Stage Fright (20 page)

The kettle switched itself off, but neither of us moved.

There was something about this story that puzzled me. You'd have to be very jealous or very suspicious to decide that your husband was having an affair on evidence as slender as that. Unless …

‘It wasn't the first time, was it,' I said.

‘Once before, just once, years ago, I swear to you that's all it was!' He was blinking back tears.

‘Oh, Kevin,' I said wearily. I got up with Agnes in my arms. As I passed her over to Kevin so that I could make the coffee, she reached out for a book that was lying on the table. I pulled her back but she had got a grip on it. It was my copy of
East Lynne.
It was too heavy for her. She let go and it toppled off the table. It landed with the pages open and the spine bent. A slew of paper markers spread themselves over the kitchen floor.

‘Oh, Christ. Hang on to her. I'll sort this out,' Kevin said. He got down on his knees and began to gather up the pieces of paper.

Agnes was dismayed by his raised voice. She screwed up her face, ready to cry.

‘All right, all right,' I said gently. ‘Not your fault.'

I put her into Grace's highchair and gave her a plastic spoon to suck while I made the coffee. When I turned round to put the cafetière on the table, Kevin was still on the floor, sitting back on his heels. He looked up at me.

‘I'm losing it, Cass,' he said. ‘There are times I think I'm going out of my mind.'

He got heavily to his feet and put the book on the table. It still had a few old envelopes and bits of scrap paper sticking out of it. He put the pieces that had escaped in a pile beside it. He sat down.

‘Perhaps I really am going crazy,' he said. ‘Last night I thought Melissa had come back to the house. I woke up, thinking that I'd heard someone in the next room. I was certain,
certain,
that if I got up, I'd see her there leaning over Agnes in her cot.'

‘Did you go and see?'

‘I couldn't. It was as if I was paralysed. I was just completely unable to move. I think I must have fallen asleep again. I woke up a bit later and then I did get up. There was no one there, of course.'

‘You were dreaming,' I said.

He shook his head, not so much in disagreement as in perplexity.

‘It seemed so real.'

‘Could anyone have got into the house? Could Melissa have got into the house?'

He was on the verge of tears. ‘I don't see how. The house was all locked up. I'd even put the chain on the front door.'

I moved my chair round so that I could put my hand on his shoulder. There wasn't much I could say. In the end all I could manage was:

‘Look, if she is staying away to punish you, then that's a good thing really, because it means she could come back any time.'

‘Do you really think so? I know I've been an absolute bastard.' Tears were rolling down his face again. ‘But if she knew how sorry I am, how much I regret it. I've told the police that I'll do a public appeal.' He pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of his jeans and scrubbed his face.

I busied myself with the coffee. Kevin, sniffing now and then, gazed out of the window. The morning sun was streaming in through the long, floor-length window that looked out over the stream. Agnes had stopped banging her spoon and was sucking it again. When she saw I was looking at her, she waved the spoon and chuckled. The sunlight was falling across her head, illuminating hair as fine and blonde as thistledown. I yawned and my eyes filled with tears. I reached for my bag to get out a tissue. That was when I noticed the envelope that had been shaken half out of the book on the table. Part of a typed name and address were visible, but I couldn't quite see … I wasn't really thinking as I began to spell out the letters. ADOWS and on the next line S END. The next moment I knew what it was. I saw myself in Melissa's dressing-room, holding a letter in my hand, the door was opening, Kevin was appearing. I saw Melissa giving a tiny shake of the head. And that was it. That was what I'd done with the letter. I had slipped it between the pages of
East Lynne.

I looked sideways at Kevin. His gaze had followed mine.

‘That's addressed to Melissa,' he said. He looked at me as if to ask permission, but without waiting to receive it, he reached forward and plucked the envelope out of the book. He took out the letter and scanned it.

‘This is Melissa's anonymous letter. But how did it get there?'

‘I, um, I think I must have just slipped in there after she'd shown it to me. Without really thinking what I was doing. On automatic pilot, you know. I'm always doing that these days.' It was the truth, but how lame it sounded.

