Distant Voices Read online

  She gave the book a little hug and put it on the bedside table. Time enough for reading when the great white moon was shining on the beach, and something – excitement, fear, her own beating heart? – kept her awake, watching the brilliant colourless light making a pool on the pattern of the rag carpet.

  ‘Are you ready, Sal?’ She could hear her brothers calling from the living room of the holiday bungalow.

  ‘Come on Sal.’ Her father added his voice. ‘We’re going shopping.’

  She ran out to the car, tossing back her long hair. It was three miles to the village and each year that they had come to Farmingley-on-Sea the daily drive to the shop and post office had been a ritual for the whole family.

  They did the shopping together, working their way through the long list and then went on to buy some postcards. Three doors beyond the post office was Shore Cottage. Sally hugged herself with excitement as she looked at the neat white front door and the hollyhocks in the garden. He was due to arrive tomorrow.

  For nearly ten months Sally had been writing to Nick Hamlen. He had published a poem in her favourite magazine and she had written to say how much she liked it. He had replied and she had written back. And so it had gone on. He wrote amusing, sensitive and understanding letters, and she had fallen slowly in love with this unseen man; her very own poet. Once she had asked for his photograph but he had ignored her request and she had not liked to mention it again.

  Then, a few weeks back she had told him that they would soon be off to Farmingley for their annual two weeks by the sea.

  ‘Surprise, surprise,’ came the reply. ‘You’ll never guess where my dad and I are booked for a week!’ He had not actually suggested that they meet but Sally read the letter over a hundred times and gloated, and dreamily planned their first encounter.

  She knew Nick had left school the year before. He was a trainee reporter on his local paper. He had had several poems published in magazines and papers and was collecting enough of them to make up a little book. Sally pictured him as tall and thin and a little pale. He would be immensely attractive, perhaps a little like Keats, and she thought perhaps he too would cough a little now and then, discreetly, into his handkerchief, ill and exhausted from long hours at his desk. That, she was sure, was why his father was bringing him to the bracing sea air: for his health.

  That night she sat cross-legged on her bed and read the Ode to a Nightingale softly to herself. She could hear the waves on the beach and smell the salt and the seaweed and the cool night air, and her window became a magic casement, opening on the foam of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn.

  She waited three days – agonising wasteful days – praying Nick would come over. Then, unable to bear it any longer she took the chance while her brothers were in the shop to go to Shore Cottage herself. She stood for a moment outside, her hands sticky with nerves, trying to steel herself to go up the short path and ring the doorbell. Then she managed to do it at last. The door was opened by a middle-aged man with a pleasant face. He smiled down at her rather vaguely.

  ‘Could I see Nick, please?’ she enquired in a small voice.

  ‘He’s gone for a walk on the beach,’ the man, presumably Nick’s father, explained. ‘I doubt if he’ll be back before midday.’

  The beach!

  Sally fled back to the others in a ferment of impatience to get home, but her mother who was sitting in the kitchen poring over a new recipe book said there had been no visitors. Sally muttered something about a quick walk before lunch and ran out of the sandy front garden across the path and onto the dunes.

  From the top of a great shoulder of sand, named Ben Nevis by her younger brother, she scanned the deserted beach. It was a grey unsummery day and the waves were being whipped into angry horses which leaped skywards and lost themselves far out at sea beneath the murky clouds.

  A long way off she could see a lone figure walking slowly along the tide line. He stooped slightly and she could see his hands clasped loosely behind him. Every now and again a heavily crashing wave running up the beach further than the others would come up over his shoes, but he didn’t turn aside. It had to be Nick.

  She ran down the shifting dune, kicking the sand from her sandals, and fled towards him across the empty beach, her hair flying behind her in the cold wind.

  He heard her coming and turned and waited. She had pictured this moment so often. He would hold out his arms as she, his life and his inspiration, came to him through a golden mist.

