“If only” had been the gist of her anguished reasoning. If only she hadn’t looked out precisely at that moment. If only he hadn’t glanced up exactly when he did. But by now, a bare two days after the event, these feverish reflections had inflated the incident into a tragedy of Sophoclean weight and proportion.
Bearing the unbearable had brought her almost to the point of exhaustion. She had not slept and now, though so tired she could barely focus, knew she would sleep fitfully if at all the coming night.
Aware at one level that she was being ridiculous, Brenda had striven to see the incident as if from an outsider’s point of view, to establish in her mind its essential triviality. But her exertions had seemed to make matters worse. Like a swimmer struggling against a powerful current, she had become more and more enmeshed. She realised now that, until matters had been put right between them, the black torment would continue. She saw herself becoming really ill.
Brenda got up quickly before fear could atrophy her limbs, hurried into the hall, grabbed her keys and put on her coat. Her mother’s “Where are you going?” was cut off by the door slam.
Brenda ran down the path, round to Nightingales’ tall black and gold gates and wrenched them open. She could do it as long as she didn’t stop to think. Opening gambits—I can’t say how sorry. What you must think. I couldn’t bear it if—floated to the surface of her mind, broke like bubbles and were straightaway replaced by more.
These remedial flourishes brought Brenda to the front door. On the point of dissolving into desperate tears, she knocked very loudly.
Immediately the door was opened. Alan Hollingsworth came out and moved forcefully forward. For one terrible moment Brenda thought he was going to push her off the step. Or even knock her down. He slammed the door behind him and started walking towards the garage.
Impossible as it might appear, Brenda was instantly convinced he hadn’t seen her. His eyes appeared to be fixed on some distant point or object. He could almost have been in a trance. His face was ghastly; grey-white with little cuts on his cheeks and chin. One or two had tufts of cotton wool with traces of blood sticking to them. His movements were mechanistic and strangely concentrated.
Brenda, horrified, watched as the car was backed out. Surely he wasn’t going to drive in that zombie-like state. He would have an accident and kill someone. Or, a million times worse, himself!
She ran across the gravel crying, “Wait!” but the car was already reversing down the drive. Brenda waved her arms, crossing and recrossing them at the wrists as if signalling on a flight path.
Now he was turning. She saw his shoulder dip as he bent to change gear. She raced back to The Larches—blessing the key ring in her pocket—and flung herself into the Metro. The engine caught first time. Brenda, briefly aware of her parents’ startled faces at the kitchen window, scraped a wing on the gatepost. Then she was out in the lane and away.
At the T-junction where St. Chad’s Lane ran into the main street Brenda stopped and looked anxiously both ways. On the outskirts of the right-hand exit from Fawcett Green the tarmac was being repaired and a set of traffic lights had been installed. They showed red. Two cars were waiting, neither of which belonged to Alan.
Guessing that he would not have had time to precede them and praying she was right, Brenda turned left and put her foot down. Usually a timid and decorous driver, she touched fifty while still in the village and sixty the second she was on the open road. Within minutes she had spotted the Audi.
It was moving along quite slowly. Brenda settled down to follow, keeping just one vehicle, an electrical van, between them. When this turned off, she remained unconcerned, reasoning that if Alan had not noticed her standing under his nose on Nightingales’ doorstep he was hardly likely to spot her in the present circumstances.
He drove through Causton and Uxbridge before taking the road towards West Drayton. They passed the stately building of the Montessori School, half hidden behind tall trees, and the much less stately Crowne Plaza Holiday Inn. At one point a massive blue and white container lorry, Transports Frigorifigues European, roared by. When the driver pulled over to the inside lane, Brenda lost sight of Alan and had to grip the wheel very tightly to stop the sudden trembling in her hands. Unable to overtake the lorry, she could do nothing but follow it and pray that the Audi would not suddenly enter the middle lane and speed off, for she was sure she would not have the skill or courage to follow.
Then came a nightmare four-lane intersection with signs to Heathrow, Central London and Slough. She saw Alan in the second stream. Gritting her teeth and screwing up her face with anxiety and effort, Brenda overtook the great pantechnicon, fleetingly aware of two great blue interlocking circles on its mile-long chassis. Several horns hooted so she knew she had done something wrong.
Alan was following the sign for Heathrow. Once more safely on his tail, Brenda relaxed slightly. She was starting to feel happy, or at least pleasurably excited, and realised that, for the first time in her life, she was having an adventure. She sat up straighter in the car, lifted her chin in a daredevil sort of way and briefly drove with one hand on the wheel. A huge white model of Concorde flashed by to her right and they were in the airport tunnel.
There was a great deal of noise, screaming whoops and wails as two police cars tore by closely followed by an ambulance. A Sheraton Heathrow bus blocked her view and, emerging into the light again, Brenda discovered that Alan was now in the nearside lane and aiming for the Short Stay Car Park. Confused, uncertain and desperate not to lose him, she signalled and simultaneously swung over directly in front of a black cab. The driver signalled viciously in return and further demonstrated his fury by a stream of rabidly picturesque sound bites as he passed.
Alan was reaching through his window for a ticket from the machine at the entrance. Brenda did the same then wondered how, having no purse, she would be able to pay for it. At least she had filled up with petrol on her way home from work. Alan drove to the higher level and Brenda followed. He got out carrying a small case and made his way towards the lifts.
Brenda crept out of her car using the door furthest away. Having parked with about a dozen vehicles between them, she sidled, half crouching, past several rear number plates ready to duck should her quarry decide to retrace his steps. As Alan pressed the lift button he glanced about him and Brenda remained very still, unaware that she was an object of humorous derision to a couple in a nearby Saab.
As soon as the lift doors closed, she ran forward and rested her finger on the descending arrow, burning with impatience. She had never been to an airport but her feverish imagination had already supplied a teeming concourse in which Alan would be swallowed up without trace the moment he set foot on it.
The second lift arrived and when she emerged at ground level Brenda’s worst fears were realised. Tears of frustration welled as she dodged cars and mini buses and crossed two roads to gain the automatic swing door that was the entrance to the terminus.
Once inside, at once she knew herself defeated. Standing between the desks for Aer Lingus and British Midland she observed the vast hall where seemingly thousands of people queued, manipulated trolleys, grumbled, sweated, lugged cases, railed at children or just sat slumped, stuffing food into their mouths.
Now that secrecy was not an issue, Brenda moved boldly if miserably about, staring at the multicoloured computer screens above her head and the brightly lit shopping section. Austin Reed, Tie Rack, the Body Shop—it was like Uxbridge High Street.