The Shortest Journey (13 page)

‘And didn’t you say that she’d been in a funny sort
of mood?’

‘According to Mrs Jankiewicz, yes. Oh, I don’t know.
The whole thing is so fantastic, so far-fetched.’

‘But possible?’

‘Well, yes. I suppose so. I
suppose
I’d rather
she was in Australia with Annie and her brother and that religious
set-up than lying dead in a ditch somewhere in the Quantocks, but
still...’

I found it difficult to accept such a bizarre
solution to the problem, though I had to admit that no one had come
up with a better answer. We argued round in circles for some time
until I suddenly realised that it was nearly one o’clock and the
chops I’d bought for lunch were still lying uncooked on the
work-top.

The days slipped imperceptibly away, as they always
seem to do in the summer. Michael went off for a week to stay with
some friends in Dorset and I decided to seize the opportunity to
get some work done. I had several books for review and the deadline
was fast approaching. So I shut a protesting Foss in the kitchen
with the dogs (he has a habit of trying to play duets with me on
the typewriter keys) and began to type a fierce condemnation of yet
another study of Charlotte Bronte. The author was one of those
earnest, humourless so-called scholars whom my friend Alison
compares to snails leaving their slimy tracks all over English
literature, who wrench the life and work of the poor author to fit
their own idiotic theories. This particular study was written in a
turgid pseudo-psychological jargon that seemed to have no
connection with the very real woman who had lived, felt, thought
and written in nineteenth-century Yorkshire.

For a while my irritation drove me fluently on, but
when the momentum slowed down and I was at a loss for a suitably
biting phrase I looked up from my typewriter and gazed out at the
garden (as I often do) for inspiration. A strange sight met my
eyes. An extremely large bird was walking along the garden path,
strolling you might almost say, its head on a long, elegant neck,
turning from side to side, as if admiring the flowers. I was
irresistibly reminded of an Edwardian lady graciously complimenting
her hostess on a fine display of delphiniums. It walked along one
path, then turned and completed the circuit of the garden. Its
size and the graceful way it moved made it seem like some mythical,
fabulous creature. I stood up to get a better view and the movement
must have startled the bird because it rose in the air and flapped
away. Only when I saw the spread of its great wings did I realise
that it was a heron, attracted by the stream that runs round the
garden, taking time off from its hunting to have a little stroll
for pleasure.

I was still feeling slightly bemused, almost unreal,
when the telephone rang.

‘Sheila?’

It was Thelma’s voice, peremptory as usual, putting
me, as always, slightly on the defensive.

‘Sheila, have you seen or heard anything of
Alan?’

‘Alan?’ I repeated stupidly.

‘My brother. Alan.’ She spelled it out as if for a
backward child.

‘No. Why on earth should I?’

‘He’s disappeared and I wondered …’

‘Disappeared?’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Sheila, stop interrupting
and listen!’ Her voice was shriller than usual and what Michael
calls its smarmy quality was missing. ‘I’ve just had a telephone
call from the Ecology Centre in Harare. He went off to this
conference in Bristol six weeks ago and hasn’t been heard of since.
He did go to the conference – they checked that – but then he just
vanished into thin air.’

‘How extraordinary!’

My feeling of unreality deepened.

‘It certainly is. First Mummy and now Alan!’

‘When did you last hear from him?’

‘Well, that’s it. I had a phone call from him a
couple of months ago and he sounded – well – rather strange.’

‘In what way?’

‘Not like himself at all. Very excited, all strung
up. He gabbled away – I could hardly get a word in edgeways.’

‘That doesn’t sound like Alan.’

Alan had always been the quiet one, a silent, sulky,
sullen little boy. He had been sent away to school when he was
seven, glad, even at that age, to be out of his father’s way, out
of reach of his temper. Mrs Rossiter grieved for him but even her
love didn’t seem able to reach him. He spent the holidays at home
keeping out of the way of an irascible father and a sister who
noticed him only when she wanted something to tease and torment.
Yet I found it difficult to be sorry for him. He was the sort of
child who would whine and complain if he thought he could get you
into trouble with the grown-ups; there was something curiously
unlovable about him. It had always seemed so unfair that Mrs
Rossiter, who had so much love to give, should have been surrounded
by such an unloving and unlovable family.

