No Friend of Mine 1.0

by Lilian Peake

  She looked at him imploringly. If she could persuade him to delay calling the police just a little longer, she could talk to Phil, beg him to stop, perhaps make him realise the futility of his actions.

  ‘Please, Lester, please wait,’ she whispered, ‘just a few more days.’ But she saw from the hardness in his eyes that she was pleading in vain.

  There was both pity and disgust in the look he turned on her. ‘Are you so infatuated with the man that you would even try to prevent me from taking the perfectly justifiable step of seeking police help in putting a stop to his criminal activities?’

  She stood up. ‘It’s not Phil, Lester, I swear it’s not Phil!’ She caught at his arm to make him listen, but he shook her off savagely. He went out, down the stairs and out of the house.

  Her father stood in the doorway. Roland joined him. ‘What was all that about?’

  She sank down on to the bed, staring at them without seeing them. ‘It was Lester. He - he—’ She could not go on. She threw herself face down on the bed, clawing at her pillow and crying with hopelessness and defeat.

  The two men looked at her prostrate body, heard her gasping, hysterical sobs. Shocked and astonished, they stared at each other, silently asking the same incredible question.

  Phil was away from the shop next day. Elise did not dare to wonder why. She was depressed and quiet, and now and then caught Clare’s puzzled look. But Clare asked no questions, probably guessing that if she had done so, Elise would have burst into tears. The morning crawled by. At the back of Elise’s mind was an intolerable fear. Every time the shop bell rang, she wondered, ‘Is it the police?’ Every time she heard Clare talking to a customer, she wondered, ‘Is that a policeman come to question me?’

  It was lunchtime and still no one had come to take her away. She asked Clare, ‘Would you like me to help in the shop this afternoon?’

  ‘No, love, I’ll manage on my own. You go home and have a good rest. You’ll feel better tomorrow.’

  But Elise could not rest. She tackled the housework, hoping it would provide an outlet for her anxiety. But it didn’t work out that way. All the afternoon she found herself straining her ears for the dreaded telephone call, the ring at the door which would announce the arrival of the police. It didn’t occur to her that if they had come, her innocence would soon have been established as a result of their questioning. Because Lester thought her guilty, she felt herself to be guilty.

  She was alone that evening. Roland had gone to Clare’s and her father was taking an evening class at the technical college. She stood at the window, weary with a tense sort of tiredness, restive with a disturbing urgency that would not let her be. She watched the rain soaking into the earth and shivered, feeling a chill in the late April air. It was twilight and the clouds hung low and menacing, making the sky prematurely dark.

  She could not stay in the house alone, with nothing to do but fight her fears. She would exorcise this ghost of guilt, she would go to the building site. She ran upstairs and put on her new red jacket and trousers, drawing on her boots and tucking the trouser legs into them. She tied the strings of her hood tightly under her chin and went out.

  Why, she asked herself as she splashed through puddles and tested with her tongue the raindrops that settled on her lips, why had she come out on such a night? The rain was a soaking curtain of water, the air steamy with a hint of mist. Passers-by glanced at her with interest, admiring the colour of her outfit and the firmness of her tread.

  By the time she reached the entrance to the estate, she had given up trying to find a reason for her sudden decision to go there. Perhaps it had been instinct, or feminine intuition, but whatever the reason, the fact remained that the place was beckoning her on like a crafty, knowing finger.

  She stopped to listen. Nothing moved except her breath in the still, damp air. There was a waiting all around, an uncanny stifling silence that oppressed and troubled her.

  The stillness made her furtive and she looked about her covertly, remembering the last time she had walked in the woods, just before the trees had been felled.

  Her imagination played tricks and she peopled the place, not with human beings, but with the trees themselves come back to life, ghostly shadows returned to reclaim the earth that had been their for hundreds of years. In reality they had gone, but their spirits were all around, haunting the houses that had usurped their rightful places in the soil.

  There was a creeping coldness on her skin. A prickle of fear roughed up her hair and scratched like thorns over her scalp. Like a monument to things past, the house built where the hornbeam had stood towered in front of her, the house that had been desecrated by someone with a vicious desire for revenge.

