That One May Smile

by Valerie Keogh

  Unravelling herself from the duvet’s warmth, she clambered from the bed and extinguished the candles. As crazy as her life was, she had no intention of setting fire to herself. Soon back, buried once more in warmth, she smiled to herself and gave a sudden chuckle, her life had become so fantastic, so completely bizarre, it seemed unreal. ‘Ridiculous’ she whispered into the night. ‘My life has become ridiculous’.

  The rain on the corrugated roof was incredibly noisy. She’d never sleep through it, she thought. Anyway she was waiting for Simon to come home. She couldn’t sleep until he did. On that final thought her eyes closed and sleep, reluctant at first, claimed her for the night.

  ELEVEN

  The storm, as storms do, exhausted itself overnight and departed, leaving behind a crystal-clear, blue sky. The morning was cold but the sun hinted at warmth to follow and the birds sang their pleasure and ate the insects unwise enough to venture forth. All around the cottage lay the evidence of the storm, leaves and small branches littering the laneway, bluebells flattened. The air had that wonderful clean, rich after-the-storm smell.

  Kelly took a deep breath when she opened the cottage door, the early morning sun making her squint. She smiled with unexpected pleasure. What a lovely morning. She had slept incredibly well, to her surprise, and had awoken refreshed and ready, she hoped, to face whatever Simon had to tell her. Whenever he returned, she thought with the return of a glimmer of anxiety, having half expected him to have returned during the night.

  One thing was certain, she decided grimly, she was not, definitely not, spending another night here. Turning back to the kitchen she decided, for want of anything better, to have soup again for breakfast. She would kill for a cup of coffee, she sighed, as she put the soup in the same pot she had used the previous evening.

  After her makeshift breakfast, her restlessness took her for a walk up the laneway to the road. The lane only led to this cottage she realised, noticing that it ended in the woods just behind. Walking briskly down the lane she appreciated how isolated the cottage was. She saw no other houses or even buildings in the distance. She reached the road which was, she guessed, only a very minor road and wondered exactly where she was; she had followed Simon up and down so many roads they could be several miles away from the Inn or only a couple.

  Turning back, she noticed an old road sign on the laneway, held together with bramble and ivy. Reaching carefully through the bramble, but still managing to get scratched by its vicious thorns, she pushed enough ivy out of the way to read the name. ‘Hedgesparrow Lane’, she read aloud. She stepped back, examining and quickly dismissing the bramble scratches, and repeated in amusement, ‘Hedgesparrow Lane! Goodness, sounds like something from a Winnie-the-Poo novel!’ and she headed back to the cottage with a lighter step and a grin, not only on her lips but, for the first time in a very long time, in her eyes.

  The walk didn’t relieve her restlessness though and she stood in the cottage wondering how much longer she would have to wait and what to do if Simon didn’t turn up. ‘He will’, she tried to reassure herself but failed miserably, her previous good mood proving to have a short life. What did he do here for three months, she wondered, and then decided to see if she could find answers in the cottage. She had only a moment’s indecision, torn between the need to know and the fear of what she would find. The ethical considerations she dismissed almost without thought; a man who vanishes for three months doesn’t deserve any consideration, she decided, as she started opening letters, papers and anything else she could find.

  Most of the papers she found in the living room were the mundane detritus of modern living, bank statements, credit card bills, store cards statements. All of the paperwork was in the name of Simon Johnson she noticed in relief. She was amazed at how many store cards he had. She looked through the statements, bloody hell she thought he had a card for every store she could think of! Some of the statements were final demands, she noticed, the red writing on them making them stand out. He owed a lot she realised, shocked. She swiftly, and very roughly, calculated that he owed about twenty five thousand on store cards alone. Looking at his credit card statements, for three different cards she noted, she added another thirty thousand to the final. ‘Fifty five thousand pounds,’ she gasped aloud. Was this why he vanished, she wondered? Surely not! Why didn’t he tell me? We could have paid these off with the money from the sale of my house!

  A million things ran through Kelly’s mind as she sat with Simon’s bills in her hand. Was she such a terrible wife that she didn’t realise her husband was in trouble. She didn’t care what it was; they could have sorted it out together. What kind of a person was she that he didn’t come to her and ask for help? Was running away and living in this…this squalor preferable! She tried to remember if there were signs that she just didn’t see or worse, saw but ignored. But she couldn’t remember anything untoward.

  She glanced through the statements again, confused. Simon earned good money. How could he have built up such a debt? She picked up the nearest statement, a store card for that wonderful Armani shop in London. She remembered going into the shop with Simon before Christmas and persuading him to buy a trench coat. ‘The one you have is getting a little worn,’ she had said, and he had needed no more persuasion. Was it really twenty five hundred, Kelly thought now, cringing, and had he really spent another two thousand on shirts, jeans and socks.

  She picked up a credit card bill and saw with horror how much their weekend in the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath had cost. Granted, she remembered thinking back, she had had the best massage ever. But did they really need to drink two bottles of Louis Roederer ‘Cristal’ at two hundred and fifty pounds a bottle! In fact, she wondered, as she skimmed through his credit card bills, did we drink anything else apart from incredibly expensive champagne?

