towards Sally. What did she think she was doing, risking her life — and Barnaby’s too — on this lunatic escapade? Hadn’t he told her that …?
“Oh, darling, I know you said you were going to find out about it, currents and tides and things, but you weren’t there, you see. And Edwin was, he happened to come down on to the beach just after we got there. And there were these boats, all drawn up ready; there wasn’t even anyone taking money and all we had to do was just take one. And so we did. We dragged it down to the sea, and we got into it—Oh, darling, it was such fun! And we were perfectly safe, truly we were, Edwin is marvellous at managing a boat, really he is …”
“I see. He’s marvellous. And if, in the interests of being as marvellous as all that, he’d drowned you both …”
“Oh, Richard, darling, yo
u’re being a silly old thing, you really are! Of course we weren’t going to be drowned! Of course it was safe; Edwin knew it was, or we wouldn’t have gone, would we, Edwin? And anyway, here we are, safe and sound, which just proves …”
“Do you realise, Sally, that if the tide hadn’t happened to be still coming in, you’d never have got back? The current out there …”
“Oh, darling,” she interrupted again, clutching his arm, clinging to it lovingly, but, for once, receiving no answering pressure: “it didn’t happen to be coming in, Edwin knew it was coming in, didn’t you Edwin? I told you, he’s marvellous about …”
“Yes. I heard you. You’ve already explained how marvellous he is.”
And here Barnaby, who had been following intently the to-and-fro of the altercation, must have caught that look of utter hatred in his father’s eyes which I had glimpsed this morning; for he burst into sudden and uncontrollable sobbing.
“Daddy’s cross!” he sobbed; and his mother bent down hastily to console him.
“Daddy’s not really cross, sweetie,” she began, “he’s only …” but the child pushed her roughly away.
“He is really cross,” he sobbed. “He’s too cross! He’s crosser than a Daddy ought to be!”
He was, too: and perhaps Richard himself realised it. Anyway, he controlled himself, and swung his little son up in his strong arms, and kissed him, albeit with an upper lip all too used to being stiff. But it was enough. Barnaby, reassured, brought his frightened sobbing quickly to an end.
“Daddy!” he squealed, “Daddy, be a horse!” and Richard, hoisting the child on to his shoulders, complied, as well as he could with his painful leg.
Barnaby, on his high perch, bounced with joy.
“Gallop, Daddy,” he cried, “Gallop really fast, like Edwin does!”
CHAPTER XXVI
It was a chastened and rather silent party which wound its way up and over the sandhills towards Coburn’s Farm. Richard, having gently and decisively set his child down on the ground, was now striding rapidly ahead, regardless of whatever pain his leg might be causing. For a few paces, Sally tried to keep up with him, but so total was his lack of response to her presence that she soon fell back and rejoined the rest of us.
“I’m sorry about all that fuss,” she apologised. “He can be such an old worry-guts at times. But never mind, I’ll soon bring him round. He never stays cross with me for long. Never!”
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” I said warmly, and she nodded, smiling, radiating the utter confidence of one who is utterly loved. She glowed with it, basked in it, despite the chilly wind whipping around her soaked clothes; and once again I felt a stab of sharp, uncontrollable envy shooting through me. Though I was glad for her sake. At least, I think I was. In view of what came later, I hope I was. I would hate to think that any envious thought of mine had spoiled that moment for her, her bare, brown feet happily scuffling through the soft, still-warm sand.
By the time we reached the house, the new moon had come into view, white and thread-like above the tussocky crest of the sandhills behind us; and at the door, by some tacit agreement, we turned and paused, just looking. The sky had cleared, it was not yet dark, and the pure silvery green was pricked as yet by only the brightest stars. Sirius, low down on the south-eastern horizon, and Jupiter right above the roof of the old stable.
I have wondered, since, what Edwin was actually thinking as the three of us stood taking in the incomparable beauty of it all. Or what was I thinking, come to that. Such parallel anxieties were surely preying on us both, parallel lines that never meet. And Sally? She, I hope and think, was simply enjoying a nice bit of her holiday. Leaning with effortless grace against the door jamb, her perfect profile tilted skywards, her bright hair floating, she was perhaps enjoying the beauty of the scene less consciously than I was, being herself a part of it. That feeling of participation in all things lovely is vouchsafed for a little while to the very young, the totally loved, and the effortlessly beautiful.
I hope so, anyway, I hope it was like that for her. I shall always hope so.
*
The coq au vin was a fair success, despite the vicissitudes attendant on its creation. Rhoda had finished the preparations in her way, and I could hardly complain, having abandoned my post as head cook so precipitately; though I certainly wouldn’t have added all those cloves. One or two, yes, but not so that you got one in almost every mouthful.
Not that it mattered much. Leo not having arrived after all, it was no longer a celebration meal, and didn’t have to be perfect. Nor did the conversation have to be particularly jolly; which was just as well, because the atmosphere, dulled by a sense of anticlimax, was subdued, heavy with unspoken thoughts. Laboriously, we made conversation — well, we women did. The men, as so often happens, seemed to feel no social obligation to keep things going, they just concentrated on their food, keeping their eyes down.
