Undercurrent

by Frances Fyfield

  Should have said goodbye, but why did anyone need goodbyes? Because it closed the chapter. He found himself imagining what the reaction of the two men would be when they found he had gone, told himself they would not be quite reconciled by the over-generous payment, that was not the point with the English he had met. Money in quantity was not important; they were weird like that.

  And what about her? Would she shrug her shoulders and say to herself that was exactly how she expected him to behave?

  What was it she had needed from him anyway? She needed what he had achieved, without breaking any of her ridiculous promises to her cousin. She did not need him. If that woman needed anything, she was not going to say. He stared at the trees on the far side of the platform, pinned behind the high railings and shaking in the wind. The waves on the seafront would be high; he had liked it when the waves were high enough to throw shingle into the road.

  A train pulled in opposite, a slow-moving bullet of light. Probably the only train on the track, going all the way to the end of the line before coming back for the patient few on this platform. They should be throwing things at it in protest. He was never going to smoke again and only ever eat nutritious food.

  If he saw Maggie from the outside, as if he was a stranger, what would he see? Someone who had moved heaven and earth to find out the truth about the cousin she loved like a sister. Someone who went on serving the interests of that same person, doing her bidding, remaining faithful to her, inhibited by ridiculous promises to a self-confessed murderess, as if that made no difference to love or loyalty. Perhaps it didn't. Perhaps it made you suspend judgement entirely; If you loved someone, you didn't leave them whatever they had done. Any more than Angela would abandon her daughter, or Peter would abandon Tim. You would do anything. You would lie, for a start; you would trade on affection and sentiment.

  You might even blackmail people with their own decency. You would put yourself on the back burner, wipe yourself out.

  There was an unfamiliar lump in one of the pockets of the jacket and it dug into his thigh as he sat on the metal bench. Henry investigated and found a bar of chocolate and a tube of extra strong mints, examined them carefully. Now who had put those there?

  Someone who knew that he was inclined to forget about sustenance and needed to take a little something for his blood sugar in his weakened state? Don't you be going out without something to eat, she had scolded him only yesterday in that maternal way she had developed with the patient. He could not blame her for himself becoming ill, but in a way, he had. It was not her fault that he had ignored the impact of cold and shock and incurred the almost inevitable sickness, but it was she who had started it all. He was trying to make himself angry, but the presence of a bar of chocolate was preventing it.

  He could not fault her care of him in the last few days and the way she had responded to his words. She had made sure that he did not feel ashamed to be so helpless; she let him keep his dignity. She had been peculiarly sensitive in her presence and her absences.

  He would miss her, of course he would miss her; he had always missed her.

  You don't just leave people. Henry, that's what you always do. Once it gets messy or complicated, or hurtful, off you go. His father's voice; Francesca's voice, both saying the same thing in markedly different accents.

  No, he argued with himself, that isn't what I do, not any more. I didn't do that, this time, I didn't. And no one begged me to stay; it's clear they don't want me.

  Francesca doesn't want me; she doesn't want me. How do you know? You never asked. Maybe she would have told you if you'd waited to be asked. You aren't the only one who needs reassurance to get beyond their own reserve; you aren't the only one who shies away from confrontation like some frightened thoroughbred at a fence. Francesca does that, too. Whatever her name is.

  She took me for a fool, he told himself So, you're going to leave her to her grieving, let her cope with the frustration of doing nothing, just because of that, are you? She still has all that mess on her plate. You bum. You've spent half your life carrying round bits and pieces of unfinished emotional business, frightened of being exposed. Who are you to criticize? Fear or ridicule weighs heavier than vitamins or water or clothes. C'mon. There are times when you just can't let people get away with their privacy. Even if they want it.

  Henry asked the man in the ticket office to keep his bag. I have to go back for something.

  You'll miss the train, the man said. OK, so I'll miss the train; there are other trains in and out of here.

  There are trains you should never even try to catch. Henry said.

  There are buses which should never leave on time He walked out of the station.

  The wind caught at his hair and seemed to lift it away from his scalp. He kept his hands in his pockets and pushed his way through the parking lot. No rain, yet, simply the godforsaken wind which pushed him downhill past the shops that were shutting and placing barriers to guard against weather rather than vandals.

  There was a lull in the dip by the crossing where he seemed to enter another climatic zone, and then the road rose again towards the sea. The weather was a better enemy than most, he thought. It was at least entirely even-handed, impersonal and indifferent and you did not have to waste time reasoning with it.

  The streets were clearing rapidly, everyone scurrying indoors, bringing the afternoon to a premature end.

  They all knew what to do. No one argued with English weather; they simply evaded it.

