A Question of Guilt

by Janet Tanner

  Rachel waited for me to make it to the door, doing a three-point – or, more accurately, a six-point – turn while I fitted my key into the lock. Then, when I turned and gave her a wave, she drove off. I stood for a moment watching her tail lights disappear down the track, and breathing in the cool night air, still faintly scented with the unmistakable smell of home.

  In summer that smell could be overpowering at times – slurry and manure, the sweet aroma of silage, all mingling with the heady perfume of the honeysuckle that grew like a weed over the front door. The smells were fainter now in early spring, but still easily detectable as they rose from the damp earth and the clots of mud left by the tractor and the array of boots abandoned in the porch. Somewhere in the darkness an owl hooted, a low, eerie call that pierced the night and floated on silent wings above the fields beyond the barn. For some reason it made me feel sad, though perhaps sad is not quite the right word. Nostalgic, maybe, brushing against half-forgotten memories and making me ache for a time when life had been sweet and simple.

  ‘Is that you, Sally?’

  Mum’s voice from inside the house snapped me out of my reverie.

  ‘Yes, I’m home,’ I called back, stepping inside and closing the door.

  Mum was in the kitchen doorway, a mug of hot chocolate cupped between her hands. She was in her dressing gown, ready for bed, and again the nostalgia nudged me. She’d had that dressing gown as long as I could remember – no-nonsense dark grey wool with a sash that tied around her middle so that she resembled a sack of potatoes. One Christmas Dad had bought her a crimson velvet one – I’d gone with him to help him choose it – but she’d hardly ever worn it. The grey wool was warmer, and ‘comfy’ she said – a bit like Mum, I thought.

  ‘I didn’t expect you to still be up,’ I said.

  ‘I thought I’d wait until you got in.’ Mum headed back to the kitchen and I followed her. ‘Do you want a hot drink? Cocoa? Ovaltine?’

  I couldn’t face the thought of anything milky on top of pizza and wine.

  ‘Maybe a cup of tea. It’s OK – I can make it.’

  ‘No, you sit down. You don’t want to overdo things.’

  ‘I’m not.’ But Mum was already bustling to fill the kettle and I gave in with a sigh. Actually I did feel pretty tired now and my leg was aching quite badly.

  ‘Did you have a good time?’ Mum asked, popping a tea bag into a mug.

  ‘Yes. It’s a nice place, that trattoria. Rachel had a bit of a disaster, though. She managed to bash the wing mirror on the car, and she’s worried to death about telling Steve.’

  ‘Oh dear, poor Rachel. She’s not much of a driver, is she? Didn’t she lose her bumper not so long ago?’

  ‘In the supermarket car park, yes. She went up over the kerb and got it stuck. She is a bit accident prone. But at least she hasn’t killed anybody.’

  The kettle was boiling; Mum made my tea and put it on a leather coaster on the table in front of me.

  ‘Here you are.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  ‘Now – the reason I stayed up.’ Mum sat down opposite me. ‘Tim phoned.’

  My heart should have leapt with pleasure. Instead it sank.

  ‘Ah. And I wasn’t here. I don’t suppose he was very pleased about that.’

  ‘He did sound a bit short,’ Mum conceded. ‘But then he always does. Either that, or patronizing. I don’t think I’m quite good enough for him.’

  ‘Oh Mum! I never heard such rubbish!’

  ‘Hmm . . . I’m not so sure,’ Mum said archly. ‘He does like the high life and all that goes with it . . .’ She smiled at her unintentional pun. ‘Oh, you know what I mean, Sally.’

  I said nothing. I did know what she meant. Sometimes I thought it was the glamour of his job that Tim liked more than the actual flying – he often complained about the tedium of computerized flights, but he wouldn’t give up the perks of being a captain of a scheduled flight to go back to flying the mail or tutoring pupils at a flying school. The gold braid on his shoulders and the admiration of the passengers meant too much to him. And perhaps he had developed an exaggerated opinion of his own importance that made him look down on the simple life my parents led.