  He didn’t. He stood watching her, his shoulders rigid. He wore glasses and his face, with a stubborn upturned nose, was freckled. Sally stopped, breathless, a few feet from him and looked at him in blank disbelief. He was short, about the same height as she was, and his sandy hair stood up from his head even in the wind, in an unromantic bush. His mouth was too big and his eyes were small and rather close together beneath the heavy horn rims.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered, blushing. ‘I thought you were … are you, Nick Hamlen?’

  He nodded, looking rather puzzled. ‘I don’t think I know …?’ Then his face cleared and he grinned merrily. ‘Why, you must be Sally.’ Spontaneously he held out both his hands to her.

  Involuntarily she took a step back. He had a nice smile, but he was so unlike her imaginary picture of him. Surely no poet could look like this? She knew she should smile back; she knew she ought to shake his hand, talk politely and smile. Don’t show him your shattered dream, she heard a voice inside her head. Don’t be rude and unkind.

  Tears came to her eyes, and she shook her head blindly. ‘It’s the wind,’ she said, brushing her arm across her eyes.

  ‘I know, it’s wild today. Superb.’ He stood looking exultantly out to sea without speaking for a moment. Then he grinned at her again. ‘It’s good to see you, Sally, after all this time. You never told me you were so pretty.’

  He said it matter-of-factly. Not like a boy chatting her up. He said it as though it were the simple truth.

  Sally felt herself blushing again. But she couldn’t help thinking: so he never bothered to imagine me as pretty. He has probably never bothered to think about me at all. She suspected now that he had probably never even been going to look her up. Bleak with disappointment she stood silently beside him watching the sea and wondering what to say.

  He turned to her again suddenly. ‘How did the exams go? I nearly forgot to ask.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘You’re not worried about the results? I was when I took my A levels. I nearly died of nerves.’

  She looked at him astonished. He did not look as though he had a nerve in his body.

  Suddenly he looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to get back, Sally. It’ll take me half an hour or so to walk back to the village and Dad will be expecting me.’

  She felt snubbed. But at the same time she was glad. Obviously he had not wanted to meet her. Their letters had been fun, but no more. His lovely romantic descriptions and his lively libellous passages about his employers: that was just the way he wrote. He himself was nothing like that. The Nick Hamlen of her dreams did not exist. This young man was totally unromantic, she was sure. Probably he was very practical. He looked as though he had never had a cough in his life and he was not even good-looking. She wished she hadn’t come.

  With a shy, sad little smile at him, she turned away to walk back up to the dunes.

  ‘Sally!’ He was still watching her. ‘Will you be on the beach this evening?’ His ginger hair was being blown ludicrously forward across his head and he kept brushing it back with his hand.

  ‘I don’t know, it depends.’ Their words were being whipped away by the wind. ‘It might rain.’

  ‘It won’t.’ He grinned, and turning began to walk fast along the beach away from her.

  He was right. The wind had blown itself out by early afternoon and slowly the clouds began to lift. By tea-time a watery sun had broken through. Sally sat for a long while after the meal, in her bedroom, looking through Nick’s letters
. Then she lay back on her bed, her arm across her eyes.

  She had made up her mind not to go and meet him. Her dream was shattered, and now she supposed he wouldn’t even bother to write to her again. What was the point?

  She ignored her father and the boys when they called her to go for an evening swim and lay, overwhelmingly sad and depressed, looking up at the ceiling with its cracked, crumbling plaster.

  She must have fallen asleep at last for her mother woke her, knocking on the door of her room. ‘Sally, there’s a young man here asking for you.’

  She scrambled to her feet, horrified. She had never dreamed he would come to the house.

  He was standing grinning in the living room, one hand behind his back. He looked taller indoors and his smile was full of charm.

  ‘Hi!’ he said. ‘You weren’t there so I thought I’d come and collect you. Come and watch the sunset.’ He seemed quite unabashed by her mother who was standing there looking at him.

  ‘Go on, Sally dear,’ she said. ‘Some fresh air will chase your headache away.’ With a smile of encouragement she disappeared into the kitchen.

  ‘I’ve brought something for you,’ Nick whispered.

  Sally smiled uncertainly.

