(1990) Sweet Heart

  He went in the barn and managed to get the huge old mower started, then sat on the seat and drove it with a terrible racket across the gravel and up the bank. It farted oily black smoke and the engine kept cutting then racing, jerking him about like a circus clown. Finally there was a loud bang and the engine stopped and would not start again. Tom climbed off doubled up with laughter and she felt, almost for the first time, that everything was going to work out.

  ‘Let’s find a pub,’ Tom said. ‘I fancy a beer and a steak.’

  ‘The chap up the lane said the George and Dragon was the best for food.’ She brushed hairs back from his forehead, and the evening sun danced deep in his slate blue eyes. He didn’t look thirty-eight and she didn’t feel thirty-six; she felt twenty-six, or maybe sixteen, when she’d first seen those eyes, gazed up at them from the sticky carpet where she’d fallen sloshed in the pub and seen them grinning down at her. ‘Hallo, Joe Cool,’ she’d said to the stranger, and then passed out on his shiny Chelsea boots.

  The George and Dragon was an old coaching inn and the glass panel in the door displayed its credentials: ‘Relais Routiers’, ‘Egon Ronay’, ‘Good Pub Guide,’ ‘Good Beer Guide’. The thin licensing strip across the lintel proclaimed the proprietor to be Victor L. Lubbin.

  A roar of laughter froze as they went in. A bunch of labourers around a table glanced up then one said something and the laughter resumed. A solitary fruit machine stood against a wall. It winked its lights, flashed its signs, changed its colours and repeated a scale of musical notes every few seconds, its sole audience an old English sheepdog which lay on the floor eyeing it sleepily like a bored impresario at an audition.

  The room had a low ceiling, yellowed from age and smoke, and massive timber beams. Ancient farm implements had been hung on the walls along with a dartboard. There were old-fashioned beer pumps and an unlit inglenook. Beside the dartboard were notices advertising a jumble sale, a steam traction rally, Morris Dancing — ‘Morfydd’s Maidens’.

  A knot of three people stood at the far end of the bar. One Charley recognised, the tall frame of Hugh Boxer, their neighbour, raising a stubby pipe as a greeting. ‘Hi!’ he said.

  He was wearing a crumpled checked shirt, a knitted tie and had an amiable smile on his bearded face, though there was the strong, authoritative presence she had felt before. The grease smears had gone and his hair had been tidied a bit.

  Charley introduced Tom, and Hugh Boxer ordered them drinks and introduced them to the couple he was with. They were called Julian and Zoe Garfield-Hampsen, and lived in the red-brick house with the Grecian columns around the pool at the end of the lane. Yuppie Towers. Julian Garfield-Hampsen was tall, with a booming voice and a ruddy drinker’s face. He wore a striped Jermyn Street shirt with corded cufflinks and smoothed his hand through his fair hair each time he spoke. He was probably about the same age as Tom, but he looked ten years older.

  ‘How super to have another young couple in the lane!’ Zoe said. She had a small, reedy voice and spoke slowly and precisely, which made her sound like a schoolgirl in an elocution lesson. She was the woman Charley had seen walking out of the stables in her bikini and Wellington boots. ‘Julian and I have always simply adored Elmwood Mill,’ she added.

  ‘We love it,’ Charley said.

  ‘It’s super! The only thing that put us off buying it is it sits so low down and doesn’t get much sun in the winter.’

  ‘Spritzer.’ Hugh Boxer handed Charley her glass. ‘And a pint of Vic’s best sludge.’

  ‘Cheers.’ Tom held his dark bitter up to the light, studied it for a moment, drank some and nodded approvingly at the landlord.

  The landlord, a stocky, dour man with thinning black hair, made no response for a moment. He turned to take a tumbler from the small aluminium sink, then said, in a dry Midlands accent, ‘Cricketing man, are you?’

  ‘I used to play a bit,’ Tom said surprised.

  The landlord wiped the tumbler with a cloth. ‘Sunday week,’ he said. ‘Ten o’clock, Elmwood Green. We’ve a charity match against Rodmell and we’re two short.’

  ‘I’m a bit rusty. I haven’t played for a few years.’

  ‘Bat or bowl?’

  ‘I used to be a bit of a batsman, I suppose.’

