‘Oh . . . ?’
‘Yes. They’d come to see it back in January, they said.’
‘And the price was too high for them, was it?’
‘No, apparently not. They told me that the price had been very high but even though they’d been prepared to pay it they’d still been turned down. I felt quite sorry for them. They’d obviously had their hearts set on it, poor old things. Well, it is a lovely place. Mind you, it ought to be for that kind of money.’
Slightly puzzled, Hal said: ‘You make it sound as if the price was astronomical. It didn’t cost very much. Not by today’s standards.’
‘It depends on what you mean by not very much . . .’
When he told her what he had paid for the house she whistled and said, ‘You’re joking! Are you serious?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you, that wasn’t the price quoted to the old couple I talked to. They’d been asked a price way above that. It was at least twenty thousand more. And they’d been prepared to pay it, too.’
Hal was silent for a moment, then he said: ‘Yes, that is strange, isn’t it?’ Then he smiled and shrugged. ‘Ah, well, unlucky for them and lucky for us.’
‘Your house,’ she said after a while, ‘it belonged to that character Lewis Childs, didn’t it?’
‘Oh, you know about him?’
‘He’s famous. Or infamous. He’s often being mentioned in the more salacious gossip columns.’
‘I didn’t realize he was that well known.’
‘You obviously read the wrong papers—or the right ones—whichever way you look at it.’
‘Apparently he’s in a hospital somewhere on the Continent right now—so Paul Cassen was saying.’
‘Yes. Miss Carroll mentioned something about it to me. He’s not expected to live, so she said. So he won’t be coming back here for his retirement.’ When Hal turned to her in surprise she added: ‘Haven’t they told you that? None of the Moorstone people leaves the village forever. Those who go always return eventually.’
Hal laughed. ‘Yes, we’ve been told the same thing. It’s funny—the villagers do seem to have a rather—inordinate degree of loyalty to the place—and pride in it.’
‘I’ll say they do.’
Going by way of the now silent High Street and School Lane they had walked to the other side of the village. Since starting out they’d seen no sign of anyone else. Now, turning left onto Moorstone Road, Hal saw just a few yards along a large, white-painted Victorian house. ‘Well, this is it,’ Alison said as they walked towards it. ‘The Laurels. My temporary home.’
They came to a stop at the front gate. The upper windows were all dark, but there was a light burning in the hall. ‘For my benefit,’ Alison whispered. ‘They’ll have gone to bed ages ago.’
‘They?’ He kept his own voice very low.
‘Yes, there’s the housekeeper as well. Miss Allardice.’ She paused and then, smiling warmly, added, ‘Thanks for walking with me, Hal. I hope I haven’t made you late.’
‘Oh, no.’ He patted the saddle of his bicycle. ‘I shall get back in no time at all.’
‘Is it new?’ she said, ‘the bike? It looks it.’
‘Yes. We each got one just after we moved in.’
‘You’re really entering into the spirit of country living.’
He shrugged. ‘Making the effort, anyway. Rowan’s the one, though. Now she’s talking about helping out with jumble sales and joining the village dramatic society. . . .’
‘Rather her than me.’
‘She believes it’s a good way of getting to know the villagers. I’m sure she’s right.’
‘Oh, I’m sure she is. There certainly isn’t much to do here, is there? And one can get tired of looking at pretty views. Of course you could just visit the neighbours, I suppose.’
‘Is that what you do?’
‘Oh, no. There’s nobody here I’d want to call on—until now, that is.’ She smiled. ‘I had a really super evening, Hal.’
‘Good. So did we. And I hope you’ll feel like calling on us—often.’
‘Thank you. I shall.’ Her smile became a wide grin. ‘How about that . . . already I feel less . . . isolated.’
Hal frowned. ‘Have you felt isolated? That’s not so good.’
‘It’s not, is it? I never considered that when I came here. It never entered my mind. I suppose it’s just that I feel rather—tied to the place; for one thing, not having a car here—and I’m not allowed to use Miss Carroll’s.’
‘But you must have made friends here . . .’
She hesitated before answering. ‘I did at the beginning—but I don’t know what happened. Still, that’s in the past. Now, having met you two, if I can just hold out till Geoff gets back maybe I won’t be going to Primrose House after all.’
‘Primrose House? What’s that?’
Dropping her whispered voice even lower she said, ‘Primrose House is the village nuthouse. Didn’t you know that?’
‘You mean—a mental home . . . ?’
‘If you want to be polite, yes, a mental home.’
‘Here? In Moorstone?’
‘They refer to it as The Old Folks’ Home. But I think that’s somewhat euphemistic.’
‘There’s a mental home in a place this size?’
She nodded. ‘You obviously don’t know your village as well as you thought.’
‘So it seems.’
She put out her hand then, clasped his, and then quickly stretched up and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘Thank you again,’ she said. ‘Both of you.’ Then she was opening the gate, closing it carefully behind her and tiptoeing up the path to the front door.
Hal waited until she had unlocked the door and gone inside. Then, mounting his bicycle, he rode away.
As he pedalled back through the silent village he thought back to several of the things that she had said. She’d given him quite a lot to think about. And nothing that she had said had given him any contentment.
