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EDWARD LAY WITH THE curtains open. His was the larger of the two bedrooms at the top of the stairs. His window overlooked the road, then fields interspersed with copses. It was flanked by a wardrobe. Rain slapped it.
The electrical part of the storm had passed, but that hadn’t been what kept him awake. Eight hours to go, and the pretext for a visit to Black Gables - something sufficiently casual and plausible to fool Charles – was as elusive as ever.
He allowed himself to drift into a kind of half-sleep. It was ten in the morning and sunny. He stood outside Charles’s front door and knocked.
“Where the bloody hell have you been these last weeks?” Charles said.
“Sorry, I’ve been busy.”
“Bit of a coincidence you showing up the very day my wife arrives, eh? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were after her.”
“No, I - ”
No, I what? No, I was waiting for you to call me? No, I’ve been busy with the house move? No, I thought Thanongsak would contact me about you? No, I had to go to a christening? He looked at his bedside clock. Two o’clock.
He heard a knock at his front door.
Something falling over in the storm. Or he’d dreamed it.
Then it came again, louder.
And it was real. As on the previous night, he put on his dressing gown, descended the stairs and opened the front door.
It took him a moment to work out that he was looking at Noonie.
Noonie. Soaked and shoeless and clutching a telephone directory. Her hair, blouse and skirt looked as if they’d been unravelled and pelted with mud. Her face was mad. She looked at him without speaking.
He knew why she was here. He also knew that, unconsciously, he’d been expecting her. He pulled her gently inside.
Having coped with Georgina just twenty-four hours earlier he could think clearly about what needed to be done next. First, she needed dry clothes and a towel, then a seat in front of the fire and then a hot drink. And then ... time.
He had to feign shock. “My God, you! What - what happened? Hang on, I’ll get you something dry to put on. Go into the bathroom, it’s just here. You can tell me as you’re getting changed. Wait.”
Probably the least convincing shock ever. He rushed upstairs, threw open his wardrobe door, grabbed a shirt, socks, underpants, jeans and a jumper. He came back and gave them to her. He ushered her into the bathroom and filled the kettle.
She was obviously too traumatised for the conventional niceties. Just as well, because he couldn’t remember them. “What happened?” he called.
She’d left the telephone directory on the table. It was open at his address. How many other Grants had she tried before she reached him?
“I’ll get you a drink,” he said. “What would you like?”
He waited a few seconds. “A brandy, maybe? Or I’ll make you a cup of tea with lots of sugar, yes? Or - or both? Would you like both?”
My God, she might have collapsed. He went in.
She screamed and backed up, hugging a towel to her. He banged the door shut behind him.
“I’m sorry. I thought – I thought you might have fainted. You weren’t answering. I’ll make that tea.”
He went into the living room, switched on the lamps and the gas fire, and closed the door to stop the heat escaping. He went into the kitchen and poured her a large brandy. He drank it himself and poured her another. He was emptying the teapot when she came out of the bathroom in his clothes.
“Come into the living room and tell me what happened,” he said, taking her hand and putting the teapot down.
He was assuming she’d discovered Charles’s age. But why would that make her run through the rain without any shoes on? Maybe she’d been attacked.
“Should I call the police?” he said. “Sit next to the fire. Shall I call the police?”
She shook her head. He sat her down on the sofa. She was still shivering.
“Hang on,” he said.
He went back into the kitchen and brought her the brandy. She took a gulp and spluttered. He sat down next to her.
“It’ll calm your system. Drink the rest.”
She turned to face him. “Edward?”
“Yes?”
“Can I stay here tonight?”
He took her hand in both his. It was cold. “I wouldn’t dream of letting you leave in this condition. Please can you tell me what happened?”
The kettle began to whistle. He went into the kitchen. He unscrewed the tea caddy, threw six teabags into the teapot and poured on the water so quickly he almost scalded himself. When he went back into the living room, she’d moved a notch closer to the fire. He closed the door.
“I’ll only stay the one night,” she said.
“Stay as long as you like.”
They sat listening to the hiss of the gas fire while she stared blankly into space.
“Can I ask you something about Charles?” she said.
Here it came. “Anything you want.”
“How old is he?”
He donned a ‘that’s a funny question’ expression. “How old? Eighty.”
She didn’t look as horror-stricken as he’d anticipated. She looked into the fire and her eyes filled with water. She took a sip of her brandy without spluttering. “Oh.”
“Er, why do you ask?”
“No reason.” A tear ran down across her cheek. She made no attempt to wipe it away.
“Look Noonie, are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
She started to sob. “It’s quite simple. It’s like this ... I didn’t know Charles was eighty ... I thought he was ... younger than that. And I’ve just seen him ... and his daughters ... And the daughters scared me ... And there was this other ... thing in the room with Charles – I don’t know what it was ... but it was evil. And so I ran into my room ... and let myself out of the window with the telephone directory, and now ... here I am. Charles was supposed to keep in ... keep in touch with me ... while I was ... while I was in Phuket and he was in England, but he didn’t, and now ... now I’ve just seen him, and he looks as if he’s on his deathbed. I don’t ... don’t know how I feel about him being ... being eighty. I can’t ... even remember him telling me he was fifty-five. I think it ... I think it was someone else, and ... and after that, I just never questioned the fact - ”
“You thought he was fifty-five?”
