But now? Now it was different, Cynthia was dead, and for some reason it seemed to me that both Leo and I were hideously vulnerable. I could not bear the idea of his being sorry for me, as people, for some reason, were. And he would be defensive and changed and I would find it difficult to know what to say to him. I imagined him trying to be breezy. ‘Hello, Caroline! What have you been doing with your life?’ And perhaps he would take pity on me, even if it was only to take me out and feed me in some hotel. And once he had done this and his conscience was clear, he would take himself off and I would be left with the old wound open and bleeding. And I couldn’t go through all that for the second time.

  So instead of going to Mrs Priestly-Brown’s I spent a tedious evening with Deirdre and her aunt and that, I imagined, was the end of it. But I had reckoned without Mrs Skelmerton.

  The morning after Mrs Priestly-Brown’s party, she hailed me in her fog-horn voice across the village street. I was posting a letter, and she was coming out of the butcher’s, weighed down with parcels which were large enough to contain sirloins but were more likely dog food.

  ‘Caroline! Wait, my dear, I want to talk to you.’ She opened the door of her old shooting brake, tumbled the parcels in, slammed the door, and shot across the road to my side, narrowly missing death at the wheels of a small passing van. ‘Why weren’t you at the Priestly-Browns last night?’

  She stood there, stringy and tanned like a length of old rope, her white hair on end, her tweeds lanky, her lavishly-darned stockings wrinkled and sagging around her bony shins. At my age I should be able to cope with Mrs Skelmerton, but she has always terrified me and she always will.

  ‘I … er … I had to go and see a friend.’

  ‘Your father told me. That poor Deirdre girl. You know you could never stand her. And I know it, too. You’ll have to think of a better excuse than that.’

  ‘Excuse?’ I said faintly, trying to bluff.

  But she was not to be bluffed. ‘Just what I say. You know I’ve got Leo and the youngster staying with me. You know he’s lost his wife. Such a pretty little thing she was, too. And don’t try to tell me that you didn’t like him. I haven’t forgotten you, laughing and chattering away, that day I took you all to Dunstanburgh. So …’ her disconcertingly clear eyes bored into mine. ‘What’s it all about? Running away. That’s what it’s about. Sheer selfishness, if you ask me. And it’s about time you learned that running away doesn’t do any good. So come to Skelmerton tonight. Yes, another party. I’ve asked a good many people already and I want you, and your father too, if he can tear himself away from the Mother’s Union.’

  ‘Well … I …’

  ‘Six o’clock!’ It was an order. ‘And don’t you dare not to come.’

  I knew that I would not dare. I walked home, angry to begin with and then, slowly, becoming less angry. I might have known that those eyes missed nothing, that nothing that she considered important was ever forgotten. And by the time I had reached home I knew that she was right. Running away didn’t solve problems. It was time for the fantasies to be forgotten, and the past decently buried. Leo was no longer a young man and I was twenty-seven. All at once, for no reason, twenty-seven seemed a good age to be. It had both a past and a future, and yet I was still young. And even if that future was never to include Leo, it was still mine; personal and unique to me as the colour of my hair, the shape of my eyes, my fingerprints. This gave me a comforting sense of identity, of destiny, as though there were nothing I could not overcome.

  * * *

  I went alone to the party because my father was occupied with a confirmation class. I wore a long skirt and a little braided jacket and a white shirt with the neck tied like a hunting stock. And I piled my long hair up into a chignon and secured it with a tortoiseshell comb, and I splashed myself with the best of my scent and picked up my bag and went downstairs. Outside, it was a beautiful evening, cold and with a crisp breeze, but a sky above of clear blue was already pricked with the first of the stars.

