‘Oh, did he?’ she said, aloud. ‘Well, he can afford it. You did the other one, didn’t you, Francis. I’ll square up now, I’ve got our purse.’ She and Sue kept a special purse into which they paid equal sums as required which were used for joint expenses.
‘Stop fretting about your independence and come and dance while there’s a decent tune playing,’ Francis said, standing up.
Liz meekly pocketed the purse and went with him to the small space of floor left clear for dancing. The music was the theme from Un Homme et Une Femme, which she could never hear unmoved; the curious, haunting melody had its usual effect upon her now, and she was at once aware of the feel of Francis’s thick wool sweater under her hand as it rested on his shoulder, and the touch of his palm, calloused as Patrick had observed. Or was it really just the music ?
‘Relax. This is for fun. I don’t bite,’ he said into her ear, gathering her to him. ‘Nice little tune, isn’t it? Let’s enjoy ourselves.’
Liz hoped Barbara would not look their way, and then, contrarywise, hoped she would. Why? Nothing was at risk. She kept away from other people’s husbands, in fact she kept away from everyone. So she could enjoy the moment safely enough; nothing could hurt her, here in the Gentiana. They moved closer together.
‘That’s better,’ he said. He hummed the tune softly under his breath for a while, and then asked her, ‘What happened to your husband.’
‘We just couldn’t get along.’
‘One of those mutually destructive set-ups, was it? It happens all the time.’
‘Mm. I know. Frightening, isn’t it? Can one ever succeed?’
‘Sometimes it’s possible to fight through to a state of neutral tolerance,’ he said.
‘Isn’t that very hypocritical?’
‘It depends on what’s at stake. There can be complications, material things that bind.’
Had he married a rich wife to whose tune he must now dance? Or were there children? He hadn’t mentioned them, but that must be the answer, if he were speaking personally, and she thought he was.
‘Sometimes crumbs of pleasure come one’s way,’ he went on, holding her more closely. Liz did not want to be a crumb for any one, but she was powerless to draw back from him. ‘You, on the other hand, would always choose to run away,’ Francis said. ‘You miss a lot.’
Most appropriately, the music now switched to Strangers in the Night, perennially a favourite in ski-resorts no doubt because it was so apt, and they both began to laugh. Maybe there was something to be said for his philosophy, Liz thought, but she feared any search for crumbs on her part would leave scars. Even Sue, so much simpler in her outlook, mourned briefly every time.
When the music ended they went back to the table and found Bernard there; he was sitting uneasily perched on the banquette as though preparing for rapid flight. Fiona left her place and wove a crooked course across the floor to her machine; she put on a stack of records and then zigzagged back.
‘That’ll keep it going for a time,’ she said. She drew herself up, slight in her purple outfit, the striking red hair now escaping from its knot and falling over one shoulder. Languidly, she gazed round the room, shrugged, and then flopped on to the bench beside Sam, draping herself over him. He frowned, unwrapped her arms from round his neck and pushed her towards Bernard, who shuddered.
‘Oh God, Fiona,’ said Penny in a despairing voice. ‘You’ve been mixing them again.’
‘I’m all right. Don’t be such a stick,’ said Fiona. ‘Relax, enjoy yourself.’
‘If the Schollers see her in this state there’ll be trouble,’ Penny muttered. ‘She’s done it once too often as it is.’ She sprang up. ‘I’ll get the waiter to bring some black coffee.’
It seemed as if more than black coffee would be needed. Fiona was now tweaking Bernard’s ear and mumbling into it. Bernard looked as if he feared imminent rape.
‘Do stop it, Fiona, there’s a good girl,’ he besought her, trying to wriggle out of range. He could not move far, or she would topple over.
‘Don’t be shy,’ Fiona crooned to him. ‘I think you’re a dark horse really.’ She twined one of his mouse-coloured curls round her fingers, then, with unsteady hands, removed his glasses. Liz stretched across the table to take them from her wavering grasp and laid them down in safety. All were fascinated by this assault on Bernard and no attempt to rescue him was made. Barbara, after a moment, decided to avert her eyes from the distressing scene and began to ask Jan about his home in Rotterdam, where his wife was at this moment expecting the arrival of the fourth little van Hutter. The others watched while Bernard’s face turned from a weathered pallor to a suffused crimson.
