Питер Ловси - On the Edge

You’re here to look for poison, she told herself.

Any time she had reason to hide an article — usually nothing more sinister than a birthday present for Barry — she tucked it among the smalls at the back of her underwear drawer where nobody but herself had any business to look. Here in Antonia’s bedroom it seemed as sensible a place as any to begin the search.

She ran her hand through the layers of satin and crêpe de Chine and felt sick with envy as she thought of her day running up her parachute-silk undies.

No bottles, phials or pill-boxes. Antonia kept plenty in there to make a man’s heart race, but nothing to make it stop.

The second drawer was deeper and had something more promising pushed to the back behind a nightdress — an antique rosewood box with mother-of-pearl inlay. Rose lifted it out. By the size and weight it probably contained letters or photographs. Frustratingly it was locked and there was no sign of a key. She cleared a space for it on top of the dressing table, opened the next drawer and almost at once found a tin containing curlers, safety-pins and other odds and ends including hairgrips. The lock on the box looked a simple fastening, so she tried poking the end of a hairgrip upwards through the keyhole. After a few attempts something clicked inside.

She opened the box.

On top was a photo of Vic, the lover, in cap and gown at some university ceremony. There were several old letters postmarked in the war years. A picture of an aircrew beside a Blenheim bomber. Printed dance invitations, pressed flowers, some twenty-first birthday cards. The sort of collection most women keep somewhere. No phials of poison. No letter from Manchester. She clicked her tongue impatiently. She was about to close the box when she noticed that the padded underside of the lid was hinged and had a small hook and hasp where it could unfasten. She eased it open. Out fell a folded document.

She’d seen it before. It was the death certificate Antonia had stolen from the Registry Office. The certificate intended for Hector. Nothing had yet been written on it. She held it a moment. The paper was shaking in her hand. Her impulse was to rip it to pieces, yet she hesitated.

Tear it up, the inner voice prompted her. And another immediately countered: don’t — unless you want Antonia to know that you came up here and went through her things.

She folded the certificate and replaced it where she had found it and fiddled with the lock until it clicked back into place. She replaced the box in the drawer and told herself she was there to look for other things.

Where else?

She decided to try the top shelf in each of the wardrobes. They were too high for a proper inspection, so she carried across the stool from the dressing table and stood on it. She reached in among a collection of belts and hats.

And froze.

A sound had come from downstairs. She was certain it was the front door being opened.

She held her breath and listened.

The front door clicked shut, beyond any question. She strained to hear. It was doubtful whether someone’s tread on the hall carpet would carry up to her. A pulse was beating so loudly in her head that she could easily have taken it for footsteps.

Seconds passed. She let out a tremulous breath, like a swimmer just out of the water, and drew in more air.

A board gave a sharp creak. Then another. Whoever had entered the house was coming upstairs.

It can only be Hector, Rose told herself to stave off panic. Who else could have let themselves in? He must have come back from work to fetch something. He’s going to that room on the first floor that he uses as his office. He won’t have any reason to come up here.

The steps were perfectly audible now. They reached the turn after the first flight and continued upwards to the first floor. They didn’t after all enter Hector’s office. They continued up the next flight.

He was coming up to the bedroom.

She had to overcome the paralysis she felt in her limbs. She couldn’t be found delving into Antonia’s wardrobe. She twisted her head to right and left, looking for somewhere to hide. Common sense told her she’d make a noise disturbing the hangers if she tried climbing in with the clothes. Better, surely, to accept that she’d be found in the room and think up some plausible reason for being there. But she didn’t want to be caught standing on a stool with her arms in the wardrobe. She gripped the front of the shelf with both hands and made a stronger effort to use her legs. She staggered off the stool.

The footsteps reached the top stair and crossed the landing at the moment she pulled the stool away and closed the wardrobe. She backed against the wall, mentally rehearsing. ‘Hello, Hector. I thought I heard you coming up. I happened to be passing so I brought a few groceries in and then I heard this noise upstairs so I came up to investigate. I’d quite forgotten about the cat being in the house. Am I very brave or very silly? Can I get you a cup of tea or anything?’

She heard him enter the bedroom and cross the room. He appeared to go towards one of the beds because there was a chink as if he’d picked up a piece of china or something on the bedside table and put it back. There followed the softer sound of the sheet on the bed being drawn back. Why was he touching the bedclothes? Surely he wasn’t going to bed! Perhaps he had come home feeling ill. In that case, she’d have to wait for him to fall asleep. There was no way out except through the bedroom.

He didn’t climb into the bed. He moved around the side of it and approached the open door of the dressing room.

Rose waited, flat to the wall, biting her underlip. He’d need to come right in to see her.

She saw the reflection first. It appeared in one of the side mirrors of the dressing table. And it wasn’t Hector she saw.

It was Vic, Antonia’s lover. Immediately after Rose glimpsed him he turned away without appearing to notice her reflection, deciding, it seemed, that he had no reason to enter the dressing room. She didn’t argue with that. She didn’t move or breathe.

He prowled about the bedroom for a few seconds more. Then she heard him move out and start downstairs as if he was in no sort of hurry.

Her thoughts darted ahead of him. She’d hung her hat and coat on the hook behind the kitchen door. He would know for certain she was somewhere in the house if he looked in there. Never mind the coat; her handbag was on the kitchen table with some of the shopping.

She counted the flights of stairs, waiting for that loose board to shift under his weight and tell her that he was within a few steps of the ground floor. Half a lifetime seemed to pass before the rasp of wood travelled up to her.

She crept out to the corridor to listen over the stairwell. A door was opened down there. She clenched her right hand and put it to her mouth, for he had started talking to someone. The resonance of the voice reached her, but not the words. She strained to listen, and by degrees she decided that it was only one voice. He must have gone into the front drawing room and picked up the telephone, because when the talking stopped she heard the ping of the receiver being replaced.

She backed away from the banisters. She couldn’t stand this much longer. If he came upstairs again she was certain she would scream.

Then she heard the front door being opened and shut.

When she was absolutely certain she was listening to the clatter of his steps in the street she ran back into the dressing room and moved as close to the window as she dared. The figure fast disappearing around the curve of the Crescent was unmistakably Vic.

Rose shook. She’d come all through the war without giving way to nerves. She’d always said in the air raids that it was up to each individual to control herself and stay calm. What a sanctimonious prig she’d been! She’d once watched a woman — a WAAF — run screaming from a shelter before the all-clear. Others had immediately started to cry hysterically. Pandemonium had broken out. The incident had infuriated Rose. She had felt that the woman deserved to be charged with cowardice or indiscipline or whatever King’s Regulations called it. Now she herself knew what fear felt like. The urge to quit the house was overwhelming.