One Night (2 page)

‘You have the eyes of a pixie,’ he
said.

‘You have the eyes of a poet,’ I
replied.

And there in that moment, lying
twisted in the flowered sheets in my bed in my flat, he looked at me. And I had
the feeling he was looking at something else.

It was odd, that feeling – the sense
that Stephen had a purpose in life other then me, that there was a part of him
I might not have. It was like trying to carry water in my hands, uncertainty fed
by insecurity. Things were too good, he was too good. It couldn’t last.

In the beginning life was hectic: pubbing
and clubbing, big parties, cosy weekends in little pub inns where the stairs
creaked and the bed rocked across an uncarpeted floor. We laughed. We had fun.
And then that inevitable day, much imagined, when Stephen told me what he
really wanted to do.

Mona had been impressed. ‘Training to be a counsellor! But that’s great.
Stephen is so good with people.’

‘But he’s training to be a buyer.’

‘Not everybody knows what they want
from the start.’

‘You knew.’

Her look was startled, as though I
had expected her to apologize. ‘I had an aptitude. Sometimes that’s all you
need.’

‘He’s going away to college. He
says he wants a good basis to start with. He’s going to study psychology.’

‘It’s not far Casey. You’ll
probably see him most weekends.’

‘There will be other girls at
college.’

She gave me a long look. ‘Stephen
loves you. You should trust him.’

But the person I didn’t trust was
myself: my jealousy, the loneliness without him, the reliance again on
girlfriends for company, the approach in pubs of softly spoken men with
searching hands.

Even now I was ashamed by my
feelings of resentment. I could hardly blame my friends for the fact I had jumped
rudderless into that giddy stretch life from teens to twenties where
opportunities are so easily sucked away. Suddenly the glint in Stephen’s eye
was tempered by objectives I couldn’t share. If I’d had a career job like Mona,
perhaps it would have been easier, but I was stuck at Marse & Peters – PA to
Mr Marse himself and underdog in every way. Perhaps if I were honest, I was
actually jealous of Stephen’s new goals. He must have guessed this. He started
to give me narrow-eyed looks.

‘You’re like a teenager whose been
told that the holiday destination has changed.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You seem to resent the fact I’m
changing my life.’

‘Of course not! I just thought –
just thought we would be having more fun.’

It wasn’t what I wanted to say but
now it was said, I left it glinting resentfully in the air.

Stephen responded mildly, ‘I think
you’re being a bit immature actually.’

Hurt came at me like a cold draught.
All I could see was the picture in my head fading. ‘Are you saying you’re now
too grown up to bother with me?’

Speculation slid into his eyes. ‘Don’t
be daft, Casey. You don’t seem to understand I’m doing this to improve my
life.’

Childishly, stupidly, I blurted, ‘Well,
it’s mucking up mine!’

He almost smiled, a mix of disappointment
and reproof. ‘No, you’re doing that yourself.’

1 PM

I left Nottingham without too much haste. Traffic was heavy. I bypassed the
hub of Lincoln and turned north towards Gainsborough where I filled up with
petrol, and headed on to Kirton, stopping to buy some snacks for myself and
something special for Sticky.

I was idly looking at a rack of
postcards of the area, when the woman behind the counter remarked, ‘My dog
won’t eat this.’

I turned to look at her. ‘Isn’t it
good?’

‘How would I know? I just know he didn’t
like it.’

‘It’s not for my dog actually. I’m
looking after a friend’s for the night.’

‘Oh, where’s that then?’

‘Barton Cottage.’

‘Oh, my,’ She gave me a look.
‘That’s a bit isolated, isn’t it? Are you on your own?’

‘Yes, but I’ll be all right. Bit of
gravel road. I hate driving on that.’

‘Driving’s not your worry,’ she
said. ‘Don’t you know about the Buntings?’

I gave a slow twirl to the postcard
rack. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Matthew Bunting. Escaped from an
institution a few weeks ago. They say he might be heading home to his brother. Wally
Bunting lives near Barton cottage.’

Emptiness wafted into my stomach
but I was hardly afraid. My reaction was more annoyance – a kind of:
this is
all I need.

‘An
institution
,’ I repeated
stupidly. The word had conjured up a bleak picture of empty corridors, long
shadows and people screaming.