  ‘Put you down for opening bat?’

  ‘Well I wouldn’t — er —’ But the landlord had already started to write his name on a list. ‘Witney? With an H or without?’

  ‘Without,’ Tom said, ‘I haven’t got any pads or kit.’

  ‘You get roped into everything down here,’ Hugh said. ‘They’ll have you on every committee going within a month.’

  ‘Viola Letters is doing the tea,’ the landlord continued. ‘I expect she’ll be in touch with you, Mrs Witney.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Charley said, taken aback but smiling.

  ‘Do you do food at night?’ Tom dug his fingers hungrily into a large bowl of peanuts on the bar.

  ‘Restaurant’s through there.’ The landlord pointed. ‘Last orders for food at nine forty-five.’

  Tom shovelled more peanuts into his mouth. They had half an hour.

  ‘Julian played last year, but he’s hurt his shoulder,’ Zoe said. ‘How many children do you have?’ she asked Charley.

  ‘None, so far.’ Charley’s face always reddened at the question. ‘We — we hope to start a family here.’

  ‘Super!’ The expression on Zoe’s face said, At your age?

  The Garfield-Hampsens had three children. They were called Orlando, Gervais and Camilla. Julian (Joo-Joo) was in computer software. Zoe evented-and-thinged on horses. Everything was super.

  Charley caught Hugh Boxer’s eye. ‘Is that your lovely Jaguar outside? Tom’s been ogling it since we first saw the house.’

  ‘Tell him to pop in any time if he sees the workshop door open. I’m working on a beautiful old Bristol.’ He tapped his pipe against the rim of an earthenware ashtray. There was something cosy about the sound. He dabbed his forehead with the back of his massive hand. ‘It’s close tonight.’

  She felt the sticky heat too. ‘It’s clouding. The forecast is thunder.’

  He struck a match and took several long sucks on the pipe, then shook the match out. There was still grease under his nails.

  ‘Is that your business, old cars?’ Charley said.

  He drew on his pipe and fired the smoke out through his nostrils. It rose up in a thick cloud around him. ‘No. I’m a ley hunter,’ he said, and took a sip of his whisky, cradling his glass in his hand.

  ‘Ley hunter?’ She caught the twinkle in the eyes; morning sunlight on an icy pond. Beneath the ice there seemed to be immense depth.

  ‘Hugh’s frightfully famous. He’s our local celebrity,’ said Zoe.

  He waved his pipe dismissively. ‘It’s not true. Don’t believe it.’

  ‘It is!’ She turned to Charley. ‘He’s been on television, radio, and in all the papers. He had a whole half page in the Independent with his photograph. They called him Britain’s leading authority on ley lines.’

  Hugh puffed on his pipe as if he were not part of the conversation.

  ‘And he’s had two books published.’

  ‘What are their titles?’

  The smoke smelled rich and sweet. Charley liked the smell of pipes.

  ‘I shouldn’t think you’ve heard of them,’ Hugh said. ‘The Secret Landscape, and Dowsing — the Straight Facts.’

  ‘He’s absolutely brilliant. The books are fascinating.’

  Tom and Julian Garfield-Hampsen were talking about property. ‘We’re trying to get permission to extend,’ Julian said, and Zoe’s attention switched to them.

  ‘Were they bestsellers, these books?’ Charley asked.

  He sucked on the pipe again. ‘No.’ he grinned and raised his straw-bale brows. ‘It’s a very specialised subject. I don’t sell many, just a few copies.’

  ‘Is that how you make your living?’

  ‘I earn my crust at the university
. I lecture.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Sussex.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t look like a garage mechanic. Do you lecture on ley lines?’

  ‘No. Psychology. Ley lines are my hobby — for my sanity.’

  ‘And old motor cars?’

  ‘Anything old. Old cars. Old buildings. Old landscapes.’ He shrugged, and looked closer at her, more penetratingly. His voice lowered and his face suddenly seemed more gaunt. ‘Old spirits.’ He tamped his pipe with his stubby thumb. He bit his nails too, she noticed with surprise. His eyes lifted from the pipe back to her. They stared intently. It was as though they were searching for something, as if they were trying to rub away an outer layer and peer through.

