He went on thinking, watching his cigarette burn, remembering the rocks beneath the cove where she had fallen. It would have been easy enough to fall, he had thought at the time. There had been a path, steps cut out of the cliff, but it had been sandy and insecure after rain and although the cliff hadn’t been very steep or very big the rocks below had been like a lot of jagged teeth before they had flattened out in terraces to the water’s edge.
He stubbed out his cigarette, grinding the butt of ashes. It had been a beautiful spot below those cliffs. Jon had often walked out there with the child.
He could see it all so clearly now, that weekend he had been at Clougy for one of the gay parties which Sophia had loved so much. He had come down with Eve, and Michael had come down with Marijohn. There had been no one else, just the four of them with Jon, Sophia and the child. Jon had invited another couple as well but they hadn’t been able to come at the last minute so there had only been four visitors at Clougy that weekend.
He saw Clougy then in his mind’s eye, the old farmhouse that Jon had converted, a couple of hundred yards from the sea. There had been yellow walls and white shutters. It had been an unusual, striking place. Afterwards when it was all over, he had thought Jon would sell his home, but he had not. Jon had sold his business in Penzance, but he had never sold Clougy. He had given it all to Marijohn.
5
As soon as Michael Rivers reached his home that evening he took his car from the garage and started on the long journey south from his flat in Westminster to the remote house forty miles away in Surrey. At Guildford he paused to eat a snack supper at one of the pubs, and then he set off again towards Hindhead and the Devil’s Punchbowl. It was just after seven o’clock when he reached Anselm’s Cross, and the July sun was flaming in the sky beyond the pine trees of the surrounding hills.
He was received with surprise, doubt and more than a hint of disapproval. Visitors were not allowed on Tuesday as a general rule; the Mother Superior was very particular about it. However, if it was urgent, it was always possible for an exception to be made.
“You are expected, of course?”
“No,” said Rivers, “but I think she’ll see me.”
“One moment, please,” said the woman abruptly and left the room in a swirl of black skirts and black veil.
He waited about a quarter of an hour in that bare little room until he thought his patience must surely snap and then at last the woman returned, her lips thin with disapproval. “This way, please.”
He followed her down long corridors, the familiar silence suffocating him. For a moment he tried to imagine what it would be like to live in such a place, cut off from the world, imprisoned with one’s thoughts for hours on end, but his mind only recoiled from the thought and the sweat of horror started to prickle beneath his skin. To counteract the nightmarish twists of his imagination he forced himself to think of his life as it was at that moment, the weekdays crammed with his work at the office, his evenings spent at his club playing bridge or perhaps entertaining clients, the weekends filled with golf and the long hours in the open air. There was never any time to sit and think. It was better that way. Once long ago he had enjoyed solitude from time to time, but now he longed only for his mind to be absorbed with other people and activities which would keep any possibility of solitude far beyond his reach.
The nun opened a door. When he passed across the threshold, she closed the door again behind him and he heard the soft purposeful tread of her shoes as she walked briskly away again down the corridor.
“Michael!” said Marijohn with a smile. “What a lovely surprise!”
She stood up, moving across the floor towards him, and as she reached him the sun slanted through the window on to her beautiful hair. There was a tightness in his throat suddenly, an ache behind the eyes, and he stood helplessly before her, unable to speak, unable to move, almost unable to see.
“Dear Michael,” he heard her say gently. “Come and sit down and tell me what it’s all about. Is it bad news? You would hardly have driven all the way down here after a hard day’s work otherwise.”
She had sensed his distress, but not the reason for it. He managed to tighten his self-control as she turned to lead the way over to the two chairs, one on either side of the table, and the next moment he was sitting down opposite her and fumbling for his cigarette case.
“Mind if I smoke?” he mumbled, his eyes on the table.
“Not a bit. Can you spare one for me?”
He looked up in surprise, and she smiled at his expression. “I’m not a nun,” she reminded him. “I’m not even a novice. I’m merely ‘in retreat’.”
