Absent in the Spring

by Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott, Agatha

  And then, just before the marriage, that sudden outburst, that insistence that Barbara was too young?

  Oh well, Barbara had soon settled that objection, and six months after she had married her Bill and departed for Baghdad, Averil in her turn had announced her engagement to a stockbroker, a man called Edward Harrison-Wilmott.

  He was a quiet, pleasant man of about thirty-four and extremely well off.

  So really, Joan thought, everything seemed to be turning out splendidly. Rodney was rather quiet about Averil’s engagement, but when she pressed him he said, ‘Yes, yes, it’s the best thing. He’s a nice fellow.’

  After Averil’s marriage, Joan and Rodney were alone in the house.

  Tony, after training at an agricultural college and then failing to pass his exams, and altogether causing them a good deal of anxiety, had finally gone out to South Africa where a client of Rodney’s had a big orange farm in Rhodesia.

  Tony wrote them enthusiastic letters, though not very lengthy ones. Then he had written and announced his engagement to a girl from Durban. Joan was rather upset at the idea of her son marrying a girl they had never even seen. She had no money, either – and really, as she said to Rodney, what did they know about her? Nothing at all.

  Rodney said that it was Tony’s funeral, and that they must hope for the best. She looked a nice girl, he thought, from the photographs Tony had sent, and she seemed willing to begin with Tony in a small way up in Rhodesia.

  ‘And I suppose they’ll spend their entire lives out there and hardly ever come home. Tony ought to have been forced to go into the firm – I said so at the time!’

  Rodney had smiled and said that he wasn’t very good at forcing people to do things.

  ‘No, but really, Rodney, you ought to have insisted. He would soon have settled down. People do.’

  Yes, Rodney said, that was true. But it was, he thought, too great a risk.

  Risk? Joan said she didn’t understand. What did he mean by risk?

  Rodney said he meant the risk that the boy mightn’t be happy.

  Joan said she sometimes lost patience with all this talk of happiness. Nobody seemed to think of anything else. Happiness wasn’t the only thing in life. There were other things much more important.

  Such as, Rodney had asked?

  Well, Joan said – after a moment’s hesitation – duty, for instance.

  Rodney said that surely it could never be a duty to become a solicitor.

  Slightly annoyed, Joan replied that he knew perfectly what she meant. It was Tony’s duty to please his father and not disappoint him.

  ‘Tony hasn’t disappointed me.’

  But surely, Joan exclaimed, Rodney didn’t like his only son being far away half across the world, living where they could never see the boy.

  ‘No,’ said Rodney with a sigh. ‘I must admit that I miss Tony very much. He was such a sunny, cheerful creature to have about the house. Yes, I miss him …’

  ‘That’s what I say. You should have been firm!’

  ‘After all, Joan, it’s Tony’s life. Not ours. Ours is over and done with, for better or worse – the active part of it, I mean.’

  ‘Yes – well – I suppose that’s so in a way.’

  She thought a minute and then she said, ‘Well, it’s been a very nice life. And still is, of course.’

  ‘I’m glad of that.’

  He was smiling at her. Rodney had a nice smile, a teasing smile. Sometimes he looked as though he was smiling at something that you yourself didn’t see.

  ‘The truth is,’ said Joan, ‘that you and I are really very well suited to each other.’

  ‘Yes, we haven’t had many quarrels.’

  ‘And then we’ve been lucky with our children. It would have been terrible if they’d turned out badly or been unhappy or something like that.’

  ‘Funny Joan,’ Rodney had said.

  ‘Well but, Rodney, it really would have been very upsetting.’

  ‘I don’t think anything would upset you for long, Joan.’

  ‘Well,’ she considered the point. ‘Of course I have got a very equable temperament. I think it’s one’s duty, you know, not to give way to things.’

  ‘An admirable and convenient sentiment!’

  ‘It’s nice, isn’t it,’ said Joan smiling, ‘to feel one’s made a success of things?’

  ‘Yes.’ Rodney had sighed. ‘Yes, it must be very nice.’