‘They say he’s dangerous,’ she
persisted, wanting to cause drama and concern. ‘They’ve been warning people to
be careful, not to confront him. I’m a bit wary myself, to tell the truth. I
don’t like being in this shop on my own but at least it’s a busy street. You
know, people up and down. But where’re you’re going is rather lonely, in the
woods and all.’

This was really unhelpful. ‘Why was
he in an institution, as you put it?’

‘Raped two girls, he did.’

I looked at her with a sinking
feeling. ‘Dead?’

‘Only the one.’ She sounded disappointed.
‘The other one survived. That’s how they had the description. He’s been put
away now must be two years.’ She tapped her head. ‘Backward, you know.’

On the cusp of memory, I remembered
Mona talking about this; a man who lived as a recluse and whose dilly kid brother
had been put in a mental home after raping and murdering a local girl. Suddenly,
this gossip had unsettling relevance.

I took up my parcel, calculated the
odds. ‘It’s only for one night. I’ll be gone tomorrow.’

She wasn’t happy with this. ‘Pair
of weirdo’s, them Bunting boys. Never been quite right in the head, if you ask
me. Although I hear that Wally runs a fairly good car repair workshop from his
house. My cousin’s husband took his car there some years ago. Said it was the
best service he’d ever had. Car went like a dream. Suppose we’ve all got our
talents.’

She scrabbled under the counter and
for a moment I thought she was settling to give me the esteemed car repairer’s number.
But she said, ‘Here’s my number. Alice Petting. Phone me. I’m not that far. The
boys and I can be there in twenty minutes.’

I was touched. She hardly knew me
and yet she was taking care of me. I smiled at her. Then I noticed it wasn’t
kindness I saw in her eyes, but anxiety. I was a foolish girl who might put her
and her boys to a bit of trouble.

I left, heading east. Already the weather was changing, a sheath of cloud
creeping overhead, a dull, flat light falling on the green slope of fields,
darkening the bark of the trees.

I cursed the fact I had encountered
kindly, informative Alice Petting. It would have been better not to know. My
mind hopped. Who could I call to come up and keep me company? My mind settled
almost immediately on Stephen. I would call him. He would come, I knew he
would. Perhaps this was just the excuse I needed to put things right between
us.

By the time I found the turnoff and
headed south on a narrow secondary road, I had mentally set an image of Stephen
sitting with his phone, waiting for my call. My foot shifted on the
accelerator. I surged ahead.

The only car I passed was a VW
parked on the cant of the road with its bonnet in the air. I glanced at it
wryly. AA10TOP registration. I swung it around in my head. TOP10. No sign of
the driver.

A few minutes later I reached the
unmarked gravel road that would take me through Witch’s Wood. After leaving the
busy roads, I was aware of the quiet. Come summer or winter, there seemed a
permanent green dankness under the trees. Above, the sky had turned from a
pearl grey to gun-metal gloom. The autumn afternoon was darkening early,
threatening rain.

The car bounced around a sharp bend
and through the gates of the cottage grounds. I saw some effort had been made to
clear and neaten the garden. There were two bricked parking bays and a car port
covered with honeysuckle creeper. Mona’s sky-blue Mazda sat under the shade. A fringe
of lawn had been cut back around the old fishpond. Rambling pink roses struggled
up from a new pot beside the front door. Mona had been busy.

I pulled up behind Mona’s car. Rolling
down the window, I sat for a few moments. The stillness had an imminence about
it, as though if you waited long enough something would happen; a sudden
breeze, the plop of an acorn. The quick scuffle of something in the undergrowth
– possibly sporting a pointed hat.

‘Witches!’ Brent was derisive. ‘You should write those books – you know – ’ he
waved a hand ‘ – about broomsticks.’

He was talking to both of us but looking
at me, giving the impression he was more engaged with me than Mona, his
communication slyly underwritten in a way I found hard to fathom.

I had only met Brent a few times –
either at my flat or Mona’s. He was tall with a deceptively slim but muscular body.
His contrived blonde good looks were undermined by those vapid blue eyes. I had
the impression the effect was deliberate. Behind that careful façade he was storing
information like ammunition to be used in any situation where he felt it might
benefit him.

But then, I’m hard to please. At least
that’s what Mona told me, hardly hiding her exasperation when I complained –
not about her boyfriend but mine.

‘Stephen’s a serious guy. He’ll
look after a wife.’

‘Wife!’ I was embarrassed she had jumped
to that conclusion so swiftly. ‘I feel like a widow and I’m not even married.’

