‘Mr Henfield about?’ he asked cheerily.
‘No,’ said Peggy and fled from the room.
I felt I should go after her, but young George was waiting for me. There was nothing I could do for the moment. I’d speak to Peggy later. I grabbed my notebook and my handbag and left.
The flower show was very straightforward. It was their fiftieth, so I spoke to the organiser and got a bit of history. I spoke to the secretary of one of the gardening clubs, and to a nice old chap who’d been a gardener’s boy when the very first show was held. George took lots of pretty pictures of flowers and we were back in the office by lunch time.
Alan and Billy went to the pub.
‘Coming, Rosie?’ said Billy as he picked up his coat.
‘Yes. I’ll just finish this. See if you can keep me a cheese sandwich that hasn’t yet curled up and died.’
‘OK. I shall try and work miracles for you.’
I followed them down a few minutes later. I deliberately wanted to keep it casual, keep it friendly, pretend that everything was normal. In the pub I sat next to Alan, but as I nibbled at my sandwich – no miracles there, even a desperate mouse would have turned up its nose at that cheese – I was aware of Billy’s eyes on me. I knew he was watching me, even while he was talking to Alan. And when Alan got up to get some more beers in, it was only easy, only natural, for Billy to slip around and sit next to me …
I relished his closeness, but I knew that’s as far as it would get. However much I wanted to be in his arms, in his heart, in his bed, it wasn’t going to happen. It couldn’t happen. This Billy was a family man. He had a wife he cared for. He had children he doted on, children for whom he was determined to do his best. That’s why he did the sports shift on a Saturday. It’s why he spent so much time on that garden, to keep them fed, well and healthy. It was why he didn’t go to the pub that often. He was a solid, reliable, responsible husband and father. He was loyal to his family and he put their happiness first.
The irony was, of course, that it made him such a decent bloke and made me love him even more.
Is this how Will would be? I thought. In a different time, in different circumstances?
Will had never had to take any responsibility for anyone other than himself. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t or wouldn’t … It just meant he’d never had to. He still acted like a kid, because he’d never had to do anything differently I remembered our row. I thought of what I’d snapped at him when he’d asked me about having a child. I’d said it would be just another toy for him, that he was too much of a kid to be a father.
But here was Billy, a father at seventeen, and a good father. Did that mean that Will would be too?
My head was spinning …
‘You’re miles away, Rosie,’ said Billy, smiling at me quizzically.
I felt myself blushing. ‘Think I’d better go back. Lots to do. Better get on.’
‘Time I was going too,’ said Billy. And the three of us walked back across the road together. While Alan walked along, whistling blithely, I felt Billy was walking as close to me as he could, almost touching. But maybe that was my optimistic imagination.
In the office, Marje, back from Somerton, had made some tea. She plonked a cup down in front of me. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Are you sure it was your friend who wanted help?’
‘Yes, I …’ Oh God! Peggy. I’d better go and see how she was.
I poked my head around her office door. She wasn’t there. Her coat was on the peg and her handbag by the desk where it had been the last time I saw it.
‘Looking for Peggy?’ said a girl from accounts putting some papers on her desk. ‘I think she must have gone home. I haven’t seen her since early this morning. Nobody else has either. I asked.’
‘But her bag and coat are here.’
‘Maybe she wasn’t well and left in a hurry. She looked very pale when I saw her.’
This was worrying. I went and looked in the Ladies. I ran down to reception. I asked the ladies on the switchboard. They took off their head sets and unravelled the complicated tangle of wires in front of them. ‘No, she hasn’t been in since mid-morning,’ they said crossly. ‘And she didn’t tell us where she was going. It’s been very difficult, with all of Mr Henfield’s calls.’
I ran back up to the editorial floor and bumped into George, who was bringing down the pictures of the flower show.
‘Do you want to see these?’ he asked, handing me the black-and-white prints.
‘Very nice,’ I said, not looking at them. ‘George, are you down to do the League of Friends’ cheque presentation tonight?’