Fortunately for him, the coffee soon came.
‘Make her drink it, for heaven’s sake,’ said Penny. ‘Oh, here are my people.’ She pushed the cup across to Fiona and stood up, putting on a pleased smile as two men and two women came towards the table.
‘Hullo, there,’ she greeted the arrivals. ‘So you decided to come down. Fine!’ She started her introductions at the end of the table furthest from Fiona’s sad exhibition, but in the end, it had to be noticed. Fiona gazed dimly at the newcomers, then began to mutter into Bernard’s sweater. He, by this time, had an arm round her, but only in order to stop her from falling into his lap.
Freddie Derrington was a big man with curling dark hair and sideburns and a large moustache. He was about fifty. His wife, Hilda, was also dark, sturdily built, and much the same age. The Fosters, Roy and June, were young.
‘These two are on their honeymoon. They got hitched yesterday,’ Freddie revealed when the introductions were complete. ‘That calls for champagne, don’t you agree? Waiter!’
Fiona sat up, pushing Bernard away.
‘Champagne, did I hear?’ she asked. ‘Goody.’
By the time the party broke up it was after half-past twelve. Sue did not come upstairs until some time after Liz; while she embarked on her nightly ritual of creaming and massage, Liz lay staring up at the bedroom ceiling thinking about the evening.
‘Poor honeymooners,’ she said at last. ‘What a start.’
‘They’ve probably been sleeping together for months. There’s nothing much to start, is there?’ Sue said.
‘Who’s the cynic now?’ Liz answered. ‘Pity everyone had to know it’s their honeymoon.’
‘Why ? Times have changed since you were a blushing bride.’
‘Yes, and not always for the better.’
‘What’s got into you tonight?’ demanded Sue. ‘You’re not usually sentimental.’
There was no reply. Liz, in her mind’s eye, still saw June Foster’s white, alarmed face as she watched her husband steadily get drunk, both of them silent, while the Derringtons described in vivid detail the flight out, the adventures of the coach drive from Zurich, and their hopes for the morrow’s skiing. Fiona had glued herself to Bernard once again, limpet-like, and he, penned in on the other side by the bulk of Freddie Derrington, seemed too bemused to seek escape.
Sue got into bed at last and pulled the duvet round her shoulders; for a few minutes there were rustles, squeaks and sighs as she made herself ready for slumber. Liz lay silently through all this, and soon her even breathing indicated that Sue slept. But Liz was wakeful. The events of the day ran through her mind like the unreeling of a film.
She recalled her meeting with Francis in the restaurant at Obergreutz; their conversation had been only superficial, but there was something about him that made her thoughts keep coming back to him. She had been happy when he suggested they should dance; all evening she had hoped he would. Beware! Danger! she told herself, and switched her thoughts to the safer subject of Patrick. How strange that he should be in Greutz. What a pity he had left the nightclub before the new arrivals came; he would enjoy theorising about them. Patrick always speculated about everyone he met and declared no one was wholly uninteresting; he had an uncanny way of spotting things that no one else would notice. By that token, it was lucky he
hadn’t seen her dance with Francis. The evening had been full of changing moods. Fiona had been funny, making a set at Bernard; she was too drunk to remember who he was by the end. He seemed to forfeit everyone’s sympathy; no one appeared to care at all about his discomfiture. And outside the snow had gone on falling, endlessly, as if the sky would never clear again.
She had almost drifted into sleep when a board creaked on the landing outside. Wide awake at once, she waited, but the noise was not repeated. Had Sue locked the door? It was unlikely that a prowler would come in, but one never could be sure. Liz got up and tried the handle. It opened, and she looked outside. At the far end of the dimly-lit corridor she could see a large male figure moving silently away. She thought it looked like Freddie Derrington, but it could have been Jan, hopeful of finding a complaisant Sue available.
Liz withdrew softly, closed the door and locked it, and got into bed.
