‘Darling, forgive me,’ he said.
Then she was in his arms, arms so familiar it was like putting on a perfectly fitting garment to warm her from an icy coldness of which she had hardly been aware.
‘I heard from Barbara and she allowed me to cheat on you and meet you this way. Darling, I was so afraid you wouldn’t come if you knew I’d be here.’
‘I’ve been searching for you,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve pestered all the hotels I could think of and all the places where you’d once stayed. I couldn’t find you. I thought you’d gone home.’
He held her tighter and kissed her hair.
‘This, my love, is home.’
‘Then why – ?’
‘Have you booked a room?’ he asked.
‘No, I wasn’t sure if Barbara would be staying here more than the one night.’
‘Wait there, don’t move.’ He kissed her gently, as if she were something fragile and likely to break, then went to change his room for a double. ‘My wife has joined me,’ she heard him explain.
They made love with an intensity that left them breathless.
Explanations were spasmodic and hardly relevant. Each knew the other regretted the separation, and neither cared much for wasting time listening to apologies or illumination.
‘Where is Barbara?’ Rosemary managed to ask later that evening when they had managed to separate far enough apart to eat supper.
‘At the theatre this evening, then tomorrow she heads north for some conference or other. You aren’t sorry not to meet up with her, are you?’
‘I can bear it,’ she smiled.
It was as she was repacking her suitcase for leaving that she asked, ‘Larry, what now?
‘I’m sorry?’ he asked.
‘I’m going back to Wales, where are you going?’
‘This isn’t the brush-off is it for heaven’s sake? I’m going with you of course!’
‘I was afraid we’d – that you—’
‘Rosemary,’ he began, running his hands through his hair in that familiar gesture, ‘Barbara is a sort of cousin. There’s no one else in my life, if that’s what’s on your mind.’ It wasn’t, but it would do for now. The least said was, at this moment, by far the better. Words could be damaging.
‘Is there anyone in your life?’ Larry asked. ‘I mean, what about the queer fellow, you haven’t been consorting with him behind my back I hope?’ He surprised a slight blush on her cheeks and added, ‘I’ll kill him if you have.’
‘I’ve seen rather more of him since you left, but he knows it’s you I love. I’ve never made a secret of the fact.’ She surreptitiously crossed her fingers and hoped that it was true.
16
When they reached Rosemary’s cottage, Larry, as always, went first to the kitchen to fill the percolator. Rosemary rang Megan.
‘It’s me, Rosemary. Oh, Megan, he’s back!’
‘I know, and it’s wonderful! I knew from Gethyn and Huw, they saw him in town.’
Rosemary hardly registered the words. She went on, ‘Larry and I met at the place I expected to meet Barbara and, oh, it’s fantastic! Everything has been sorted out and, well, he’s back. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.’
Megan told her that Sally had visited Mrs Priestley and spoken to the students, and added a few items of news but apart from that, she only managed to make the few necessary responses to the news, given little chance to do more than gasp and repeat how pleased she was. She knew she would have ‘chapter and verse’ on the following day, and laughed excitedly at Rosemary’s obvious delight.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘And Rosemary, I’m so pleased that everything has been settled between you.’
Rosemary replaced the phone feeling guilty of deception. Larry was back and she was happy about that, but she had lied by pretending everything was sorted. She pushed aside the slight misapprehension and smiled as Larry came downstairs ready to leave.
‘Come on honey,’ he said impatiently, ‘I’m starved.’
* * *
‘Pity it’s so late,’ Larry said as they were walking back from the restaurant. ‘I’d like to invite Henry and Muriel in for a drink. Huw and the others too. D’you think they’d come?’
They walked past Gethyn’s door and as they reached their own, their feet crunched over something. Larry struggled to take out the torch, then shone it at their feet. The ground was littered with broken glass. He swung the beam of light across the path, then towards the house. They both gasped with shock as the thin beam revealed that the front windows had been broken in.
Before they could do anything else but gasp, shapes moved out of the shadows. Henry and Muriel had obviously been waiting for them to return and Muriel ran to hug Rosemary. A tall figure revealed itself as a police constable. From number five, Huw and Richard came, walking along the path, each carrying a torch so the scene was like some bizarre son et lumiere, with lights, sounds, but with the actors invisible. A shadow edged from the doorway of number one, and Gethyn said, with a nod at Larry, ‘I see you’re back then!’
They had all been sheltering against the frosty evening in doorways, waiting to comfort them, but to Rosemary there was something ominous in the way they had remained hidden until they had found for themselves the damage done by some mysterious attacker. The police must have instructed them to wait out of sight, hoping they would give something away in the manner in which they reacted to the damage.
Larry was once more the prime suspect.
They went inside, with the neighbours hovering near, and the policeman asked Rosemary to check in case anything was missing.
‘We don’t think anyone entered, mind, we think it was some youngsters on a bit of a prank,’ the constable said, but Rosemary saw the slight glance he gave Larry and knew that some mischievous children were not what he really suspected.
‘Been together have you?’ he asked.
‘All evening,’ Rosemary said in a whisper as she stared at the glass-covered carpet, the rocks lying on the floor where they had landed after being lobbed through the glass, and the curtains, torn and ruined.
