A Dark Dividing (18 page)

She asked the taxi to drop her off at the end of the road. She had already decided that she would walk the rest of the way in case any neighbours saw her. It had to be remembered that Joe was quite an important man and likely to become even more important soon. It would not do for people to gossip about him—at least, not in a sly squalid fashion. Romantic gossip would be all right.

The taxi fare was eight pounds seventy-five, which was more than Roz had expected. It was to be hoped Joe offered to drive her back home later on because she only had five pounds left in her purse. He might ask her to stay the night, though. Roz did not know if this would be exciting or alarming.

It was still raining quite hard and there was a lot of mud on the road. Roz was wearing her mackintosh and she had tied a rainhat over her hair because she would not be able to manage an umbrella as well as the bag with the food. She could whip the rainhat off before she knocked on the door: she did not want Joe to see her with a plastic hood over her head. But she had put on high-heeled shoes that flattered her ankles but had rather thin soles, and the rain and mud were already soaking through them. The plastic hood had slipped a bit as well, and her hair was getting rained on. Still, once she was in the house she could get dry and warm.

The light was on in the big sitting-room, and Joe’s car was parked in the drive. Roz’s heart lifted with delighted anticipation and her mind flew eagerly ahead, visualizing Joe opening the door and greeting her with surprise and pleasure; seeing him take her into the warm kitchen and help her to get dry. How nice your hair smells when it’s drying, Rosie… Then he would rub her hair with a towel, and bend over to kiss the back of her neck, like people in films did. And, pork with apple sauce, he would say—my absolute favourite food. You are so thoughtful. We’ll open a bottle of wine to go with it, shall we…

She had just drawn level with the gate when the front door opened and light streamed across the garden. Joe came out of the house carrying a small suitcase, and closed and locked the door behind him. This had not been in the plan, so Roz hesitated.

She saw him put the suitcase in the boot and slam the lid, and she stepped back into the shadow cast by the thick hedge. Surely he was not going away—surely he would not go away without telling her? The man who had been in the grip of such passion that night that he had not been able to stop in time…?

He was going away, though. He walked briskly across the lawn, and went through a narrow gap in the hedge between his house and the next-door house. Roz, curious and puzzled, crept forward along the road a bit until she was level with the other house. Someone had opened the door, and Joe was saying something about here was the key, and it was good of them to keep an eye on things while he was away. Make sure the milk delivery didn’t get it wrong and pile up milk bottles and so on. Open invitation to burglars, wasn’t it?

Oh yes, he said, just the couple of days, as planned. Well, yes it was all work and hardly any play at present, still you know what they say about hard work, never hurt anyone, haha. Yes, he would be bringing his wife and the twins back with him; they had been spending a couple of weeks quietly in Norfolk—marvellously peaceful place, Norfolk. The break had done Mel a lot of good, she had been getting a bit wound up what with the newspapers and all the interest in the twins, and then she had been a bit low after the birth, you know how women get, old chap. Still, he would be glad to have her and the girls back, he did not mind admitting it the house had felt like a morgue.

Anyway, here’s the key. Thanks very much.

He came back to his own drive, got into his car and drove away.

After a few minutes Roz turned round and began to plod back home. Her feet in the thin, pretty shoes, were sodden, and her hair was plastered against her neck where the rain had got under the hood. It did not matter. It was all part of the dreariness and the misery, and people who wrote about the poetry of the rain, and about walking through it mourning a lost love with rain and tears mingling, had clearly never done so with wet feet and sodden gloves, and a heavy bag with congealing pork and gravy seeping into a freshly-made treacle tart. She dumped the food, bag and all, in the first rubbish-bin she came to.

Joe had tracked down Melissa—the detective must have found her and told him where she was. And now he was going to bring her back. He had not taken the trouble to let Roz know, even though he had promised he would, even though he had said he loved her, and had made love to her that night…

It looked as if she had made a fool of herself. It looked as if her aunt had been right with all those admonitions. Don’t make yourself cheap. A man never respects a girl who lets him have his way with her.

It was almost nine o’clock when she finally got home. Joe’s red and white carnations were still in the vase on the hall table; the smell of them filled the house, mingling with the odour of roast pork from the still-warm oven. Roz suddenly felt so sick that she had to rush to the kitchen, where she hung over the deep old-fashioned sink, retching helplessly. From now on misery and shame would always smell of carnations and pork and wet dishcloths.

After she had finished being sick and had sipped some water, she put the flowers in the dustbin. Then she fetched the packet of contraceptive pills from the bathroom cabinet and threw them in as well. Waste of good money on a prescription, her aunt would have said. You should have known he’d let you down after you let him maul you about. Maul. Was that all it had been?

M
EL HAD GONE to bed early after a strenuous afternoon in the garden, taking a long hot bath first to wash away the stiff muscles from bending and weeding. It was nice to have your own bed after the years of sharing one with somebody you did not like very much. Tonight, because there was a definite chill in the air, she had made a little fire up here as well. When she was a child she had always had a fire in her bedroom in winter. It was remarkable how secure it made you feel. She would like to give the twins that memory of warm drowsy safety, if she could.

