Past Caring - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  “I’m sorry about the break-in. Maybe it is my fault. I seem to attract this sort of thing. But I can’t explain anything, because I don’t understand it myself.” I paused. “Look, I must go up to my room.”

  “Go right ahead.” Nick’s sarcasm echoed after me. He and Hester hadn’t deserved any of this. They had a right to expect the truth from me. But I wasn’t ready to tell it to them. I was only just daring to face it myself.

  I raced upstairs. Hester appeared to have put my room in order. My clothes were folded in neat piles on the bed. I pulled my bag out and found the Memoir where I’d left it. So there could be no question. Someone knew enough to distinguish that from the Postscript. Someone who’d also searched Lodge Cottage, who could have bundled Ambrose into the Teign, who knew what I’d only told to … Eve.

  Ah, Eve. The hint of mockery in her smile. A deception more naked even than her body on the beach. I cast desperately for a way to discount the suspicion which had begun to grow in my mind. So beautiful. So mysterious. So it couldn’t be, could it? Coincidence. Confusion. Anything would do rather than what was already looming over me with all the implacability of an unpalatable truth.

  I raced from the house, leaving Nick and Hester to despair of the friend they thought they knew. I drove like a madman through the city and south to Topsham. I wanted nothing so much as to see Eve and hear her say that my fears were groundless. All she needed to do was say so and I’d believe, I knew, whatever I had to believe to explain it away.

  But, as I accelerated past the Topsham town sign, I felt my headlong anxiety ebb slightly. It wasn’t enough just to see Eve and hear her voice. I had to think first, prepare my case so that it wouldn’t sound like the accusation it really was.

  I pulled off the High Street in Topsham and parked in a narrow lane leading down towards the river. Then I set off on foot by a circuitous route towards Book End, allowing myself time to breathe and think on the way, to gulp in the breeze from the Exe and scour my mind for alternatives. If there’d been any, I’d have found them.

  Ahead of me, on the left, The Passage House Inn was filling rapidly as lunchtime drew on. Laughing groups had occupied the tables in front of it, their chinking glasses out of tune with my mood. All I wanted to do was get by them quietly.

  But, as I approached, two people stepped from the doorway of the pub and I stopped dead in my tracks. Eve, smiling, relaxed, in control – as always, at ease – as ever. And, at her side, not white-haired Professor Pollard, but Timothy Couchman, slickly dressed, sleekly groomed, donning dark glasses against the sun and pausing to stub out a cigarette with an expensive grate of leather on slate.

  A little way down the road was parked the red Porsche. The two walked slowly away from me towards it, talking and laughing about something as they went. Timothy slipped his arm round Eve’s waist. She was dressed in a simple yellow blouse and the white jeans she’d worn the day before: somehow that made it worse. As I watched, Timothy slid his hand down her hip, ran it round the swell of her bottom and patted her lightly – a casual, proprietorial signal to stay on her side of the car while he got in and unlocked the door for her. Typical of him, in a way, to get in first. Awful for me, in every way, to see how easily Eve accepted his clammy attentions.

  As he rounded the bonnet of the Porsche and went to open the driver’s door, he saw me. His jaw dropped, his eyes narrowed and then he smiled – with hideous condescension. Eve looked towards me as well. Our eyes met, but there was nothing there. Her face was a mask, her expression mannered to the exclusion of meaning. I could have looked forever into her beautiful eyes and seen only my own reflection, lost, distorted and alone.

  “Martin, old man,” said Timothy with extravagant hypocrisy, “it’s great to see you.” Eve spoke to him under her breath and his expression hardened.

  From the night I’d given Timothy the chance to see Ambrose’s letter we’d been heading, I now knew, for this moment. Timothy in search of the Postscript which incriminated his father. Ambrose drowned, his house searched. But still no Postscript. Inconveniently, I laid my hands on it. So, get me out of the way and search another house. Failing that, bribe me – if not with money then with something my past suggested I would find irresistible.

