Distant Voices

Preface

When my first collection of short stories, Encounters, was published in 1990 I did not expect to be asked to compile a second, so I was enormously pleased to find myself writing some new stories, and making a further selection amongst my old ones, for Distant Voices.

I still very much enjoy writing short stories. For me they are the sorbet between the courses of longer novels. They freshen and stimulate the palate. They indulge the writer’s and the reader’s whim with a quick glimpse into shadow or sunlight. They intrigue, they titillate, they frighten or they amuse.

As in Encounters those stories that are not new have been chosen from more than two decades of writing and are very varied in theme. To select a few for comment or explanation might help to put the collection in context. Three of the stories, for example, A Test of Love, To Adam a Son and Flowers for the Teacher are unsophisticated and sentimental, written in the early seventies for the so-called true-life market, while others like Witchcraft for Today and When the Chestnut Blossoms Fall depict incidents in an older world where romance has grown a little cynical.

There are of course ghost stories – two inspired by my own garden. The core story in Frost came from a sad tale told me about a greenhouse here, thankfully perhaps, now demolished; Rosemary and Thyme is based on an experience which I had myself whilst weeding in my herb garden one morning in early spring.

Catherine’s Cat has laid to rest (or perhaps not?) a terror which haunted me for a while as a child and made bedtime a torment for many months – the suitcase on the wardrobe. The Duck Shoot Man was based on an incident which happened to my mother and my grandmother and myself when we paused on a journey to Edinburgh and spent the night on Lindisfarne.

Dance Little Lady (purely imagination, this one!) was written in the brash eighties; The Toy Soldier (inspired by a toy we found in our cottage) in the more thoughtful nineties, a time of redundancy and re-evaluation.

There are many more, about different times and different places, depicting different moods and both the strange and the mundane.

Three of the stories are much longer than the others. Dance Little Lady, A Family Affair and Watch the Wall are almost novellas – two mini thrillers and one a historical romance – something to get your teeth into.

Whatever the length and whatever the subject, I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Distant Voices

The lock was stiff and the door swollen. It was several seconds before Jan could force it open and peer at last from the bright sunlight of the porch into the darkness of the house.

As she had climbed out of the car, which was parked on the overgrown gravel of the drive, and looked up at the grey stone façade, she had felt a strange nervousness.

‘Go and have a look round, my dear. Take as long as you like.’ David Seymour had pressed the large iron key into her hand the day before, when she had met him for the first time. ‘I want you to get a feel of how it was.’ He smiled at her, his gentle face dissolving into a network of deep wrinkles, contradicting his initial wariness. ‘Then we’ll talk. Later.’

His grandson, Simon, had been with him. ‘Simon’s an architect. Clever chap.’ The old man had introduced him fondly. The young man was tall and fair with his grandfather’s piercing eyes. Where the older man had the look of a buzzard, hunched, predatory, the younger version was an eagle, right down to the aquiline nose. He had held out his hand to Jan, but his appraisal of her was anything but friendly. Clever he may be, she decided instantly, but also hostile, defensive, and summoned, she suspected, to guard his grandfather’s privacy.

Of all the people there on that fatal night fifty years ago, David Seymour had been the hardest to approach. And without him she would get nowhere. He had been, after all, the husband.

She had looked forward so much to this part of her research. Interviewing the people concerned; comparing their memories; putting the pieces of the jigsaw together. But it was harder than she had imagined. Some of the people there had suppressed what had happened for over fifty years. The memories were painful, even after so long. To have an inquisitive journalist raking over the past was the last thing many of them wanted.

She took a step into the darkness of the house and paused. It smelled damp and musty. The floors were dusty and cobwebs hung festooned across the landing window. She peered along the corridor towards the staircase which swept uncarpeted up towards the light and then round and out of sight.

That must have been where she fell.

Behind her the door creaked. A wind was getting up. She could hear the rustling of the leaves on the oaks which grew on either side of the long driveway and she shivered, half wishing now that she had brought someone with her. ‘This is silly.’ The sound of her voice in the intense silence was an intrusion, but a necessary one. She reached into her soft leather shoulder bag and brought out her micro cassette recorder.

‘Monday the fourth,’ she said firmly, holding the machine close to her mouth. ‘I have just arrived at The Laurels. I am standing in the front hall. The house is empty and has obviously been closed for a long time. No one lives here now and there is, as far as I can see, no furniture or anything here.’

She moved to a door on her left and put her hand out to push it open. The room inside was empty; pale light filtered through round the edges of the shutters, diffused green by the ivy which clung to the outside wall. The parquet floor was scuffed and criss-crossed with old, long-dried muddy footprints.

‘This must have been the drawing room. It’s large. Beautiful. Ceiling mouldings; candelabra, lovely carved mantelpiece,’ she murmured into the machine in her hand. She sounded, she thought with sudden wry amusement, like a house agent preparing particulars for the sale of an especially desirable property.

