Ivy’s belongings until Ivy could deal with them.
Desmond had all at once realized the inescapable truth: having got herself nicely bedded down in Hawthorn Lodge, Aunt Ivy hadn’t the slightest intention of ever letting herself be uprooted again.
‘I could pop there and back by train,’ Ivy mused aloud as they reached the foot of the stairs. ‘I could sort through my things, decide what to keep, give the rest to Oxfam. I shan’t want to keep a great deal, clothes mainly, a couple of pictures, a few books and ornaments.’ She gave him her open, guileless smile. ‘There’s no point in bringing any bedding, any pots and pans, crockery or cutlery, you’re more than well supplied with all that kind of thing here.’
He could manage only a vague murmur in reply. He felt himself borne along on an irresistible current.
They went out through the front door into the sharply scented autumn air. As he locked the door behind them he was assailed by a surge of guilt. He had cause to be eternally grateful to Aunt Ivy, she had been indispensable during the last few terrible months. But to live with him here for good – and she gave every sign of having a good many sprightly years left to her–that was something he hadn’t bargained for.
He backed his car out of the garage.
‘I’d have to stay overnight, of course,’ Ivy pondered as she got in beside him. ‘I couldn’t manage both journeys in one day, not by train.’
Still he could find nothing to say. She settled herself in beside him, fastened her seat-belt. ‘It would be a lot quicker by car, of course. But it would be a dreadful imposition to ask you to take me, I wouldn’t even think of suggesting it.’ She gave him her resolutely maternal smile. Behind her glasses her eyes gleamed like pale blue gimlets. ‘If only I could drive, I’d hire a little van myself and shoot up there and back. I’d quite enjoy it.’
Still he said nothing but started up the engine. She flicked a glance at his face in the mirror. She could see her shots had gone home; he looked wretched, guilty, indecisive.
She turned her head and looked out at the blowy morning. She need say nothing more now, it could all stew quietly on its own, she was totally confident of the outcome.
The day grew steadily colder, with a gusting wind. Rain fell intermittently across the region.
The clock over the impressive entrance to the Cannonbridge College of Further Education showed twenty minutes to six. The college was housed in a tall turn-of-the-century building near the town centre, not far from the public library.
Much of the building lay in darkness; most of the daytime classes were over by this time and the evening classes weren’t due to begin for the best part of two hours.
Light shone out from a second-floor room where a class in English language was being held for the first-year General Studies group. In the third row Karen Boland sat beside Lynn Musgrove, chewing her lip over a particularly tricky grammar question.
The classroom door opened and a middle-aged woman clerk came softly in. She went up to the desk and spoke to the lecturer in a low murmur; the class worked diligently on. By way of reply the lecturer gave a nod and a jerk of his head at where Karen sat.
The woman went over to Karen, stooped and spoke to her in the same subdued tone. Karen laid down her pen, rose and followed her from the room.
A few minutes later Karen returned and resumed her seat. Before she again began to wrestle with the grammar questions she scribbled something on a scrap of paper and slid it across to Lynn Musgrove who ran her eye over it and then slipped it into her pocket.
Ten minutes past seven on Saturday morning, not yet daylight. Sounds began to penetrate Christine Wilmot’s sleep: the rattle of a wheelbarrow, footsteps on gravel. She stirred and rolled over, glanced across at the other bed. It was empty, the covers thrown back.
She switched on the bedside lamp and looked at the clock. After a moment or two she got slowly out of bed, yawning. She put on her slippers and housecoat and went over to the window.
She drew back the flowered curtains. The morning was quiet and still after yesterday evening’s wind and rain. Along the skyline lay a band of deep grey cloud, shading into silvery grey above; frail streaks of carmine rayed out over the horizon.
Down below, light streamed out over the garden from the kitchen window. The evening’s stormy lashings had stripped leaves from trees, the last scarlet and yellow roses from the bushes, flattening dahlias in the beds, golden rod along the borders.
Ian was busy dealing with the havoc. He turned his head and saw her standing at the window, raised a hand in salutation and resumed his task.
Christine left the window and crossed to the dressing table, peered at her face in the glass, ran a comb through her hair. She went slowly downstairs and made a start on the breakfast. She always cooked a substantial fry-up on Saturday morning. However busy the day might be, Saturday always retained something of a holiday air, a hangover from childhood schooldays. And there was time to enjoy and digest a good breakfast. Christine never shopped on Saturdays when the stores were crowded; she got all that out of the way on Thursday morning before her own busy time began. On Saturdays she drove out around the hamlets and villages to the north of Overmead, a prosperous rural area where she had by now built up a highly satisfactory trade.
The kitchen was warm from the heat of the all-night stove. She put the coffee on to percolate, took bacon and sausages from the fridge. She heard Ian come in through the back door a few minutes later as she was rinsing mushrooms and tomatoes under the tap. Ian went into the utility room, coming through into the kitchen a little later when she was back at the cooker again.
‘You’re an early bird,’ she greeted him. ‘How long have you been up? I never heard you.’
He didn’t answer her question. ‘I tried not to wake you. I didn’t sleep too well, I had a touch of indigestion. I went along with some of the committee last night, after the meeting. We went to the chairman’s house, his wife had laid on some refreshments. I thought I might as well get up and get going, instead of lying in bed, tossing and turning.’ He gestured out at the garden. ‘Plenty to be done after the storm.’
She stirred the contents of the frying-pan. ‘Do you want fried bread with your breakfast?’
He made a grimace. ‘No, thank you.’
‘Too much booze last night?’ No edge of censure in her tone.
‘No, very little booze, as a matter of fact.’ And no defensiveness in his tone. ‘It must have been the sandwiches that upset me. Lobster. Very good, but a bit too rich for that time of night.’
She lowered the heat under the pan and set about making toast. ‘It was almost twelve when I got in myself. These sales parties can be a bit too much of a good thing sometimes. Some of these housewives don’t know where to draw the line when they start letting their hair down. I was absolutely exhausted, I went flat out the moment my head hit the pillow. I never heard you come in.’ She paused as she was about to cut more bread and looked up at him. ‘How much toast can you eat?’
‘Actually, I don’t think I want anything to eat,’ he said with apology. ‘Just some coffee, that’ll do me.’
She