  Joan laughed and putting her hand on his arm, gave it a little shake.

  ‘Don’t be modest, Rodney. No solicitor has got a bigger practice round here than you have. It’s far bigger than in Uncle Henry’s time.’

  ‘Yes, the firm is doing well.’

  ‘And there’s more capital coming in with the new partner. Do you mind having a new partner?’

  Rodney shook his head.

  ‘Oh no, we need young blood. Both Alderman and I are getting on.’

  Yes, she thought, it was true. There was a lot of grey in Rodney’s dark hair.

  Joan roused herself, and glanced at her watch.

  The morning was passing quite quickly, and there had been no recurrence of those distressing chaotic thoughts which seemed to force themselves into her mind so inopportunely.

  Well, that showed, didn’t it, that ‘discipline’ was the watchword needed. To arrange one’s thoughts in an orderly manner, recalling only those memories that were pleasant and satisfactory. That is what she had done this morning – and see how quickly the morning had passed. In about an hour and a half it would be lunch time. Perhaps she had better go out for a short stroll, keeping quite near the rest house. That would just make a little change before coming in to eat another of those hot, heavy meals.

  She went into the bedroom, put on her double felt hat and went out.

  The Arab boy was kneeling on the ground, his face turned towards Mecca, and was bending forward and straightening himself, uttering words in a high nasal chant.

  The Indian, coming up unseen, said instructively just behind Joan’s shoulder, ‘Him make midday prayer.’

  Joan nodded. The information, she felt, was unnecessary. She could see perfectly well what the boy was doing.

  ‘Him say Allah very compassionate, Allah very merciful.’

  ‘I know,’ said Joan and moved away, strolling gently towards the barbed wire conglomeration that marked the railway station.

  She remembered having seen six or seven Arabs trying to move a dilapidated Ford that had stuck in the sand, all pulling and tugging in opposite directions, and how her son-in-law, William, had explained to her that in addition to these well meant but abortive efforts, they were saying hopefully, ‘Allah is very merciful.’

  Allah, she thought, had need to be, since it was certain that nothing but a miracle would extract the car if they all continued to tug in opposite directions.

  The curious thing was that they all seemed quite happy about it and enjoying themselves. Inshallah, they would say, if God wills, and would thereupon bend no intelligent endeavour on the satisfaction of their desires. It was not a way of living that commended itself to Joan. One should take thought and make plans for the morrow. Though perhaps if one lived in the middle of nowhere like Tell Abu Hamid it might not be so necessary.

  If one were here for long, reflected Joan, one would forget even what day of the week it was …

  And she thought, Let me see, today is Thursday … yes, Thursday, I got here on Monday night.

  She had arrived now at the tangle of barbed wire and she saw, a little way beyond it, a man in some kind of uniform with a rifle. He was leaning up against a large case and she supposed he was guarding the station or the frontier.

  He seemed to be asleep and Joan thought she had better not go any farther in case he might wake up and shoot her. It was the sort of thing, she felt, that would not be at all impossible at Tell Abu Hamid.

  She retraced her steps, making a slight detour so as to encircle the rest house. In that way she would eke out t
he time and run no risk of that strange feeling of agoraphobia (if it had been agoraphobia).

  Certainly, she thought with approval, the morning had gone very successfully. She had gone over in her mind the things for which she had to be thankful. Averil’s marriage to dear Edward, such a solid, dependable sort of man – and so well off, too; Averil’s house in London was quite delightful – so handy for Harrods. And Barbara’s marriage. And Tony’s – though that really wasn’t quite so satisfactory – in fact they knew nothing about it – and Tony himself was not as entirely satisfactory as a son should be. Tony should have remained in Crayminster and gone into Alderman, Scudamore and Witney’s. He should have married a nice English girl, fond of outdoor life, and followed in his father’s footsteps.

  Poor Rodney, with his dark hair streaked with grey, and no son to succeed him at the office.