  ‘Anyway,’ Mum went on, ‘he said he’s coming to see you tomorrow. Asked me to tell you.’

  ‘Oh! Just like that! And why didn’t he call me on my mobile?’ For some reason, I was thoroughly affronted. How dare Tim assume he could neglect me for weeks on end and then expect me to be at his beck and call when he deigned to fit me into his busy schedule without even bothering to make another call to speak to me.

  ‘I’m only repeating what he said.’ Mum didn’t actually sniff, but her disapproval didn’t escape me, all the same. ‘He’ll be here about ten. Apparently he’s rostered for an evening flight to Tenerife.’

  ‘Honestly, he’s the limit!’ I snapped. ‘I suppose he thinks I’ve got nothing better to do, and he couldn’t be more wrong.’

  Mum raised an eyebrow at me and though she said nothing, the look she gave me spoke volumes.

  ‘I know, I know,’ I muttered.

  ‘I’m off to bed then.’ Mum rinsed her mug under the tap and loaded it into the dishwasher. ‘Your dad says he can never settle properly until I come up.’

  ‘Yes, right.’ I grinned. I’d heard Dad’s snoring often enough when Mum was still downstairs finishing up in the kitchen.

  ‘You shouldn’t be too long either. You don’t want to overdo things. And just be careful on the stairs.’

  ‘I will.’ But I’d become pretty adept at hauling myself up with one crutch and the banister to support me. ‘I’ll just finish my tea and then I’ll call it a day. I am pretty tired.’

  ‘Night, then, love.’

  ‘Night, Mum.’

  After she’d gone I remained sitting at the kitchen table, my mug cradled between my hands, thinking not about my project but about Tim. The way I’d reacted when Mum had told me he was coming to see me tomorrow was confirmation, if confirmation was needed, that my feelings for him were not what they should be. We couldn’t go on like this, it wasn’t fair to either of us, and the time was coming when I was going to have to tell him it was over. But still I shrank inside at the prospect. Finding the right words – and the courage to say them – would be bad enough; I hated the thought of hurting him, even though he had been less than supportive to me these last months. Worse, there would be the practical aspects – moving out of the flat we shared, finding somewhere else to live. At least we weren’t married, but our lives were still tangled together in so many ways, and I found myself regretting having agreed to live with him.

  Thinking of that brought on a wave of nostalgia. It was painful to remember how happy and excited I’d been, buying little things to make the flat a home – bright cushions, a way-too-expensive lamp that I’d fallen in love with, a new cover for the duvet on the bed we were going to share. I’d bought domestic bits and bobs, too – a rolling pin and pastry cutters (unused except for mince pies at Christmas), a roasting pan, even a blowtorch to toast crème brûlées when we had friends for dinner. Looking back now it felt as if I’d been playing at house, and perhaps I was. But we had been happy. Very happy. For a time. Falling asleep in the arms of the man I loved, waking up beside him, making plans together, making love whenever and wherever we wanted within our own four walls . . . it had been wonderful while it lasted, and recalling it now brought tears to my eyes.

  But it wasn’t working, and if I was honest with myself, it hadn’t been working for a very long time. If I could feel so resentful of Tim, if I preferred to be free to carry on my investigation instead of spending time with him, if I could no longer make excuses for him, and, more importantly, didn’t want to, then I really had to tell him it was over.

  How would he take it? Would he be relieved, or would he be upset? If he promised to change and pay me more attention, should I give it another chance? I honestly didn’t know.

  I wasn’t looking f
orward to tomorrow.

  Five

  Typically, Tim was dead on time. He would have allowed for rush-hour jams getting out of town, factored in unexpected delays such as temporary traffic lights that might have sprung up since he last came to see me, and then, if it didn’t happen, he’d slow down on the last stretch so as to pull into the farmyard exactly when he’d said he would. I suppose such precision would be reassuring if you were a passenger on his plane, but as a blueprint for normal everyday life it could be a tad irritating.

