The Woman at the Window (4 page)

He nodded understandingly and tried not to stare. She was so much younger than he expected. Dark good looks that were likely to sharpen. Late thirties maybe. Not negligent of appearance. Merely indifferent. Left to mourn a husband thirty years older. And to question everything.

‘So Huw never mentioned El Al. His old partner in crime and colourful adventure?'

‘He used to say there were more things he wanted to forget than remember.'

‘That sounds just like Huw. Always sharp, incisive.' 

The pleasure of recall soon evaporated.

‘It seems I must have been one of them. The things he wanted to forget.'

She showed little interest in the echo of battles long ago or the tinge of self-pity in his voice.

‘That's one thing I always liked about him,' she said. ‘He never lost an inclination to blush. He was never too pleased with himself.'

‘You found that attractive?' He sounded eager to learn.

‘He knew how to be ashamed. Not like those egotistical bastards who can't wait to immortalise their ever-so-wicked lives. He never found himself intriguing.'

‘That sounds very right.'

He spoke so respectfully they could have sat for any length of time, watching the years fly by as they sat at the table without speaking. The silence of the house closed in and the presence of another person made it easier to bear. In the end he gave a flourish of his hand and the smell of disinfectant wafted through the kitchen.

‘So you settled here,' he said. ‘Came to rest, so to speak.'

‘One of his great-grandfathers was Rector of this parish. So when he heard the Old Rectory was on the market he couldn't wait to buy it. Now I'm lumbered with it.'

He suppressed an urge to move a hand in her direction. It was far too soon to demonstrate any desire to help.

‘He was always ridiculously proud of his family. My ancestors he called them. They were people of no consequence really. Farmers and parsons. That sort of thing. But I liked that about him.'

‘Ancestor worship,' he said. 

‘Is that what they call it?'

She was amused. He had created a name for a new category of eccentricity. She straightened her back as though they did not know each other well enough to start being frivolous.

‘What was it you fell out about?' 

The question was short but precise. 

‘It's a long story,' he said.

‘The end was short enough.'

He paused to consider the tone of her response. It was raw but not bitter. It demanded a frank account.

‘I lured him out of the BBC into advertising. He was wasted there. And underpaid. He had all the flair and I knew how to fix things. I made him a partner. He was worth it. It was just the pudding time. The high tide of telly advertising and we caught that tide. We made a lot of money and we were on the way to making more. I flew off to Boston and LA to fix up deals. I wasn't away more than a couple of weeks.

While I was gone he pinched my girlfriend.' 

‘Oh dear…'

‘It may seem a bit childish now but I can tell you I was furious and unforgiving. I wanted revenge. I had to bring him down a peg or two. I cut him out of the deal. And he walked out. It was the end of… well… a real friendship at the very least. I don't think we ever spoke to each other in the old way ever again. Although I longed to. I missed him so much. More than he missed me. I can see that now.'

He closed his eyes, overcome with the cold finality. 

‘What happened to the girl?'

‘Eleri?'

He made a conscious effort of recall as if for a moment the girl's name had escaped him.

‘Nothing really. Huw dropped her, she married a minister from Carmarthen. I have a feeling she spent the rest of her life as a language campaigner.'

‘She's dead then?' 

‘I don't really know.'

He realised how lame his answer sounded.

‘Huw's friendship meant more to me than Eleri. Anyway I lost them both.'

He waited for some response. There was none forth- coming.

‘Not much sound and fury,' he said. ‘And precious little significance by now. Except showing up my shortcomings. Of which I am only too aware already.'

He was being weighed up in the silence. He had confessed enough already. It was a time for a degree of reciprocity. Having come all this way he was entitled to it.

‘How did you and Huw meet?' She smiled.

‘He picked me up in a pub.' He felt obliged to smile as well.

‘I was a tormented teacher in a Sec Mod. Bullied by everybody. Exploited too. I went into the pub to cheer myself up. I drank too much to boost my confidence. And he picked me up. You could say Huw Picton rescued me from prostitution. From the classroom anyway.'

‘You were very young. And beautiful of course.' He seemed eager to learn more and eager to please.

‘So I clung on to a charming older man. You could say that, yes.'

‘Huw was doing well?'

‘I knew he was some kind of television executive. It was quite a long time before I realised he was hating every minute of it. He tried for the top job on the Welsh language television channel. “At least there,” he said “my time won't be entirely wasted.” He didn't get it. I could see he was getting increasingly frustrated. He wanted to write he said. He was trying to write novels. Fine I said. Retire or get yourself sacked or whatever. So off we went. He said we'd rescued each other. He'd rescued me from the classroom and I'd rescued him from television. We were quits.'

‘Did he get down to it?'

‘We had the whale of a time. Research he called it.'

It was time to stem the flow of reminiscence in front of a man she had never met before.

‘We settled down eventually. And here we are. Or rather here I am.'

‘I'm out of touch with these things,' he said. ‘Living in Italy. I do remember he always wanted to write serious stuff. He was wonderfully talented. Are the novels a success?'

‘They are wonderful,' she said. ‘And unpublished. All five of them. Gathering dust upstairs in what he called his sanctum. He had a big desk in the window and an armchair in which he could sit for hours nursing that beastly Bella and studying the view. I think she can't understand why he's not here. That's why she's behaving so badly.'

‘What are they about? The novels.' 

He sounded too painfully curious.

‘Ancestors,' she said. ‘What else. Terribly old-fashioned. Terribly unfashionable. Never mind. He enjoyed writing them and I enjoyed reading them.'

She rose to her feet. The conversation was turning into too much of an interview. It was time to bring the visit to an end. He seemed to be searching for a means to prolong it.

