The Silence Before Thunder

by Kathy Shuker

  For the first time, she thought maybe she didn’t want to remember. She should push those doors closed and start afresh - if her brain would let her.

  *

  Jo fed Sidney and leaned against the utility room units, watching him as he delicately cleared the dish. She had just started letting him out again. He was better, stronger and more confident; it was she who was nervous. Was he at risk still? Probably not because Eleanor was home. The risk had transferred.

  There were things Jo ought to be doing - she had a string of memos on the voice recorder waiting to be replayed - but they would wait. Eleanor was upstairs in her bedroom, having a shower. Jo had gone up and listened outside her aunt’s door some half hour since. She had heard the sound of the running water and had poked her head round the door to check all was well. Satisfied, she had left her to it.

  ‘If I want help I’ll ask for it,’ Eleanor had insisted the day before.

  Charlotte had acquired an old bulb bicycle horn from somewhere which she had given Eleanor to call for assistance if she needed it.

  ‘Why in God’s name would I carry a thing like that around, you dotty woman?’ had been Eleanor’s caustic response.

  Undeterred, Charlotte had come into work again that Saturday morning, had told Jo that she might as well work, that she had nothing else planned. She stood now in the kitchen, cooking bacon and eggs for Brian who was sitting in the conservatory reading one of the newspapers Charlotte had brought up from the village store.

  Lawrence was in his office already, fielding phone calls. Jo was avoiding him.

  She pulled herself away from the units and walked through to Eleanor’s study. She phoned Nancy to make sure there were no problems she hadn’t heard about then glanced at her watch. The talks didn’t start till eleven but the speakers wanted to get in early and check out the sound equipment. She ought to go down. And there was something else she had to do which was going to be much harder. She started picking at the sealing tape on the parcel which had arrived the day before.

  Twenty minutes later, Eleanor was downstairs and installed at the table in the conservatory, eating her breakfast and chatting to Brian. He was taking her to one of the morning sessions then bringing her back for lunch. After that he would leave but Charlotte was going to be around all day. The housekeeper kept looming into view, watching her employer beadily, then disappearing again without speaking.

  Jo threw on a sweat jacket and slipped out. No harm was likely to come to Eleanor while Charlotte was there.

  *

  Ian Hennion, one of the speakers, was having a problem with his laptop: it wouldn’t recognise the projector and he had a long sequence of slide images with which to illustrate his talk. Matthew sorted it out in a few short minutes and Ian apologised for the umpteenth time. Matthew brushed the apology aside.

  ‘No problem.’

  He had been at Millie’s when Jo rang him to ask if he could help and he had gone straight to The Mill, leaving an unconcerned Gail and Freddie to cope. Now he waited to watch the author practise run through his opening slides then left him to it. Pleasant bloke. Wrote biographies apparently. Matthew had never heard of him but there was nothing unusual about that.

  As he entered the main bistro, Jo was involved in an earnest conversation with the manager. It was ten-twenty and already half the tables were occupied with people drinking and snacking. There was a low buzz of conversation. Matthew had brought his camera and had arranged to go back and take a couple of photos of Ian Hennion to put on the website once he’d started his talk. He planned to go and arrange the same thing with Imogen Pooley over in the village hall, if she was there. But Jo had said on the phone that she wanted to see him so he stayed around, feeling conspicuous and a little apprehensive. He wandered outside.

  It was a cloudy morning with a light, scudding breeze. Only a couple of the outside tables were occupied. Matthew sat at a vacant table near the door, stretching out his legs, savouring the quiet. Nathan was back from his holiday in Portugal and Harry had caught the bus into Kingsbridge, a town six miles away, to meet up with him. School started again on Tuesday. Several times Matthew had toyed with asking Harry if there was any truth in the story he had told Jo about Eleanor’s fall from the cliff, but in the end he hadn’t pursued it. It was a no win argument in the making.

  A waitress appeared and he ordered an Americano. The coffee arrived at the same time as Jo who emerged from the interior and stopped by his table.

