by Diane Janes
I had just decided that for want of any better ideas, I might as well walk to the end of the staithe and back, when a head and shoulders emerged from the cruiser moored at the farthest end. The figure silently raised its left arm and made a beckoning gesture. It was Alan.
I entertained a sudden, ludicrous desire to turn tail and run. It was ludicrous, of course, because I had not driven for most of the day only to run off when I was on the very point of achieving the purpose of my journey, so after the briefest hesitation I continued to approach the boat, neither slowing nor quickening my pace. This seemed to irritate Alan, who again beckoned urgently. As I got closer, I could see that he was looking uncharacteristically agitated. He did not smile or greet me, just watched me advance in silence.
The little cruiser was moored as if in readiness to head out of the dyke. Alan was standing in the rear cockpit and when I reached the stern of the boat he moved aside, making room for me to step aboard and go below, still looking grave and saying nothing. I accepted the unspoken invitation and stepped on to the deck, hesitating as I felt it move beneath me. It was a long time since I had been aboard a boat and I had forgotten that unnerving tilt as the thing dips to take account of one’s weight.
‘Are you alone?’ His voice was low and urgent – ridiculously so, I thought, considering that there was clearly no one within sight or earshot.
I nodded, opening my mouth to give further confirmation, but he cut across me.
‘How did you get here?’
‘By car,’ I said. ‘It’s parked just up there …’
‘Which one is it?’
‘The Fiesta. It’s the only car up there.’
‘Go below,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ He made as if to get off the boat, then said, ‘Where are the keys?’
It was such an unexpected question that it caught me off guard.
‘Here,’ I said, holding them out as visual proof.
He took them – snatched them, really.
‘Hey …’ I made a futile protesting noise.
‘Go below,’ he said again. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
He bounded on to the staithe in a single movement and strode briskly towards the parking area.
I don’t know quite how I had envisaged my meeting with Alan, but this wasn’t it. There was something suddenly absurd about the whole proceedings: the cloak-and-dagger code we had adopted to make the arrangements, the ridiculous furtive beckoning from the boat, and now Alan dashing off along the bank, presumably to make sure that there were no policemen hiding behind the waste bins at the end of the staithe. I was inclined to ignore his instruction to go below, but when I saw him returning – having evidently satisfied himself that I was indeed alone – I thought I might as well go down into the cabin.
It was one of those small cruisers which is steered from an open rear cockpit. A set of short, steep steps descended from the cockpit into the main cabin, which occupied the whole central section of the boat, one of the very smallest of someone’s hire fleet; just a fore cabin with two berths and an aft cabin bisected by a narrow central passageway with a table and bench seats on one side, and the sink, cooker and toilet cubicle crammed in on the other. There was probably no more than eight or ten feet separating the cockpit steps and the fore cabin door.
Once inside the boat I stood in this narrow central space, unsure what to do next. Behind me was the ladder down which I had come, ahead of me the closed door beyond which lay the sleeping compartment. I decided the only thing to do was sit down, so I took the seat facing the cockpit.
It was a shabby boat, obviously old, perhaps not even part of a hire fleet any more. I wondered if Alan had bought it. In the past he had sometimes talked about how nice it would be to have a boat of his own, although knowing Alan I would have expected something much smarter. Perhaps this was newly acquired and he intended to do it up? I noted the chips in the edge of the table – not the sort of thing Alan would be willing to live with for very long.
I’d assumed that he would come straight down into the cabin, but he didn’t. I felt the slight lurch of the boat as he came aboard, but he failed to appear at the hatch. For a moment I was puzzled, but then I realized from the movements overhead that he must be rigging the awning which covered the rear cockpit. For a moment I wondered whether I ought to offer to help, then dismissed the idea. Of course I shouldn’t help. It was nothing to do with me.
In fact the delay was irritating. There was no earthly need to rig the awning just now. It wasn’t going to rain. It wasn’t anywhere near getting dark. Then I remembered that it was customary to rig the awning before leaving the boat, and Alan must have naturally assumed that we would head off for the nearest police station right away, which made it a perfectly reasonable thing for him to be doing. I almost called out to disabuse him of the idea, but instead I pushed away my irritation and took in more of my surroundings while I waited. If it was Alan’s own boat, he had done very little to personalize it. The crockery on the drainer was the same utilitarian smoked glass that I remembered from other hired boats. There was a television, a tiny one, on the small flat area to one side of the cooker. It was switched on too, which was surprising, because Alan had never been a big fan of television and certainly not daytime television. I recognized the programme as a rerun of an old American cop series, which I assumed he must have been watching to pass the time, sitting here in the cabin, wondering whether or not I was going to turn up.
I gradually became aware of other things too. There was a smell, like unwashed socks and greasy washing-up water. The boat must need airing, I thought. The windows were all closed and I somehow didn’t like to open one. It seemed an impertinence on someone else’s boat. I began to tap my fingers nervously against my kneecaps.