  ‘What do you mean, old spirits?’

  ‘Past lives. I can always tell someone else who’s had past lives.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Just by looking at them.’ She felt something cold trickle through her, pricking at her like an electrical current.

  ‘You mean reincarnation?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You believe in that?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe in it. I don’t think it’s possible.’

  ‘I don’t believe in divorce,’ he said quietly. ‘But my wife still left me.’

  There was a silence between them.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last.

  He smiled, but she saw the pain beneath the mask.

  ‘Do you believe in regression?’ she asked, sipping her spritzer.

  ‘Regression hypnosis?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He took a match out of the box. ‘There are a lot of meddlers, amateurs. Anyone can announce he’s a hypnotist and set himself up in business.’

  ‘The Triumph in our barn,’ she said avoiding his eyes. ‘How old is it?’

  ‘The original log’s missing. I’ll have to check the chassis and engine numbers. They started making them in forty-eight.’ He struck another match. ‘Have you met Viola Letters yet, the grand old dame of the lane?’

  There was a single flash of lightning. Conversation in the pub flickered for a brief instant then resumed.

  ‘In Rose Cottage?’

  He sucked the flame into the bowl of his pipe. ‘That’s her. Keeps a hawk-eye on what goes on.’

  There were three more flashes.

  ‘Do she and her husband not get on too well?’

  He looked puzzled, then faintly amused. ‘I didn’t know they communicated.’

  Charley felt her face reddening. ‘What do you mean?’

  Thunder crashed outside.

  Hugh swirled his whisky around in his glass, then drank some. ‘She’s a widow,’ he said. ‘Her husband’s been dead for nearly forty years.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The sky was clear again the next morning and the air felt fresh after the storm. Water dripped from the trees, an intermittent plat … plat … plat, and wisps of mist hung over the lake. It was just after eleven.

  As Charley walked alone up the lane she heard a rumble ahead of her, and a tractor came around the corner towing an empty trailer. She stepped into the brambles to let it pass, and smiled up at the driver, an elderly wizened man. He stared fixedly ahead and drove past without acknowledging her. She watched him rattle on down the dip, surprised.

  The Morris Minor was in the driveway and the Yorkshire terrier started yapping before Charley had pushed the gate open. She went hesitantly up the path. A ship’s bell was fixed to the wall beside the front door. She searched for a knocker but could not see one, so she jangled the bell. The yapping intensified and a voice the other side of the door quietened it.

  The door opened and Viola Letters stood there, half kneeling, holding the terrier by its collar, in the same stout shoes as yesterday, a tweed skirt too thick for the heat and an equally thick blouse. She looked up at Charley warily.

  ‘I’ve come to apologise,’ Charley said. The old woman’s eyes were peering over the top of her cheeks like a crab staring out of wet sand, and the dog’s eyes were black marbles sparkling with rage. ‘I’m desperately sorry. I wasn’t playing a trick. I didn’t know your husband was dead.’

  She pulled the dog back. ‘Would you like to come in?’ Her voice sounded like a deeper bark.

  Charley stepped into the hall and the dog glared at her in an uneasy silence.

  ‘Close the door. He’ll relax then.’

  Charley did so and the dog yapped angrily.

  ‘Kitchen!’ Mrs Letters dragged it into a room at the back, gave it a gentle slap on the bottom and shut the door on it.

  ‘Sorry about that. He’s normally fine with visitors. Getting a bit cantankerous in his old age,’ her mouth opened and shut as she spoke like a secret door in the folds of flesh.

  ‘He can probably smell our dog.’

  The woman looked at her, suspicion returning to her face. ‘You’re Mrs Witney, you said.’

  ‘Yes.’ Charley noticed a strong waft of alcohol. ‘I’m afraid I made a terrible mistake yesterday. I don’t know how it happened, I must have misheard completely what the man said.’

  Viola Letters was silent for a moment. ‘Can I offer you a drink?’ she said then.

  There was a smell of linseed oil and polish in the house. It had a cared-for feeling, the walls painted in warm colours with contrasting white woodwork. There were fine antiques and almost every inch of wall was covered in paintings, mostly seascapes and portraits, and a number of amateurish landscapes in cheap frames.

