R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield (78 page)

Rage as well as concern stirred in him. To go out like that without a word to anyone, at ten o'clock at night, was an utterly irresponsible action, providing she was in full possession of her faculties and he could not believe that depression had brought her that low. He took his profound irritation and
anxiety out on the motorcycle, slowing it round the wide bends between the rhododendron clumps and screeching to a halt in the station approach. There was a gleam of yellow light on the platform. That would be Walrus Tapscott, stationmaster and signalman waiting for one of the two goods trains through here each week night. He called over the picket fence, 'Tapscott! It's me, Powlett-Jones! How long have you been on duty?'

'Since around nine, sir.'

'Did you see any cars pass either way.'

'Yes, sir. Just the one.' |

'What sort of car? Small or large?'

'I dunno, sir. I on'y got a glimpse as I was coming down the signal-box steps. Smallish, I'd say. It went by at a pretty good lick. Any trouble up at skuel, sir?'

'There might be. I'm finding out. Which way was it going?'

'Took the Dulverton road at the fork. Saw the tail light.'

'Thank you.'

'Anything I can do, sir?'

'No.'

He was off again, roaring over the gritty surface to the fork and setting the machine at the one-in-six gradient that led over the shoulder of the moor. Ten miles of twisting by-road would bring him to the eastern edge of Middlemoor, looking down into the heavily wooded valley of the Barle and as he went his mind conjured with a variety of destinations beyond Dulverton or the nearest probable filling-station. It might be Taunton, or even London, if her strength held out that long. It might be the north. More likely it was anywhere chance took her, for he had nothing but instinct to help him follow a trail. In the heavy silence of the moorland night the motorcycle seemed to make a prodigious noise. A barn owl swooped out of a spinney and flew diagonally across his vision, causing him to swerve so violently that he almost went into a speed wobble. After that he took a partial grip on himself, slowing down and peering about him in the darkness.

It was lighter when he emerged on to the open moor. A few stars were glimmering over Tarr Steps to his left and somewhere over on the right, in a fold of the plateau, they shone on a patch of water. He thought, savagely, 'God damn my luck with women… first Beth, then Julia Darbyshire, now this… It's all so bloody disorganised… they all do the first thing that comes into their heads and jib at making a plan and sticking to it… they all get carried away by their emotions…' and in his misery he even found himself blaming Beth for
not acting quickly enough to avoid that damned lorry on Quarry Hill. It was only when he caught himself thinking, 'She could have slammed into reverse and shot off the road…' that he checked the onrush of hysteria and forced himself to review the wisdom of this blind pursuit into the night, thinking, 'I'm just as bad… I should have seen Willoughby… consulted someone… anything but lose myself chasing a will-of-a-wisp.'

He saw the reflection of his headlight beam with the tail of his eye as he shot past a wide open gateway on the very crest of the moor. Just a dullish flash but enough to bring him to a halt, abandon the machine in the hedge and run back twenty yards or so. The car was there, blocking the opening. The lights were switched off and it seemed to have been parked very carelessly on a hummock of dried mud.

He approached it with his heart in his mouth and saw, with a great surge of relief, that she was slumped in the nearside seat. She did not move when he went round the bonnet but when he reached through the open window and touched her shoulder she stirred and moaned before shaking herself and then sitting bolt upright, one hand raised as though to ward off a blow.

'Are you all right?'

She stared at him as though he had been a passing moorman. There was just enough starlight to see the bafflement in her eyes and the tight compression of the mouth. He went round the bonnet again and got into the driver's seat. Her hand, surprisingly, was warm. She said, slowly, 'Where is this? What's happened?'

'You tell me.'

Relief put an edge on his tongue. He had to make an effort to check an outburst of recrimination.

'I drove off by myself.'

'Yes. You'd still be driving if the tank wasn't dry.'

'It isn't dry.' She sounded maddeningly rational. 'I saw there wasn't enough to get me much farther so I pulled in.'

'Why, Chris? For God's sake, why?'

She did not answer but half-relaxed again. 'You must have known I'd be scared out of my wits. I only caught up with you by sheer luck. You don't even seem to know where you were heading.'

'It didn't matter.'

He had no answer to this, even though it went some way to explain her state of mind. Presently he said, 'Do you feel all right? I mean, you got this far… we're only a mile or so short of Dulverton.'

She said, 'Odd how far you can get without trying. I had no idea where I was going… how far I'd come. First I wanted to break out and then all I wanted to do was sleep. Sleep and never wake up.'

Compassion and concern returned to him with a rush. 'That's no way to talk, Chris! People are concerned for you. Not just me but Willoughby… everybody. If only you'd tried to explain… Turn up that window. I'll back out and drive back. She might just make it.'

'No, wait, Davy!' Then, 'How did
you
get here?'

'Following my nose on Molyneux's motorbike. It's up there in the hedge. I can get someone to pick it up in the morning.'

'Before we start back… we've got to talk. It might as well be now. I'm not ill, not physically ill, that is. It's quiet out here. Away from that bell.'

It gave him a hint, broad enough to encourage him to humour her.

'It was pressing down on you?'

'Unbearably.'

'There's a reason for it. After a pregnancy – even a normal one – women get all kinds of fancies, or so Willoughby told me a day or so ago.'

'He told me, too. But there's more to it than that.'