  I had to get away, had to flee the scene of our meeting – a meeting of lies, a glimpsing of minds. I turned to run, to run as far and as fast as I could from what my new awareness told me about the mendacity of others and the ruin of myself. Even as I turned, I heard Timothy shout after me: “Radford – stop!” but I didn’t look back. He’d have realized, as I had, that their plans had foundered at the last gasp on an unscheduled encounter, that however satisfying my discomfort, it was premature, because I still had the Postscript and couldn’t now be persuaded – only forced – to give it up.

  I heard his feet ringing on the tarmac as he pursued me. He wasn’t far behind. But as we ran past the pub, a group of people came through the door and spilled out into the road. I threaded through them, but heard a collision in my wake. Glancing round, I saw Timothy, cream trousers darkly stained with beer, cursing a bemused, bearded young man in tee shirt and jeans. Beyond the gesticulating group, Eve stood silently by the car, her eyes looking past them straight at me – solemn, unabashed, candidly gazing. I paused and struggled for an instant with the message of her look – distant, discerning and perversely disappointed. Then I ran on.

  I got back to the car – Eve’s car, aware of the irony but taking from it some grim comfort. It was a petty revenge, but it was all I was capable of. I jumped in and drove fast in the direction of Exeter. The speed was a relief. It outdistanced my senses.

  I went back to the Bennetts’ house – a flying visit but an essential one. My mood had changed since our edgy encounter earlier and they seemed to notice. They were having lunch in the kitchen when I arrived.

  “Nick … Hester, I can’t stop to explain anything. It’s all gone wrong, but I’ve still a chance to put it right. It’s true about the break-in. It was on my account. But don’t worry. It won’t happen again, because I’m leaving straightaway. I really am sorry I let you in for all this, believe me.”

  “We only want to help you, Martin,” said Hester.

  “But first,” put in Nick, “you owe us an explanation.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, but I couldn’t comply either. “We’ll have to hold it over. There just isn’t time.” I ran upstairs before Nick could protest and bundled together my possessions. Into one bag with the Postscript went Strafford’s copy of Satires of Circumstance, and, of course, the Memoir: not just an assemblage of evidence but now my loyal talismans.

  Downstairs, Nick had noticed the car. “Whose is the MG?” he asked when I reappeared, ready to go.

  “A friend’s.”

  “But surely you’re still suspended?”

  I was past him to the door. “I said I couldn’t explain now. I promise I will, when I can. But not now. There’s just too much to be done.”

  “Martin …”

  I didn’t, couldn’t, stop to listen. I ran up the short path to the pavement, flung my bags into the car and went round the other side to get in.

  “Hold on, Martin,” Nick shouted from the path, “you can surely …”

  I climbed in, slammed the door and started up. Nick was walking towards me, bafflement changing to anger in his face, when I accelerated away, promising silently to return soon and make amends, unaware then of what would intervene to prevent me. The last I saw of Nick was in the rear view mirror, hands on hips, staring after me.

  There was only one direction to go: east, to Miston. It had been inevitable from the moment I left Topsham, from the moment I realized how I’d been taken in just as much as Strafford. He’d looked tc Elizabeth for guidance – so would I.

  Unlike Strafford, of course, I had no intention of sparing her the truth. That was no longer realistic. Too many people – including me – had suffered in the cause of concealment.

  The afternoon was fad
ing imperceptibly into evening as I propelled the MG up Harting Hill and across the dip slope of the Downs towards Miston. There was an air of homecoming in the very landscape, a sensation of overdue return, an awareness of nemesis tracking me down the lanes from the west towards our resting place. Whatever lay ahead, there was now no turning back.

  Eight

  No turning back. That was right. After I’d driven into the drive at Quarterleigh and stopped the car, I listened to the subsiding tick of the engine cooling, while the blandishments of a soft summer evening closed around me. I hesitated, stayed where I was, struggled to adjust to my own sudden transition, wrestled with ways of taking the next, irretrievable step.

  In the end, it was just as well that my mind was made up for me. The door of the house opened and Dora, plumply wrapped in a flour-smeared apron, came to investigate the noise of the car, her quizzical expression framed by the honeysuckle arch. Seeing who it was, she marched out.

  “Come to disturb us again, ’ave you?” she said, with a fonder edge than I’d normally had from her.