The floor of the cabin was below the water level, and on the side where I was sitting the cabin windows looked out just above the level of the bank, so that if anyone was walking along the seated occupants of the cabin would only see their feet, while they in turn could not see inside the boat, unless they actually knelt down on the ground. The window on the opposite side looked across the dyke to where a white yacht was moored with her awning rigged. There were no signs of life anywhere, not even swans or ducks on the lookout for leftover crusts.
Alan seemed to be taking an inordinately long time, but at last his feet appeared, followed by the rest of him, descending the five steps into the cabin. Once down he pulled the sliding hatch across and closed the door. There was something ominous in this. Something that made me feel claustrophobic. Closed windows, closed doors and this cramped, slightly smelly cabin with Alan in very close proximity.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
I almost laughed with relief. That most civilized of gestures. Confronted by one’s wife, who walked out without a word, and has been gone heaven knows where for the past six years, and what is virtually the first question you ask her? Would you like a cup of tea!
‘Yes, please,’ I said meekly.
He filled the kettle, lit the gas, reached into the caddy for two teabags which he put in the metal pot, got mugs and milk from the cupboard and fridge working in that precise, methodical, Alan-like way, all the time only inches away from me. I was very aware of this, strongly conscious that I did not want him to touch me, not even to accidentally brush against me. Hoping that he wouldn’t notice, I slid further along the plastic covered seat, putting some extra inches between myself and the gangway.
‘You knew where to come,’ he said as he placed mugs on the draining board. It was not exactly a question or a statement.
‘Not at first,’ I said. ‘But then I worked it out.’
‘Clever of you.’ It was not said kindly. I felt wounded and almost asked him what would have been the point of his message if I had not been able to work it out, but then I pulled myself up short, reminded myself that he had every justification to be angry. It was small wonder that he had appeared agitated when I first arrived. He was wa
nted for questioning in connection with a murder. Under such circumstances anyone might look agitated.
I waited for him to say something else, but he continued to stand alongside the cooker, waiting silently for the kettle to boil. It was unnerving. I wanted to break the silence, but I found that I didn’t know what to say. I had been so sure that he would make the verbal running, but instead he was making tea. Then I got it. He’s playing with me, I thought. Of course Alan will have plenty to say. This is Alan. He’s just waiting for me to blurt out some half-cocked remark so that he can ridicule it. He wants a chance to cut me down to size. While his motivation was understandable, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction, so I waited, matching his silence with my own.
The American detective had got his man and children’s programmes were about to start. A smiling presenter was holding up home-made birthday cards, each of them incorporating photographs of the child whose birthday it was.
The kettle began to whistle, but was cut off short in a disappointed spitting noise when Alan lifted it off the gas and poured hot water into the teapot.
‘Still milk, no sugar?’
‘Thank you.’
He placed the two mugs on the table and sat down, facing me. I was horribly conscious that our knees must be almost touching under the table and I had a strong urge to put more space between us by moving still further along the bench, but since I couldn’t do so without its being obvious, I stayed where I was. I put my fingers into the handle of the mug but made no move to drink. The tea would be too hot anyway.
Alan was looking straight at me, cool and contemptuous. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me why you’ve come?’
I was taken completely aback. The purpose of my journey was obvious, surely?
‘I … well … I …’ I stammered in confusion, trying to find a way to start. ‘I thought you would want me to come – to prove I’m alive.’
‘And how much money did you think I’d give you? No, put it another way – how much money do you want?’
‘Nothing.’ I was both indignant and amazed. ‘I don’t want any money at all.’
He frowned slightly. ‘Come now, Jenny,’ he said after a short pause. ‘No point in beating about the bush, is there? I mean let’s face it, you haven’t come back because you’ve suddenly realized you love dear old hubby so much that you just can’t live without him?’
‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘No, I haven’t come back for that. In fact, I want to make it clear straightaway that I don’t want to go back to our old life together. Once we’ve got this business sorted out we will both have to go our separate ways.’
It came to me while I was saying this that he had not returned my car keys. Nor had I seen him put them down anywhere. He must still have them in his pocket.
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘So that’s the idea, is it? I pay up and you disappear into the sunset.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said. ‘I’m not asking you for money. I don’t want your money. If it comes to that,’ I added with a touch of proud defiance that I couldn’t quite suppress, ‘I don’t need your money.’
He continued to look at me as if half puzzled, half amused.
‘Well, what do you want then?’
‘I want to get you off the hook,’ I said. ‘I mean, once the police realize that I haven’t been murdered everything will be OK, won’t it? You’ll be able to go back home.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘that’s what I first thought when I saw your message in the paper. Dear little Jenny, I thought, she’s going to come back from the dead and get me off the hook, bless her.’
He picked up my hand and put it to his lips. It was a mocking, rather than affectionate gesture. Revolted, I pulled my hand away sharply.
