Home through the Dark

by Anthea Fraser

  HOME THROUGH

  THE DARK

  Anthea Fraser

  CHIVERS

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available

  This eBook published by AudioGO Ltd, Bath, 2012.

  Published by arrangement with the Author

  Epub ISBN 9781471310256

  Copyright ©1974 by Anthea Fraser

  The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  All rights reserved

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental

  Jacket illustration © iStockphoto.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 1

  THE Fiat was on top of me before I’d even registered its approach. One moment the long country road stretched behind me, empty except for the little Morris I’d overtaken a few minutes previously; the next, with a terrifying screech of tires, the Fiat was alongside, scraping along the body of my own car with a scream of tortured metal and spinning me judderingly off the road. I was too busy fighting to remain upright to have time to register its number. In any case, it was out of sight almost immediately. I switched off the engine and rested my forehead on the steering wheel, waiting for the sick pounding of my heart to subside. All in all, this had not been my day.

  There was the slam of a car door, the sound of hurrying footsteps, and a breathless voice above me enquired, “Are you all right?”

  I raised my head to see the woman from the Morris regarding me anxiously, and gave her a shaky smile. “Incredibly enough, yes, thanks!”

  “I suppose you hadn’t time to get his number?”

  “No.”

  “Blasted maniac! There’s a nasty scratch along the side here. You’re quite sure you’re not hurt?”

  “Quite, really. It was a lucky escape though. If there’d been a tree in the way –”

  “I know. Even so, you look pretty badly shaken. Have you far to go?”

  I hesitated. I could hardly say I had no idea where I was going, that I’d only turned off the coast road because it was jammed with traffic and anyway one place was much the same as another in my present mood. “How far’s the nearest town?”

  “Westhampton’s only a couple of miles along the road.”

  Westhampton. I’d heard the name recently in some connection. “I should think that would do,” I said without interest.

  “You mean you’ve nowhere definitely in mind?”

  “Not really. I was intending to book in at a hotel wherever I happened to be.”

  “I might be able to help, then. I work at the George, right in the heart of the town. I’m sure you’d be comfortable there. Of course,” she added awkwardly, “if you’d rather look round for something smaller –”

  “No, no, I’m sure the George would do admirably.”

  “Then I suggest we lock up your car and leave it here for one of the garage attendants to collect. I really don’t think you’re up to driving at the moment.”

  “Thank you,” I said gratefully; “that would be a relief.” Between us we pulled up the hood, extracted the suitcases

  I’d packed so haphazardly a few hours previously, and walked back to the parked Morris. My legs felt like cotton wool and I realized I was still shaking.

  “My name’s Baillie, by the way – Margaret Baillie.”

  “Virginia Durrell,” I said, astonishing myself. It was as easy as that, an almost instinctive wiping of the slate.

  “I gather you’ve never been to Westhampton before?” she went on. “I’m sure you’ll like it – it’s a very restful kind of town. Are you on holiday?”

  I said carefully, “I suppose you could call it that. A rather extended one, though.”

  She glanced at me curiously but I didn’t elaborate and she didn’t press the point. We had come into the outskirts of the town by this time and I looked with the first flicker of interest at the dignified old houses in their large gardens, the quiet parks and tree-lined roads. After sweltering in London during the hottest September for thirty years, it struck me that I could do a lot worse than stay here while I sorted out my long-term plans.

  Westhampton seemed to have made few concessions to the twentieth century. Its shops were for the most part bow-fronted and diamond-paned like the illustration on a box of Quality Street. It was only at the lower end of the High Street that I noticed almost with a sense of shock a few of the better-known multiples.

  “The Avenue has the best shops,” Mrs. Baillie was saying, expertly bypassing a crocodile of uniformed schoolgirls. “It’s built on the same lines as Southport and Cheltenham – you know, gardens and offices one side and shops the other. Here’s the George now. I’ll take you in first and then if you give me the keys, Jack can go straight back and collect your car.”

  In the moment that she took to come round to my side and open the door, I slipped off my wedding ring and dropped it into my bag. If Westhampton was to be my home for the next few weeks – and from what I’d seen of it I doubted if I should find anywhere better – then I wanted no awkward questions about an absent husband. I had introduced myself almost without thinking as Virginia Durrell and Virginia Durrell I should remain. Miss.

  I was glad of Mrs. Baillie’s arm as she helped me up the stone steps. It had been a day of shocks, and reaction was beginning to set in.

  “Jane –” The girl at the reception desk looked up. “Is Number Seventeen still empty? Good. Give me the key, will you? The registering can wait for the moment. This lady’s just had a slight accident in her car and she’s still rather shaken.” She took my arm again. “The lifts are over here, Mrs. Durrell.”

  “It’s ‘Miss,’ actually,” I murmured with difficulty.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  I felt an unwelcome colour heat my face. “Miss Durrell,” I repeated with a hint of defiance.