'You aren't happy – quite apart from the baby?'

'It's nothing to do with you, Davy. You must believe that.'

'I'd like to, but how can I?'

'You must. I haven't stopped loving you.'

'Then what? Try and tell me, no matter how crazy it sounds.'

'I feel so bloody useless.'

'Useless?
You!
But that
is
crazy! I thought you were settling in. Slowly, maybe, but a bit more every month. Then, when you were expecting the kid…'

'That led us both astray, gave a wrong impression.'

'About what, exactly?'

'About me being someone, doing something useful, having a purpose back there.'

'Isn't being my wife purpose enough?'

'No, Davy. Being anyone's wife wouldn't be. That's the way I'm made and I can't do anything about it.'

'All right. The minute you're fit we'll go all out to get you a constituency. If it's so important…'

'I don't think that's the answer. I did once but I don't any longer.'

'Then what? What kind of role would help?'

'If I knew that we'd be home in bed, Davy.'

He thought, distractedly, 'There's a way out of this mess somewhere, if I could find it. It's been half-suggesting itself for a year or more but it's so damned elusive neither of us can find it.' He said, 'At least you must know what isn't the answer. To cave in, to do the first damn silly thing that suggests itself, like coming out here on your own without letting any of us know how hard-driven you were. We've always been able to talk, or I thought so.'

'Not really, Davy. Bamfylde's a big place. Most times I can't hear you and you don't seem to hear me.'

He acted on impulse then as though he was faced with something more tangible than deep, personal despair. He reached over and swung her round roughly and shouted at her as though he was dealing with a case of hysterics. 'That just isn't so! You know damned well it isn't so! You aren't making any allowances at all for your physical condition, for the fact that you've had your hopes dashed about the baby. You
were
settling in, and everything would have been plain sailing if the baby had lived.'

She said, calmly, 'Does it matter – the root cause of it? The fact is I made a hash of this, just as I did with Rowley, and the candidature, and two marriages, and everything else I've attempted.'

'That's your view. It isn't mine and it isn't anyone else's and the sooner you get that into your head the better. I'll tell you something else. My Mam came home from the pithead after they told her she'd lost her man and two of her sons, and within five minutes of taking her coat off she was getting my tea and washing sheets in the copper. She wasn't all that singular. I daresay half the women in the terrace were doing the same – adjusting – facing up to what couldn't be altered. Hardly one of them could write or read English, or do more than scribble their names on a clothing club card, but you've had an expensive education. What's it worth if you crack up like this under a few bad deals? Will you think about that?'

She began to cry, quietly at first but then, both hands grasping one of his, unrestrainedly, so that her body shook and they sat there for what seemed a long time, with silence and emptiness all about them save for her dry, gasping
sobs and the long sigh of the breeze. She was quiet at last and freed his hand, fumbling in the glove pocket for her handbag and dabbing her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief. She said, at length, 'Take me home, Davy. Don't say anything more. Just drive on home.'

He reversed out of the gate and switched on the lights. The beam seemed to probe a limitless expanse of the moor and away down by the tarn a nightjar screeched. He saw by the luminous dial that the petrol needle was not quite settled at empty. It was mostly downhill and there might be just enough to see them home. They did not exchange a single word until the car coughed at the summit of the west drive and ran over the flat to the forecourt, where the engine petered out. He saw it as a kind of sign, a pledge that his luck would turn and hers with it maybe. The study light was on. She said, 'Is anyone else out looking for me?'

'No. I told Rigby to tell Howarth. That'll be Howarth in the study now.'

'We can trust Howarth,' she said, and scrambling out went swiftly in and up the stairs.

Howarth was sitting slumped in the swivel chair. The air in the room was thick with stale tobacco smoke and when David entered he hoisted himself up, then relaxed again.

'Well?'

'She's back. She had some damned silly idea about running away. I found her up on the moor, near Dulverton.'

'She's all right?'

'As far as I can tell. Did you phone the Doc?'

'No. Had an idea you'd bring her in. Get Willoughby over here at this hour and everyone in the damned place would hear of it.'

'Thanks, Howarth.'

He went over to the decanter and poured two stiff whiskies.

'Where do I go from here? Can you tell me? Can Willoughby… anyone?'

'We might. Between us that is. But if you'll take my advice you'll bring Barnaby in on it.'

'Barnaby?'

'It was his idea, wasn't it?'

'What are you driving at?'

Howarth shot his legs out and savoured his drink. He looked particularly thoughtful and thought always made him look disagreeable. 'That prep class notion he had. The Second Form is hopelessly unwieldy. That woman we have can't cope with it. Too rule-of-thumb. Needs imagination. Christine might provide it. She seems to have a surfeit that needs siphoning off. Maybe you could solve two problems at a stroke.'

He sat down, gaping at Howarth. The path out of the slough suddenly became clear, a tricky one, certainly, but at least some kind of promise to higher, safer ground. 'You mean separate the under-elevens and put Chris in charge? Take her on the staff?'

'Why not. She's a graduate. She ought to be able to cope with a dozen youngsters that age. Give her something constructive to do. Keep her mind off her own fancied inadequacies.'

He said, 'That's a brilliant idea, Howarth. When did you think of it?'

'I've been sitting here twiddling my thumbs for three hours. Look at that ashtray.'