  ‘Coffee?’ he offered. She hesitated and he smiled. ‘I’m buying.’

  She met his gaze then glanced at the waitress who stood expectantly, looking both casually amused and a little bored.

  ‘Thanks. I’ll have a cappuccino please. Regular.’ She sat down and slung her bag over the back of the chair. ‘There’s stuff I should be doing,’ she said, looking harassed, ‘but I guess it’ll wait while I have a drink.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’ll happen whether you run around like a headless chicken or not. It’s on autopilot now.’

  He smiled again, struck by how pleased he was to see her. He relaxed more into his seat, seemed to breathe a little more easily. Increasingly, he realised that he had been quite stupid about Jo and Harry and probably a lot of other things too; it had set him thinking. The introspection hadn’t brought forth any earth-shattering conclusions except that he knew he wanted to see her again - if she would let him.

  ‘It wouldn’t have happened this morning…’ Jo was saying now. He forced himself to pay attention. ‘…if you hadn’t sorted Ian out with his computer.’

  ‘He’d have managed.’

  ‘Since when did you become the guru of calm?’

  ‘I’m turning over a new leaf.’

  She studied him, eyes narrowed.

  He leaned forward. ‘I’m glad you said you wanted to see me. I’ve been trying to pluck up the courage to contact you. I wanted to apologise for the way I behaved. I mean it. I’m so sorry. I was completely in the wrong.’

  ‘OK.’ She spoke cautiously, studying his face as if to judge his sincerity. ‘I said some things I shouldn’t have too. Shall we just forget it?’

  ‘Yes. Can we?’ He hesitated. ‘How’s Eleanor doing? I saw she was down last night. People have been talking about it.’ He tapped the table with a restive index finger. ‘I’m sorry, I was a bit hasty, dismissing your concerns, wasn’t I? But I’m sure you’re worrying unnecessarily about her fall.’ He stopped, sure he ought to say something else, unsure what it should be. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to say that. In case you’re still worrying.’

  ‘OK,’ she repeated. Again a pause. She pressed her lips together as if trapping some further comment before it could come out. ‘But that wasn’t why I wanted to see you.’ She turned and foraged in her handbag, pulled out a small bubble-wrapped package and handed it to him. ‘This belongs to Harry. It’s his old phone. There’s also a memory stick in there with the photographs that were on it.’

  Matthew stared at her then down at the package in his hand, frowning. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s the phone Harry dropped in the sea. When he couldn’t get it to work, he was upset about losing all the photographs on it - lots of his mum apparently. Anyway I know someone who works with smartphones and she was able to do something about them. He doesn’t know because I told him that I didn’t want to ask her…’ She hesitated. ‘The someone is my ex’s sister, you see. Anyway, I did ask her and she came up trumps. She’s rescued the photos and I thought you might like to give them to him. You don’t have to mention me.’ She hesitated. ‘I should have…’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said, cutting across her. ‘If Harry doesn’t know about it, how did you come to have his phone?’

  ‘That’s what I was about to say: I should have told you. Well, no, I should have asked you first. I’m sorry. When I went upstairs to the bathroom at your house I saw the Beware sign and guessed it was Harry’s room. He told me he had a photo of Soph
ie on display and I just wanted to look at it. Then when I picked it up I saw that phone hidden behind it.’ She shrugged apologetically. ‘I took it. I figured he probably wouldn’t notice for a while. I don’t suppose he picks the photo up very often. We’d kind of fallen out hadn’t we, so I didn’t tell you. I did it on an impulse, you see, feeling guilty for having refused him.’

  He continued to stare at her in stony silence. He could feel his heart rate quickening; his breathing felt heavy and hard. Jo’s coffee arrived and even the waitress seemed to feel the glacier that had developed between them. She put the drink down and retreated wordlessly.

  He fingered the package. ‘So you were nosing around Harry’s things behind my back?’ He raised his eyes to her face. ‘And now you think I should pretend I did this, not say anything, just pass it off as my own work. Is that because I’m such a useless father? Well thanks a bunch for that. Do you know how rubbish that makes me feel? What kind of man do you think I am?’