  By contrast, I was running late. Everything still took a little longer than it used to – getting in and out of the bath being a case in point. Mum and Dad didn’t have a walk-in shower, just a sort of hose attachment that sprouted from the tap, which was less than ideal for me in my current state. I’d been a bit late getting up, too – I hadn’t slept well, I’d had too much on my mind, but I’d fallen into a heavy doze around dawn. I was still in my room drying my hair when I heard the doorbell, and by the time I’d stuck on a bit of make-up and headed downstairs, Mum had made Tim a coffee. He was sitting at the kitchen table drinking it, and making what sounded like rather stilted conversation.

  Mum was right, I thought – he did speak to her in a patronizing way, as if he was talking to someone less bright, less informed, than he was. And it struck me, too, how incongruous he looked sitting there at the gnarled and marked old table in his perfectly ironed black denims, pristine open-necked shirt, leather jacket and shoes polished to a blindingly bright shine. He got up as I came in, and greeted me with a chaste kiss of the sort he deemed suitable with Mum hovering. He smelled of the expensive duty-free aftershave he always used; once that scent had made me go soft inside but now it left me cold.

  ‘Sorry I wasn’t ready,’ I said.

  ‘It wouldn’t be you if you had been, Sally,’ Tim said. Though he was smiling, pretending to tease, I sensed that the underlying criticism was real enough.

  ‘So, are you going to go out somewhere?’ Mum asked – hopefully, I thought. ‘It’s a nice day. It would be a shame to waste it.’

  She was right – it was a nice day, the sun shining, the sky a clean-washed blue that had the promise of spring. But I still couldn’t manage to walk very far, and even had I been able to, Tim’s highly polished shoes were not really suited for trekking along the muddy lane.

  ‘Suppose we drive up to Deer Leap?’ I suggested. Tim cracked a questioning eyebrow, and I explained. ‘It’s only about half an hour from here, and there are some fantastic views. It gets quite busy in the summer, but on a Friday at this time of year I wouldn’t imagine there would be too many other people about.’

  The sort of place where we can talk undisturbed . . .

  ‘And there are plenty of nice country pubs where we can get a drink and a spot of lunch if we feel like it.’

  If we feel like it being the operative phrase . . .

  ‘Good idea,’ Mum said, and I guessed she was relieved she wouldn’t have Tim turning up his nose at her scratch lunch of hearty soup or the remains of the weekend roast.

  While Tim was finishing his coffee, I got my coat. My heart had come into my mouth at the prospect of saying what I’d more or less decided needed to be said and my nerves were twanging. We set out in his Audi with Classic FM playing on the radio, and when Tim asked me what I’d been up to I told him a little about my investigations, but my voice didn’t sound entirely natural and it was difficult to summon any enthusiasm for the subject that had been consuming me with the conversation we needed to have hanging over me. I wondered if Tim would notice I wasn’t my usual self, but when I gave him a sideways glance I had the oddest impression that he wasn’t really listening to what I was saying.

  Deer Leap is a high spot on the Mendips, a broad parking area overlooking a beautiful valley, with paths angling off along the crest of the hill. There was no way we could walk them today, though – they were accessed by stiles in the drystone walls that bordered the parking area that I would have struggled to manage, and in any case, the fields beyond would still be soggy from the recent rain. Instead we remained in the car, parked to give us a panoramic view of the valley below.

  Right, I thought – this was it. No more putting it off. Time to take the bull by the horns.

  ‘Tim,’ I said, ‘we need to talk. About us.’

  There was a silence. I glanced at Tim. He wasn’t looking at me, but still staring out at the view. He was chewing his lip and there were lines of tension in his face, as if he sensed what I was going to say. Then he reached across, switched off the radio, and turned towards me.

  ‘I know we do. I’m really sorry, Sally. I’ve been neglecting you, haven’t I?’

  ‘I realize it’s been difficult. With your job and everything, and me not able to lead a normal life.’ I was trying to do this gently, to avoid recriminations and bad feeling if at all possible. ‘I do understand that, Tim . . .’