‘No, well, it seems that he had met this woman. She’s
some sort of journalist, an American – you know the type,
hard-bitten, very much a woman of the world. Anyway, it seems that
she was getting up an expedition to go to South America, something
to do with an ecological scandal. I don’t pretend to understand
such things – all a lot of nonsense, if you ask me. And Alan wanted
to go with her. Honestly, Sheila, he sounded totally
infatuated
! So unlike Alan. I don’t believe he’s ever had a
girl friend of any kind all his life. Gordon used to wonder if he
was gay, but I said no, he simply wasn’t anything …’

Infatuation, indeed, love of any kind, certainly
seemed the last thing I would have expected of the Alan I
remembered.

‘So you think he’s gone off with her?’

‘Well, he said that they needed to raise quite a lot
of money to finance the expedition and then, of course, there’d be
all the organising to do. Anyway, he certainly hadn’t told his
Ecology Institute that he wasn’t going back to Harare after the
Bristol conference – he should have been back there a couple of
weeks ago.’

‘It does seem odd that they should both have
vanished,’ I said.

‘Yes, I wondered ... Oh, bother. Look Sheila, I’ve
got a very important call coming through on the other line. Anyway,
it’s difficult to discuss these things on the phone. Can you meet
me for lunch in Taunton one day this week? I can’t spare the time
to come all the way to Taviscombe. Shall we say the day after
tomorrow, one o’clock, at Cobblers? Will you book a table?’

Barely waiting for my reply, she rang off.

I reflected that it was typical of Thelma that she
naturally assumed that nobody else’s time was as valuable as hers
and that everyone would fit in with her arrangements. For a moment
I toyed with the idea of ignoring the whole affair but, as I knew I
would, I found myself telephoning to book a table at the rather
trendy wine bar Thelma had selected. Oh well, I told myself, it was
rather strange and my curiosity was certainly aroused.

A furious and persistent yelling from the kitchen
reminded me that Foss was bored with just the dogs for company and
wished to be off on his own mysterious business. I let them all
out into the garden and did a little brisk weeding to bring myself
back to reality.

As I was wrestling with a vicious piece of
convolvulus that had wrapped itself round an especially fine sweet
william and was trying to choke the life out of it, I was trying
to imagine Alan with some hard-bitten female American journalist. I
pictured her with short blonde hair, a deeply suntanned face and
bright blue eyes, like Hollywood’s idea of a Hemingway heroine. She
would be wearing a beautifully cut safari suit, have an expensive
camera slung round her neck and drink Scotch on the rocks. What I
couldn’t picture was the nebulous figure of Alan at her side.

I did a lot of shopping in Taunton before I went to
Cobblers (perhaps with a vague idea of establishing an independent
reason for being in Taunton and not just falling in with Thelma’s
plans) so I was loaded down with parcels and glad to find that I
was there first. I sank into my chair and disposed the parcels
about my feet. The wine bar was quite full and to my surprise I
found that the next table was occupied by six Roman Catholic
priests, one of whom was in a splendid black soutane piped at the
cuffs and hem in red, with touches of purple at the neck. It seemed
a jolly party to judge from the bursts of laughter, helped,
perhaps, by the fact that they appeared to be drinking five bottles
of wine between the six of them. I was reminded of those splendid
pictures of feasting Cardinals that used to hang in the dining
rooms of country hotels when I was young. I was wondering idly
about the priest in the soutane and his position in the hierarchy
(the other priests, all more conventionally dressed, seemed very
deferential) when Thelma arrived. Strangely enough she too was
wearing ecclesiastical purple, a rather nice suit. I thought she
was a bit old for such a fashionably short skirt, although I must
admit that her legs have always been better than mine. She greeted
me in her usual gushing way. We ordered our food and half a bottle
of wine (‘quite a robust little white’) chosen by Thelma.

‘You’ll only want one glass, I suppose, if you’re
driving,’ she said, ‘and I must keep a clear head because I’ve got
masses of work to do on the train going back.’

She told me about some of the deals she was engaged
on, dropping names that she knew I would have heard of, and seeming
quite composed, unlike her agitated manner on the telephone.

‘Well,’ I said, breaking in on one of her stories,
‘what about Alan, then?’

She took a mouthful of her Coquille St Jacques before
replying, as if she wanted a moment to collect her thoughts.