‘He’s building a career.’

We were deep into Witch’s Wood. Brent
had gone away on business for a few days and Mona had suggested I come up to
keep her company on the weekend. The only time I would accept an invitation to
Barton Cottage was when Brent wasn’t there.

Between the trees, our voices
carried with the hollow sound of stage-players. I had to stop myself from
glancing around to see if anybody was listening. Mona picked up the gossamer
remains of an autumn leaf, its threadlike structure light as a membrane on her
palm. She was going to pick her words carefully, I knew it. The leaf dangled delicate
as a piece of lace.

‘Remember that day in Mrs
Collerson’s class? When she said you’d never go anywhere because you didn’t
know what it was you wanted?’

I grinned slowly. ‘Oh, yeah.’

‘You said you knew exactly what you
wanted.’

Still grinning. ‘I did, didn’t I?’

‘You said you wanted your own way.’

We laughed. Mona let the leaf
flutter away. My eyes followed it. Perhaps a purposeful moment. A reminder of
life’s fragility. A gentle reprimand.

5 PM

I grabbed my bag and trudged to the front door, found the key in the rose
pot, and inserted it into the lock. To my surprise, the door swung open. It
wasn’t locked! Out here in the country quiet, trespassers would be rare. I
supposed that Brent and Mona had become so used to leaving the door unlocked,
they’d just left without worrying about it. Still, it struck me as odd. Mona
was usually more careful than that. And she had said:
you’ll find the key in
the pot by the door…

I stepped inside to see Sticky
happily ensconced on the couch. His left front leg was in plaster, pointing at
me in accusation even before I could drop my bag. An excited tail wag was
tempered by a look of concern. My presence, armed with luggage, meant mum
wasn’t coming back for a while.

Sticky was a mid-sized dog designed
in the style of a long-legged Jack Russell. He had a gold-beige spray of
scraggy fur, and a sausage-shaped body skewered onto four long, stick legs. His
eyes, however, were a liquid brown that would have melted the heart of Attila
the Hun.

I went over and kissed him on the
top of his head. ‘Bet you wouldn’t mind a nice treat for supper and a potter
about in the woods now, would you?’

A smile lit his eyes. He was for
it.

I trailed up the narrow steep
staircase that led to what Mona euphemistically termed the ‘spare room’. About
half way up, the floor level of the upper room crossed the stairs and one was
forced to bend almost double to reach the top. The room was a ramshackle
addition to the cottage which had originally consisted of two ground rooms –
the large lounge-cum-kitchen and a bedroom with its more recently acquired indoor
bathroom.

The room upstairs was set to the
back of the house over the bedroom and was more along the lines of a small
storeroom. There was a cupboard, however, and a new single bed. True to Mona’s
word, there were plenty of blankets as well as a comfortable duvet. Under the
bedside lamp, a tiny pot of flowers pinned down a note that read in wobbly
penciled lines:
‘Hope you have a comfortable night. Love, Mona.’

The faintest apprehension touched
me and flitted away. The words were polite enough but there was an indefinable
sense of discrepancy for which I could find no credence.

I put it back on the table and
looked around the little wooden room. It felt cosy enough, the bed soft and
springy. A tiny attic window looked into the trees. I carefully set out my
alarm clock and my book on the table under the lamp and unpacked a few
toiletries.

Fingering my phone, I thought about
the practicalities of calling Stephen. What if he said no? What if he came but
only out of a sense of duty? What if he had somebody else and was embarrassed
by my call? What if things were still ripe for recriminations, and we fought
like two angry cockerels stuck in a box for the night?

Gently, I slid my phone back into
my bag.

I went downstairs and switched on all the lights. I lifted Sticky off the couch
and opened the back door (which also wasn’t locked), looked out on a yard piled
with old boxes, discarded tyres, bits of iron and chopped wood piles. A narrow
path wound through this mess towards an archway of natural foliage. Witch’s
Wood had crept around the perimeters and encircled the cottage. I switched on
the outside lights that hung over both the front and back doors and the yard
morphed from disorganized shapes to definite items: suitcases, an old phonogram
which must have been valuable, a bicycle, something that looked like a piano
accordion wrapped in damp sacking. Boxes, their lids bursting off, held what appeared
to be piles of old clothing. Hardly visible in this mess was a decrepit garden
shed leaning against a stone cobbled wall.