‘All the time?’ the constable asked. ‘You didn’t separate?’
‘All the time!’ Larry snapped. ‘Now, can we get started on clearing up this mess?’
‘You didn’t lose sight of each other for an instant?’ the uniformed oficer persisted.
‘I went for a pee! Rosemary didn’t go with me!’ Larry almost shouted. ‘Now, can’t you see how distressed Rosemary is? Just go catch this sonofabitch will you?’
‘We’ll do everything we can, sir.’
Muriel and Rosemary made tea in the stupid way people do, mainly for something to occupy themselves. Henry, Larry and Richard made a temporary boarding for the windows, both the front room and the bedroom windows were smashed, and they gathered up the broken glass fragments and put them into a bucket supplied by Gethyn.
‘Other police have been and they’ve investigated and said they’ll be back to help board the windows temporarily if we need them, but I said we’d manage,’ Henry explained to Larry, while Rosemary was comforted by Muriel.
‘Investigated? You really think they’ll find who’s doing this?’
‘I don’t know. It might be as they said, some boys fooling about and going too far. Boys do,’ he smiled, ‘I know, I was one myself, once, a long time ago.’
‘Shoot straight, Henry, what d’you really think happened here? What’s going on? Why is someone picking on Rosemary?’
‘Rosemary, or you,’ Henry said quietly. ‘Is there something you ought to tell us, boy?’
‘How’s that?’ Larry frowned, staring at the face of Henry, which was now uncharacteristically serious.
‘Isn’t there something that you’re keeping back from us, something that might explain all these incidents?’
‘I just wish I knew.’ Larry spread his hands in exasperation, then ran them through his hair. Henry frowned and stared at him, trying to
will him to add something more, but Larry said, ‘Well, I guess that’s all we can do for tonight. Gee that certainly sobered me up. I think a cup of coffee is in order.’
They slept uneasily, both waking at intervals, wondering with differing thoughts, who was causing them so much trouble. It was as the alarm began its jarring demand that Rosemary remembered Megan’s remark that she knew Larry was back. He’d been seen by Huw and Gethyn. And she remembered also, the few minutes when Larry had vanished, purporting to have visited the men’s room. He’d been gone a long time. Long enough to smash a few windows?
She began to shake. There were so many uncertainties, had she been stupid to allow him back into her house, her bed? If only she dared to face him with it all, but the fear of losing him was stronger than her conviction he was guilty of anything serious. No, somehow, Larry was the catalyst, not the instigator.
* * *
The morning’s post brought a letter with the postmark Birmingham. Rosemary recognised the writing. It was from Barbara. It was long and full of chatter but one page set the seesaw of her emotions and fears plummetting once again.
‘Sorry we couldn’t meet,’ it said, ‘But Larry explained about you not being able to spare the time from your conference after all. What an unfortunate coincidence that it fell on the very weekend I was in London. Better luck next time, O.K.?’
More chatter, then in a postscript it went on to say:
‘I hope Larry owned up to the joke about the parcel and the letter he had me send you from New York. He never did explain it!’
It was raining steadily and with the intention of continuing all day. The wind was touching the trees and making them dance. Rosemary left for work, running across the foot-bridge over the gurgling water that was already swelling with the downpour. Larry promised to arrange for the glaziers to fit new glass.
‘I’ll buy paint and in a few days you’ll never notice the damage,’ he promised, kissing her through the car window as he saw her off. The rain had soaked him on the short run to the car and his face felt cold.
‘What about transport?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you want a lift?’
‘It’s all right, Henry is going to take me to where I left the Citroen,’ he said. She was afraid to ask where it was, she didn’t want any more lies, there were enough to deal with already.
Megan was quiet over lunch as Rosemary told her all that had happened.
‘Why didn’t he want you to meet Barbara?’ she asked. ‘It’s obvious he made certain you’d miss each other.’
For an answer, Rosemary showed her the letter she had received and which she hadn’t shown Larry.
‘Then you still think Larry is behind all this?’
‘He can’t be! – Can he?’
‘Sorry to say it, love, but there’s only one way to find out. You’ll have to ask him.’
‘But he’ll be so hurt that I can even for a moment believe he’s responsible!’ Sally who had been invited to listen, blew an unladylike snort of irritation.
‘I can’t understand people like you, Rosemary! You sound like one of those gullible victims, heroines in a corny, badly written romantic novel! If your relationship is that insecure, then isn’t it best you finish it anyway? How long will it last if you are constantly under the threat of some secret being revealed? Come on, Rosemary! You aren’t that stupid for heaven’s sake!’
‘It isn’t that easy. Something deep inside me believes him. I’m not deluding myself, I really think he’s innocent. I know there have been untruths. But I have to trust him and believe that once whatever it is has been resolved, he’ll explain.’
‘Face him with your suspicions! He was here when he told you he was in America!’ Sally had difficulty controlling her irritation. ‘He deliberately prevented you from meeting his cousin! Huw and Richard saw him around here when he was supposed to be elsewhere! What more d’you want?’
‘I want to believe him,’ Rosemary said quietly.