  ‘Come on outside,’ he went on. ‘It’s turned into the most beautiful evening.’

  She followed him through the tamarisks, across the dunes and down onto the beach and still he hadn’t given whatever it was to her. Together they walked away from the evening bathers, up to the west towards the rocks. The setting sun was staining the sea red and gold.

  He stopped suddenly and looked at her with a shy grin. ‘I hope you won’t think I’m foolish, Sally, but I’ve written you a poem.’ He held out his hand at last. In it was a piece of crumpled paper.

  She stared at him. ‘A poem. For me?’

  ‘I know I don’t look the part, Sally. Everyone tells me that. They laugh if I tell them I write poetry, so I don’t tell people any more. That’s why I was so pleased when you wrote to me. You seemed to understand. I didn’t want you to meet me because I knew you’d take one look at me and run.’ He shuffled his feet in the sand. Then he looked up again, laughing at himself. ‘Go on. Read it.’

  She took the paper and read silently for a few moments, the light wind gently stirring her hair. Then she looked up at him, her eyes wide. ‘It’s beautiful, Nick. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever read. Thank you.’

  He grinned happily. ‘Will you come for a picnic tomorrow?’ he asked suddenly.

  Looking up at him she noticed for the first time what beautiful deep blue eyes he had, set beneath thick dark lashes. ‘Try and stop me, Nick,’ she said quietly.

  The Toy Soldier

  For the first time since they had arrived the house was completely empty. The removal van had gone and Joe had levered himself into Sue’s small Fiat and driven down the road to the post office/general store to find some tins of food.

  She was standing in the middle of the kitchen. Slowly she ran her hand across the cooker. It was rusty, disgustingly greasy and the enamel was chipped. It wasn’t her cooker. Her cooker, her hob and oven, her beautiful fitted kitchen, belonged to the building society now, together with their house and garden. Joe’s car had gone too, three days after he had had the letter. The letter which had destroyed their lives with that one word: redundant.

  She sniffed and turned quickly towards the window, determined not to cry. Self pity would not help. They were lucky. Joe had found another job at once and a job which came with a cottage. It was little more than glorified care-taking really, looking after his uncle’s house and supervising the running of the farm while he was away abroad for a year. The trouble was it was the sort of job where one isn’t sure, as Joe kept repeating to himself endlessly, whether one has been done a huge favour, granted charity which could be withheld at any moment, or whether it was oneself that was doing the favour, working for less than the going rate, grateful for a house of less than acceptable condition and tied to both, as the donor fully intends, by guilt and gratitude.

  Sue glanced round the room. Most of their furniture was being stored in the next door barn. They had brought in only enough to live. She touched one of the cardboard packing boxes. Her heavy iron saucepans, her wooden bowls, even the bunches of dried herbs, packed carefully, newspaper wrapped on the top. All she had to do was put them on the shelves and hang them up and it would feel like home. She smiled ruefully. Tinned spaghetti in one of her beautiful French dishes. It didn’t seem right, somehow.

  She moved towards the back door. A shabby curtain hung across the glass on a piece of wire, the angular blue and green pattern a busy cacophony of design. She screwed up her face in disgust. Turning the key she pulled open the door and caught her breath at the sight beyond.

  The unkempt garden was separated by a skimpy thorn and beech hedge from a field that had been newly ploughed. The dark expanse of earth stretched so far it seemed to curve with the horizon beyond her sight, but above it the sky blazed with the setting sun. She stood and stared, forgetting the squalid kitchen behind her.

  Crimson.

  Magenta.

  Ruby.

  Opal.

  Emerald.

  Sapphire.

  She tasted the words, breathless with delight.

  In their suburban, tree-lined avenue she had never properly seen the sunset, never imagined a sky so vast and empty and – her mind groped for the word – pure.

  ‘Isn’t it stunning.’ Joe was suddenly behind her.

  She jumped. She hadn’t heard him come back. Narrowing her eyes against the glare she found herself suddenly near to tears. ‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Better even than Cornwall.’ It was the greatest praise she could bestow.