The flames were sending shadows leaping and twisting over the white-washed walls, and the twins were sleeping peacefully in their cot near the window. Simone liked watching the patterns that the trees and the morning light made on the walls, so Mel had positioned the cot so that Simone was nearer to the window. Perhaps Simone would do something in the art line—painting perhaps or designing of some kind—and Sonia would be the musical one.

She read for a while, gradually growing sleepy. When she reached out to switch off the bedside light the dying fire mingled with a thin spear of moonlight that had slid into the room where Mel had not properly closed the curtains. Nice. She would take the moonlight and the radiance and the scented firelight into sleep with her. She had the feeling that she would have pleasant dreams tonight. Martin Brannan? said her mind, and her lips curved into a smile. That was a treacherous way to think, but still—She might hear from him quite soon. It was just over a week since she had posted the letter.

She was just crossing the boundaries between being awake and being asleep when a sound broke into her consciousness. She was not instantly alarmed; she had learned most of the cottage’s sounds by now and the sound had most likely been nothing more than the wind in the trees outside, or a roof timber contracting in the cool night air. No, there it went again. Mel sat up, still not exactly frightened, but listening intently. It was not the roof timbers or the old tree outside, it was more like soft footsteps going round the outside of the cottage. Someone prowling around the garden? She glanced at the bedside clock. Just on midnight. It was probably nothing more alarming than a scavenging fox. And she had locked the cottage doors anyway before coming up to bed. The front door had a strong bolt at the top, and the garden door in the kitchen had a chain. No one could get in. She prepared to lie down again.

The sound came again, and this time there was no mistaking it; this time it was the scraping noise that the gate leading to the cottage’s back garden made when anyone opened it. Then there was someone creeping around outside! For a wild, panic-filled moment Mel had absolutely no idea what to do. She glanced across at the twins, who were still asleep.

Surely it could not really be a burglar? There was absolutely nothing in the cottage worth stealing. Yes, but remember its isolated situation, said a voice in Mel’s mind. And what if you’ve been noticed, and marked down as a female living alone, with only a couple of small babies for company…?

She grabbed the dressing-gown lying across the foot of the bed and flung it round her shoulders, trying to think what she should do. She had left the mobile phone downstairs, plugged into the mains to recharge it, but she could get downstairs and summon help inside of a minute: 999, and the police would come screeching out here, sirens sounding and lights blazing. Yes, but remember that the police force covers a wide area out here, and the station is in the next village, seven miles away. Ten minutes for them to get here? Yes, easily that. So what if he breaks in during those ten minutes? But let’s be sure of the facts before we start invoking the sirens and the blue flashing lights.

She went cautiously over to the window, and peered through the thin sliver she had left uncurtained. Deep wells of darkness lapped around the cottage walls, and nothing moved anywhere. False alarm? Or had that been a movement just beneath this window? She looked back at the twins’ cot. Please don’t wake up, twins. You’d only be frightened, and I’d do anything in the world to prevent you being frightened.

There was the crunch of footsteps directly under the window, and the dark outline of a man stepped into Mel’s sightline, the head tilted back as if he was looking up at the cottage windows, to see if anyone was there. Mel dodged back out of sight at once, her heart hammering against her ribs. There is someone out there! Oh God, oh God, why did I come out here to hide from Joe! Why didn’t I go to live on some large modern housing estate, where everyone’s anonymous anyway, but people are within yelling distance!

She glanced round the bedroom. Simone was still asleep, but Sonia had woken up and had turned her head to watch the window. She knows there’s someone there! thought Mel. Or she’s picking up my panic. Fury rose up in her, because it was monstrous, it was not to be borne, that some greedy, mean-minded burglar should come snooping and creeping around the house and frighten the babies!

The bedroom door was the old-fashioned wooden kind with a latch. No key on it, of course, and there was nothing in the bedroom that was heavy enough to wedge against the door. But there was a heavy earthenware bedside lamp, and the base would deal a pretty hefty blow. Could she use it if he broke in? She looked at the twins again. Yes, she could. OK, let’s make that dash downstairs for the phone.

She crossed the room and went swiftly down the narrow stairs, trying to do so quietly, trying not to disturb the twins, because if he heard babies crying he might realize how extremely vulnerable she was—The big bad wolf sniffing round the lambs’ pen—Don’t start thinking like that!

When she opened the door into the sitting room the tiny current of air stirred the embers of the dying fire, and the charred logs stirred and flickered into life. The crouching shadows moved and for a moment Mel thought he was already inside. But it was only the firelight after all. So far so good, then. The phone was where she had left it, plugged into the socket at the side of the hearth. She was halfway across the room when there was a movement beyond the curtained window. There was a pause, and then the sound of someone knocking on the door.

Mel had been in the act of reaching for the phone, but at the sound of the insistent intrusive tapping she froze, and then turned to stare at the door.

The knocking came again, louder this time. He knew she was in here, of course. But did he honestly think she was going to open the door at this time of night? Or that she was going to behave like some wimpish heroine from a seventies horror film and invite the lost traveller or the stranded motorist into the lonely cottage? ‘Car broken down? H’m, h’m, oh dear me,
what
a pity, and oh yes, of course you can come inside and use my phone…’