‘Yes, seven p.m. in the hospital. You know Charlie never goes out after six o’ clock – wouldn’t miss his tea for anyone. Do you want a lift up there?’
‘Yes please. And could we leave a bit early? I just need to pop back home on my way.’
‘Right you are. I’ll see you in the yard at six-thirty. That do you?’
‘Perfect, George. You’re a star.’ I think he blushed.
I suddenly felt an arm around my shoulder. For a second I hoped … But no.
‘Hello, Phil,’ I said as cheerily as I could. ‘Ships in the night, I’m afraid. I’m just finishing off these few bits then I’m off to the League of Friends cheque presentation. Exciting, eh?’
‘You could make anything exciting, Rosie,’ said Phil, and it didn’t sound smarmy because he was really such a nice bloke. ‘Will you be back in time for my break, about nine-ish? I’ll buy you a drink if you can.’
‘Maybe. Yes. I don’t know. I’ll see,’ I said and blew him a kiss as I picked up my copy to take to the subs’ room. I knew Billy had listened avidly to every word. Good.
Still no Peggy in her office. She wasn’t at home either.
‘Hello, Mrs Brown, just popped in for something I’ve forgotten. I’ll be back later,’ I said as breezily as I could.
‘Is our Peggy with you?’
‘Peggy? No,’ I said. ‘I haven’t seen her. Though’ – oh blessed inspiration – ‘I think I saw Lenny in the office.’
‘Oh well. That explains everything, doesn’t it?’ said Mrs Brown indulgently. ‘But she’ll miss her mince and dumplings. She could have shown a bit of consideration and let me know.’
She muttered on as I dashed up to my room, really just so I could look into Peggy’s room. She wasn’t there. So where was she? I was beginning to get really worried.
It was raining when we left the hospital, cold, wet miserable rain. The van rattled back to the office.
‘George, are you going to print those up tonight?’
‘Yes, they want them for tomorrow’s paper.’
I didn’t want to go back into the office. With both Phil and possibly Billy still there it was going to get hopelessly complicated.
‘Could you do me a favour, George? Could you look into Peggy’s office and see if her coat and bag are still there?’
‘Yes of course, but why? Not anything wrong is there? Not with Peggy?’ George looked quite anxious. I’d forgotten he’d always had a soft spot for Peggy.
‘I don’t know. But just do that for me will you?’
He was back in five minutes.
‘Coat and handbag still there,’ he said. ‘Now will you tell me what’s going on?’
‘How long will you be printing your pics?’
‘Half an hour or so.’
‘Well I’m going to wait in the van. I’ve got some thinking to do.’
‘Is this something to do with Peggy?’
‘Just be as quick as you can, will you, George? Please?’
He turned and ran, his skinny little body flying up the rickety stairs.
He was back in record time. ‘Now will you tell me what this is about?’ he asked, settling into the scratched leather of the seat as the rain lashed against the windscreen. ‘And what’s happened to Peggy?’
‘I think she may be in trouble.’
George sat up like a shot. �
��What sort of trouble?’
‘The usual sort,’ I said, trying to think. ‘Do you know where Mr Henfield lives?’
‘Yes, course I do. Big house on the hill, other side of town.’
‘Can we go there please?’
George folded his arms. ‘Only if you tell me what’s happened to Peggy.’
‘Not my secret to tell, George. Sorry. But can you go to Henfield’s house now please?’
‘But …’
‘Please.’
Reluctantly he started the engine and we headed to Henfield’s house. It was the only place I could think she might have gone. If he wouldn’t arrange to talk to her, she might have gone to see him on his home territory. It would be a brave move, but Peggy was getting desperate. We drove slowly through the dark and the rain, George peering at the road as the tiny windscreen wipers were pretty ineffective, while I kept a look-out for someone who looked like Peggy.
‘Oh God,’ I remembered, ‘her coat’s still in the office.’
‘If she’s out in this, she’s going to be soaked through,’ said George, pulling up outside the Henfields’. It was a large pleasant 1930s house, with an imposing lawn sloping down to the road.
