Encounters Read online

  There was a powdering of dust in the black tin lid and she knelt in the rubbish of the shed and blew it off, gently polishing it with the sleeve of her blouse, tracing the initials of his name J. O. N. His middle name was Oliver. She had not known it until the moment they stood together before the altar in the little Norman church and exchanged the age-old vows, ‘Till death us do part.’

  She brushed the back of her hand across her eyes and inserted the key in the lock. It turned with ease and the lid lifted without any resistance. Inside, beneath a neatly spread newspaper were dozens of books. She pulled them out looking curiously at the titles, wondering why he had hidden them, not put them proudly on the shelves in their room next to her own.

  Then she found his notebooks. Poems and stories, diaries and long descriptive passages penned in the rather careful sloping hand which she saw had not changed very much since he was a boy at school for there were some school books there as well. But after all he was still practically a boy. For ever.

  She shut the lid of the trunk.

  She had grown to hate the idea of Tom Kennedy. He had no wife, no parents alive to mourn him. His death would have hurt no one, while James’s … James’s death was intolerable. And she would have to tell Tom that he was dead.

  She had put James’s hairbrushes back on the small dressing table next to her own. There were one or two hairs caught in the bristles and somehow the brushes still smelt of him. She took his best shirt, the one he had left behind next to her dresses and skirts in the narrow cupboard, to bed with her and cradled it in her arms.

  ‘Why, Maria, I’d have known you anywhere.’ Tom beamed down at her over the wheel of the wagonette. He stretched down a thin brown hand and hesitating she shook it. ‘Forgive me for not jumping down. I’m not quite up to gymnastics yet.’ He gestured at the crutches tucked beside him and laughed, ‘Oh God, but it’s good to be home and here. Come up beside me.’ He swung her up to the seat without any difficulty. She tried to avoid looking at the leg of his breeches, neatly pinned above the knee. His eyes were grey not blue as she had imagined. But they were dreamy, like James’s.

  ‘James was killed, you know. The day after he got back to the front.’ To her surprise she could say it quite without emotion.

  His face folded and trembled for a moment like a girl’s and he gripped her hand so tightly she felt the bones of her knuckles crack. She kept her eyes fixed on the rhythmical swing of the pony’s rump beneath the long reins held so loosely in Patterson’s hands.

  ‘He was my best friend.’ That was all he said.

  He sat in James’s chair by the empty hearth and took his place at the meal table and slowly he won them over with his charm and gentle humour. Maria’s grandmother watched and nodded at him as she knitted and glanced from time to time at her granddaughter, noting without comment as the girl smiled and relaxed; hoping.

  It was Richard Week who came home for Christmas to the manor, leaving the war for well-deserved leave modestly to display his medals and the attractively ugly shrapnel scar across his cheek.

  Maria met him beneath gnarled apple tree branches white with frost in the orchard behind the mill. He seemed taller than she remembered, self-assured now, bronzed.

  ‘Did you wait for me, my love?’ His hand beneath her chin, his lips pouting towards her were too sure, too certain of their welcome. She raised her hand to push him away and he saw the wedding ring. His eyes widened and he whistled. ‘I see you didn’t. Too bad.’ His breath came in frosty clouds to her face.

  She lowered her eyes. ‘My husband is dead, Richard.’ She felt nothing any more for this young man. He was a stranger to her. Sadly turning away she retraced her steps towards the village leaving him staring after her, shaken. They had hardly spoken.

  Tom Kennedy was waiting for her by the post office, leaning on his crutches, his face flushed with the effort of the walk in the icy air. He glanced at her keenly and meeting the gaze she blushed uncomfortably.

  ‘Did you go to see this Richard Week?’

  She didn’t ask him how he knew but nodded miserably, wishing his hands were free so that he could put his arm around her. She had grown used to seeking comfort from Tom.

  ‘I didn’t know if I still loved him. I had to go and see him.’

  ‘And do you?’

  Shaking her head she turned her face towards the display of yellowing calico and linens in the post office window so that he shouldn’t see the tears which threatened to spill over. She wasn’t sure whether they were for the old Richard whom she thought she had loved, or for James.