‘He’s really obsessed by this woman,’ she said at
last. ‘He couldn’t talk about anything else.’

‘What sort of things did he tell you?’

‘Oh, mostly how marvellous she was – all about the
scoops
’ – she emphasised the word scornfully – ‘she’s pulled
off and how generally high-powered everyone thinks she is.’

‘Is she in love with him?’ I asked.

Thelma gave a contemptuous laugh. ‘How could she be?
You know Alan! No, I should think she’s out for what she can get.
Someone must have told her about Mummy’s money and she probably
thought that Alan was rolling! Well, of course he isn’t. Mummy
gives him an allowance that’s far too generous, really, I mean,
what on earth can he spend it on in Harare! And she pays for that
depressing flat in Earls Court. But he gets practically nothing
from that Ecology place, so he hasn’t the sort of money she would
be interested in.’

‘So what’s the attraction for her then?’

‘I imagine he’s told her that he can get Mummy
interested in financing this expedition, whatever it is.’

‘Did your mother say anything to you about it? I
mean, had he written?’

‘No, but I don’t think he would. I think he was
planning to come and talk to her about it when he was over here for
that conference. You know how silly Mummy was – the thought of
seeing her little boy again after such a long time.’ Thelma’s voice
was positively corrosive. ‘I expect he thought it would be easy to
wangle quite a large sum out of her.’

‘She always liked to help people,’ I said slowly,
‘and she could be very easily influenced, but still, if it was a
great
deal
of money – and such an expedition would cost a
lot, I should think – well, she might have hesitated. She would
probably have wanted to consult Mr Robertson.’

‘That old fool!’ Thelma interjected almost
automatically, but she went on more thoughtfully, ‘Yes, you may be
right, she could be stubborn sometimes. I’ve found that.’

Anyone contradicting Thelma, however mildly, was
always stigmatised as stubborn.

‘So
that
might be the explanation. The little
bastard
!’

Thelma suddenly looked so furious that I was
completely taken aback. Her dark eyes were blazing – they seemed to
grow in size, dominating her face, as they did when she was a child
in a tantrum at not getting her own way.

‘Explanation of what?’ I asked nervously,
half-expecting that she would turn on me as she used to do when she
was thwarted or frustrated. With an effort she pulled herself
together and spoke quite coolly.

‘I’m sure he met Mummy here in Taunton, got her alone
– took her for a drive, perhaps – asked her for the money and then,
when she refused, he disposed of her somehow.’

‘For God’s sake, Thelma!’

My exclamation must have been very loud and vehement
because the priests at the next table all stopped talking and
looked at me curiously. I lowered my voice and repeated, ‘For God’s
sake, she’s his mother!’

‘Oh, he probably didn’t mean to hurt her, but he does
have that terrible temper.’

‘But even so...’

‘Remember Marigold?’

I was silent. Certainly I remembered Marigold. She
was the pony Alan had had when he was about ten years old. One day
I had been sent out with Thelma to find Alan and tell him to come
in to lunch. He was in the paddock where some jumps had been set up
– his father had some idea of entering him for a local gymkhana and
Alan was required to practise for several hours every morning.

As we approached, Thelma, who could never resist
taunting her brother, made some scathing remark about how feeble
his riding was and what a fool he would look at the gymkhana.
Alan’s face darkened with anger, since riding was the one thing he
did reasonably well. He pulled the reins tight, wheeled the pony
round and put her at one of the jumps. He had hauled her round
angrily and clumsily and the poor creature knew that she was
wrong-footed for the obstacle so she sensibly stopped and refused
to jump. In a frenzy now, Alan jerked at her head and kicked her
forward, but she wouldn’t budge. Her ears were back and her eyes
were rolling. He lashed at her with his whip, again and again,
screaming incoherently, almost hysterical by now. Thelma was
laughing; she seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. Horrified, I
rushed forward and tried to seize the whip, but Alan brought it
down on my shoulders. Furious with the pain I snatched at it again
and managed to wrench it away from him and somehow pulled him off
the pony. He lay where he fell, beating the ground with his fists
and screaming. Ignoring him, I tried to soothe the terrified pony
and led it away to find the lad they employed as a groom, who
bathed the deep weals on the pony’s flank and told me that it
wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened.