Still Waters (31 page)

She had sat up on the thought, but now she lay slowly down again. She was alone, she had always been alone, therefore her problems would have to be solved by her alone.

She was trying hard to go back to sleep when another thought hit her, so hard that she sat up like a jack-in-the-box.

Andy! He had known there was a mystery four years ago, when they were both kids. They hadn’t met since, but they’d written, she knew his address, didn’t she? She could even telephone if she was desperate. And to confide in Andy wouldn’t be disloyal because he was far away, either in boarding school or in Paris or Rome or wherever his work had taken Andy’s father.

Yes, Andy was the answer. Immensely reassured, Tess lay down again. How could she have thought she was alone? She had a loving father and good friends – Mrs Thrower, Janet . . . and Andy. It would be such a help to talk to Andy, tell him what she had discovered, discuss with him what her next move should be. Her eyelids were drooping, her problems no longer seemed insoluble. Andy would help, explain, tell her what to do.

Soon, she slept.

The dream, when it came, was different; worse. The beach no longer seemed a safe and gentle place for a child to play, it was lit with a strange, dangerous yellowish light. The very sea seemed antagonistic, the waves menaced her, rolling in topped with foam which seemed, to her childish dream-eyes, like angry tiger-claws, arched to pounce.

She did not do as she usually did and go down to the tideline, therefore, but kept well up the beach. And looking out to sea saw, for the first time, the boat. Small, seeming black in the lurid light, it crawled up the wave crests and swooped giddyingly into the troughs and though she had no recollection of why she should be seeing a boat it frightened her, brought the breath sobbing into her throat.

She turned to the long pool beside the breakwater and as soon as she did so the sun came out from behind the clouds and shone on the dark golden hump of the sand, on the little shells, the occasional gleam of a wet pebble, a strand of dark-red weed. She forgot the angry sea, the little cockleshell of a boat, her fears. This was her place, where she had most wanted to be! She sat down and took off her shoes and socks, then glanced behind her.

The boy was coming, hurrying. He would spoil it all, boss her about, tell her what to do! She jumped to her feet and the shoes and socks plummeted into the water. Oh, she was in trouble now! The shoes were brand new, she shouldn’t have been wearing them on the beach!

The boy reached her, snatched her up . . . and she saw that the sky was lurid once more, the light horrible. She struggled to get down, she pointed to her shoes, moving to the tide’s whim far below the surface, and then she saw . . . she saw . . .

Before her eyes the scene began to shift and blur, to tilt and dance crazily even as she opened her mouth and screamed and screamed . . .

The screams woke her. She sat up, trembling violently, and realised someone had their arms round her, someone’s face was close to hers.

‘Hush, hush, my love, it was just a nightmare, only a nightmare. Do hush, or you’ll have the whole family awake!’

She had difficulty orientating herself. The room was grey, the light coming in through the window strangely subdued . . . but there were no trees outside her window, she looked straight out on to the silvered surface of the Broad! What on earth was happening? Was she still dreaming? She twisted in the arms that held her; a man’s arms, trying to look into his face with eyes that were still unfocused, sleep-filled.

‘Daddy?’ She knew as she said the word that it couldn’t be Peter. The feel of the arms around her was all wrong, and the smell, too. But she knew it was a man, and in the confusion of sleep only just banished she could not think of anyone else who could come to her in the night. ‘Did I wake you?’

Someone laughed softly and nuzzled her neck with his mouth.

‘Idiot! It’s me, Ashley. I heard you shout so I came through.’

‘Oh,’ Tess said vaguely. ‘Sorry.’ Of course, she was at Freddy’s house, in Blofield, and Freddy’s brother had come into her room when he heard her scream. She frowned. ‘But your room is the other side of the house; you couldn’t have heard me,’ she said with certainty. ‘Freddy’s right next door . . . I didn’t disturb her.’

‘Freddy sleeps like the dead . . . and keep your voice down, sweetheart, or you’ll have Mum and Dad down on us like a ton of bricks. What on earth were you dreaming about? You shrieked like a steam train going into a tunnel.’

He was lying on her bed! Tess squiggled her arms free of him and gave him a shove. ‘Get off! How dare you come into my room in the night! If you don’t go at once I’ll scream a lot louder than that!’

