The Diary Of Pamela D. (19 page)

But doubt lurked like a shadow behind every
hope and promise of love and warmth. Doubt dogged her feelings and
clouded her mind in areas where she had every reason to be utterly
certain. And doubt smiled its chilling smile from the background of
her thoughts, haunting her subconscious and her dreams, watched her
every movement from its vantage in the forest, and waited with
inhuman patience and vigilance for the opportunity to strike.

Such thoughts were pushed aside for the
moment when Tessa entered the office- formerly Theo’s exclusive
domain. Pamela and Tessa had set up a little office in Tessa’s room
as well, and she worked there now most of the time when she wasn’t
overseeing things at the Crown Tavern.

‘Okay, so I got most of the payroll done,’
Tessa was saying, ‘but it’s this tax thing with the overtime that’s
giving me a headache.’

‘Yuck! Tom?’ Pamela called,
sweetly, ‘I believe this is
your
department.’

Which wasn’t altogether true. Taxation was
something Pamela had learned all about while working for Father
Mugford at the Catholic Mission. The truth be known, she thought
there might be something developing between Tom and Tessa, and so
she discreetly nudged things along. Tom was just the sort of man,
she thought, who would take proper care of her best friend. What
settled things for her was the way he had dealt with David
Priestly, Tessa’s former boyfriend and father of her unborn baby, a
few days before. David had demanded to see Tessa, telling her that
all was forgiven. He would pay for the abortion himself, he had
said.

Tessa had gone white at that.

‘I think you’d better leave, Davie. I’ve done
nothing that needs forgiving. And I’ll not murder my unborn child
just to appease you.’

‘You’ll do what I tell you, you little cow!’
he said, moving menacingly towards her.

Tom, who had made it his business to be near
at hand, closed the gap and headed off David Priestly before he
could lay a hand on Tessa.

‘Oh, and who’s this? You been getting shagged
by every buck that comes along, haven’t you, you cheap little
tart!’ He tried pushing his way past Tom who was as unmovable as a
menhir.

‘Sod off, ya prick! That’s my old lady-’

‘You gave up any right to so much as speak to
Tessa when you turned your back on her,’ Tom told him in a quiet
but dangerous voice. ‘And you gave up any right to be treated like
a man when you beat her up, kicked her out of your car in the
middle of nowhere, and abandoned her to her fate. Now, I’m just
going to give you one more chance to leave this house with dignity.
If you don’t take it, then I’ll take you apart.’

‘Sod you!’

David struck Tom with all the force he could
muster, causing his head to snap to one side. But watching Tom’s
head turn back to face David was as fearful a motion as watching
the gun of a tank-turret swivel and come to bear on its target.

‘Since there are women present, I am going to
afford you the luxury of counting to three. If you’re stupid enough
to still be here when I’m done, I’ll snap your head off like a
chicken and impale it on a stake as a warning to anyone else like
you who’s stupid enough to get up my nose.’

At that point David proved that he hadn’t the
least bit of sense. He drew back his fist once more- but just as a
quiet voice from behind caused him to snatch it back to his
side.

‘Hello, Davie. Haven’t nicked you for a
while. ‘Til today, that is.’

‘I done nowt!’ David protested as Chief
Inspector Matthews clamped a massive hand on his shoulder.

‘Story of your life, isn’t it Davie,’ the
Inspector said, propelling David from the room, then from the
house.

Pamela had wisely beat a hasty retreat,
ostensibly to let Tessa tend to the tiny cut on Tom’s lip. She
sighed, now, replaying the incident in her mind. If only things
between herself and Theo could be as straightforward! But instead
she found that as the day of their wedding drew closer, so did her
level of frustration.

An old habit saved her then, but she found
herself forced to take a good long look at her old habit of not
looking any further ahead than the moment. In the past she had
relied on that habit as a substitute for hope. Now, however, it
seemed out of place, an anachronism from her former life. Instead
of preserving her, she saw that it could very well be leading her
into a trap.

