As she becomes more familiar with the car, she casts quick glances away from the traffic and round at the countryside, looking with intense interest at the low hills, the winter-bare trees, the small houses and the muddy fields. This is her first trip back to England since she left as a child, and in spite of everything it begins at last to charm her.
She imagines a smaller, older, more tightly constructed place, different from the one she knows, spreading out, not in endless stretches of featureless country, as in the US, but in concentrated time: history reaching behind her, the future extending before her, meeting at this moment of the present. She’s tired from the long flight, the lack of sleep, the wait at the UK Immigration desk, and so she’s open to fanciful thoughts.
She stops in a small town somewhere, to walk around and look at the shops, but afterwards returns to the car and naps for a while in the cramped position behind the steering wheel. She wakes up suddenly, momentarily unsure of where she is, thinking desperately of Andy, how much she wishes he could see this with her. She came here to try to forget him, but in many ways she had been doing better so long as she stayed at home. She wants him here. She cries in the car, wondering whether to go back to Gatwick and take the first flight home, but in the end she knows she has to see this through.
The short afternoon is ending as she drives on south towards the Sussex coast, looking for a small seaside town called Bulverton. She keeps thinking, This is England, this is where I come from, this is what I really know. But she has no remaining family in Britain, no friends. She is in every way a stranger here. A year ago, eight months ago, what was for her a lifetime ago, she had never even heard of Bulverton on Sea.
Teresa arrives in Bulverton after night has fallen. The streets are narrow, the buildings are dark, the traffic pours through on the coastal road. She finds her hotel but sits outside in the car for a few minutes, bracing herself. At last, she collects together some of her stuff and climbs out.
A brilliant white light suddenly surrounds her.
CHAPTER 2
Her name was Amy Colwyn and she had a story to tell about what had happened to her one day last June. Like so many other people in Bulverton, she had no one to tell it to. No one around her could bear to hear it any more, and even Amy herself no longer wanted to say the words. How many times can you express grief, guilt, missed companionship, regrets, remembered love, lost chances? But failing to say the words did nothing to make them not thought.
Tonight, as so often, she sat alone behind the bar at the White Dragon with nothing much to distract her, and the story played maddeningly in her mind. It was always there, like music you can’t get out of your mind.
‘I’ll be in the bar if you want me,’ Nick Surtees had said to her earlier. He was the owner of the hotel, someone else perhaps with a story to tell.
‘All right,’ she said, because every evening he told her he was going into the bar, and every evening she replied that it would be all right.
‘Are we expecting any visitors tonight?’
‘I don’t think so. Someone might turn up, I suppose.’
‘I’ll leave that to you, then. If no one checks in, would you mind coming in and helping out behind the bar?’
‘No, Nick.’
Amy Colwyn was one of the many left-over victims of the massacre that had taken place in Bulverton the previous summer. She had not been in physical danger herself, but her life had been blighted none the less by the event. The horror of that day lived on. Business at the hotel was usually slow, allowing her too much time to dwell on what had happened to others, and what might have been her life now if the disaster had not happened.
Nick Surtees, another indirect victim of the shootings, was one of the matters of regret on which she frequently dwelt. There had been a time, not so long ago, when it would never have occurred to her that she would see Nick again, let alone be working, living and sleeping with him. Yet that had happened and they were all still happening, and she wasn’t entirely sure how. Nick and she had found comfort in each other, and were still there holding on when that need had begun to retreat.
Bulverton was situated on the hilly edge of the Pevensey Levels between Bexhill and Eastbourne. Fifty years ago it had been a holiday resort, the type of seaside town traditionally preferred by families with young children. With the coming of cheap foreign holidays Bulverton had gone into rapid decline as a resort; most of the seafront hotels had been converted into blocks of flats or retirement homes. For the last two decades Bulverton had in a manner of speaking turned its back on the sea, and had concentrated on promoting the charms of its Old Town. This was a small network of attractive terraces and gardens, covering part of the river valley and one of the hills rising up beside it. If Bulverton could be said to have an industry now, it was in the shops that sold antiques or secondhand books, in a number of nursing homes in the high part of the town known as the Ridge, and in providing homes for the people who commuted to their jobs in Brighton, Eastbourne or Tunbridge Wells.
It was because of Nick that the White Dragon could not seem to make up its mind whether to be a pub or a seaside hotel. Keeping it as a pub suited him, because he spent most evenings in the saloon bar downstairs, drinking with a few of his pals.
The marginally more profitable hotel side, the bed and breakfast and the occasional half-board for a weekend, was Amy’s domain, mainly through Nick’s own lack of interest. In the days and weeks immediately after the shootings, when Bulverton was crammed with journalists and film crews, the hotel had been full. The work had offered itself as a welcome distraction from her own preoccupations, and she had thrown herself into it. Business had inevitably declined as the first shock of the catastrophe began to fade, and media interest receded; by the middle of July it was back to what Amy now knew was its normal level. So long as there were never too many people arriving at the same time, Amy, working alone, could comfortably keep the rooms clean and have the beds made up, provision the tiny restaurant with a reasonable choice of meals, and even keep the financial records up to date. None of these jobs interested Nick.
