Safe Journey On

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Melanie and Heather were going down from the mountains to the coast, by coach, for the second half of their holiday. Heather’s ex had tried to warn her off the entire trip because of trouble inside the country; but simply talking to him on the telephone had upset her so much she wouldn’t have taken his advice on anything. Heather and Keith had not lived together for three years, but as soon as the divorce had become final he seemed to want to hold an inquest. Melanie’s husband couldn’t have cared less about any trouble they might run into; his own plans were all he was interested in. And although there had been empty seats on the aircraft and the hotel wasn’t full, Melanie couldn’t understand what the panic was about, because their week in the mountains had been quiet enough to be boring. There was no night life – even the bars closed at ten-thirty – and the hotel was deserted during the day while people walked in the high meadows and woods, or made lengthier excursions over the passes where there was still some snow this late in spring and reports of melting slides which closed the roads for a time. Somewhere up one of the passes was the chapel of the Russian prisoners who had built the road. Heather had read about it and kept letting Melanie know that she fancied a day out to look at it. But walking all that way was not Melanie’s idea of a holiday pastime and Heather did not want to go alone.

Melanie’s friend Susan had chosen and arranged the holiday then fallen ill, leaving a place which Heather, who needed a distraction, had been persuaded to fill. A bright idea of Melanie’s to contact Heather, whom she had not seen for years. Or so she had thought. She wasn’t so sure now. But that could be the deadening effect of this place, which Melanie was surprised Susan had chosen (and that she had allowed her to choose without checking), and everything would surely be better once they were on the coast. Melanie was going to sunbathe topless when they reached the sea and regretted that it did not seem the done thing here, because she spent most of each day lying in the sun on the hotel terrace while Heather sat nearby in the shade and read one paperback after another. Melanie had attractively firm breasts for a woman turned forty and had not been afraid of showing them on beaches in Spain and Italy. Seeing Heather stepping out of the shower one time, she had told her, in her usual candid way, that she had nothing to hide either, and why didn’t she join in when they reached the coast. But Heather, trying not to look self-conscious at being caught naked, had said she did not enjoy lying in full sunlight anyway. A hospital almoner, Heather was used to hearing and dealing with people’s difficulties; yet there was often a shy, almost vulnerable look about her.

Sometimes after dinner they chatted with the only two unaccompanied men in the place, a couple of Scots who left the hotel every morning straight after breakfast, wearing thick stockings and walking-boots and carrying knapsacks. They amused Melanie. ‘Doch an’ Doris’ she had christened them as she and Heather saw them setting out on another twenty-mile tramp. ‘They say it’s wonderful above the snow-line,’ Heather said. ‘Another world,’ Melanie murmured. ‘Another worrrld.’ She sighed. ‘There’s almost bound to be something more enticing on the coast.’ ‘Enticing?’ ‘Fetching, then.’ ‘They’re all right,’ Heather said. ‘The younger one – Andrew – is quite good-looking in his own way,’ Melanie allowed, ‘but Gavin… well, I never did go for wiry little men with ginger hair on their legs.’ ‘You sound as if you’ve known a good many,’ Heather said, and Melanie said, ‘Oh, I’ve been around, Heather my girl, I’ve been around,’ while she opened one eye behind her sunglasses to see how shocked Heather might be looking.

On the last night before the women left one of the men sniffed at Melanie’s maraschino on the rocks as the bar was closing and said why didn’t they come up to their room and have a farewell drop of malt whisky from their duty-free bottle. ‘Just a wee doch an’ doris,’ Gavin said, so unexpectedly becoming the stage Scot that Melanie, glass at her lips, almost choked as she tried not to burst out laughing.

A quick conference in the ladies told her that Heather wasn’t keen.

‘I’d planned to pack and have an early night. The coach leaves at half-past seven.’

‘Oh, come on, let yourself go for half an hour.’

‘But what do they want?’

‘It’s not what they want, it’s what we’re prepared to give them.’

‘In my case, that’s nothing.’

‘Not even a joke and a laugh?’