“Of course,” he said clumsily. “I always seem to forget that.” He offered her a cigarette. She still wore the wedding ring, he noticed, and her fingers as she accepted the cigarette were long and slim, just as he remembered.
“Your hair’s grayer, Michael,” she said. “I suppose you’re still-working too hard at the office.” And then, as she inhaled from the cigarette a moment later: “How strange it tastes! Most odd. Like some rare poison bringing a slow soporific death ... How long is it since you last came, Michael? Six months?”
“Seven. I came last Christmas.”
“Of course! I remember now. Have you still got the same flat? Westminster, wasn’t it? It’s, funny but I simply can’t picture you in Westminster at all. You ought to marry again, Michael, and live in some splendid suburb like—like Richmond or Roehampton or somewhere.” She blew smoke reflectively at the ceiling. “How are all your friends? Have you seen Camilla again? I remember you said you’d met her at some party last Christmas.”
His self-possession was returning at last. He felt a shaft of gratitude towards her for talking until he felt better and then for giving him the precise opening he needed. It was almost as if she had known ... But no, that was impossible. She couldn’t possibly have known.
“No,” he said. “I haven’t seen Camilla again.”
“Or Justin?”
She must know. His scalp started to prickle because the knowledge was so uncanny.
“No, you wouldn’t have seen Justin,” she said answering her own question before he could reply. She spoke more slowly, he noticed, and her eyes were turned towards the window, focused on some remote object which he could not see. “I think I understand,” she said at last. “You must have come to talk to me about Jon.”
The still silence was all around them now, a huge tide of noiselessness which engulfed them completely. He tried to imagine that he was in his office and she was merely another client with whom he had to discuss business, but although he tried to speak the words refused to come.
“He’s come back.”
She was looking at him directly for the first time, and her eyes were very steady, willing him to speak.
“Yes?”
Another long motionless silence. She was looking at her hands now, and the long lashes seemed to shadow her face and give it the strange veiled look he had come to dread once long ago.
“Where is he?”
“In London.”
“With Camilla?”
“No, at the Mayfair Hotel.” The simple routine of question and answer reminded him of countless interviews with clients, and suddenly it seemed easier to talk. “It was in the evening paper,” he said. “They called him a Canadian property millionaire, which seemed rather unlikely, but it was definitely Jon because there was a photograph and of course, being the society page, the writer had to mention Camilla. The name of the hotel wasn’t stated but I rang up the major hotels until I found the right one—it didn’t take very long, less than ten minutes. I didn’t think he would be staying with Camilla because when I last met her she said she had completely lost touch with him and didn’t even know his Canadian address.”
“I see.” A pause. “Did the paper say anything else?”
“Yes,” he said, “it did. It said he was engaged to an English girl and planned to marry shortly.”
She looked out of the window at the evening light and the clear blue sky far away. Presently she smiled. “I’m glad,” she said, glancing back at him so that she was smiling straight into his eyes. “That’s wonderful news. I hope he’ll be very happy.”
He was the first to look away, and as he stared down at the hard, plain, wooden surface of the table he had a sudden longing to escape from this appalling silence and race back through the twilight to the garish noise of London. “Would you like me to—” he heard himself mumbling but she interrupted him.
“No,” she said, “there’s no need for you to see him on my behalf. It was kind of you to come all this way to see me tonight, but there’s nothing more you can do now.”
“If—if ever you need anything—want any help...”
“I know,” she said. “I’m very grateful, Michael.”
He made his escape soon after that. She held out her hand to him as he said good-bye but that would have made the parting too formal and remote so he pretended not to see it. And then, minutes later, he was switching on the engine of his car and turning the knob of the little radio up to the maximum volume before setting off on his return journey to London.
6
After he had gone, Marijohn sat for a long while at the wooden table and watched the night fall. When it was quite dark, she knelt down by the bed and prayed.