  My father had kindly walked to the confirmation class and left the car for me; I got into it and drove to the old house which waited, timeless, square-faced, random light shining from the windows. The great beeches which stood about made a pleasant soughing sound in the wind from the sea, but the gravel sweep in front of the house was empty of cars, and I wondered if I was very early. I got out of the car and went up the steps, lifting my long skirts, and through the door into the flagged hall. It was a very cold house and chill seeped up from the flags, and a thin draught drifted down the staircase. There was no sound except a certain clattering from the back regions, but the drawing-room door was ajar. I went towards it and pushed it open and saw the big, shabby room, the logs smouldering in a bed of ash in the great hearth, the books and magazines scattered about, a bag of untidy knitting. And Leo alone, deep in a sagging armchair, reading a paper. Like the room, he did not look as though he were expecting company, being dressed in a pair of hard-worked-looking corduroys and an elderly green sweater.

  He heard me come in, and he lowered the newspaper and looked up, and across the room, across the years, we faced each other. I saw that he was now quite grey-haired; there were lines about his eyes and his mouth that had not been there before, but still the immense attraction was there, the pale eyes and the dark brows, the shape of the mouth …

  I said quietly, ‘Hello, Leo.’

  He dropped his paper and pulled himself out of the chair. ‘Caroline!’

  I looked around at the unattended room and said, resignedly, ‘There isn’t any party.’

  ‘Why were you expecting one?’

  ‘Your hostess is a shameless liar.’

  ‘You mean she told you that there was going to be a party?’

  ‘She said she’d asked a good many people. I should have known she had something up her sleeve, the old conspirator. And now I look a total fool, all dressed up and nowhere to go.’

  He said, ‘You look fine,’ and he laughed and I realised that Mrs Skelerton’s outrageous behaviour had given us a talking point and the ice was broken between us. ‘And if she is a shameless liar, then she’ll have had good reason. Like getting hold of you. I thought I’d see you last night otherwise I’d never have gone to that nattering woman’s. There wasn’t a soul there I knew.’ He pulled himself together then, and became a host. ‘Now come along in and shut the door and get close to the fire. I always forget what a hellishly cold house this is, despite the warmth of the hospitality. And as you’ve been asked for a drink, I think I should give you one.’ He went over to a table laden with odd bottles and glasses. He picked them up, reading the labels on the bottles with an expression on his face which did not bode well for the contents. ‘Sherry seems the safest.’

  ‘Sherry would be perfect.’

  He poured two glasses and brought them over. We drank to each other. He said, ‘So many years. So much water under the bridge. Tell me what happened to you. What happened to the nursing?’

  ‘That was a long time ago. I started but I never finished. My mother died and I came home to keep an eye on my father.’

  ‘Mrs Skelmerton told me. It seems a shame.’

  ‘No, not a shame. And I have a feeling I couldn’t have lasted for ever working in London.’ He was easy to talk to. He had always been easy to talk to and now he watched me, the pale eyes very kind and understanding, but not sorry for me in any way. Not saying, Poor Caroline. I said, ‘And you, Leo?’

  ‘You knew that Cynthia was killed?’

  ‘Yes, I heard. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘We were driving back to New York from Connecticut. She was driving. There was black ice on the road and the car skidded.’ He shrugged. ‘All finished in a single instant.’

  ‘You came back to this country?’

  ‘Yes, my job out there was finished anyway. And it was better coming home. It’s helped Tiger come out of it, given him new things to think about.’ He thought about this. ‘Tiger is having a bath and he’s coming down for his supper which is baked beans. Mrs Skelmerton’s in the kitchen now, heating them up on the Aga.’

  ‘Why is he called Tiger?’

  ‘Cynthia called him Tiger. To go with Leo. But he’s really named William …’ He was about to tell me more but at this moment, like a well-managed stage play, the door burst open and the young man in question made an explosive entry. He wore an unevenly-buttoned dressing-gown and his damp hair stood on end.

  ‘Daddy, are my beans ready, because there’s something super on television …’

  Then he saw me and stopped dead. His face dropped into an open mouth of delight and astonishment. I had never felt so flattered in my life.

  ‘It’s you!’ he shrieked.

  ‘Hello, Tiger.’

  ‘Have you come to see me?’