The silence was intense. She turned off her little machine and walked slowly around the room, trying to feel the atmosphere. Had they all been in here, talking, drinking, smoking, when it had happened? Dinner was over, they were all agreed on that. And the ladies had withdrawn. But what had happened after that? John Milton said they had all gathered in the drawing room and that someone had agreed to sing. Sarah Courtney said the men were sitting over their port whilst the ladies were still upstairs, powdering their noses. Stella had finished and had gone on down alone …

Walking back to the foot of the stairs, Jan peered up. ‘The staircase is shallow, graceful, curved elegantly around the wall,’ she murmured into her machine. The banister, polished and smooth, was almost warm beneath the light touch of her fingers. ‘Stella Seymour’s body was found crumpled at the bottom by the other guests who ran from the dining room, and presumably from the bedroom, when they heard her scream. At the time her death was widely thought to be suicide. It was only four years later, after the war had ended, at the instigation of the man who claimed to have been her lover, that the first accusation of murder was heard.’

Slowly Jan began to climb. Half-way up she stopped suddenly. She could hear something. The intense silence of the house had gone and instead, she realised, she could hear a gentle murmur of conversation coming from somewhere quite near her. She was almost at the bend in the staircase. Frozen with embarrassment she looked up and then back. David Seymour had promised her the house was empty. She could feel her heart beating fast. This was ridiculous. She had permission to be here.

Squatters? Was that it? Could there be squatters in the house? Uncertain what to do, she clutched her tape recorder more tightly as she tiptoed on up the stairs and peered along the upper landing. Several doors stood open up there; all the rooms were empty of furniture.

The sound of voices was louder now. She could hear the occasional chink of glass, of cutlery on china. It sounded as if a dinner party were in progress. Flattening herself against the wall she squinted back down the stairs where she could just see the door opposite the drawing room. It was closed. Why hadn’t she looked in there? Had she not noticed it in her anxiety to see the staircase? Whatever the reason, she thanked God she had not gone barging in, for that seemed to be where the noise was coming from. Get out. That was what she must do. Get out now, without anyone seeing her.

Taking a deep breath she crept back down the stairs, intensely aware that this was where Stella Seymour had died.

The sounds were quieter again now that she was nearly down. Gradually the hall fell silent. The front door was still ajar as she had left it. She could see the wedge of sunlight thrown across the dusty floor. How strange that the noises had been louder from upstairs.

She stopped. She could smell cigars. Then, quite near her, she heard a man laugh. Spinning round, she faced the sound. There was no one to be seen. Her mouth dry, she switched off her tape recorder. Pushing it into her shoulder bag, she tiptoed towards the dining room door, holding her breath as she edged closer. She could see now that it was not quite shut. Cautiously she moved forward. She could hear the voices again. And subdued laughter. Smell the tobacco. There was a sudden crescendo in the noise and a shout of laughter as she brought her eye to the crack in the door.

They were sitting around an oblong table – some dozen people – no, she saw suddenly, just men, all at one end of the table. The air was wreathed in smoke. They were all wearing dinner jackets.

A sudden sound behind her brought her upright swiftly, her heart pounding. She could hear footsteps on the landing.

‘David, darling –’ The voice was clear and high. Excited. There was a rustle of skirts, the quick patter of feet and then suddenly – horribly – a high-pitched scream.

Jan froze, her hand still clenched on the door-frame behind her back. She could hear it. The sound of a body falling, but there was nothing there. Nothing at all. The dust was untouched on the steps save for the scuff marks where her own shoes had been.

Whirling, she stared behind her at the door. Beyond it there was total silence. Her heart was hammering so loudly in her ears she felt sure it must echo all round the house as she pulled the door-handle and swung the door open. The dining room was empty. There was no table. No scent of tobacco. The room smelled merely of damp.

Only when she was sitting at last in her car peering back at the house did she start to breathe again. She flung her bag onto the passenger seat beside her and slammed down the door lock, then she sat for a moment, her forehead resting against the rim of the steering wheel. She was shaking all over.

David Seymour had poured her a cup of coffee himself, from hands which were considerably less shaky than hers, despite his ninety-four years. ‘You’ve just come from The Laurels now?’ He stood looking down at her, his expression curiously neutral. ‘My dear Miss Haydon, I am so sorry you should have been so frightened. There is no one there, I can assure you. My grandson keeps an eye on the place for me. He went over there only a couple of days ago.’

‘I shouldn’t have come straight to you like this.’ The black coffee was taking effect. This was an old man and his memories of the house must be bad enough without her adding to them with wild stories about ghosts!

He shook his head, sitting down opposite her. ‘I’m glad you did. Who else would you go to?’ He reached for the phone from the table beside him. ‘I’m calling my grandson now. He can go over there straightaway to check that there are no intruders.’ His voice was strong and alert, like the rest of him, Jan thought, as she leaned back against the cushions and sipped her coffee gratefully.