‘I would like to pay my last respects,' he said. ‘If you could tell me where he's buried.'

‘He's not,' she said. ‘His ashes are upstairs in the sanctum. Along with masses of papers from his unpublished novels. I've got a war on with the Rural Dean. I want the ashes to go into his grandfather's grave. Or at the foot of it. In a neat casket. The Dean is not keen.'

The visitor sank into his chair. He appeared in desperate need of sympathy.

‘I've come too late,' he said. ‘For a long time now things haven't gone well. I'd say to myself, I'll look up old Huw. He knows about living. He'll inspire me. And now I've left it too late. It was the best time of my life, with Huw. He had the secret and for a while I shared it. And then I threw it all away. What have I done except grow richer and get more and more empty and lost.'

He looked up at her, his eyes pleading for understanding. ‘Is there a Mrs Anwyl?'

Her voice was gentler. She looked at his empty coffee cup as though considering offering him more.

‘Alas no. I was too absorbed in making money. And of course I never had anything like Huw's charm whatever the word means. All I know is that it's something I haven't got. Actually I have a partner. Or I had.'

‘Oh dear…'

Valerie repeated the comment and then shut her mouth tight in self-rebuke. She held her breath until she saw that he had not noticed the repetition.

‘Lucia Caputo. Assistant Curator at the Teodorico. A clever woman. Taught me all I know about tesserae. And a lot more. She got fed up with me. Said I was too rich and too boring. Took a better job in Catania. She wanted to specialise in the mosaics in Sicily. That's why I was down there. Trying to persuade her to come back.'

It seemed a conclusion of a kind. This time she made it clear it was time for him to leave. At the front door while he stood holding his hat in his hand, still reluctant to go, they were joined by Bella the cat. She rubbed herself ingratiatingly against his trouser leg.

‘I admire your garden,' he said politely. ‘It's rather big though isn't it?'

She clutched her arms against the breeze from the sea. 

‘He was always in two minds about the garden. 
Sometimes he wanted it to run wild and then he would take it in his head to start gardening furiously. In all weathers and at all hours. He said a man had to shelter under a hedge with a crust in his mouth and a sack on his back and mud on his boots to talk to nature. That sort of thing. He was always fun to be with.'

‘That sounds real Huw.'

He offered his hand as though they had reached a point of understanding.

‘Have you ever been to Italy, Mrs Picton? If you ever feel like a visit I would be more than delighted to welcome you.'

‘That's very kind…'

‘It's done me so much good, talking to you. I really would like to repay you in kind. Financially I mean. It would give me so much pleasure. I have a villa on Lake Garda. I would be delighted for you to use it. For as long as you like.'

Valerie was shaking her head. ‘You said you were lumbered…'

He waved his hat to indicate the size and awkwardness of the Old Rectory.

‘I can't leave,' she said. ‘Who would feed the cat? He's gone but he may have left the most interesting part of him here. I've got to find out. Huw used to say when it comes to memories we all like to shuffle our own pack.'

Elwyn Anwyl heaved an appropriate sigh. She thanked him briefly as though he had in fact attended the funeral. She watched him leave and returned to stand by the drawing- room window. Bella was padding behind seeing him off. By the road gate he turned for a last look at the Old Rectory. He saw the woman at the window. She looked as unperturbed as the landscape she was staring at. He raised his hat and disappeared from view.

Rendezvous

IN his view an airport was hardly an inspiring setting for a rendezvous, but since it was her decision Henry Davies had no choice. After a good deal of fuss and bother he had arrived with time to spare only to discover her flight from Lisbon was delayed by sixty-five minutes. There was no explanation. It was springtime, the weather was good and there were these European delays and no information. Henry had some expertise in timetables and he was displeased. The condition of the airport was untidy and chaotic with no-one in charge. In the old days, had this been a school, he had only to raise his voice and order would be restored. Now he was brushed aside by a tight bunch of football supporters who charged about bawling their asinine anthems and jostling the multicoloured Asian families all encumbered with children and vast quantities of luggage.

Henry had been tense with anticipation long before arriving and now the tenseness was degenerating into an irritation difficult to contain. He was too well dressed and he fretted about the condition of the flower in his button hole. Would it wilt before Glenys arrived? Should he throw it away? He struggled to dredge up from the depths appropriate quotations with which to bolster his fortitude if not restore his good humour; some rarebit of wit he could repeat when they came face to face after so many, many years. ‘Childe Henry to the dark tower came,' for example. He would make regular trips to strategic points such as the electronic arrival boards, bookstalls and toilets to keep his limbs supple and his insides comfortable. Early in his career he had been advised by a cousin who had risen high in the civil service to imagine a wire passing through his spine and out of the top of his head. At times of stress he should give it a good pull to straighten his back or strengthen his walk. The advice had stood him in good stead as he tramped so many miles down school corridors and he continued to bear it in mind as he played nine holes of golf twice a week. There was no par for the course down this anaemic, dreary shopping mall. The effort of being both sprightly and philosophical made him uncomfortably aware of his age. He would be seventy-seven next birthday, and although everybody said he didn't look it, here and now he knew there was no time to lose to add to all the stretches of time that had been lost already.

‘Here and now' was a topic he could give his attention to. He found a suitable corner in a café bar up a shallow flight of stairs where he could refresh himself with a well-diluted brandy and soda and rise above the petty irritations that threatened his peace of mind. Throughout his career he had cultivated self-discipline. Always with diligence and what he humorously called his ‘fair portion of native cunning' it had been central to his progress, and since his retirement, to his defence against the remorseless advance of the ageing process. He took regular exercise and took care of his health and general appearance.