‘Hardly on a par with the kitchen at Four Winds, is it?’ Lewis said ruefully, watching her wipe down the ancient wooden draining board.
‘Hardly, but I feel more at home here.’
‘Do you, Laura?’ For a moment he wanted above everything to take her in his arms and kiss her, but already she had moved away and the chance was gone. Slowly he followed her outside again. The sun was off the garden now but its heat still lingered. Laura was standing on the path surveying the weeds and brambles which ran riot.
‘You know, you can hire machinery to cut away all this,’ she remarked.
‘It’s not worth it. No one ever sees it and anyway it would only come back again. I’m afraid I haven’t the perseverance to be a gardener.’
‘Is that a gate in the far wall? I hadn’t noticed it before.’
‘Yes, it leads into the wood. Lord knows why. Perhaps the old dears who used to live here went foraging for firewood.’
‘Have you ever used it?’
‘No, I’m not given to walking in woods. Not alone, anyway!’
‘Can we go now and see where it leads? I could do with a bit of exercise.’
‘If you like. The trickiest part will be getting out of the garden!’
Carefully they manoeuvered the treacherous wild rose thorns and clinging strands of the creepers which matted the undergrowth, and with only a few scrapes and scratches they managed to reach the gate. It was tied together with a fraying piece of rope, hanging drunkenly on broken hinges. Beyond it, the cool dim reaches of Gillet’s Wood stretched silently away.
Lewis held the gate up while Laura went through. There was a dusty, barky smell and dried twigs snapped under their feet, startling birds which were pecking in the undergrowth so that they flew upwards with a clattering of wings.
‘I wonder how long it is since anyone came along here?’ Laura said softly.
‘Lord knows, but I doubt if there’s any need to whisper!’
‘It’s almost like being in church.’ She peered upwards into the green cloistered arches of the branches which met overhead. ‘Do you think we should leave a trail of pebbles to guide us back, like Hansel and Gretel?’
He smiled and took her hand and they walked on some way until they came to a small clearing. Probably his surmise about the firewood had been correct, because an ancient pile of crumbling logs was piled in the centre, overgrown now by moss and wild bluebells. Laura gave a little shiver.
‘It’s rather eerie, isn’t it? I wonder if when they, whoever they were, left this place for the last time, they realized it was the last time, or if they were confidently expecting to come back for the rest of the logs the next day.’
‘That’s quite a thought.’
‘Perhaps it’s as well that so many “last times” come and go without our recognizing them for what they are.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Or would the very fact of knowing somehow enable you to take avoiding action and thereby cancel the necessity for its being the last time after all? Paul and I had a conversation along those lines once.’
‘Precognition?’
‘Yes. For instance, when Mother and I set out on that fatal journey, suppose some inner voice had said, “This is the last journey she’ll ever make.” Obviously we’d never have set out, and perhaps—’ She turned her head away from him and he gripped her hand comfortingly.
‘Don’t grieve any more, Laura. She couldn’t have known anything.’
After a moment, still with her head averted, she answered shakily, ‘How do we know? She must have known, just for a split second, that she was going to die.’
‘Stop it!’ His voice rang out and she turned and looked at him, her face luminous in the diffused green light.
‘I think perhaps I’d better tell you what I dreamt last night after all.’
Something in her tone jerked his heart into sudden rapid beating. Every instinct warned him to stop her, to insist that he didn’t want to hear about it after all, but she was already speaking again in that slow, far-away voice and all he could do was stand helplessly and listen.
‘I seemed to be in a car,’ she was saying, ‘and I thought at first it was going to be one of those terrible dreams where I relived the accident. It happened every night in the hospital. Then I realized that this time was different. For one thing, the car had a lefthand drive.’
If she felt the violent tremor which shook him, she gave no sign other than to tighten her grip on his hand.
‘I was in the driving seat, but the steering wheel seemed to be miles away from me and was receding all the time and my hands were wobbly and uncontrollable, like cotton-wool.’
