The Mind of Mr Soames (24 page)

He heard her talking into the telephone mouthpiece, but he was no longer interested in what she was saying. Suddenly his stomach felt queasy and unsettled and the exhilaration had condensed into a cold sweat on his brow. He leaned against the wall, clenching his fists in an effort to control the defiance of his body, but gradually it came to him that he felt very ill.

She was in front of him, shaking his arm, but her face was a meaningless blur. Her voice uttered words which his mind refused to understand.

‘That was Mrs Forsyth on the phone. Her husband got home quite early last night but someone stole his jacket. So you’re not Mr Forsyth—so who are you?’

Silence while he fought to keep his stomach under control.

‘Who are you?’ she insisted.

He finally surrendered to the urgent demands of the body, falling on hands and knees to rid himself of the unaccustomed alcohol which had so outraged his stomach.

‘I think
I know who you are,’ she said.

He was back in bed, and his head throbbed viciously.

‘Drink this.’

Sitting on the edge of the bed she held out to him a mug of black coffee. He pushed himself into a sitting position and took it from her in complete obedience.

‘And swallow these.’

He took the four white tablets from her hand and did as he was instructed. The coffee was hot, but not too hot. He finished the mug inside half a minute, swallowing the tablets one by one.

‘They’re aspirins,’ she said. ‘They’ll make you feel better.’

He made no reply, but accepted her words as statements of fact.

‘You drank more than a quarter of a bottle of gin in the space of a few minutes. You drank it neat. Obviously you don’t know about gin.’

He remained silent.

‘And you don’t know about women, either. That was fairly obvious from the moment you began to make a pass. I thought at first you were a sex maniac, but now I know the truth.’

He held the coffee mug forward. ‘More, please.’

She took the mug from him and left the room. He allowed his head to droop forward and promptly fell into a half sleep. He was awakened a few minutes later by a gentle push on his shoulder.

He opened his eyes and took the coffee in an automatic fashion.

She said: ‘If you remember, Mrs Forsyth telephoned. Her husband wasn’t missing at all, but he’s lost his coat. I had to tell her we’d picked up a man wearing the coat, and I promised to return it this evening, if Richard will drive over to Corsham.’ She paused to light a cigarette.

‘You must understand that I was taken by surprise and didn’t have time to think. I had to admit that you were still here, and that I would call the police. What interests me is how you obtained the coat. Her husband said it was stolen from a pub while he was playing bar billiards with a business friend. He had taken his coat off because it was hot and stuffy.’

He drank some of his coffee. ‘It was in the wood. I slept under the ferns, and then there were voices. There was a man and a woman among the ferns lying together, and the coat was close to me, so I took it because I was cold.’

‘Well, now,’ she murmured. ‘They were lying together, were they? Doing what?’

‘I do not know. Struggling.’

Her smile was cautious and feline.

‘When we picked you up, Richard and I, you had quite a beard—I mean a two-day stubble. You were dirty and your clothes were shapeless as if you had been out in the rain—apart from the jacket, of course.’

‘Yes,’ he admitted.

She stood up and crossed to the window, drawing deeply on the cigarette.

‘I think you are John Soames,’ she said in a matter-of-fact voice.

He hesitated for a long time before making a reply, but finally he said: ‘Yes, I am John Soames.’

She returned to the bed and sat down close to him. ‘I knew I was right. There was a piece on the radio today, about an hour ago, about an intruder at a farm near Benningley Cross, close to where we picked you up. He killed an Alsatian dog by kicking it to death. They thought it could be Mr Soames. You had wounds on your left arm and a tear in your coat which could hardly have been caused by a car accident. By now the entire area will be knee-deep in police.’

‘Police?’ Then he remembered, from his lessons at the Institute—the guardians of law and order. ‘Yes, police.’

‘You do realise, don’t you, that you are wanted for attempted murder?’

He searched his aching brain for the meaning of the word, but there was only blankness.

‘You tried to kill a doctor at the Osborne Institute just before you escaped.’

‘No—not kill. I hit him with chair... not kill.’

‘Perhaps you didn’t mean to kill him, but he is very seriously hurt. He might have died. That is attempted murder so far as the law is concerned.’

