The War Widow. Lorna Gray

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СКАЧАТЬ into a remembrance of what I had come here for today. And it wasn’t to form new friendships with travelling authors.

      He made his answer while I was also remembering that I ought to have been watching the turn of the road outside the window. His car was a red Rover 10 and there was something else he told me about it that didn’t matter anyway because my gaze had already run to the wide terrace outside. As it did so I caught sight of Jim Bristol yet again. Not close by; he was about forty or so yards away and I felt a sudden surge of tension when I saw that man, or rather the turn of his head as he examined the wares of a postcard seller. He appeared completely absorbed by the mundane products but I knew beyond all doubt that a moment ago he had been staring straight at me.

      Then the chill of seeing him was undone by the idiotic thrill that followed in the next second. The one that made me think for a moment that the postcard seller was my husband.

      He wasn’t of course. This wasn’t one of those moments when a person believed to be dead turns out to be alive after all and takes to turning up in all the oddest places. Instead it was like trying to convince a wounded war veteran that he’ll hardly miss his left foot: impossible and the delusion can only ever last a heartbeat. Fiercely, defiantly, while the blood roared in my ears, I took a deep breath and forced myself to think. The postcard seller was dark haired, as I had known he would be, and was presumably Welsh, and that was where the resemblance ended.

      “Kate?”

      My companion had stopped speaking and was staring at me. We retreated into the uncertain formality of new acquaintances. He said again, “Kate – Miss Ward – perhaps I shouldn’t ask, but are you all right?”

      Finally, I felt my heart begin to beat again. I knew the sense of my ridiculousness would hit in a moment, as it had done every time I had seen my husband’s image in the past days since my accident. It was a public humiliation, a cruel display of my overactive and stressed imagination timed to happen just at the precise moment when any misstep would be observed by an audience. It was a bizarre mirror of the way my life was now. Like always; a hurtful confirmation of my sheer inability to exert any control, and nothing more.

      I met the stranger’s concern across the table and set down my cup with a distant hand. Now I felt alone again and glad of it. In a moment I would make my excuses and leave. But first, for the sake of formality, I said, “Sorry, I was listening really. What were you saying about May? Why didn’t you bring her?”

      I was impressed that I had managed to grasp the dog’s name; I had barely heard the rest of what he had been saying.

      “She wouldn’t like all the hanging about while I write my notes.” He was speaking slowly, staring at me still. “You’re not all right at all. Whatever is the matter?”

      I thought about my answer and what he would say if I admitted the full implausible truth. Not about seeing Rhys, but the rest of it. I could already picture the concerned looks, the hasty covering of his instinctive recoil and the rushed assurances that of course it didn’t sound like fantasy, not really. This was, I observed grimly, precisely why I had decided to avoid unnecessary contact with my fellow guests.

      Reluctantly, I said, “I had an accident. Just over five days ago. I banged my head and still get awfully tired.” Even as I said it, I wondered what on earth had prompted me to speak. After all, any excuse would have done. Indigestion perhaps. Or a sudden alarm about the time of the next train. I gave him a watery smile. “I’m quite all right really. Please just ignore me.”

      He didn’t even blink. I began to feel extraordinarily uncomfortable. I wasn’t alone because he wouldn’t let me feel it. His eyes, I realised with a jolt, were flecked with deeper hues and at this moment they were fixed on me with an intensity that seemed to be trying to bore right into my mind.

      “An accident?”

      His brows had furrowed, perhaps in doubt. Perhaps in disbelief. And this was just the edited version. I wasn’t mad enough to tell him the truth.

      I wouldn’t tell him about the nightmare which claimed to be a memory of two men who had appeared beside me as I waited by the bus stop in Lancaster.

      The images of that day belonged to the subsequent moments of semi-consciousness at the hospital. Moments of confusion where visits from nurses and doctors merged seamlessly with the dizzying recollection of being at one moment innocently daydreaming and in the next being steered by rough hands into the depths of a shaded doorway. The questions those men had asked there were impossible demands woven about my husband’s end that I couldn’t understand and certainly could never fulfil. The bewilderment I experienced that day was indescribable. They had fixed me there with a determination that was like nothing I had ever encountered before. They had left me with a desperate hope to the very limit of my being that I would never again be required to accept the utter inferiority of my will when pitted against the dominance of another. And a terrible suspicion that hoping was never going to be enough.

      ---

      I had woken – if waking was the correct term when I had never been asleep in the conventional sense – to the busy silence of a women’s ward where fresh questions began just as soon as I opened my eyes. These questions in their turn had brought their own confusion but at least the doctors and nurses hadn’t minded at first if I didn’t know the answers. But those men, the pair on the foggy shopping street, had acted decisively when I failed to give them the response they wanted. There had been no violence from them. There had been no need. I had found myself being bustled with grasping fingers beneath each elbow towards the flank of a waiting car. I can vividly recall that moment. The memory is filled with the sheer debilitating agony of experiencing all that in a crowd and learning that that not one of the labourers, shopkeepers or besuited office workers scurrying by was even going to notice.

      It was like a very bitter repeat of an old lesson that I had tried very hard to forget.

      It had ended at the moment the car door was dragged open and I somehow slithered free and dashed round the rear to make my escape. Only to run slap bang into the path of the oncoming traffic.

      Adam was still waiting for my explanation so I gave him a carefully edited version. “I stepped out in front of a bus.” My lips formed a hapless smile. “Don’t worry; it was coming to a stop anyway.”

      “Good grief—”

      I added, “Oh, the bus wasn’t the problem. It was the rapid collision between my head and the pavement as I fell that did the damage.”

      “Good grief,” he said again. He stared at me for a moment. I watched the disbelief fade into other calculations as he read the proof in my face, in my manner and my general bearing. Then he was saying in an altogether harder tone, “And this was barely even a week ago? What on earth are you doing here? Why did I see you strolling about on the crown of a hill at the crack of dawn when you should be at home in bed being fussed over and generally well looked after?”

      I was hastily making calculations of my own. This was the most I had confessed yet to a stranger. Every other time that I had been drawn into speaking about my injury, the explanation had been forced out of me. It had been required by such people as the cab driver who had carried me away from the hospital, those people on the train and lastly the station master at Shrewsbury. Always, it had formed part of the aftermath of a dreadfully uncontrolled slide into panicked accusations. Now, for once, suspicion wasn’t directed at the person I was speaking to and I was, nominally at least, a willing participant in this conversation. It left me utterly unprepared.

      Finally, I said as mildly as I could, “My parents are abroad – in Paris in СКАЧАТЬ