She realised he was watching her intently as he replaced the receiver. ‘Simon is coming over here first.’ He reached for his own cup. He paused. ‘You are irrevocably set upon writing my wife’s biography?’

Jan frowned. ‘There are a great many people who would love to read it. She was a very great painter. She’s been a heroine of mine for as long as I can remember.’

‘And that is a reason for raking over her bones?’

The sharpness of the words brought Jan up with a shock.

‘I’m sorry. I understood you had no objection to the book.’

‘Would it matter if I had?’ His gaze was suddenly piercing.

‘Well …’ She hesitated.

‘No. Of course it wouldn’t. In fact my opposition would whet your appetite. It would make you curious. You would want to know what the old buzzard was hiding!’ He glared at her.

She smiled shame-facedly. ‘I expect it would, if I’m honest.’

He nodded, seemingly satisfied with her answer. ‘Good. You’ll do. Now, do you believe that I murdered her?’ The directness of the question was shocking.

‘I – no – of course not.’ She was embarrassed.

‘There is no of course not about it, my dear. You must search the evidence. You must be a thorough and honest investigator.’

‘But they never charged you.’

‘No.’

‘You loved her.’

The old face softened. ‘Indeed I did. I worshipped her.’

‘And she didn’t have an affair –’

‘Didn’t she?’ He seemed suddenly to be looking inside himself, searching for pictures which had long ago grown fuzzy and out of focus. ‘She was a vibrant, sociable, lovely person and she was lonely. I had been away so long. It was the war.’

Jan bit her lip. ‘Then the article in the American paper was true?’ It had appeared only a few months ago, reviving old memories, claiming that the baby Stella had been expecting was the result of an affair.

‘I did not say that.’ She could see his pain. ‘I didn’t know if I could father more children; I had been wounded. But the American had long gone and Stella was above all honest. She said he had meant nothing and I believed her. I did not know he had taken so many of her pictures away …’

‘Surely the pictures didn’t mean anything.’ Obscurely she felt she had to comfort him. ‘He could have been going to sell them or exhibit them for her –’

‘Perhaps.’ He sighed. ‘The fall was an accident. A catastrophic, disastrous, tragic accident. She would not have killed herself. I’m sure she wouldn’t. And yet how can I be sure? And how will I ever know about the child?’ He took a deep breath and looked up at her again, suddenly almost pleading. ‘You will make your own mind up as to the truth of all this, and I think you will make the right decision.’

Was he asking her to decide? To find out the truth for him? Jan bit her lip as the old man sighed again, a bone-weary sound which tore at her heartstrings.

‘In a way I’m glad all this has happened,’ he went on after a moment. ‘Simon has been trying to make me face the rumours and think about that house for years. It’s an albatross; a Pandora’s box. If there are people squatting there, which I doubt, then it’s time to let it go. I hope Simon will get married, then he could live there, but it’s too big for one person alone.’ There was another short silence. ‘Stella wouldn’t have liked squatters. She loved that house, you know. All her best painting was done there.’ He levered himself to his feet. ‘Did you see her studio?’

Jan shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I left rather quickly.’

The old man grinned. ‘Ran away, did you? Can’t blame you. I’ve always thought the house was rather spooky, myself, but Stella always filled it with people. There was never any silence. Only when she was painting, or when she said she was painting …’ He turned away sharply. For a moment Jan wondered if he were sobbing silently. She could see the movement of his shoulders and she ached to comfort him. But as she watched he straightened himself and with a visible effort he turned and went over to the window.

Jan too had heard the car draw up outside. She waited, watching, as David Seymour turned to face the door.

Simon’s first words were to the point. ‘If you have been upsetting Grandfather –’

‘No, Simon!’ The old man’s interruption was peremptory. ‘She has been doing nothing of the kind. I gave the girl permission to go to The Laurels. And I want her to write Stella’s story. It’s all so long ago now. No one is going to be hurt …’

Simon swung round. ‘But Grandfather –’

‘Enough.’ David threw himself back on the chair with a groan. ‘I want you to tell her everything she wants to know. And go with her to check out the house.’ He gave a short laugh which after a moment changed into a cough. ‘She thinks someone is squatting there. She heard people in the dining room.’

They went in Simon’s car. Jan had followed him out of the house reluctantly, sensing his hostility. ‘I’m sorry to inflict this on you,’ she said as she slotted her seatbelt into place. ‘I’m sure you have better things to do than chase out to the country at a moment’s notice.’

‘If there are squatters something must be done about it,’ he replied. Engaging gear smoothly he swung the car out into the traffic. ‘How long were you in the house?’

‘Only a few minutes.’

‘But you saw no one?’

She hesitated. How could she tell him what she saw? ‘No.’

