Peter Robinson - Before the poison

The second song was less taxing and much simpler, but it drove straight to the heart. It was ‘Dido’s Lament’ from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, the aria Queen Dido sings when Aeneas leaves her, with its keening call of ‘Remember me, remember me’, lingering long after the music has finished. I remembered Wilf telling me about the school production, of his hearing Grace sing it live to a similar piano accompaniment. The performance was everything it should be: simple and moving. I found that I had goose bumps all over me and tears in my eyes when it was over, and I didn’t want to play it again. Not that night. It was time for a film, something light years away from Dido’s or Grace’s tragic tale – Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, perhaps – then to bed.

It was now over a week since Heather had dropped her bombshell, and I hadn’t heard a thing from her. I had tried to phone her a couple of times at work and on her mobile, but she never answered, and she didn’t return my messages. I wondered whether she’d gone away for a while, or whether, perhaps, she was deliberately avoiding me while she extricated herself from her marriage to Derek. Maybe she was just plain busy. Moving house was a hell of a job, even without the emotional upheaval Heather must be going through. Perhaps she just needed to be left alone for a while. I felt for her, but there was nothing I could do. I hoped she would join us for Christmas – my invitation had been only half in jest, but the way things were going, I might not get the chance before then to invite her properly.

Two days after my visit to Staithes and to Grace’s graveside, late in the afternoon while I was in the living room reading my print-out of Grace’s war journal as the darkness drew in on Kilnsgate, my telephone rang. Thinking it was Louise with some news about Grace’s illegitimate child, I snatched it up immediately, without even a glance at the caller ID, but, to my surprise, it was Heather.

‘Chris,’ she said. ‘How are things?’ Her voice sounded weary and slightly husky.

‘I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about. I was just thinking about you.’

‘That’s sweet of you. It’s all done.’

‘What?’

‘Gone. Moved. All my worldly goods. There’s nothing of interest to me back at the old homestead now.’

‘So how are you, really?’

‘Really? You expect me to tell you over the telephone?’

‘I’m not doing anything.’

‘Me neither. I took the week off work.’

‘So come by, if you like. I’ve got wine in the fridge.’

She paused. ‘OK,’ she said finally. ‘That might be just the ticket. See you soon.’

I wondered whether I had made a mistake in inviting her to the house as I did a quick tidy-up of the living room, made sure I had a decent Chablis chilling, and opened an Aussie Shiraz for myself. Of course, being November, it was dark by teatime when I heard Heather’s car pull up. I already had a nice fire burning in the living room, and after hanging up her winter coat and long scarf, I took her through and brought the wine. She certainly looked as if she had been through the wringer, though I could tell that she had made an effort to cover the pain and lack of sleep with a little make-up. I could have no idea how much it hurt to have your husband run off with a younger woman, but I was determined not to appear over-solicitous or pitying. We were grown-ups. These things happen. They’d happened to me, too, before Laura. We got through them somehow, anyhow, and we kept on going. I very much doubted that Heather was here because she wanted tea and sympathy, or someone to sit and talk to about her failed marriage. And if she wanted to brood alone, she could easily have stayed at her convent apartment and done that. She had no doubt had plenty of opportunity over the past week.

Heather quickly made herself at home, kicking her shoes off and stretching out on the sofa, swirling her wine. I had put on a Tony Bennett CD of Christmas songs, and it seemed to harmonise well with the log fire and the winter dark beyond the windows. No snow, yet, though.

‘How’s the convent?’ I asked.

Heather wrinkled her nose. ‘Strict. I’ve got a curfew.’

‘No, seriously.’

‘It’s comfortable enough. A nice apartment, plenty of room. You must come and see it. Charlotte’s been clucking around me like a mother hen. She even brought a casserole over the other evening. She’s driving me crazy. What have you been up to?’

I told her a little about Louise, the journal and the box of Grace’s stuff.

‘Should I be jealous?’ she asked. ‘Of Louise King, I mean, not the ghost.’

‘There’s nothing to be jealous of.’

She was half lying, propped at a rather precarious angle, and when she shifted position, she spilled a little wine on her dress. Luckily it was white wine. I brought a serviette over to her, which she took and dabbed at the spot. When she handed it back to me, I held on to her hand, and when I felt a gentle tug, I leaned down and kissed her. It was tender at first, like the kiss in the car that night after the Bonfire Night party at Charlotte’s, but as it continued, it grew more passionate, more probing. We let the crumpled serviette drop and I took her wineglass from her hand and set it on the table beside the sofa. Then I knelt and we continued kissing. I touched her cheek, her hair, ran my hand over her breasts, her stomach; she moved beneath my touch, hooked her hand around my neck and pulled me to her fiercely.

I don’t know how it all happened; everything was a bit of a blur. There was no more thinking, flirting, just a flurry of urgent need and desire that left a trail of clothes across the hall and up the stairs, where we lay in my bed, sweaty, breathless, entangled, some time later, the mutual need satisfied for the moment, the thinking returning.

Heather spoke first. ‘I suppose that was a recipe for disaster,’ she said.

‘Oh, come on, it wasn’t that bad.’

She nudged me in the ribs. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘So what do we do now?’

‘We don’t have to do anything,’ Heather said. ‘We could just lie here.’

‘And after that?’

‘We can do it again. I’ve never been one to tremble in the jaws of disaster.’

I ran my hand over her bare arm and shoulder, so smooth, so warm. She had freckles there, too. ‘You know,’ I said, ‘I almost hate to say it, but I’m glad we’re not having an affair. I mean, technically.’

‘Me too,’ she said, turning to prop herself up on one elbow and face me. ‘Far too sordid and messy.’ She pushed her hair out of her face. ‘Chris, I’m not stupid. I know you’re not looking for commitment. Neither am I. Can’t we just let it be what it is?’

I stroked her hair. ‘Of course. Whatever it is. I’m not making any demands. I’m not running away, either.’ It was silly talk, the kind of thing you say to justify what you’ve just done, when you realise you’ve fallen off the edge of a cliff and your legs and arms are spinning useless circles in the air. Call me a fatalist, but we had as little choice about where we went now as we had when we first met. But somehow it helps to say things like ‘Let’s see where it leads us’ or ‘Let it be what it is’. It gives the illusion of control, or at least of understanding. There were only two things we could do: one was stop seeing each other, and we obviously weren’t going to do that, and the other was to continue to let ourselves get more and more entangled up in one another’s needs and desires until one of us had had enough. To fall in love. Oh, we could play it cool, see each other only on Wednesdays, see other people, all the usual evasions, but that was really what it came down to for me. Love or flight.