She found herself for the
first time in her life
willing
herself to look ahead,
daring
to blindly trust in the hope
that everything would turn out. And in that moment, she discovered
something she thought she had known all along, though looking back
she could see that she had never known it at all.

It was faith. Not a churchy
faith or the born-again variety, or the kind of capital “F” faith
that wild-eyed fanatics liked to beat people over the heads with as
though desperate to convince others of their
own
piety, but something simple,
innocent, down-to-earth, without a lot of dreck being read into
it.

Gone were the days when all the church meant
to her was a meal and security- this had been replaced by a solid
sense of family and tradition. And in the same breath, gone, too,
was the awkward, lonely young woman who had survived despite
impossible odds and come out of life’s worst trials and nightmares
miraculously unscathed. At that moment she knew that there was a
reason she had been spared, that she had endured, and though she
was still groping around in the dark, blindly learning to live out
the promise of her life, in that moment she knew that she had kept
that promise as pure and unsullied as the day on which she was
born.

To her own inner turmoil, she said, ‘Go ahead
and doubt. Go ahead and fear. Go ahead and try to confuse me with
the words of demons like Albert Askrigg and the smoke and mirrors
of my own timid imaginings. But I am going to marry Theo Dewhurst,
and be his wife, and bear his children, and as God is my witness,
love and nothing else is going to rule my life.’

The old mansion was in a constant state of
uproar as the day of the wedding drew near. Guests began to arrive,
relatives of the Dewhursts and the household staff. Soon its
sixteen rooms were full, as they hadn’t been for many a year. Even
the old guest house, which for the past two decades had been used
for storage, was cleared out, cleaned, refurbished and painted.

Though overwhelmed by all the attention,
Pamela found herself able to manage somehow, due in part, no doubt,
to her experience gained in managing the Crown Tavern. Theo, as
yet, gave no sign of the change she hoped to see in him, yet there
were unmistakable hints that change was in the air, or at least she
believed so.

The police presence was
stepped up so that constables patrolled the surrounding wood
incessantly. Pamela was struck by an odd impression which she found
herself unable to dismiss. The police seemed to be waiting- no,
they were
expecting
something to happen. She realized that certain matters were
being kept from her, that the police were planning something
big.

The day before the wedding, she said to Theo,
‘What are they getting set for? Are they expecting Albert Askrigg
to come out of the woods leading an army and lay siege?’

In that instant, she finally saw Theo’s mask
for what it was. At the mention of Albert Askrigg’s name his
features seemed to harden into stone, belying nothing, unbroachable
as the cliffs of Gibraltar. With a feeling like joy, despite Theo’s
reaction, she realized that the perceived problem in their
relationship, the distance between them, was not what it appeared
to be. Theo was worried about her! Worried sick. And he was trying
not to let his feelings affect her, to spoil what should be the
happiest day of her life.

New understanding opened her eyes and gave
her the confidence to do something she had never done before. She
went to him, put her arms around him and pressed herself to his
chest.

‘I love you, Theo.’

She stepped back from him when she felt him
stiffen. But only for a moment, for his eyes were filled with
surprise, and with the love she so desperately wanted to believe
had been there all along. Swallowing hard, staring at her as though
uncertain she were real, he said, touching her cheek, ‘I loved you
from the moment mother threatened to disown me. She meant it, too,
you know,’ he added with a small smile. ‘But we’re not out of the
woods yet. You know, then, that the police are getting ready for
whatever it is that Albert Askrigg has got planned.’

She nodded. ‘I guessed as much.’

He frowned. ‘You don’t seem very much
afraid.’

‘I’m afraid,’ she told him. ‘But I have
learned that there are some things stronger than fear.’

‘Life isn’t one of them,’ he said meaningly,
bringing home to her once again the implicit threat of violence
that Albert Askrigg embodied.

‘Pamela! Pamela Dee! You’re needed!’ It was
Tessa calling and waving to her excitedly from her balcony.

‘My maid of honour beckons, Sir,’ she said
demurely. ‘Methinks it concerns my wedding gown.’

He shook his head ruefully and smiled. ‘I
still can’t believe you went ahead and called that rental company!
Your frugal nature shouldn’t include your marriage.’

