“We?”
“Sarah and me.”
“I have phoned. Several times.”
“Well, it is difficult, I admit. They keep Sarah so busy at that college. And she goes home every weekend. My life’s been pretty hectic as well, of course.”
“I’ve had one or two things to do myself.”
“Do you know you sound just like Hugh when you adopt that sulky tone?”
“Really? Well, I-”
“Anyway, never mind. Sarah isn’t going home this weekend. In fact, Keith’s coming to see her with Rowena and-”
“Keith? You mean her father?”
“Yes. I’ve met him”-she tossed her hair enigmatically-“oh, quite a few times now. He’s really a very nice man. Genuine, you know? He hasn’t grown hard and resentful, as so many men do.” Usually after exposure to women like Bella, I couldn’t help thinking. Still, she was always infectiously optimistic. Fun-even when she was at her most infuriating. If Sir Keith Paxton had found her company a pleasant relief from his troubles, I couldn’t entirely blame him. Nevertheless, I didn’t like the sound of it. Bella might be exaggerating for effect with her casual dropping of his name minus the title. But, all the same, I felt resentment stir in me. “He’s suffered a great deal, of course. And he’s far from over the worst. Rowena’s a terrible worry to him. And to Sarah.”
“Why?”
“Hasn’t Sarah told you?” She smiled. “No, I suppose not. In that case, perhaps I oughtn’t to…” She waited for me to rise to the bait, but I merely smiled back. “Still, I suppose I ought to prepare you in some way.”
“Prepare me for what, Bella?”
“I was hoping-we were hoping-you’d come to lunch next Sunday. Meet Keith. And Rowena. He’ll be bringing her along. You see- Oh, here’s Hilda with your tea.” And that, a flashing glance told me, was all she could say for the moment. Like the actress I sometimes thought she ought to have been, she’d timed her curtain line to perfection.
The next act was delivered to me in the lounge bar of the Cricketers, Steep’s village inn, where Bella proposed a drink to see her on her way, knowing my mother wouldn’t dream of accompanying us. Mother regarded pubs as places ladies should avoid, except for the occasional lunchtime snack, and then only under heavy escort. Bella, needless to say, didn’t see them that way at all. But then Bella, as Mother sometimes pointed out, was no lady.
“I have to be careful what I say about Sarah’s family, Robin. I’m sure you appreciate that.”
“Of course.” I also appreciated that nothing pleased Bella more than teasing other people with tit-bits of information she possessed but they didn’t.
“I’ve only met Rowena once, but it was obvious to me she wasn’t recovering from the loss of her mother as well as Sarah. She was supposed to be starting university this autumn, you know. But that’s had to be postponed. She isn’t really capable of taking on any kind of commitment-work or study-at the moment. The whole thing has quite shattered her.” Sarah had spoken in Brussels of “picking up the pieces.” I wondered now if she’d been referring to her sister rather than herself all along. “She’s seeing a psychiatrist, though what help he is…”
“Sarah mentioned trauma counselling.”
“It’s become rather more serious than counselling. Rowena doesn’t have Sarah’s strength of mind, her… resilience. She’s really quite fragile. Doesn’t look her age at all. More like fourteen than nineteen. On a personality like hers, well, you can imagine the effect this must have had. She had to identify her mother’s body, you know. And she was the last to see Louise before…” Why did Bella’s use of Louise Paxton’s Christian name anger me? Why should I still care so much? “Except she wasn’t the last to see her, was she, Robin? Not quite.”
“Where’s this leading, Bella?”
“To a possible way of helping her, that’s all. It might make it easier for her to accept if you explained how carefree, how oblivious to what was going to happen, Louise was when you met her. Rowena seems to think… Well, her psychiatrist thinks… The girl believes her mother had something on her mind that day. Something… more than she’s been told. Something… that could have amounted to a premonition.”
“What makes her think that?”
“Who knows? Guilt for not stopping her. An inability to take things at face value. Whatever it is, you might be able to rid her of the delusion where others have failed.”
“Why?”
“Because you know it’s not true. You saw Louise that day. Like Rowena. But unlike anyone else.”
“I’m a stranger to Rowena. She won’t trust me.”
“Maybe she’ll trust you because you’re a stranger.”
I wasn’t going to refuse, of course. The argument made a kind of sense. And I wanted to see Rowena now this hint had been dropped that she too had glimpsed the ambiguity-the mystery-in her mother’s soul. But why was Bella the messenger? Why not Sarah-or Sir Keith? Why was my sister-in-law suddenly an insider while I remained a stranger? “Whose idea was this, Bella? Yours?”
“I suggested it, yes. But Keith saw the sense of it at once. He agreed it was well worth trying-if you were prepared to cooperate.”
“Of course I’ll cooperate. There’s just one thing I don’t understand.”
“Well?”
“What’s in it for you?”
She arched her eyebrows. “Does there have to be anything? I simply want to help.” But she must have read the disbelief in my eyes. It riled her. More than I’d have expected. “You bloody Timariots. So suspicious. So sceptical. So… miserly with your high opinion. Have you considered that I might have met somebody who brings out the best in me, rather than the worst?”
“Unlike Hugh, you mean?”
“If you like. Hugh. Or his brother.”
I looked away and sighed without attempting to disguise the reaction. It was an old battle nobody was ever going to win. But some of the wounds still hadn’t healed. “This somebody is Sir Keith Paxton?”
“Maybe.”
“With his wife less than five months dead?”
“I’ll leave the arithmetic to you.”
“Fine. What it adds up to is this. You want me to make you look concerned and sensitive for the widower knight’s benefit.”
“It’d be for his daughter’s benefit, actually. But if that’s going to be your attitude, perhaps it would be better if-”
“No.” I held up my hand, in warning as well as truce. The sniping had gone on long enough. “I’ll come, Bella. I’ll do what I can. I’ll try to help. Not for your sake. Nor for mine. Just because it really is the least I can do. Good enough?”
She nodded and, after a moment’s silent contemplation, smiled. We understood each other. Better than most. Though not as well-not nearly as well-as I might have hoped to know another. Had she lived.
Sunday was a cold grey winter’s day-raw, damp and stark. A polar opposite of the summer’s day my mind dwelt on as I drove up to Hindhead. And of other days I didn’t want to remember. But which my destination always evoked.
The Hurdles occupied a large and secluded site backing onto Hindhead golf course. It needed summer foliage to soften its harsh roof-line and faintly alien appearance. Without camouflage, it looked as if it might blend more happily with the landscape of southern California than the Home Counties. Like wedding photographs in which the guests are wearing the risible fashions of the day, The Hurdles stubbornly reflected aspirations that hadn’t long outlasted its construction. For cosmopolitan boldness, as the architect had fatuously put it. For a loving but enlightened marriage, as Hugh had convinced himself he was to have. And for ownership of a definable future, which he should have realized was available only on the shortest of leases.