The Woman at the Window (5 page)

Was there ever really such a thing as ‘now': or was our apprehension of time no more than a sequence of events relative to one another? And as for these events, could they not be atomised or extended ad infinitum according to the emotional and physical condition of the participant masquerading as observer? How better to pass an interlude of inaction than engage in quiet debate. Could the relationship to the balloon glass within reach of his hand be compared to the relationship his hand would enjoy when it clasped the waist of the woman he was waiting for? Glenys. There was still an absurd magic in her name. She was the most momentous thing that ever happened to him. By any measurement, emotional or social, it had to be admitted. To this day. To this expectant hour.

It had been a hazardous love affair that set his life alight; a fire that had smouldered all down the years and was smouldering this very moment. He fingered his balloon glass and saw her in her school uniform, standing in that corner of the school library and smiling at him, drawing him inexorably into her orbit. The school became a palace of enchantment, dangerously exciting. In public view he dared not stand too close to her. She excited him so much. Nothing in his life had been so thrilling, so nerve-racking, as lurking in the organ loft of the parish church while Glenys finished her practising. Then there was the momentous unexpected visit on her bicycle and the passionate embrace outside the back door while his mother was engaged with entertaining the new vicar.

His mother was the problem. And the inordinate pride she had in her only son and in his appointment at thirty-two as the youngest headmaster in the history of the grammar school. A relationship with a girl in the sixth form was out the question. There was no way any regulation or rule could be amended so that the most delicious fruit that life could offer would no longer be forbidden. His mother's hysteria still sent shivers down his spine. It stayed in his mind more firmly than any of the Machiavellian moves he made to keep their unconditional love for each other alive; the devastatingly beautiful young girl pledged herself to the distinguished, but still boyish, youthful older man.

He had been rash enough to take the head boy into his confidence and he had entrusted that bright Liverpudlian spark with the mission of seeing Glenys home from the Christmas dance. It was his anxiety about the length of time the mission took that brought his predicament into the open. His mother insisted that if the secret came out his career would be finished and their lives ruined. He would lose everything they had worked for. Her life would be devastated and so on. Those were awesome weeks when their cherished relationship hung in the balance. In the end, after negotiations in which the vicar and Glenys' family were involved, his mother accepted that they should pay for the two-year course that Glenys would follow in Switzerland, perfecting her French and German and studying music. Her bus driver father could never have afforded it. And after that his mother would relent and they could get married.

But it never turned out like that. How could it! It was an arrangement more suited to the age of antimacassars. The sixties and all their momentous changes had burst upon an immature male of studious nature driven on by the academic ambitions of a demanding mother. In spite of his qualifications and distinguished appearance he was unworldly, still breathlessly naive. Glenys was so much better equipped to deal with it, young, beautiful, charming; too charming to be sent out unprotected into the wider world. She seemed to have had a weakness for older men. First one and then the other, by happy coincidence, were wealthy. At a painfully remote distance he heard about her progress. And whatever piece of news or gossip that reached them his mother seized on to say ‘I told you so', or ‘you had a lucky escape'. In one way or another she would suggest how grateful he should be for her intervention. It was thanks to her that his career proceeded on an even keel and even when he agreed and showed his gratitude each time they heard something, a part of him would bleed inwardly in silence. All a man of his nature had left was to take solitary walks on the shores of oblivion, stopping from time to time to pick up the pearls of memory when they glittered at his feet.

An unsuccessful marriage to a sports teacher came and went. In the course of time his mother died. One summer when retirement was already in view he visited Portugal. He took a package tour and stayed at an hotel in Cascais so that he could prowl around Colares in order to smell out the villa that Glenys' second husband, the banker Reinhold von Klopleck, had bought for his retirement retreat. Wearing a new Panama hat, he stood in the small piazza and stared at the gates of the villa. An emaciated dog was stretched out on the stones of the dried fountain, fast asleep. The gates of the forbidden palace were overshadowed by the vast green expanse of an umbrella pine. He returned to the spot more than once, but failed to pluck up the courage to call. He had no wish to meet the rich banker. What he hoped was to bump into Glenys in one of the restaurants in the vicinity, which was both romantic and ridiculous.

On a more practical level, for his retirement he bought a terrace house in Cricieth with the intention of settling on the upper floors and renting the rest to elderly tenants. He found the view of Cardigan Bay quietly inspiring. He passed the time agreeably, playing regular golf, taking field trips with friends, until he heard that the banker von Klopleck had died. The news excited him. He spent time composing a letter of condolence. This gave him an opportunity to initiate a correspondence, cool and friendly to begin with: but calculated to grow more enthusiastic and ardent as time went on. Sensing a degree of sympathy or encouragement, he became more insistent and pleading. Nothing mattered more in the world than to be able to see Glenys again. He and to enter into any arrangement that would bring their lives into closer contact again. He would have her understand that their brief love affair was the best and deepest thing that had ever happened to him. It remained the one glowing torch at the centre of his dull, mundane existence.

‘Henry! What on earth are you doing here?'

Inside his new suit he sweated and shuddered like a schoolboy caught in the act. What excuse could he make? What was he going to say?

‘Dr H. T. Davies I presume!'

The lighthearted approach was some help. He pushed back his chair and exercised his customary old world courtesy. Always a good line of defence. After all, the woman was a good friend and they had many interests in common. In the past they had exchanged confidences and had been mutually supportive. Mattie Gwilym was inclined to employ a brusque, straightforward manner that was not universally welcomed and she chose to dress with flamboyance not to his taste: but she was stalwart as well as stout, with a devotion to several good causes, she enjoyed a joke and they both shared a keen interest in history and archaeology. They had been on field trips together. On those occasions she had shown an interest in his well-being that veered between the maternal and the flirtatious. She was dressed now in a flouncy black and yellow dress in anticipation of a summer that had not yet arrived and she settled in the seat opposite like a wasp on a choice piece of cake.

