Хилари Боннер - A Deep Deceit

‘Really,’ said Carl. ‘Why did you turn so pale, then?’

I shrugged. ‘Sometimes I think Cornwall does it to you. I do love it here, you know that. But the place is full of ghost stories. As if we don’t have enough of our own...’

I shivered again. The window was so steamed up and the cloud so thick and low that you could barely see our wonderful view over the harbour. The rain continued ferociously and the sound of it driving against the window-panes was almost like the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine-gun.

Carl didn’t speak again. For once he didn’t seem to have any words of comfort.

‘We mustn’t let it get to us, not any of it,’ I said stoically.

With what appeared to be a considerable effort of will, he found his voice then. ‘I know, and I’m sorry, Suzanne, I just can’t bear to think of our happiness, our life together being wrecked by some sicko who’s trying to destroy us.’

‘We’ve just got to get through this,’ I consoled. ‘We don’t even really know what any of it means, do we?’

‘I suppose not,’ he replied in an unconvinced sort of way.

‘And you really can’t bounce around the town accusing people like you did Fenella Austen,’ I remonstrated.

He sighed. ‘I know. I’ve never liked that woman, though.’

‘That doesn’t mean she’s writing us threatening letters, or that she scratched the van.’

‘She’s capable of it, I’m sure.’

‘Maybe. But I’m not certain it would be her style. She hasn’t got the subtlety.’

Carl almost glowered at me. ‘Subtlety. You call those letters subtle?’

‘More subtle than throwing insults at a living, local legend in front of half of St Ives,’ I commented.

He smiled wryly. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he acknowledges. ‘I know you’re right, I’ve already admitted that.’

‘Carl, I thought the idea was that we would always keep a low profile, that we didn’t want to be noticed too much, didn’t want to get involved...’ I let the words tail off.

He smiled again, in a rather more relaxed way this time. ‘Never again, I promise.’

He held out his hand. I took it. I felt his fingers squeezing mine.

‘I’ll tell you this, though, Suzanne,’ he continued, and his voice sounded strong and determined again. ‘I won’t have you hurt by anyone.’

For the first time in my life with Carl I found myself afraid. Not of him, of course, but for him and what he might do to protect me.

I had to convince him that I could cope, that I was not being destroyed by what was happening to us. So I had somehow to keep the nightmares at bay, because I could not conceal what they did to me.

The only way I survived at that time was by burying my head in the sand. I didn’t have one-hundred-percent success, of course, but I was surprised to find just how well I seemed able to cope once I had put my mind to it. It was a bit like pulling the blankets back over your head on those mornings when you really feel unable to face the world. It seemed to come to me quite naturally – maybe that was my background.

One way and another I managed another two-and-a-half-month spell without a nightmare. In spite of Dan Nash’s insistence on the meaning behind his sighting of the Lady with the Lantern, the storms, which indeed raged throughout most of February, did eventually subside without any major disaster hitting either us or, in fact, anyone we knew in the town. Life returned to some kind of normality. We did not go back to the Sloop, preferring the Union or the Golden Lion, or almost any of the others now that Fenella Austen seemed to have turned the old waterside inn into ‘her bar’.

Only one or two of those who witnessed Carl’s outburst and his reference to poison pen letters even mentioned it to us again and we made light of it, both of us muttering something about a joke that had gone wrong and been misunderstood.

Mariette heard about it, of course, and I spun her a yarn about an old friend of Carl’s who had thought he was being funny. I wasn’t quite sure she believed me, but she seemed to accept it.

St Ives seemed to forget quickly, but we never quite could. Shopping in the town one day, we saw Fenella coming towards us and I dragged a reluctant Carl into a store in order to avoid her.

He was quite angry with me.

‘You owe her an apology, Carl, you know that,’ I remonstrated.

‘Well, I’ll be damned if she’s getting one and I’ll be damned if I’ll skulk around town because of her,’ he snapped.

He could admit to me that he had been wrong to accuse Fenella in such a manner, but he certainly wasn’t going to admit it to her, it seemed. He could be very stubborn, could Carl.

When I was out and about on my own I kept my eyes well peeled for Fenella and managed to dodge her successfully for weeks on end. I was more embarrassed than anything else but I also knew I was no match for her in the verbals department. I would never willingly take on the likes of Fenella Austen.

The idea of getting a job had gone completely out of my mind right from the moment our van had been vandalised, but as Carl buried himself in his work – that had always been his main way of dealing with our problems – my lurking desire for some kind of outside activity rose to the surface again. And one beautiful early April day, when the sun was shining brightly and every patch of garden in the town seemed to be ablaze with daffodils, my spirits were so uplifted that I was moved to mention to Mariette that if ever there was an opening at the library I would be interested. After all, following a winter that had been unusually bleak for Cornwall, it seemed as if the whole world were being reborn, so why shouldn’t I be too?

‘Sooner than you think,’ she replied. It transpired that the young man who had the most junior job was employed only on a temporary basis and was soon leaving to go to university.

I decided I would again mention to Carl the possibility of my taking a job and I would do it that very evening, probably over supper. But just as we were about to dish up the pan-fried dabs Carl had bought from our lovely fishmonger, while I had been at the library chatting to Mariette, there was a knocking on the front door.

‘Bound to be Will, probably inviting himself to dinner again,’ remarked Carl in an unconcerned kind of way. ‘It’s OK, there’s plenty for him...’ We were used to Will turning up unexpectedly, after all we had no telephone, nor had we ever found any real need for one.

I opened the front door and, as Carl had predicted, there stood Will. Nonetheless, I had not the slightest intention of inviting him in, in spite of what Carl had said. I really wanted to talk to Carl alone before it was once more too late.

Will waved a bottle at me. ‘Pink champagne, how about that?’ he announced. ‘Won it in a raffle. Thought maybe I could persuade you both to share it with me?’

He grinned at me confidently. Too confidently. I was vaguely irritated by his presumption. ‘I’m sorry, Will, we were just sitting down to supper and we really do need to be on our own tonight,’ I heard myself say. If he hadn’t irritated me and if I hadn’t been so intent on talking to Carl, I might have been a little more gracious.

The grin froze on Will’s face. For a moment he looked dumbfounded. Well, we always made him welcome. But his features quickly relaxed. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it. I was just passing. Another time, aye?’

‘Yes, as ever. Another time.’

He gave a kind of half-salute with his free hand and turned away.

I felt guilty then. ‘Sorry, Will, you don’t mind, do you? Just bad timing tonight, really...’ My voice tailed off.

‘No problem,’ called Will over his shoulder. “Course I understand. I’ll keep the champagne for the next time you pop round to the gallery. How’s that?’