Borrowed Time (9 page)

“From Steep? No. Not a million miles. Actually, it’s why I chose it. I didn’t realize then, of course . . .”

“Will you commute from London?”

“Ideally, no. I really want somewhere local to stay during the week. But . . . it’s been hard to concentrate on practicalities like that recently. By now, the best places will already have been snapped up.”

“If they have . . .” I hesitated, then decided it was just a suggestion she might find helpful. Nothing significant hung on whether she did or not. How could it? “My sister-in-law—my brother’s widow, that is—has a large house with plenty of room to spare in Hindhead. It can’t be more than twelve miles from Guildford. And she’s looking for a lodger. She told me so herself. You’ve both suffered a loss recently. Perhaps . . . Well, it might be worth considering.”

“Yes,” said Sarah thoughtfully. “It might.”

When she left, ten minutes or so later, it was with Bella’s address and telephone number recorded in her diary.

The following day, at Brussels’ largest stockist of English language books, I bought a collection of Edward Thomas’s verse. I soon found the poem Sarah had recited and others too to haunt me with their resonance of things half seen and understood but never grasped or named or known for precisely what they are. Whether because I’d ignored them before or simply not been ready for them, his poems came to me now with a sort of revelatory force. How could they fail to, when so much of my own experience seemed embedded in the verse? And how could I not think of Louise Paxton—or her daughter—when I read such lines as:

After you speak

And what you meant

Is plain,

My eyes

Meet yours that mean,

With your cheeks and hair,

Something more wise,

More dark,

And far different.

Especially when Thomas seemed to have foreseen even our meeting on Hergest Ridge.

It was upon a July evening.

At a stile I stood looking along a path

Over the country by a second Spring

Drenched perfect green again. “The lattermath

Will be a fine one.” So the stranger said.

But there he’d erred. Or the stranger had. Our lattermath wasn’t to be a fine one.

A week or so later, I had a telephone call from Bella. She wanted to thank me for finding her a lodger. “One of your better ideas, Robin,” she said. “Sarah and I hit it off straightaway.” This I found hard to believe. But if Bella wanted to believe it, who was I to argue? “I think we could turn out to be rather good for each other. Don’t you?”

C  H  A  P  T  E  R
FIVE

T
he powers that be couldn’t in the end be persuaded to release me early. In fact, somewhat to my surprise, they didn’t want me to go at all. Phrases like “sadly missed” and “hard to replace” were bandied about. It was rather like reading your obituary without actually being dead. Gratifying in one sense, but also frustrating. Not least because it meant I had to see out my notice to the bitter-sweet end: 31 October 1990. For me it turned out to be an anti-climactic date, since my farewell bash got tacked unsatisfactorily onto an office Hallowe’en party. I left uncertain whether my colleagues’ gift to me—a Timariot & Small grade A cricket bat signed by them in the style of an England touring team—constituted trick or treat.

Either way, a chapter of my life had belatedly closed. I flew home to England and took up my post as works director of Timariot & Small the following Monday. Reminding my mother at regular intervals that it was only a temporary arrangement until I had time to find suitable accommodation of my own, I moved into Greenhayes. I meant what I said, even though the U.K. property market had risen way beyond my reach during the twelve years I’d been complacently renting bachelor apartments in Brussels. But, for the moment, there was so much to be mastered and assimilated at work that I was grateful to have Mother cooking and washing for me. Even at the expense of her remorseless chatter and Simon’s satirical remarks. I promised myself I’d sort something out in the New Year.

By then, for all I knew, Shaun Naylor’s trial would be upon us. While I was still in Brussels, I’d received a conditional witness order from the Crown Court stipulating that I might be required to appear at the trial, a date for which hadn’t yet been fixed. The Kington killings had dropped out of the papers altogether, vanishing into the limbo of judicial delay. The thousands who’d read and speculated about them at the time had probably forgotten them altogether. But for those who couldn’t forget—for the Paxton family—it must have been like waiting for Louise’s funeral over again, on and on, as the months passed. A cathartic moment indefinitely postponed. As far as they or any of us knew, Naylor was still planning to plead not guilty. Eventually, he was bound to be given his moment in court.

I tried to contact Sarah on several occasions during my first few weeks back in England, but without success. If I was busy getting to know the workforce at Timariot & Small and imposing my authority as firmly but gently as I could, no doubt she was equally busy absorbing contract, tort and criminal law while trying not to brood on the experience she’d soon have of the real thing. I only ever seemed to get Bella on the telephone, which I couldn’t risk doing too often without her putting two and two together and making five. And Sarah simply didn’t return my calls. I began to suspect she might want to discourage my attention. I began to think how understandable it would be if she did. There’d be boyfriends on the scene. Half a dozen men closer to her own age and interests than me. Who exactly was I kidding? And why? The attraction I’d felt in Brussels wasn’t really to her, was it?

My mother was certainly curious about the arrangement. Why had Bella taken a lodger? And why
that
lodger? But her attempts to engineer a meeting came to nothing. Even her curiosity faltered with so little to sustain it. And our contacts with Bella had become fewer as Hugh’s death receded into the past. Events and emotions drifted. As they’re bound to, I suppose. As they’d have gone on doing—but for the trial.

