Distant Voices Read online

  Thoughtfully she walked back to the boat.

  The sun was setting when Roger returned. It blazed crimson across the water, from a sky laced with black and green.

  ‘There’ll be a storm tomorrow.’ Roger narrowed his eyes, looking at the sun path.

  ‘The monk gave me this.’ Jill held the rosemary out to him. ‘The same one, I think, that we saw last time.’

  Roger looked at it for a moment. He made no attempt to touch it. He was silent for several seconds then he took a deep breath. ‘There is something I have to tell you.’ He walked down to the water’s edge.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’ Somehow she knew this was something that was going to spoil whatever thin thread of friendship was developing between them. He frowned. For a moment he said nothing but as they stood where they were in silence, she could feel the distance stretch and spin out, pulling them apart before they had ever properly drawn together.

  ‘I’m a murderer.’ He didn’t face her. Almost, the words were lost in the wind.

  She didn’t believe him. For a moment. Her disbelief made her laugh – a high, hard, insincere sound which rang emptily in the silence around them.

  He turned then. ‘You don’t believe me? I find it hard myself. I did something out of love – the greatest love possible. I killed a woman – the woman I loved – to save her from pain so great it was driving her to despair.’ He took a deep breath, finding the strength to go on. ‘She had cancer, you see. It was inoperable. There was nothing anyone could do. At the end,’ he hesitated, staring blindly at the ground, ‘at the end, she knew what I was doing and she blessed me for it. I saw it in her eyes.’

  He turned again and walked away from Jill along the edge of the tide, staring out at the sinking sun. ‘In this country such an act is called murder. The police are looking for me. If they find me, I shall go to prison.’

  ‘Roger.’ She didn’t know what to say. For a moment she didn’t move. It was Collie who went after him; Collie who pressed herself against him, giving comfort.

  He put his hand on the dog’s head, gently. Then he turned back. ‘I don’t know why I told you. Because I was in danger of growing fond of you, I suppose. I couldn’t do that to you, and I couldn’t do that to her.’ He looked at her for a moment. ‘Are you going to give me away?’

  She shook her head. ‘You know I’m not.’

  He nodded. ‘I wanted you to come out here to the island. This is a special place; very special. I used to come here as a boy. I used to see the monks too, then.’ He turned away from the sea and began to walk back up the beach. ‘Come on. We must get going. It’s growing dark.’

  They did not talk on the way back. Not until they reached the mainland. ‘If your man comes home, forgive him, Jill. If he doesn’t, forgive him anyway. Hate and bitterness are corrosive. Her husband ran away with someone else and she let her anger and misery eat her up. When we found each other it was already too late.’ He gave a strange, strangled sob. ‘Who knows, if one believes in these things, perhaps we will have another chance in another life. Perhaps not.’ He gave another of his deep, painful sighs. ‘Come into the boat a minute. I’ve something for you.’

  It was a painting of the estuary, with the island in the foreground. Amongst the trees she could see the ruined Gothic arch of the old abbey.

  ‘It’s beautiful, Roger. Thank you.’ She reached up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘They won’t find you here, will they.’

  He shrugged. ‘I hope not. I am not prepared to go to prison.’ The way he said it had a finality which made her shiver. ‘Come again in a few days.’ He looked down at her fondly. Then, squatting, he took Collie’s head between his hands. ‘And you, mutt, look after your mistress. Don’t go introducing her to any more strange men.’

  She walked up the shore in the dark, turning at the headland to look back at the Araminta, a silhouette against the stars, lit only by the glowing light from two portholes. In two steps she was round the headland and out of sight.

  She went back the following Saturday. It was no surprise to find the Araminta gone. She stood forlornly on the beach, staring out to sea. ‘Where do you think he went, Collie?’ There was no need of a lead today. There were no people or dogs on the rain-lashed sand, and no boats in the fairway.