‘And the door was locked?’

She nodded. ‘It didn’t seem to have been opened for ages.’

‘I have the back door key. I imagine that if there are intruders, they too have gone in that way. Only Grandfather still has the front door key, as far as I know.’

‘Do you remember your grandmother?’ Jan glanced at him curiously.

He gave a short laugh. ‘Hardly. She died long before I was born.’

‘I’m sorry. Of course.’

‘You’ve seen her self portrait? The one in the town gallery?’

Jan nodded. ‘She was very beautiful.’

‘Yes.’ He turned onto the bypass and accelerated away from the traffic. ‘I suppose the idea is to bring your book out in time for the exhibition they’re planning for next year to mark the fiftieth anniversary of her death.’

‘It will be wonderful to have so many of her paintings together.’

‘Even the ones in the States. Quite.’ His voice was dry. ‘We’re almost there.’

He pulled the car around the back of the house and they climbed out, looking round. The house seemed as deserted as before. There was no sign of life at all as Simon pulled out his key and opened the back door.

‘No one in here, anyway.’ He walked ahead of her into the kitchen.

Jan looked round. Oak dresser, table, chairs, deep sink, rusty range. It was obvious that no one had cooked here since that day in the war when David Seymour had walked out of the house after his wife’s funeral, locked the door and gone back to his squadron.

She could feel her stomach clenching with nerves. ‘Perhaps they are camping in some other part of the house.’

‘Perhaps.’ Simon reached into his pocket and produced a torch. He did not switch it on however. Enough sunlight filtered through blind and shutter for them to see clearly as they walked slowly through the ground floor. Outside the dining room door he stopped. ‘You heard them in here?’ He had his hand on the knob.

She nodded. She knew what they would find. Only dust and cobwebs decorated the room which had glittered with such life. ‘I suppose you think I’m going mad?’

He grinned. It made him look suddenly and unexpectedly approachable. ‘No more than dozens of other people who have seen and heard it too.’

She stared at him. ‘You mean you know about it – what I saw? You knew! Your grandfather knew?’

He nodded. ‘Ghosts. Memories trapped in the walls. Who knows. None of the people in the village will come near this house. Which suits us fine.’ He pulled the door closed. ‘Come and see Stella’s studio.’

He gave her no chance to say anything as he strode back to the kitchen and out of the house. She followed him, almost running, over the long grass of what had once been the lawn and through an overgrown shrubbery to a low, thatch-roofed building which overlooked a reedy pond. He reached for the key which was hidden beneath a moss-covered stone. ‘I can’t think why this place hasn’t been vandalised. But it seems Stella’s secrets are still her secrets,’ he said shortly. He stood back and let Jan go in ahead of him. ‘Did my grandfather not tell you about this place?’

Jan shook her head. She stared round.

The studio stood on the edge of the water, its large windows allowing the sky and the willows and the glittering ripples to explode into the room, filling it with light. All Stella’s painting equipment was still here: easels, canvases, paints, sketchbooks curled with damp, the pages stuck together, an ancient sofa, draped in a green silk shawl, the fringe trailing on the ground, black with mildew, vases of flowers, long dried and faded beyond recognition, on the table a straw sun hat amongst the scattered brushes and pencils and dried-up tubes of paint.

Jan bit her lip, fighting the lump in her throat. ‘It’s as though she only left a few minutes ago.’

‘He would never let it be touched.’

She picked up a palette knife from the table. The lump of paint dried on its tip matched exactly the colour in the foreground of the painting on the easel.

‘What do you think really happened that night?’ She was staring out at the water. A pair of mallard swam into view, the pond rippling into diamond rings around their gently paddling feet.

‘No one knows for sure.’

‘The article in the American magazine said that she was pushed. That it was murder.’ She turned and looked at him. He was very handsome, Stella’s grandson, with her colouring, if the portrait in the gallery was anything to go by, even if he had inherited his grandfather’s nose. ‘It said that she was pregnant by another man. An American.’

Simon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Grandfather should have sued them. But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want anything to do with the article. He thought everyone would forget, and her memory would be left in peace.’

‘Instead of which I come along.’

‘Instead of which you come along.’

‘He told you –’

‘To tell you everything. I know.’ He had strolled over to the windows and was looking out, his shadow falling across the floor to the green shawl. He sighed. ‘I expect you know about the letters. To the GI. And that he had sent so many of her drawings and paintings back to the States. That rather supports the gossip in a way.’ He turned and faced her. ‘What do you think you heard in there? In the house?’

‘People? A tape? A radio? Echoes? Ghosts?’ She could feel her skin beginning to shiver even though it was warm in the studio. The air was heavy suddenly with the scent of oil paint and linseed and turpentine.

‘Did you hear a woman laughing?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘And she sounded happy?’

‘I heard her calling him. Your grandfather. She sounded ecstatic. And then I heard her fall.’ She paused. She had heard the voice, but where had David Seymour been? Downstairs in the dining room with the others, or had he appeared suddenly on the landing next to her? She bit her lip. No. Surely it had been a happy voice. ‘I think it was an accident. I think she wanted me to know that. You’ve heard her too?’

He nodded. ‘I think at that last dinner party they were enjoying themselves. They were all deliriously happy. Stella and Grandfather and John and Sarah and the Daniels and Peter Cockcroft. It was wartime. There was rationing. So many of the fit young people were gone, so many of their friends had died, but Grandfather had been invalided out after being terribly wounded. He was safe. He had recovered. They were all there and they were happy. After my father was born Stella had hoped and hoped for another child but none came. Then suddenly Grandfather was back and she was pregnant again. They were, celebrating. It was the happiest moment of her life.’ Simon turned away from the window and looked at Jan. ‘I’m guessing. No, it’s more than that. I’m almost certain that’s what happened. Grandfather trusts you. He likes you and I think that when he heard that you had seen something – heard something – in the house, he knew that she trusted you too. Only nice people hear her laugh –’ He stopped abruptly as Jan’s eyes flooded with tears. ‘Oh Miss Haydon – Jan – I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’ He delved into the pocket of his jacket and produced a handkerchief. It was slightly painty.

Jan wiped her eyes. ‘You are an artist too?’ She was feeling rather silly.

‘A bit. If I’ve inherited half her talent I count myself a very lucky man.’ Gently he steered her to the sofa. ‘Sit down a minute. Get your breath back.’

‘How could he bear to think of selling the house?’

‘He can’t. Not really. He’d have done it years ago if he were going to. After the inquest he went back to the war even though he wasn’t really fit – I don’t suppose they asked too many questions – they needed all the men they could get. As far as I know he never came back here, but I think he must still love the house in a way. And the house must have happy memories as well as sad ones. They shared so much here. Besides, don’t you feel it? She’s still here –’ He gestured at the easel. It was another self portrait, this time in Edwardian dress, unfinished, a few details completed: the face, which was vibrant, happy, glowing with life; the sparkling jewels around her throat and wrists; her hands, the ostrich feather fan …

As they sat down Simon had left his arm around Jan’s shoulders. She was shivering. The sun had moved a little, and the studio was no longer lit across the water. It filled with weaving, drifting, green light.

‘If only she could speak to us,’ he went on. ‘Give us a sign. Something to tell Grandfather that the baby was his. It’s such a sad story, but at least then that last awful doubt would be gone and he would know once and for all that it was an accident; that she didn’t, couldn’t, have had any reason at all to kill herself.’

Jan smiled. ‘What sort of sign?’ This was scarcely objective research, but she was beginning to enjoy the feeling of his arm, so lightly draped over the back of the sofa.

‘I don’t know. Move something. Say something. I’ll leave it to her. Anything.’ He grinned. ‘Listen, Grandfather asked me to take you back to tea. He wants to lend you her letters and diaries.’

‘Then he really does trust me.’

Simon nodded slowly. ‘I told you. He wants the whole story of her life to be known at last. He said he was too old for them to hang him.’

‘But that’s admitting –’

‘No. It’s not admitting anything, except that he loved Stella more than life itself.’ Simon stood up. He held out his hand. ‘Let’s go back to the house.’

For a moment she didn’t move, then, reluctantly, she stood up. For a second she stood looking down at the face on the easel, then she followed him outside.

At the back door of the house she stopped. ‘Can I go in once more? To see the dining room?’

‘Of course.’ He stood back so that she could go ahead of him through the kitchen and out into the corridor. The dining room door stood open, a wedge of light pouring from it across the floor.

They could both hear the music. Glen Miller. And the talk and laughter. The chink of knives and forks on crockery; they could both smell the cigar smoke, and through it all the faintest trace of oil paint.

Jan found she was holding Simon’s hand. She was trembling, but she could not resist going nearer. Slowly, step by step, they crept towards the dining room as gradually the noise of the dinner party got louder. She could smell other things now. Cooking. Carefully hoarded coffee. Wine. A woman’s scent. One hand firmly clutching Simon’s, she reached forward with the other and gently she pushed the door open a fraction.

The room was empty.

In the echoing silence she gave a little sob of disappointment.

It was Simon who spotted the soft curl of an ostrich feather drifting on the bare boards.

The Drop Out

Of course he wouldn’t really come. The idea was too bizarre. But then, a husband is a husband, even if this one had hardly fulfilled his matrimonial duties to the letter.

Zara leaned forward and gazed into the mirror. If he did come he was going to see quite a change in her after all this time. She vaguely recollected that her hair had been not only a different style but a different colour then. Her figure had improved out of recognition and maturity had brought sophistication and confidence.