  ‘Yes, and your father and Mrs Skelmerton. And I thought a lot of other people, but I was mistaken.’ Leo was staring at us both with incomprehension all over his face, so I put him out of his uncertainty. I said, ‘I should have told you. Tiger and I have already met.’

  ‘I told you,’ said Tiger. ‘I told you about the lady on the beach who rescued me from the fog.’

  ‘You mean … this is the same lady?’

  ‘I’ve just said, haven’t I?’

  Looking at me, Leo shook his head. ‘How ridiculous,’ he said. ‘I never realised it was you. Tiger told us all about his adventure, but I never realised it was you who brought him home.’

  ‘And I couldn’t tell Daddy your name, because I never asked you what it was. And I tried to tell everybody what you looked like so that they would know, but everybody was so stupid …’

  ‘I’m sure they weren’t,’ I began tactfully, but I was interrupted by a hoot like a hunting horn from the back regions of the house, which was Mrs Skelmerton letting Tiger know that his supper was ready.

  ‘You’d better run along and eat your beans,’ advised Leo.

  Tiger looked at me. ‘You won’t go? I’ll come back when I’ve finished them.’

  ‘I won’t go.’

  Tiger left us. Still standing by the fire, we turned towards each other. Leo said, ‘He’s been talking about you ever since the day of the fog. And the reason we were so dense as to the identity of his rescuer is that his description of you was charmingly but not strictly accurate. Long blond hair, right down your back, and eyes the colour of the sky, and mounted on a snow-white steed.’

  There came a ridiculous lump in my throat. I managed to say, ‘It’s gratifying to be thought of that way.’

  ‘I think,’ said Leo, ‘that he must have fallen in love with you, he certainly remembered you with the eye of love.’

  I said, ‘I knew who he was. He didn’t say, but when he smiled I knew who he was. He’s inherited your smile, Leo. It’s a good thing when you can recognise a son by his father.’

  He said, ‘Caroline, do you remember that pub in Alnwick when I took you for a drink? If we telephoned and booked a table, do you think they would rustle up a dinner for us? I suspect that Mrs Skelmerton would be glad to see the back of me, and then she can eat the rest of Tiger’s baked beans for her supper and watch television without having to be bothered by me.’

  I said, ‘That’s the most gracious invitation I’ve ever had.’

  He grinned. ‘And what about your father? Can he look after himself?’

  ‘For one evening I think he could.’

  ‘That’s settled then.’

  ‘But Leo …’

  I stopped. He looked down and saw the expression on my face. He said gently, ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t want you to feel … I mean … that you have any obligation …’

  Mercifully, he overrode my mumblings. He said, ‘I have only a happy remembrance of things past. And I am grateful to you for making friends with Tiger, who needs a little female companionship very badly. Is that enough to be going on with?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘So we’ll have dinner together, and talk about old times.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I’d like to do that.’

  So we did.

  * * *

  So that’s how it happened. And that was only yesterday. Now it’s the next morning, and I’m waiting for Leo and Tiger, because the three of us are taking a picnic lunch to Dunstanburgh. So I don’t yet know how our story’s going to end. We’ll just have to wait and see. As my father would say, we are in the hands of the Almighty.

  A Place Like Home

  Joanna Crayshaw, twenty-six years old and lately relieved of her appendix, sat up in the hospital bed and pretended to read the magazine the woman in the next bed had lent her.

  It was visiting time, the middle of the afternoon, and the woman in the next bed had a whole family of visitors; a son, a daughter, and a chubby grand-daughter with a doll dressed in wonderfully hand-knitted clothes. The woman in the next bed was called Mrs Wilson, and Joanna was sure that she had knitted the doll’s clothes for the little girl’s birthday. She looked that sort of kindly person, and her family sat about on chairs, smiling proudly and talking nineteen to the dozen. The daughter had brought Mrs Wilson a clean nightdress, the son a tin of shortbread. They were obviously devoted to the white-haired lady, whose plump and comfortable folds of upper arm and bosom were tastefully draped by a lacy wool bed-jacket. Her best, she had told Joanna as the nurse helped her on with it. Only the best would do for her family. She sat up, expectant, waiting to arrive.