She met his eyes. “Didn’t you think it was a bit odd that someone of my age was marrying an ... an eighty year old? I’m only twenty-seven.”
“Yes, yes, I thought it was odd.”
“What did you think? Did you think I was after his money? Is that what you thought?”
“No. Of course not.”
She was getting emotional. “Well, what then?”
A hundred excuses ran through his mind. He opened his mouth and closed it and opened it and clenched his teeth and opened his mouth and frowned at himself.
“I’m in love with you,” he said.
The gas fire hissed. The rain drove harder against the window.
“Say that again,” she whispered.
“I tried not to be, really. It started during that week when we were at your school together. I didn’t know for certain until after Lek’s dinner-party. Then, when I heard you were engaged to Charles, I didn’t think, ‘That’s odd, she’s only twenty-seven, he’s eighty’. By then, I’d learned to trust your judgement, however ‘odd’. I’m sorry.”
She looked amazedly at him for a second. Then she threw her arms around him and hugged him so hard he could feel her nails in his back. He put his arms around her and inhaled through her wet hair.
They stayed silent for a long time. He heard every little sound outside: a group of men passing; a low-flying aeroplane; next door’s washing machine; somewhere in the fields, a cow bellowing; a moped buzzing; her snoring ...?
She was asleep. He had to get her up to the spare room so she could recuperate. He disengaged his arms and looked at her. Her head drooped but her eyelids fluttered.
“Have you got somewhere I could sleep for a few hours?” she said. “I’ll need to make an early start tomorrow.”
He gave her some pyjamas and put her in the spare room with the fan heater. She was asleep before he closed the door.
At five the next morning, he awoke to find her standing by his bed in the clothes he’d given her. It was still dark outside.
“Thank you for looking after me,” she said.
He swung out of bed. “You’re not - ? It’s five o’clock in the morning. You’re not leaving already?”
“I have to. I have to get back inside the house before anyone finds out I’m missing.”
He sighed.
She sat down on the end of his bed. “Because I’ve got to find out what’s going on. And I can’t let his daughters think they’ve scored a victory.”
He ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know what to think about this any more. I’ve been lying awake, trying to make sense of it. One, I love you. Two, I’ve no idea what you think about me. Three, Charles is my best friend. Four, Charles duped you. What does all that add up to, in terms of what I should do now?”
“Would it help if I told you ... if I told you I love you too?”
He shrugged. “Not necessarily. But it might make my life worth living.”
“What do you mean, ‘not necessarily’?”
“Because I’m faced with a choice between pinching Charles’s wife and not pinching his wife. And he hasn’t done anything wrong to me.”
She shook her head and grinned. “What makes you think I’d let you ‘pinch’ me? I wouldn’t.”
“So do you? Love me?”
She laughed. “I thought I ‘loved’ Charles. Look how that ended. My ‘love’ isn’t worth a fig. I don’t even know who I am. If there’s moral of this whole sordid story, that’s it.”
“It would be worth something to me.”
“Insofar as I’m capable of knowing anything about myself at all, yes, I – I love you. And if you’ve any sense left, you’ll run a mile.”
“Are you – I don’t know - ”
She stood up. “Can we talk about this next time we meet? I don’t want to sound ungrateful but I’ve got to get back.”
“I’ll help you whatever. Don’t string me along on the grounds that if it’s not love, I won’t be your friend either. I will.”
“I’m not lying, Edward. It goes back too far.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought about you when Charles proposed. I thought about you and blacked out, okay? I didn’t think I’d made the slightest impression on you at that point. And then at the christening the other week, which was agony. My feelings for you have been getting stronger every day. It wasn’t love at first sight, I admit that. But I’m as certain of it as I am of anything. For the little it’s worth.”
He looked at her. “Kiss me then.”
“No. Look, I’m Charles’s wife. I don’t think we should abandon ourselves to this just yet. Yes, I think I love you. Given my recent history though, I hardly think it’s a gift worth having. Perhaps you shouldn’t either.”
He blushed. “I – I see your point about Charles.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m the one who should be apologising.” He was still blushing. Kiss me then, bloody hell. She hadn’t switched the light on. He hoped she couldn’t see him. “You’re just doing the right thing,” he said.
“I’ve got to try and salvage something. I expect Charles’s daughters think I’m after his money. I’ll probably have to get used to people thinking that. As soon as I can, I’m going to go to a lawyer and relinquish whatever rights I may have as next of kin, in case he hasn’t made a will. That should get people on my side. Afterwards, things will improve, I’m sure they will.”
He laughed. “Don’t bank on it. Charles’s daughters are infamous.”
“Will you help me get back into Black Gables?”
“I’ll always do anything you ask, really.”
She clasped his hands. “And afterwards, will you call round and see me as soon as you can? Say, ten o’clock? I’ll leave you to think of the excuse.”
“I promise.”
She went to get dressed. My God. He’d actually used the words kiss me then. Who the hell did he think he was? Rhett Butler?
But it was five o’clock and he was tired and he was in love.
Even so. He cringed again and went to get his coat.
