Going Away and Other Stories Page 6

  While she disappeared into the kitchen to get the drink I glanced round the flat. It was hot and stuffy, sparsely furnished, and had the air of not having been lived in for some time.

  I had just taken two sips of my gin and tonic and was about to ask the usual sort of polite questions such as ‘How long are you staying in London?’ when the entryphone buzzer went. This seemed to fluster her.

  ‘Oh God, I hope this isn’t . . .’ she said to me, and then into the entryphone, ‘John! . . . Of course, come on up,’ and then to me, ‘For God’s sake, quick, get into the spare bedroom behind you and lock the door. It’s my new lover – hideously jealous! If he finds you here no amount of explaining will convince him. Whatever you do don’t come out until the coast is clear. He could be violent.’

  Ten seconds later I was locked in a cupboard-like bedroom. It was at most five feet by six feet in size and had nothing in it but a single bed and a wardrobe. It was even stuffier than the rest of the flat. I didn’t like to try and open the window as it might make a noise. I put my head to the door and could hear Marcia talking with a man, although I couldn’t make out what they were saying. They seemed to be arguing at first and then there was a bit of laughter and then I heard glasses clinking and the conversation became sporadic. As there was nothing else to do, I lay down on the bed, tried to convince myself that I didn’t feel claustrophobic, and waited.

  I woke with a start and looked at my watch – it was 8.15 and getting dark! What was or wasn’t happening next door? I wondered. There was no light showing under the door and I couldn’t hear any movement. I felt I couldn’t wait for ever. Maybe they’d gone out or perhaps were in bed together! I turned the key quietly and opened the door of the bedroom and tiptoed into the living room. When I had first come in there were Marcia’s belongings all over the room. A handbag, shoes, shopping. Now the place was completely tidy. The only sign of humanity was my jacket on the back of the chair where I had left it. I peered into the bedroom. It was equally tidy. There were no dirty glasses in the kitchen!

  How strange! I began to have forebodings. I went to my jacket and felt for my wallet. It had gone! It had had a considerable amount of money in it and all my credit cards – not that they would be of much use in these days of chip and pin! Then I felt in the side pocket of my jacket. My keys were missing!

  I let myself out of the flat without difficulty. They had not locked me in! I ran down the four flights of stairs, out of the front door and into the street. Arriving back at Cadogan Gardens some ten minutes later dripping with sweat from the heat and anxiety, I roused the caretaker, who gave me my spare set of keys so that I could let myself in. As I thought, I had been very neatly burgled, and of course my stamp collection had been taken.

  There was a little note propped on my desk.

  This makes up for what you failed to get for me before! M.

  Escaping

  Maggie still couldn’t stop crying, although Doug had been buried three weeks. She kept seeing him lying face down in the farmyard, his body surrounded by the white pellets from the sack he’d been emptying into the fertilizer spreader. They said he’d had a heart attack. But he must have lifted hundreds of those sacks before! It wasn’t fair. First she’d lost the baby – and now Doug. She didn’t believe in God any more. And the Colonel, who owned the farm, was asking her to take this new worker as a lodger in her farm cottage.

  She didn’t want a lodger, but she’d been wondering how she’d manage without Doug’s wages and didn’t want to upset the Colonel. She might lose her job cleaning for the Colonel’s wife! The last thing she wanted was to have to go home to her mum in Glasgow and share a room with her sister, who wasn’t quite right in the head.

  So she agreed.

  But she was a little frightened of the new man. He was tall and dark and growing a beard. He seemed very glum when Maggie showed him round her cottage, which was only a few yards from the seashore. There was a dismal kitchen with a solid-fuel Aga, a sitting room with a tortoiseshell fire, and upstairs two bedrooms. The bathroom was in a lean-to off the kitchen. The bedroom at the rear of the cottage, which was to be his, looked towards the grey North Sea and was decorated with bright yellow wallpaper covered with teddy bears and balloons. The only furniture was a baby’s cot.