‘I wonder if he’s got a paunch?’ she asked her reflection out loud. And giggled. Gerald with a paunch was unthinkable.

She looked at the letter again. It began, ‘Darling,’ – That too was unlike him. Gerald had never been one for endearments. He must be in trouble, she decided as she slipped on her elegant silk suit.

Money? She had always understood that he had plenty. He had been ‘something in the city’ when they married. She had never bothered to find out what. Certainly he had from time to time continued to pay handsome amounts into her account. For old times’ sake and when he remembered, she always thought, rather than for any mundane idea that he should support his wife. Not that she had needed supporting for years, of course, thank God. But, come to think of it, there had been no money now for nearly a year.

She stood sideways to the mirror and ran a critical hand down her flat stomach. No. She was the kind of woman who did well in business and thrived on it. Gerald’s conscience money or whatever it was had brought her some nice little extras, like the small Mercedes in the driveway. It had in no way gone towards her upkeep.

Well. If not money, what? Women. She knew some wives were called on to extricate their husbands from the clutches of too-persistent girlfriends, but Gerald had never had that problem. She had heard in fact that he merely turned the latest woman onto the last with a cold-blooded delight which often shocked both parties into flight. She paused for a moment. Perhaps he wanted a divorce? No. It was unthinkable. He, like her, found the state of absentee matrimony far too useful and pleasant an arrangement to end it.

The police? She looked at the mirror for a moment, her eyes wide, and then shrugged the idea away. It was too ridiculous to contemplate.

Zara gave up the idle speculation with a glance at her watch, ran downstairs, collected the car keys from the mantelpiece and went to the door. She was not usually given to conjecture and certainly not to day dreaming, and she had made herself uncharacte‌ristically late for the board meeting.

He was sitting on the doorstep.

In rags.

For fully two minutes Zara looked down at her husband without speaking. Then, bleakly, she stood back and motioned him into the house, wrinkling her nose ostentatiously as he passed in front of her.

He walked straight to the drinks table and poured himself a Scotch. Then he turned and looked her up and down. He was slim still, no sign of a paunch, lean and hard, brown and fit, and his eyes twinkled mischievously.

‘Go and run me a bath, Za-Za, dear. Then you can stop holding your nose, and we can talk.’

‘But, Gerald!’ Her usually well-modulated voice had risen to a squeak. ‘What’s happened to you?’

‘Fate hasn’t been kind, lady.’ He put on what sounded like a very professional whine. But still his face was laughing. ‘Go on woman, before my fleas start hopping onto your Persian rugs.’

With a cry of horror she fled upstairs and, turning both taps on full, groped for the small bottle of Dettol in the medicine cabinet. It smelled very strong in the steam, but anything was better than Gerald’s … aroma.

While he bathed she washed his glass assiduously, sponged the outside of the whisky bottle and then got out the vacuum cleaner and ran it over the carpet where he had been standing. Fleas indeed! She shuddered.

With a sudden pang of guilt that she could so completely have forgotten her meeting she went to the phone and called the office to instruct her PA. ‘I don’t feel too well,’ she explained quietly into the receiver and was amazed to find it was the truth. She felt sick and slightly feverish.

He reappeared in half an hour wearing her bathrobe. Voluminous on her, it sat on him like an outgrown coat on a gangly schoolboy, exposing long muscular legs and arms, and an expanse of hard brown chest.

‘No sign of a man up there,’ he commented as he threw himself down on the leather sofa. ‘I could have borrowed his razor.’ He sounded faintly aggrieved.

‘I suppose you’re hungry?’ Zara ignored his remark loftily. She was indignant to find that her heart had started to bang rather hard beneath her ribs as it had, she distinctly remembered, when she first knew him.

‘I’m starving, lady. Not eaten since the day before yesterday.’ He reverted to his whine. She ignored it.

‘I hope you don’t still expect oysters for breakfast,’ she commented sarcastically from the kitchen as she filled the kettle, remembering some of his more extravagant tastes. Her hands were shaking.

‘A crust will do, lady, just a crust.’ He appeared immediately behind her suddenly, and put his hands gently on her shoulders. ‘I suppose you want an explanation?’

‘I think I do rather.’ She gave a small laugh.

‘You could say I’d been down on my luck.’ He looked at her hopefully, then on second thoughts shook his head. ‘No, I know. It’s not me is it. Would you believe that I did it on purpose?’ He paused. ‘You’d never credit the things people put in their dustbins, Za-Za. Someone ought to write a monograph on it: The world’s great untapped source of wealth.’

‘I’m sure the dustmen tap it successfully,’ she commented acidly, slipping two slices of bread into the toaster. ‘Judging by the things they nail to the fronts of their vans.’

‘Teddies,’ Gerald said reflectively. ‘Your dustman here nails teddies to his van. I saw him as I came up the road. How anyone could bear to throw their teddy out I shall never know. It’s worse than homicide.’

