Did ghosts patrol this part of the road, the road I stood beside at midnight? Did they congregate here on the M4’s hard shoulder, swapping stories of their deaths in this freezing darkness?
Was that Fay lying there in a small heap; was that me being cut free from a jagged mass of deadly metal and pulled through a shattered window? Was that me lying beside Fay, who began to choke; did I turn her so she could breathe before I fell unconscious myself from the pain? Did the motorists directed on to the hard shoulder thank God it wasn’t them as they slowed to have a horrified peek at the limp huddles that were being hastily covered over? Was that the body of the Hobbit woman I had just stepped around,
Northanger Abbey
gripped in one pale and lifeless hand, her ever-moving lips stilled for good?
Was that the couple who had whispered in front of me entwined forever in a ghastly screaming death? The tall boy who had gone up to talk to his friends lying on his back near the central reservation, next to a stunned man who’d escaped without a scratch.
The boy who had opened his eyes and stood, slowly, slowly, and hobbled to the side of the road, blood in his eyes, blinking in the police’s floodlights. Who, after a while, let a paramedic wrap a blanket around his shoulders and then slumped on the grassy bank, staring at the mangled body of a piebald horse. Dead; dead just like the old lady whose white hair poked in tufts from beneath another blanket. Was that the old Maggie there? Had I left a piece of me forever in the terrible wreck?
I stared at the dark damp road and felt a hot tear trickle down my icy cheek, and I shivered properly now, trying to banish these dark thoughts from my exhausted head. After them chased confused images of Alex and Fay together. I shut my mind down as best I could, and realised suddenly that I was freezing.
Climbing back in the car, I cuddled the dog until I started to get warm. Then I turned the radio on, the heating up, and drove on to the next service station, where I bought tea and chocolate and a copy of
Vogue
in Bel’s honour, and threw my fags away before travelling on to Cornwall. And it was only when I got to Pendarlin hours later in the pitch black that I actually exhaled.
In the morning the wind had settled and I awoke late to find a thin sprinkling of frost on the ground and the sun shining, albeit weakly. I made strong coffee, tuned the radio to Radio 3 and ate some cornflakes before letting Digby out.
I watched him chasing imaginary shadows and his tail, cutting zig-zags on the lawn, and I was really glad to see him free again. London life didn’t suit the poor old thing. Turning to go back in, I noticed with irritation the fresh tyre-tracks across the frosted grass. I wished the bloody postman wouldn’t always cut across the lawn. At the door I looked for letters, but when I bent to check there was just an old postcard from the gas company about reading the meter last week. I felt a fresh rush of unease, but I shook it off and went to get dressed.
Under a soft chalky sky so rich you could scoop it in your hands, I drove down tiny lanes to Pentire Point. The landscape rolled out before me with the barren majesty of December, sheep like so many balls of dirty cotton-wool dotting the fields. The headland was wreathed in sea-mist that smudged the hills and made them vague, but by the time I parked at the muddy farm it was finally clearing. Frost had hardened some of the ground I tramped across, but in parts the puddles were so deep I had to jump them, splashing through the water, skidding in the mud
as brambles pulled at my legs. I trekked up and up the hill until I realised how hungry I was. A sudden surge of birds flapped like hope up into the air and I actually smiled.
‘Lunchtime, eh, Dig?’ I whistled to the dog. Turning back, I could see a figure in a blue anorak heading our way, distant, on the other side of the cliff. Otherwise it was deserted, Digby barking occasionally as the birds swooped and veered above us before sweeping off. The silence was immense, and for the first time in days I felt at peace.
The figure in the blue anorak had disappeared. Digby and I were alone in the world apart from minuscule brown cows clinging to the chequered hillside in the distance. I reached the point where the track narrowed, fringed by a vertiginous drop to the frothing sea – and suddenly the man was there, on the narrow path in front of me, and I nearly screamed in shock because he’d come from nowhere.
‘God, sorry,’ I said, laughing shakily, my hand on my beating heart. ‘That was a bit overdramatic. I just didn’t realise you were so close.’
‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’ His blue hood was tightly drawn around his grey curls like an old pixie. He looked down at Digby darting between our feet. ‘Nice dog. Pedigree, is he? A terrier?’
‘Yes, he’s a Border,’ I said, moving round the man on the path, my tummy a bit squiffy as I tried not to look down at the fierce sea lashing the rocks that were like giant’s stairs below.
His arm shot out and grabbed mine, his anorak crackling with the sudden movement.
‘Saved your life,’ he joked.