  She looked through the windows and recoiled at the devastation inside. Whoever had caused that destruction was a person to be shunned and feared. She turned away, suppressing a shudder, unable to bear the sight of it. There was no light or sign of life in the site office, so Lester was not there.

  But something caught her eye and she froze with terror. There was a movement, a muffled noise. Or was it the effect of the half-light in the rain-soaked silence? She peered at the outline of the site office, straining her eyes to penetrate the grey curtain of rain. She caught her breath and held it. Someone was there - a man - and he was trying to break in!

  There was a tinkle of glass and she started to run towards the sound. Instinct, unthinking and foolhardy had prompted the action, and it was only when she was within talking distance of the intruder that she realised her mistake. Instead of running into danger, she should have gone for help. Now it was too lafe.

  CHAPTER 11

  She pulled herself up sharply, intending to turn and make for the roadway. But the man had seen her.

  He dropped down from his perch on the hut windowsill and came towards her, his head slightly down, collar up, a dirty red scarf tied round his neck. His malevolent eyes ravaged her. As he thrust his grinning face up to hers, she knew at once who it was.

  ‘So you’re the one,’ she whispered, ‘who’s doing all the damage, stealing all the things…’

  ‘Clever, aren’t you?’ he snarled. ‘And you’re the bird who got me fired that day.’ She backed away, but he went after her. ‘I owe you something for that, sweetheart.’ He glanced round slyly. ‘We’re all alone. No one to interrupt. I’ll settle my debt with you - right now!’

  He leaped upon her, locked his arms round her and forced her back and down to the ground. She hit the earth with a stunning thud. She shrieked and struggled, trying to wrench herself free, using her nails, her feet and her voice. ‘Lester!’ she screamed. ‘Lest - er!’

  But Lester was not there to hear her call.

  A hand hit her mouth and stayed there and she bit into the flesh with the strength and ferocity of an animal. He shouted with pain, but his grip on her body did not lessen. His hands were making their slow, relentless, murderous way towards her throat.

  There came a snarl and a savage growl. Four legs and a body covered with mud-matted fur leapt upon the man’s back. Teeth, sharp and vicious, fastened on to his jacket and pulled and tugged and tore and twisted, and penetrated to the skin.

  Terror-stricken, the man rolled away, giving Elise her freedom. She scrambled up, holding her breath, watching with fascinated horror as the dog attacked the man as the man had attacked her.

  With a superhuman effort born of a desire to survive, the man succeeded in heaving himself upright and on to his feet. Then he ran for his life over the rubble and across the fields, with the dog at his heels, snapping and howling and yelping in merciless, unrelenting pursuit.

  The shouting, the snarling and the pounding footsteps grew fainter and died away. She was alone again in the quiet eerieness of the rain-soaked night. Only her heavy breathing disturbed the stillness, mingling with the hiss of the rain as it encountered the saturated earth and rebounded off the bricks and timber and grey tarpaulins.

  She looked down at herself, holding her arm
s wide as if afraid of becoming contaminated with the filth that caked her clothes. Her limbs were shaking, her teeth were chattering uncontrollably, and as her brain began to extricate itself from the mire of her tangled emotions, she wondered what to do.

  ‘Lester,’ she thought, ‘I must tell Lester.’ She turned herself round, stiff as a walking doll, and with slow mud hindered steps picked her way across the rubble to the road.

  It took her longer than she anticipated to get to Alfred Kings’ house, but every time her footsteps faltered, she thought of Lester and steadied herself. As she dragged along the garden path the front door seemed as distant as the gateway to Paradise. Her finger groped towards the bell, made contact and pressed it. The firm decisive footsteps which responded to the ring were the sweetest sound she had ever heard.

  ‘Oh, my dearie,’ said an anxious, compassionate voice, enveloping her with warmth even before she stepped into the hall. ‘Come in, come in, do.’

  Elise stood, bedraggled and helpless, on the front door mat. She heard Mrs. Dennis call, ‘Mr. Lester, Mr. Lester, come quick!’

  Upstairs a door opened. A voice answered, ‘Something wrong Mrs. Dennis?’ Lester leaned over the banisters. ‘Elise!’ He raced down the stairs. ‘My God, what happened to you? Tell me what happened?’