  Her eyes went quickly to my hand, then to my face. “I’m so sorry,” she said quietly. She knew, of course, that I was lying: the first thing one woman notices about another, Women’s Lib or no, is whether she is wearing a ring. However, it was none of her business and she had acknowledged the fact. To my relief the lift arrived and we went up to the first floor and she showed me into a pleasant room at the side of the hotel overlooking its gardens.

  “You might like to rest up here for a while. That chair’s very comfortable. Shall I order you some afternoon tea?”

  “Thank you, that would be very welcome. And, Mrs. Baillie, I really am grateful for all you’ve done.” And for not giving me away downstairs. She smiled.

  “Not at all. I’m sure a rest and perhaps a leisurely bath will put you right now. Don’t worry about the car. I’ll see to it. Dinner is from six-thirty, by the way.” The door closed behind her. I was alone. More alone than I’d ever been.

  Slowly I moved across the room and stood leaning on the windowsill staring unseeingly down at the riot of colours in the flower beds below. Somewhere near at hand a clock struck five. This time yesterday I had been happily removing dead roses from the cut-glass bowl, one ear open for Carl’s key in the door.

  The enormity of my loss welled up and threatened to swamp me. What a blind, trusting fool I’
d been! The flower beds spun crazily in a prism of tears. Shakily I lowered myself into the easy chair and stared bleakly round the pleasant room. I hadn’t thought to ask how much it would be, but obviously I shouldn’t be able to stay here long. Thank heaven I’d at least had the sense to stop at the bank and cash a check. No doubt there was a local branch who would arrange credit facilities, but even so, with the future suddenly so uncertain, I couldn’t afford extravagances.

  A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts and heralded tea. The smiling girl brought over a low table to where I sat and laid down the tray appetizingly set with scones, bread and butter and a selection of fancy cakes. As I started to eat, I realized that at least part of the emptiness inside me was due to the fact that I’d had nothing since breakfast. The reason for my disastrously unexpected call at the theatre had been to persuade Carl to take me out to lunch.

  Oh, God! My teeth rattled against the cup and I set it down quickly. Ironically, it was only last week that I’d heard him complaining to Fred that the lock on his office door was out of alignment and didn’t always click into place. After that frozen moment in the doorway I had turned and fled, my only coherent thought being to put the greatest possible distance between us with the greatest possible speed.

  Back at the elegant, impervious flat I had flung things at random into the two cases, dashed out to the car again and begun my flight in earnest. I did in fact pause for one moment to wonder where the passport was before remembering that, in this most unfair of worlds, I couldn’t use it without Carl anyway, which effectively ruled out the Continent as a bolt hole. I suppose subconsciously I had felt that the south coast was the next best thing. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered any more.

  I pushed the table away and stood up quickly. Leonie Pratt, of all people! How ludicrous they’d looked, their faces, stupid with surprise, turned towards me. By now Carl would doubtless be ringing round our friends trying to find out where I was. Well, let him. I had no intention of contacting him. I wanted nothing more from him. In fact, I told myself shakily, I wanted nothing from anybody. I had no family and our friends were essentially Carl’s anyway. It was my own fault for marrying someone so completely alien to my own background.

  Slowly I turned from the window and looked with disinterest at the cases containing my belongings. Heaven knew what I’d put in them. It would be sheer luck if I found such essentials as a toothbrush and nightdress. Luck, however, was with me that far. I hung up a few dresses in the vast reaches of the wardrobe, laid out my makeup case and hairbrush on the austere dressing table and told myself firmly that as this was the only home I had for the moment, I’d better make the most of it. No fragrant rosebuds in cut-glass bowls here. And at that recurring memory the tears finally came, flooding over me with all the force of a tidal wave and dragging me down in their fierce undertow until I was lost in a total abandonment of grief.

  I had always known, of course, that Carl was irresistible to women; his fame, his striking good looks and his quite genuine charm attracted them in equal measure. I had also acknowledged, painfully, that it was beyond his power, perhaps even his inclination, to withstand their blandishments. There was a deep, basic need in him, as in most actors, for admiration and acclaim, a continual compulsion to prove to himself and everyone else that he wasn’t losing his talent or his popularity. It had been hard for me to accept at first that Carl of all people, so arrogant, so blatantly in command of every situation, should suffer this basic insecurity.

  “But, darling!” I’d expostulated. “You’re right at the top of the tree!” He had smiled ruefully. “And, my love, when one is at the top, the only direction one can go is down!”

  So I had tried hard not to resent the endless flirtations and easy kisses which made up so large a portion of our social life. In the world of the theatre, I was given to understand, these things were a matter of course and no one but a rather stuffy schoolmistress could possibly take objection to them. But even these apparently had not been enough.

  A swift mental review of the last few months presented me with a list of at least six women who undoubtedly had the time and inclination, and quite possibly the opportunity, for an affair with Carl. It had simply never occurred to me that he would betray me that far. Obviously I’d been mistaken. A platonic friendship with my husband was seemingly impossible for any woman. Even Madame Lefevre flirted with him outrageously, and she was well over sixty. Or at least she had done, until news of her son’s death had completely demoralized her, poor soul.

