He came out into an open space, where the scars of previous work were still visible, as yet unweathered by lichen and moss and small plants. Then the mist, so unpredictable here in the hills, closed in and he found he could barely see the bottom of the excavations. There was a rustling sound behind him and his heart began to thump fiercely and his body stiffened for action. He hadn’t imagined it, someone had followed him!
The sound wasn’t repeated and he began to relax. It must have been an animal shuffling through the grass, the hills were full of rabbits and the highest layer of the quarry-sides showed evidence of their burrowing. Even a fox might be hunting in daylight, he had seen them several times before, emboldened by the mist and the absence of people.
He remained standing on the lip of the quarry, undecided as to whether to continue or walk back. Then the rustling came again, something – or someone – was pushing through the grass. He tried to look in every direction at once, turning to glance behind him, ignoring how close his feet were to the edge.
A sigh, impatient this time, followed by the rustling of a bush close to him. He heard breathing then, not a sigh but an irritated breathing, with the hint of a growl in its eerie, bodyless sound. He stared into the mist and saw nothing yet the sound seemed to be all around him. Rosemary’s thoughts of a ghost invaded his hyped-up brain and he moved suddenly, jerkily. His feet slid on the wet earth and he went over the side with a yell of alarm.
He didn’t sail out wide of the sides like the old woman had, but half slid, scrabbling on the edge. He went down half clinging to the side and grasped briefly at a tree growing out of the steep side. The young tree fell with him, but it had slowed his fall enough for him to turn himself and when he fell, he landed on all fours in a shower of gravelly stones, bruised, scratched but relatively unharmed.
He lay for a few moments and listened but there was only the sound of his own breathing. No one was climbing down to follow up the assault, if assault it was. Now, in the silence of the deep quarry, it seemed as unlikely as Rosemary’s theory of a ghost.
He moved carefully, trying not to make a sound, still half convinced of the presence of someone else. He walked looking up, his senses ready for flight. Then he tripped over something soft and he stifled a shout of alarm. At his feet was the decomposing body of a sheep. Grimacing his abhorrence he turned away and gave his attention to the almost sheer face of the quarry. He found a place where the jagged edge gave him some chance of climbing up and he began to reach higher and higher.
The air was benign, a bird sang as if to mock his fear. The vicinity of the place from where he fell was silent although he stood and held his breath and listened for almost a minute. He ran down the hill to the further side of the village; panting, wide-eyed, bloodstained and filthy, he burst into the cottage to stand listening for as long as he could hold his breath.
Rosemary came home to find him still filthy, his clothes showing the damage of the afternoon’s events. His explanations were garbled. He admitted falling into the quarry but told her he had been watching a small greeny-grey bird and had lost his footing. He made no mention of his belief that someone had followed him up there.
* * *
Larry had never discussed the date of his return to America. As the weeks passed and their relationship seemed to flourish and grow stronger, the only insecurity Rosemary suffered was not knowing when it would end. She had moments when she thought it never would end, that their present situation would go on for ever, that Larry would continue searching in the libraries and archives and nothing would change. But there was never a day during which her thoughts did not at least once leap to the reminder that it was temporary, a castle of dreams built on an ethereal pink cloud. One day, perhaps that very day, he would regretfully tell her he was leaving.
She rehearsed a series of imaginary scenarios in which he was broken-hearted and she was brave, or one in which she was on her knees begging him to stay, promising anything just to have him near her. The most common one was that she would arrive home one day, open the door and know with that sixth sense of lovers that he was gone.
There would be a note, affectionate and full of praise for her generosity and signed with kisses, and promises to ‘keep in touch’. But she would know, looking down at the note, the flimsy end to it all, that there would never again be the sight of him welcoming her with his brown eyes full of love and arms held wide to enfold her.
Every day, when she walked across the footbridge and his car was not parked near hers, she would hold her breath, go into the kitchen and look for the note she half expected and dreaded to find. Days and weeks moved them through the warm summer, yet the moment hadn’t come.
* * *
There were no further events to alarm them and August passed in a haze of sunny days, picnics, days out walking in the green hills and lush valleys. The cooler winds of September began to prepare the countryside for the new season. The scenery was surreptitously stage-managed; the sharper air, the stronger breezes easing the leaves from the trees.
They seldom talked about the series of bizzarre happenings that had worried them. Whoever had been tormenting them had either given up, or had found someone else as a target for his amusement. But there was one exception. On Sunday afternoon, while Rosemary was editing her script and Larry was cutting the grass behind the house, the spare key, which they had thought to be safely hidden in the vase, was found outside the door by Mrs Priestley, who returned it, saying she thought it was Rosemary’s as all the others in the row had keys that were alike.
‘I think the locks the rest of us have are the ones put there when the cottages were built,’ she said, handing the shining key to a startled Rosemary.
‘But, where did you find it?’ Rosemary asked. Mrs Priestley led her to a slight indentation in the grass verge beyond the footpath, and pointed.
‘Down by there and half covered with earth as if it had been there some time and had been trodden down a bit,’ she explained, in her pleasant lilting voice.