  ‘You do?’ His eyes snapped up to mine. There was an expression in them that puzzled me.

  ‘Yes, of course I do. But . . .’

  But it’s not just that, I was going to say. It’s all kinds of other things as well . . .

  I never got the chance.

  ‘I am truly sorry,’ Tim said again, and it occurred to me suddenly that he was apologizing rather too much for simply not coming to visit me as much as he might have done.

  ‘Tim, there’s no need . . .’

  ‘There’s every need. I should have confessed a long time ago. But with you in the state you were, I couldn’t bring myself to upset you. It didn’t seem right.’

  I frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  His eyes fell away again, his fingers played with the knob of the gearstick. By the time he looked at me again I had a pretty good idea what he was going to say.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sally, but there’s someone else.’

  Still it shocked me. Tim had someone else!

  ‘Oh!’ I said stupidly.

  ‘I met her through work and things have . . . developed.’

  For a moment I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Then something inside me exploded.

  ‘A trolley dolly, I suppose.’ I was astonished by how hurt I felt – hurt enough to refer to an air stewardess by such a derogatory term.

  ‘Actually, no. She’s my first officer,’ Tim said, almost apologetically.

  That took the wind out of my sails all over again, but of course, it made perfect sense. Women weren’t only flight attendants now, they were also pilots. And I could just picture the scene – Tim in the left-hand seat, some glamour girl with gold braid on the shoulders of her uniform in the right, cocooned together in a cramped cockpit for hours on end. And then the two of them wheeling their suitcases through customs together, being bussed to the same hotel for overnight stays, sharing a meal and a drink – no, not a drink; eight hours between bottle and throttle was the golden rule. But getting very cosy, nonetheless.

  ‘How long has this been going on?’ I asked tightly.

  Tim shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Yes, actually.’

  And it did! Had Tim been seeing her when we were still together? When I was in hospital and he was visiting me, pretending concern? Was she the reason he’d been so ready to suggest I should come home to Stoke Compton to convalesce when I was discharged? Had she moved in with Tim? Was she sleeping in the bed we had shared? It mattered a great deal. And explained a whole lot more.

  ‘I met her last summer,’ Tim said.

  ‘So she’s the reason you haven’t been able to find the time to come and see me. And there was I believing you when you said you just couldn’t fit me into your busy schedule. I suppose she’s the reason you wanted me out of the flat, too.’

  Tim said nothing, and I knew I’d hit the nail on the head.

  ‘What a fool I’ve been!’ I said bitterly. ‘Making excuses for you to everyone. Even to myself. I knew things weren’t good between us, but I never imagined you were cheating on
me . . . well, not to this extent . . . How could you do it, Tim? How could you just string me along? And don’t say it’s because you felt sorry for me, please. Because that would just be adding insult to injury.’

  From the way Tim’s mouth opened and closed I knew he’d been on the point of saying exactly that.

  ‘You bastard,’ I said softly. My hands were tightly clenched on my knees because what I really wanted to do was hit him.

  ‘We didn’t get seriously involved until a couple of months ago,’ he said lamely.

  ‘And that makes it all right?’

  ‘Well, no, but . . . I’ve said I’m sorry, Sally, and I am.’

  I shook my head, laughed without humour.

  ‘You know what is so funny about this? I was actually going to tell you that I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be with you any more, and I was worried about doing it. Worried about hurting you. Well, more fool me.’

  ‘You’ve met someone else?’ Tim looked, and sounded, as shocked as I had felt a few minutes ago.

  ‘Hardly,’ I said dryly. ‘But if I had I’d never have done this to you. I’d never have crept about behind your back, lied to you, cheated on you . . .’

  The look of relief on his face was so palpable I had to once again restrain the urge to hit him. The conceit of him! He couldn’t bear the thought that I might have actually decided that I preferred to be with someone other than him – his ego simply couldn’t stand it. What on earth had I ever seen in him?

  ‘So,’ I said, getting my temper under control. ‘I suppose the reason you’re coming clean now is that you want to set up home with this . . . woman.’