‘There’s no one in,’ said George, peering through the rain.
He was right. The place was in darkness, the curtains still open as though no one had been in all evening. We sat there for a moment, thinking about what to do. George passed me a packet of sweets.
‘Have a Spangle,’ he said ‘Hopalong Cassidy’s favourite sweets.’
‘Hopalong Cassidy?’ I unwrapped the little square boiled sweet.
‘The cowboy on telly.’
‘Do cowboys eat sweets?’
‘Hopalong does.’
We sat in the van and sucked our Spangles for a while. ‘Let’s have a look in the garden. She could be there waiting,’ I said.
There were no lights, no moon, no streetlight. Finding our way was incredibly difficult. We went up the drive, looked in the porch, went around to the back. In the dark and the rain I walked into the dustbin. There was a huge clatter, but nothing else. No other sound, no other sign of anyone there.
We skulked back down the drive, and into the van. My hair was soaked.
‘Now what?’ asked George.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well how about you tell me what this is all about, just why we’ve been skulking around Henfield’s house in the sort of weather you wouldn’t put the cat out in.’
He sounded firm, sensible, adult. And I needed his help. So I told him the story. I had to. I know it was Peggy’s story and her secret, but I was desperate for ideas.
‘Poor Peggy,’ said George, looking shocked. ‘Poor bloody Peggy. And that Henfield, he’s a bastard – sorry Rosie, ’scuse my language, but he is.’
‘I’ll not argue with that. But forget about him for the moment. Where can Peggy be?’ I asked him. ‘I’m not overreacting, am I? She hasn’t been seen since this morning. She hasn’t been home. Her bag and her coat are still in the office. She’s pregnant and desperate. Where would she go?’
‘Well that other girl threw herself in the pond at Friars’ Mill, didn’t she?’ said George.
‘Oh God, you don’t think …?’
He’d already started the van and was turning it around.
I remembered when I’d told them the story of Amy Littlejohn’s suicide, how taken Peggy had been by the details. How she’d repeated them. The little van tore through the night. My teeth were rattling in my head and George was leaning forward over the steering wheel as if he could make the van faster by sheer willpower.
Huge trees loomed big and black around Friars’ Mill making it hard to forget the tragedies that had taken place there. George braked hard, nearly sending me through the windscreen, and then drove very slowly along the road above the mill pool.
‘Of course,’ he said, trying to sound sensible and cheerful, ‘we’ve no real reason to believe she’s here at all. She might really have been out with Lenny and she might be safely at home now, tucked up in front of the fire with a cup of cocoa.’
‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I’ve probably got everything completely out of proportion and I’m making a fuss out of nothing. Just forget I ever told you anything about it and let’s go home.’
‘I’ll just drive up to the end, just to be sure …’
We couldn’t see a thing. Just the trees and the sheet of water shining an even darker black in the darkness. The water looked cold. And deep.
George hunched over the steering wheel, staring into the darkness.
‘What’s that?’
‘What? Where?’
‘Over there. Something light.’
I opened the window to see better and was greeted with a swirl of rain blowing into the van. But yes, I could see something. ‘Something white, by the edge of the water.’
‘Come on!’ George was out of the van and already climbing over the wall.
He moved quickly through the dark and I stumbled after him, my feet soaked, rain from the trees dripping down on me and small branches whipping my face as I pushed past. George was now racing along a path towards a small clump of trees at the edge of the mill pond. ‘Peggy?’ he shouted. ‘Peggy!’ and he almost fell towards the patch of white.
‘It’s her! Rosie, we’ve found her!’
Thank God, I thought, thank God.
George already had his jacket off and was wrapping it around her. Peggy was hardly conscious. The skirt and blouse that had been so neat this morning were torn and covered with mud. She seemed to have no shoes.
‘Come on,’ said George. ‘We have to get her back to the van, get her to the warm. Come on now, Peggy, there’s a good girl. You can do it. Rosie, you take one arm, and I’ll take the other and there you go. Come on, Peggy, not far. You can do it.’