‘This place is so nerve-racking, I can't tell you!'

Once seated, Mattie had become absorbed in her own flustered condition.

‘My granddaughter has been on one of her trips to South America. Research she calls it. Her boyfriend or partner or whatever they call it nowadays, has sworn never to set foot in an aeroplane again. Idiots up there, he says, in search of endless vanity and sensation and weaving a shroud for the planet. He gets quite upset about it. It's a real bone of contention between them and I don't know how it will end.' 

She found him slow to appreciate the drama that she could see unfolding. He was smiling in a glazed, polite fashion.

‘That's how young people are nowadays. Full of theories. I don't really understand any of it. And in the end I suppose I don't want to. You were a headmaster, Henry. Do you understand it?'

He shook his head soulfully, and wondered how long it might be until her granddaughter's flight was due to land.

‘So here I am, a middle-aged go-between. Middle-aged! What am I talking about? Past sixty. When I was a girl that was on the brink of old age!'

Henry struggled to compose a graceful compliment that would reassure Mattie on her robust appearance. There was also the difficulty of how long she would attach herself to him. Was it possible that flights from South America were also delayed?

‘And you are meeting somebody?'

His reply was instant: a flash of inspiration. 

‘A bereaved relative.'

His tone and sepulchral expression implied it would have been indelicately inquisitive for her to inquire further. She showed some concern for his well-being.

‘Are you still perched up in that ridiculous top floor flat?' He smiled and raised his hand to excuse himself from such self-indulgent folly.

‘Don't tell me! I'm not getting any younger. I'm thinking of moving. Really. I have it firmly in mind.'

‘Good. I tell you what…'

She clasped her plump hands together and leaned closer over the table.

‘Awelon y Môr.'

She gave the name as if it was confidential information. 

‘Brilliant idea. Garden cottages connected up by covered 
ways with a central block with a restaurant and a club room and all that sort of thing. You still play bridge don't you?'

‘As badly as ever,' he said.

‘Nonsense. You were jolly good. They've got a keen bridge club there. Then there's golf virtually round the corner. And I don't live so far away, if that doesn't put you off! I think there may be one going vacant next month. Would you like me to put your name down?'

His mouth hung open as he attempted to frame a suitable reply. Mattie was quick to respond.

‘You're not keen,' she said. ‘It's not that…

‘You're a bit of a Fabius Maximus, aren't you?' she said. ‘Delay and all that. Never do today what you can possibly put off till tomorrow.'

This was an old joke between them: and they had their interest in ancient history in common. He smiled and nodded and she took it as an invitation to greater frankness. 

‘It's a wonderful view and all that but I remember you saying the people downstairs were beginning to get on your nerves. And wasn't there some talk of them taking in refugees..?'

An unintelligible blare on the airport speaker systems caused her sudden alarm.

‘Oh, my God… what time is it?'

She began to rummage in her large handbag looking for her spectacles and a small notebook. She scribbled the address of the Awelon y Môr complex with her own telephone number before tearing it out and handing it to him.

‘You are just the type they would welcome with open arms,' she said. ‘Let's keep in touch. I've got to fly.'

‘Of course, Mattie. Of course.'

No longer under surveillance, he was ready to be effusively cordial. He folded the paper, showing gratitude, and stored it in his waistcoat pocket. They waved at each other as she made cautious haste from the sheltered area where they had been sitting. He watched her disappear in the crowded concourse and somehow the world became alive with new possibilities. Anything could happen outside the discipline of inward debates. The most romantic reveries could be transformed into acceptable reality. Here he was, unencumbered and free to comply with anything Glenys suggested. It might even be that she was still inclined to please him. Not as in the old days of course. That was long ago. But there was time left for a new beginning.

He conjured up the delightful images of the young girl that had lived with him so long. He saw her being sculpted gradually by the gentle hand of time: decade by decade growing old gracefully. And what would she be now? An athletic figure, he was confident of that, in her sixties, with some grey hair perhaps but still that same enchanting smile. That could hardly change, anymore than that distant voice on the telephone that had briefly enthralled and thrilled him. ‘You sound exactly the same,' he blustered out with boyish enthusiasm. He could have gone on at length but it was only a brief call.

What would they do? What steps would they take to achieve a new way of life, inspired perhaps by the joy they once had in each other? He felt like a man prepared to grapple with the future and take it in his arms. He could move lock, stock and barrel to Portugal, or Glenys could return to Wales. They could share a home together anywhere in the world she fancied. Money was no problem. There were no ties. Everything in the new order would flow from the magic of their being together.

Daydreams are not subject to timetables. The time that he feared would be tedious had flown past. He needed to hasten to arrivals and occupy a conspicuous position at the barrier so that she could catch sight of him as soon as she emerged. He breathed fresh life into the red carnation. He was confident she would recognise him. The flower in his button hole was a gesture of celebration.

The flow of late arrivals began. Some of them looked like survivors who were eager to start living again. Late as they were, there remained a plentiful supply of nearest and dearest waiting to greet them. Celebrations and reunions were in the air. It was a woman in a wheelchair who was the first to recognise him. The airport vehicle in which she sat was being steered by a young woman with a pale face, jet black hair and thick eyebrows. The woman in the chair looked cheerful enough and was pointing at him. It was only when they were close that he realised he was being confronted by Glenys.