Bonfire Memories

by Sally Quilford

  Chapter Ten

  1946

  I have to navigate the lane without lights, just in case those running up to the bonfire see me through the trees. Sammy sits in the passenger seat, trembling.

  “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known,” he whimpered, sounding more like a ten year old than a teenager. “Who is she?”

  “She’s a bad person who was going to do bad things to Midchester,” I lie. “Would you believe she’s a bloody Gerry? They’d have hanged her anyway. I just saved them the job. We all have to do what we can to stop another war.” Or to start one. “Don’t think of it as breaking the law, Sammy. Think of it as defending your country, just like you said you wanted to.”

  “I don’t know. It feels wrong somehow.” He looked at me sideways, his voice tremulous. “You’re a strange one. Nobody hardly knows you around here, yet you turn up and start running things. How do I know I can trust you? How do I know you won’t kill me too?”

  It seems he’s brighter than I thought. “Because we’re British, Sammy. We’re in this together. Just help me bury the body then you can go about your life and I’ll go about mine. Only we’ll know how brave we’ve been, but that doesn’t matter, does it?” I’m trying to appeal to his sense of the dramatic. He’ll be able to pretend to himself that he’s the hero of all this. But he doesn’t really have the gumption for heroics. I’m going to have to force him.

  I have to think on my feet, so I quickly find the spot where she won’t be disturbed. At least not for a very long time. I see all the records of the planning committee and there are no digs planned in the near future.

  As luck would have it, there’s a shovel in the boot, just in case of bad weather. Around here, when winter comes, people can be snowed in for weeks. There’s a torch in the glove box too. I tell him to get that.

  “Dig the grave and there’s a tenner in it for you,” I say.

  “I want more than a tenner to hide a dead body. And I want proper money too. The fiver you gave me was dodgy. That’s why I came looking for you. I never expected to find any of this though. ”

  “Okay, twenty pounds. But don’t forget, Sammy, she’s wearing your mother’s clothes and she’s dressed up in the way you and your friends did when you tried to fool the judges at the Guy Fawkes competition. You’re implicated in this even more than I am.”

  I see the words striking home. “No,” he whispers.

  “Oh yes, Sammy. They’ll think you killed her and raped her, then played sick games with her body. You’re in this up to your neck. Which is a very appropriate phrase, because if they find out about her, they’ll hang you.”

  “They’ll hang you too. Anyway, I thought you said we were doing something good. Why would they hang us for that?”

  I swear under my breath. Now he decides to be intelligent! “We won’t be able to prove what she was. She can hardly tell them, can she?”

  It takes a while and my temper is reaching tipping point, but eventually he starts to dig. But he’s pathetic at it. The ground is hard, and he barely makes a dent. The boy hasn’t done a day’s work in his life. “Oh, give it to me!” I snatch the shovel from him, and dig.

  Nearly an hour later, with the muscles on my arms burning, the ground is deep enough to bury two people, let alone one. We haul her in.

  “You start pushing the earth back in with your hands, and I’ll use the shovel,” I command.

  Sammy kneels down, just as I hoped he would. I raise the shovel and aim for his skull…

  1966

  “You look stunning.” Tony leered over Cara while she was looking up at one of the portraits. The guests had moved to a different room to drink coffee.

  “Go away,” she hissed. Of all the people to turn up at Black’s party, why did it have to be Tony? Cara almost wilted under the hateful looks of his wife when they were introduced. Tony must have told her about Cara. He probably took some sick pleasure in confessing.

  “You’re certainly moving up in the world, Cara, hobnobbing with famous actors.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you, Tony. Go away.”

  “Why? Doesn’t your friend know about me?”

  Cara shivered. No, Guy did not know about him and she had no idea what he would think if he did know. She had not exactly covered herself in glory where Tony was concerned. “I think your wife wants you,” she said, pointedly.