‘Like with your car keys the other night.'

I nodded. ‘That's right. Can I see the letter?'

He handed it over. It was just as I remembered it. When I looked up again, Kevin was examining the envelope.

‘I still don't know what Melissa thought was odd, apart from the signature,' I said.

‘Well, I do. How did the writer get hold of this address? I was in London at least once a week – or Melissa was – so we didn't bother to have mail forwarded. Hardly anyone had the Journey's End address.'

‘Couldn't they have found out from the theatre?'

‘Fred wouldn't have given out a home address. And anyway why couldn't they just have left the letter at the theatre?'

‘We'd better let the police have this.'

Chapter Thirteen

‘T
HE
King of Cups?' Joe said thoughtfully. ‘You know, that's kind of familiar.'

‘Really? You think it means something specific?'

It was early on Sunday evening. Around six o'clock Joe had rung me from Ely, where he had been sightseeing, to suggest going for a walk. Kevin had taken Agnes to the theatre for Tilly to look after, so Grace and I had had a quiet day alone. I was ready for some fresh air and some adult company and more: I badly wanted to talk to someone outside the overheated world of the theatre, someone who had nothing at all to do with it. I'd been sucked so far into it that everything outside seemed colourless and unreal. I needed to get some distance on it. And of course I was still curious about Joe and his life in the years since our divorce.

I picked him up at Ely station. He got into the car and when he leaned over to give me a peck on the cheek, I remembered the kiss he had given me in my dream. I was amused to find myself feeling affectionate, even a little proprietorial, as if we really had embraced.

The day had been very hot but there was just enough of a breeze now to make it pleasant to be out walking. We drove over to Wicken Fen. It's a National Trust nature reserve, the last remnant of the watery wilderness that once covered East Anglia. The place was almost deserted. As we strolled along a boardwalk towards the old waterway that winds through it, the trees and shoulder-high reeds that pressed in on both sides blocked our view and created a sense of seclusion.

‘The King of Cups,' Joe said again. He shook his head. ‘I just can't quite put my finger on it. Maddening. It'll probably pop into my head when I'm thinking about something else.'

We walked on without speaking. The wind in the swaying, sighing reeds and in the fluttering aspens was like a continuous murmured conversation being carried on around us. Our feet echoed on the boards. Joe had his hands deep in pockets of his linen trousers. He was wearing a white cotton shirt with rolled-up sleeves that showed off his tan. He'd always gone brown very easily. For once I'd got out of my jeans into a summer dress, with a pattern of green and blue, like forget-me-nots on grass, and I had actually ironed it. Grace was wearing a T-shirt, little dungarees and a sunhat. Her push-chair rumbled over the boards. We turned a sharp bend which brought us out into the open near the junction of the two waterways, Wicken Lode and Monk's Lode. On the opposite bank was moored a red-and-green barge with the window boxes full of geraniums. A window was open and a man in a gingham apron was frying sausages.

We paused for a moment to enjoy the view. The water was tranquil in the evening light. There was an iridescent flash above the surface and a blur of wings.

‘Wow, what was that?' Joe said.

‘A dragonfly. It's the Emperor, I think. I sometimes get them over the stream in my garden.'

‘This is a terrific place. And what an evening!'

‘It's glorious,' I said sadly.

Joe glanced at me. ‘But you could enjoy it a whole lot more if you weren't so worried about your friend? How long has she been gone? Five days?'

‘About that.' I told him about Kevin's one-night stand with Belinda.

‘There you are then. Dollars to donuts she'll turn up safe and sound, when she thinks her husband's had time to learn his lesson.'

‘That's what everyone at the theatre thinks.'

‘But you're not so sure?'

‘Well, I can understand her letting Kevin dangle. But it seems odd that she hasn't been in touch with anyone. I mean, she must know how worried I am, for instance. Why hasn't she at least rung me? And the fact that she left Agnes behind in the first place…'

‘That's easy. She wanted to cramp his style. And it has, hasn't it?'

