by Clare Curzon
One moment I was alone and then next there was this man looming over me, motionless. He looked immense, tall and sinister in a black mackintosh that reached down over his rubber boots. On his head a wide-brimmed rain-hat kept his face obscured.
‘Should I help you?’ he asked doubtfully.
‘What do you think?’ I spat back. ‘I’m not sitting here for pleasure.’
He disentangled the bike from my legs and hauled me up. ‘One can’t tell,’ he said mildly, ‘quite how independent ladies require to be these days.’
It sounded too bland and I suspected irony. His grip on my arms in lifting me had been vice-like. I didn’t dare let him see how scared of him I was.
‘I suggest,’ he said, ‘we give up on the lane and take to the higher fields.’
Anything would be better than the ankle-deep torrent we were standing in, but I remembered the stranger I’d always been warned against as a child. Although I’d mocked the idea then, it didn’t seem so melodramatic now.
But it was sordid inner cities where thugs and perverts existed, not the rolling Chiltern countryside. Here they were as improbable as vampires. And outrages happened with a different sort of people, not the kind we lived among.
That’s what I’d believed until … Until what?
Despite the hot anger of a moment before, there came a flash of terror. It was illogical, but for a bare instant my mind lurched with a sort of half-memory. Something terrifying from the past, although I didn’t know what. But I could no longer believe I was invulnerable.
No one knew where I was. If anything happened I was on my own. If I disappeared who would think to go looking for me, supposedly safe in my own room at home? Not my father. He hadn’t brought his car back today and he detested any kind of rain. Not that it would cross his mind to check on me unless he needed something. Now that Leila was back that was less likely.
What was the matter with me that I should get this fit of nerves?
I tried to shake off the fear but a disturbing resonance hung on: danger. I could become a victim.
The man stood waiting sideways on to the steep bank, one leg braced ready to climb. His heroic stance made me think of a highwayman. The wind flicked open the ends of his long coat. I could see now that, like the hat, it was of black leather, the sort I connected with old war films and the Gestapo. He held my bicycle almost effortlessly under one arm. The front wheel looked mangled. Perhaps he was burdened enough to be incapable of violence. Unless he hurled the bike at me.
I had to do something; used the edges of my trainers like skis to dig into the soggy grass, and staggered, sideways-on and slithering, to the top. And there I turned to run - straight into barbed wire. Some bastard farmer had thought fit to break the country code here.
The man reached out to where my shirt and jeans were caught fast. The more I pulled away the more I tore them and slashed my arms. I could feel warm blood running down one to the wrist.
Then I heard the bike dropped.
‘Stand utterly still,’ he ordered. ‘Each barb has to be unhooked separately.’
A brilliant flash of lightning lit the figure bent over me with his fingers in my clothes. I saw a lean, curved profile like Mr Punch, brows knitted in concentration, a prominent nose with deep lines etched from bridge to chin.
‘You’re in a real pickle.’ His fingers stilled as he considered his own words. ‘That’s a curious expression, when you come to think. Soused in vinegar and onions: you’re hardly that.’
He was unbelievable. I started laughing, uncontrollably. ‘Steady,’ he warned. Did he know I was almost screaming inside? He gripped my upper arms tightly a moment, hurting the bruises already there. I hiccuped into silence. Then he began again plucking the torn cloth off the wires. ‘You must shout if I hurt you,’ he said. ‘I can’t properly see what we’ve got here.’
Then a humorous snort. ‘If it’s any consolation, you weren’t the first to be hooked.’ And he handed me an oily wad of sheep’s wool he’d untangled with my shirt.
‘You chose a fine night for a cycle ride,’ he commented drolly.
I didn’t explain that I’d simply had to get away from the house, so turned it on him. ‘What were you doing out here anyway?’
‘Needing fresh air. It’s been a helluva day.’
‘Doing what? I mean, what are you?’
There was a pause while he decided how truthful to be. ‘I’m - a company director. It was my bad share day.’