Alarm registered in his eyes. ‘Not kill,’ he repeated. ‘They hurt me, so I hurt them.’

‘Mr Soames, this was more than hurt. You’re in trouble. I really don’t know what to do about you.’

‘I must go away.’

‘It’s not so simple as that. The mere fact that you are here puts my husband and myself in great difficulty—more than you can possibly imagine. We had a reason for bringing you here—a secret reason which you don’t suspect. I feel rather guilty about that, but it wasn’t entirely my fault. The fact is, I have a husband who is, frankly, a liability—in some respects he’s more of a potential killer than you are. Come to the point, I’m slightly afraid of him while I’m not afraid of you at all.’

There was no expression in his eyes. The headache still beat sullenly in his brain.

‘Why he isn’t dead I can’t imagine. Since he took to the bottle ten years ago he’s drunk nearly five hundred gallons of gin, according to my calculations. He must have a liver of case-hardened steel.’

Her lips tightened slightly, despite the wry humour in her eyes.

‘He’s not a man any more—certainly so far as a woman is concerned. We haven’t struggled, as you so neatly put it, in three years—not even a wandering hand.’

She studied him speculatively for a few seconds, striving to penetrate the blankness of his eyes.

‘You don’t understand me, do you, John?’

He shook his head.

‘You and I have a lot in common,’ she said with irony.

He watched her silently as she walked over to the window and looked out into the sunlit garden. The coffee and the aspirins were beginning to rationalise his mind, and already the headache was beginning to recede. Jagged thoughts bounced in his consciousness, vague thoughts of police, murder and death, but his eyes were fixed on the white and yellow dress and gradually the nightmare thoughts were stilled. In his imagination he reached out for the dress and the body beneath, groping and fumbling to solve the mystery of it, and the twisting tension came back to his stomach as insistently as ever.

She returned to the bedside, surveying him morosely. ‘There’s some food, if you would like it.’

‘Yes, but not now.’

His hands moved towards her and touched her waist. ‘You,’ he said.

She stood quite still, as if undecided, while his hands moved gently over the surface of her dress.

‘You wouldn’t even know what to do with me if you had me,’ she said.

‘I find out.’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

She backed away from him, her face tauter than usual, but he pushed the bedclothes aside and came after her, still a little unsteady on his feet.

‘I find out,’ he repeated.

She allowed herself to be seized in a tight bear hug, holding her body stiff, her fists clenched ready to resist at an instant’s notice. His swarthy face was pressed against her cheek, and there was still the faint, sickly odour of gin about him. Hands moved aimlessly over her back. Fingers plucked and tugged at the material of her dress as if to drag it from her.

‘No,’ she said suddenly, pushing herself away from him, ‘you’ll tear it.’

He released her for an instant, regarding her with burning eyes, and then his arms scooped her up once more so that her feet kicked helplessly in the air.

‘No,’ she cried defiantly.

Roughly he set her back on her feet, watching her intently, like a cat tormenting a mouse. But there was no subtlety in him, only the confusing cross-currents of emotion and passion seeking an unknown outlet.

‘No more,’ she said, now flushed and breathless. ‘This is quite wrong. I belong to another man.’

‘Richard?’

‘Yes. Richard.’ Her voice carried no conviction.

He seemed to smile, but it may have been a mere hardening of his lips, ‘I belong to nobody,’ he said. ‘I do not understand this belong.’

He seized her again with more determination, enjoying the twisting of her body as she struggled to release herself. She did not scream as his sister had screamed, and because of that he knew he had won. He sensed submission in her defiance, because the defiance was on the surface and there was no fear in it. He took the neckline of her dress and began to pull, but she gripped his hand with fierce fingers and dug her long nails into his palm.

‘No,’ she protested. ‘You are not doing things the right way. Let me go.’

The nails dug deeper until he withdrew his hand.

‘Let me go.’

He released her for the moment, content to accept his conquest step by step. She took a deep breath and rubbed her cheeks with the tips of her fingers.

‘I’ve never been handled like that by a man since before I was married,’ she said, in a voice that was calmer and more controlled. ‘You have a lot to learn, John Soames.’