PART THREE
Sunday
I
All that night the snow fell heavily, and by morning, no sharp edges remained anywhere, only gentle contours where the snow ploughs had cut sheer ridges earlier by the roadside. The roofs of buildings bore thick helmets, sparkling crystalline and in places, fringed with gleaming icicles where warmth from within had melted some of the snow.
At breakfast, there were no rolls; instead, slices of drab grey bread filled the baskets on the tables. Not only was the mountain pass closed, but also the road along the valley to Kramms, where the bakery was.
‘Oh dear,’ said Sue, who looked forward greedily to her crisp rolls each morning. ‘Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. There’s honey, though, I see.’ She reached across Sam and took a foil-wrapped portion of honey out of the dish.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, pushing the butter towards her. ‘I’m still half asleep. It was rather noisy in the annexe last night.’
‘I should think it might have been,’ said Liz. ‘I’m surprised Fiona made it back there – she did, I suppose?’
‘Oh, ultimately,’ Sam replied, and said no more.
Penny came rushing in, looking fresh and rested, her fair hair held back from her face by a wide green band which matched her sweater. She carried a sheaf of papers and said she was in a great hurry.
‘That crowd at the Silvretta’s been on the phone already,’ she said. ‘I’m meeting them in ten minutes at Winkler’s to get skis.
The Derringtons have got their own, and I shouldn’t think the Fosters will want to bother today, but send them along if they do.’
‘Surely there won’t be any skiing? It’s snowing just as hard as ever,’ Liz said.
‘Oh, I think there will. It is a little colder than it was, and Frau Scholler says the lehrers have gone up. I heard the snowcat when I came across. Anyway, I must get all these keen people fixed up so that they’re ready for anything.’
She drank two cups of coffee straight off and ate a slice of bread. Just as she was about to leave the Derringtons appeared.
‘The lifts are functioning. We’ll be up the Schneiderhorn by half-past ten,’ said Freddie, briskly. He looked very workman-like this morning in his white cotton polo shirt and tight black ski-pants. Hilda was identically dressed; she had seemed sturdy enough the evening before, but now she was revealed as really muscular, with broad, powerful shoulders and strong, thick legs.
Liz looked at Freddie’s hands as he tackled his breakfast in a hearty manner. They were tanned and bore scars on the square, capable fingers. Another manual worker, she decided.
‘Have you got over your adventures in the night?’ Penny asked them.
‘Yes,’ said Hilda. ‘Something like this always happens to me. It makes me very annoyed.’
‘What adventure did you have?’ asked Sue.
‘I got locked into the bathroom,’ said Hilda. Penny was right about her accent, Liz thought. It was slight, but definite, and she said ‘this’ where the use of ‘that’ would have been more Anglo-Saxon. It was not French: the intonation was more central European. ‘I was a prisoner for half an hour,’ she continued. ‘How did you hear about it?’
‘Frau Scholler told me this morning. She couldn’t understand it,’ Penny said.
‘Someone playing games, I think,’ said Hilda.
It seemed that the Derringtons had their own bathroom, but it was in the old part of the building and was approached from the landing, not their bedroom, so that it needed locking. The key had to be used on the outside when the room was not in use, to prevent invasion by other guests, and inside when it was occupied. Because the hour was so late, Hilda had not troubled to lock herself in, leaving the key on the outside of the door. It had been turned on her, and then removed.
‘What an extraordinary thing to happen,’ said Liz. She thought of the figure she had seen on the landing in the night.
‘Some prankster, I suppose,’ said Hilda.
‘I didn’t hear you screaming and battering down the door,’ remarked Sue. ‘I suppose your husband wondered where you were, and found you.’
‘Yes, he did, at last,’ said Hilda. ‘It was a very childish trick, whoever played it, and now the key is lost.’ From the look she gave Freddie it was obvious whom she suspected: but why lose the key? Liz decided some people looked for kicks in the strangest places, and changed the subject, asking Hilda where they lived in England. In Kent, was the answer, near Maidstone.
Liz did not know Kent, apart from Dover docks, so that was conversationally a dead end, but she persevered and discovered that the Derringtons had a mink farm.
‘We pelt them in November. After that we have a rest. As long as we’re home in March, for the mating, we can leave them in the winter,’ Hilda explained.