  Another glance at the statements showed Kelly that he rarely paid more than the interest each month. ‘I don’t understand,’ she muttered. ‘He had a good income, didn’t he?’ A bolt hit her and she sat back on her ankles in sudden shock. She had no idea. She had absolutely no idea how much Simon earned. She had always just assumed, from his expensive clothes and lifestyle, that he earned good money. What was that irritating expression about assume, she asked herself, it makes an ass out of u and me, had she been an ass?

  Leaving the bills on the chair, she headed up to the second bedroom, where she had seen boxes and bags the night before. Despondent now, she opened boxes carelessly. The first box held sheets and pillow cases still in their shop wrapping. The second held a quantity of clothes neatly folded. The first bag she opened appeared to hold dirty laundry and Kelly hastily closed it with a moue of disgust. She had had enough. Simon was in debt, that was all it was about, she could cope with that.

  She closed the door after her and went back to the first bedroom where she lay glumly on the bed for a long time, trying not to think. She tried so hard she felt a headache taking over, slowly pounding to a crescendo. Getting up she searched for her bag and, finding it, fumbled inside for a moment before finding some paracetamol. She headed out the door, pills in hand, to get a drink; she never could swallow pills dry. She had her hand on the door knob when the wardrobe caught her eye. Some inexplicable urge made her go to it and she opened it carefully, tentatively as if there were something inside waiting to be let lose.

  Inside, hanging innocently, were Simon’s clothes.

  Her head pounding, Kelly started to close the door when she saw a briefcase on the wardrobe floor. Taking it in one hand and still holding her pills in the other she headed downstairs leaving the briefcase beside the chair while she went to the kitchen for a drink, tossing the pills back with one mouthful of icy water.

  Back in the living room she stood looking at the briefcase but she couldn’t face opening it with her head pounding as it was. She headed back to the bedroom and laid down again, shielding her eyes from the light with her hand, and waited till the hammering in her head eased to a bearable thump. As the pain eas
ed her sense of dread grew disproportionately large. The briefcase, there was something in the briefcase. She didn’t know what, she didn’t know how she knew, but she knew she was going to find something terrible inside.

  She sat up slowly, holding her head stiffly waiting for the pounding to resume. When it didn’t she relaxed, stood up and stretched. She glanced out the window, part of her hoping to see Simon arriving and part of her hoping she wouldn’t, not yet. Determinedly, despite her pounding heart, she headed down and without stopping opened the briefcase and emptied its contents on the floor. It had been jammed full and the contents formed a pile that slid to the floor in a puddle around Kelly’s feet. Kneeling down among them she picked up the first. Another credit card statement she thought in despair, my God how many does he have?

  There was only a few thousand on this one, she saw with an element of relief which quickly turned to puzzlement when she realised the statement was not in Simon’s name at all but in the name of Cyril Pratt.

  ‘The name he used at The Inn,’ she muttered, putting the paper to one side and picking up the next. Another statement in the same name but dated the month before he vanished. Several statements later and Kelly understood that Simon had been using the name, Cyril Pratt, for a long time. Before he met her, she realised in amazement, noting the date on the last one she picked up. Most of the rest of the papers were correspondence with people she had never heard of; some seemed work related, she thought dismissing them. She started to pile the rest back into the briefcase having become quickly disillusioned with amateur detective work, when a photo appeared amongst the letters. She picked it up with curiosity half expecting it to be a photo of her.

  The photo was a studio shot, well lit and artistically arranged. Kelly stood admiring the beautiful woman, handsome man and two adorable children. She recognised the handsome man as her husband, but the beautiful woman wasn’t her and the two adorable children, well, she thought, as she could feel her heart struggling not to break, well the two adorable children obviously belonged to the handsome man and the beautiful woman. She turned the photo over and read the date. Two years ago, she realised, with a bitterness that she could taste, thick on her tongue. So she had been right, there was something terrible in the briefcase, the truth. Whoever it was who had said truth was beauty, well they didn’t know anything, truth was ugly, ugly, ugly...

  She collapsed in the chair and wept as she hadn’t wept when Simon vanished. As she hadn’t when he had left her alone last night in this god-forsaken cottage. She wept for the lies and the deceit, for the man she had loved who, it seems, may never have been hers to love. She wept for dreams destroyed, a future jeopardised. She wept because she really didn’t know what to do now, or who to trust. She wept hot tears of rage and frustration, quick tears of pity and sorrow.

  When the tears stopped, exhaustion took hold and she sat on that uncomfortable chair so long she was stiff when she eventually stood. ‘What to do, what to do?’ she muttered, wringing her hands and pacing the room like one of a Macbeth’s witches. Then, as if released from a spell she moved.

  Running up the stairs she threw her few belonging into a bag and, slamming the door after her, she headed for her car, almost without thinking, before remembering that Simon had taken it. Swearing in frustration she turned to his. It wasn’t locked and, typical of Simon she thought, he had left the keys in the ignition. She turned the key and then realised why Simon had taken her car, his engine was dead.