So he chose to joke, but it was evasive. Any fool knew the stock exchange wasn’t open on a Sunday. Besides he didn’t look the part: more stagey, like an actor in a thriller film. I asked no more questions and volunteered nothing about myself.
We located a gate in the barbed wire fence and squelched through wet meadow-grass that whipped my bare ankles, then circled a field of ripening maize. By now the thunder sounded more distant and the rain had lessened, but the damage was already done.
Finally we reached the top, gaining level ground through a spinney where a beaten path led off to the road, my road. When I recognized where we’d come out I managed an ungracious, ‘I’ll be all right now,’ as a brush-off. ‘Thanks for helping.’
‘You can’t go home like that,’ he said. ‘You’ll scare your folks to death. My sister can put something on your scratches and lend something to cover you up.’
‘I don’t need -’
But we had arrived right opposite his cottage and a woman was silhouetted in the brightly lit doorway. ‘Is that you at last?’ she called. ‘What on earth are you doing with that old bike?’
She sounded so normal that I shrugged off any remains of fear. Just a little resentment hung on, at having publicly made such a fool of myself. And I didn’t want my father to catch me looking like this. Especially after Friday’s mess-up.
Inside, the cottage was tiny and bright with unframed colour sketches taped to the whitewashed walls. There were bean bags to sit on, or disappear in, and - funnily - they didn’t look out of place against the antique furniture.
The sister, whose name was Morgan, conjured up a fluffy bath towel and almost pushed me through to the shower room. ‘A period piece,’ she excused it. ‘You pull a chain here to get the water. But it’s hot and there’s plenty. I’ll just go and rustle up some dry clothes for you.’
I stood a long while under the deluge until the gravel rash and the rips on my arm were cleared of blood and mud. The skin smarted afresh and I noticed that the bruises which came up yesterday had darkened to a rich plum colour. I was wrapped in the warm towel when Morgan passed me the clothes round the screen: a red silk blouse and snugly fitting jeans which for me just needed the ends turned up. I emerged feeling more human.
The blouse was sleeveless and I couldn’t miss her glancing at my bruised arms and then meeting her brother’s eyes with something like a nod of affirmation. It made me wonder what each had been saying about me while the shower had drowned out all sound of voices from the adjoining room. She insisted on smoothing antiseptic cream on the new cuts, her pretty face puckered with mild concern.
Her brother - I still didn’t known his name and felt embarrassed about asking - was making coffee in the minute kitchen. I’d meant to leave at once but the coffee smelled so good I was won over, so we all ended in the bean bags, Morgan neatly, and her brother’s long body making an angular zigzag, his splayed knees above the level of his head.
Now I could observe him more closely. It was a long, humorous face with a baroque mouth, but, even without that Gestapo leather coat, I still found him formidable. I had let him get away with a lie over his profession, but I felt I’d best not stray far from the truth in anything I told him.
It was tempting to stay on. The old cottage was snug and comforting. I didn’t look forward to the chill newness of Knollhurst and possible further encounters with my father. Without saying as much, I found I was explaining myself a little. They asked the usual questions about school, then about the move here from Caversh
am; which in turn brought up my father’s transfer to the University of London.
‘Our father was a professor too,’ Morgan said. ‘An archaeologist, so even in the holidays we didn’t see a lot of him. He was always away on digs. I’m afraid we both found that sort of thing rather slow and preferred travelling to more racy places with Mother. She’s a doctor of sorts.’
So then I told them about Leila, how really cool she was, although strictly only a step-mum. I didn’t remember my biological mother except as an invalid in a nursing-home.
‘Are you an only?’ Morgan asked sympathetically.
Being proud of Eddie and his brilliant A-levels, I told her about his year off before Cambridge, how he’d been sponsored to sit in on American space research, observing biomechanics and robotics.
‘M’m, impressive,’ she said. ‘So do you take after your father too?’
‘No.’
Even to myself it sounded abrupt. I rushed in to cover up. ‘Eddie doesn’t either, not as a person. Just in the brains department. I’m not so bright. If I go to college it will be on the Arts side. My best subjects are Languages and History. I’m taking French and Italian GCSEs this year in advance. As soon as as those exams are over I’ll be free of school until September. Two years of sixth form after that.’