  “’Fraid so, Dora.”

  “Then you’d best come in. The mistress is ’ome, but Mr Henry ain’t, if you takes my meaning.”

  “You realize I’m not approved of, then?”

  “Course I do, boy. But you can’t be all bad if he disapproves of you, so I’d best not turn you away. The mistress’d never let me ’ear the last of it.”

  Doubting if any of us would ever hear the last of it either way, I followed her into the house and through into the conservatory. Elizabeth was asleep there, in her reclining chair, some embroidery on her lap and a book lying on a stool beside her, with a marker about two thirds the way through. Dora touched her elbow and she opened her eyes at once, without starting, as if she’d not really been asleep at all.

  “Why Martin,” she said, “what a pleasant surprise. Just when I was beginning to think you’d forgotten all about me. Sit down and tell me what you’ve been doing – I’m dying to hear all about it.”

  “It won’t make pleasant listening,” I began. “Are you sure you shouldn’t follow your son’s advice about me?”

  She smiled indulgently. “I’m too old to learn new ways, Martin. I’ve always believed in trusting my own judgement, not that of others. But why so solemn? Don’t forget you promised to tell me whatever you found out.”

  “Yes, I did. But I didn’t know then what it was that I’d find.”

  “And what was it?”

  I leant forward and she looked at me intently and attentively. “There’s no easy way to say it. Strafford left a further written statement: a postscript to his memoir, stating the full facts of his case. Those facts are not what you or I thought. You’ll find them deeply disturbing. They don’t reflect well … on your family.”

  “Nevertheless, I’d like to know what they are.” She didn’t flinch.

  “You ought to know that, if it had been up to Strafford, you’d never have seen it. It contains all that he decided not to tell you when he visited you just before his death.”

  “I see.” She remained unshakeable.

  “And his decision may well have been the best one. We could still honour it.” Her very calm had shamed me into hesitation. “We could leave it in its parcel, unopened, or burn it, unread. That must be up to you.”

  “My dear, I don’t think either of us could do that now, could we?”

  “I suppose not, but it might be for the best. This discovery has brought nothing but unhappiness so far.”

  “Who made the discovery – you?”

  “No. Strafford’s nephew – the one I told you about. But he drowned shortly afterwards.”

  Elizabeth put her hand to her mouth. “Dear, dear. I am sorry to hear that. How did it happen?”

  “An accident – according to the inquest.”

  “You sound sceptical.”

  “I am. I suppose that’s why I’m here really.” A lie, but I couldn’t face telling her the truth, that spite was driving me harder and faster than concern for Ambrose ever had. “And that’s why I think you should now read what Strafford once kept from you.”

  What was it that made Elizabeth agree so readily? Curiosity, I suppose, as much as anything. Once she knew more evidence existed, she had to see it. It was too late then, far too late, to destroy it. However terrible the prospect, she had to look through the door she hadn’t known was there.

  I fetched the Postscript from the car. Elizabeth had moved into the lounge and was waiting for me there, in her armchair by the fireplace. I sat opposite her and accepted her offer of whisky. Drained by the journey and what had gone before, it was all I was capable of doing: drinking steadily while she read slowly and assiduously through Strafford’s final statement, eyes sharp behind her gold-rimmed spectacles, lips pursed with a concentration which defied interpretation. Dora asked if I wanted anything to eat before she went home, but I declined the offer, just sat with Elizabeth, willing her and nerving us through all the pages of Strafford’s fate. Her cat came and stretched himself between us, bemused by his mistress’s distraction. I thought of Sir Gerald Couchman, seated in the chair I now occupied, warming himself with the same whisky, contemplating the good fortune and outrageous fraud which had brought him Elizabeth as a wife. No doubt as he often had, though with nothing in my case to congratulate myself on, I slowly drifted off to a deep but troubled sleep.

  “I’ve finished, Martin.” I started awake. Elizabeth had touched my elbow and was stooping over me with a concerned look in her red-rimmed eyes. “I think you must have been dreaming, my dear.”

  I pulled myself upright in the chair. “I’m sorry. Have I been asleep long?”