  ‘He told me all about it when he visited me in hospital, Maria.’ Tom’s voice sounded suddenly unlike him. She heard the tap and squeak of the crutches as he swung himself closer to her. Then she felt his hand, heavy, supporting his weight, on her shoulder. ‘I am glad, Maria. I couldn’t bear to think that you were deceiving him.’

  Somehow she didn’t resent the remark. Tom had the right to reproach her. He had been James’s best friend.

  ‘I wrote telling him the truth, Tom. He never got the letter; they returned it to me unopened.’

  He nodded, understanding and squeezed her shoulder. Then he rebalanced himself upon the crutches and smiled, suddenly cheerful again. ‘Come on, I’ll race you home!’

  In spite of herself she laughed.

  I hear the thunder in my ears

  And weep aside …

  Together they read James’s poems in the long evenings after her grandmother had gone to bed.

  ‘I promised James I’d take care of her if anything happened to him,’ he had told the old lady. She was concentrating on turning the heel of the current sock and did not look up, but nodding quietly she had smiled and approved and Tom, seeing it, had taken courage. He could not remember his own grandmother.

  He brought in the dusty trunk from the shed and helped her unpack it in her room, balancing against the tallboy as he stacked the volumes side by side on the shelf, frowning to himself in the concentration of getting the spines neatly in line.

  On the last day of his leave Richard Week came to the door. Maria received him in the parlour while Tom helped the old lady in the kitchen.

  Standing awkwardly by the window with the line of budding geraniums in their pots on the sill Richard asked her to marry him. She thought she could hear in the silence that followed the tiny squeak of rubbers in the passage outside the door.

  ‘I am sorry, Richard.’ Her voice was clear, a little high pitched from nervousness; too loud. ‘But I shall never marry again.’

  In the shuffling and flurry of Richard’s flustered protestations and reluctantly disbelieving goodbyes she did not hear the small sounds of the crutches in the hall as they retreated to the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, she doesn’t mean it.’ The old lady was cutting the scones in half with a thin-handled knife, the blade polished grey with age and scouring. She looked up at the crestfallen young man and smiled fondly. He was more of a grandson than ever James had been. She had known him much longer now, for one thing. They both had.

  ‘She said that to Richard to ease his going. You’d not grudge the boy that? There’s many may never come back from this war; he may be one of them. But I think if you give her time she’ll maybe think again, Tom. For you. Just give her time.’ She leaned over and patted his arm encouragingly.

  He grinned. ‘I’ll give her all the time in the world if she wants it.’ He swung himself round and out of the kitchen. This house was his home now. He had nowhere else to go; no one else to go to. For a moment he felt panic sweep over him. There was so much at stake. Then she was there looking at him from the parlour doorway, smiling, the copper lights in her hair high-lighted in the sun from the window behind her.

  She held out her hand. ‘Let’s go for a walk, Tom, shall we? It’s such a beautiful evening,’ and her face lit with a gentle, reassuring smile.

  Had he had a cap Tom would have thrown it into the air. He followed her out into the garden whistling and they
were already half-way down the lane which led towards the mill before he remembered that the old lady had their tea ready in the kitchen.

  A Face in the Crowd

  Behind the bony silhouettes of the trees the sky was a limpid aquamarine; a crystal bowl carrying the reflection of a thin moon lying on its back.

  Leaning on her elbows on the windowsill, gazing out, Jill shivered. The air was chilled and pure as it lay against her face and she welcomed its icy touch. Downstairs the clock in the inn parlour chimed again. Another hour had passed. Three more hours till dawn, she supposed, then the interminable wait until she could decently order coffee, then the whole morning, perhaps the whole day.

  And if he didn’t come? Supposing he had no intention of keeping their rendezvous? Supposing he was still 4,000 miles away and had never thought of her again? A breath of wind tiptoed over her flesh. She shivered and turned to pad back across the polished oak boards to the double bed. Climbing in she lay against the pillows and stared up at the dark ceiling, pulling the blankets up beneath her chin. She knew she would not sleep again that night.