To his surprise he found that Rowan was waiting for him by the gate.
‘I thought you’d be in bed by now,’ he said as he wheeled his bicycle into the drive.
She closed the gate behind him and stayed there, leaning on it. ‘I wanted to wait for you,’ she said.
He propped his bicycle against the gatepost and went to stand beside her. He felt unsettled from his conversation with Alison.
‘It was a really good evening,’ Rowan said.
‘Yes, it was.’
‘And what a beautiful night now . . .’
As she spoke she looked up at the sky and he felt the brush of her shoulder against his upper arm. He followed her glance upwards to where the Milky Way sprawled in its great curving arc. ‘The night has a thousand eyes,’ he said, echoing the words she had spoken on the night of their very first meeting. On that night, after leaving the restaurant, they had stood at the gate of her little cottage, and she had looked up at the stars. ‘The night has a thousand eyes . . .’ she’d said, and he’d asked her, ‘What does that line come from? I’ve often heard it over the years.’
‘From a poem—by Bourdillon,’ she’d answered. ‘I learnt it years ago—after discovering it in some book. I was at a very impressionable age then. I remember I used to recite it—for my own pleasure only, you understand. It was lovely to wallow in such—romanticism.’ Then, when he’d asked her to, she’d recited the poem for him.
The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.
Earlier that past day he’d hoped for nothing more than to spend the night in her bed. And although he’d still wanted that, very much, there had come the sudden, almost unconscious, realization that there was more to be gained. So
much more. So: so much for his half-formed hopes; he’d ended the evening by kissing her on the cheek and shaking her hand. . . .
Funny, he thought now, how easily one’s aim could be deflected. And by such a simple thing. It was her reciting of the poem that had done it—that, coming after their time together in the restaurant. The whole course of his life had been changed.
Now, looking back to that night he thought, briefly, of the things that had happened in between: their years in London together, the success of Spectre. Adam . . . And now here they were once more in the country; just the two of them again; and, as before, standing by a gate and looking up at the sky. They’d come full circle.
The memory of Adam brought back to him the thought of how much he would love to have another child. Another son. And how much Rowan wanted it too. But would they ever get what they wanted? They’d never once throughout their five years of marriage used any form of birth control. And yet Rowan had conceived only the once. Yet, the doctors had said, there was no reason why she shouldn’t again. . . . At the school where he’d taught he’d watched the children of some parents appear year after year, like clones, one after another, with sickening regularity; as one had left for a higher grade so he’d be replaced by a younger one coming up. There was no fairness.
Maybe here, though, in Moorstone, things would be different. If the doctors were right then this place could be the answer. Rowan, with the tension of city life behind her, was growing happier and more relaxed each day. So who could tell?—perhaps in time . . .
‘Come on,’ he said. Taking hold of his bicycle he put his other arm around her shoulder and briefly hugged her to him. ‘Come on, it’s time to go in.’
Inside the house they turned off the lights, went upstairs and got undressed. Rowan was first in and out of the bathroom and when Hal emerged from it a few minutes afterwards he found her sitting in her dressing-gown on top of the bed-clothes, supported by the pillows that she had propped against the headboard. As he sat on the edge of the bed she smiled at him, then reached out and switched off the lamp.
‘Now I can’t see a damn thing,’ he said.
‘You will—in a minute or two. The moon’s so bright.’
He felt her fingers touch the back of his hand, and rest there. Then, gradually, in the pale light that flooded in from the night sky she took shape before him. Squeezing his hand, she said: ‘It was a lovely evening, wasn’t it?’
‘Very nice.’
‘And I think Alison enjoyed it too.’
‘I’m sure she did.’
‘Did you like her?’
‘Very much.’
‘Not too much, though, I hope.’ She smiled as she said this. He grinned back at her.
‘What d’you want me to say?’
‘Oh—everything—nothing . . .’
He moved closer to her, bent forward and kissed her softly on the mouth. She kissed him back and then moved lower in the bed so that she lay flat, he leaning above her, gazing down. In the dimness she looked about nineteen.
He wore nothing beneath his bathrobe and he lowered his body to hers and pressed his rampant hardness against her.
‘I love you, Ro. So much.’
He pulled off his bathrobe, undid the loose cord about her waist and found that she too, under her dressing-gown, was naked. He spread its folds on either side of her, like wings, on the bed. Resting on his knees he straddled her waist. He felt her hand brush his thigh, then touch his rigid flesh and grasp it. Arching his back he pressed forward into the circle of her hand, his own fingers reaching down behind him, finding her moist and ready. For long, ecstatic moments he revelled in the sensations that came from her fingers and the moving of his own, and then, when another second would surely have brought about his climax, he changed his position, knelt beside her and covered her face with kisses.
With all the time in the world he moved his mouth from her forehead to her toes; lips lingering, tongue probing and exploring, while beneath him she moaned her joy, wild hands clutching at his hair, his shoulders. ‘Hal . . . Hal . . . Hal . . .’ He would have entered her then, but she breathed, ‘Not yet, not yet,’ and urged him onto his back beside her. And then the initiative was taken by her, and as her hands, her mouth began their tour he spread wide, wide his legs and arms and gave himself up completely to the almost unbearable pleasure of her touch.