‘Then what?’ Morgan’s brother asked from the depths of his bean bag.
‘I don’t know. I’d like to go abroad. Granny Knightley lives in Provence. Leila might work it for me to go out there.’
‘Good practice for your French. Will your father agree to it?’
‘He doesn’t think Granny would be much … I mean, they aren’t all that close. Anyway it’s not a good time to ask him at the moment.’ I was embarrassed at having to explain that much, so said no more. The very thought of approaching him when I was in disgrace brought back the confusion of Friday.
It wasn’t really fair to blame me for getting drunk. I hadn’t known the stuff was so strong, though I should have guessed Beryl Ryder was out to make mischief. The moment she had clapped eyes on me there had been a sort of spark between us. Of malice, I was sure now.
Morgan had set up a low Moorish table between us with a beaten brass top and a matching tray with coffee and biscuits. ‘It’s decaff,’ she said, ‘in case you’re afraid it might stop you sleeping tonight.’
‘I don’t think anything would do that.’ In fact my eyelids were already heavy. I seemed to have done little else but sleep since Friday, when whatever had happened happened.
I was taking a bourbon biscuit from the plate offered me when I caught the intense look in her eyes and I knew, just knew, I had seen her before, recently; seen that same piercing expression on her face. Only she had looked different then in some way. ‘Have we met before?’ I blurted out.
She hesitated, as her brother had done when I asked him what he was. ‘That’s not likely is it? You’ve only just moved here from Caversham, you said.’
It wasn’t a direct lie like his, but she was turning my question off. I wondered what they had to hide, and I was quite certain now that I had met her before, even been involved with her in some way. There was this stupid business of forgetting and only half-remembering what had happened lately.
They took it all right when I abruptly said I had to go.
Morgan insisted I borrow a plastic mackintosh although it seemed to have stopped raining.
‘Your bike,’ her brother reminded me. ‘I’ll let you have it back when it’s fixed.’
‘Please don’t bother. I mean, I’ll get it seen to.’
‘My pleasure.’
I was sure it wouldn’t be. He didn’t look the sort to be any good with fiddly jobs. His fingers were long and slender, for all that, like his face, they were suntanned to a rich mahogany.
He had risen. ‘I’ll see you to your door.’
‘No thanks.’ It was one occasion when he’d have to accept female emancipation. He picked that up at once. ‘Well, see you around,’ he compromised. Morgan handed me my own wet things in a plastic carrier.
The air outside was fresher now, the moon only momentarily obscured by moving cloud. The front of our house was in darkness except for the porch lantern which burned all night. I still had Leila’s key-ring so I slipped noiselessly in, listened to locate where the others were and decided that, at eleven-fifteen, they’d retired early.
Leila would have assumed that I’d discreetly withdrawn from any threatening row with my father. I wondered what account of my drunkenness he’d given her. Or if he’d even bothered.
Chapter 16
She bent close over me and I screamed, lashing out with my fists. But it was Leila. I didn’t see how it could be. Leila wouldn’t hurt me.
‘Chloe, it’s all right. You were having a nightmare.’
From the next room she must have heard me call out. Because I was threatened. With a tumbler of something salty being poured down my throat. And the face! - not hers but Morgan’s, yet looking different, with the fair curls scraped tightly back into a bun under a starched white cap.
‘What was the dream about?’
‘I was - in a sort of hospital, I think. Oh, it was all confused.’
‘But you aren’t. You’re at home. There’s nothing wrong with you, is there?’
‘No. I - I’m fine.’
‘So go to sleep again. You’ve another four hours. Tomorrow we’ll go swimming. How’s that?’
‘Lovely’
Leila knew, because I’d once told her, how sometimes in good dreams I’m blissfully cutting through turquoise water, butterfly stroke, with the sun glistening on my wet arms. She thought I had only to close my eyes, think of that, and then any dream would be a happy one. Perhaps she’d forgotten that tomorrow I’d be sitting my last two exam papers.