  It was not until April that she returned to the island. Justin had phoned and suggested hopefully that for old times’ sake, maybe, they could go out for a picnic somewhere. If Collie had been a child he would have access, he pleaded, and it wasn’t as if he were still with anyone else. The someone else had been a mistake, a disaster, a moment of madness he would regret for the rest of his life. When he arrived, he told her remorsefully that he had been an unforgivable fool and touched her hand and the voice she heard in her head was Roger’s. ‘If your man comes, forgive him, Jill.’

  She took Justin into the flat and showed him the new picture over the fireplace. ‘I want to go there.’

  ‘The island? I used to go there as a boy.’ Roger’s words too. ‘It’s a wonderful, magic place.’

  So they hired a boat and he rowed across, dog in the bows, Jill with the picnic in the stern. The day was beautiful, bright, tossing wind and small slapping waves, and they explored the island from end to end. He showed her the monastery ruins, the beautiful abbey church with its towering broken arch, the weed-filled herb gardens, the crumbling walls, the filled-in, useless well. There was no modern part of it, nowhere habitable at all.

  She stood for a long time on the grass-floored nave of the old church, listening, half expecting to hear the plainsong in the wind, or the call of the bell. There was nothing except the carolling of a blackbird in the thicket. There were no monks there now; there hadn’t been for four hundred years. Somehow it was no surprise.

  Collie gambolled around, carefree and plainly happy. For a while Jill wondered if she should tell Justin what had happened. He had changed. He was more thoughtful; more mature. It was obvious that he too had been unhappy. It would be easy to confide. She thought better of it though. The monks belonged to her and to Roger and to the distant past of the island on which they stood.

  And Justin himself? Well, maybe Justin belonged in her future. Forgiveness, with Roger’s silent prompting and that of her own heart, was easy. Trust might be more difficult. She would have to see.

  There was only one moment when her resolve not to talk about Roger and the monks wavered. As the evening drew on and they returned to the boat Collie, leaping ahead over the sand, stopped dead. Her hackles rose and she backed away from the boat, whimpering.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Justin, puzzled, released Jill’s hand and went on ahead. There was nothing wrong that they could see. Only, on the thwart where Jill had been sitting, a small posy of rosemary.

  A Test of Love

  ‘Mum, you can’t mean it!’ I gazed at my mother aghast. ‘I don’t believe you. It’s not true.’

  She sat down and put her hand to her head wearily. ‘I’m sorry, Holly, I’ve been trying to decide for three days whether or not to tell you. I don’t want you to be hurt.’

  ‘Well, I am!’ I rounded on her. ‘I’m very hurt. That you could believe such rotten malicious gossip. I thought you liked Mick.’

  She sighed and looked up at me, shrugging her shoulders. ‘I did. I do, Holly, I like him very much, but now …’

  I had been able to see from the moment I walked in that there was something wrong. My mother was young and pretty and she and I had always been more like friends than mother and daughter. Sometimes I called her Carol instead of Mum, and we would giggle and she would borrow some of my clothes to wear. I knew men found her very attractive and most of the time I wasn’t jealous because I was so happy with Mick.

  Now as I looked down at her sitting in the kitchen at the battered old table I noticed for the first time the lines round her eyes and at the corner of her mouth. In her glossy hair there were several streaks of grey. And I was glad. Suddenly I felt really bitchy.


  ‘You’re just saying that because you’re jealous,’ I blazed at her. ‘You’re always been jealous of Mick and me, watching us, envying us. I’ve seen you.’

  I flung the shopping basket I was carrying down onto the table, shot her a look of real hatred and turned for the stairs. Once in my bedroom I flung myself down on the bed and burst into a storm of tears.

  The trouble was that for all my indignation, deep in my heart I was pretty sure that what she said was right. And I couldn’t bear it.

  My mother had just told me, quietly and matter-of-factly, that Mick, the man I loved more than anyone or anything in the whole world, had been in prison and that he had left his home town and come to live near us because he was in trouble again.

  Gradually my sobs grew less violent and eventually I just lay there thinking about him, sniffing miserably into my pillow. I was numb with shock and unhappiness.