She made a face. ‘Theo Dewhurst, if you think
I’m going to waste good money on something I’m going to wear only
once in my life, then think again!’

He put up his hands in defeat. ‘Lord help me,
but I’m marrying a miser.’ Then, to show he wasn’t serious, he took
her in his arms and kissed her, long and thoroughly.

‘Pamela, wipe that smile off
your face and pay attention,’ Tessa commanded as she took over
sorting through the various dresses. ‘Here, stand up and hold this.
No, like
this
,
silly! I’ve got to get some idea of how long it is . . . oh, barf!
It’s ‘way too short. Come on, pay attention! You’re six million
miles away. I’m going to take my lipstick and do you up like a
clown if you don’t come back down to earth!’

‘Can’t I just stand here and be vacantly
happy?’ Pamela protested.

‘Only if you put a sign up on your forehead
that says “To Let,”’ Tessa said, rummaging through the pile of
dresses.

Pamela, feeling very mature
at the moment, responded by sticking out her tongue. ‘You just wait
until you’re getting married to Tom; then I’ll “accidentally” stick
you full of pins while we get
your
dress right!’

‘What makes you think that Tom and I have
anything going,’ Tessa said evasively.

Pamela gave her a pained look.

‘Okay, forget I said anything. Look, this
one’s . . . no, I don’t like this bow.’

Pamela smiled, watching
Tessa pick out things that all-too-obviously suited
her
.

‘
Oh
!’ Just like that, they exclaimed
together, having found the perfect one.

‘I get to wear this when you’re done with
it!’ Tessa breathed, too awed by the dress to realise what she’d
just said.

Pamela also was too caught up to pay any mind
to Tessa’s admission. ‘How did they sew all those tiny little white
beads into it? Look, this is all embroidery work . . . done by hand
. . . ’

‘Can you reserve them?’ Tessa asked,
hopefully.

Pamela huffed. ‘I’m going to buy it so I can
give it to you. These are all well used, so they won’t cost much.
You know, it’s a good thing we’re not getting married on the same
day, else we’d have to resort to duking it out. And it’s a darned
good thing you’re hardly showing yet, or you’d never get it on over
your head.’

Tessa was silent a moment, at once looking
very sad. ‘Who am I kidding? I should have waited. White is for
virgins. Maybe I should look for something off-white, or red.’

‘A little membrane of skin is not what
separates a good woman from a bad,’ Pamela told her, angry at her
self-recrimination. ‘You’ve already been victimized. Don’t let
David keep on hurting you, or he really will have won. You like the
dress? Wear it!’

‘Please, you’re starting to sound like the
Pep-Talk-Queen,’ Tessa said, allowing herself a small smile. ‘How’d
you know about Tom and me?’

‘Because you really moan loud when the two of
you are necking,’ Pamela said, keeping a straight face, picking up
the dress and holding it up.

‘You cow!’

‘It’s true, or else you wouldn’t be so
defensive. Besides, Theo and I heard him pop the question a few
nights ago when the two of you were standing at the top of the
stairs, just as he was leaving the office to head home. I’ve never
heard you squeak quite like that before.’

‘I did
not
squeak!’

‘You did,
too
. You went like this-’
Her flawless rendition left no doubt whatsoever in Tessa’s
mind.

Tessa let out an excited sigh. ‘Well, so what
if I did? Besides coming here and being with you, it’s the only
thing in my life that’s ever gone right. Tom is everything I hoped
would come out in David but never did. He doesn’t even mind about
the baby. In fact, he’s even looking forward to it- what are you
looking so odd about?’

‘What? Oh, nothing really. Well . . . it’s
just that, this is the last day of my life when I’ll be plain old
Miss Pamela Dee. I’ll have an initial for a last name that will
actually stand for something. Sorry, I’m babbling. Everything’s
sort of catching up with me today. I keep getting flooded with all
these memories from my past. It’s like I can see it all laid out,
not in any sort of order, but more like a big mirror that’s been
smashed, with shards of image scattered all over the place . .
.