  But she shook her head, unable to speak, lifting her hands in an appealing, hopeless gesture. His arms came out and she went into them. Regardless of her plight, they closed round her, gripping her to still her shaking body.

  ‘Now tell me,’ he urged, his voice rough, ‘tell me what happened.’

  She mumbled against his chest, ‘A man - he was breaking into the site office. I disturbed him and he - he attacked me. I think - I think he was going to strangle me.’

  ‘Oh, dearie me,’ moaned Mrs. Dennis.

  ‘What man?’ He lifted her chin, making her eyes meet his. ‘What man, Elise? Tell me the truth. Was it Phil Pollard?’

  ‘No,’ she whispered, ‘it wasn’t Phil Pollard. But I recognised him. I can’t remember his name, but it was the one you dismissed that day I was there.’

  “You mean Wayman, who molested you?’

  She nodded. ‘He’s the one who’s been doing all the damage. He as good as admitted it.’ She told him haltingly how the man had knocked her to the ground and started assaulting her, and how the Alsatian, the dog that had once attacked her - had appeared from nowhere and come to her rescue.

  ‘And he drove Wayman off? Good for him! Where’s Wayman now?’

  He laughed grimly when she told him that the last she had seen of him was when he was running for his life across the fields with the dog baying at his heels.

  ‘Oh, the poor young lady,’ Mrs. Dennis moaned again. ‘Let’s get those wet things off her, Mr. Lester. She’ll catch her death of cold.’

  He held her away from him, untying her hood and unzipping her jacket. She stood, unresisting as a child as he peeled it off and handed it to Mrs. Dennis.

  ‘They’re ruined, Lester!’ Elise wailed, revealing unconsciously how much she prized the clothes he had bought her, ‘and you gave them to me.’

  ‘Never mind, love,’ he said, like a father soothing a distracted child, ‘I’ll buy you some more.’

  ‘The trousers, Mr. Lester?’ Mrs. Dennis asked.

  ‘They don’t matter,’ Elise mumbled.

  But Lester said, ‘Would you wear a pair of mine, Elise? We could secure them round the waist with a belt and turn them up at the ankles, are you game?’ She nodded and he smiled. ‘It’s a good thing clothes are “unisex” these days! Mrs. Dennis,’ he turned to the housekeeper, ‘my blue velvet cords? Could you get them?’

  She bustled away. He took Elise’s hand and led her towards the lounge. He switched on the light, but she stopped at the door.

  ‘My boots are too muddy. Mrs. Dennis will - ‘

  ‘Mrs. Dennis won’t. Sit on the couch.’ He lifted her feet one by one and tugged at the boots. Mrs. Dennis puffed in, flushed with exertion, and handed over the trousers.

  ‘Get into these, Elise, while I phone the police. Mrs. Dennis will help you.’ He went out.

  The housekeeper pulled the curtains across the windows and picked up the boots and the mud-stained slacks Elise had dropped to the floor. Lester’s trousers were much too long, but the wide leather belt kept them in place. Mrs. Dennis knelt down and turned them up clear of the floor.

  ‘I expect you can squeeze into my slippers, dearie,’ she said.

  ‘Please don’t trouble, Mrs. Dennis.’

  ‘Trouble, indeed! It’s no trouble after what you’ve been through. I’ll get them.’

  Elise sat in the silent room and closed her eyes, listening to Lester talking to the police. He was giving them a de

  tailed description of the man who had attacked her. When he came in, he handed her a pair of pink fur-lined slippers.

  ‘With Mrs. Dennis’s love.’ He helped her put them on. ‘And get into this. It’s mine. It should at least stop your teeth chattering like a couple of typewriters!’

  She pulled the thick white cable stitch sweater over her head and revelled in its warmth. It was too large and they laughed at the sleeves hanging down over her hands. Lester turned them back over her wrists. ‘Now sit down,’ he said with a gentle push, making her do as she was told. She leaned back, white-faced and still in a state of shock.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lester,’ she whispered, ‘to give you all this trouble-‘

  ‘Will you be quiet!’ Her eyes came open at the roughness of his tone. ‘If I could lay my hands on that - that brute—’ He went to the sideboard. ‘I’ll get you a drink.’

