The Echoing Stones (8 page)

“Mills! You’re out of your tiny mind!”

Val’s howl of protest quite drowned the small “ping” of the telephone as Mildred replaced the receiver. “Why can’t you just say ‘No’ instead of dithering like that?” Val continued. “He’ll only ring again now. He’s no business to be pestering you like this. You don’t even know the man!”

This wasn’t fair, especially from Val, who knew him even less.

“We had quite a long conversation, actually, while you were off jogging,” Mildred pointed out defiantly. “I liked him. He was interested in what I told him. About Emmerton Hall and everything. Most people would be bored, but he wasn’t, he kept asking me more and more questions.”

“And not telling you one single thing about himself!” mocked Val. “And now you’re going off on a Sunday outing into the country with a man you know absolutely nothing about. Hell, you don’t even know his name! Well, if you
want
to end up on the front page of the News of the World …”

Mildred didn’t answer. Deep in her heart, she knew with quiet certainty that she was not the sort of person who gets onto the front page of the
News
of
the
World.
Besides:

“I
do
know his name really, Val. It’s just that I don’t
actually
know it, if you see what I mean. The thing is, he
did tell me right at the beginning, he introduced himself in a very gentlemenly sort of a way, but I didn’t take it in, I was so sort of startled just for the moment, you know how it is.”

But of course Val didn’t know how it was. It wasn’t the sort of predicament she’d ever be in. Nor would she understand anyone being so diffident as not to dare ask to have the name repeated at some later stage in the acquaintance. Like when the telephone call came.

“I didn’t like to ask. I mean, he’d already told me, and it seemed kind of rude to have forgotten. I’ll recognise it, though, when I hear it. It sounded vaguely Irish …”

“There! I told you so,” snapped Val, though of course she hadn’t, how could she? “A terrorist as likely as not. You don’t know where he’s going to take you to, once he’s got you inside his car. Don’t blame me if you find yourself kidnapped, and stowed into the boot of a car with a lot of bombs.”

Once again, Mildred was sustained by the inner
certainty
that she was not the sort of woman who gets kidnapped and stowed in the boots of cars. She just wasn’t, and Val ought to know it after all these years.

“I
shan’t
blame you,” she retorted, and then, with a touch of that much-vaunted assertiveness: “And anyway, it’s nothing to do with you. I
want
to go back to Emmerton Hall some time, for my things, and this seems such a chance. He was planning to go, anyway, this Sunday, to look at the tapestries, and it occurred to him that I might like a trip down there. Just to see how things are going, sort of. I mean, I did leave poor Arnold with an awful mess on his hands, and every now and then I …”

“‘
Poor
Arnold, indeed!” Val, predictably, was
outraged
. She didn’t like to hear so mild and uncritical an epithet applied to a chauvinist pig, and it wasn’t until supper was on the table that peace was wholly restored. During the meal, Val soothed her own ruffled feelings
by launching into the now familiar recital of Arnold’s manifold shortcomings, which turned out, by remarkable coincidence to be exactly the same as Malcolm’s; Mildred listened patiently, and didn’t interrupt, though what she really wanted to talk about was what she should wear for her outing tomorrow. What
is
the correct get-up for a drive into the country to visit a chauvinist pig, especially in the company of another one?

“Do you think the heat wave will be over by tomorrow?” was the nearest she dared get to asking advice. “They said on the News that there might be thunder storms.”

But Val saw through it. Well, naturally.

“You’re worrying about what to
wear
, Mills,” she accused. “You’re worrying about how they’ll think you
look.
That’s the only thing you expect them to notice! When what they
ought
to be noticing is what sort of a
person
you …”

Personhood. Sexism. Self-awareness. The blinkered male. It wasn’t until after supper that the rhetoric petered out and the two friends settled down amicably enough to a game of scrabble. More and more lately, as there began to be less and less to say that hadn’t been said before, they had taken to spending the evenings this way; and quite enjoyably, too, though Val’s rules weren’t quite the same as the ones printed on the box, and by which Mildred and Arnold had always been content to abide. By Val’s rules, you scored a whole lot less for a nice long seven-letter word like “Portent” than you did for cunning bits of sharp-practice in connecting a couple of short words already there; and this, for Mildred, took some of the fun away. Or would have done, if she had taken any notice, but in fact she stuck to her habit of setting down the longest word she could contrive, regardless of what it might score; which, no doubt, was why Val almost always won. Come to that, Arnold had almost always won, too, and so Mildred was not disheartened. She listened patiently to
Val’s reproachful post-mortem about what she
could
have scored if only she had resisted the temptation of putting down “Leopard”, with little cries of triumph, all in one go. She wasn’t concentrating, Val accused, and of course this was true. With half her mind she was thinking about her black-and-white striped sun-dress, with matching jacket. Provided the weather held, that would be just right. Or as near just right as Mildred ever hoped to be.