He swung his legs off the bed and sat up. ‘Don’t get in a fuss,’ he said. ‘A lot happened to you today, I was afraid you might sleep badly. I dossed down in the green room, next door to you. Aren’t you glad I woke you?’

‘You didn’t. I always wake then,’ Tess said frostily. ‘And what do you mean . . .’

Her voice faded away. Recollection of the day’s events, cold as a bucket of iced water tipped over the head, flooded her.

‘What do you mean, you always wake then?’ Ashley’s voice was indulgent, amused. ‘Do you often have nightmares?’

‘Not often. Sometimes. Do buzz off, Ash, I’m all right now. And don’t doss down in the green room on my account. I’m all right as soon as I wake up.’

He shrugged. His face was a white blur in the greyness of the night. Then, unexpectedly, he stood up, turned round, bent, and kissed her very gently on her unprepared mouth. She couldn’t help the little gasp she gave, nor the way her heart began to hammer. It doesn’t mean a thing, she told herself severely, snuggling defensively under the covers again. It was how everyone felt when someone who was almost a stranger kissed you.

‘Good-night, darling Tess,’ Ashley murmured. ‘See you in the morning.’

‘Good-night,’ Tess said, making her voice as cool and remote as possible. Just who did Ashley Knox think he was? She liked Freddy very much, was sure she would like her parents once she got to know them, but her brother was a different matter, a different kettle of fish. It wasn’t just what he had said about her mother and about Peter, it was something about Ashley . . . she didn’t think he was very trustable, if there was such a word, nor did she want the sort of relationship with him which he seemed to imply when he called her darling, sweetheart.

Still, she needn’t stay if things got difficult. Two days ago I really wanted a boyfriend, she realised sleepily. But now I’m not at all sure. It’s such a
complication
, it makes things so difficult. He had put his arm round her in the pictures in front of Freddy and that Keith person . . . in front of a whole cinema full of people, come to that. And he’d kept sort of snuggling . . . it wasn’t until she got really fed up and bit the hand which was stroking along the line of her jaw, at the same time pinching his intrusive other hand with all her might, that he got the message and withdrew a little.

‘He isn’t terribly sensitive,’ Freddy had said apologetically when they were getting ready for bed, sharing the bathroom and giggling together. ‘But he really does like you, Tess. I’ve never known him fall so heavily for a girl before, honest.’

‘Well, I haven’t fallen for him,’ Tess had said briskly, spreading paste on her toothbrush. ‘He’s your brother and very nice, I’m sure, but to be honest, Freddy, I scarcely know him and I don’t like being . . . oh, taken for granted, I suppose.’

‘I’ll warn him to back off a bit, then,’ Freddy agreed. ‘Because I do want you to come and stay again, I don’t want you put off!’

But she couldn’t have warned him before they went off to bed, there had been neither the time nor the opportunity. So he had sneaked into the room next to hers and curled up on the bed . . . spying on me, Tess thought, and felt the heat rise in her cheeks. How could he – how dared he! What was the world coming to when a girl couldn’t even have a nightmare in peace?

She was almost asleep again when a most unwelcome thought struck her. Suppose Ashley thought
Like mother like daughter
? Suppose he assumed that because Leonora had conceived a child out of wedlock then Leonora’s daughter would be prepared to – to –

The thought was so horrid that it brought her eyes wide, had her struggling into a sitting position once again. Could he have somehow assumed . . . But then she remembered that he had been far too interested in her before the churchyard episode. Ashley, she supposed, was simply chancing his arm. Some would, some wouldn’t, and he wasn’t sure yet into which category each girl fell.

She lay down again. I’m behaving like a yo-yo on a string, she thought crossly. If I keep lying down and sitting up every time something occurs to me I’ll never go back to sleep. She tried to think soothing thoughts, to remember Andy in patched grey shorts and a checked shirt, with his glasses gleaming, telling her that they would find out about her mother. Little did he know! But just remembering that long-ago summer was soothing and might have worked had it not suddenly occurred to her that there was one dilemma which she simply had to meet head on. When the Delameres returned from France she would have to face Peter, and try to behave naturally, because she did not think she could ever tell him all she knew.

With a sigh, she rolled over and sat up on one elbow. Right! Sleep was out of the question; she would spend the rest of the night deciding exactly what she would say to Andy when she rang him next morning.