Amy often thought back to the times when she and some of her old schoolfriends would move across to Eastbourne every summer, from July to September, when there were always two or three major conferences taking place: trade unions, political parties, business or professional organizations. It had never been hard finding short-term but comparatively well paid jobs: chambermaids and bar staff were always needed in the big hotels. It had been a laugh as well, lots of young men on the loose, all with money to bum and no one taking too much notice of what was going on. She had met Jase then, also working the conference business, but as a wine waiter. That had been another laugh, because Jase, who was a roofer in real life, knew less about wine than did even Amy.
What Amy hadn’t told Nick about was the feeling of let-down that had been growing in her all that day. It concerned a reservation made two weeks before from America. Amy had not mentioned the booking to Nick at the time it was made, and she had quietly slipped the deposit for the room into the bank. A woman called Teresa Simons had written to ask if she might reserve a room with en suite bathroom on an open-ended basis; she said she was making a long visit to Bulverton, and needed a base.
A pleasant daydream then swept over Amy, a vision of having one of the rooms permanently occupied throughout the slow months of late winter: it was a potentially lucrative booking, with meals and bar takings all boosted by the woman’s stay. It was absurd to think that one semi-permanent guest could transform their fortunes, but for some reason Amy had felt convinced that she could. She faxed back promptly, confirming the room, and had even suggested a modest discount for a long stay. The booking and the deposit turned up not long afterwards. Nick still didn’t know about it.
Today was the day Mrs Simons was due to arrive. According to her letter she would be flying into Gatwick in the morning, and Amy had been half expecting her to turn up from mid-morning onwards. By lunchtime there was no si
gn of her, and no message either. As the day crept by she still didn’t arrive and Amy had been feeling a steadily growing sense of mishap. It was out of proportion to its importance—there were all sorts of reasons why the plane might have been delayed, and anyway why should the woman come straight to the hotel after getting off a plane?—and Amy realized this.
It made her aware yet again how much of herself she was pouring into this unpromising business. She had wanted to surprise Nick with Mrs Simons’ arrival, tell him about what she assumed would be a welcome source of income for some time. It might even, she had briefly hoped, break him out of his seemingly permanent round of worry and silent brooding.
She knew that they were both in a cycle of misery, a long period of grief. They weren’t alone in Bulverton: most of the people in the town were still grieving.
It was what Reverend Oliphant had said at the town’s memorial service the week after the disaster—that one occasion in her life when Amy had wanted to go to church, and did. Kenneth Oliphant had said: grief is an experience like happiness or success or discovery or love. Grief has a shape and a duration, and it gives and takes away. Grief has to be endured, surrendered to, so that an escape from it lies beyond grief itself, on the other side, only attainable by passing through.
There was comfort in such words, but no solutions. Like so many others in the town, Amy and Nick were still passing through, with the other side nowhere in sight.
Sitting on a high stool behind the bar, staring vacantly across at the table where Nick and his pals were playing brag on a table lightly puddled with beer and under a pale-blue cloud of tobacco smoke, Amy heard a car.
It came to a halt in the street outside. Amy did not move her face or her eyes, but all her senses stretched out towards the sound of the idling engine. No car doors opened, and the engine continued to run. It was a sort of silence.
There was a metallic grinding of gears being engaged—lazily, incompetently, or tiredly?—and the car moved away again. Through the frosted lower panes of the bar windows Amy saw its rear brake lights brightening as the driver slowed at the archway entrance, then swung the car into the car park behind. Amy’s heightened senses followed it like a radar tracker. She heard the engine cut out at last.
She left the stool, raised the serving flap in the counter, and walked across the room to peer through the window at the street outside. If Nick noticed her movement he showed no sign that he had. The card game continued, and one of Nick’s friends lit another cigarette.
Amy pressed her forehead to the cool, condensation-lined window, rubbed a wet aperture with her fingers, and looked across Eastbourne Road in the direction of the unseen sea. The main road outside was tracked with the shine of old rain and the drier strips where vehicle tyres had worn their paths. The orange light from the streetlamps reflected in distorted patches from the uneven road surface and from the windows of the shops and flats on the other side. Some of the shop windows were lit, but most of them were either covered by security panels or simply vacant.
Amy watched the passing traffic for a moment, wondering how it was possible that the sound of one car coming to a halt had stood out so noticeably against the continuous noise of all the others. It must mean that she had never relaxed, that the arrival of the American woman had assumed a personal significance of some kind.
She walked back to the area behind the bar, closed the hatch, then went into the corridor that ran behind the barroom. At the other end of this was the part of the building in which she and Nick lived and slept. Immediately beyond the bar door was the small kitchen where they cooked and ate their own meals. She did not turn this way, though, but walked along to the fire exit. She pushed her way through the double doors. They opened into the hotel’s car park at the rear of the building.