  I had met Mick three months before at the end of term dance at the college where I was studying. From the very first I had known he was the man for me. He wasn’t particularly tall or good-looking but he had something very special: a kind of style which made me feel a million dollars. Soon I was going out with him practically every day, but deep down, I just had to admit it now, I had had from the start a niggling doubt about him. He refused to talk about his past at all, or about Warpington which, he had once let slip by mistake, was his home town. He told me nothing about his family or friends. ‘It’s now that matters, Hol,’ he would say if I pressed him. ‘Now and us. I want to forget there was ever a time when I didn’t know you.’

  Being not entirely naive I had wondered briefly whether perhaps he had run away from a wife and family or something, but I had put the thought out of my head straightaway. Mick would never deceive me. Of that I was sure.

  There was a timid knock at the door and Mum came in. She was carrying a cup of tea.

  ‘Holly, darling. I had to tell you. If I hadn’t someone else would have.’ She sat down on the bed.

  I turned and looked at her, sniffing into my tissues. She seemed so tired. I felt very remorseful suddenly.

  ‘I’m sorry I shouted,’ I whispered. ‘I didn’t mean it.’

  She smiled and reached for my hand. ‘I know, love.’

  ‘You don’t know for sure it’s true.’ I looked at her desperately. ‘Do you? Who told you?’

  ‘Shirley Rhodes told me, Holly. Her aunt knows Mick’s grandmother, who he used to live with. I’m afraid there’s no doubt.’

  I flung myself back on the bed and gazed up at the ceiling.

  ‘What did he do?’ I asked tonelessly.

  ‘He went to prison for receiving stolen goods, Holly. He ran an antique shop in Warpington and I gather he bought several lots of jewellery and valuable furniture from various thefts and then passed them on.’

  ‘And now he’s in trouble for doing it again?’

  My mother shrugged. ‘She didn’t know but there had been another wave of burglaries around the area and apparently the police questioned him straightaway. His grandmother said he left home without a word the same night. She hasn’t heard from him since.’

  ‘He kept the shop on then, after he came out of prison? What happened to it?’

  Mum shook her head. Then she stood up and went to the window, looking out at the grey evening. Rain streaked the glass.

  ‘I’m not going to ask you not to see him again, or anything like that. I know how much you love him, Holly. But please, promise you’ll be careful. Don’t get mixed up in anything.’

  I could feel my stomach turning over sickeningly. At that moment I never wanted to see Mick again. I was heartbroken. I felt as though he had actually hit me. I had trusted him, loved him, secretly I had dreamed of marrying him and now – this. I could feel the sobs welling up inside me once more.

  Turning from the window Mum glanced down at me, then she went softly to the door. ‘Come down when you feel better,’ she whispered, and she left me on my own.

  Mick was supposed to be picking me up the next evening for a party. All day I tried to pluck up the courage to ring and tell him not to come, but each time I went to the phone there was someone in the box. I did not have the determination to wait. And I don’t think I really wanted to put him off. That was too easy and too final. I had to be quite, quite sure. I had to see him just once more.

  So when the time came for him to arrive I was at home, waiting miserably for him. I had not bothered to change.

  Mum refused to go out. ‘I’ll be in the kitchen, Holly,’ she said firmly. ‘I won’t appear unless you need me.’ I think she had visions of Mick, suddenly revealed in his true colours, a furious gangster, pulling a gun on me, or at least a knuckleduster.

  Perhaps I did too, a little. I was shaking with fear, certainly, when I opened the door to him.

  Mick took one look at me and put his arms out to me in concern. ‘Holly, darling. Aren’t you well? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Everything’s the matter, Mick.’ I led him into the sitting room and closed the door. I was terribly conscious of Mum across the hall probably listening for all she was worth in the kitchen.

  ‘I know everything.’ I looked at him sadly. ‘I know the truth.’

  He flushed and looked terribly guilty and my heart sank. I had prayed he would deny everything. I had hoped desperately that there was another Mick Woodfield somewhere. I had made every excuse possible for him. I had expected him to laugh or bluster, or just lie his way out. I couldn’t bear that he just calmly admitted it.

  He came and sat beside me. ‘I don’t know who told you Holly, but I doubt if you know the truth.’