  ‘I lost the baby, ye see,’ said Maggie. ‘The Colonel’s promised to get me some furniture and we’ll see about the wallpaper. Seventy pounds a week, a cooked breakfast, a packed lunch, and a cooked tea.’

  The man was already regretting his drunken and furious departure from his home, shouting, ‘You can have everything. You’ll never see me again!’

  Once he’d left home he realised that he’d left his passport behind and had only £200 in cash in his pocket and was not going to be able to use his chequebook or credit cards if he didn’t want to be traced. But he was determined never to go back.

  He’d come on the night sleeper to Scotland because his mother had been Scottish, and looked for work on farms because she had been a farmer’s daughter and he’d often helped on the family farm in Perthshire when he was young, and had loved it.

  But the Colonel’s farm was so bleak. Down a narrow lane, it was five miles from the nearest town, just grazing land rising slowly from the east coast; cattle and sheep and lots of sea mists. The lane had only five houses in it and it petered out into a rough track and then a footpath along the shore. But unlike other places he’d tried, the Colonel had made no difficulties about his lack of identity, or the fact that he didn’t have a P45 and wanted to be paid in cash, after he’d explained that he was getting away from domestic troubles. He’d convinced the Colonel that he knew about farming and could also look after the Colonel’s garden.

  He and Maggie said little to one another for the first few weeks. He had difficulty in understanding her thick Glasgow accent. After his tea he went out for a walk along the shore, but as autumn set in and it was too dark to walk, he wanted to read in his bedroom. His bedroom had no heating so he asked Maggie if he could please read his book in the kitchen by the Aga in the evening. He knew she always went into the sitting room to watch the TV.

  ‘Ay, course ye can, if ye help with the washing up.’

  Maggie became intrigued by the man, who said his name was Fraser, but she didn’t believe it was his real name. He always called her Mrs Mullins – very polite! He had a slight Scottish accent. But she thought he was putting that on! His beard had grey in it, so she thought he must be over forty.

  The man tried never to think of his elegant dining room in London and cellar of fine wines as he ate her meals. She was not a bad-looking little girl and seemed kind-hearted. He put her in her early twenties. She was sturdily built with stocky legs and an ample body. Her face was small and pale and surrounded by a mop of black curly hair which was often in need of a wash. He kept telling himself he was glad he had made the break, but earning enough money by this way of life to try and buy himself a new identity was depressing. His body ached from the unaccustomed manual work. He would have sunk into even deeper depression had he not seen Fiona.

  ‘Who is that girl I see walking her dog down the lane every day?’ he asked Maggie one evening.

  ‘Ay, that’s Fiona Walker. Lives in the next house on the right up the lane. She’s come back from nursing in Edinburgh to look after her mother who’s ill. D’ye think she’s pretty?’

  ‘No, no. I just wondered who she was.’

  ‘She’s very toffee-nosed. She wouldn’t look at a farm worker, I can tell ye.’

  But he more than wondered who Fiona was! He watched out for her in the lane and when he was in his room during the day on Saturdays or Sundays. He noticed she often took her dog, a West Highland White, onto the beach and played ball with it. So, trying to appear nonchalant, he took extensive weekend walks by himself along the beach in the hope of meeting her. The more often he caught glimpses of her, the more attractive she seemed. She was the total opposite of Maggie. Slim, tall and refined-looking, she had bobbe
d red hair and walked very primly.

  Two Sundays later, after his lunch, he was taking his usual stroll along the beach. It was very cold and still. He walked disconsolately along the water’s edge for some time, letting the waves trickle up to his boots and back. He was looking out to sea at two men in a boat in the far distance and wondering what they were fishing for when suddenly he heard, ‘Will! Will!’ He turned and there was a dog tearing across the beach towards him with Fiona in pursuit. But she didn’t know his name! Nobody knew here that he was called Will!

  The dog arrived and splashed into the sea and jumped at his legs. Only then did he realise that the dog must be called Will.

  Fiona arrived a few seconds later, panting and looking rather pink in the face.

  ‘Sorry, he’s not very obedient I’m afraid. I hope you’re not too wet.’

  All he could think of saying was, ‘I thought someone was calling me.’