  “I’m running a club in Hereford now. All the best people go there. We might even get The Who to do a gig. When Mr. Famous Actor gets tired of you, you can come and dance for me there. You know, like you used to when we were alone.”

  She turned on him, her face aflame, and was horrified to see Guy standing nearby, listening to every word.

  “She’s right,” said Guy, stony-faced. “Your wife is looking for you.” He was head and shoulders taller than Tony, so easily dominated him. “Are you okay?” he asked Cara, when Tony had slunk away to find Sandra.

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Do you want to tell me about that?”

  “No. I mean, not here.”

  “Okay, we’ll talk about it later, on the way home.”

  And later you won’t want to know me anymore, she thought miserably. She went to sit on the sofa, next to Mrs. Abercrombie. She could not wait to get away from this awful dinner party. Guy had been uncharacteristically rude about Black’s visit to India, and yet she understood why. There was a sensation of evil under all the polite talk that threatened to infect everyone. No one seemed to be enjoying themselves. She had seen the reverend and Meredith looking at the clock several times, muttering something about getting back for the babysitter.

  Cara felt unwelcome in Black’s house without an explicit reason for feeling that way. No one had said anything unkind to her, but there was a definite undercurrent. It might have been because Tony Weston was there, but she did not think so. The emotion he invoked in her, of revulsion, was very different to the unease that caused her tummy to tie up in a tight knot. She shivered slightly, feeling that someone had just walked over her grave.

  Trying to catch Guy’s eye, she wanted to tell him that it was time to leave, but he was not looking her way. He too seemed ill at ease.

  “You’ll never guess who I saw the other day,” Mrs. Abercrombie was saying to no one in particular.

  “Who?” asked the Reverend.

  “Young Sammy …oh what was his surname? He was hardly ever at school. You know who I mean, Lilian. His mother was an alcoholic, and one day he just upped and disappeared. I saw him hanging around near the milestone just outside Midchester. I didn’t recognise him at first. He’s got all that long greasy hair that young men have nowadays.” Mrs. Abercrombie looked at Eric Black, with his long locks, and bit her lip. “Well, it’s not so bad when they wash it. But then he turned towards me and I realised who he was.”

  “I don’t think I remember him,” said Eric Black.

  “Oh you do, Eric,” said Miss Watson. “He used to hang around up here all the time.”

  “That’s news to me,” said Barbara Price. “Is there something you haven’t told me Eric?” Everyone laughed at that. Except for Eric Black.

  “Well, not all the time,” said Miss Watson, getting flustered. “What I mean is I saw him coming from here a few times. Actually it might have only been once or twice. He used to run around with young Nancy from the pub.”

  “Yes, that’s what I was going to say next,” said Mrs. Abercrombie. “I went a bit further up the road and saw Nancy. She was driving towards the milestone. I saw her stop there in my rear view mirror, then Sammy got into her car and they drove off.”

  “Oh that’s a funny thing,” said Tony. “We passed the pub on the way here and it was shut.”

  “Nancy’s not very well,” Cara said, believing she should defend her friend. Mrs. Abercrombie’s revelation had given her an idea who the man was in Nancy’s room earlier that day and why she had been told to leave. Why would Nancy not tell her the truth? They normally shared everyth
ing and Cara would not have disapproved of Nancy having a man stay over. More importantly, what reason had Sammy Granger got to hide away from everyone?

  “So you’re not working there anymore, Cara,” said Black.

  “No. We both felt it was time I moved on.”

  “Perhaps we can find you a permanent place on the paper,” he said.

  “Oh that would be wonderful. I mean, I’m helping Guy at the moment, to find his sister. But if there’s anything permanent, I’d be really grateful.” Despite being grateful, Cara was confused. Eric Black had not much liked her first article, though he had been kinder about those that followed. Yet here he was offering her a full time job. She decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Guy would not be around forever and she had to have some form of employment.

  “Yes, you’d have to be an apprentice of sorts, so the pay wouldn’t be very much, but we’ll find a place for her, won’t we, Barbara?”