‘Gerald! You never kept yours!’

‘I did!’ Her perched on the edge of the breakfast table to take the toast as it popped up, snatched his fingers away and blew on them hastily. ‘Didn’t you even search my trunks and the things I left?’

‘Of course not. They were private.’

Gerald stared at her. ‘You are truly a wonderful woman Za-Za. I wonder why I left you?’ He buttered the piece of toast thoughtfully. She was also, he noted, slimmer, taller, if that were possible, and overall a thousand times more stunning than he remembered her.

‘You couldn’t stand me, dear.’ She smiled. ‘It’s a shame because I really rather liked you.’

‘Liked?’ He raised an eyebrow.

‘Loved, then.’

‘Still in the past tense?’

She smiled. ‘Stop fishing Gerald and tell me what you’ve been up to.’

The black coffee had steadied her, and she sat down opposite him, elegantly crossing her legs, waiting for him to begin.

For a few minutes he ate in silence, giving every impression that he really hadn’t eaten for days, then he sat back with a sigh and reached for his own cup.

‘One morning on the way to office, I thought, Gerald, old chap, what does it all mean? You know, the way one does? I couldn’t find a convincing answer. So I thought, Right. If there’s no reason for doing it, don’t.’ He grinned and reached for the sugar.

‘There’s always the need for money, Gerald.’ She tried not to sound prim.

‘Money for what?’ You earn a damn good salary, so you don’t need it. I don’t need it. You had a house, I had a flat, did we need both, for God’s sake? Why should I risk a coronary for the sake of a subscription to a golf club full of bores and for the Inland Revenue?’

‘Gerald, that’s a very trite and short-sighted remark, if you don’t mind my saying so. And how,’ she flashed at him suddenly, ‘do you know how much I earn?’

‘I own your company, dear. No,’ he raised his hand as she put down her cup indignantly, about to speak. ‘No. You got your job on merit alone, and I am totally uninterested in policy. Now, as I was saying, I thought, Why don’t I drop out like all those delightful chaps one sees singing in the underground. The trouble is, I can’t sing. I expect you remember that. I can’t paint, or pot or woodcarve, to earn enough money to subsist, so I had to resort to begging. More coffee, please.’

She poured it for him without a word.

‘I told James to stop the car. I told him to take a month’s salary in lieu, drive the car home, lock it up, turn off the gas and the electricity in the flat, stick the keys back through the letter box – oh and empty the fridge. I thought of that. Then I called the office and said, I’ll be away for a year or so, and gave my solicitor a ring, about power of attorney and that sort of thing. I bought a large cream doughnut, simply oozing cholesterol, and a can of beer, put all my loose change in the hat of one of those pathetic young men you see sitting leaning against walls with their dogs beside them and started walking. Right then and there, in my city suit.’ He threw back his head and laughed. ‘I bet you didn’t recognise it when I came in.’

‘Did you enjoy yourself?’ Zara tried not to sound shocked or angry.

‘Marvellously.’ He reached for the breadknife, cut an enormous wedge of bread and began heaping butter onto it. ‘I’ve been all over the south of England and right down to Cornwall, to all the little off the road places one misses in a beastly car. I’ve stuck it for eight months.’

‘Why did you come back here then?’

‘For one thing I was hungry this morning. For another, I wanted to see you again.’

‘Gerald. How could you afford the stamp and the paper for that letter?’ She was suddenly suspicious.

He looked embarrassed for the first time. ‘Well, the trouble is Zara that I’ve begun earning money again. First it was only casual jobs: car cleaning, fruit picking, even potato lifting once – God! What a job that was. Then one night in a pub, I happened to recite one of the poems I’d been making up on the road as I walked along. They passed the hat round and I made about seven pounds fifty. A fortune! Well, I’ve gone on from there. Each town and village I visited after that I’d chat up the landlord and stick a notice in his pub saying I was going to give a recital. Then afterwards I’d pass round the old hat.’

‘Gerald, you’re not serious!’ Zara looked at him with real admiration.

‘Well, the truth is dear,’ he looked down at the cup, half embarrassed. ‘I think I need an agent or something. You see I want to have them published. I know it’s silly, but I’ve got ambitions for them. I’ve found out what life is all about, you see. For me, it’s poetry.’

‘And you’d like me to act for you?’

‘Would you?’ He looked up eagerly.

‘Of course.’

Zara enjoyed dressing her husband as a poet. She spent the morning buying him jeans and shirts and a rather expensive-looking leather jacket. She even debated whether he would wear beads or a necklace, or a thong around his neck with a bead on it, but decided finally against it. He had after all been in the habit of wearing a pinstripe suit.

She had left him before setting out on her spree, reciting his poems to her dictating machine. When she got back, her cleaning lady was standing open-mouthed at the drawing room door, listening.

