The Christmas Angel (33 page)

She tucks Rupert’s birthday present into the corner of the bag and stands up. He hasn’t guessed that she intends to surprise him, even though she tried to find out, when she phoned him earlier, what his movements will be tomorrow. He is almost certain that he’s got tenants for the cottage, he told her, and he will be taking them out to lunch after they’ve had another look around the cottage in the morning. He was very confident, very cheerful, and she longed to tell him that she’ll be down in time for tea; instead she
hugged
the surprise to herself, imagining his face when he sees her.

He was so sweet the last time he was home that she broached her idea about moving into a house they both really love within easy distance of Clifton, whilst buying something suitable to renovate for student accommodation. She was absolutely firm about staying in Bristol but ready to compromise about his having some project that he would really enjoy.

Now, Kitty switches on the television for a weather report and opens the map book to recheck the route. She’s made her point and he hasn’t rejected it. She thinks that she can make the trip to Cornwall without feeling that she is giving in, and it is going to be such fun.

Rupert, having spent the day rebuilding the stone wall at the edge of the lawn, is feeling tired. It’s rained, gently but persistently, all day and he was soaked through and covered in mud by the end of the operation. He wants to get the wall finished and tidy up the garden before his new tenants arrive in the morning to measure up, and he’s very ready now to take a shower and drink a beer. As he worked he thought about Kitty’s proposition: move to a bigger house just across the Suspension Bridge and buy a terraced cottage in the city that he can work on gradually.

As he pulls on clean clothes and goes down to the kitchen to pour his beer he is experiencing a faint sense of excitement at the prospect, though he refuses to consider letting any house he has lovingly restored to students: that’s just not on. But an old Georgian terraced house, for instance, might be a worthy challenge. Anyway, it was a good weekend and he is beginning to feel ready to meet her halfway.

He’s seized with a pang of guilt. He wishes he hadn’t told her that he’s taking the new tenants out for lunch tomorrow. It was a stupid thing to do and he doesn’t know why he said it. After all, Kitty won’t know what he’ll be doing at lunchtime. He supposes it’s because he’s feeling guilty that he’s meeting Dossie. He told her that it was his birthday and she said, ‘Well, in that case we must celebrate. What about lunch?’ and he couldn’t see any reason why they shouldn’t. He still can’t, except that he knows that he’s leading Dossie on in allowing her to believe that there might be some kind of future for her with him.

Feeling irritated and anxious, he goes into the sitting-room to light the wood-burner. He’ll leave it on overnight so that the cottage is warm and welcoming for his tenants in the morning. As he lays the kindling and searches for matches he tries to rationalize his relationship with Dossie; to reassure himself that he hasn’t actually misled her. Of course he should never have allowed her to believe that he was a widower, and the moment has come when he should have it out with her. He is very fond of Dossie, they’ve had a great summer, but he knows that the time has come to ring down the curtain on their little show.

Rupert lights the fire-lighter and stands up, watching the flames take hold, blue and orange tongues licking hungrily at the kindling and the logs. Tomorrow he will tell Dossie the truth. She deserves to hear it from him, and he must face up to it. But his heart is weighted with anxiety and his gut churns at the prospect.

‘Happy birthday.’ Dossie raises her glass to Rupert. ‘I won’t ask how old you are.’

He smiles but doesn’t answer, touching her glass lightly
with
his own. She is aware of a tension, a look in his eyes, which is making her uncomfortable so that the ease that usually flows between them is missing. The pub is half empty on this gloomy, wet afternoon and the atmosphere is rather hushed and solemn, though the fire in the big inglenook is blazing cheerfully. On one side of it two late-season holiday-makers in their walking boots study maps whilst their dog, some kind of collie-cross, lies quietly at their feet, occasionally rolling a hopeful eye at their plates.

Dossie has already made friends with the dog. She bags the other table on the opposite side of the fire and then crouches down to talk to him whilst his owners beam approval. They start a conversation – where they come from, where they are staying, their proposed walks – so that, by the time Rupert arrives, a relationship of a kind has sprung up and now one or other addresses a remark or a question to Dossie from time to time, which is making any kind of intimacy with Rupert even more difficult.