‘Half an hour, then. I shall leave after half an hour whether you’re ready or not.’

Melanie could not help, all the same, looking at Heather in slight puzzlement when she did get up to go as second drinks were being offered.

‘I did say…’

‘Well, yes, if you must.’

‘You’re not going yet, are you?” Andrew asked, flourishing the bottle. “Won’t you have another? I thought we were just getting really relaxed.’

‘I did say to Melanie.’

‘You run along, then,’ Melanie said.

‘Shall I bring you back the key?’

‘Just leave the door unlocked, can’t you?’

‘If you’re not going to be long I shall probably still be packing.’

I really can’t say how long I’ll be, Melanie wanted to say. If you’re going go, don’t hover.

‘We’ll say good-night, then,’ Andrew said, already pouring into Melanie’s glass. ‘And if we don’t see you in the morning, safe journey on.’

They had been talking about the seaside resort where Melanie and Heather were heading for and Gavin had described it, a town of ornamental stucco on baroque villas, dreaming behind trees of their imperial past, when, a part of the old Hapsburg empire, they had been visited by lesser lights of the Austrian court and their women. Now Melanie realised that Gavin had gone. Where was he?

‘I think he went after your friend.’

‘Did he really?’

‘He might be just seeing her to her door.’

‘Or what?’

‘Or I don’t really know.’

‘Do you two have some kind of signal?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Meaning, now I want to be left alone.’

‘What a suspicious mind you’ve got.’

Melanie smiled at him. She enjoyed this game. She had played it before.

‘If you’d anything else in mind you’ve left it a bit late.’

‘Have I?’ He was, to give him his due, making a good job of looking puzzled.

‘We shall be two hundred miles away this time tomorrow. I intend to have everything I came with. Nothing more; nothing less.’

‘It’s a pity. I think that next week could have been much more interesting than this last.’

‘And now we’ll never know.’

Andrew came with his glass and sat beside Melanie on the sofa. It was not a sofa really, just an extra built-in single bed, and not what you would call comfortable to sit on for long. He took her hand. She let it lie.

‘You really are a rather attractive woman, Melanie, all the same.’

‘All the same as what?’

‘That we’re not going to get to know each other any better.’

‘Are you married? Tell the truth now.’

‘Yes.’

‘What about your friend?’

‘Separated. What about yours?’

‘Divorced.’

‘And your marriage is…’ His thumb moved the rings on her hand… ‘is it in good working order?’

‘Yes, it’s all under control. And now might be a good time to tell you that you are holding the hand of a grandmother twice over.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Married for the first time at eighteen; daughter not much older and pregnant in the first year. Nothing to it.’

‘What happened to the first husband?’

‘Killed in a road accident.’

‘And the second one believes in live and let live?’

‘Something like that.’

‘You know, I’d no such thought in my mind until you started to talk about it.’

‘Which I wouldn’t have if your friend hadn’t left us alone tight on cue.’

‘Have it your way.’

‘Oh, I shall. And please don’t kiss me, Andrew. I’m unusual for this day and age, but I do find it such an intimate thing.’

‘Well then, I’ll remove myself from temptation.” He got up and went back to the bottle.

‘No more for me,’ Melanie said. “In fact, I think I should be toddling along,’

‘And feeling grateful for your lucky escape,’ Andrew said. He was looking at her with an expression of slight amusement. She felt herself flushing. It was not working out quite as it should have.

‘Better luck next week,’ she said as he opened and held the door.

He allowed her that and, she knew, stood to watch her till she had turned the corner.

Irritability was ready when she put her hand to the knob of her own door and felt its resistance. She knocked, wondering why Heather could not remember a simple request to leave the door unlocked. She knocked again, louder, and a third time hard enough to hurt her knuckles. Turning her hand she thumped the door with the bunched edge of it. ‘Heather,’ she said loudly, ‘for heaven’s sake open the door.’ She looked round as a door opened behind her. A man in pyjamas looked out.

‘Are you having trouble?’

‘I think my friend must have gone off into a deep sleep.’