“No – you can’t do that!” Val snapped. “There’s no such word as ‘Gor’”. And indeed there wasn’t, although Mildred did indeed, with waning hope, consult the
Chambers
’ Dictionary by which Val swore.

Suddenly Mildred gave a pleased little cry.

“That’s it! I’ve remembered! It’s Gordon! Gordon Belfort! The name of my friend!”

“I thought you said he was Irish? Look, it’s still your turn. Since you’ve got a ‘G’ and an ‘R’, then why don’t you …”

“I didn’t say he
was
Irish. I said it
sounded
vaguely Irish. You know – ‘Belfast’ and things. Don’t you think it sounds a bit …”

“No, not a bit. But I’ll tell you what it
does
sound like. It sounds phoney. The sort of name you’d make up on the spur of the moment.”

“
I
wouldn’t,” declared Mildred stoutly. “If I was making up a name on the spur of the moment, I’d make up ‘Smith’, or ‘Johnson’. Something easy.”

Val laughed, not altogether pleasantly.

“I really believe you would, too! Typical! If I hadn’t known you all these years, Mills, I’d think you’d been born yesterday!
Smith,
indeed! Is that what you did tell him, incidentally? And did you give him a wrong address as well? Is that why he’s meeting you at the tube station, instead of calling for you here, like a gentleman?”

No, that’s not why. He’s picking me up at the tube station because I asked him to, and I asked him to because
I didn’t want you peering out of the window at us and noticing that he’s going bald, and that he doesn’t get out and open the car door for me, if he doesn’t; and any other flaws and failings you can manage to spot in one minute flat. I know you’ve decided to dislike him, and I can’t stop you, but I don’t have to make it easy for you, do I?

Of course, she didn’t say any of this aloud, there was no need. Mildred, like most naturally docile women, had had plenty of practice at keeping her nastier thoughts to herself, and had learned to get almost as much satisfaction from them in this silent form as she would have had from their overt expression, and at much less cost.

The rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough, with Val going to bed in high good humour. Mildred had been hoping for an early night herself, in preparation for tomorrow’s adventure, but unfortunately she had to stay up until Val was safely asleep before she could wash her hair and set it in rollers. She didn’t want to be told she was angling for male approval, though she was; nor that she was damaging her roots by drying her hair in front of the electric fire, though she might be. Who could tell? One is drowned in advice from every quarter, some of it wise, some of it not, and no way of judging.

The drive through the late summer countryside was delightful; the trees heavy with foliage, the bracken just beginning to turn golden. Gordon proved to be an even more agreeable companion than she’d remembered from their original encounter, and she was able to sit back in the passenger seat and enjoy his voice as he told her all about the villages they passed through, and about the little grey churches, which were Norman or Gothic or whatever. This was Mildred’s idea of the perfect travelling companion – someone who would do all the talking, seeming to enjoy the sound of his own voice, so that she didn’t have to be amusing, or to rack her brains for something intelligent to say about whatever it was.

Lunch was delightful, too, at a country pub where he knew exactly which door to go in at, what to order, and even the name of the little river that flowed past the lawn on which they sat, at a white-painted table, eating salad and crisp rolls and a particularly delicious kind of quiche. Even the beer was nice, though Mildred wasn’t usually much of a one for beer.

And the sun shone and there was no hurry, and she could feel that her striped sun-dress was exactly right for strolling down to the river bank and being told why it was that the swans didn’t nest here any more.

He knew
everything
, it was incredibly restful, and by the time they drew up in the Visitors’ car park at Emmerton Hall, she had all but forgotten the hideous feelings of
embarrassment that had assailed her when she’d first contemplated this expedition.

But now, on the brink of the ordeal, something of this embarrassment returned. What to say to Arnold when, as surely must happen, she encountered him? What to say to the other members of the staff, starting with Joyce, selling tickets in the kiosk at the entrance?

But luck was with her. It was just after opening time – 2.0 pm on a Sunday – and there was already quite a little queue at the ticket-office, keeping Joyce much too busy to be looking around noticing people. Mildred merely had to lurk in the background while Gordon bought their two tickets, and hey presto, they were through.

And, of course, she didn’t
have
to talk to Arnold at all, if she chose not to. With a little care, she could avoid even meeting him. She had only come to see how things were getting on, that was all, and this she could achieve just by mingling with the crowd and wandering here and there, keeping her eyes open. Gordon, of course, was anxious to join the guided tour of the house – well, the house and its contents were what he had come to see, after all; but assailed by a sudden fear that Arnold might be the guide this afternoon, Mildred shrank back:

“I
can’t
speak to him – all of a sudden – just like that – after all this time, and while he’s in the middle of doing a tour,” she explained, and Gordon seemed to understand. They would meet, then, when the tour was over, outside the main building, near the exit. Meantime, Gordon suggested, Mildred could look round the gardens and the park. Or perhaps she would rather just sit on a bench in the sunshine, relaxing and enjoying the view?