She squeezed my shoulder and went quietly away. I was afraid to relax because asleep something bad lurked just out of sight to get at me. It was like moving in the dark through an unfamiliar room, knowing someone stood behind a curtain there waiting to leap out.
It was not just Morgan. Another face, a man’s, seemed to come and go, emerging and fading in a fog. Someone younger, pale, gaunt-eyed, suddenly there in a subliminal flash, the features frozen expressionless, his very blankness horrific. An unknown. He hadn’t any place in my life, yet he had me deadly afraid. I was far outside the safe world Leila wanted to wrap me in.
Had I actually agreed to her suggestion? Stupid, stupid! I couldn’t let her see me in a swimsuit because of the bruises. Tomorrow, after school, I’d have to make excuses, and hope she didn’t guess I’d something to hide.
I switched on the table lamp by my bed and reached for a book. From the page where I’d left the marker I read empty words, sentences, mechanically turned pages, but it all passed my eyes without reaching my mind. Again I was seeing flashes that I couldn’t account for, incidents from some violent film I don’t ever remember watching.
Eventually I must have fallen asleep. I awoke to hear the house stirring to life, and my bedside lamp was still on. I felt heavy and sluggish, in no way prepared to face my Italian Composition paper. Leila insisted on my eating a breakfast of grapefruit and marmalade toast. Then she dropped me at my bus stop on her way to the shop. ‘Don’t worry about the exam. You’ll be fine. We’ll swim this evening,’ she promised. So in the night it hadn’t been said just to calm me.
Being with the other girls, letting their chatter wash over me, helped; but still it was an effort to pull my mind together. It was only half an hour into the first paper that I began to tackle it as if it was real. I forced myself to eat some lunch: shepherd’s pie with green beans, and much too heavy for another steamy day. Last night’s storm had done little to break the heatwave.
The afternoon paper was Comprehension, which I found easier to get into. Afterwards I joined in the others’ moans and groans as expected, although I knew I’d made quite a good job of it. And then there yawned a great void ahead: the extended summer holiday, becaus
e public-exam candidates were allowed to skip the rest of term, and my few papers had been early ones. I decided to drop into the town library and pick up something to focus my mind on.
We were a group of five as far as the council offices and after that I continued alone. Crossing by the fish market I had the silly idea that someone was following me. It was so strong that I stepped inside among all the smells of dead flesh and disinfectant, the rattling of buckets and robust slapping of scaly bodies on wet chopping blocks.
I pretended to be examining the bright pink steaks of salmon, then turned quickly and looked all around behind. Monday’s not a busy day for selling fish, and most people shop there in the morning anyway. Among the small number there I should have been able to pick out anyone I knew.
No one appeared out of place or interested in me.
‘Yes, miss. What’ll it be then?’ demanded the man in a striped apron and straw hat. I mumbled that I was only looking, and moved off. I glanced back once as I left, and it seemed that a shadowy figure slipped away behind one of the hall’s iron pillars.
Not a real sighting. Just another of those flashes that kept bothering me; either half-memories or overexcited fancy. When I reached the library I would look up epilepsy in a medical dictionary. There was something called petit mal but I didn’t know exactly what it was, or how it started. I wondered if that was what my mother had suffered from. Nobody had ever explained to me why she’d been an invalid or how it had started. It could be one of those genetic things.
In the library Philip, the dishy young assistant, wasn’t on duty at the desk. Instead, when I’d chosen three books at random from the fiction section I took them with my card to Miss Humphreys. She was a massive-fronted dragon whom I usually managed to avoid. She barely looked at me until she was taking my card from the key slot. Then she fixed me with her severe wire-framed gaze and said, ‘I think we have some property of yours, Miss Knightley.’
She reached for a package farther along the counter and handed it to me, a quite fat A4 envelope. Before I could deny it was mine she launched her reprimand: I should really take better care of my belongings. The library staff had more than enough to do without scurrying round tidying up after the public. I was lucky it hadn’t been locked away in Lost Property, since it hadn’t my address on it.