‘The night porter downstairs should have a pass-key.’

‘Yes. Thanks. That’s a good idea,’

‘It’s the only idea, unless you want to wake the whole floor.’

What a dump it was, with everybody in bed by midnight and afraid of being disturbed.

Melanie went to the lift. A few dim bulbs cast a miserable light on the square of sofas and low tables which turned the inner part of the lobby into a lounge. There was a brighter glow coming from the room behind the desk, where the night porter sat. Melanie rapped on the desk until he looked round the door.

‘I’m locked out of my room. I wonder if you have a spare key.’

He stood behind the desk in his shiny blue uniform, thick-set, square-featured, Slavic.

‘Number, please.’

‘Three-one-one.’

He turned and found the empty hook. He waved his hand at it.

‘I know it’s not there,’ Melanie said. ‘My friend has fallen asleep and locked me out.’ She was about to mime sleeping when someone tapped on the glass of the entrance door. The porter turned and looked. ‘A moment.’ He walked to the door and opened it as Melanie made out two people. Heather came in with Gavin. The porter was pointing to the room key in Heather’s hand. Heather’s voice carried across the space. “I know I should have, but I didn’t.’ She came towards Melanie, looking apologetic.

‘I must have wakened half the floor, Heather, thinking you’d gone to sleep.’

‘I’m sorry, Melanie. I never thought.’

‘I put it out of her mind,’ Gavin said. He held out his hand to Heather. ‘I’ll say goodbye now.’

‘We’re on the same floor,’ Heather said. ‘Aren’t you coming up?’

‘In a minute. I want a word with the porter.’

‘I’ll say good-night, then.’

‘Yes. Good-night.’ He nodded at Melanie. ‘Good-night.’

Melanie managed to keep silent until they were in their room, when she let rip.

‘Really, Heather, you made me feel quite foolish.’

‘I expect I did, and I’m sorry.’

‘What were you doing out there, anyway?’

‘I was keeping Gavin company until he felt he could go back to his room.’

‘What was keeping him from his room?’

‘I should have thought you’d be in a better position than me to know that.’

‘Of course Andrew thought it all very convenient when Gavin left us alone.’

‘Did he? Did he try something on?’

‘They always try something on. How far they get is another matter.’

‘So long as we know.’

‘Is that what you take me for, Heather? Because if it is I’d better tell you before we go any further that I like men, I enjoy their company, but I’m not especially interested in sex.’

‘As long as your husband knows it’s general and not just something about him,’ Heather said.

‘Are you trying to be offensive?’

‘I believe I am.’

‘I don’t know why. I’ve done nothing to you.’

‘No, you haven’t. I apologise again.’

‘If we all looked at life the way you look at it, there’d be even more of us divorced.’

‘Perhaps so.’

Melanie had rapidly undressed. Heather was taking things from the wardrobe that she wouldn’t need in the morning and folding them neatly into her case. Packing the night before, Melanie thought, was one of the little ways by which Heather made you feel idle and sloppy.

‘What did you find to talk about out there in the dark, anyway?’

‘Oh, this and that. He’s a pharmacist. He has a shop.’

‘I thought you already knew that.’

‘He was telling me about the Russian prisoners’ chapel.’

‘You know, I really do think you owed it to yourself to see that. Just because I didn’t want to walk all that way…’

‘Well, it’s too late now. But Gavin told me this story about it. Do listen, Melanie. It’s so beautifully sad.’

‘Go on, then. I’m listening.’

‘Well, the Austrians fought the Russians in the First World War and put some of the prisoners they took to building a road over those mountains. One day, in atrocious weather on the summit, a local girl got lost in a blizzard while looking for some goats that had strayed. One of the Russians found her and took her down to safety. She’d surety have perished if it hadn’t been for him and her grateful family gave him shelter in return and a good fire to sleep by. Now, he was a trusted prisoner or he’d have been shackled like his comrades, and it was thought he’d made an attempt to escape. They wouldn’t believe his story about the girl and the goats. They gave him fifty lashes and transferred him to an even worse place in another province. When the thaw came and the girl could climb up the pass to see him he’d gone. She never saw him again, but she spent the rest of her life grieving for him, because in that brief time she’d fallen eternally in love with him. Eventually the war ended, the prisoners were repatriated and the road was completed. In the meantime the goat-girl had come into an unexpected legacy and with the money she built a small chapel at the summit of the pass in memory of her lost love. One day she set out there alone and was never seen again. But people swear that at certain times, when all the conditions are right, she can be heard weeping by those engaged in their silent devotions.’