“Ye-es,” she agreed, doubtfully. It seemed terribly unenterprising to come all this way just to sit and look at a view.

“I might – later on – Perhaps I might go to the flat, and see if … I mean he probably won’t be there, not on a
Sunday afternoon … I could just ring the bell and see if …”

*

On which reassuringly indeterminate note they parted, Gordon striding across the cobbled forecourt to the main entrance, where tickets for the tour were being dipensed, and Mildred to –

Well, where? The place already looked unfamiliar, even after these few weeks. The heavy, brooding sunshine of the declining year, the darkening masses of foliage which had replaced the light and sky-ey greens of early summer, all conspired to depress her already wavering spirits. She felt like an intruder, an illegal immigrant, and for a while she wandered, a returning ghost whose rôle in the real world is at an end.

A large and newly-painted arrow, black on a white ground, pointing towards the Tea Room brought her up short, and for a few moments all the old sensations of panic, of intolerable pressure and impossible demands, swept over her. The Tea Room! The origin, the
storm-centre
, of all her ignominious failure.

But the moment of obsolete and irrational panic receded, and common-sense returned. It was different now; everything was changed. She could even, if she wished, enter the dreaded place as a relaxed and leisured customer – though of course she wouldn’t. It would mean facing Pauline and Tracey, and their avid curiosity. Why, Arnold himself might be there – her whole being shrank from the embarrassment of it all.

All the same, curiosity nagged at her. Curiosity and a residual guilt about having left Arnold so totally in the lurch, made her truly anxious to see how the Tea Room was faring without her? Were Pauline and Tracey somehow managing on their own? Were they arriving on time, perhaps doing double-shifts without any
complaining
? Without malingering and excuses and giggling and
ganging-up on whoever was in charge? It seemed unlikely. Had the Tea Room been closed down, perhaps? That might well have been the only option. Poor Arnold! That would have got him into bad trouble with the authorities, – breach of contract – that sort of thing. And all her, Mildred’s, fault!

But before the pang of guilt had properly reached her solar plexus it was assuaged, as she came through the rose arch at the end of the Long Walk, by the sight of the Tea Room doors open and welcoming. Already, quite a little party of visitors was making its way in. So it was all right after all!

Well, in a way it was. But no sooner had the weight of guilt been lightened on one side of the scales than another, quite different, kind of weight landed heavily on the other side, wreaking havoc with her self-esteem. They were managing without her! She wasn’t indispensable after all! What a slap in the face, when she had worked so hard and so desperately, trying to make a go of it!

How
were
they managing? Leaving the main walk and slipping round to the back of the building, out of sight of the public, she made her way to the close-growing neglected patch of shrubbery which Norris was wont to use as a convenient dumping-ground for rubbish that he couldn’t be bothered to dispose of properly. Among the other discarded objects, Mildred quickly spotted a rusty oil-drum that would serve her purpose. Dragging it from its nest of nettles and dead leaves, she pulled it close up under one of the high back windows of the Tea Room. Carefully, and first testing the rusty cylinder for its weight-bearing capacity, she clambered up and, clutching the window-ledge, raised herself on tiptoe until she could peer in.

It was difficult. She had forgotten that discreet off-white curtains of imitation lace shrouded these back windows, and exerting herself to the utmost she could only just make
out what was going on. Plenty of customers, obviously, the tables were filling up fast; and, yes, the girls were hurrying about the place, leaning over customers, unloading trays, collecting crockery. Pauline – yes – with her bobbing pony-tail and big black bow holding it in place. Mildred’s eyes were getting accustomed, now, to peering through the obstructive criss-cross pattern of threads, and she spotted Tracey, too, her blonde waist-length hair caught up now into a bandanna, just as Mildred had always urged it should be, all those weeks ago. Such arguments there had been, with Mildred insisting that it was disgusting to have hair flopping about all over the food and Tracey insisting that her hair never went anywhere near the food, she wore it down her
back,
for Pete’s sake, and when did anyone ever carry a tray of food on their
back
? After which unanswerable argument – unanswerable by Mildred, anyway – Tracey and Pauline had got into a horrid little huddle in the corner of the room, giggling and whispering when they ought to have been working, no doubt on the topic of daft old cows.

That Tracey had retrospectively taken her employer’s advice gave Mildred quite a little thrill of pride. She couldn’t have been quite so hopeless a manageress as she’d supposed. Clearly, she must have been exercising
some
sort of authority over the recalcitrant pair, even though it had taken all this time to become effective.