I got home earlier than usual one evening in the first week of December to find Brillo and my mother sharing the fireside at Greenhayes with Bella. Tea and cake were being consumed, the family photograph albums—all four of them—keenly examined. And Bella was giving a good impression of the indulgent daughter-in-law happy to take a stroll down memory lane. Which might have fooled Mother. But not me. Not for an instant. Bella wanted something. The question was: what?

I wasn’t to be kept waiting long for the answer. As soon as Mother left the room to make fresh tea, Bella said to me: “We’ve seen nothing of you since you came back, Robin. It’s really not good enough.”

“We?”

“Sarah and me.”

“I
have
phoned. Several times.”

“Well, it
is
difficult, I admit. They keep Sarah so busy at that college. And she goes home every weekend. My life’s been pretty hectic as well, of course.”

“I’ve had one or two things to do myself.”

“Do you know you sound just like Hugh when you adopt that sulky tone?”

“Really? Well, I—”

“Anyway, never mind. Sarah
isn’t
going home this weekend. In fact, Keith’s coming to see her with Rowena and—”

“Keith? You mean her father?”

“Yes. I’ve met him”—she tossed her hair enigmatically—“oh, quite a few times now. He’s really a very nice man. Genuine, you know? He hasn’t grown hard and resentful, as so many men do.” Usually after exposure to women like Bella, I couldn’t help thinking. Still, she was always infectiously optimistic. Fun—even when she was at her most infuriating. If Sir Keith Paxton had found her company a pleasant relief from his troubles, I couldn’t entirely blame him. Nevertheless, I didn’t like the sound of it. Bella might be exaggerating for effect with her casual dropping of his name minus the title. But, all the same, I felt resentment stir in me. “He’s suffered a great deal, of course. And he’s far from over the worst. Rowena’s a terrible worry to him. And to Sarah.”

“Why?”

“Hasn’t Sarah told you?” She smiled. “No, I suppose not. In that case, perhaps I oughtn’t to . . .” She waited for me to rise to the bait, but I merely smiled back. “Still, I suppose I ought to prepare you in some way.”

“Prepare me for what, Bella?”

“I was hoping—
we
were hoping—you’d come to lunch next Sunday. Meet Keith. And Rowena. He’ll be bringing her along. You see— Oh, here’s Hilda with your tea.” And that, a flashing glance told me, was all she could say for the moment. Like the actress I sometimes thought she ought to have been, she’d timed her curtain line to perfection.

The next act was delivered to me in the lounge bar of the Cricketers, Steep’s village inn, where Bella proposed a drink to see her on her way, knowing my mother wouldn’t dream of accompanying us. Mother regarded pubs as places ladies should avoid, except for the occasional lunchtime snack, and then only under heavy escort. Bella, needless to say, didn’t see them that way at all. But then Bella, as Mother sometimes pointed out, was no lady.

“I have to be careful what I say about Sarah’s family, Robin. I’m sure you appreciate that.”

“Of course.” I also appreciated that nothing pleased Bella more than teasing other people with tit-bits of information she possessed but they didn’t.

“I’ve only met Rowena once, but it was obvious to me she wasn’t recovering from the loss of her mother as well as Sarah. She was supposed to be starting university this autumn, you know. But that’s had to be postponed. She isn’t really capable of taking on any kind of commitment—work
or
study—at the moment. The whole thing has quite shattered her.” Sarah had spoken in Brussels of “picking up the pieces.” I wondered now if she’d been referring to her sister rather than herself all along. “She’s seeing a psychiatrist, though what help he is . . .”

“Sarah mentioned trauma counselling.”

“It’s become rather more serious than counselling. Rowena doesn’t have Sarah’s strength of mind, her . . . resilience. She’s really quite fragile. Doesn’t look her age at all. More like fourteen than nineteen. On a personality like hers, well, you can imagine the effect this must have had. She had to identify her mother’s body, you know. And she was the last to see Louise before . . .” Why did Bella’s use of Louise Paxton’s Christian name anger me? Why should I still care so much? “Except she wasn’t the last to see her, was she, Robin? Not quite.”

“Where’s this leading, Bella?”

“To a possible way of helping her, that’s all. It might make it easier for her to accept if you explained how carefree, how oblivious to what was going to happen, Louise was when you met her. Rowena seems to think . . . Well, her psychiatrist thinks . . . The girl believes her mother had something on her mind that day. Something . . . more than she’s been told. Something . . . that could have amounted to a premonition.”

“What makes her think that?”

“Who knows? Guilt for not stopping her. An inability to take things at face value. Whatever it is, you might be able to rid her of the delusion where others have failed.”

“Why?”

“Because you know it’s not true. You saw Louise that day. Like Rowena. But unlike anyone else.”

“I’m a stranger to Rowena. She won’t trust me.”

“Maybe she’ll trust you
because
you’re a stranger.”