‘Isn’t it haunting?’

‘I thought things couldn’t haunt you till long after.’

‘Well, don’t you think it’s the kind of thing you’ll never forget?’

‘I suppose it is. If you’re as interested as you were to start with.’

Melanie was rubbing lotion into her brow and cheeks with both hands at once.

‘Look, Heather,’ she said, ‘I’m glad you don’t sulk, because there’s one thing you should know about me. I say what I have to say, then forget it. Life’s too short for bearing grudges.’

She opened her pyjamas in front of the long mirror on the door and looked at herself. She was beginning to show a tan and was afraid that her breasts would already look repellently white against it when she took off her bikini top on the coast.

 

On the coach Heather struck up a conversation with the stocky grey-haired woman sitting across the gangway. It was the first time they had exchanged more than a couple of words. She was one of those who had gone out every day in walking-gear and she had not lingered in the dining-room.

Now she told Heather, while Melanie listened also, that it was her first time in the country since her husband’s death, five years ago. Before that they had come every year, sometimes more than once. He had, she said, been one of those parachuted in during the war, to make contact with the partisans, whatever that meant.

‘You must know it intimately and have lots of friends,’ Heather said.

‘Well…’ the woman waved a square, capable-looking hand, ‘some parts better than others. And old friends grow old and fall away…’

The coach was climbing.

‘I didn’t know we’d be going over the mountains,’ Heather said.

‘It saves thirty miles if the pass is open.’

‘This is the road the Russian prisoners built, surely.’

‘Yes, it is. Near the summit is their chapel.’

That damned chapel!

‘I heard a story about that,’ Heather said.

‘Oh?’

‘You must know it already.’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘Well, it’s about a girl who lost some goats in a snowstorm…’

Something made Melanie glance across at the woman as Heather finished. A little smile played on her lips.

‘You hadn’t heard it, then?’

‘No. Who do you say told it to you?’

‘A man at the hotel.’

‘A local man?’

‘No, a Scotsman on holiday.’

The woman’s smile had broadened.

‘Why are you smiling?’

‘It doesn’t matter. There’s no harm in it.’

‘You mean it isn’t true?’

‘What a pity if it isn’t.’

‘But you’d surely have known it if it were.’

Heather’s colour was rising. The woman noticed it too.

‘But it doesn’t matter,’ she said again. ‘There’s no harm done, is there?’

‘No, but…’

But you don’t know Heather, lady, Melanie was thinking. As Heather fell silent and looked distractedly away, the woman kept stealing little glances at her flushed face.

‘I’ve upset you. I’ve made you feel foolish.’

‘No, really…’

But she was upset. In a moment she began to mutter under her breath. Melanie felt impelled to break in on it.

‘Heather… what on earth’s the matter?’

‘We couldn’t stop, could we?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. We’ve hardly got started. Don’t you feel well?’

‘I’ll be all right.’

Sweat had broken out on her top lip. Melanie found a scented freshener tissue and put it into her hand.

‘Use this.’

The stocky woman had been to the front of the bus to speak to the courier. She smiled at Heather and Melanie as she returned to her seat and the speakers crackled. The courier cleared her throat.

‘Your attention, please. I have been asked if we can stop at the chapel of the Russian prisoners on the summit of the pass. Such a stop is not on our schedule, but we can allow ten minutes. Ten minutes only, please, as we have a long way to go. First of all I will tell you a little about the place…’

It sounded to Melanie as if the courier had not heard the story about the goat-girl either.

