wars. It stood in an isolated spot in the scattered hamlet of Oldmoor, a few miles to the north-west of Cannonbridge.
The weather in the second week of September was no less fine than in the first. At two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon Anna Conway came to the end of the household chores she had managed to spin out since breakfast. She stood at the back door of the bungalow, staring out into the brilliant, windless afternoon, trying to make up her mind how to pass the next hour or two.
If she had been less willow-wand thin, with less of a look of being huddled into herself against the cold, however warm the day, she might have been pretty enough. Her small features were regular, her baby-fine hair a pleasant shade of light brown, her grey eyes large and well set. As it was, she would never catch the attention of a casual observer, unless perhaps to wonder fleetingly how a girl of her age – rising twenty – had acquired so early so apprehensive a stance towards life.
She twisted her hands together. The garden seemed so still, waiting, watching. What she longed to do was take a sleeping pill, crawl into the big double bed and pull the covers over her head, extinguishing for the next few hours every nerve, every thought and feeling, every lacerating memory.
But yesterday evening, as they sat close together on the sofa, David had slipped an arm round her shoulders, had gently suggested she might like to occupy some of the time that hung so heavily on her hands with a little leisurely tidying up of the flowerbeds and borders. The exercise could only do her good and he would be glad of any help, however small, in putting to rights the large, rambling garden, neglected by a succession of tenants.
The thought of being able to greet him on his return this evening with the news that she had indeed spent the afternoon battling with weeds, being able to point out some patch of ground she had cleared, seeing his smile of pleasure, hearing his praise, finally won out over the lure of temporary oblivion.
And Dr Peake would be pleased too, next time he saw her. Fresh air and sunshine, he always urged, useful activity of any kind.
She squared her shoulders and stepped out into the caressing air, closing the door resolutely behind her. She went with determined steps over to a shed, wheeled out a barrow, selected a hoe, hand fork, trowel, a pair of shears, pulled on stout gardening gloves.
She looked about for an area to tackle, not too intimidating, and settled on part of a long flower border overrun with golden rod and marguerites. She began to tear up handfuls of rank growth.
The garden no longer seemed so silent. Sounds now seemed to press in on her from every side, obscurely tinged with menace. The raucous cawing of rooks, an aeroplane droning high overhead, the distant yapping of a dog, the harsh whine of a chainsaw, intermittent bursts of shooting from a neighbouring farm.
She worked grimly on till her back began to ache, then she abandoned the border and set off on a tour of the garden.
In the long grass of the orchard area drunken wasps buzzed among rotting windfalls. Every tree appeared ancient and diseased, bearing misshapen apples, grotesque pears. On the edge of the shrubbery, beneath a vast old hydrangea still in bloom, she caught sight of a great clump of oyster-coloured fungus, like a mound of overlapping dinner plates. She stopped in fascinated horror to peer under bushes and shrubs. Even larger clumps of fungus greeted her, rubbery and warty.
She shuddered and plunged on. Long strands of bramble clutched at her clothes. At the base of a decaying tree-stump she came on an enormous fleshy growth dissolving into slime, its stalk alive with maggots. Panic stirred inside her but she thrust it sternly down. She darted out into a stretch of open ground, came to a halt. She drew deep breaths, striving to steady herself.
She would go back to her flower border, show some backbone, start again on her task. She walked determinedly over to where she had abandoned her tools, picked up the hand fork and began to lever up stubborn roots.
But revulsion welled up again inside her. Centipedes squirmed in the earth, daddy-long-legs brushed against her face. A horrid sensation, only too familiar of late, signalled its return with a first stealthy touch as of a band lightly circling her forehead. She tried to dismiss it, went on battling with the weeds.
Slowly the band began to tighten. Across the fields a fresh burst of shooting jerked her up in fright. She managed to steady herself again, bent once more to her task.
A few moments later a wounded pigeon dropped out of the sky at her feet in a sprawl of blood-stained feathers. She sprang back in terror. Tears spilled from her eyes. She threw down her fork, tore off her gloves. She fell to her knees beside the dying bird, gently stroked its head, crooned softly to it. It looked up at her with an expressionless eye already filming over. A moment later she saw that it was dead.
She jumped up, snatched her gloves, the tools, and raced back to the shed, her heart pounding, leaping in her throat. With trembling fingers she restored everything to its place, then she turned and fled back to the house, along glinting gravel paths where leaf shadows quivered in the sunlight, past bushes festooned with spiders’ webs, in through the back door, along the passage, into the haven of the sitting room.
She flung herself down on the sofa, shuddering. From the mantelpiece her own likeness – a framed photograph, head and shoulders – looked down at her with a wide smile of happiness.
Around her forehead the band grew vice-like in its grip. A surge of terrifying thoughts rose in her brain, threatening to overwhelm her. She looked in agony at the clock. Another hour to be lived through before the next dose of the pills that would beat back the thoughts. David had made her swear to stick to the prescribed times and amounts. Every day she strove to keep her word, she never let him know of the many times she failed.
She turned her head in the direction of the kitchen. A beaker of the hot chocolate she loved, strong and sweet, that might soothe her through the next hour. She got up and went from the room.
Twenty minutes later found her back in the sitting room, pacing to and fro, the effects of the hot chocolate already evaporated. She tried to distract herself with the radio, the television, but they served only to jangle her nerves still further.
She looked again at the clock. She would not fail again. She lay down on the floor and closed her eyes. She went religiously through her tense-and-relax exercises, she massaged her forehead, her scalp, the back of her neck. Still the taut muscles refused to slacken. Still the plaguing thoughts bedevilled her brain.
She opened her eyes and looked yet again at the clock. Barely ten minutes had crawled by. She could struggle no longer. She got to her feet and went along to the bedroom for the capsules, the pills and tablets. She washed down the prescribed dose with water, then she stood hesitating, eyeing the bottles. Double the quantity would produce the longed-for relief twice as quickly.
After another brief, guilt-ridden struggle she swallowed a second dose. She went back to the sofa and lay down again. Soon she felt a blissful peace begin to steal over her. A little later she felt a slight resurgence of cheerfulness; later still, a burst of buoyant energy.
She sat up, smiling. She yawned, stretched luxuriously. She went along to the bathroom, washed her face, tidied her hair. She would make a start on preparing supper.
As the hands of the kitchen clock approached six she was putting the finishing touches to an artistically arranged platter of salad. A delicious savoury smell filled the room. She glanced in at the oven, lifted the lids of pans simmering on the stove. She felt joyously serene. Her mind was now clear and untroubled. She hummed in tune with the music from the radio.
A sound reached her ears: David’s car turning in through the gate. Her face broke