Amy switched on the main security light, drenching the area in light that seemed, suddenly, too white and intrusive. A rain-spotted car had been parked at an angle across two of the white-lined bays, and a woman was leaning through the open rear passenger door to reach something. Presently she moved backwards and straightened, and placed two small valises on the ground.
Amy went across to her as the woman opened the tailgate. Inside the car were several more cases, and large bags stuffed with belongings.
‘Mrs Simons?’ Amy said.
‘I’ll show you to your room,’ Amy said, and started up the stairs. Mrs Simons had gone ahead, so Amy overtook her on the first half-landing. As she passed, she saw the woman flash her a grateful smile.
She looked younger than Amy had expected, but her expectation had been based on hardly any information at all: an American address, handwriting in blue ballpoint on a kind of notepaper Amy had never seen before, something about the phrasing she used. The careful formality of the letter had summoned a vague but now clearly baseless impression of a matronly woman, at or close to the age of retirement. This was not the case. Mrs Simons had that preserved attractiveness, apparently ageless, of some TV actresses. Amy felt as if she knew her already, and for a moment even wondered if she might have seen her on TV. Behind the well-made surface she looked and sounded tired, as you would expect from someone who had come in on a plane from the US, but even so she had a relaxed manner that made Amy feel at ease with her. She looked as if she would be different, a more interesting kind of guest than the weekending retired couples and the overnight business visitors they normally had in their rooms.
Amy took her to room 12 on the first floor, which she had prepared earlier by checking that the bed linen was fresh and that the heating was on. She went inside in front of Mrs Simons, switching on the central light, then opening the connecting door to the bathroom for inspection. Americans were supposed to be fastidious about hotel bathrooms.
‘I’ll go and see about the rest of your luggage,’ she said, but there was no response. Mrs Simons had already passed through into the bathroom. Amy left, and closed the door.
Downstairs in the bar Amy informed Nick of Mrs Simons’ arrival straight away, but by this time he had drunk more than he should—which was the same thing as his usual amount, which was always more than enough—and he simply shrugged.
‘Would you help her bring her luggage in from the car?’ Amy said.
‘Yeah, in a minute,’ Nick said, indicating his hand of cards. ‘Who is this, anyway? I don’t remember you saying anything about someone arriving tonight.’
‘I thought it’d be a surprise.’
Nick played a card.
Suppressing her irritation with him, Amy went out to the car and picked up the remaining pieces of luggage herself. She struggled up to room 12 with them.
‘You can leave them there,’ Teresa Simons said, indicating the corner of the floor. ‘Did you carry them up on your own?’
‘It’s no problem,’ Amy said. ‘I was coming to see you anyway. Would you like something to eat, a supper? We don’t really keep hotel hours for meals so it wouldn’t be any trouble to me.’
‘I guess not, but thanks. I stopped somewhere along the way. One of those roadside restaurants back there. You have a bar here?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m going to rest up for a while, then maybe I’ll have a drink downstairs.’
When Amy returned to the bar, Nick had left the table and was behind the counter drawing another pint of best for himself.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about her?’ he said, raising the glass to his lips, and sucking at the foam.
‘I thought you’d look in the file.’
‘I leave all that to you, love. How long is she likely to stay? One night? A week?’
‘She’s booked in for an indefinite stay.’
She had expected a surprised reaction, but he simply said, ‘We’d better give her a bill every weekend, then. You can’t be too careful.’
Amy frowned, and followed him out from behind the counter.
She went round the tables and collected the few used glasses she could find. She changed the ashtray on Nick’s table
. Back behind the bar she leant forward, her hair falling at the sides of her face. She washed the glasses under the pressure-tap then stacked them on the rubber tray that went into the drier.
She was thinking about Nick and his drinking, the aimless life he had drifted into, and the way in which for him one day seemed to lead into the next with neither change nor improvement. Yet what was the alternative for him? Come to that, what was the alternative for her? Both her parents were dead, Jase was dead, many of her friends were away in Brighton or Dover or London, starting up again, anywhere that was not in Bulverton. A lot of people had forsaken the town since the summer. The same urge was strong in her.
Two weeks ago Amy had received an unexpected letter from a cousin called Gwyneth, who had flown to Australia on a working holiday ten years ago, had fallen in love with a young builder and stayed on after her visa expired. Now she was an Australian citizen, married, and had two small children. Amy and Gwyneth hadn’t written to each other since last winter. Her letter was full of concern about the life she supposed Amy must be having to lead in Bulverton these days. She didn’t mention the disaster in the town, like so many people who were outsiders, or who had become one. Gwyneth was urging her, not for the first time, to come to Australia for a holiday and give Sydney a try. She had a spare room and a spare bed, she said, and they were only half an hour from downtown Sydney, with the harbour and the surfing beaches just a tram-ride away…
‘Hi.’
The American woman had returned. Amy looked up in surprise.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was miles away. May I get you a drink?’
‘Yeah. Do you have any bourbon?’
‘Yes, we do. You want ice with it?’
‘Please. Make it a double.’
Amy reached for a glass on the shelf behind her, and drew off a double.