He said in a strangled voice, ‘Laura—please—’
‘There was a newspaper stand on the sidewalk. The headlines on the papers were something about Kennedy—“Kennedy flies to Frisco” or something like that. I tried to say something to you, but I couldn’t seem to turn my head.’
‘To—me?’ He brought the words out with difficulty.
Her eyes refocussed momentarily. ‘That’s strange. I didn’t see who was sitting beside me, but I knew it was you. The car seemed to be going faster and faster and I’d no control over it at all. Suddenly we came to a corner, and my useless hands couldn’t turn the wheel. There was a terrific, jarring crash—I think the nearside door flew open—and almost immediately an explosion which seemed to be in my own head.’ After a second’s pause she added flatly, ‘I knew that it had killed me.’
She stopped speaking and the only sound in the suddenly silent wood was his harsh, grating breath. He said through shaking lips, ‘God in heaven! Oh, God, God!’
She stirred a little against him, and when she spoke again it was in a voice that bore no resemblance to her own. ‘You put something in the drinks, didn’t you, Lew?’
He stared at her, his face livid, and then with a low moan pulled her into his arms. ‘Darling, I never meant you to go alone—you did understand that, didn’t you? I’ve never forgiven myself for coming out of it alive. Noel, forgive me!’ His mouth fastened on hers and exultantly he felt her automatic response as her arms came round his neck. Then, as he continued to hold and kiss her, they faltered, withdrew, and at last pushed frantically against his chest. She tore herself free and, with ice-cold sweat pouring down his face, he opened his eyes to stare with a kind of numb horror into Laura’s frightened face. Laura? Laura!
‘Lewis—stop it—I’m not—’
Somehow the tumult inside him abated slightly, but even when he could finally speak, he had no control over the actual words. He heard himself say, ‘What in God’s name do you want of me?’
But it was Laura who answered tremulously, ‘Lewis, make her stop now. Please.’
He shook his head and pulled her gently back into his arms. She stood limp as a rag doll with her pale head against his chest, scarcely seeming to breathe while in contrast his own breath was still as laboured as a pair of ancient bellows.
‘Laura—’ The name was a token of his reasserted sanity, and he said it again to savour the comfort of it. ‘Laura, you must see that I can’t stand much more of this.’
She didn’t move, but he felt her intense concentration, as if every fibre of her being awaited his next words. When he didn’t go on, she said expressionlessly, ‘I can’t stand it either, but I’m not sure she’ll let either of us go now. Don’t you want her back after all?’
‘How can I answer that? It’s a kind of madness. The last five years have been spent forcing myself to realize that I’d lost her. At times I was able to accept it. There were other women, periods of time when I was able to forget for a while.’
‘In other words it happened as she’d said. The peak of agony did pass with time, but you hadn’t given her the chance to prove it. Perhaps that was why she willed you to come back to Brocklehurst.’
‘God!’ he interrupted harshly. ‘I didn’t want the chance myself! Surely you—she—can’t doubt that I’d a thousand times rathe
r have gone with her! If it hadn’t been for that door flying open so that I was flung clear—’
Laura said wearily, ‘Take me home, Lewis.’
Slowly, with his arm supporting her, they made their way in silence back through the wood and the little rickety gate into the waiting wilderness of the cottage garden. The air was thickening now and it was difficult for their eyes to make out the recorder and notebooks underneath the deck-chair where Laura had dropped them hours before. He stooped to retrieve them and she accepted them with a nod. She seemed drained, depleted.
When a few minutes later he stopped the car in the driveway of Four Winds, the sound of voices reached them from the terrace and Edward called, ‘That you, Lewis? Have you time for a drink? My younger brother and his wife are here.’
Laura said quietly, ‘You go, but if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go straight in. I’m exhausted.’
‘Of course.’ He had not yet had time to assess his own reactions to the scene in the wood nor its possible consequences and he was still bewildered and confused. A little normal companionship before he had to be alone again would be very welcome.