  I sat up at last, tentatively fingering my swollen eyelids. If I were to be presentable for dinner in the hotel dining room, it was time to see about repairing the ravages of my tears.

  When, an hour later, I ventured downstairs, it was to find the garage attendant waiting for me in the hall. “Miss Durrell?” He handed me the car keys. “Well, we’ve got her safely back, miss, and she doesn’t seem in bad shape. Just that nasty scrape along the offside door. Do you want us to touch it up for you, or will it be an insurance job?”

  I smiled slightly, thinking of Carl’s precious No Claim bonus. “There’s not much point in bothering, if you can do it. After all, I don’t know who the culprit was. I’ll just have to write the whole thing off to experience.”

  “But you’ll put the police onto him, surely? They could trace him. He’s bound to have a dirty great mark along his own door.”

  But I didn’t want the police’s notice any more than my unknown assailant would. “It’s not worth it, honestly. No real harm was done.”

  “Not this time maybe,” returned my champion darkly, “but he shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. Mrs. Baillie said he didn’t even stop to see if you was hurt, and he must have seen you spinning, in his rear-view mirror. Didn’t you get a look at him at all?”

  “Only an impression of dark hair and sunglasses. Not much help. Really, I’d rather forget the whole thing. Just do what you can to repair the damage, will you? And thank you for bringing her back.” I fumbled in my purse and handed him a pound note, which he made a play of not wanting to take, and by the time his scruples had been honourably set aside and he went on his way, people were beginning to make their way through to the dining room.

  I was relieved to be directed to a small table over by the window, from where I could study my fellow diners in relative privacy. The George was obviously principally a businessman’s hotel, with only a sprinkling of elderly residents. After an initial glance no one paid me any attention and the slight puffiness round my eyes remained blessedly undetected.

  It was eight-fifteen when I finished my meal and the evening stretched emptily ahead of me as, I realized with rising panic, would every other evening from now on. Already it was almost dark outside and my initial idea of a walk through the town was not feasible. I glanced into the large, impersonal lounge just off the hall, and immediately rejected its station waiting-room atmosphere. There was a stand of paperbacks by the reception desk and I was turning it idly when the girl called me across.

  “Miss Durrell, I wonder if you’d mind registering now?”

  It was only when I had signed my name that I realized I could hardly fill in the address of the Chelsea flat. “I’m just in the process of moving,” I said quickly. “What shall I put, ‘No fixed address’?”

  The girl smiled. “That might alarm the other guests! Never mind, just leave that column blank for now. Can you give me any idea of how long you’ll be staying?”

  “Not at the moment. I shall be going to an estate agent tomorrow to see if they have any furnished flats available. If I can find somewhere suitable, I’ll move in right away.” I held up the paperback I had selected to help me pass the evening. “Can I pay you for this? And is there a Residents’ Lounge anywhere?”

  “Yes – down that passage on your right – it’s marked on the door.”

  The Residents’ Lounge, though smaller, looked no more inviting than the other and I was subjected to slightly disapproving stares from
the assorted occupants. A police serial was in full spate on the television. I sat down as inconspicuously as possible and opened my book, but the initial concentration required to awaken interest in it was beyond me. My mind circled repeatedly round Carl and Leonie and belatedly I began to wonder if I had done the right thing in running away. I must certainly have branded myself forever as the stuffy schoolmistress he had probably always suspected. Might it not have been more dignified to have returned to the flat and left to Carl the onus of coming back to face me? But I knew I could not have remained calm and dignified and the whole thing would have degenerated into bitter accusations. Under such circumstances things might have been said which would have endangered our future together just as surely as I had done by leaving without waiting to hear his excuses. After all, what excuses could he possibly have?

  The police serial finished and the news came on. More bombs in London – a sudden, aching anxiety for Carl which I quickly crushed. But might not a theatre appear to some warped mind as an ideal place for an explosion? I clenched my teeth and fixed my attention on the announcer. The news tailed off into the weather forecast. The hot weather was expected to continue.

  I had picked up my book again when the next words from the television electrified me. “And now on our midweek discussion program we are screening a live interview with Carl Clements.”

  For the second time that day my first instinct was flight, but quite suddenly I hadn’t even the strength to get to my feet. And already Carl’s face was on the screen, so familiar in every contour that I couldn’t tear myself away, couldn’t believe that the tie between us had been so abruptly broken. I remembered now that he had mentioned the program – could it really have been only this morning, at breakfast? “Come to the theatre with me, Gin, and we’ll go on for supper afterwards.” He hated live television, complaining that he always felt under-rehearsed, and I’d been glad that he wanted my support in the studio audience.

  Certainly he was not his usual suave self this evening. Twice the interviewer had to repeat a question, once Carl’s reply was completely off the mark, and once, at a relatively innocuous question, he very nearly lost his temper. No doubt, I thought with savage satisfaction, he was wondering where I was, whether I would be back at the flat by the time he got home.