  Unless they were Maggie Chisholm, who liked to hide in the back of the house but also liked to be outside in a storm.

  Henry stood in the doorway opposite the hotel and considered his direction. Without baggage and rain, the wind was exhilarating and the sea was in a state of glorious rage. He crossed the road to the entrance to the pier and stood in the inadequate shelter of the fisherman statue, touching the cold metal with affection.

  The pier was her favourite place, she had said and even with its terrible associations, it had become his. Especially now, with the waves so high they lapped at the walkway, sucked at the structure and sent up spumes of spray. The whole 'structure vibrated and hummed with the sound of the sea. He wondered why some prudent town official did not close the gates, but no one had. It felt more dangerous than it was and if the whole thing was going to fall down, today was not the day.

  Out on the horizon, the bigger boats rode unperturbed. If the wind blew him sideways, all he had to do was sit down. Sit down and think, but he was done with thinking. He walked the length of the Titanic steadily enough, keeping his eyes fixed on the darkened windows of the caff at the end.

  He could see a figure, holding on to the railings at the end with her back to the shore.

  Tuttttt, he would say. Look at me, he would say. If you sit out here, he would say, you get cold and sick, and I can't let you do that, can I? You wouldn't let me do that, would you? You look after me when I'm sick. You did it twenty years ago and you've done it again this -last week and I'm telling you, I'm sick of it. It's my turn. Do you hear me? That's what he would say if he could yell the words. I'm sick of it, Francesca.

  There was her yellow hair which would be soaked with spray. He could see her now, clearly, and Henry could have howled with relief. Not too late. This time he had turned back in time. As he approached, she moved to sit on the bench by the caff door, relatively sheltered by the overhang in the place where he had slept after his late breakfast on the first day, a century ago, and woken to feel someone was watching him.

  She was entirely oblivious to his presence. Henry had the sharp and appalling remembrance of that face on the ramshackle Indian bus, two decades sooner. The shawl round her neck and pressed against her face, her skin pink and inflamed with weeping. Not at her best, not then, or when she should have said, please don't leave me; I need you, instead of saying, you must do what you think best. Henry.

  Did not plead, any more than he had offered. What a pair of fools. He remembered himself, begin
ning to run, bashing his fist against the dirty rear window of the bus, yelling, Wait for me. I'm not just another passenger, I'm ME. I came back. And in the same uncoordinated way he had begun to run then, he started, clumsily, to run now.

  She turned and noticed his awkward progress, gave a tremulous smile. Then she went back to what she was there for, crying. Sobbing into a handkerchief sodden with tears or spray, he could not tell which.

  He stopped, halted by the jolt of recognition. A crying face took on the contours of a childish face and assumed its own, unmistakable distinction. It was the same face which had wept against the window of that bus. Weeping like that, she was instantly recognizable and he wondered why he had ever doubted it, how he could ever have been fooled by her height, the heeled shoes, the polish, the little bits of jewellery, the distracting effects of years, all conspiring to confuse, as if a person were no more than the sum of all their visible details.

  He had known; he had ignored, but then he was a literal man who tended to believe what he was told. He was the scientist who believed in the evidence of his own eyes and first-hand reports from reliable sources. He let instinct take second place, and sitting next to her now, alongside the roar of the sea, he tried to recall when it was he had guessed her identity and if the precise moment of his guessing and concealing really mattered. He was there; she was there, and nothing else was important. She was the one. Francesca. Maggie. Francesca.

  They had blurred, but they were quite distinct.

  'Shh,' he said. 'Shhhh, now. I don't know the half of it, do I?'

  She went on crying. If she made any sound in the process, the sea drowned it.

  'It doesn't matter,' he said, putting his arm round her shoulders. 'You shouldn't think it matters at all. I just don't know what to call you, I really don't. It's embarrassing. Can't call you Fran.

  You hated your name to be shortened. I'm surprised you ever consented to Maggie. I like Margaret better, but I'd never get used to it now. Couldn't stand another variation, so you're Maggie, OK? You still bite your nails, don't you? I never thought you'd dye your hair. You didn't seem the type then for tinted hair, but who knows?

  And you were going to be a teacher.'

  She carried on crying, not bothering to stem the flow. He pulled her a little closer, fished in his pocket for a handkerchief, found the chocolate and proffered it instead. She smiled a bit at that, shook her head.

  They sat as they were. Even the bone of her shoulder was familiar. She could not stop her compulsive weeping. Henry told himself that for once he was the one in control, but he doubted his ability to manage the tremor in his voice. They must look like a couple of eccentric tramps, and who gave a shit. 'Francesca Margaret Chisholm is in prison,' Henry said, matter of factly, 'and Margaret F.

  for Francesca Chisholm practises law. Why did you call yourself Francesca all those years ago when you went to India? What's in a name? Come on, Maggie. Tell me, please.'