Things got just a little easier as the coq au vin came to an end and the trifle was brought in. No one had bothered to decorate it since Leo wasn’t here, but it was still very nice — and the talk became almost lively over the question of whether it was easier to keep a dog in London or in the country. The obvious answer, ‘in the country’, was getting a severe going-over from Rhoda. What with the sheep, and the bird sanctuary, and the rabbit snares, and the shooting, and the lorries charging along narrow lanes, a dog not kept on a lead will either be dead or have landed its owner in court within a …
And at this point, the phone went. For me again: Daphne; and as soon as I realised that our conversation was going to be a long one, I decided to take it on the extension in Leo’s study; partly for privacy, and partly so as not to interrupt the half-fledged conversation which we had at last succeeded in bringing into being.
It was about Richard again. She was still worried. I had, of course, rung her up as promised as soon as I knew he was here, and that Sally was with him, but she was not satisfied, and I couldn’t entirely blame her.
“There’s something I don’t understand, Clare,” she was saying. “If it was one of his confidential assignments — a hush-hush job — I wouldn’t be worrying. Well, I would, but I wouldn’t be asking any questions, I’d be accepting it, as I always have, it’s his job.
“But it’s not that, it can’t be. According to Sally, what he said was that it was just a social visit, to see Leonard again, find out how he was, and to help them in any way he could; enjoy a get-together after all the traumas.
“But it isn’t that, Clare. I know it isn’t. Why did he decide so suddenly, between the beginning of lunch and the end? By two o’clock he was packed up and gone, having cancelled a very important appointment! Sally heard him on the phone, and that’s a thing he never does, letting his editor down at short notice. And then, why so insistent that Sally mustn’t accompany him if it was just a social visit? Normally, he loves having her with him on trips, whenever it’s possible, and they know they can leave Barnaby with me whenever they like. He’s perfectly happy on his own with me, and behaves a lot better, I may say.
“I don’t know what to think, I really don’t. My son is a very reserved man, Clare, as you may have noticed, he would never allow himself to show anything like fear or anxiety. But I can tell. I’m his mother, I know. When he becomes excessively calm and off-hand … that’s how he was when he left yesterday. He knew for certain that he was going into danger, grave danger.”
How right she was. I paused, at a loss for a reply. Daphne was a shrewd and intelligent woman, who would soon see through any soothing lies I tried to invent.
“Clare? Are you still there? What is it? For God’s sake, say something! Why are you …? It’s something terrible, isn’t it?”
This jerked me into speech at last.
“No!” I assured her. “Nothing terrible has happened at all. Leonard’s plane is late, that’s all, he isn’t here yet. But Richard’s fine, I assure you. He’s absolutely OK — except for his leg, of course, but I suppos
e that’s bound to take a bit of time. He never talks about it, so I don’t know what sort of injury it was, but …”
“It wasn’t an injury,” Daphne’s voice was harsh. “It’s sciatica — it’s been troubling him off and on for over a year, but he hates to talk about it. He’s ashamed of it, it makes him feel old. If it had been an injury — a real injury, sustained in the course of duty, he’d be much less furtive about it. An honourable wound, you see … That’s how he looks at things. Always has.”
“Oh.” Again I couldn’t think what to say. This new bit of information was surprising, but nevertheless entirely in keeping with Richard’s character as I knew it. I felt the time had come to bring the conversation to a close, and so, reiterating my promise to keep in touch, and to telephone as soon as there was any news, I ended by urging her not to worry. What a futile injunction! It infuriates me when people try it on me; all it means is that they can’t think of anything in the least helpful or encouraging to say: and so, to make amends, I added, “And if there’s anything I can do in the meantime …”
Rather to my dismay, there was. My words (as is commonly the case) had been more a polite form of bringing the conversation to an end than a serious offer to add anything further to my already complex burden of preoccupations. However …
Richard’s heart. Did I remember her mentioning it once before? Well, yes, now she mentioned, I did, though I had more or less forgotten about it in the interval, so unlikely a person did he seem to have a heart problem, and so few signs had he shown of any such disability — but then he wouldn’t, would he?
His heart, then. What was she asking me to do?
“His pills, Clare, his heart pills. He’s left them behind; they’re still on his table, and the trouble is he needs to take them regularly, especially if he’s involved in any strenuous physical activity. Really, he should be leading a quieter life altogether; the doctor has warned him several times. There’s heart trouble on both sides of the family, you see. But of course he won’t take any notice of that sort of advice; he loves his work, and nothing will induce him to ease up in any way. I know that, I understand it completely, his father was the same, but at least he should take his pills. And Sally’s no good, she won’t remind him, she hates having to think about it, she likes to feel that her husband is infinitely strong, physically perfect in every way. And he likes her to think like that about him, and so between them … Look, Clare, I don’t know if this is too much to ask, but if you could find out if he’s got a supply with him? And if not, persuade him to get a prescription from a doctor there …?”
Dangerous Thoughts Page 17