‘And then there's the play … Stan rang me – she's the stage manager – this morning. She said you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. Everyone thinks it's Kevin's fault that they're in this fix, Belinda's going around looking all pale and red-eyed. They're all exhausted, Phyllida – she's stepped in at the last minute to take Melissa's place – still doesn't know her lines.…'

‘What can I do to make you feel better? A decent meal somewhere?'

I couldn't help laughing. ‘You haven't changed much, Joe. Food is still the answer to everything.'

‘Well, you know, it generally is.' He patted his belly. ‘And I have to say that raising two boys hasn't done much to dispel that notion. So: dinner? How are you fixed?'

‘Well, I do know a nice pub by the river, the unreconstructed sort that serves pub grub and good beer from the barrel.'

‘Perfect. Now have we got time to see – what's it called?' He unfolded the map of Wicken Fen that he'd bought from the visitor's centre. ‘Yeah, the tower hide. It says here that there are good views in all directions.'

‘There's plenty of time.' We'd reached the end of the boardwalk by now. ‘But what about the push-chair?'

Joe frowned.

‘The ground does look a bit rough,' I said.

His face cleared. ‘Oh, we can manage that. Sure we can. That's not what's bothering me. It's the King of Cups. I thought I was about to remember, but it's slipped away again.'

He shrugged and took hold of the handles on the push-chair and bumped it off the boardwalk on to the earth path. I was about to take it back, but then I thought, What the hell? Joe was already manoeuvring the push-chair with practised ease along the river bank and Grace was wriggling and crowing, excited by the bumpy ride.

The hide is a three-storey weather-boarded building, shaped like a windmill with a thatched roof. The upper floors are reached by narrow wooden ladders. They had handrails, admittedly, but all the same …

‘I'm not sure about this,' I murmured.

Joe was already bending down, unbuckling Grace. He lifted her up. She chortled and grabbed at his hair. He laughed.

‘What a cutie! Brings back memories. I loved it when the kids were small.'

‘You should feel flattered. She doesn't take to everyone.'

He handed her to me. ‘You go first. I'll follow on behind. It'll be perfectly safe if we do it that way.'

Inside it was cool and dim. After a minute or so, I emerged into the light of the viewing-room, out of breath. There were high narrow windows looking out in all directions giving a wonderful view over the fens. Raised wooden seats – like pews and about as comfortable – ran round on all four sides. I sat down on one and looked out over the mere. Joe sat down next to me. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. The landscape was growing hazy in the evening light. Here and there long straight rows of trees, now in full bloom, had been planted as windbreaks. There seemed something strangely significant about their arrangement, as though the geometry of the huge plain had some meaning beyond itself, like a mathematical formula or the organization of an abstract painting.

‘I think it was Lewis Carroll,' I said, ‘who wanted to have a life-size map of England, so that he would always know where he was. That's how I sometimes feel here in the fens: as though I'm moving around on a gigantic map. The landscape's so flat that it almost seems two-dimensional.'

‘Yeah, it's kind of weird,' Joe said. ‘You know, it's not really how I think of England at all.'

‘Perhaps more like Holland,' I agreed. ‘And those lines of poplars. They always make me think of France. Perhaps that's why I like it so much: it's almost like a foreign country.'

‘I hired a car and drove up to Boston the first weekend I was here. Thought I ought to be acquainted with the namesake of my home town. We always meant to do that, remember? And you know what I found myself thinking as I drove north. This is just like the Midwest. Iowa, maybe. No, really,' he said, seeing my smile. ‘The huge skies, the wide open spaces. The long straight roads. Those farmhouses set back from the road. And nothing else – absolutely nothing – as far as the eye can see.'

I thought of my dream of a flooded landscape.

‘It was once all covered with water from here right up to the Wash. That must have been amazing and it wasn't so long ago, either. There's a bit in Tennyson's
In Memoriam:
that always makes me think of the fens:

There rolls the deep where grew the tree.

O earth, what changes hast thou seen!