  The little ward was full of visitors and family chat, and Joanna felt conspicuous because she had nobody. But there was nobody to come and see her. Her parents were dead, her only sister in Philadelphia and Aunt Cassie, in whose rambling Surrey house Joanna usually spent the weekends, had gone off to Florence for a little holiday with her friend Helen. They had been to Florence together as girls and had been looking forward for months to this nostalgic jaunt around the great galleries. Aunt Cassie didn’t even know Joanna was in hospital. The appendix operation had been one of those emergency affairs, and there was always the possibility that, on receiving the news, Aunt Cassie might hot-foot it back to England, which would be a cruel shame. No, better for her to find out when she came home in the normal way. By then Joanna would be out of hospital and in need of a little cosseting.

  She turned the page of the magazine and read there how to pack for a summer holiday; how to tan gradually, how to make a useful beach bag. The efforts implied made her feel exhausted. She was glad that she did not have to go on holiday. She was glad she had no visitors. Her scar was tender and her eyes felt heavy with tiredness. She laid down the magazine and began to slip down under the sheet, carefully, as though it were important for no one to notice.

  Sister was coming down the ward towards her, her rubbery shoes squeaking on the polish of the shining floor.

  ‘A visitor for you,’ she said. Joanna realised, in some dismay, that she was talking to her. Behind Sister came a man, tall, balding, dark-suited, at first vaguely familiar and then, surprisingly, totally familiar. ‘Isn’t that nice? You’ve got a visitor after all.’

  He came to the foot of the bed. He said. ‘Hello, Joanna.’

  ‘Mr William!’

  * * *

  He was William Anderson, the senior partner of Anderson’s Trading, and Joanna’s boss. She could scarcely have been more astonished, and yet, deep down, she found that she was not astonished at all. It was typical of the man that he would leave his busy office at three in the afternoon and come across London to see how a very junior member of his staff was getting along.

  Nothing was too much trouble for Mr William and he had built up a reputation throughout the firm simply by his attention to detail, his perfection. A woman, not even a regular customer, would write to him from Cumberland requesting that he produce a large terracotta pot from Provence to adorn her newly-constructed terrace. And Mr William would go to work, leaving no stone unturned, until the exact pot was run to earth, purchased and conveyed to the customer’s rural address.

  It was the same with everything else. The shop sold Japanese umbrellas, French cooking pots, Venetian glass, Persian rugs, English china, American bed-linen and the most beautiful Scandinavian furniture, but still Mr William would take infinite pains to match up a chintz or a dish, to have made a lampshade the exact blue of a lamp-base, to find a craftsman capable of engraving some precious piece of presentation crystal.

  He was perhaps thirty-seven, but looked older, his eyes a gentle blue behind the formidable spectacles. His clothes were formal and usually a little old-fashioned. He had never been heard to raise his voice, and any admonishments that were necessary always took place privately and behind closed doors. Consequently his staff adored him and stayed for years. Joanna had worked for Anderson’s for three years, first in the soft goods and then in the glass and china department. She was a very small cog in a big machine, but that made no difference to Mr William, and to prove this, here he was, pulling up a chair to her bedside and laying a small bunch of freesias on the white cotton bedspread.

  ‘I thought you’d like the smell,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, delicious!’ Her most favourite flowers. How could he have guessed they were her favourite? She took a deep sniff and was instantly transported back in time to her father’s garden when she was a child, and the greenhouse, sun-drenched and steamy, where he had grown freesias and cultivated a vine that hung with bloomy fruit.

  She looked up. She said, shyly, ‘You really shouldn’t have bothered.’

  ‘Of course I bothered. You gave us all a terrible fright. How are you feeling?’

  ‘A little tender, but I’m all right.’