* * *
The night was black with no moon and the wind was rising, shaking the trees and touching the water into ridges in the light of her torch. She imagined people standing in the shadows, threatening figures, about to lean out and stop her in her path, prevent her from reaching the cottage. But, she didn’t want to reach it. Hollow-eyed and malevolent, storm-lashed and alien, it wasn’t her home any more. What would be waiting for her there? Since Larry had come back, the fears and wild imaginings had also returned to haunt her.
She ran across the bridge as if pursued by demons and knocked on Henry and Muriel’s door. There was no reply. Hastened now by her own invented terrors, she ran to number one. Gethyn was in, she knew he was in. There was music playing inside. She banged on the door, called his name but the only response was for the music to increase in volume. He didn’t want to speak to her.
A branch groaned, creaked and fell. It skittered across the grass to the swirling waters to be swept away. She wanted to run, and not even pause to get into the car, her feet were all she could rely on, but she gripped her hands tightly around the torch, and gritted her teeth with determination. She wouldn’t be driven from her home. She would go, but only when she chose, not when someone else wanted her to leave.
Shaking with the anticipation of some further horror waiting for her behind her door, she thrust the key into the lock and pushed the door wide while keeping her feet on the outer step. Remembering how a hand had once closed over hers when she had reached for the light-switch, she hit the wall time and again with the torch until it finally touched the switch and flooded the hall with a bright light.
Closing the door behind her she leaned against it and listened. The wind had lessened with the barrier of the door closing, the music from Gethyn’s house had stopped. While the wind moaned a low accompaniment to the pattering rain outside, within the house there was a silence that seemed like a held breath.
Slowly, she went into the living room.
It looked ordinary. The fire was set ready to light, the window had been replaced, and the curtains were neatly sewn so the tear damage hardly showed.
The room was very cold, any residual warmth had been lost through the broken windows, but she didn’t attempt to light the fire. The background heating was hardly enough to take the chill off the air, but she sat, still in her outdoor clothes and waited for Larry to appear.
She couldn’t go on like this. She had been acting like a simple, lovesick schoolgirl refusing to face facts. From the moment they had met, in London at that hotel, Larry had been evasive and dishonest. Now, sitting in her inimical front room she faced the facts. She had been so afraid of facing life without him she had ignored things she would never have tolerated in normal circumstances. Love is blind indeed! She had deliberately closed her eyes against reality!
She didn’t hear the car. The sound of the wind was rising and beginning to lash against the walls. When she heard the key in the door she didn’t even look up. Larry found her sitting with her shopping at her feet, looking utterly weary.
‘Baby, what is it? You look pooped. What d’you think?’ He waved at the repaired curtains and the pane of glass through which the shadows of trees were waving in the wind could be seen. He picked up her shopping, and taking her arm, led her into the living room.
‘Larry. I want you to tell me why you’re here. I want to know everything.’
* * *
He stared at her for a moment, then said, ‘All right, I guess I owe you that, but I’d hoped—’ He broke off and said lightly, ‘But first, a coffee I think.’
He pushed the matches into Rosemary’s hand and gestured towards the fire as he went past her to the kitchen. She still didn’t move. He was whistling as he busied himself with the percolator and cups. When he brought in a tray containing two coffees and some biscuits, she was exactly as he had left her, staring into space, the matches balanced on her hand as if she were unaware of them being placed there. He put the tray down beside her and lit the fire, piling on logs and pieces of
coal as it grew in strength. It roared almost immediately as the wind whipped the air from the chimney and he concentrated on it until it blazed satisfactorily.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘Where do I start?’
‘What are you doing here?’ Her voice was flat, as if she were half asleep. ‘Why did you make my acquaintance in London?’
‘I am looking for a member of my family,’ he began. ‘We lost sight of him years ago and I think someone is trying to stop me finding him.’
‘Why the mystery?’
‘Because the disappearance was such that if someone knew I was searching, I’d get the fast shuffle and they’d cover their traces so fast the paint wouldn’t be dry! I thought that if I stayed here, incognito, near where it happened, I stood a better than evens chance of learning something.’ He took her hand and made her look at him. His eyes were steady and full of sincerity as he said loudly and firmly, ‘But, my darling Rosemary, the reason I’m here, now, with you, is because I grew to love you. At first sight I thought you were rather cute, sorta British and stilted and reserved, but cute. But I soon discovered a wonderful person whom I can never let go. Believe it,’ he pleaded.
‘Then all this isn’t anything to do with the plans to built an hotel?’ she asked, ignoring his declaration. At that moment it seemed frivolous and artificial and she was embarrassed rather than flattered by his words.
‘An attempt to drive you all out and change the cottages into an hotel? I doubt it. I think the events here are aimed at me, an attempt to get me blamed and sent away with a flea in my ear.’
‘Why did Richard’s father hit you?’
‘That’s easy to answer and the joke’s on me! I thought, for a while that he was someone who had some information, someone who could lead me to what happened. I was wrong, he got overly angry and swiped me good and hard so I wouldn’t forget it!’ Her hopes plunged further into the depths. That wasn’t the truth either.
Search for a Shadow Page 21