  She heaved herself upright. Blew her nose until it shone red and attempted to put the handkerchief back in her pocket. It fluttered to the ground and the wind took it towards France.

  'Because it's a much nicer name than Maggie,' she said gruffly. 'I hated being called Maggie.

  And Francesca was a much more glamorous person to be.

  Glamorous and kind. That's why I went travelling in the first place. So I could be someone else. I wished I had lived in the castle. It was my second home. I wished her parents were my dead parents and I was as nice as her. And although her father wasn't my father, he was as good as ... and he loved me as if I was ... oh shit. I should be crying for Harry. I am crying for Harry. I'm crying for every bloody thing.'

  He nodded, close to tears himself. No one would know it was not the spray.

  'And I'm not Francesca,' she muttered. 'I'm whatever I've got left. Some bloody muddle.'

  'You're the one who remembered poetry,' he said. 'The crazy one who looked after me and made me feel . . . whole. The one who laughed with me and never at me. That's you. The fact you like to play charades doesn't alter that. I know who you are. I just don't know why you felt you had to go on playing charades. Couldn't you trust me?'

  The rain began, thundering on the concrete. She cried a little more and wiped her face with the sleeve of her coat. 'Trust you?' she shouted over the storm. 'I did trust you. But not with everything and not with that. You would-have despised me.' She sniffed. 'How pathetic to have borrowed the identity of someone else, even at eighteen. Self-aggrandizement. Why should you help poor, deluded Maggie Chisholm who travelled under false colours?

  But I thought. . .I thought... you might be curious enough to enquire into Francesca because you carried a torch for her.

  You never carried a torch for Maggie. Not for me.'

  'A torch? He remembered where he was.

  Remembered the history he had read, about wartime sailors, putting up misleading flags in order to get close to the enemy. False colours. 'They weren't false colours,' Henry said. 'You just added in a stripe or two. Altered the shading. I'm colour blind anyway. I knew you.' His voice also rose to a shout. It was a mad way to conduct a conversation. 'I know you now and I'm telling you, there aren't so many surprises.

  You're the kind one. But you used me. Never mind fake colours. You hooked me like a fish and reeled mein.' The weeping continued.

  'Yes, I did.’ I’m sorry. There was no one else.'

  'It was extremely calculating.'

  'Yes; she yelled.

  'You're cunning and dishonest.'

  'YES! All right, yes:

  He pulled her hair gently and laid her head against his shoulder. Gradually the crying ceased. The storm lulled into a temporary calm, as if taking a breath.

  'I'm sorry I left you that first time,' Henry said.

  'Shouldn't have done it. Never forgot it. I guess we're quits. Do you think we could start all over again?'

  She looked up in tearstained surprise, her face puffy and pale, the nose red.

  'Don't be ridiculous. Why?

  'Got a cigarette?'

  'Somewhere, yes.' A packet emerged from her handbag. He watched her pale white hands, no longer hiding bitten nails, Maggie turning her head into the shelter of the dreadful jacket he pulled across them both to forestall the wind and rain long enough to light one smoke and another one from the first for him. 'These are bad for you. Henry,' she said, earnestly, handing him his. 'I told you twenty years ago, don't copy my bad habits. And anyway, why?'

  One inhalation and the cigarette tasting of salt.

  Never again. The rain drenched his hand. He feltutterly, bewilderingly certain and as obstinate as the weather.

  'Because I've always loved you. I do mean you.

  That's a long, long time. And I want the whole thing. Dog, garden, care of your cousin. That sort of stuff.'

  'You're out of your mind. I am not Francesca.'

  'I don't want Francesca. I want you. And I'm just about done with turning back.'

  A huge wave crashed into the pier at the end nearest the gate. Someone by the entrance, flanked by the profile of a dog, waved at them anxiously, shouting, voice lost in the boom. The wave broke into a plume of foam, washing the floor with a vicious shsshhhh, slinking away. Another followed. The surface before them flooded and bubbled rapidly. The waves hit again, irregular in their onslaught, murderously precise.

  The tide could go higher. Henry ditched the wet cigarette.

  'Well, kind Margaret, we either stay here all night, or run for it. What do you say?'

  She buttoned his jacket first, then her own coat, looking sideways down the length of the pier, judging the distance. She shuffled her heeled boots like a soldier on parade, testing the circulation in her feet andtook his hand.

  'Run,' she said. 'Now.'

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTERFOUR

  p;

  Frances Fyfield, Undercurrent