Thus it was with a certain glow of self-congratulation, in spite of the fact that her calves were beginning to ache from standing on tiptoe, that she watched the girls bustling about their tasks with comparative efficiency – further evidence that her attempts at training, apparently so abortive, must have borne fruit after all. Maybe, if she’d only stuck it out a bit longer, then possibly …

At that moment, she made out through the intervening blur of fabric that there was a third waitress on the job. A new one, not as tall as either Pauline or Tracey, but
seemingly even more efficient, whisking crockery onto a tray and whipping it across the room at top speed, weaving her way between the tables with almost the grace of a ballet-dancer.

A professional, obviously. No wonder the Tea Room was thriving. But how much was Arnold having to pay the girl? The whole thing must be making a horrific loss.

And it was only now, as the new girl reappeared from behind the counter with a fresh tray of tea and little cakes, that Mildred got a proper view of her face: and the shock took her breath away. Her hand slipped from the window-ledge, the rusty oil-drum lurched beneath her, and she found herself half-sprawled among last year’s dead leaves, with dark evergreen twigs snapping back into place above her.

Her first feeling, as she recovered from the shock, was one of incomprehension.
What
on
earth
was Flora doing here? No, that wasn’t quite her first feeling, it was her second one. The first one – and it had flashed through her mind even during that fraction of a second before her hand had slipped – the first one had been one of overwhelming, uncomplicated relief. Flora’s eyes had looked perfectly all right after all, bright and clear, and not the least bit red. Those contact lenses couldn’t be doing any harm after all!

For a few seconds she lay there among the leaves, revelling in the sense of having a long-term, low-key worry suddenly removed. And now another, more immediate, concern assailed her. Her beautiful striped sun-dress must be ruined! There would be green stains all over it now, and smears of rust …

Miraculously none of these things had happened.
Getting
to her feet, twisting this way and that, dusting herself down, trying to see herself from every angle, she came to the conclusion that the carpet of dead leaves must have been bone dry after the long hot summer and that,
despite her fifty-three years, she must have been agile enough to jump clear as the oil-drum began to tip, and so avoid the rust.

“Good afternoon, Mrs Walters.”

Such words do not by any stretch of the imagination constitute a threat, but all the same they sounded like one to Mildred’s ears, and she jerked round in alarm.

Bending double beneath the heavy tangle of boughs, dragging behind him a damp cardboard box loaded with old paint tins, Norris the head gardener was suddenly before her. His eyes were sly and critical; they seemed to be seeking some misdemeanour with which to charge her. Being accused of misdemeanours by Norris was no new experience to Mildred. Weeding the pansy-bed in the Knot Garden had been her worst offence, she recalled; committed before either she or Arnold had realised that the Knot Garden was Norris’ garden, and that the right to fail to weed it went with the job.

So what was it now? What was the crime of which she was about to be accused? Displacing an abandonned oil-drum? Abandoning a husband and walking out on her job? Apologetically, Mildred bent and pushed the oil-drum an inch or two in the direction from which it had come – not because she thought its displacement to be the more heinous of the two sins, but because it was the one she could do something about, or appear to do so.

But Norris showed no sign of being appeased by the futile gesture; nor, come to that, did he voice any
accusation
. He just crouched there, doubled-up under the mass of foliage, in obvious discomfort, and staring at her. It took Mildred several seconds to realise that the reason he was saying nothing more was that he had nothing more to say; he was simply waiting for her to go away so that he could dispose of his paint tins unobserved, hiding them in the long ragged grass that fringed the neglected shrubs.

*

Back on the terrace, recovering her breath – for she had run almost all the way from her disconcerting encounter with the gardener – Mildred looked at her watch. She found, to her surprise, that she still had the best part of an hour in hand before Gordon would be re-appearing from the guided tour, and they could go home.

Home! Where
was
home?
What
was home? Not Val’s establishment, certainly, where she was a mere visitor – sometimes very mere indeed. And not their own old home either, only two streets away from Val’s, and already with the new buyers tearing down familiar walls, creating open-plan devastation where once there had been proper rooms; installing a shower in the bathroom, although both she and Arnold hated showers. But of course it was nothing to do with them any more …

Wave after wave of home-sickness seemed to chill the very sunshine that beat upon her bare shoulders, and almost before she knew it she was on her way to the only other place in the world which had, however briefly, served as her home: the flat here at Emmerton Hall, in which she and Arnold had briefly, fumblingly, tried to create a life for themselves before she had packed it in, unable to stand it any more.

She wouldn’t be able to get in, of course, she had no key; and even if Arnold happened to be in – most unlikely at this hour in the afternoon – she wouldn’t dare ring the bell and confront him. She knew she wouldn’t, she didn’t feel she could confront
anything
right now. Still she could
see
the place; perhaps peer in at the windows to see how Arnold had arranged things, now he was on his own.