I looked at him uncertainly and fear gripped my stomach as I shook him off before heading away, a little quicker than before; my heart pounding a little faster. I realised how deserted it was up here, how stupid I had been. I should have stayed on the beaches. I should have stayed in sight of people.
‘Dig,’ I commanded over one shoulder, ‘come on.
Now
, Digby.’
‘Sorry,’ the man was calling forlornly as I slid through the sludge. ‘I was only messing around.’
‘Hilarious,’ I muttered, and tried not to actually run.
By the time I got to the car I was sweating despite the chill. I locked all the doors and then laughed tremulously to myself again as Digby gazed at me curiously from the passenger seat. Perhaps I was going insane. Some poor hill-walker trying to be friendly and I think he’s a stalker. I started the engine before scrabbling through the glove compartment in hope of a cigarette, but I remembered I’d binned them all last night.
And then I looked up and the man was at the farm gate. He must have practically run to catch up with me and he was shouting something and he was climbing over the gate towards me and that was it – I pulled off, except I revved the engine too much, so much that my tyres stuck in the mud for a second and I wasn’t moving, I was just spinning up dirt, and the white-eyed farm dog was barking frantically and the man was getting nearer, he was waving something at me, something shiny, oh my God was it a knife: and then eventually we shot off. I kept my foot pressed to the floor until I reached Polzeath, where I sat for a minute until my heart stopped racing, and I saw how normal everything around me was: the winter surfers lolloping up the beach, boards under their arms, wetsuited like sleek black seals, laughing, flicking tangled curls from their squinting eyes, and for a minute I thought of Sam.
Then I took a deep breath and started the car again, heading home to safety. Only when I reached Pendarlin and went to unlock the front door, shopping bag in hand, that cold fear gripped me again, irrevocably this time. Someone was inside, inside my house. The front door was unlocked, and someone was inside. Someone who was playing my piano.
No one had a key to Pendarlin except Val in St Kew, and my father up in London. Frantically I searched for my phone, but my phone wasn’t in any of my pockets, or my bag. My phone wasn’t here at all, I realised with a sinking heart. The man running down the farm path with the shiny thing in his hand. Not a knife at all. My bloody phone.
The pub would be open now – there were vehicles in the car park, I could see them through the trees, but I knew I wasn’t in shouting distance. Should I go into the cottage, or should I jump in the car and find help?
I pushed the door tentatively; it was ajar. ‘Hello?’ I called gingerly. ‘Who’s here?’
I recognised the melody. The allegretto of the Rondo was perfectly judged, the movement flowing seamlessly. But who the bloody hell played that well?
‘Hello?’ I called again, more vehemently this time. I took a deep breath and stepped inside.
Of course he wasn’t actually playing it. The piano stood untouched in the corner of the room, the muslin I’d draped over it last year still unruffled. He’d just helped himself to the stereo in his usual arrogance, choosing a CD of Beethoven’s piano sonatas as he lounged on the sofa waiting for me.
As I crossed the room, heart still thumping painfully, I was gratified to hear Digby actually manage a growl for once. ‘Good
boy,’ I murmured to the dog, who was stuck steadfast at my heels. ‘How the hell did you get in?’ I asked, reaching the stereo and snapping it off.
He smiled his oily smile, his deep-set eyes inscrutable. ‘You left the door unlocked, my dear Maggie.’
‘I’m sure I didn’t.’
‘Well, someone did, I’m afraid.’
‘I didn’t see your car. How did you get here?’
‘It’s over at the pub. I walked the last fifty metres. I’m exhausted, darling.’
I sat on the arm of the old squashy chair that had been my mother’s favourite. ‘Why are you here, Charlie? I’ve said my goodbyes.’
‘I missed you, darling. And I fancied a little spin in the country.’
I sniffed. ‘I thought Dubai was more your thing?’
‘It is, darling, to be honest. So bloody parochial around here. All the cottagers’ curtains twitching the minute I pulled up at the pub, and everyone knowing exactly who you were when I asked for directions. Talking of which –’ he stood up and stretched, ‘let me buy you a drink. I may loathe the West Country, but they had a damn fine-looking steak and Guinness pie on the menu over there and I’m bloody starving. Thrashing the Alfa down the motorway has given me an appetite.’
For a moment I just glared at him. ‘So you haven’t come to kill me?’
‘No, darling.’ Fraid not.’ He studied his perfectly shaped nails. ‘If anything, actually,’ he didn’t look up, ‘I’ve come to apologise.’
‘Blimey,’ I said, whistling for Digby. ‘Wonders will never cease.’