At last she lay beside him again. And then beneath him.
Moving gently—as if he would restrain his passion—he guided his sex slowly into her until he was deep inside. Then, all restraint vanishing, taken by the overpowering sensation, he began to move faster within her—long, rhythmic thrusts—and so deep—as if he would sheath his whole body within her own. On and on, together, their bodies moved—his pounding against her; hers rising up to meet the violence of his thrusts as if she would never get enough of him.
At the very peak, as she gasped and cried beneath him in the climax of her ecstasy he heard the groans torn from his own mouth as, shuddering, he filled her with his seed.
Afterwards they lay beside one another, her head against his sweat-drenched shoulder, their breathing slowing, growing more regular. After a time he eased himself free, raised himself on one elbow and peered down at her. Gently he brushed aside a lock of damp hair that lay plastered to her forehead. She opened her eyes then and gazed up at him. ‘My Hal,’ she said.
‘You bet your life.’
His feeling for her now was all tenderness, added to which was his realization that he had never before known her to be so uninhibited in their love-making. Tonight she had wanted him as much as he had wanted her—and she had demonstrated that wanting, so clearly, taking from his body a pleasure that, in her desire, was both new and totally overwhelming.
How had such a difference come about, he asked himself—knowing the answer all the time. The answer was clear. It was obvious. It was this place; it was Moorstone that had given her her peace and set her free.
For a moment there came to him a memory of the disquieting thoughts and questions that his conversation with Alison had planted in his mind. With a mental, sweeping gesture he pushed it all away from him. So Moorstone wasn’t perfect. So what? What place was? The important thing was that it was the place for them—Rowan and him. He looked again into her smiling eyes. Yes—Moorstone might not be ideal—but it would do.
10
When Rowan rang the bell at The Laurels the door was opened by a tall, elegant woman with dark, greying hair. Giving a bright, wide smile she said: ‘You must be Mrs Graham. I’ll tell Alison you’re here.’ As she turned to usher Rowan into the hall Alison appeared on the stairs. ‘Hello,’ she called, ‘I’m all ready to go.’
With the front door closed behind them the two set off down the path. Rowan’s bicycle was standing outside at the edge of the road. ‘Shall I bring it in?’ she asked.
‘Yes, you’d better. Though I’m quite sure it would be safe there . . .’
Rowan wheeled the machine through and propped it against the grey-stone, ivy-covered wall. ‘Did you get all your work done?’ she said.
‘Yes. I did it all this morning and Miss Carroll says she won’t need me again till later this afternoon.’ Alison turned and glanced up at the upper windows of the house. ‘She’s resting at the moment. She’s been working very hard this past week—trying to get her book finished. And she’s probably been overdoing it a bit. Still, she’s in good hands; Miss Allardice is what you’d term an Efficient Body.’
‘Is that who answered the door to me? Miss Allardice?’
‘Yes, she’s the housekeeper.’ Alison paused, then said: ‘Well, you still want to go for a walk?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ve come dressed for it, and it’s such a beautiful day.’
‘Fine.’ Alison checked that she had her cigarettes with her. ‘Where would you like to go?’
Rowan peered away over to the north-west. ‘I’d like to go up to the Stone,’ she said. ‘I see it all the time from our windows a
nd from the village street. I’d like to see it closer too.’
‘Okay. We can take the old bridle path, and then go through the wood.’
Together they walked along the road for some hundred yards or so, then turned left and began to make their way along a rough path that led beside a hedgerow. The day was warm. Both women wore blue jeans and sturdy shoes; their steps sounded firm on the surface of the old pathway. In the hedgerow the hawthorn was in full bloom, its fragrant scent touching them as they passed by. Moving beneath a group of tall poplars Rowan saw several peacock butterflies rise high up into the air from the brambles and dance about in a mad up-and-down chase.
Intermittently the girls talked of this and that. Rowan spoke of her work on her children’s stories; of its pleasures and its difficulties. Underlying all her words, though, was the satisfaction she felt at the knowledge that she was doing something truly constructive again. ‘There was a time,’ she said, ‘when I thought that was all past—my own attempts at writing . . .’ She had never told Alison anything about Adam. ‘But now my interest in it is all back again. And I’m sure it’s all due to this place. And once I’m feeling a hundred per cent again I know I shall really be able to make some progress.’
‘Why, what’s wrong?’ Alison asked. ‘Aren’t you well?’
Rowan shrugged. ‘I don’t know what it is. I just haven’t been feeling terribly bright these past few days. I have this kind of—lassitude, and not much appetite. And I keep getting this rather—queasy feeling. It’s probably nothing worth bothering about. It’s just a little debilitating, that’s all. Makes work a bit of an effort. I had thought it might be because my period’s a bit late. It was due the day before yesterday.’
‘Does it sometimes affect you in that way?’
‘No. Well, it never has done in the past. But there, I’m never ever late. It comes bang on time every month, lasts a bare three days and is gone. You could set your watch by me.—But anyway, I know it’s nothing to do with that.’
The Moorstone Sickness Page 8