  “An hour or so, I think, but I’ve been concentrating on the Postscript.”

  “Yes, of course.” I rubbed my forehead. “What do you think of it?”

  I noticed that darkness had fallen outside and the cat had left us. Elizabeth sat down with a gentle sigh. “I don’t know what to say.” She was visibly upset. “It says much for Edwin that he wanted to keep this from me, but you were right to tell me, nevertheless.”

  I strove to find words of reassurance. “Just as you were right to tell me we shouldn’t let the past become a burden.”

  She smiled faintly. “But it’s not the past that hurts in this – it’s the truth.”

  “You think it is that then – the truth?”

  “Oh yes, without doubt.” She inhaled sharply, as if to steady herself. “If you’ll excuse me Martin, I think I’ll go to bed now. It’s late and I must rest, if I can. We’ll talk again in the morning.”

  “Whatever you say.” I watched her rise and walk to the door, her spryness displaced by a hunched dejection. “Elizabeth,” I called after her. “Will you be all right?”

  She turned and summoned a smile. “Don’t worry, my dear. An old lady must collect her thoughts. But I will be all right. It’s just that I’ve become a stranger to disappointment. And by the tidings you’ve brought, my nearest and dearest have disappointed me – to say the very least.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. But do be here in the morning. I may need you to hold my hand.”

  “You can count on me.”

  “Goodnight then.” She left me at that moment, alone in the room, gazing at the Postscript where she’d put it aside. A sleepless night – the only safe kind – stretched ahead of me, a lone, dark watch over Strafford’s legacy and last wish: Elizabeth’s well-being. I promised Strafford and myself that night that she really could count on me, that I would never allow myself to disappoint her as I’d disappointed others. It was a promise worth making and, as it turned out, one well worth keeping.

  Sunday: a sabbath in Sussex, a fresh breeze stirring the rhododendrons in the garden, laundered clouds billowing innocently in the sky, a cottage beneath the Downs where order and calm seemed states of nature. Seemed so and yet were not so, for something was seething in the morning air. The swirling cloud had a quality of
whirling acceleration, the church bells struck a strident, frantic note. Normality was out of tune. We were glissading on a plane.

  “Will you accompany me to church, Martin?” There was no hint of irony in Elizabeth’s voice. She wore an elegant grey frock and a wide-brimmed felt hat. Her expression suggested a disciplined orderliness exerting itself to keep chaos at bay.

  We walked to the church in silence, though there were many nods for Elizabeth to acknowledge on the way in. There we sang and prayed in the full-throated, self-regarding company of a wealthy rural congregation.

  Filing out afterwards, Elizabeth was obliged to exchange pleasantries with a succession of local churchgoers. Her friendly responses had a strained edge apparent only to me. I was introduced as a grand nephew whose lineage we mercifully didn’t have to explain. Only when we were alone in the lane did Elizabeth feel able to express her genuine feelings.

  “I’m glad we went,” she said. “It was something I needed to do – to prove that not everything had turned upside down.”

  “Did you think it had?”

  “It seemed to – when I read the Postscript.”

  We’d reached the gates of Quarterleigh. “If it’s any consolation, I feel that too – though less personally.”

  She clasped my hand in hers, cold despite the heat of the day. “It is some consolation, my dear, though alas not enough.”

  “Would you like to talk about it?”

  “I think I must. But first we must address ourselves to Dora’s lunch. That, I feel sure, will be as solid as ever.”

  It was, though neither of us had much stomach for it. As if to prevent me questioning her on other matters, Elizabeth asked about Ambrose’s death and I told her everything I knew. Not just Ambrose’s contention that he was being watched, but the letter he’d sent me and Timothy’s sight of it. Not just the stark facts of his drowning but the insistent belief that it couldn’t have been any more an accident than his uncle’s death. It was clear that none of the implications escaped Elizabeth – she grew more grave and thoughtful still. My only silence was reserved for Eve. I wasn’t yet ready to admit to anyone how easily and completely she’d deceived me. I kidded myself that Elizabeth didn’t need to know about it, but that wasn’t, of course, the reason for not speaking of it.