“You take charity a bit far, don’t you? I thought you loved that car.”
I jumped and span round, the silent telephone receiver instantly forgotten in my frozen hand. My father’s jumper must have been larger than I thought because it hung off him, accentuating his lean frame.
Matthew was looking pale again, his eyes gleaming darkly against his colourless face and my first thought was that he seemed unnaturally calm as he lingered there, as though his breathing might have been as fast and as light as mine had he not been forcing it back under control by sheer will alone. My second was that he looked like he ought to have been in bed.
I bent to replace the receiver on its cradle. “Feelings change.”
He was standing at the foot of the stairs, watching me and leaning with contrived ease against the door frame quite as if he and I did not both know perfectly well that he had been upstairs only a moment before. He made no reply and for an insane moment I thought we were just going to stand there, staring at each other, trying not to breathe.
But then he spoke. “So they do,” he said and moved. Not towards me and where instinct made me step back against the hard edge of the fireplace, but towards the settee where he reached for the folded blanket. He examined it for a moment, testing its fibres between finger and thumb before laying it carefully over the arm again. I could see even that simple movement hurt. I waited.
From my little sanctuary against the wall, I waited for him to speak. I waited for the confession that should have come yesterday, or the day before. It wasn’t hard to guess that his panicked flight down the stairs had been driven by a desperate impulse to silence my telephone call. The fact that I hadn’t been speaking to the police at all hung between us like a thin joke at our expense. It begged the question; why?
At last he turned. But when he looked at me, it was only to give a brief glimmer of an unfriendly smile. “Well then, Eleanor. What now?”
“Now?” I asked weakly.
“Yes. Now.”
Still that same air of cold restraint. Rejection wrapped up in a criminal façade of indifference and it had the same impact as a slap across the jaw. I lost my temper; “Go.”
Absurdly, I think my decision surprised him. He stood there, staring; a silent shadow of a man barely able to stand without swaying. I ground my teeth. “Get. Out.”
Right on cue, the telephone began to ring.
We both started and then turned to stare blankly at its shrill volume. It didn’t stop. I cast a swift sideways glance at the man by my settee and reached out an unsteady hand.
“Good morning…?”
There was an incomprehensible bustle from the operator before a man’s voice erupted loudly into my ear:
“So I’ve caught you at last. Where on earth have you been hiding?”
“John!” It came as an indescribable relief to find myself being greeted by nothing more formidable than the well-bred tones of John Langton from the Manor in the village.
I heard his familiar laugh. “And a very good morning to you too, Ellie. I was beginning to get worried when I missed you yesterday – Freddy said you were wrestling with the animals. Everything is all right up there, I presume, what with this latest burst of lovely weather and all?”
“Fine actually, thanks,” I said carefully, determined if I could to contain my delight to within the bounds of normal pleasantries. “How are things with you?” A snatched glance sideways showed me my companion’s face and it wasn’t so very controlled any more. I could almost feel his ears straining to catch my friend and neighbour’s words.
“Fine, fine,” John said shortly. “Now Ellie, I imagine you’ve heard what’s happened?”
A tiny pause as reality hit hard. Then, with an impressive air of calm; “Mrs Ford told me about it just now. How is Jamie’s sister doing? It sounds awful.”
“Oh, she’s well enough.” The concern was swiftly dismissed. “I’m actually ringing about you. Has he contacted you?”
Another silence while I frantically adjusted my thoughts to this new reality. All I could hear was the faint hiss and crackle on the line and the pounding of my own heart.
“Who, Matthew?”
This was it then. I only had to say one word, I only had to speak.
“No.”
My voice came out as a hoarse croak. I barely managed to say the next over the rushing in my ears; “Should he have?”
The guilty silence that to me seemed to span several lifetimes must have passed by John in the blink of an eye because when he answered, his voice was merely touched by friendly concern:
“Not as such, no, well that is to say, I know he courted you in the past and I can’t help worrying that he might have passed your way. For old time’s sake, you know? I know you don’t like my fussing but it does worry me that you’re all alone there. You’ve got Freddy of course, but I’m not sure what good he’d be able to do…” He paused before adding, “You are all right, aren’t you? Croft hasn’t turned up?”
Oh God, I thought, here we go again.
“That was all a long time ago, John, nearly eight years,” I said firmly. My hand was shaking where it fiddled with the telephone wire. “I can’t see why you think he would come to me now.”
“So you haven’t seen him?” he persisted. “Did Mrs Ford tell you what he’s done? I saw Jamie’s body and it was savage. He’ll hang for sure when they catch him.”
I shut my eyes as I prepared to lie again, “No, John, I haven’t seen him.”
“Good. And you’ll call me if he does contact you?” He took my agreement as given. “Anyway, on to a more pleasant subject. They’re promising a thaw so the weekend’s Dance might actually happen. Would you like to go with me?”
“Oh!” I gasped, taken aback. “I hadn’t really thought…I, um … I’ll think about it. Will that do?”
He gave a laugh, “Yes Ellie, that will do. Just don’t keep me waiting too long. Bye, and Ellie?”
“Yes, John?”
“Be careful.”
I slowly set the telephone back down onto its cradle. I already knew that when I turned, I would look up, straight into the bare furnishings of an empty room.
I didn’t sleep much that night. Nor did I find much rest when I did. Outside, the wind had swallowed what footsteps he had left and I saw no sign as I did my usual tour of the barns at evening stables. I wasn’t even sure if that should be a relief.
In my father’s day, the farm had been full of young hunters who were being backed before being sent off to their wealthy owners to start their careers. We had farmed sheep too on the steep valley fields which stretched down from behind the house. But then the war had come, my father had died and the horses were taken away to other breaking yards or to play their part in the war effort by working the land. Now Freddy and I scraped by on the small rental income that the pasture fields brought, the price of a few ponies at the yearly sales and my rather doubtful skills as a riding instructor for the local village children. I wouldn’t like to imply we were poor hapless creatures, and we certainly fared better than many, but even teaching had dwindled for the moment thanks to the weekend’s latest turn of incredible weather.
The next day was no better. The morning dawned reluctantly to yet another dreary day; a blackbird was hopping about amongst the chickens who were waiting impatiently beneath the kitchen window for their breakfast. Its breath was misting in the still air and the cockerel looked too cold to crow.
Behind this faintly pathetic scene, a rickety fence marked the limits of my vegetable garden where repeated hoarfrosts had turned earlier snowfalls to stone. Anything left in the ground was guaranteed to have been ruined but there were a few crates of root vegetables stored in the gloom of the small outhouse; provided that they hadn’t been destroyed by frost and, of course, I could actually dig them out.
Turning to the stove, I realised that I might need to now. The dish of last night’s stew that marked the remains of our meat ration for the week; the dish that should have fed the boy and me for at least another day, was empty. I bolted the kitchen door after that but it didn’t do any good. The next morning another stew and the end of my coarse home-baked bread had vanished too.
That night, I gave in. I left the door unlocked, the bread, plate and cutlery ready on the table and a pile of gauze and iodine with instructions to re-dress his wounds.