  Charley followed Mrs Letters through into the drawing room. A copy of the Daily Telegraph with the crossword filled in lay on a small Pembroke table. Viola Letters pointed her to a small Chesterfield. ‘Gin and tonic?’ she barked. ‘Whisky and dry? Sherry?’ She said everything in a raised voice, as if she was trying to make herself heard above an imaginary din.

  There were Persian rugs on the floor and the tables were covered with lace tablecloths weighted down with silver snuff boxes, ivory animals and photograph frames. On the mantelpiece was a sepia photograph of a bearded Edwardian in naval uniform, his chest adorned with decorations, and on the floor, by the brass coal scuttle, was a small military drum.

  ‘Actually, I’d love a soft drink, some mineral water or tap, please.’ She had a strange metallic taste in her mouth, which she had noticed before.

  ‘Water?’ Viola Letters said the word as if it was a disease. ‘Nonsense! Sun’s almost over the yardarm. Pinkers? Scotch? What’s your poison?’

  ‘Perhaps just a small sherry?’ Charley said, not wanting to offend her. She sat down.

  ‘Expect we could rustle one up from ship’s stores,’ Viola Letters said, going over to a mahogany cabinet.

  Something brushed against Charley’s leg and miaowed. She lowered her hand to stroke it. She tickled between its ears and the back of its neck, then looked down. An eyeless socket in the side of the cat’s face was pointing at her.

  ‘We’re a tight ship here, our little community. If I can be of any help just give me a call or pop over any time. There aren’t many of us down here. I try to keep watch. We don’t get too many strangers, but it’s going to be a bit worse from now on: some fool journalist has written this up in a book of country walks. It’s a public footpath down over the lake. Did you know?’

  ‘It doesn’t look as if it’s used much.’

  ‘It will be. We’ll have hordes of bloody ramblers all over the place, I expect.’

  There was something about the old woman that seemed vaguely familiar, but Charley was not sure what. ‘How long have you lived here?’ she asked.

  ‘Since nineteen fifty, but I’m not classed as a local. They’re odd, the farming community. They don’t trust anyone who moves here. You have to be born here. There are two farmers who won’t even nod good morning to me, and I’ve seen them most days for the past forty years.’

  ‘I saw one on my way today.’

  ‘Most peculiar.’ She lowered her voi
ce. ‘Interbreeding — a lot of that sort of thing round here.’ She raised her voice again. ‘You’re Londoners?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, you’ll find country life a bit different. If there’s anything you need to know — doctor, vet, what have you — just shout.’

  ‘Thanks. I wondered if it’s possible to get newspapers and milk delivered.’

  ‘I’ll give you the number of the dairy. There’s a jolly good newsagent in Elmwood who delivers — darkies, of course, but one can’t help that.’

  The cat rubbed its eyeless socket against Charley’s leg. She tried not to look at it.

  ‘Nelson! Buzz off!’ Viola Letters marched across the room clutching a massive schooner filled to the brim. ‘There you go.’ She went back to the cabinet, poured herself a tumbler of neat gin, splashed in some angostura and sat down opposite Charley. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’ Charley sipped her sherry.

  ‘Your husband’s not a naval man, I suppose?’

  ‘He’s a lawyer. He specialises in divorce.’

  There was a silence. In the kitchen the terrier began yapping.

  Mrs Letters looked at her carefully. ‘Sorry if I seemed rude yesterday, but you did give me the deuce of a shock.’

  Charley sipped some sherry for courage. ‘I must have misheard — got the wrong address — name —’ Her voice tailed off.

  The crab eyes slid up above the cheeks. ‘No. I think you did see him, the old love.’ She leaned forward, her face lighting up. ‘Are you very psychic, dear?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  Viola Letters fetched a photograph in a silver frame from another room and showed it to Charley. It was black and white, a tall, serious man, standing to attention in the uniform of a naval officer. The face was clear, and the resemblance to the man she had seen yesterday was strong. She had to look away, suddenly, as his stare began to make her feel uneasy. Sherry slopped over the rim of her glass on to her hand.

  ‘It was the sticking plaster that convinced me,’ Viola Letters said, reseating herself. ‘Before he went up there he caught his forehead on a shelf, just above his right eye.’

  Charley shivered. That was where the plaster had been.