The fire danced in the old metal grate as an overly jovial Charlie ordered at the bar, debating the best pub red with the melancholy landlord as if he drank here every day. Longing for a cigarette, I tapped my foot impatiently against the antique settle, waiting for an explanation.
It took Charlie a good half an hour of blowing his own trumpet and talking about new ideas and an LA office that he thought I might
just
be interested in running, while I said nothing much and ate my chicken pie, every morsel, because I was so hungry. And then he said it.
‘I’m sorry, Maggie. I dealt with the whole affair very badly.’
The final pea eluded me, rolling round the plate. ‘What affair?’ I murmured, concentrating on its capture. ‘The awards ceremony, you mean?’
‘The whole thing really.’ Charlie folded his napkin and placed it on the table.
I waited.
‘Sam, your accident, your – your breakdown. I should have realised you needed help,’ he said eventually, and topped up his glass. ‘That it wasn’t really you.’
‘What wasn’t?’
‘All that business with Alex and Sam. The drugs and the drinking. Your fall from grace. I should have been more –’
‘Understanding?’ I suggested.
He laughed. ‘Darling, I don’t do understanding. No,
tolerant
was the word I was looking for. Sometimes, you know, I get caught up in –’ He paused again.
‘What?’
‘My own ambition. And frustration. I couldn’t believe it of you, Maggie. I was shocked you fell so far.’ He regarded me for a moment; I thought I read regret in his look. ‘I’d expected such great things of you. I just needed you back on your feet.’
‘I thought it was more my knees you wanted me on.’
‘Well, that too, darling.’ He grinned, and with a shudder I remembered that night in his flat. ‘That would have been nice. You’re an extremely attractive girl –’
‘Fuck off, Charlie.’ I choked on my cider. ‘Quit while you’re ahead, why don’t you?’
‘Look,’ he poured himself more claret, ‘suffice to say, contrition
is not my thing, Maggie. But,’ he concentrated on the dark liquid in his glass, ‘I do regret the way I dealt with the whole affair. I had Lyons breathing down my neck; I was terrified Crosswell was going to the press. I was trying to redeem myself.’ Finally he looked me in the eye. ‘I should have realised the whole trauma show was one step too far. And I should have warned you about inviting Fay on first.’
‘Yes, you should.’
He shrugged elegantly, the firelight flickering in the gold of his signet ring. ‘I’ll try better next time, Miss Warren. I promise.’
I gazed into the flames. ‘There won’t be a next time for me, Charlie. I’m all done.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Maggie,’ he snapped as I stood up. ‘Sit down.’
I called Digby to heel. ‘I’m not stupid, actually, Charlie,’ I said pleasantly. ‘Thanks for lunch anyway. I guess you can claim it on expenses, so I’ll let you get it. For old time’s sake, shall we say?’
‘Maggie, you –’
‘I what?’ I stood over him and last night’s fury welled up again. ‘You expect me to forgive you for the way you blackmailed me? I was at my weakest, most vulnerable ever, and you used that absolutely to your advantage.’
With a huge shudder, I remembered his visits to my father’s house, my dad grateful for Charlie’s apparent concern while he’d actually muttered in my ear about drugs and prostitutes and millionaires’ sons – but mostly about how I’d let him down.
‘You knew I was delirious from shock and painkillers, and you made me feel so cheap, so worthless I wanted to practically kill myself.’ I winced as I saw myself in that hospital bed; in my old bedroom at my father’s when I would wake sweating, convinced I was trapped in that coach again. Winced as I remembered praying Alex would come and make it all all right again, only he never did.
‘You twisted things so I was terrified my dad would find out
– and that’s the only reason I agreed to your stupid deal. I hadn’t really done anything wrong. I was just in a mess.’ I slammed the chair under the table angrily. ‘So I lost myself for a bit, so what? I’m better now.’ I stared down at him. ‘And d’you know what else?’ The pub held its collective breath. Charlie smoothed his bouffant hair back nervously.
‘You can take your stupid show and stick it up Renee’s arse, that’s what.’ The barmaid’s eyes were round with astonishment. ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t invite you back for coffee.’
Peter Trevenna from the farm across the lane nearly fell off his stool with excitement as I crossed the snug, Digby skittering on the flagstones behind me. Slamming out into the crisp December air, I muttered all the way home, crunching up the drive to Pendarlin, and when I was inside I locked all the doors behind me.
‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ I said, shooting the final bolt home. ‘Hey, Dig?’ For once I knew I’d done the right thing.