One Summer at Deer’s Leap. Elizabeth Elgin

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ at all,’ I called back over my shoulder. ‘But like I said, it’s all grist to a writer’s mill. Life here must have been a bit tame all round once the war was over.’

      ‘Yes, and a whole lot safer!’

      

      We closed the white gate behind us. It would have been dark by now, but for a half-moon. We hadn’t passed one street-lamp. It made me feel good, just to think of how remote we were. Tommy was waiting, purring, on the doorstep; Lotus was away on her nightly prowl. Hector barked loudly as Jeannie unlocked the back door, then hurtled past us to run round and round the stableyard like a mad thing. I switched on the kitchen light, then filled the kettle.

      ‘Want a sarnie?’ I asked. ‘There’s ham in the fridge.’

      ‘Please.’ Jeannie kicked off her pumps, then flopped into a chair. ‘No mustard.’

      ‘It’s been a lovely, lovely day,’ I sighed as I cut bread. ‘Bet our legs’ll be stiff in the morning, though. I haven’t ridden a bike in years.’

      We sat at the kitchen table. It was too late now to sit on the terrace and watch distant lights. Even the birds were quiet.

      ‘I’m tired,’ Jeannie yawned not long afterwards. ‘All this country air …’

      ‘Me too.’ I said I would check the doors and windows. I considered it my responsibility since Beth had left me in loco parentis, so to speak. ‘Off you go. I’ll be right behind you.’

      Tommy had settled himself on the bottom of my bed, but I didn’t shift him. I cleaned my teeth, washed my face, then lifted the quilt carefully so as not to waken him. Then I sighed and stared into the shifting darkness, glad that Jeannie hadn’t wanted to stay up late, talking, because I needed to think.

      Up until tonight, things had been a muddle, yet now it was as if I was looking down on a table top with the pieces of a jigsaw piled on it in a heap. I had found the corner pieces of that puzzle and laid them out carefully in my mind.

      One was a long-ago airfield – aerodrome, Bill called it – at Acton Carey. It had been the cause of the Smiths – piece number two – leaving Deer’s Leap, which was corner piece three. The fourth was Jack Hunter, I knew it without a doubt, and that he and Susan were connected – or why were her initials on his respirator?

      I had made a start! Next I must complete the entire outline of the puzzle so I could begin to fill in the story, which was the middle bit. I could rely on Bill for some things because Jeannie had been right: his brain was still razor-sharp. For the rest of it, I needed to talk to a sergeant pilot. Only he could help me with the difficult bits.

      Were we to meet face to face again, and talk, or was he to be a wraith, slipping in and out of shadows – and through gates – always just out of my reach?

      Susan Smith, I brooded. Born 1924, or thereabouts. Fair and bonny and shy. Jack Hunter – tall and fair and straight, and old before his time. Died in 1944 and a name now on a stone memorial. The really sad thing, I sighed, as my eyes began to close, was that he didn’t know it.

      What, or who, had he been searching for over the years? I hoped he would tell me …

      

      There was a comfortable silence about the place when I got up early on Tuesday morning. After making Jeannie promise hand on heart to visit next weekend, I’d stood waving as her London-bound train snaked from the station the previous evening.

      I coughed, and the sound echoed loudly around the kitchen. The quiet was bliss, the only sounds, Tommy’s rhythmic purring at my feet and a swell of birdsong outside. Hector lay on the back doorstep, on guard. There was just me and the animals and the view from the kitchen window that stretched into forever.

      The phone on the dresser rang, intruding noisily into my world. Reluctantly I answered it.

      ‘Cassandra?’

      ‘Piers! Oh – hi!’

      ‘What have you been up to? I’ve been ringing all the time!’

      ‘You can’t have.’ I felt a bit guilty for hardly thinking about him all weekend.

      ‘I phoned on Saturday night. Twice. Where have you been until now?’

      ‘We biked down to the pub on Saturday night. Jeannie had someone to see.’

      ‘What about Sunday?’

      ‘If you rang, then we were probably in the garden, cutting the grass.’

      ‘And last night?’

      ‘Most likely I’d gone to Preston, seeing Jeannie on to the train. Listen, Piers, what the heck is this? Are you checking up on me?’

      ‘No, darling. Sorry if I came over a bit snotty. But what was I to think when you didn’t even give me your phone number in the first place?’

      ‘You got it off Mum, didn’t you?’

      ‘Yes. After I’d asked for it. Why didn’t you ring me, Cassandra?’ He still sounded peeved.

      ‘Because!’ I said flatly and finally. ‘I’m very well, since you ask, and yes, we had a lovely, lazy weekend. Where are you?’

      ‘At the flat. I’ve just got up.’

      ‘We-e-ll, don’t ring any more in the expensive time. Leave it for after six, why don’t you?’

      I’d be better able to cope with his bossiness then. An upset this early in the day could put me off my stroke – especially when he was making a meal of it, like now. ‘You’ve got to understand this book is important, Piers,’ I rushed on. ‘I came here to write – what you call my scribbling – and I do wish you would take me seriously. Just sometimes,’ I finished breathlessly.

      ‘But, my love, I do take you seriously.’ His tone was changing from accusing to placating. ‘It’s just that you seem to be wrapped up in it to the exclusion of all else. You and me, especially …’

      ‘Piers! Please not now; not this early in the day! And of course I’m wrapped up in it. It’s my work, you must accept that. This novel has got to be good and then Harrier Books might begin to take me seriously.’

      ‘You’re set on it, aren’t you, Cassandra? You really believe you can make a living from it when most writers need a daytime job too. Don’t you think you’ve been living off your parents long enough? Isn’t it about time you took a serious look at the way your life is going?’

      ‘I see. I’d be better shacking up with you, providing all the home comforts, you mean?’

      ‘Now you’re getting angry, sweetheart.’

      ‘Don’t interrupt!’ I was angry! Piers would have to learn you can only push a redhead so far! ‘I have never lived off Mum and Dad. I pulled my weight at home and only wrote when I could find the time. And yes, I do hope to make a living from writing! Ice Maiden is doing well; they’re reprinting it, as a matter of fact! Oh, don’t worry! I won’t be going into tax exile just yet, but I’m holding СКАЧАТЬ