‘It’s filth, Mrs Lennox, real filth,’ the woman complained, jumping guiltily when she saw her employer. ‘But it’s beautiful. I could listen for hours, so I could.’ She giggled skittishly.

Zara stood beside her and together they heard Gerald reciting. It was indeed beautiful.

After a moment he swung round, microphone in hand, and saw them. To Zara’s amazement he broke off abruptly, blushing. ‘I didn’t know there was anyone there,’ he murmured and then he laughed. ‘They’re not really for ladies’ ears.’

‘Nonsense. They’re damn good.’ Zara went in and reaching up planted a quick kiss on his cheek. ‘I’ll start putting them on the word processor for you this afternoon.’

They decided they would call him Noxel, which was Lennox inside out. No other name. It looked right in print, and would sound good, Zara thought, on the radio. She ignored his comment that it made him sound a little like a lavatory cleaner.

Gerald Lennox had been, they both agreed, a bore.

She took him round London, showing him off to her new, trendy friends, and she bathed in reflected glory as Gerald’s exquisitely metred adjectives and highly coloured phraseology assailed their ears. She had always suspected they cultivated her acquaintance for her money and contacts. Now she had produced someone who belonged to their world. More than belonged. He actually did things. Most of them, she now discovered, claimed themselves passive rather than active participants in the arts. Zara felt herself to be one-up at last and was very pleased with her eccentric, wandering poet.

Together they giggled over the raised eyebrows of the neighbours. It seemed no one recognised him.

Then Zara’s lover came back from two months in Cape Town. He let himself in half an hour before she was due home from the office and found Gerald sitting at her computer.

‘My dear chap,’ Gerald glanced up and then rose, his hand outstretched. ‘I knew you must exist, but she never admitted it, bless her.’ He grinned amicably.

The other’s mouth fell open, and he felt uncertainly for the nearest chair and sat down heavily. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t believe we’ve met?’

Gerald leaned back in his seat. ‘I’m Zara’s husband, actually. But not to worry –’ as the other man rose abruptly to his feet, Gerald lifted his hand to reassure him. ‘I’m off. I’ve been wanting to move on for some time now, but I didn’t like to leave her on her own. She’s been a brick these last few weeks.’

He shuffled his papers together and collected the pages he had been printing. ‘Give me ten minutes old chap. We’ll manage the turn-round before she gets home.’ He took the stairs two at a time.

The new arrival sat, looking rather stunned, for a moment. Then, a trifle wearily, he rose to his feet and went to pour himself a drink. When Zara came home he was in the bath with a large gin.

She saw the note from Gerald on the hall table and knew without reading it that he had gone. She considered for a moment and then breathed a deep sigh of relief. It had been an interesting interlude, but not one she had wanted prolonged. It spoiled her concentration at the office.

Moment of Truth

Steve and I had known each other since we were children, brought up in the same village, growing together, and at last, realising that we were in love, we became engaged on my eighteenth birthday. Then began our struggle to save enough money for a deposit on our own home. Steven didn’t want us to marry until, as he put it, he could support me properly, or at least put a roof over my head, and in spite of my pleas that it didn’t matter, our engagement stretched out for one and then two years. Steve was a mechanic at the local garage in the village and was hoping desperately to be offered a partnership by the owner, so the future looked good, if only we could save enough for that deposit. And then something happened which was to have a profound effect on our lives together. Steve’s great aunt Irene who had looked after him when he was a little boy suddenly had a stroke and they said that she would never be able to manage on her own again; even when she was strong enough to leave the hospital she would have to go into a home for elderly people where she could be properly looked after.

As soon as she was well enough to have visitors she called Steve and me to her bedside. She could hardly speak, and her poor withered hand lay paralysed on the sheet but she made it clear, with tears in her eyes, that her cottage was ours. It was to be a wedding present.

Six weeks later we were married. The cottage was tiny, but it was our own home at last and I adored it. The low oak-beamed parlour had two rocking chairs and a table and there was room for little else. The bedroom window opened out under the thatch and wisteria and honeysuckle climbed round it. I remember I leaned out of that window on the first morning after we moved in and took a deep breath of the fresh air and I could have cried for happiness.

I worked as a waitress at the local Tudor Tea Rooms before we married and I kept on my job. For one thing I enjoyed it; for another we were still saving all we could. The cottage needed modernising badly and we wanted to start a family of course, so it seemed sensible to work all the hours we could fit in, putting every penny we earned into the bank. Although we were both tired and strained more often than not, we stayed happy. Or I thought we did. But perhaps without our realising it, earning money had by now become for us both an end in itself, more important even than our love for each other.

The trouble started in the summer two years after we were married. We were always very busy at that time of year in the café, for hundreds of tourists crowded into our tiny Cotswold village to see its beauties and its famous manor house, and often I would come home too exhausted even to give Steve his supper before I tumbled into bed, falling asleep as soon