  “Yes, there’s always room for good writers on the Chronicle.”

  “Don’t steal her away from me too soon,” said Guy. “I might have further plans for her yet.”

  “I bet you do,” said Tony, lasciviously. Cara resisted the urge to slap him.

  She could not wait for the dinner party to be over. Meeting him again had been excruciating, and seeing his paunchy belly and dandruff speckled hair, she began to wonder what she had ever seen in him. There was a time when he had seemed to be all that was glamorous in a man. Seeing him in the same room as Guy, she realised just how ordinary he was. What an idiot she had been!

  The dinner party ended around ten-thirty and people began to drift away. The Reverend and Mrs. Cunningham offered Cara and Guy a lift, but Guy politely refused. “We’ll enjoy the walk,” he said. Cara guessed that what he really wanted to do was talk to her about the night and, worse still, about Tony.

  “I see. Oh well, I suppose you’ve got your love to keep you warm,” said the Reverend. It was said lightly and without the same inference as Tony’s earlier comment. Still Cara blushed.

  “Cara,” said Guy as they walked down the lane towards Midchester, “I don’t want to dampen your enthusiasm, but don’t you think it’s odd that Black is offering you a full-time job, just as we show up telling him everything about my sister?”

  “What? Don’t you think I’m capable of being a reporter?” Cara was feeling tetchy, partly because of the atmosphere at the dinner party, and partly due to seeing Tony again. Guy’s question riled her even further.

  “I think you’re capable of being anything you want to be. I just don’t want you to be hurt, that’s all. Talking of which, do you want to tell me about Tony?”

  “Not really.”

  “Okay then. Are you going to tell me about Tony?”

  They stepped aside as several cars passed them. They carried the other diners home. Cara began to wish they had taken up the Reverend’s offer. She would not be having this awkward conversation with Guy for a start. “I’m surprised you don’t already know, with the way people gossip in Midchester.”

  “They’re too busy gossiping about me being German at the moment. Tomorrow they’ll be gossiping about my sister being hanged as a spy. What did you do that was so shocking?”

  “I had an affair with a married man.”

  “Oh.”

  “This is going to sound like an excuse, but it isn’t. I didn’t know he was married, and then when I found out, I even considered ignoring the fact.” The confession had been dragged from the depths of Cara’s soul. She sighed and a wisp of air rose from her mouth into the cold night air. “Tony was a buyer for the brewery. He used to visit the pub and flirt with us both. I thought he was glamorous at the time. He was a lot smarter back then, and better looking. I can’ believe how he’s let himself go. Besides, I hadn’t had that much male attention.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, the majority of men in Midchester are over fifty years of age. Either that or they’re under twenty years of age. Only the vicar is reasonably young and he’s completely smitten with his wife.”

  “I can see why. She’s a firecracker.”

  “Yes, she’s lovely.” Cara suppressed a pang of jealousy. Not that she blamed Guy for being impressed with Meredith Cunningham. “Anyway, I started going out with Tony.” She paused. “It became serious. You know.” She hoped she would not have to be more explicit. The conversation was excruciating enough as it was.

  “I know.”

  “I found out about Sandra when we got a call at the pub one day asking if Tony had arrived yet. Sandra had gone into labour and naturally wanted him to be with her. I was devastated, but the following week he telephoned and told me about how they hadn’t made love for ages, and that he was sure the baby wasn’t his. He told me lots of other things about how unhappy she made him. I was very nearly fooled. I wanted to believe that I could make him happy where she couldn’t. A few days later, we had another phone call at the pub. Not his wife this time, but some other girl he had over in Hereford, wondering if we’d seen him. I ended it then, even when he turned up at the pub with protestations of love and more lies.” She shivered and pulled her thick woollen coat around her, wishing she had not worn such a skimpy dress. “So that’s me. Marriage wrecker extraordinaire.”

  “I think you’re being too hard on yourself, Cara. You’re allowed to make mistakes.”