He stopped smiling.
‘Sorry,’ I said instinctively, then wished I hadn’t. Why should I be sorry? He had no right to touch me – none whatever. All those things I had once permitted (some of which now filled me with squeamish shame), all the things I had loathed, yet taken as part of what was expected in a normal sexual relationship, since I had known no other – all of that was in the past and I never had to do any of them ever again.
‘It was a nice idea,’ he said. ‘Of course, it’s all gone a bit awry now, hasn’t it?’
‘I don’t see why,’ I replied.
‘Don’t you watch television?’ he asked.
We both glanced involuntarily at the TV, where cartoon characters were chasing each other noisily across the screen. The completely irrelevant thought ran through my mind that there seemed to be far more cartoons now than there had ever been when I was a child. It had all been puppets and classic serials then.
‘Of course I watch television,’ I said. ‘Sometimes,’ the intellectual snobbery I had inherited from my father made me add.
‘But not today?’
‘Of course not today. I’ve been on the road for most of it.’
‘Where have you come from?’
I had not intended to tell him so much – not even in general terms – but he caught me unawares.
‘Yorkshire,’ I said.
‘Aah.’ He nodded as though this somehow clarified a previously baffling issue, though I couldn’t imagine what it might have been. ‘And I suppose you didn’t have the radio on in the car?’
‘It’s broken,’ I replied, still not seeing his point at all.
‘You’ve come a long way,’ he said.
There seemed to be nothing to say in the face of that.
‘And you did it out of the goodness of your heart,’ there was absolutely no mistaking the sarcasm in his voice, ‘with never a thought of what might be in it for you.’
‘There’s nothing in it for me,’ I snapped. ‘In fact, I stand to lose a very great deal.’
I was starting to lose patience with him now. It was all very well him being upset because I had put him in this predicament. He had every justification, but nevertheless, I could not help thinking that he might show just a little bit of gratitude. As he had said himself, if nothing else I had come a very long way.
‘Not even if I were to go to prison?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that you would get your hands on the house and the bank accounts?’
‘No,’ I almost shouted. ‘No, it did not. And anyway, you won’t go to prison.’
‘They’ve decided it’s you in that ditch,’ he said. He was looking straight into my eyes as he said it, staring at me in a peculiar way. There was something about that stare which made me desperate to look away, but I was determined to face him out.
‘That’s ludicrous,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘It’s not me. There’s nothing at all to say that it’s me. They’re just jumping to conclusions.’
‘A necklace,’ he said. ‘There’s a silver necklace with a locket, engraved with a letter J. They will have found photos of you wearing your locket. That will have been the thing that decided them.’
‘Well, they’ll just have to un-decide, won’t they?’ I said, making a passable show of confidence. ‘Anyway, hundreds of women must have necklaces like that. They were all the rage when you bought mine for me.’
‘Only if their initial was J,’ he said.
I decided this pointless comment was best ignored. Half the females in England seemed to have names which began with a J – and made a point of wearing necklaces to proclaim the fact.
‘We can convince them,’ I said. ‘Between us, we can explain it all. Then they will realize that they’ve made a mistake.’
He gave a sort of laugh, a strange noise cut short – not a happy sound. ‘You really believe that, don’t you? You didn’t come here to blackmail me at all, did you? You’re still the same old Jenny, cocooned in your own little world – utterly clueless.’
I felt my anger well up, but although I was conscious of my cheeks reddening, I managed to keep my voice level. ‘How dare you,’ I said. ‘I came all this way
to help you and all you can do is question my motives and call me stupid. If that’s the way you feel, then as far as I’m concerned you’re on your own. I’m leaving right now.’
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so.’
TWENTY-SIX
I stood up.
It was intended to be a decisive movement, but the table was in the way so the movement ended in an undignified crabwise shuffle.
‘You can’t keep me here,’ I said, wishing my voice carried rather more conviction.
He stood up too. It placed us only inches apart, my eyes not even on a level with his shoulder, so that I had to angle my neck to see his expression.
‘Really?’ He arched his eyebrows, regarding me with interest, rather as an older dog tolerates a puppy romping in front of his bone, ready to issue a warning growl if the upstart gets too close. ‘And just how do you figure that? Think you could wrestle me to the ground, get your car keys and make off along the bank?’
I didn’t say anything.
‘Want to try it?’
I sat down again, unable to face his sneering expression, and tried to think clearly. Alan was right in as much that I had no realistic prospect of getting off the boat without his cooperation. He was obviously in a strange, dangerous mood. The last thing to do would be to antagonize him. For some reason he was holding me as a sort of hostage and I had to find a way to convince him that this wasn’t a good idea.
I wondered if the ordeal of being wanted by the police had affected the balance of his mind. Not that amateur psychoanalysis was much help. The main thing was to stay calm and be patient. Somehow, I had to find a way of persuading him to let me go.