  ‘No, thanks, Lester.’ She added a little shyly, ‘But I’d love a cup of tea.’

  ‘Of course.’ He went to the door. ‘Mrs. Dennis, any tea going?’

  ‘Certainly, Mr. Lester,’ her voice wafted from the kitchen, ‘I’ll make some straight away.’

  He stood on the hearthrug looking down at her with a curious expression on his face, a mixture of compassion, indulgence - and something else she could not define. Pity, perhaps or - she winced at the thought - brotherly concern?

  She said earnestly, wishing to exonerate an innocent man, ‘You see, Lester, it wasn’t Phil Pollard after all. I knew it wasn’t.’

  He walked the length of the room and back. ‘No,’ he said stiffly, ‘as you say, it wasn’t Phil Pollard. I hope he knows what an excellent advocate he has in you.’ He got himself a drink and stared into the liquid. ‘I’m sorry that I ever thought it was. I know how much you admire him - ‘ he stopped abruptly.

  She didn’t enlighten him. She didn’t say, ‘He’s nothing to me, any more than Howard Beale is.’ What was the use? He wouldn’t believe her.

  He sat beside her and took her hand and her fingers responded by clinging to his. She took a breath to speak, to make conversation, but reaction and hopelessness caught up with her.

  She whispered, her voice wavering, ‘Lester, oh, Lester…’ She turned her head away to find comfort from a cushion, but he pulled her roughly against him and into his arms.

  For a few blissful moments she lay there, serene and comforted, delighting in his nearness and his touch - until it came to her with a shock that by lying there in his arms she was letting him guess how much she loved him. And that was something she had vowed she would never allow herself to do.

  She summoned the remnants of her energy and the last dregs of her resolve and started to struggle madly in her efforts to get away from him. When he realised what she was doing, he let her go.

  He stood up, his eyes black with anger. ‘What’s the matter? Is there something about me that repels you? Is it because my name isn’t Phil Pollard? Or even Howard Beale? Is that why, every time I approach you or touch you, you shrink from me as if I were contaminated with something unspeakable?’

  She didn’t answer. How could she tell him the truth? Hadn’t he told her repeatedly by word and action how little she meant to him?

 
; He said, as if goaded beyond endurance, ‘I’m damned if I’m going to let a woman treat me with contempt. Especially the woman I love.’ He caught her hand and jerked her to her feet and into his arms. ‘You keep saying you hate me, but, by God, I’ll make you love me! If it takes me the rest of my life, I’ll make you love me!’

  He took her mouth with his and his Hps and hands wereas angry as his words had been. As her fuddled brain played his words back to her - that he loved her - she responded to his demands with joy and abandon. He was bringing her back to pulsating life, enticing from her the warmth and passion he craved and which, until that moment, she did not even know she possessed.

  At last he held back from her and searched her eyes. ‘It’s true, Elise? It’s not Phil Pollard or - ‘

  ‘Or Howard Beale or anyone but you.’

  ‘Since when, my love?’

  She shrugged and laughed. ‘Can’t remember, it’s so long ago. Since I bit you, probably.’ She raised his hand and kissed the scar she had inflicted on him as a child. ‘What about you?’

  He smiled. ‘Since I hit you, probably!’ He put his lips to her head and kissed it where he had hurt her so many years ago.

  They laughed, drunk with the discovery of their mutual love.

  ‘But, Lester, why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I thought you were infatuated With Phil Pollard. I thought, quite wrongly, that that was why you were trying to shield him.’

  ‘But when you kissed me on the night of the party, didn’t you guess then?’

  ‘My darling, I dared to let myself start hoping, then I told myself not to be a fool, because all you were seeking from me was comfort and reassurance after Howard’s clumsy attempts to make love to you.’

  ‘And I thought you loved Nina.’

  ‘Not from the moment you came back into my life.’

  ‘But you were so upset when she ended the engagement.’

  He kissed her gently. ‘Hurt pride, my love, nothing more.’