He nodded, and she smiled.

‘The cave-man approach is out of fashion, and it’s non-U to tear a lady’s dress from her body, but I don’t suppose they taught you that at the Institute.’

He moved towards her again, but she held him at arm’s length.

‘According to the papers you’re just a child. You know what I would do to a child who behaved as you do?’

He said nothing, merely eyeing her in bewilderment.

‘This,’ she said, slapping his face with enough force to rock him backwards. His bewilderment gave way to angry stupefaction.

‘But you’re more than a child—you’re a man, and a very strange man, a little frightening in some ways. But at least you’re a man, which is more than I can say for Richard. And that’s why I’m still here in this room with you. I don’t have to be. I could scratch your face and gouge your eyes and use a few other useful tricks I picked up—then lock you in and call the police.’

‘I don’t understand,’ he said sullenly. ‘What is so wrong?’

She shook her head wryly. ‘Nothing, you fool. Every woman has to put up a fight, or the pretence of a fight. One of the things you have to learn is that you can’t take what you want just when you want it. Sometimes you have to wait for it to be given to you. In your case it’s even worse, because you don’t even
know
what you want.’

Her fingers fumbled behind her dress to find the zip. It sagged forward and fell loose.

‘The other thing you have to learn is that violence doesn’t really get you anywhere. It only causes trouble. For instance, dresses are made to come off quite easily, without being torn to shreds. You see?’

‘Yes,’ he said, with a certain degree of humility.

‘Well, then—if you’re willing to learn, I’m willing to teach, and I hope Richard enjoys every moment of it.’

‘I hope he does too,’ he said solemnly.

❖

‘I think you’d better keep the coat,’ she said. It was late afternoon, and the sun had disappeared behind dark nimbus clouds that threatened rain. ‘You escaped while my back was turned and you took it with you. The rest of your clothes are ready to put on.’

‘I don’t want to go,’ he said.

She touched his lips gently with her fingers. ‘My poor, dear John, I don’t want you to go either, but you have to. Richard will be back soon, and there will be complications. In any case, if you stay here the police will track you down sooner or later.’

‘I could hide somewhere in the house...’

‘Not without involving Richard and myself as blatant accessories. That simply means that we should be sent to jail for keeping you hidden away.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it is wrong in law to help people who are wanted by the police. It is wrong for me to let you go at all. I should telephone the police and tell them you are here. Then they would come and take you away, and you would lose your freedom for many years—perhaps for ever.’

His eyes seemed to be haunted by a sad loneliness.

‘That would probably be the best thing for you,’ she went on, ‘and it will happen inevitably sooner or later—a few hours or a few days. Then you will be well looked after and out of danger.’

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘I do not want to go back.’

‘There’s nowhere else for you to go, other than live like a tramp in the open country, afraid to talk to anyone and wondering all the time where your next bite of food is coming from.’

‘Then I stay here.’

‘That’s not possible.’

He pondered the words that would express his meaning. ‘That is—I stay here in the day when Richard is gone. I go away at night when Richard comes back. I do that every day.’

‘You’re being more devious than I would have imagined.’ she said, smiling a little, ‘and I’m half tempted to say yes, but the answer is still no. I can’t become involved with you, John Soames—not for yourself so much, but for the sake of other innocent people. I have friends and relatives, you know, and there’s such a thing as keeping up appearances.’

‘Nobody can know if I come back. I am very quiet.’

‘I’ll bet you are, but the answer is definitely no. Ships that pass in the night and all that. You understand?’

She paused for a moment, looking sidewise at him reminiscently.

‘Now let’s get down to practical details. I’ll bring you your clothes and you can get dressed. Then we’ll have the food we meant to have earlier, before we got involved in more immediate matters. Then we’ll discuss final points to make sure that we both tell the same story, and then you leave. I want you out of the house within an hour.’

‘An hour,’ he repeated gloomily.

He dressed slowly, with no enthusiasm, staring through the window at the velvet lawn. I can’t go from here, he told himself, or if I do go not to make trouble for the woman, then I will come back. I will find a place to sleep not far from here so that I can always come back.