  Behind them the shabby kitchen was growing dark. Putting his arm around her shoulders Joe pulled her against him fondly. ‘Almost makes it all worthwhile,’ he whispered. There was a hint of pleading in his voice which made her heart turn over with sadness.

  ‘Almost,’ she echoed. She was surprised her own whisper sounded almost cheerful.

  They watched the sky turn at last to a pale aquamarine. One single star appeared low on the horizon.

  ‘I’ve bought some grub,’ he said after a long silence. ‘And a bottle of plonk.’

  ‘Oh, Joe, we can’t aff –’ her words of reproach were cut off as she felt his fingers tighten on her arm.

  ‘We can afford it. This is our first night in our new home, for God’s sake. Surely we can stretch to a £1.99 bottle of wine!’

  She swallowed. ‘Of course we can. To wet the house’s head.’ She turned to him. A stupid phrase to use under the circumstances, but it had slipped out before she could bite it back. She reached for the light switch and clicked on the naked bulb which hung starkly on its cord in the middle of the room. Immediately the sky dimmed and with a sigh Joe shut the door.

  ‘So.’ He looked round the room bleakly. ‘Where are the glasses?’

  ‘In a box, I expect.’ She stared round hopelessly at the closed cupboards. ‘I wonder if there are any here we could use.’ She stooped and pulling open a warped door beneath the draining board, looked inside.

  A child’s toy sat there in lone splendour on the shelf. A colourful plastic soldier. Instead of legs it had a rounded base so that when it was pushed it rocked sideways and stood upright again.

  She lifted it out and stood it on the window sill. As she moved it, it gave out a soft musical chime.

  ‘At least it’s bright,’ she said.

  ‘Sue –’

  ‘Let’s look in these.’ She pulled open the top cupboards now. They were empty. Bending over the cardboard boxes stacked in the floor under the small table she found some crockery at last, wrapped in newspaper, and carefully she extricated a couple of cups. ‘These will do.’

  ‘Sue, we have to talk about it.’ Jim was staring helplessly at her exhausted face. ‘You didn’t have to give up work. I’m sure you can still
keep the job. You can have the car. Your career matters.’

  ‘My career existed fifty miles from here, Joe. My career couldn’t, it seems, support us. Your career folds so we have to come to this Godforsaken place to give you a job and mine has to go.’ She clenched her lips, her fists, and stared up at the ceiling in despair. Damn. Damn. Damn. She had to keep her bitterness inside! ‘I’m sorry, love.’ She turned to him and forced a smile. There was genuine regret in her voice, and sadness. ‘Don’t take any notice. This job is perfect for you. You are going to be really happy here, I know it. And so will I be, once I’ve found my feet.’

  Once.

  How?

  She sniffed. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll be able to find the corkscrew,’ she said.

  Joe came up behind her. Putting his arms around her he rested his chin thoughtfully on the top of her head, inhaling the smell of her hair: shampoo and dust and the sweet scent of her skin. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘You are presupposing a wine posh enough to have a cork. This is a screw-top bottle.’

  And suddenly they were laughing. Putting down the cups she threw her arms around him and hugged him. Behind them somewhere in the garden an owl hooted.

  She was down first in the morning. In spite of the worry she had been so exhausted she had slept like a log. Pulling her heavy sweater down over her hips with a shiver she unbolted the back door and peered a little apprehensively out into the darkness. It was only just growing light. The rank, weed-strewn garden smelled fresh and clean and she could see a few daffodils near her, their petals almost luminous beneath the cold sparkle of the dark.

  She took another deep breath, savouring it, feeling the oxygen pumping round her body, then she closed the door and turned to face her lacklustre, grease-encrusted kitchen. On the window sill the toy soldier rocked gently back and forth, his big plastic grin cheerful against the peeling wood.

  ‘What have you got to smile about?’ she asked him out loud as she filled the kettle. Then she frowned. She walked across to the toy and pushed him with her finger. He was heavy. The weighted base needed a firm push to make him rock. A gentle chime rang out as slowly he rocked to a standstill.