They went together round the corner of the house to the group on the terrace and Laura made her excuses and went inside. The room behind was in darkness and Caroline emerged from it, a glass in her hand.
‘If we put the lights on, we’re inundated with moths,’ she explained.
‘What can I get you to drink?’
Lewis moved after her into the dimness. ‘Whisky, please.’ A waft of her perfume reached him on the warm air and his senses stirred with the memories it brought. Beautiful, normal Caroline. The intermittent regrets he had had about ending their affair returned without warning in a flood which overwhelmed him, coming as it did as a direct and violent reaction against the intricacies and madness of Laura.
His voice shook as he said softly, ‘How are you, Caroline?’
‘Extremely well, thank you.’ Hers was breathless.
‘Are your visitors staying long?’ The question was meaningless, simply a way of prolonging their moment alone. He didn’t even register her reply. She held out his glass and he took it, feeling her tremble as his fingers brushed against hers. ‘Caroline—’
She said in a staccato voice, ‘Did no one ever tell you, Lewis, that you can’t have your cake and eat it?’
Edward’s voice called, ‘Can you manage, darling, or shall I come?’
‘It’s all right, I’ve done it now.’
She brushed past him, her body momentarily framed against the window as she stepped outside. He followed her, the blood thundering in his ears. Her rebuff did not worry him, it was only to be expected. She was still very much aware of him, and the knowledge filled him with excitement.
Out on the terrace he was introduced to Toby and Janet, but it was too dark to make out their features. He sat in the chair Edward had pulled up and lit a cigarette, deliberately filling his mind with evocative thoughts of Caroline to blot out the pulsating implications of Laura’s dream.
‘I believe you’ve nobly submitted to baring your soul to my sister?’ Toby Hardy remarked idly.
A tremor shook him. His soul—who had charge of it? He heard in a daze Caroline’s low laugh. ‘I trust it hasn’t gone that far!’
‘But one has to confess all to a biographer, surely?’ put in Janet in her clear, rather clipped voice.
‘Not that I’m aware of,’ Lewis returned as steadily as he could. Especially not if she knew everything already.
‘Anyway,’ observed Edward, ‘the whole point of Laura’s deciding on Lewis was to exploit this incomprehensible longing she had to write about violence.’
‘Yes, did you ever get to the bottom of that? She’s always been such a gentle little thing, it struck me as being entirely out of character.’
A wail interrupted them from the open window overhead.
‘Oh blast, Lucy’s alarm has gone for the ten o’clock feed!’ Janet stood up and stretched. ‘What joy it will be when she goes through from six to six!’ She nodded vaguely in Lewis’s direction. ‘Nice to have met you, Mr. Castleton, but I’m afraid I must ask you to excuse me. Duty calls.’
‘Want any help?’ Toby offered without enthusiasm.
‘It would shake you if I said yes!’ his wife retorted over her shoulder.
Lewis let their voices wash over him and felt some of the tenseness begin to dissolve. It was all so normal, so everyday, that anything as blatantly abnormal as the thoughts that had jostled in his head earlier simply could not be countenanced. He must take hold of himself. He might not survive a second nervous collapse. He realized that Edward was speaking to him.
‘How long do you think all this will take? We can hardly get a word out of Laura these days! It will be pleasant to be able to hold a normal conversation with her again!’
Normal—that word again. Lewis stirred uneasily. What would happen when the book was finished? Would Noel be reluctant, as Laura had hinted, ever to let them go?
He forced himself to answer Edward. ‘I’m not really sure. It seems to be going well, I think.’ But at the mention of Laura, all his latent fears had risen again and it was impossible any longer for him to sit there calmly talking. He drained his glass. ‘I hope I’ll be invited to the literary lunch to launch it!’ he said with a forced laugh, getting to his feet. ‘No, don’t get up, but I must be going. Thanks for the drink. Good night.’