I wasn’t going to refuse, of course. The argument made a kind of sense. And I wanted to see Rowena now this hint had been dropped that she too had glimpsed the ambiguity—the mystery—in her mother’s soul. But why was Bella the messenger? Why not Sarah—or Sir Keith? Why was my sister-in-law suddenly an insider while I remained a stranger? “Whose idea was this, Bella? Yours?”

“I suggested it, yes. But Keith saw the sense of it at once. He agreed it was well worth trying—if you were prepared to cooperate.”

“Of course I’ll cooperate. There’s just one thing I don’t understand.”

“Well?”

“What’s in it for you?”

She arched her eyebrows. “Does there have to be anything? I simply want to help.” But she must have read the disbelief in my eyes. It riled her. More than I’d have expected. “You bloody Timariots. So suspicious. So sceptical. So . . . miserly with your high opinion. Have you considered that I might have met somebody who brings out the best in me, rather than the worst?”

“Unlike Hugh, you mean?”

“If you like. Hugh. Or his brother.”

I looked away and sighed without attempting to disguise the reaction. It was an old battle nobody was ever going to win. But some of the wounds still hadn’t healed. “This somebody is Sir Keith Paxton?”

“Maybe.”

“With his wife less than five months dead?”

“I’ll leave the arithmetic to you.”

“Fine. What it adds up to is this. You want me to make you look concerned and sensitive for the widower knight’s benefit.”

“It’d be for his daughter’s benefit, actually. But if that’s going to be your attitude, perhaps it would be better if—”

“No.” I held up my hand, in warning as well as truce. The sniping had gone on long enough. “I’ll come, Bella. I’ll do what I can. I’ll try to help. Not for your sake. Nor for mine. Just because it really is the least I can do. Good enough?”

She nodded and, after a moment’s silent contemplation, smiled. We understood each other. Better than most. Though not as well—not nearly as well—as I might have hoped to know another. Had she lived.

Sunday was a cold grey winter’s day—raw, damp and stark. A polar opposite of the summer’s day my mind dwelt on as I drove up to Hindhead. And of other days I didn’t want to remember. But which my destination always evoked.

The Hurdles occupied a large and secluded site backing onto Hindhead golf course. It needed summer foliage to soften its harsh roof-line and faintly alien appearance. Without camouflage, it looked as if it might blend more happily with the landscape of southern California than the Home Counties. Like wedding photographs in which the guests are wearing the risible fashions of the day, The Hurdles stubbornly reflected aspirations that hadn’t long outlasted its construction. For cosmopolitan boldness, as the architect had fatuously put it. For a loving but enlightened marriage, as Hugh had convinced himself he was to have. And for ownership of a definable future, which he should have realized was available only on the shortest of leases.

There was a Daimler parked beside Bella’s BMW in the drive. Sir Keith, I assumed, had already arrived. When I rang the bell, Sarah opened the door. She’d had her hair cut even shorter since her visit to Brussels. And she’d lost a little weight too. It suited her, though it was also worrying. I doubted if counting calories was the cause.

“Good of you to come, Robin,” she said. “I mean it. Really very kind.”

“Not at all.”

“I’m sorry we’ve not been able to get together since you . . .” She was nervous, though whether because of meeting me again or because of the reason for our meeting I couldn’t tell. “Well, we’ve both been busy, haven’t we? Come on through.”

The others were in the drawing-room. Bella came forward as I entered and gave me a kiss on both cheeks. I suppose she reckoned that’s how normal people would expect her to greet her brother-in-law, though it took me aback. Then she introduced me to Rowena and Sir Keith.

Rowena was even slimmer and slighter than her sister. She had long fair hair, almost exactly the shade of her mother’s. It cascaded in waves down the back of her dress as far as her hips. Uncut since childhood, I assumed. And an arresting sight. But not quite as arresting as her aquamarine eyes. They gazed up at me as I shook her hand, solemn and unblinking, fixed momentarily on mine. And for that moment her concentration—her absorption—seemed total. As if we were alone together. As if nothing mattered except what we might be about to say to each other.

“Hello,” she said softly, frowning like some cautious but well-bred child. “Sarah’s told me about you, Mr. Timariot. I’m very pleased to meet you.”

“And I you.” I wanted to offer her my condolences, but something stopped me. Then Sir Keith was beside us, sliding a fatherly arm round Rowena’s shoulders while he treated me to a firm handshake and a formal smile. The chance was gone.

He was a big man, in manner as much as physique. Grey-haired, broadly built and handsomely weather-beaten. He met my glance with the brisk confidence of somebody whose profession it is to encounter a wide variety of people in difficult circumstances. But there was a diffidence there as well. Our roles were strangely reversed. I should have been the one offering consolation. But his breezy warmth seemed to forbid it. We could laugh or converse or share a drink, it implied. Anything more profound—anything remotely intimate—was territory best left unexplored. Which was only to be expected, I suppose. The ingrained reticence of a certain generation of Englishmen. Yet there was another layer to it, I felt. There was a suspicion of me. I was the last man to see his wife alive—apart from her murderer. I was the stranger who possessed a small piece of knowledge he might have craved. If he’d allowed himself to admit as much. But he wasn’t going to. That was clear. Bereavement was to him an enemy you engaged and defeated, grief a weakness you never showed.