Between us we staggered with her back along the path, slipping and sliding with our burden.
‘No,’ muttered Peggy, her eyes still closed and her head lolling against George’s shoulder, ‘leave me … just leave me.’
‘Never,’ said George fiercely. ‘We’re not leaving you anywhere until you’re warm and safe.’
George was taking charge. He was brilliant, and we soon had Peggy back by the roadside. ‘Right, stay here and I’ll run and get the van,’ said George.
Peggy was collapsed against me. I put both arms around her in an effort to keep her upright. ‘Come on now, Peggy. Don’t give up now. Please.’
Somehow, we put Peggy in the back of the van and I climbed in there with her. I took my jacket off and wrapped it around her legs. Then I tried to rub some circulation into her limbs.
‘We’re going to the hospital,’ shouted George. ‘Just try and keep her warm.’
I carried on rubbing her hands and arms, talking to her, persuading her to stay awake, to be all right. We drove up to the hospital which seemed tiny by modern standards and all in darkness.
‘Are they open?’ I asked stupidly.
There was a small door with a light showing above it.
‘Night Entrance’, it said. I rang the bell, George pounded on the door, then we almost fell in as the door opened and a nurse in a dark blue dress and a fiercely starched white cap stood in the dimly lit hallway.
‘Well?’ she said.
Then in a blink of an eye she seemed to assess the situation. She reached for a wheelchair from an alcove, pushed it towards Peggy and expertly manoeuvred her into it.
‘She’s been out in the rain,’ I blurted out, ‘all day. She’s pregnant and the father … well the father doesn’t want to know.’
‘Has she taken anything? Tried to do anything to harm herself or the baby?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Her name?’
‘Peggy Brown.’
‘Wait here please.’
She disappeared with Peggy along an oak-panelled corridor. I followed. The nurse turned. ‘I asked you to wait there,’ she said, and
vanished with Peggy.
So George and I waited. There was a bench. No coffee machine. It was very quiet. The floor gleamed. It all smelt sharply, cleanly of disinfectant and polish. Where were the drunks? All the usual chaos of casualty late at night?
George was pacing up and down. ‘Is she going to be all right, Rosie?’ he asked anxiously.
‘I’m sure she will be,’ I said, though, like the nurse, I wondered if she’d taken anything.
‘She’s always been really nice to me.’
‘Yes, I remember you saying. Helped you get the job.’
‘Yes and sort of looked out for me when I started. She’s a really good sort, you know.’
‘Yes George, I know.’
We waited. Eventually the fierce nurse came back. George and I leapt to our feet.
‘I’m pleased to tell you your friend is in no danger,’ she said crisply. ‘Neither is her unborn child. Though whether that will please her I cannot say. She is severely chilled and in a state of shock, but otherwise seems unharmed. We shall probably keep her in for a few days.’
I gave her Peggy’s name and address.
‘Date of birth?’ asked the nurse.
‘September twentieth,’ said George quickly. ‘Same as mine, only she’s six years older, so she’s twenty-six.’
‘Wouldn’t it be easier if her parents did all this when they come up? I’m sure they’ll be here as soon as we tell them,’ I asked.
The nurse snapped the folder shut.
‘They can visit tomorrow between two and three p.m.,’ she said and must have seen the horrified look on my face because she added, ‘Tell them if they telephone between seven-thirty and eight o’clock in the morning I shall still be here and will tell them how she is. But I’m sure’ – and she almost smiled – ‘that she’ll be fine and at home before the end of the week. Goodnight.’
And so we went.
Back in the van I really wanted a cigarette.
‘Don’t suppose you’ve got a fag have you, George?’
‘No, never smoked. They always told me it would stunt my growth and as I’m so skinny to start off with …’
We almost laughed. But I had to go back and tell the Browns that their daughter was a) pregnant, b) by a married man, c) was in hospital, and d) they couldn’t see her until tomorrow afternoon.
The Accidental Time Traveller Page 18