  Fiona looked into his face in a puzzled way.

  ‘My name’s Will, you see, or at least some people used to call me that.’

  ‘Oh, you’re Fraser, aren’t you, from the farm? Come over and sit here on the rocks. I need a rest! You lodge with Maggie Mullins, don’t you? And you’re a bit of a mystery, aren’t you?’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Nobody knows who you are or where you came from, and you certainly don’t look or speak like a farm hand.’

  ‘No, maybe not.’

  ‘So you’re not going to give me a clue?’

  ‘No, I don’t think I can.’

  ‘All right, be unfriendly then!’

  ‘It’s not that. I certainly wouldn’t wish to be unfriendly, particularly to you, but I really can’t say any more at the moment. Maybe I can tell you one day.’

  She looked at him very keenly for such a long time that he began to feel embarrassed. He feared that maybe she’d recognised him from photographs in newspapers, in spite of his newly grown beard. But she said nothing and suddenly got up, calling the dog, who was snuffling around in some wet seaweed nearby.

  ‘Can’t you stay and talk a little longer?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I’m afraid I must get back. Mother’s ill and on her own.’

  She did smile briefly as she turned and left.

  Then a few days later, when he arrived home from work, there was an envelope for him on the kitchen table addressed to ‘William Fraser’.

  ‘Yon Fiona left it for ye,’ said Maggie, coldly nodding her head towards it.

  He tore open the envelope.

  ‘I’m sorry if I was rude to you. I’m worried about Mother, you see. Our kitchen garden needs tidying and digging. Could you possibly please come and do it for us? You can turn up more or less any time – provided it’s not dark! Fiona Walker.’

  But Maggie, he noticed, was glaring at him.

  ‘Y’er looking very pleased with yerself!’

  ‘Yes, it’s an offer of some work in the garden.’

  ‘Oh aye. Well ye’d better get cleaned up – yer tea’s nearly ready, or, no doubt, as they say in England, where they tell me you’ve been living, yer dinner.’

  ‘I couldn’t help living in England.’

  ‘If ye say so.’

  He went to do Mrs Walker’s vegetable garden at the first opportunity, which was the next Sunday morning after he’d finished his feeding duties at the farm. He asked Maggie for some sandwiches instead of his usual cooked Sunday dinner, which she seemed none too pleased about. He went to the back door of Mrs Walker’s house just to say he was there. Fiona answered it. She was dressed in a beautiful green tweed suit and had dangling pearl earrings.

  ‘Ah, Will. As you’ll see I’m away out to a Sunday lunch. Mother’s got her helper with her. I’m sure you’ll know what to do. All the tools are in the shed over there. I’ll probably be back before you’re finished. Tidy up what’s still there. Pick some sprouts for tomorrow’s lunch and dig over the bits that are clear. Okay?’

  He smiled and bowed his head.

  By three fifteen, Fiona was back.

  ‘I left early,’ she said, as she came to look at what he’d done. ‘God it was awful. Presumably you don’t remember about Scottish Sunday lunches as you’ve been living so long in England, I hear.’

  ‘Word travels fast.’

  ‘It’s a very enclosed community round here. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing. So you must remember that and watch what you say, although I gather you don’t ever say much anyhow.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When you’ve finished, come inside and we’ll drink some tea and have a chat.’

  Later, his arrival in the kitchen was greeted by furious barking by Will the dog.

  ‘Now be quiet, Will. This Will is a friend, remember?’ said Fiona.

  So he sat in the kitchen feeling rather uncomfortable in his working overalls while Fiona made the tea and poured it into beautiful china cups. She looked very elegant, he thought, in her tweed suit as she walked around the kitchen. She sat down opposite him and looked at him levelly.

  ‘Are you still not going to tell me who you really are?’

  ‘I’m sorry, no. How’s your mother?’

  ‘She’s not at all well. I think Christmas and the New Year are going to be very difficult, otherwise I’d ask you for a meal as Maggie’s going to be away.’ She looked at his startled face. ‘Ah, she hasn’t told you yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Look, I’m going to have to leave you for a moment to see Mother and relieve the helper. Take another cup from the pot if you want.’