  So she was stuck here, she thought in despair banging her clenched hands down on the steering wheel in frustration. She got out of the car and looked around. I could walk, she supposed, but where to and how far was it to anywhere? She cursed herself for not being more aware when they drove here, but all she remembered were miles of narrow winding roads and innumerable turns. She didn’t remember seeing any other houses and there were certainly none to be seen around.

  I should have left this morning, she thought angrily, I would have got somewhere. But now! She checked her watch and was horrified at the time. I’ll be stuck here again for another night if I can’t think of something, she thought hopelessly. She headed back to the cottage.

  Her headache, which had retreated to a dull throb, turned up the volume and tempo and she rummaged hurriedly in her bag for more paracetamol. In her panic she couldn’t find any and, in exasperation, she emptied the contents of her bag onto the chair, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw the familiar blue box. She picked up the packet and, popping two pills into her hand, headed to the kitchen for a drink. Coming back she picked up her bag and began stuffing the contents back inside.

  A torn piece of card caught her eye and she picked it up. Searching quickly she found its partner and stood for a moment holding the two pieces in her hand. Aeons ago, she thought in amazement. It seems like aeons ago. Keep it anyway, just in case the sergeant had said. She had torn it up and almost thrown it away and now here it was when she was desperate. Karma, she wondered with a faltering smile? She looked at it for a moment remembering his intelligence and his obvious…she searched for a word…decency, she decided.

  Then she remembered abandoning him without explanation in Come-to-Good. It didn’t seem quite so amusing to her now. He would have been understandably incensed, she thought with a twinge of guilt. Would he understand? For some reason, beyond her comprehension, she thought he might.

  Again, she faced the depressing truth. She really had no-one else to turn to. Oh, yes she had learned her lesson, she was going to change. When life returned to some semblance of order. When she faced the reality of returning to her life before Simon. Simon...had he ever loved her? Had he?

  Her breath caught on a sob and she shook her self. She refused to go there. Shaking her head she reached into her bag for her mobile, grateful to see it was still charged and more grateful to see, despite her isolation, that she had a strong signal. Nervously, she punched in Sergeant West’s number with unsteady fingers, cursing when she misdialled and had to start again. Finally, she heard the ring tone.

  TWELVE

  The journey back to Cornwall was quick and uneventful but it was still nearly eleven before Sergeant West turned his car down Hedgesparrow Lane. Nothing much surprised him these days, he thought, but her phone call certainly had. He had been so stunned to hear her voice asking for help that he had dropped the phone and had to scrabble in the well of the car to pick it up, explaining the commotion to Kelly as a difficulty with the signal.

  The conversation had been short. She asked for help, he agreed and here he was, almost unbelievably he thought with a slight smile, in the wilds of Cornwall – again. He had been in luck, just making the flight to Plymouth with minutes to spare. He had rung Andrews on the way.

  ‘You’re joking!’ Andrews had said in disbelief. ‘Inspector Duffy will hit the roof!’

  West manoeuvred his car into a parking space and grabbing his bag jumped out still explaining, or at least trying to. ‘I’ll give the inspector a ring in the morning, Peter, don’t panic. Meanwhile, gotta go. Got a plane to catch!’

  He hung up leaving Peter Andrews bemused on the other end, wondering if West had lost his marbles. He’d bear the brunt of Inspector Duffy’s annoyance tomorrow he guessed, mildly irritated. Then he remembered he’d be in Cork for the morning and smiled. He shook his head and went to tell his wife, Joyce, the latest gossip.

  Hours later West stopped at the end of a narrow lane. The headlights of the rental car picked out a building partially submerged in what looked like a jungle. It looked, to him, like a building that had been abandoned a long time ago and for a moment West thought the satnav had led him astray. He checked it, it said the same thing, you have reached your destination.

  There was a car parked but it wasn’t the one Kelly had been driving and it looked as abandoned as the house. He peered out looking for some sign of life but saw none. Finally, in frustration, he opened the glove-compartment searching for the flash-light the car came equipped with and taking
it, leaving the engine running, he got out of the car and decided to investigate further. Just as he did, he heard the creak of a door and Kelly appeared as if from the middle of a shrub. She raised her hand in greeting, stepping forward into the circle of light thrown by the car’s headlights.

  ‘There’s no electricity, I’m afraid,’ she said by way of greeting, pointing back to the darkness of the cottage where he could now see a faint glimmer of light through the ivy cloaked window.

  Even in the poor light of the car West could see she looked more drawn and haggard than the day before. Her clothes, the same ones she was wearing the previous day, were creased and decidedly grubby. Lank, greasy hair was scraped back into a severe ponytail with what looked like a piece of twine. Although she hadn’t struck him as the tearful type, her eyes were red rimmed and swollen, as though she had cried all the saved-up tears of months.

  She stood clasping and unclasping her hands waiting for him to speak, shivering slightly in the cool night air. She waited for him to speak because she no longer knew what to say about anything.