  ‘Jill?’ Andrew had stopped her one day in the street outside Oxford Circus Underground. ‘It is Jill Forbes, isn’t it?’ He had sleepy grey eyes and dishevelled hair which made her think he had overslept and rushed out without his breakfast. Later she discovered that he always looked like that.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ she stammered, confused by the grimly hurrying crowds and the relentless rain which blew in their faces. They were forced to circle each other as she kept slowly moving, late already and unwilling to stop for a stranger.

  ‘You don’t remember me?’ He wasn’t hurt or indignant; just amused. Then he reached out and took her arm and guided her away from the centre of the pavement into a wide doorway out of the rain.

  She looked at him again, helplessly, glancing at her watch as she tried to recall his face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, ‘but I’m terribly late; I’ve a day off and I have things to do.’

  ‘You have nothing to do,’ he said laughing. ‘You’re spending the day with me …’

  At least, that was how she remembered their meeting. Probably it hadn’t been so simple. He had had to explain who he was – he had been a student at the same college as her brother Ted, years before – and he had had to go with her to take her passport photos, waiting outside the kiosk, laughing as she sat solemnly inside, then on to do some shopping. Only then, unable to shake him off, had she relented and they had gone out into the rain once more and had coffee together at a stall beside some park railings. She had still not remembered who he was; the circumstances where they must have met, yes, but his face? No.

  She had cupped her hands around the thick grimy china of the mug beneath the awning which deflected the rain into a noisy stream and stared at him, disconcerted by the complete absence of memory. He had such an attractive face, such an attractive personality. Surely she would have remembered this …

  ‘What are you doing now, Andrew?’ she asked at last.

  He grinned. ‘You still haven’t a clue who I am, have you? You really ought to ring Ted and check my credentials. I might be an impostor.’

  She sipped her coffee. ‘I’ll chance it,’ she said.

  ‘I’m a marine biologist,’ he said.

  She stared. ‘But Ted is a historian!’

  ‘Such unexpected meetings!’ He shrugged expressively. ‘I live in a hut by the sea. Literally. I’m only in London for four days collecting equipment and working at the library. Then I go back to Scotland.’

  So that was it. He was clutching at straws. A face he recognized in the metropolis; someone to talk to in a city of strangers.

  They had lunch and they walked and she went with him to collect various weird and wonderful pieces of gadgetry from his college. They left them at the hotel and then she took him back to her flat so she could change before they went out to dinner.

  On her bookcase was a photograph of Jerry. Andrew spotted it at once as he waited. ‘Your fella?’ he asked, holding it to the light.

  ‘My fella,’ she agreed.

  ‘Will he object to your going out with me?’

  Strangely it had not crossed her mind, but now she paused, staring over Andrew’s shoulder at the familiar face of the man she loved. She hesitated. Then she said softly, ‘Yes, I think he might.’

  She felt even more guilty on Saturday when she had to put Jerry off, cancelling their usual supper-and-film, because it was Andrew’s last day. But why should she feel conscience-stricken? After all, Andrew was going back to Scotland, to his deserted beach where his only neighbours were terns and crabs and kittiwakes and where his whole life revolved around the study of the tides. It was not as though this was the start of something serious.

  She went with him to King’s Cross, to help him find his sleeper. They had to stand very close in the narrow compartment.

  ‘I wish you were coming with me, Jill,’ he said.

  ‘So do I.’ She realized her eyes were filled with tears and turned away hurriedly. He was, after all, still a stranger.

  Hands in pockets, her collar high against the wind, she walked back up the Euston Road; oblivious of the broad double tide of traffic which roared past her. In her imagination she was with him on the train, or already there in his shack on the edge of the rolling Atlantic.

  Jerry called for her at six the following Wednesday. They were going to the Opera and in the Crush Bar in the first interval they met some friends of her brother Ted.

  ‘Andrew Hamilton?’ the tall thin young man who had been Ted’s house captain at school and had then gone on to the same college, turned his pale blue eyes on her curiously. ‘I’ll say I remember him. Extraordinary chap! why do you ask?’

