Circles of Fate (14 page)

“You mean he had to stay back there to ...?”

“Of course. All those people paid good money. And, anyway, his cousin must be avenged. For what has happened to Pepe he must demand two ears.”

Horrible ... horrible. It was horrible.

The years fell away and she was that small girl at the party again. The others were all bigger and stronger and braver and the games they played were too rough for her. In her own feeble way she had tried to fit in, but she couldn't. There was nothing left for her to do but run away. She would run home. But where was home without a mother?

She must find a home somewhere, a tomorrow somewhere. Not here. There was no tomorrow here for her.
But please, let there be a tomorrow for Pepe.

Her prayer was answered. Pepe opened his eyes on a brand new tomorrow. It was a long, hard struggle. His left arm had caught the brunt of the bull's vengeance, and for a while it was thought he would lose it. It was saved by medical skill, although it would never again be as strong as nature intended, and, of course, in future when he went to the bullfight he would be relegated to the role of spectator. That didn't worry him too much. He had a strong right arm, a loving wife and two – soon to be three – children. Perhaps his pinch of luck hadn't been entirely lacking. Certainly Isabel's extra pinch of love paid off.

Anita came home to make a new life for herself. She didn't expect it to be easy, and it wasn't. At least she found work that was compatible: teaching music to the children at Abbey Lane Comprehensive School.

She had only just started her second lesson of the day when Fleur Fraser, who was enjoying her free period, popped her head round the door to say she was wanted on the telephone in the Head's office.

Anita sighed her annoyance. She had been in the school's employ for one month and was still very much in her probationary period. She liked her job as music-teacher and she wanted to keep it. The Head, Miss Standish, grizzled grey hair that had never seen a colour rinse, fifty-plus, would think it very frivolous of her staff to receive telephone calls during working hours.

“Man or woman?” she asked Fleur.

Fleur, a newly minted eighteen-year-old, still wore the student tag. She wouldn't finish her days as a fifty-plus spinster school teacher.

“Man,” she said, expressively awed. “Run along. I'll look after your little darlings. Not that my presence will do much for their appreciation of music. A piano, played my style, is an instrument of torture; banged sufficiently it drowns their unmelodious voices.”

Miss Standish was fidgeting by her desk. “I suppose you want me to make myself scarce?”

Anita almost giggled at the look of martyrdom on her face.

“That won't be necessary. I am sorry about this. I promise to tick off whoever is calling.”

“That's all right,” said a disarmed Miss Standish grudgingly. She went to stand by the window, turning her back to give Anita an illusion of privacy. Anita picked up the phone.

“Hello.”

A strange voice answered her greeting.

“Miss Hurst?”

“Yes.”

“Miss Anita Hurst?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Keith Gifford, although that won't mean a thing to you. I'm employed by the Cardinal Insurance Company.”

“That doesn't mean anything to me, either.”

“I didn't think it would, but one has to start somewhere. I'm investigating an incident that took place in Leyenda on June 6th. I believe you were a passenger on Rock Bennett's plane?”

“That is so.” As a concession to Miss Standish she said: Did you have to ring me up during working hours to ask me that?”

“You're not on the telephone at home,” he replied reasonably.

“No, but I am on a bus route.”

“I've got a car. Will you be in if I call this evening?”

“What for?”

“To answer a few simple questions. Routine stuff. I shouldn't take up more than fifteen minutes of your time. Say seven-thirty?”

“All right.”

As she replaced the receiver in its cradle, a thin spear of October sun rested on her hand. She remembered a warmer sun; she remembered things she thought she had succeeded in forgetting.

“Are you all right, Miss Hurst?”

The Head's kindly voice jolted her own sharp inner reproof. She'd been doing so well, she mustn't allow anything to upset her at this stage.

“Yes, I'm all right.”

“You don't look it.”

“A bit of past catching up with me, that's all. It was the unexpectedness.”

“Yes,” said very reflectively, to set Anita wondering what gem of Miss Standish's past had once caught up with her. Miss Standish, in common with Cathy, was a today person. Brisk, bluff, you can't live
in
today and
on
regrets.

“Who is looking after your class, if anybody?”

“Fleur is. She volunteered to fill the gap.”

