Lorna Gray - The War Widow

It was insane. And worse, it was insufferably sad to have to hear polite judgements about his character, as if this could have ever had anything to do with his usual state of mind. I hadn’t received so much as a note from him in the year since our divorce but still it was incomprehensible; impossible to imagine Rhys, my stubbornly individual ex-husband, ever meaning to end it like this.

And yet he had. And somehow, now, whatever it was that had brought him to this desperate extreme had since turned its gaze upon my life and my mind. And I still didn’t have the faintest idea why.

I wasn’t going to find my answers here. Abruptly my silent vigil was broken. Oblivious to the recent history of this place, the next group of tourists appeared noisily on the viewpoint beside me to exclaim in their turn, and my bitter enjoyment of my half-angry grief was destroyed in an instant. Casting a last glance at the bridge and its forbidding heights, I swallowed the wealth of unanswered questions and found myself leaving room for sorrow instead. It came with a bolt that rocked me. One doesn’t expect to feel grief in company and there is a certain shame inherent in feeling a flood of emotion that is at odds with the laughter of all your fellows. Somehow it felt a little like seeking attention despite the fact that attention was the very last thing that I could possibly want. And yet he was the man I had spent years of my life with – had loved once and probably still did – and this was where he had died.

And then in the next breath I had myself under control again and emotion of any sort was swept aside with about as much resolution as the sheer strength of will that had brought me here in the first place. It was the same willpower that had seen me leave him all those months ago and the same steel that had helped me build my new life in the north. Now it helped me set my feet to the empty path downhill. There was a distant whistle from a departing train.

It was echoed by a deep voice saying my name. My proper one I mean; Miss Ward. As a question. I span round. My solemn descent had led me far beyond the reach of the nearest tourist chatter and it was hard to contain the urge to curse at this resounding proof of my stupidity. How could I have imagined fear would give me room to breathe here?

My first line of defence rested on politeness. “Yes, it is. Hello, Mr …?”

“Bristol. Jim Bristol.”

Suspense transformed into an urge to laugh as he solved the little mystery of his name, but then mirth evaporated as the suave businessman from the hotel stepped lightly down the immensely steep stone staircase to join me. He was wearing a well-made suit in one of the customary shades of grey – because the variety afforded by clothing coupons limited men just as much as women – and he stopped on the step above and turned to lean his elbows easily on the barrier there before throwing an appreciative glance around him. He was perhaps six foot tall and broad shouldered to match and standing on that step he positively towered over me. The twisting fingers of bare branches cast lines across his jaw. He was one of those men whose muscular fitness made him very handsome. I thought he was also one of those men who knew it. His gaze settled on me.

“Beautiful spot, isn’t it?”

I tried not to feel crowded by him or by the white flood of water travelling down the black rock face, the stunted overhanging trees and the impossible sweep below of the near-vertical staircase descending into deeper darkness. My fingers knotted in the straps of my bag while I smiled. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

He was probably in his late thirties but it was difficult to be precise. His toned physique perhaps indicated that he had recently returned from his duties in foreign climes, although his hair wasn’t cropped short in the military style and his suit wasn’t the standard shapelessness of the Government Issue demob suit. Anywhere else he might have been impressive or even beautiful but here, far from any other voices, he definitely was not. I swear I saw something lodged within those friendly brown eyes that hinted at a harder mind behind.

Superficially, however, he was only warm and I was only useless at saying no. He said, “Do you mind if I keep you company for a while? I’m trying to find a nice spot to sit down with a sandwich. You won’t mind if I go first?”

I let him move past me. I concentrated on the tricky steps and not glaring fiercely at the back of his head. The woodland smelled of wet things down here and rot and moss. A wren snapped past with the speed of a rifle shot but oblivious to the dramatic comparisons my mind was making between small birds and weaponry, my companion only turned back once more and fixed me with a mischievous grin. “You know, you looked very picturesque back there framed by all those trees and rocks.”

“How very …” I searched for the word, “gratifying.”

“Oh definitely.” He was negotiating another narrow step and pointing out a broken section. “Makes me wish I could paint – you know the sort of thing, all blobs of paint and drama entitled ‘Girl in Raincoat by Waterfall’ or something equally unimaginative. But I shouldn’t be telling you this. You actually are an artist I gather?”

“How on earth did you discover that?”

Jim Bristol cast a captivatingly handsome smile over his shoulder that made a mockery of my tone. He also didn’t seem to notice that I had stopped dead with one hand gripping the metal rail. “Among other things, you put it on your registration form last night when you were collecting your key. I’m unashamedly nosey, you see – an occupational hazard you might say – so I noticed. What sort of things do you paint?”

“People mainly. What’s your occupation? If it makes you curious, I mean?”

“Have you got your sketchbook here? You do carry one, I presume? All artists do.”

He turned his head briefly to note that I had resumed walking – where else could I go, really, when the alternative was to run back up these lethal stone steps – and I shook my head in a lie. “Not today.”

“That’s a shame. I should have liked to see it – I’m sure you must be very gifted. Perhaps you can show me when we get back later. You’ll be having dinner at the hotel of course?”

I only gave a deliberately ambiguous, “I imagine so.”

He returned my smile with a more generous one of his own and stepped down off the last flight onto the narrow platform that marked the base of the gorge. It was surprisingly sunlit after the dank brown shade of our descent through autumnal trees. A narrow bridge was the only exit on the far side, spanning the surprisingly tame outflow from the final plunge pool. A yellow wagtail flew in to land bobbing on an outcrop on the towering cliff only to notice us and dart away again. It was the perfect place for a trap. He only said harmlessly, “I’d like that.”

Doubt rekindled, and this time with a vengeance.

I think he might have been intending to help me down off the last step but I kept my fingers firmly entwined in the straps on my bag. And even if his gesture wasn’t the sinister action I was watching for, the look he gave me as I stepped past him was almost certainly that of one who was checking whether his much-exercised charm was having its customary effect. It meant that, now, there was no need to wonder why I should be feeling so untrusting. Since attempting to travel quietly, it was, I suppose, inevitable that I would instantly find myself attracting attention from all sorts of quarters who would have normally let me pass unnoticed. But no one can pretend that ordinary men deal out this sort of unsolicited flirtation to perfect strangers. And certainly not when the setting is beyond isolated and the woman in question frequently feels that the stain of her failed marriage is written all over her like a marker to steer well clear. This might all seem like a plea to be contradicted, but the facts were there all the same.