  Jo leaned forward onto the table towards him.

  ‘I’m sorry. I just wanted to help. I didn’t want to do it behind your back but I wasn’t sure what your reaction would be. I thought maybe if you gave them to him it might help both of you come together or something. I didn’t mean anything by it. Of course you’re not a useless father. I’m sorry, Matthew…’ Her voice trailed away.

  Matthew felt his throat thickening; his face began to crumple and tears threatened. He hadn’t cried since he didn’t know when and it scared him. If he started crying now he might lose it completely and the fragile world he had created could break down around him. He stood up abruptly, abandoning the package on the table, and walked away leaving his coffee untouched.

  *

  Up at Skymeet, Eleanor stood at the patio doors, looking out over the garden and to the sea beyond. It was half past three in the afternoon. When Brian had left, two hours since, she had fallen into a heavy sleep on the sofa and had only recently woken. Her head still felt woolly. She suspected she had been dreaming again but this time had no recall of it.

  ‘It’s good to see you back on your feet again,’ said Lawrence.

  She turned carefully, being sure to lift her feet the way she had been taught, to place them evenly a little apart to keep her balance. Lawrence was standing just inside the door to the room. She wondered if he had been in before, had seen her lolling on the sofa, mouth open probably, snoring or, worse still, talking in her sleep. Frank had said she sometimes did that.

  ‘You look well,’ Lawrence added and smiled. ‘I’ve asked Charlotte to bring you some tea, now you’re awake.’

  So he had been in.

  ‘Thank you. We need to do some catching up, don’t we?’

  Again he smiled, that slow, guarded smile of his. ‘It’ll wait till the weekend’s over.’

  Charlotte bustled in carrying a tray with the tea things on it. She set it down on the coffee table, glanced from Eleanor to Lawrence and back, then left without a word. She had put two cups and saucers on the tray. Had those been Lawrence’s instructions?

  ‘Do you want to join me?’ said Eleanor.

  They both heard the front door open and close and Jo walked in.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Lawrence, ‘but I need to go down to the village.’ He hesitated. ‘Were you thinking of staying for the concert tonight? Only I think it might be rather loud and tiring for you. You’d be better off coming back here.’

  ‘I haven’t decided, Lawrence.’

  He looked ready to argue the point but then didn’t, nodded, glanced at Jo and left.

  Eleanor turned to her niece who looked terrible: pale and fraught.

  ‘What is it darling? Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, fine. It’s been kind of busy - you know.’ Jo smiled wanly. ‘And I keep doing dumb things, Eleanor, that’s all.’ She glanced down at the tray. ‘But tea would be good.’

  ‘Yes. Let’s have it.’ Eleanor walked slowly back to sit on the sofa. ‘Then I want to go and hear Vincent’s talk.’

  ‘Really? Well, there’s plenty of time before that.’ Jo sat beside her and reached to the tray, sorting out the cups and saucers. ‘I thought you might be cross that I’d asked him.’ She picked up the pot and began pouring the tea. ‘You didn’t want him to speak originally. I had to ask him to fill in on the last minute. Do you remember me telling you that?’

  ‘Yes dear. He can be a bastard and he always wants money. I was probably cross with him about something - I don’t know what.’

  Jo handed Eleanor her cup and saucer and offered the plate of biscuits Charlotte had added to the tray. Eleanor shook her head and sat back. The front door opened and closed. Jo waited a couple of minutes, listening, then turned back to her aunt.

  ‘Eleanor, I don’t think I’ve ever asked you how you came to employ Lawrence all those years ago? Do you remember?’

  ‘I do actually. Why do I remember some things and not others?’

  ‘What do you remember?’

  ‘Oh…well, when I first met Lawrence we were both students. He never fitted in, even then. He could be tricky - prickly, you know. At school, he’d been a bit of a loner, creative and quite clever - which is never popular - and he didn’t like sports so he got teased and picked on. It made him defensive. Then at university, he seemed to immediately alienate people. He should have gone on to be successful in his own right but he drifted from one job to another. Couldn’t settle and didn’t get on with his bosses. He tried his hand at writing novels on the side but didn’t get anywhere with that either.’