‘Thank you for returning it.’
‘No trouble my dear.’
Rosemary held the key and wiped it free of earth with her fingers. Where had it been? And more seriously, how had it been removed from the vase on the mantle? She and Larry discussed it when he came in from cutting the grass on the back lawn. He too picked it up and examined it as if the answer were somehow to be found on its shining surface.
‘We’ll put it back and stop worrying about it,’ he said.
He lifted the vase down and unconsciously shook it. It rattled. An anxious examination found their key still inside. Wordlessly they went to the front door and tried the key Mrs Priestley had found. It turned in the lock without any effort. Someone had somehow managed to get a duplicate key.
* * *
Coming in the following evening, Larry kissed her and hugged her to him. ‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘I had to go into town.’ He stopped suddenly as if he were about to say something further but had changed his mind.
‘Larry?’ she looked at him questioningly. ‘What is it?’ Had the moment she had been dreading arrived at last? Was he trying to tell her he was leaving? He walked away from her to hang his coat in the cupboard under the stairs, avoiding her stare. Obviously there was something on his mind and there was only one thing it could be. He was leaving her.
Now the moment had come she was none of the things she had imagined and rehearsed. Not brave. Not smiling and casual. Not hysterical either; not inclined to drop to her knees and cry and beg him to stay.
‘Rosemary, I’ve booked my flight home. For a week’s time.’
‘Oh, I see. I hope you’ve finished all you set out to do.’ The cold words, sounding like a polite remark to a stranger, startled her, she had no will to say them. They had come out without thought, part of the defensive pride with which she would deal with the pain.
‘I’ll be back,’ he said, still not looking at her.
‘That will be lovely,’ she sai
d, again in the cold voice that seemed to belong to someone else. ‘Now, are you ready to eat? I’d hate this expensive meal to be wasted.’
He turned towards her, then made a move as if to pull her into his arms, but the expression on her face, white with shock, stopped him and he gave a half smile, and nervously sat at the table.
The meal had lost its appeal. Rosemary’s appetite, heightened by the smell of the cooking, had vanished with his words. The steaks she had bought as a special treat and had grilled just as he liked them, looked too ordinary to warrant the effort of cutting and eating them. The vegetables, so carefully chosen and cooked were left untouched on both their plates.
Glancing across at him as he sat, head down, trying to summon the enthusiasm to eat the food in front of him, she thought he even looked different. The expression on his face was altering him so that already she could feel him slipping away, moving out of her life without leaving a ripple on its surface.
They went for a walk after they had given up the attempt to finish the meal, unable to sit in the silence of their individual grief. Through the village and back along the banks of the river they walked, the darkness a relief, a curtain between them and sheltering them from the rest of the world.
Getting undressed and into bed was as unnerving as if it were the first time. Surprisingly, they made love. The moment they touched each other in the enforced intimacy of the bed, an urge so strong they could neither ignore or even calm it, made their loving as fierce and urgent as lovers separated for a long time. She woke with his arms still tightly around her and saw his eyes were open, watching her, as if he had not slept.
‘Rosemary, we must talk, but, I can’t find the words to begin.’
‘Let’s pretend it isn’t happening, at least for a few more days.’
‘But it is happening and I need to know how you feel about it.’
‘Later,’ she pleaded.
His arms tightened around her and again they lost themselves and their unspoken feelings in deep and satisfying love.
* * *
Going to work was hard. She was afraid to leave the cottage, convinced more than ever that when she returned he would be gone. His attempts to say goodbye with any degree of truth, had failed. He would simply walk away from her. Of that she was convinced.
She wanted to talk to Megan but she was holidaying in Italy. Although she was still less happy confiding in the blatantly curious Sally, she knew that given the slightest encouragement she would tell her of Larry’s decision.
Sally took one look at her face and guessed something was wrong. Her concern was enough. They went out together to lunch and Rosemary told her Larry was leaving.
‘When?’
‘His flight is next week, but I expect he will go today,’ she said quietly, her lips trembling with threat of sobs, ‘I don’t find it easy to cope with after all.’
By the time she was on her way home, Rosemary was almost resigned to walking into an empty house. She met Huw Rees again as he left the mushroom farm and he slid in beside her, saying, ‘So Larry is going home, then?’
‘What?’ Rosemary’s foot eased off the accelerator and she stopped the car. ‘How did you know that?’ she demanded.
‘I think the woman in the shop told me. Said something about not having to buy any more popcorn, which she used to buy especially for him, or something like that. Why are you surprised?’
‘He didn’t tell me until last night!’
‘His ticket is booked for a week’s time according to Mrs-the-shop. Is that right too?’
‘That’s right, but how can they have known?’
‘Larry calling in for more popcorn?’ he suggested, and she sighed with relief.
‘Of course. I should have thought of that. He must have gone in to buy something before setting off for the library.’
‘Why were you so worried? It isn’t a secret is it?’
‘No, I was being silly. For a moment I thought – I thought someone was listening in to my conversations again.’