  She explained, vaguely aware that Jerry was beside her, his knuckles white around his glass.

  ‘Good Lord! Well, all I can say is you’re well out of that encounter, Jill, old girl.’ He paused to acknowledge someone in the crowd, his glass held above shoulder level to prevent it spilling. ‘As far as I remember he broke a trail of hearts from Oxford to John o’ Groats, then in the end he married some foreign lady, French or Italian or something!’

  Andrew had not mentioned a wife.

  As Jerry led her back to their seats he looked at her carefully. ‘Sure it’s only casual interest?’ he said.

  ‘Quite sure.’ She smiled at him as she opened her programme at Act Two. ‘After all, I’ll never see him again.’

  But he came back to London at Christmas. And she found out that she was in love.

  When Jerry phoned she made some excuse not to see him and walked with Andrew through the noisy decorated streets, staring up at the huge tinsel snowflakes suspended from their wires between the tall office blocks. Then they bought hot chestnuts outside Foyles and wandered round the British Museum.

  It was afterwards in a restaurant off Long Acre that he reached across the table and touched her hand.

  ‘I’m staying at a friend’s flat this time, while he’s away.’

  When she looked up and met his gaze thoughtfully, he smiled. ‘Come back with me tonight, Jill,’ he said.

  She knew that if she accepted it would be a commitment; one she could not easily break, but her feelings for Andrew were so different from those she had felt for Jerry; deeper, more sudden and more painful, and she acknowledged at last, more real.

  She looked up and found he was watching her closely. ‘You know what I’m saying, don’t you?’ he said softly.

  She nodded. ‘I’d like to come.’

  That afternoon she phoned Jerry from her own flat. ‘I can’t see you any more. I’m sorry, so very sorry,’ she whispered.

  There was a long silence. ‘I suppose I’ve been expecting it,’ he managed to say at last. ‘I’ve known a long time. I think since that evening at the Opera.’ There was another pause. ‘Are you going to marry him?’

  She gave a shocked little laugh. ‘Jerry! I’ve only known him a fe
w weeks.’

  ‘It only takes a few minutes, love,’ he said on the other end of the phone. ‘Be happy, Jill. I’m always here if you want to talk.’

  She stared at the receiver in her hand for several minutes after he had rung off. Then slowly she replaced it. Only then did she remember that Andrew already had a wife.

  He was waiting for her in the next room. Sadly she took Jerry’s photo up and looked at it, then she slid it into a drawer. ‘Shall we go?’ she said.

  He understood her mood, not hurrying her, not even suggesting they go back at once to the friend’s place. Instead they walked along the Regent’s Canal, watching the raindrops digging pits in the slate grey surface of the water, shrugging into their coats against the wind, promising themselves crumpets dripping with butter before the gas fire as soon as it grew dark.

  She liked the tiny flat in a house off Camden High Street. It was full of pictures and books and lit by unpractically angled spot lights which threw shadows over the rugs so that she tripped and nearly fell on a hidden pile of magazines. The divan was covered by a faded dhurrie.

  He kissed her long and hard before he began to unfasten the buttons of her blouse. Then, turning off the spots, he led her to the bed, lit now only by the gentle hissing flow of the gas fire and pushed her gently down among the heaped striped cushions, his arms around her, his lips warm as they sought her breasts.

  It was daylight when he took her home.

  In the car outside her place he took her hand and held it.

  ‘I’ve promised to spend Christmas with my parents in Edinburgh, Jill. I can’t disappoint them,’ he said.

  She looked down, not daring to let him see her face. ‘Of course.’

  ‘But I could come back a few weeks from now,’ he went on. ‘There’s a little pub I know, in the Sussex Downs. I’d like to show it to you …’

  She wasn’t sure she could bear it that they must part so soon. The packing and the trail, almost familiar on this occasion, to King’s Cross. He gave her a tiny Victorian pearl pendant for a present; she gave him the Grieg tape he wanted for his lonely evenings by the sea.