At eleven o’clock she undressed to go to bed, but an hour later she was still awake and the moonlight was beginning to slant through the little window and cast long, elegant shadows on the bare walls.
She sat up, listening. Her mind was opening again, a trick she thought she had forgotten long ago, and after a while she went over to the window and opened it as if the cool night air would help her struggle to interpret and understand. Outside was the quiet closed courtyard, even more quiet and closed than her room, but now instead of soothing her with its peace the effect reversed itself stealthily so that she felt her head seem to expand and the breath choke in her throat, making her want to scream. She ran to the door and opened it, her lungs gasping, the sweat breaking out all over her body, but outside was merely the quiet, closed corridor, suffocating her with its peace. She started to run, her bare feet making no sound on the stone floor, and suddenly she was running along the cliffs by the blue sparkling Cornish sea, running and running towards a house with yellow walls and white shutters, and the open air was all around her and she was free.
The scene blurred in her mind. She was in the garden of the old house in Surrey and there was a rose growing in a bed nearby. She plucked it out, tearing the petals to shreds, and then suddenly her mind was opening again and she was frightened. Nobody, she thought, nobody who hasn’t this other sense can ever understand how frightening it is. They could never conceive what it means. They can imagine their bodies being scarred or hurt by some ordinary physical force but they can never imagine the pain in the mind, the dark struggles to understand, the knowledge that your mind doesn’t belong to yourself alone...
She knelt down, trying to pray, but her prayer was lost in the storm and she could only kneel and listen to her mind.
And when the dawn came at last she went to the Mother Superior to tell her that she would be leaving the house that day and did not know when she would ever return.
Two
1
The hotel staff at the reception desk were unable to trace the anonymous call.
“But you must,” said Jon. “It’s very important. You must.”
The man behind the desk said courteously that he regretted that it was quite impossible. It was a local call made from a public telephone booth but the automatic dialing system precluded any possibility of finding out any further information.
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“I’m afraid I don’t remember, sir.”
“But you must!” said Jon. “Surely you remember. The call only came through a minute ago.”
“But sir—” The man felt himself stammering. “You see—”
“What did he say? Was it a deep voice? Did he have any accent?”
“No, sir. At least it was difficult to tell because—”
“Why?”
“Well, it was little more than a whisper, sir. Very faint. He just asked for you. ‘Mr. Towers please,’ he said and I said, ‘Mr. Jon Towers?’ and when he didn’t answer I said, ‘One moment, please’ and connected the lines.” He stopped.
Jon said nothing. Then after a moment, he shrugged his shoulders abruptly and turned aside, crossing the hall and reception lounge to the bar, while the man behind the desk wiped his forehead, muttered something to his companion and sat down automatically on the nearest available chair.
In the bar Jon ordered a double Scotch on the rocks. There was a sprinkling of people in the room but it was easy enough to find a seat at a comfortable distance from the nearest group, and when he sat down he lit a cigarette before starting his drink. After a while he became conscious of one definite need dominating the mass of confused thoughts in his mind, and on finishing his drink he stubbed out his cigarette and returned to his room to make a phone call.
A stranger’s voice answered.
Hell, thought Jon in a blaze of frustration she’s moved or remarried or both and I’ll have to waste time being a bloody private detective trying to discover where she is.
“Mrs. Rivington, please,” he said abruptly to the unknown voice at the other end of the wire.
“I think you have the wrong number. This is—”
“Is that Forty-one Halkin Street?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then she’s moved,” said Jon wearily and added, “Thank you,” before slamming down the receiver.
He sat and thought for a moment. Lawrence, the family lawyer, would probably know where she was. Lawrence wouldn’t have moved in ten years either; he would be seventy-five now, firmly embedded in his little Georgian house at Richmond with his crusty housekeeper who probably still wore starched collars and cuffs.
Ten minutes later he was speaking to a deep mellifluous voice which pronounced each syllable with meticulous care.