  The truth was that Rodney had been much too weak with Tony. He should have put his foot down. Firmness, that was the thing. Why, thought Joan, where would Rodney be, I should like to know, if I hadn’t put my foot down? She felt a warm little glow of self approval. Crippled with debts, probably, and trying to raise a mortgage like Farmer Hoddesdon. She wondered if Rodney really quite appreciated what she had done for him …

  Joan stared ahead of her at the swimming line of the horizon. A queer watery effect. Of course, she thought, mirage!

  Yes, that was it, mirage … just like pools of water in the sand. Not at all what one thought of as mirage – she had always imagined trees and cities – something much more concrete.

  But even this unspectacular watery effect was queer – it made one feel – what was reality?

  Mirage, she thought, mirage. The word seemed important.

  What had she been thinking of? Oh, of course, Tony, and how exceedingly selfish and thoughtless he had been.

  It had always been extremely difficult to get at Tony. He was so vague, so apparently acquiescent, and yet in his quiet, amiable, smiling way, he did exactly as he liked. Tony had never been quite so devoted to her as she felt a son ought to be to his mother. In fact he really seemed to care for his father most.

  She remembered how Tony, as a small boy of seven, in the middle of the night, had entered the dressing-room where Rodney was sleeping, and had announced quietly and unromantically:

  ‘I think, Father, I must have eaten a toadstool instead of a mushroom, because I have a very bad pain and I think I am going to die. So I have come here to die with you.’

  Actually, it had been nothing to do with toadstools or mushrooms. It had been acute appendicitis and the boy had been operated on within twenty-four hours. But it still seemed to Joan queer that the child should have gone to Rodney and not to her. Far more natural for Tony to have come to his mother.

  Yes, Tony had been trying in many ways. Lazy at school. Slack over games. And though he was a very good-looking boy and the kind of boy she was proud to take about with her, he never seemed to want to be taken about, and had an irritating habit of melting into the landscape just when she was looking for him.

  ‘Protective colouring,’ Averil had called it, Joan remembered. ‘Tony is much cleverer at protective colouring than we are,’ she had said.

  Joan had not quite understood her meaning, but she had felt vaguely a little hurt by it …

  Joan looked at her watch. No need to get too hot walking. Back to the rest house now. It had been an excellent morning – no incidents of any kind – no unpleasant thoughts, no sensations of agoraphobia –

  Really, some inner voice in her exclaimed, you are talking just like a hospital nurse. What do you think you are, Joan Scudamore? an invalid? a mental case? And why do you feel so proud of yourself and yet so tired? Is there anything extraordinary in having passed a pleasant, normal morning?

  She went quickly into the rest house, and was delighted to see that there were tinned pears for lunch as a change.

  After lunch she went and lay down on her bed.

  If she could sleep until tea time …

  But she did not feel even inclined to sleep. Her brain felt bright and wakeful. She lay there with closed eyes, but her body felt alert and tense, as though it were waiting for something … as though it were watchful, ready to defend itself against some lurking danger. All her muscles were taut.

  I must relax, Joan thought, I must relax.

  But she couldn’t relax. Her body was stiff and braced. Her heart was beating a little faster than was normal. Her mind was alert and suspicious.

  The whole thing reminded her of something. She searched and at last the right comparison came to her – a dentist’s waiting-room.

  The feeling of something definitely unpleasant just ahead of you, the determination to reassure yourself, to put off thinking of it, and the knowledge that each minute was bringing the ordeal nearer …

  But what ordeal – what was she expecting?

  What was going to happen?

  The lizards, she thought, have all gone back into their holes … that’s because there’s a storm coming … the quiet – before a storm … waiting … waiting …

  Good Heavens, she was getting quite incoherent again.