His words embraced them all, but his eyes rested for a moment on Caroline’s shadowed face. If only she had nothing to do with Four Winds, he might be able to anticipate a possible renewal of their relationship without all the attendant misgivings the house always conjured up. Perhaps after all it had been a mistake to return to Brocklehurst. But perhaps, again, the decision to return had not been his in the first place.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lewis did not sleep well that night. During the long dark hours his mind, refusing to be diverted, scuttled backwards and forwards over the sudden dangers this new development had opened up to himself as well as to Laura. Where would it end? After all this time, these five years of penal servitude he had forced himself to survive, for it all suddenly to blow up again—
He leant over the washbasin, peering into the shaving mirror as he scraped the cream off his face, and suddenly his hand jerked, nicking the skin and raising a tiny red bead in the whiteness. Behind him, reflected in the mirror, stood Laura.
‘Is it really you or just another of your apparitions?’ he asked brutally, bending down to sluice his face under the tap. He reached for his towel and rubbed it vigorously round his face and neck.
‘I’m sorry if I frightened you,’ she said quietly.
‘What the hell are you doing here at this time in the morning?’
‘It’s ten o’clock.’
‘The devil it is! I must have fallen asleep after all.’
‘Shall I fix some coffee?’
‘It might help.’
She moved from the doorway back into the kitchen and he could hear her turning on the tap, the plop of the gas jet and her low, inevitable humming of Noel’s tune. The sane, everydayness of the cheap mirror, the soapy stick of shaving cream, wavered and blurred into the shifting miasma of uncertainty and fear. He gripped the edge of the washbasin, head down, wrestling with the doubts and terrors that assailed him. She couldn’t know, and yet she did. The crucial point was, did she realize how much she knew?
‘Coffee’s ready.’ Was it Noel’s voice, or Laura’s? He could no longer distinguish between them. Slowly, lumberingly, he made his way through to the sun-filled kitchen. She held out his shirt and he put it on and absently began to button it. She sat down at the table, both hands clasped round the hot mug as though, in the warm airlessness of this June morning, she was cold.
He said with an effort, ‘You still haven’t told me why you’ve come.’
‘She asked me to.’
‘Why?’
‘So that you can tell me the whole
story.’
‘She’s already told you herself.’ This conversation—they must both be insane, he thought dazedly.
‘Only parts of it. I need to have it all clear.’
‘Oh, you do?’ He leant forward belligerently in his chair.
‘Relax, honey.’
His face contorted as his hand snaked out, fastening over her wrist. ‘Noel?’ His eyes searched her face with fanatical despair. ‘What do you want me to do?’
Under the laser beam of his concentration Laura’s features shifted and blurred into a likeness of the face in the photograph in his desk.
‘I want you to stay with me, Lew. Always.’
Laura stirred and sighed, gently extracting her hand from his. His face was haggard as he stared at her. ‘Who are you now?’ he asked raggedly.
‘You’ve got to stop her, Lewis, because I can’t. I only wanted to help her, but she won’t be content with that any longer. She’s getting stronger all the time. I haven’t any control now to stop her when she wants to take over.’
‘She was always strong,’ he said slowly. ‘Once she made her mind up on something she would go through with it, whatever the cost.’
‘And whoever got hurt in the process?’
‘Yes.’ He stared down at the table between them.
‘And she decided not to leave her husband?’
‘But he’d already left her—for four bloody years!’
‘That’s not quite the same thing.’
‘Nevertheless, she was weakening. If we’d had another few months, perhaps even weeks, I think I could have talked her round, but time was running out on all sides. As soon as I’d attended the California primary, I was supposed to be flying to Paris. The Vietnam peace talks had started the month before and I wanted to be able to report first hand. It was one of the main issues in the election, of course. I was doing my damnedest to persuade her to come with me. I couldn’t face the thought of leaving her with nothing definitely decided, and then, at that crucial moment, old Balfour had to get himself wounded.’
Laura Possessed Page 14