The chapel, which stood on a level patch of cleared ground above a sheer drop of a hundred feet or more, was a small building of roughly dressed stone with a steeply pitched roof and a bell-tower. The walls had the same rough, unplastered finish inside. There were no seats. The single oblong room was bare except for a rectangular stone altar table on which stood a wooden crucifix and twin stone jars holding fresh wild flowers.

The cold in the place struck Melanie at once. ‘God, they must have frozen.’

When she looked round Heather had gone. Melanie went out also. The sky had darkened. It felt less like early morning than approaching night. She wandered along the side of the building and was in time to see the stocky woman beckon to Heather as though she had been waiting for her. Heather stood beside her on the edge of the precipice. The woman took her finger from her lips and Melanie respected her request for silence as she herself approached them.

‘Can you hear it?’ the woman asked.

Heather nodded. The two of them faced the void and listened.

‘Well,’ the woman said eventually, ‘any number of people would tell us that that is no more than a trick of the wind.’

‘They would.’

‘But I’d like to think I’m one of those who knows better.’

‘So would I.’

And if that was what they wanted, Melanie thought, where was the harm? She would have turned away then, except that the sudden tears in the stocky woman’s eyes held her where she stood.

‘Are you all right?’ Heather reached to take the woman’s arm.

‘It’s all at risk, you know.’ The woman gestured with her free hand above the void. ‘All in great peril. If we could hear the crying of the dead, the thousands upon thousands who spilt their blood for it, it would appal us.’

‘It’s too complicated for me to grasp,’ Heather said.

‘Perhaps for any of us,’ the woman said. ‘Perhaps it always was.’

The courier, impatient to get away, was calling them to the coach. As Melanie set off she heard the woman ask, behind her ‘Will you be seeing your Scottish friend again?’

‘I’ve no idea where he lives. I don’t even know his surname.’

‘A pity. He sounds like an understanding man.’

Almost immediately they began to descend. The road on this side was cut into the mountain in a zig-zag line, sometimes plunging into cuttings before emerging again to heart-stopping views of the plain below. Once, as they seemed to turn back on themselves, they could see for several moments the chapel on the summit against a livid sky.

‘It’s going to snow again up there,’ the stocky woman said.

The words themselves seemed to chill Melanie to the bone. ‘God, I’ll be glad when we get to the sea.’ Although she was wearing a windcheater she rummaged in her drawstring bag for her rolled cardigan. There was something under it which she offered Heather. A fat paperback book.

‘This is yours.’

‘Where did I leave it? I think I had it in the bar last night.’

‘It was handed to me at reception this morning.’

‘By the way,” Heather asked, “did you get Andrew’s address?’

‘Whatever for?’ She’d been tempted to ask ‘Who’s Andrew?’

‘Oh, I just wondered.’

‘All over Europe,’ Andrew had said at one point, ‘there’ll be people like us, strangers getting to know one another.’ And moving on in the morning, Melanie had thought.

‘Is your book any good?’ she asked.

‘Quite gripping, if a bit long-winded.’

‘I wouldn’t mind having a go when you’ve finished.’

‘Not much further now.’ Heather riffled the pages, then asked, ‘What’s this doing here?’

‘What is it?’

Heather held up the small piece of card and looked at both sides. She trembled suddenly, as if the same cold that Melanie had felt now touched her. Without asking again Melanie took the card from Heather’s fingers. It was a business card with Gavin’s name and the address of his shop printed on one side. On the other was a scribbled note which it took Melanie a moment to decipher:

 

‘Dear Heather,

Should ever serendipity – or a lost goat – bring you to Perth I’d like you to look me up. G.’

 

The stocky woman was speaking to Heather across the aisle. ‘Last view.’ In the instant they looked up at the summit of the pass again the road swung, taking the coach behind a wall of rock and the chapel was finally lost to their sight.

Melanie was glad to see the back of it, and the mountain too. For as they emerged into the open again she saw on the horizon a rim of blue that common sense told her couldn’t possibly be what she was so looking forward to, but which her eager imagination only too readily transformed into the sea.