  Miss Gilbey … discipline … a Spiritual Retreat …

  A Retreat! She must meditate. There was something about repeating Om … Theosophy? Or Buddhism …

  No, no, stick to her own religion. Meditate on God. On the love of God. God … Our Father, which art in Heaven …

  Her own father – his squarely trimmed naval brown beard, his deep piercing blue eyes, his liking for everything to be trim and shipshape in the house. A kindly martinet, that was her father, a typical retired Admiral. And her mother, tall, thin, vague, untidy, with a careless sweetness that made people, even when she most exasperated them, find all kinds of excuses for her.

  Her mother going out to parties with odd gloves and a crooked skirt and a hat pinned askew to a bun of iron grey hair, and happily and serenely unconscious of anything amiss about her appearance. And the anger of the Admiral – always directed on his daughters, never on his wife.

  ‘Why can’t you girls look after your mother? What do you mean by letting her go out like that! I will not have such slackness!’ he would roar. And the three girls would say submissively:

  ‘No, Father.’ And afterwards, to each other, ‘It’s all very well, but really Mother is impossible!’

  Joan had been very fond of her mother, of course, but her fondness had not blinded her to the fact that her mother was really a very tiresome woman – her complete lack of method and consistency hardly atoned for by her gay irresponsibility and warm-hearted impulsiveness.

  It had come as quite a shock to Joan, clearing up her mother’s papers after her mother’s death, to come across a letter from her father, written on the twentieth anniversary of their marriage.

  I grieve deeply that I cannot be with you today, dear heart. I would like to tell you in this letter all that your love has meant to me all these years and how you are more dear to me today than you have ever been before. Your love has been the crowning blessing of my life and I thank God for it and for you …

  Somehow she had never realized that her father felt quite like that about her mother …

  Joan thought, Rodney and I will have been married twenty-five years this December. Our silver wedding. How nice, she thought, if he were to write such a letter to me …

  She concocted a letter in her mind.

  Dearest Joan – I feel I must write down all I owe to you – and what you have meant to me – You have no idea, I am sure, how your love has been the crowning blessing …

  Somehow, Joan thought, breaking off this imaginative exercise, it didn’t seem very real. Impossible to imagine Rodney writing such a letter … much as he loved her … much as he loved her …

  Why repeat that so defiantly? Why feel such a queer, cold little shiver? What had she been thinking about before that?

  Of course! Joan came to herself with a shock. She was supposed to be engag
ed in spiritual meditation. Instead of that she had been thinking of mundane matters – of her father and mother, dead these many years.

  Dead, leaving her alone.

  Alone in the desert. Alone in this very unpleasant prison-like room.

  With nothing to think about but herself.

  She sprang up. No use lying here when one couldn’t go to sleep.

  She hated these high rooms with their small gauze-covered windows. They hemmed you in. They made you feel small, insect-like. She wanted a big, airy drawing-room, with nice cheerful cretonnes and a crackling fire in the grate and people – lots of people – people you could go and see and people who would come and see you …

  Oh, the train must come soon – it had got to come soon. Or a car – or something …

  ‘I can’t stay here,’ said Joan aloud. ‘I can’t stay here!’

  (Talking to yourself, she thought, that’s a very bad sign.)

  She had some tea and then she went out. She didn’t feel she could sit still and think.

  She would go out and walk, and she wouldn’t think.

  Thinking, that was what upset you. Look at these people who lived in this place – the Indian, the Arab boy, the cook. She felt quite sure they never thought.

  Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits …

  Who had said that? What an admirable way of life!

  She wouldn’t think, she would just walk. Not too far away from the rest house just in case – well, just in case …

  Describe a large circle. Round and round. Like an animal. Humiliating. Yes, humiliating but there it was. She had got to be very, very careful of herself. Otherwise –

  Otherwise what? She didn’t know. She hadn’t any idea.

  She mustn’t think of Rodney, she mustn’t think of Averil, she mustn’t think of Tony, she mustn’t think of Barbara. She mustn’t think of Blanche Haggard. She mustn’t think of scarlet rhododendron buds. (Particularly she mustn’t think of scarlet rhododendron buds!) She mustn’t think of poetry …

  She mustn’t think of Joan Scudamore. But that’s myself! No, it isn’t. Yes, it is …