  ‘You’re very kind, Miss Walker, but I must go now.’

  ‘If you must. I haven’t any cash in the house to pay you. I’ll let you have it later.’

  As he walked slowly back down the road two things struck him. The first was that Fiona was almost schizophrenic in her manner: one minute friendly, the next minute dismissive. Very odd. And second, it really was true, everyone knew what everyone else was doing in the lane. And he was going to be on his own for Christmas!

  He walked back into the farmyard very sadly. Fiona obviously didn’t like him that much. She was just intrigued about who he was. Morosely, he leant over the bars of the cattle shed and the bullocks, who were lying down, gazed mournfully back.

  So he spent Christmas and the New Year in the cottage on his own. Maggie had gone to Glasgow to see her mother and sister, but first she hired a taxi to the supermarket in the town to buy enough food for him while she was away, as well as presents for her family.

  ‘Ye’ll be able to cope on yer own, I ken,’ she said.

  He wasn’t so sure. It was a long time since he’d cooked a meal for himself. However, Maggie had stocked up with everything she said he would need. He offered to pay for the Christmas pudding and the mince pies and the chicken and the ham which Maggie insisted on getting him as a ‘Christmas treat’. She also wanted to buy him some beer or wine and whisky. But he refused. He’d given up drinking completely to save money and didn’t want to start again.

  And everyone else went away. The Colonel and his wife to Barbados until the New Year, and the other farm workers to their families, leaving only himself and Fred, the farm foreman, and his wife. And Fred announced that he would only work on the 27th and 28th of December. This left him to do all the feeding on the other days, including looking after the chickens and the dogs and the cats. In spite of all the activity, he had to admit he felt very lonely and at a loose end.

  Maggie came home on the evening of the 3rd of January. It was very cold and has started to snow. A taxi brought her from the station. He had just come in from work and was lighting the fire in the sitting room for Maggie’s arrival.

  Maggie was almost unrecognisable. She’d had her hair done into tight curls and brought herself a completely new set of clothes: a bright red short skirt, along with a black jumper, black tights and red high-heeled shoes.

  ‘I’ve been to the sales! How do I look?’

  ‘Er, very nice
!’

  He was taken aback and slightly aroused by the sight of Maggie all dressed up like this.

  ‘Have ye had yer tea?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Good. I stopped off and got us some fish and chips. And look what else I’ve bought.’ She reached into her bag and brought out a litre bottle of whisky. ‘It’s for the New Year. Come on, ye must have a drink for the New Year! I’ll put the fish in the Aga to keep warm while we have a dram. I hope ye’ve kept it alight okay.’

  Maggie sat herself down at the kitchen table, grinning broadly, and half filled two tumblers with the whisky. He’d not tasted any alcohol for months, and after the second of what Maggie called ‘a good Glasgow dram’ he felt completely drunk, in spite of eating the fish and chips and having the inevitable cups of strong tea. He wished he hadn’t agreed to drink. But he’d been very, very lonely over the holiday period.

  ‘I’ll clear away but we’ll no do the washing up till later,’ Maggie said. ‘Go and sit down and turn on the TV.’

  And now he was sitting on the sofa vaguely looking at a Christmassy programme and nodding off to sleep when suddenly he realised Maggie was sitting close beside him and holding his hand.

  ‘Have ye no missed me? I’ve missed you! Is it no cosy just you and me?’

  She put her head on his shoulder. He froze. While he’d nodded off he’d been dreaming about Fiona!

  ‘Do ye no like me? Look at these!’ She rose and pulled her new black jumper over her head, revealing her naked bosom.

  ‘Good God!’ he thought. She must have taken her bra off in the kitchen.

  ‘Yon Fiona will no be able to give ye anything like these!’

  Maggie bounced them up and down a bit, then fell on top of him on the sofa. He had no idea that this was going to happen. He twisted round and stood up.

  ‘And don’t say ye don’t like them!’ she cackled. ‘That’s no a pistol I can see in yer trouser pocket.’