‘The police never found out who it was, did they? Have you any ideas?’
‘We did wonder if perhaps someone was hiding in the Hughes’s house while they were away, although the police checked and found no evidence of that. Gethyn was convinced it was you,’ she smiled, ‘you or Richard.’
‘The man’s an idiot! He probably still thinks exactly as mother told him he must think! He probably believes that all students are agitators for some or every cause! We must spend our time cooking up trouble and irritation for someone!
‘I think I’ll have a word with Gethyn,’ he said as he got out of the car. ‘You never know, he might he persuaded to open his mind to a new thought! Thanks for the lift.’
The Citroen was not there, and her heart began to race with apprehension. She said goodbye to Huw, and walked aross the footbridge towards number two. As her hand touched the gate, she heard the sound of the Citroen’s engine. It stopped, the door slammed and she heard Larry call her. She waited for him and they went into the cottage together.
* * *
He was carrying a brief-case she hadn’t seen before. There was an expression in his eyes that looked like excitement and she wondered what he had to tell her. Whatever it was, it could not be as devastating as the announcement of the previous day.
‘Don’t cook,’ he said, bending to kiss her. ‘We’re going out. Do you fancy that “brigands’ village” again?’ he said, referring to Dinas Mawddwy, where they had been once before. ‘There’s something to celebrate.’
She put the shopping away in cupboard and fridge and smiled at him.
‘You’ve made a breakthrough in your research?’ she asked. ‘I’m so glad it’s completed before you have to go.’
‘Not that exactly. Oh, it’s no use, I’ve kept this from you long enough.’ He opened the brief-case and brought out a file. ‘It’s the manuscript of my novel.’
‘But – what is it? I don’t understand.’
‘I’ve been dishonest with you, darling. I have been researching my family, but besides that I’ve been writing a novel based on what I’ve discovered. Invention mostly of course, but I’ve had it typed and now, if you will, I want you to glance through it and appraise it. Tell me if you think there’s a chance it will be published.’ He smiled at her, the old, remembered smile of a lover and friend. ‘Will you read it?’
‘I’m so surprised! Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Somehow I couldn’t. Not until I’d finished it. I was afraid I’d lose the impetus and leave it half done then I’d have been ashamed. So, what do you think? I’m sorry I’ve been so dishonest, when you’ve been so wonderful to me.’
‘I’ve been a little dishonest too,’ she told him.
‘You? This I don’t believe.’
‘I knew you had to be doing something more than looking up the dates and occupations of your family and I invented all sorts of reasons for your deceit. I even thought that it might be you who was playing all these tricks on me, frightening me by taking out light bulbs while I slept and — Oh, Larry, I’m so glad to know how you spent your time. You can’t imagine how relieved I feel.’
‘I had no idea. Hell, I’ve been stupid. Of course you’d wonder and of course you’d invent reasons to explain the mystery. But, surely you can’t believe I’d frighten you?’
‘No, I could never really convince myself of that. Sally suggested it, and although I tried to fit you into the role of mischievous tormentor, somehow I couldn’t.’
‘Thank heavens for that!’ He kissed her again, with excitement still present and making the kiss short, casual and unsatisfactory. ‘And I really am sorry. I should have been honest, I owe you that.’
‘You owe me nothing,’ she said, and the words, like the flippant and perfunctory kiss, were a reminder that he was leaving, that soon he would allow his memory of her to drift and fade until she was nothing more than a brief and convenient love affair in a far-off country. Something to tell his fri
ends about, with perhaps a wistful and nostalgic smile.
It was late before they went out. They sat on the settee and discussed his book. Rosemary was animated by the unexpected shared interest; Larry gaining the confidence to talk about it now his secret was out. She didn’t read it, but listened while he explained the story he had woven around what he had discovered about his family.
‘Let me look at it, Larry, please,’ she asked, pretending to pull the papers from him. But he shook his head.
‘I’m overly sensitive I guess but, will you look at it when I’m not with you?’
‘All right,’ she smiled.
‘Come on woman, I’m starved. You go to the car, I’ll just ring and book us a table. Meet you at the road bridge, check?’
‘Check.’
All through the meal, they talked about the book.
‘We should have brought it with us,’ she said when a question came up that they couldn’t fully resolve.
‘Safer to leave it at home,’ he said. ‘I’d hate to lose it now.’
‘You have a copy!’ she said in alarm.
‘I’ve sent it to Dad, back home,’ he told her.
The mention of his home was a reminder of his imminent departure and she felt the joy of the evening sliding from her like a loose, ill-fitting cloak. They drove home and went inside with Larry, as always, going first to make coffee. Rosemary went upstairs and looked in her study hoping to have a sneaky look at the manuscript. Then she gave a scream that sent Larry racing up the stairs two at a time. He groaned when he saw what had upset her. His manuscript was torn into thousands of pieces and spread all over the carpet.
* * *
It was hopeless to even try and put together the pieces. Whoever had destroyed it had done an excellent job. Larry ran his fingers through the fragments, then resignedly began to gather them and put them into a plastic bag for the refuse collection.
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