A woman answered the door, smiling at him but looking cautious.
“Excuse me, are you Mrs. Kewley?”
“Yes. Can I help you?”
“You have a daughter Susan, living in London?”
The smile disappeared. “It’s not bad news, is it?”
“Not at all. My name’s Richard Grey, and I’m a friend of Susan’s. I’ve been working around here, and I thought I’d call on you and say hello.”
“There hasn’t been an accident, has there?”
“I’m sorry—I should have telephoned first. Susan’s fine, and she sends her love. I didn’t mean to alarm you.”
“You said your name was … ?”
“Richard Grey. Look, if it’s inconvenient, I—”
“Would you like to come in for a few minutes? I’ll make some tea.”
There was a long corridor inside, with a glimpse through to a kitchen at the far end. Carpeted stairs rose from the hall, with small framed paintings hanging from the wall. He was shown into the front room, where chairs and ornaments were set out with neat precision. Mrs. Kewley bent down to light the gas fire, and straightened slowly.
“Is it tea you would like, Mr. Grey? Or I could make some coffee.” Her accent was northern, with no detectable trace of the Scottish he had expected.
“Tea, please. I’m sorry to arrive without warning, but—”
“I’m always glad to meet Susan’s friends. I won’t be a moment.”
There was a photograph of Sue on the mantelpiece: her hair was longer, and tied back with a ribbon. She looked much younger, but her awkward way of sitting when she knew she was being looked at was the same. The photo was mounted in a frame, and the name of the studio was inscribed in one corner. He guessed it had been taken shortly before she left home.
Grey prowled quietly around the room, sensing that it was not often used. He could hear voices and the movement of crockery at the distant end of the corridor. He felt like an intruder, knowing that Sue would be furious if she found out what he was doing. He heard voices coming down the corridor, so he sat down in one of the chairs by the fire. A woman said,” ‘Bye now, May. I’ll pop in again tomorrow.”
“‘Bye, Alice.” The front door opened and closed, and Sue’s mother came into the room with a tray.
They were overpolite and uncomfortable with each other, Grey because of his uncertain motives for being there, and Mrs. Kewley presumably because of his unannounced arrival. She looked rather older than he would have expected Sue’s mother to be, with hair already white and a slight stiffness in her movements. But her face was unmistakably like Sue’s, and he was pleased at glimpsing little similarities in gesture.
“Are you the friend who is a photographer?” she said.
“That’s right … well, I’m a film cameraman.”
“Oh yes. Susan told us about you. You were in an accident, weren’t you?”
They talked for a while about the bomb and his spell in the hospital, Grey surprised to learn that Sue had talked about him to her parents. Realizing that what people say to their parents is often a guarded form of the whole truth, he was cautious about what he said of Sue’s present life, but Mrs. Kewley said that Sue wrote many letters home. She knew all about Sue’s career, and even had a scrapbook of press clippings, many of which Grey had never seen. It was a small insight into Sue, discovering how much work she had sold and that she was obviously well established in her field.
When the scrapbook had been put aside Mrs. Kewley said, “Is Susan still going out with Niall?”
“I’m not sure … I don’t think so. I didn’t know you had met him.”
“Oh yes, we know Niall well. Susan brought him home with her one weekend. A very nice boy, we thought, though rather quiet. I think he is some kind of writer, but he wouldn’t say too much about it. Is he a friend of yours too?”
“No, I’ve never met him to speak to.”
“I see.” Mrs. Kewley suddenly smiled nervously and glanced away, just like Sue. She presumably thought she had made a gaffe, so Grey was quick to reassure her that he and Sue were simply friends. This moment off her guard broke the ice, and Mrs. Kewley became more talkative after it. She told him about her other daughter Rosemary, married and living a few miles away in Stockport. There were two grandchildren, whom Sue had never mentioned.
Grey was thinking about Niall, and the account Sue had given him of the one occasion she had brought him to this house. It had been very different from the scene of indulgent parental approval that Mrs. Kewley implied, and according to Sue had led directly to her first separation from Niall. He remembered her story of Niall the invisible companion, distracting her and generally acting badly. Yet Mrs. Kewley had obviously met him, found nothing unusual about him, and had even formed a favorable opinion of him.
“My husband will be home from work soon,” she said. “He only works part-time now. You will stay and meet him, won’t you?”
“I’d like to very much,” Grey said, “but I have to catch a train to London this afternoon. Maybe I’ll meet your husband before I leave.”
She started asking innocent questions about Sue: what her room was like, the sort of people she worked with, whether she took enough exercise. Grey answered her, feeling uncomfortable, aware that he could easily blunder into some minor contradiction with Sue’s own version of her life. The revelation about Niall underlined how little he really knew or understood about Sue. To avoid the problem he started asking questions of his own. It was not long before a photograph album was produced. Feeling more like a spy than ever, Grey looked with interest at pictures of Sue’s childhood.
She had been a pretty child in little dresses with ribbons in her hair. The plainness that he found so intriguing developed later; in her teens Sue began to look gawky and sullen, standing obediently for the photographs but averting her face. These pictures were passed over quickly, Mrs. Kewley obviously remembering particular moments.
At the back of the album, not mounted like the others but slipped loosely inside the pages, was a color snapshot. It slid to the floor as Mrs. Kewley was putting away the album, and Grey picked it up. It was a more recent picture of Sue, looking very much as he knew her. She was standing in a garden next to a flower bed, and beside her was a young man with his arm around her shoulders.
“Who is this?” Grey said.
“That’s Niall, of course.”
“Niall?”
“Yes—I thought you knew him. We took that picture in the garden, the time he visited us.”
“Oh yes, I recognize him now.” Grey stared at the photograph. Until this moment his unseen rival had possessed minatory powers in Grey’s mind, but to see him at last, even in a rather blurred snapshot, made him immediately less of a threat. Niall was young-looking, with a slight build, a shock of fair hair, and an expression that looked both surly and conceited. He was smartly dressed and had a cigarette in his mouth. His face was turned toward Sue and he held her possessively, but she was standing ill at ease and looked stressful.
He passed the photograph back to Mrs. Kewley and she slipped it back inside the album. Not realizing the effect the picture had had on him, she began talking about Sue and the years when she was growing up. Grey kept his silence and listened. What emerged was a story supported by neither the pictures he had just seen nor Sue’s own version. According to her mother, Sue had been a contented girl, clever at school, popular with the other girls, talented at drawing. She had been a good daughter, close to her sister, considerate of her parents. Her teachers spoke glowingly of her, and friends in the neighborhood were still always asking after her. Until the girls grew up and left home they had been a happy, intimate family, sharing most things. Now they were very proud of her, feeling that she was fulfilling the promise she had always shown. Her parents’ only regret was that she could not visit home more often, but they knew how busy she was.