  She paused and drank some tea.

  ‘Anyway, I had some hard times early on and had fallen behind in my rent payments. I didn’t want to admit it to my family and certainly not Candida. Lawrence bailed me out. A few years later, he was looking for a job again and I asked him if he’d like to be my PA. He’s good at it.’

  ‘But you don’t always get on do you? He can be very domineering, likes to have his own way?’

  ‘Yes. I can manage him though.’ Eleanor shrugged.

  ‘Does he ever lose his temper with you?’

  ‘Lawrence? What an odd thing to ask.’ She shook her head. ‘Lose it, no. Well, yes and no. We’ve had our differences. Why?’

  ‘I just wondered.’

  Eleanor watched her niece pause, clearly wanting to say more.

  ‘You don’t get on with him though, do you?’ Eleanor said, more statement than question.

  ‘Not really. There’s always an atmosphere when he’s around.’

  Eleanor drank her tea and didn’t reply.

  ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Eleanor, but have you made a will?’

  ‘Good God, Jo, what is this all about?’

  ‘Can’t you remember?’

  ‘No. I might have.’ She screwed her face up trying to recall. ‘No, I don’t know. I wish you’d tell me what this is about.’

  ‘Nothing really. I’ve got all sorts of nonsense going round in my head. Nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘Good. So stop asking questions.’

  Jo smiled. ‘All right. Let’s finish this tea and go down to the village.’ She paused. ‘Eleanor, Imogen asked me if we’d like to eat with them this evening. It’ll be early - before the last talks. They’ve booked a table at The Mill for all of them: Imogen, Mari, Frank, Louisa, Vincent. I think Lawrence is going too. A sort of parting meal but, since you’ve only just come home, don’t feel pressured to go. It’ll be easy to make our excuses.’

  Eleanor looked away, studying the floor.

  ‘The rug’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘Only till you get a bit steadier on your feet. But what about this meal, Eleanor? Shall I say we can’t do it?’

  ‘No, we’ll go. I’d like to see them before they leave. Anyway, if they’re going to talk about me, I’d rather they did it to my face.’ She sniffed. ‘I suppose we could ask Charlotte too.’

  ‘Charlotte’s daughter’s comi
ng over. She’s got a meal planned then they’ve got tickets for the festival this evening.’

  Eleanor barely heard her reply. This kept happening to her - her mind seemed to wander off at a tangent and she was obliged to follow where it went. Now Lawrence was stuck in her head.

  ‘He’s very good at his work, you know. But it is true that he’s changed. It’s made him even more isolated.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Lawrence. I’m not sure being here is good for him. It makes him…unsociable. He’s got worse you know. And he does like to be in control.’ She handed Jo her cup. ‘Can I have some more tea?’

  Chapter 22

  Matthew and Harry ate their evening meal early so Matthew could get back into the village for the evening sessions. Harry had spent the hour since his return from town in his bedroom and now sat, silent, squeezing ketchup onto his plate.

  ‘Good day?’ Matthew enquired casually, sitting down. ‘Did Nathan have a good holiday?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Harry cut into a sausage. ‘Sickening. He’s dead brown.’ He rammed the piece of sausage in his mouth, glancing up through his fringe. He scooped up some mashed potato on his fork and hesitated with it half way to his mouth. Another wary glance. ‘He said I might be able to go with them to Portugal at Christmas. It’s not hot but it’s usually warm, he said. They even get to swim in the sea in December sometimes and eat outside. Sounds brilliant. Can I go?’

  Matthew felt his stomach lurch; he hadn’t expected that. It was hard to imagine Christmas without Harry. Images of Christmases with Sophie immediately came to mind. He would always associate Christmas with her and with their son, with absurd amounts of wrapping paper and too much pudding and all the decorations on the tree. Sophie always bought chocolate decorations too, especially for Harry to find. He became aware that Harry was still watching him, like a nervous bird, waiting for his response.