‘Oh, I never admit to my age,’ he is saying now with an attempt at jollity, but his response hangs heavily between them and Dossie, feeling quite desperate, smiles back at him and pushes her plate aside. She knows that the proximity of the friendly couple is inhibiting him and this is odd; he is usually quite capable of taking such a pair in his stride, happy for them to be part of the moment – but not today.

He goes up to the bar to order coffee and she watches him with misery in her heart. His mobile bleeps and he takes it out, glances at the screen and presses the button.

‘Hi, mate.’ He turns away from her and the girl behind the bar, as if shielding himself from them, and Dossie tries to pretend she isn’t interested, though she is listening. He
comes
back to their table wearing an expression of irritation and relief.

‘Problems,’ he says briefly. ‘I’m going to have to go down to St Mawes. Damn nuisance.’

‘What, now?’

‘The damage assessment bloke’s turned up unexpectedly. Remember I told you that a holiday-maker had fallen over on the path and was claiming damages? That was Trevor, my manager. I’m going to have to go and sign some forms. Look, I’m really sorry, Dossie. D’you mind?’

‘Of course not.’ She makes a huge effort to smile naturally. ‘I quite understand. Will you bother with the coffee?’

He hesitates and then shakes his head. ‘Sorry, I’d better get a move on. Look, thanks for my birthday lunch. I’ll be in touch.’

She can see that he is trying to decide whether he should kiss her or not, and then the coffee arrives and she says, ‘Yes, text me,’ to him and, ‘Thanks,’ to the waitress, and he stands indecisively for a moment and then nods and goes out.

The friendly couple send commiserating little smiles and she smiles back but, even as she smiles and drinks her coffee, she is making her mind up. It is too painful to continue like this, too humiliating to be the one who loves too much yet is allowed no rights or privileges. She will take a chance and make her own investigation.

She stands up and collects her things, pays for the lunch, and with a smile to the couple and their dog, she leaves.

She drives slowly to the cottage with Joni Mitchell keeping her company, singing ‘You’ve Changed’. It is after three o’clock when she arrives and parks in the lean-to. She knows where Rupert keeps the key hidden, just in case unexpected
deliveries
or the plumber or the electrician should turn up whilst he is out somewhere, and she goes round the side of the cottage to the back door. The key is under a stone behind the dustbin.

‘It’s such an obvious place,’ she said to him, and he shrugged. ‘There’s nothing worth breaking in for,’ he answered. ‘And hardly anyone ever comes down this lane, anyway.’

So now she picks up the key and comes back again to the front door and opens it, leaving the key in the lock. All the while her heart is beating very quickly and she is breathing fast, as if she’s been running. Supposing Rupert were to come driving down the lane now; what would she do?

Dossie shrugs, bracing herself to courage. She has nothing to lose. She stands in the little hall, staring up the steep stairway, letting the silence fill her ears and slow her breathing. She peers in through the doorway of the sitting-room, trying to take it in: the comfortable old armchairs and the small portable television; a table standing under the window with a book and some newspapers stacked tidily on it; no pictures on the walls. She can see a flickering of flame through the wood-burner’s glass doors, and the room is warm but impersonal. She remembers that Rupert told her that he’d keep the fire on overnight so the cottage will be warm when his tenants come round: that’s why the room is so tidy.

She goes back through the hall and into the kitchen. Some birthday cards are piled on the table. Dossie moves them gently, pushing them apart to look at the pictures, and then opening them to see who has sent them. Several are signed by couples – probably his sisters and their husbands – and inside one is a photograph. She picks it up, her heart jumping:
Rupert
is standing with his arm around the shoulders of an attractive dark woman, whose arm is round his waist. They smile out at the camera looking easy and happy together. Another couple stand beside them: a fair, pretty woman with a stocky, cheerful-looking man. Dossie turns the photo over but there’s is nothing on the back. The card, however, carries its own message: ‘We thought you might like this photo of us all at the club a few weekends before Kitty’s mum died. Kitty says you’re back this weekend so we’re hoping to see you to drink a belated birthday toast.’ The card is signed ‘Sally and Bill’.