  “It’s just that when I look back and realise how gullible I was, I hate myself for it. Then when I saw him tonight…”

  “What? Do you still love him?” It sounded as though the answer mattered to Guy.

  “God no. I don’t know why I ever did. Mind you, he wasn’t that paunchy back then. He didn’t drink so much either. Did you see the way he was knocking them back tonight? Even so, he’s a creep and always has been. I don’t know why I didn’t see that.”

  “Love is blind, according to the cliché.”

  “Do you think that’s really true? Do you think that you can love someone and completely fail to see how awful they are?”

  “Women have married murderers and rapists before now, and when their husbands are caught, they still don’t believe that he is capable of such violence. I gather that psychopaths are very good at hiding what they are to others.”

  “Oh, so only women are gullible. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Guy laughed. “No, men can be stupid when it comes to love too.”

  “Were you stupid? With Selina Cartier, I mean.”

  Guy stiffened. “That’s a different story altogether,” he said, abruptly. “It’s nothing like yours.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Guy,” said Cara, annoyed that he turned out to have the same double standards as everyone else. “I thought we were sharing here, but obviously I got it wrong. Of course your affair will be forgivable because you’re a bloody man!” She stormed on ahead, nearly falling into a pothole on the road. Guy caught her just before she fell, holding her firmly by the shoulders. She felt safe in his arms, but wondered if it was only an illusion. The way he looked at her suggested a hidden danger. Not violent or malevolent, but dangerous all the same. She could so easily forget all the reasons he might not be right for her and just offer herself up to him. It pained her to realise that she had probably learned nothing from her experience with Tony.

  “Just trust me, Cara. I’m not like Tony Weston.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “No. For a start, I’d never want you to dance for anyone else but me.” There was something about the way he said the word ‘dance’ that gave it a more intimate meaning. The mood changed. It held a different sort of intensity, one that bound them together. He lowered his head and his lips found hers. She returned his kiss, feverishly. It had been so long since she had let a man this close to her. Oddly, it felt like the first time she had ever been kissed. Certainly no one had made her feel the way Guy did, as he enclosed her in his arms, deepening the kiss. Oh yes, she thought, I’m definitely lost.
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  She was vaguely aware of a car passing them on the road, but they were too wrapped up in each other to take much notice. She coiled her fingers in his hair and moaned as the passion between them rose higher. She pulled away reluctantly, determined to show some restraint, even if it killed her to do so. “Guy, I don’t want to rush anything.”

  “I understand, darling,” he replied. “We have all the time in the world.”

  Did they? Cara wondered about that as they walked back to Midchester, holding hands. Perhaps she should just make the most of him while he was there, because soon he would return to Hollywood, where actresses more beautiful than she could ever hope to be would make him quickly forget her.

  They discussed the evening and Guy’s impressions of everyone he had met, especially Black.

  “He’s a fake,” said Guy. “But whether he’s the fake we’re looking for is another matter.”

  “It was strange, wasn’t it?” said Cara, huddling into him. “The atmosphere I mean. Everyone seemed so nice, and yet…”

  “There was definitely something malevolent in the air,” he said.

  “I don’t think people could wait to get away. I was glad to get away, and thought it was because of Tony. It lingered too. I don’t think I felt better until…” She placed her cheek against his upper arm.

  “The kiss,” he whispered, kissing her on the top of her head.

  “Mmm, the kiss.”

  They fell into blissful silence.

  After a few minutes, Cara murmured, “Guy?”

  “No. You’re right. We should wait.”

  “Oh.”

  “And it isn’t that I don’t want you. Far from it. You have no idea how much thought I have to give to my taxes right now just so I don’t disgrace myself in the open air. But I don’t think you quite trust me yet, and taking you to bed too soon isn’t going to make you feel any better.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

  He laughed softly. “I’m sure it will make us both feel very good. But then you’ll wake up in the morning and wonder if I’ve used you. I don’t want you to feel that way.”