Waking was odd; she felt fuzzy in the head and her mouth tasted horrid, as though she was recovering from a long illness. She had felt like this, she remembered, after a bad bout of measles when she was seven.

But she was a guest in the Knoxes’ house so she got up, washed, dressed and made her way downstairs. Breakfast was being prepared by Mrs Knox in the kitchen whilst Mr Knox was upstairs.

‘He’s having his bath,’ Mrs Knox said. Tess, who had only just emerged from the bathroom herself, realised this must mean there were two bathrooms and, from the casual way Mrs Knox spoke, that a daily bath was a normal routine for her husband. Despite herself, she was impressed. As one who now queued up for a weekly bath – if she was lucky – the thought of bypassing all that lengthy flannel business was enviable . . . how clean all the Knoxes must be!

‘You’re early,’ Mrs Knox went on affably, shaking the grill pan so that the kidneys spluttered and spat. ‘I’m afraid Freddy and Ash won’t be up for at least an hour. They’re lazy little beasts in the school hols. Want your brekker now?’

‘Well, if it isn’t too much bother,’ Tess said. She had a healthy appetite and breakfast, for her, was a seven-thirty affair at the latest. ‘Just tea and toast will be fine, though. Then – then I thought I might go for a stroll in the village, if you don’t need me for anything.’

‘Tea and toast, and you a growing girl? Nonsense, you’ll have kidneys, bacon and scrambled egg like the rest of us,’ Mrs Knox said briskly. ‘Ah, here he comes. Be a darling, Tess, and cut a round of bread off that loaf and shove it in the toaster; Mr Knox likes toast with his scrambled egg.’

When breakfast was finished Mr Knox went out to his car and Tess washed up the dishes and then ventured out into the sunny morning. She had her purse in the pocket of her flowered cotton dress and was really looking forward to talking to Andy after so long. Of course she didn’t know where he was, but she had plenty of change and she knew Lady Salter’s number by heart; his great-aunt was bound to have his telephone number or if not, at least his address. Directory enquiries would do the trick.

There was a red telephone box outside the post office, Tess had noticed it the previous day. She went into its odd-smelling interior, lifted the receiver, set out her pennies, sixpenny bits and shillings on the shelf below the little mirror, and picked up the receiver. Now it had come to the point she discovered she was nervous, but nothing venture, nothing win, she reminded herself and, when the operator spoke, asked for Lady Salter’s number.

Distantly, she heard the telephone bell, then an elderly – and crotchety – voice spoke in her ear.

‘Hello? Who’s that?’

Tess pressed Button A with trembling fingers and said, ‘Lady Salter?’

‘That’s right. Whom am I addressing?’

‘Oh, it’s Tess Delamere, Lady Salter, I’m trying to get in touch with – with your great-nephew, Herbert Anderson. Can you tell me where he is, please?’

There was a very long pause. Tess, conscious of her pennies clicking away, tried to be patient, but it was hard going.

‘Herbert? My daughter’s second boy, d’you mean?’

‘Yes, that’s right. He stayed with you one summer four years ago – do you remember, Lady Salter? I’m Tess Delamere, he and I were very friendly that summer. I rather want to get in touch . . .’

‘Not possible.’

‘Isn’t he on the telephone, then? I know he’s probably abroad but I thought if he was in an embassy they might be on the telephone and . . .’

‘No, no, not possible,’ Lady Salter repeated impatiently. ‘The boy’s gone.’

‘Gone? Left home, d’you mean? Then perhaps if I could telephone his parents they could . . .’

Lady Salter interrupted again; testily, this time.

‘My dear Miss Delamere, when I say gone’ – she pronounced it
gawn
– ‘I mean gone. He’s with friends; they’re touring India in a bullock cart and hope to do most of the Middle East before returning home in a year’s time. I dare say they won’t be anywhere near a telephone for the next six months. Thank you for calling.’

And down went her receiver so sharply that Tess’s ear buzzed.

‘But Lady Salter . . .’ she began, then, realising the futility of it: ‘You nasty old woman, a fat lot you care!’ She put her own receiver on to its hook and turned disconsolately away. Andy was unreachable. Now what should she do?

It was a fine October afternoon with a stiff breeze blowing across the face of the Broad. Through the trees, which no longer carried their summer burden of rich and glossy leaves, Peter could see the sails of three or four small craft as they tacked and turned across the Broad, avoiding the buoys, shallow water, mud banks.