Dossie stares at the photograph: is the dark woman Kitty? Has he been with Kitty at the weekends when he’s been unavailable, unwilling to commit himself? Clearly he has a separate life in which he and Kitty go to clubs with Sally and Bill – and it is to Kitty that he is going this weekend to celebrate his birthday. She looks at the other cards. One is an amusing cartoon from the
New Yorker
and inside a more personal message: ‘Happy birthday, darling. I shall be keeping your present for the weekend! All my love, Kitty.’

Kitty. There is no point in looking any further. Feeling sick and angry and unhappy, Dossie closes the card and goes out into the hall. Her stomach is churning. So, all this time that she and Rupert have been meeting, there has been this other person: someone who is missing him and to whom he was going at weekends.

As she opens the front door she can hear a car’s engine. Heart thudding, she closes the door behind her, takes the key out and runs round to the back, pushing the key under its stone with trembling fingers. She’s just reached the path again when a small car pulls up in front of the cottage.

The woman who gets out is thin and dark and elegant:
Kitty
, the woman in the photograph. She reaches back into the car for her bag, slams the door and approaches Dossie with a frowning smile that is almost arrogantly interrogative. Her attitude is so confident that Dossie’s legs can barely support her. There is no doubt that the newcomer believes she holds all the rights of ownership.

‘Can I help you?’ she calls. Her voice is clipped and cool, and Dossie has to summon every ounce of courage to smile back, quite calm and collected.

‘Hi,’ she answers casually. ‘No, not really. I was wondering if Rupert was around.’

‘Oh?’ The sharp question is almost offensive. ‘I’m his wife. Is there anything I can do?’

‘Wife?’ Dossie is shocked out of her fragile composure. ‘But Rupert’s wife is dead. At least …’

It’s clear that the woman is as shocked as Dossie now. ‘Dead?’ She falters over the word, looking almost frightened, as if something terrible has happened; as if Dossie has cursed her. She looks so appalled that Dossie somehow needs to reassure her. She tries to regain some kind of control.

‘It was just some rumour I heard when a mutual acquaintance told me about him,’ she says, pushing her trembling hands into her pockets. ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea whether it was true or not.’ She tries to think quickly, unable to scream the truth at this woman with the white, horrified face. ‘I’ve been trying to contact him but without success. Maybe his email’s down. I’ve been doing a Fill the Freezer option for people who have holiday homes and I’ve done a few for Rupert. I’m giving it up as of now and I wanted to let him know.’

The woman still looks shocked and hostile, but Dossie’s
anger
suddenly flares again. ‘Perhaps you can tell him? Dossie Pardoe. He’ll know the name.’

She steps round her to reach her own car, desperate to get away now. She climbs in, has a moment of panic when she can’t see her bag – has she left it in the cottage? – and then picks it up off the floor and fumbles for the keys, which are still in the ignition. She backs out, manoeuvring around Rupert’s wife’s car, and drives away much too fast and shivering violently with reaction.

Kitty watches the car out of sight before she goes in and shuts the door behind her. She is shaken by the encounter. The sight of the woman has given her a shock. Blonde, pretty, shapely, she is the sort of woman Rupert likes, though he always denies it. Kitty stands in the hall, biting her lip, hardly taking in her surroundings. Why has the woman come here to the cottage? How does she even know about the cottage? There are no visitors here who might want her Fill the Freezer facility. And all the while the word tolls like a bell in her mind: dead. Why should she think Rupert’s wife should be dead? Who would have said such a terrible thing?

Dossie Pardoe. Dimly Kitty recalls Rupert mentioning the Fill the Freezer idea way back but he hadn’t talked about the woman. She pushes open the sitting-room door. She’s glad that the fire is alight. She needs comfort and warmth, and she opens the door of the stove and puts on some more logs.

Crossing the hall she goes into the kitchen and immediately sees the birthday cards and the photograph. Clearly Rupert has not been hiding them from the sight of any pretty, blonde visitors. Even so, her anxiety and horror will not go away. She goes upstairs, checking out the work he’s done and keeping a sharp eye for evidence of any other
kind
, but there is nothing. Nevertheless, all her instincts are working overtime and her suspicions are aroused, but it is much worse that that. Dead. Could Rupert possibly have told that woman that she, Kitty, was dead? The horror of such a thought affects her oddly. She feels weak, as if she has been dealt a fatal blow, and shocked even beyond anger.