“Lawrence, I’m trying to get in touch with my mother. Can you give me her address? I’ve just rung Halkin Street but I gather she’s moved from there and it occurred to me that you would probably be able to tell me what’s been happening while I’ve been abroad.”
Lawrence talked for thirty seconds until Jon could stand it no longer. “You mean she moved about five years ago after her second husband died and is now living at Five, Consett Mews?”
“Precisely. In fact—”
“I see. Now Lawrence, there’s just one other thing, I’m extremely anxious to trace my cousin Marijohn—I was planning to phone my mother and ask her, but I suppose I may as well ask you now I’m speaking to you. Have you any idea where she is?”
The old man pondered over the question.
“You mean,” said John after ten seconds, “you don’t know.”
“Well, in actual fact, to be completely honest, no I don’t. Couldn’t say. Rivers could tell you, of course. Nice chap, young Rivers. Sorry their marriage wasn’t a success ... You knew about the divorce, I suppose?” There was a silence in the softly-lit room. Beyond the window far-away traffic crawled up Berkeley Street, clockwork toys moving slowly through a model town.
“The divorce was—let me see ... six years ago? Five? My memory’s not so accurate as it used to be... Rivers was awfully cut up about it—met him at the Law Society just about the time the divorce was coming up for hearing and he looked damn ill, poor fellow. No trouble with the divorce, though. Simple undefended desertion—took about ten minutes and the judge, was pretty decent about it. Marijohn wasn’t in court, of course. No need for her to be there when she wasn’t defending the petition ... Are you still there, Jon?”
“Yes,” said Jon, “I’m still here.” And in his mind his voice was saying Marijohn, Marijohn, Marijohn over and over again, and the room was suddenly dark with
grief.
Lawrence wandered on inconsequentially, reviewing the past ten years with the reminiscing nostalgia of the very old. He seemed surprised when Jon suddenly terminated the conversation, but managed to collect himself sufficiently to invite Jon to his home for dinner later that week.
“I’m sorry, Lawrence, but I’m afraid that won’t be possible at the moment. I’ll phone you later, if I may, and perhaps we can arrange something then.”
After he had replaced the receiver he slumped on to the bed and buried his face in the pillow for a moment. The white linen was cool against his cheek, and he remembered how he had loved the touch of linen years ago when they had first used the sheets and pillowcases which had been given to them as wedding presents. In a sudden twist of memory he could see the double bed in their room at Clougy, the white sheets crisp and inviting, Sophia’s dark hair tumbling over the pillows, her naked body full and rich and warm...
He sat up, moved into the bathroom and then walked back into the bedroom to the window in a restless fever of movement. Find Marijohn, said the voice at the back of his brain. You have to find Marijohn. You can’t go to Michael Rivers so you must go to your mother instead. Best to call Consett Mews, and then maybe you can see Justin at the same time and arrange to have a talk with him. You must see Justin.
But that phone call. I have to find out who made that phone call. And most important of all, I must find Marijohn...
He went out, hailing a taxi at the curb, and giving his mother’s address to the driver before slumping on to the back seat. The journey didn’t take long. John sat and watched the dark trees of the park flash into the brilliant vortex of Knightsbridge, and then the cab turned off beyond Harrods before twisting into Consett Mews two minutes later. He got out, gave the man a ten shilling note and decided not to bother to wait for change. It was dark in the mews; the only light came from an old-fashioned lamp set on a corner some yards away, and there was no light on over the door marked Five. Very slowly he crossed the cobbles and pushed the bell hard and long with the index finger of his right hand.
Perhaps Justin will come to the door, he thought. For the hundredth time he tried to imagine what Justin would look like, but he could only see the little boy with the short fat legs and plump body, and suddenly he was back in the past again with the small trusting hand tightly clasping his own throughout the walks along the cliff path to Clougy...
The Dark Shore Page 3