  ‘It was your grandmother. She told a friend of Carol’s. That’s how I know. Your own grandmother.’

  I looked at him defiantly. To my surprise he grinned, obviously relieved!

  ‘In that case Holly darling, I’m sure you’ve got it wrong. What do you know?’ He reached for my hand, but I snatched it away.

  ‘I know that you’ve been in prison. You were a fence for stolen jewellery and furniture through your shop, and now you’ve …’ I could feel tears flooding my eyes. ‘You’ve done it again and you’re …’ I could not go on. Suddenly I was crying openly.

  He smiled gently and persisted in feeling for my hand. ‘I’m on the run?’ he finished for me. ‘Is that what she told you?’

  Softly he brushed the tears off my cheek. ‘I’ll tell you the truth, Hol. I was done for receiving, although I was innocent, as it happens. I should have known the things were stolen, or at least been suspicious. My shop hadn’t been open long and I was so keen to make a go of it. I was pleased when I was offered the stuff. They more or less implied they wanted to help me because I was new. And green,’ he added bitterly. He looked at me, pleading. ‘Of course it was my job to find out whether it was okay. All the articles had been listed and descriptions circulated by the police but I hadn’t bothered to look at the lists the police gave me. I was stupid and careless. I was given a short suspended sentence. I never went to prison.’

  I could feel the relief welling up inside me. I raised my eyes to his. ‘And now?’ I whispered, hardly daring to believe him. ‘Why did you run away this time?’

  He flushed again. ‘Yes, you’re right. I did run away. Of that I am guilty, Holly. The first robbery there was the police were on to me like a ton of bricks. It suddenly dawned on me. From now on I shall be suspect, however innocent I am. They will always be there checking on me till I begin to feel like a criminal. And I hardly dared buy anything for the shop after that. It was as though I had lost my nerve. I closed it. I gave the key to an agent to sell it for me, and I came through here to find an ordinary job.’

  ‘But why didn’t you tell your grandmother?’ I stared hard at him, trying to read his mind, desperately wanting to believe what he said.

  He grinned. ‘My grandmother, Holly darling, is a wicked old lady. She loves to shock people. She told all the neighbours about my long prison sentence as though she w
ere proud of my record and whenever she met a stranger she played up my activities until I sounded like one of the great train robbers.’

  ‘But that was unkind. And stupid.’ I was indignant.

  ‘To me, yes.’ He smiled fondly. ‘But she didn’t mean it that way, Holly. It was excitement for her; fame, in a way. She’s very old, that was why I moved in with her, to keep an eye on her – not that she needed it, and she doesn’t quite realise the significance of it all. I’m sure when I left she told most of the neighbours I’d fled to the greenwood, an outlaw like Robin Hood. She knows jolly well where I am and why I left.’ He grinned again. I could see he was very fond of the old lady but she must have been exasperating to live with. I could see that too.

  ‘Oh Mick, darling.’ I threw myself into his arms suddenly. ‘I was as bad as her. I believed such terrible things of you. I even let Carol hide in the kitchen to save me if you were violent.’

  Mick roared with laughter. ‘And she’s there now?’

  I nodded and giggled feebly. ‘It was silly, wasn’t it?’ I was so relieved he had taken it as a joke. It suddenly dawned on me that he could have been very angry indeed at me for believing gossip about him. I had nearly wrecked our relationship completely. I closed my eyes and breathed a silent prayer of gratitude that I had not made that phone call from college.

  As though he could read my thoughts Mick suddenly held me away from him at arm’s length and gazed sternly down at me. ‘You know I ought to be very angry with you, Holly. You shouldn’t have decided you knew the truth about me on the strength of a little gossip. You didn’t have much faith, did you?’ Then he relented a little and I saw the old twinkle come back into his eyes. He planted a kiss in my hair. ‘But thanks for giving me the chance to tell my side of the story. If I’d been in your shoes I’d probably never have wanted to see me again.’ He kissed me again.

  ‘I love you, Mick.’

  There was a sudden burst of music from the radio in the kitchen and the clink of china. We jumped apart and then laughed.