This was a good one. Patrick would never think of it.
‘How many mink have you got?’ she asked.
‘Fifty males and a hundred females,’ answered Freddie.
‘Is that a lot?’
‘Pretty fair, if we get good results with the kitts. We do it all ourselves, with the help of one man and an occasional pupil, so we cut our overheads on wages and so forth.’
‘Aren’t they rather nasty little things?’ Sue inquired. ‘Like rats?’
‘They bite you if you give them half a chance,’ said Hilda. ‘If they get their teeth in your flesh, they won’t let go. You have to force open their jaws.’
That accounted for the scars.
‘I suppose you’ve got a fabulous coat?’ Sue said.
Hilda laughed, somewhat bitterly.
‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘Mine’s made of nylon fur. We have to sell all our pelts.’
Both the Derringtons ate a substantial breakfast, with boiled eggs to supplement the bread and honey. Hilda’s concentration as she scraped every vestige from the empty shell reminded Liz of Bernard, who always enjoyed his food: he was not yet down. The Fosters arrived just as Penny, who had been side-tracked from her plan of hurrying to the sports shop by the Derringtons, was about to leave at last. Everyone hid their surprise at seeing these two so early, and Penny asked them if they wanted skis at once.
‘Oh yes,’ said Roy. ‘June must get going straight away. She’s never skied before, she can’t waste any time.’ He was a stocky young man with rather long hair that curled over his collar, and a red face. June was pale, plump, and pretty in a subdued way; she had large blue eyes and a gentle expression.
‘You’ve done a lot of skiing. You told us yesterday,’ Penny said.
‘Oh yes,’ said Roy. ‘I come out every year.’
‘You’re all very good, I expect,’ said June, addressing the whole table, her gaze moving round from face to face.
‘We’re not,’ said Sue, robustly. ‘I’m the dunce, June. You’ll soon catch me up. Once you can stop, you’ll feel wonderful.’
‘I’m not expecting to be able to start, let alone stop,’ June said. I’m sure it must be fun,’ she added, but she looked extremely doubtful.
‘Of course it is. You’ll soon get the hang of it,
a fit girl like you,’ said Roy. He told the others, ‘June’s a good horsewoman; she’s pretty fit.’
Penny said she would meet them at the Sportshop Winkler, and when she had gone, Francis Whittaker came over to the table; Barbara went straight out of the dining-room.
‘Who’s skiing this morning?’ Francis asked. ‘Are you, Liz?’
‘I don’t know.’ Liz looked through the window at the grey vista. ‘It doesn’t look at all inviting.’
‘I rather doubt if the Schneiderhorn drag will be working, but why don’t you do the White Run? I’ll come with you. I’m sure you don’t want to go to ski-school, you’ll get frozen hanging about while everyone does their party-piece.’
Liz looked at him.
‘I’d drive you mad by going too slowly,’ she said.
Francis laughed.
‘I don’t go mad so easily,’ he said. ‘I shan’t be in any hurry.’
‘I don’t like the idea of skiing alone,’ Liz admitted.
‘Very proper,’ said Freddie, his mouth full of egg.
‘Well, it’s all right as long as someone knows where you’ve gone and will notice if you don’t turn up again,’ said Francis. ‘You’ll come, then, Liz?’
Why not? Hadn’t he said she always ran away? This time she wouldn’t.
‘All right,’ she said. They arranged to meet at the foot of the chair-lift at ten-fifteen, after the first rush was over.
Later, in the bedroom, Sue looked at her.
‘You fancy him, don’t you?’ she said.
‘Who? Francis? Don’t be silly.’
‘Watch it, girl, I’m telling you, even if you don’t know it yourself. I’m never wrong,’ Sue stated.
‘You’ve got a novelette mind,’ Liz said, curtly. She folded her frilly nylon nightdress and laid it neatly on her pillow, ready for the maid when she came to do the room. ‘Don’t judge my reactions by your own.’
‘Methinks you do protest too much,’ Sue said, blithely. ‘But one can’t get up to much mischief here, I suppose, more’s the pity. Everyone would know about it in five minutes.’
Silent Witness (Dr. Patrick Grant) Page 5