“Good. Let her fill it a bit longer. I've been wanting an opportunity to talk to you. Yes, I know what you are thinking, Heads are in a position to seek opportunities, but I prefer to wait and let them present themselves. I'm a passive person.”

“Yes,” said Anita, not daring to disagree.

“Are you happy?” The unexpectedness of that question set her back. She didn't answer.

“Comparatively speaking, that is.”

“Put like that, the answer is yes.”

“I don't know quite why you came to us. You're far too clever to teach unresponsive twelves and upwards the rudiments of music. I confess my own education is sadly lacking in that field, but I do recognize an accomplished pianist when I hear one.”

“Accomplished is the operative word. There are lots of us about. To get anywhere one requires either genius or dedication, or a bit of both. I don't have the first and dedication is a long, lonely road and I've acquired a taste for people. This” – she made a wide, sweeping gesture with her hands, encompassing the whole school – “is good for me. The children – they're not all unresponsive, you know – the gossip sessions in the staff-room. Even the calamity and clatter of dinner duty.”

Yes, yes, the Head wanted to say, but it's only a gap filler. It isn't enough. But she didn't say anything. Everybody fills gaps. Fleur Fraser – at present taking Anita's class – was filling a gap. Come to that, Fleur would only teach until the right man came along. She was today's typical Miss, bright, sparkling, with a hemline that fluctuated with the times. But Anita was also young, and also dressed in a contemporary style. Her figure was better than Fleur's and her eyes were bigger. Why then, looking at Anita, did she get the feeling that here was spinster material? That when she retired in ten years' time, Anita would still be here to present her with the traditional rose bowl.

Anita was just beginning to feel uncomfortable when the bell rang. Miss Standish seemed equally relieved to say: “There's the bell. Run along,” adding a perplexing note of tartness, “having missed one class altogether, you don't want to be late for your next.”

“Yes, Miss Standish,” she said helplessly.

It wasn't until much later in the day that she realized she had made a boob. Cathy, in England just one week, had arranged to come round and see her that evening. She wasn't going to put Cathy off, she was too excited at the prospect of seeing her again, and she didn't know where to get in touch with the insurance man to put him off. Both appointments would have to stand. If they arrived together, so what?

Strange how she resented the insurance man for vividly recalling the past, and yet she could accept Cathy. She thought about this for a while and decided it was because Cathy was also future. Edward's future.

Dear Edward, he'd been on pins since their return from holiday, scared that Cathy might change her mind, might revoke the long notice which, strictly speaking Cathy didn't have to give, but which gave Claude Perryman heaps of time to recruit a replacement and also served as a respite time for her and Edward.

“It's been whirlwind,” was how she had put it. “It'll give us time to correspond – and see.”

She had also written to Anita. Long, cheerful, nonsense letters. And before that, just before Anita left for home, she'd taken her to one side for a heart-to-heart. “Believe me, it'll pass.”

“Do I detect the hard clink of experience?”

“Yes, blast you, blast
him,
you do. If you tell Edward, I'll never speak to you again.”

“Tell Edward what?”

“He was a salesman and I fell for the biggest line in the business. His wife was a chronic invalid, he said.”

“And wasn't she?”

“Honey, he didn't even
have
a wife. It was his protection. Protection that I wouldn't start whining for a ring.”

“What happened?”

“A dolly-bird. Yards of leg and overweight upstairs. I mean in the brains department, although she was well taken care of in other ways. Anyway, she saw straight through him. She saw all the way past the chiselled cheekbones and dreamy-sleepy eyes, to the little boy who saw a new shiny plaything and had to have it at any price. Her price was marriage and I was prized out. Shocked?”

“No.”

“Surprised?”

“No. I never believed that yarn about getting out of England for health reasons.”

“Will you tell Edward?”

“No.”

“He thinks all my maidenly virtues are intact. It's the big deal for him, you know.”

“I know.”

“I won't let him down.”

“I know that, too.”

Her doorbell rang. She replaced the stopper in her perfume bottle and went to open the door, casting her eye at the clock on her way. It was seven-fifteen. Too early, surely, for the insurance man.

Her wide grin faded into an appropriate just-showing-the-teeth smile as she told the insurance man to come in. She checked:

“You
are
Keith Gifford?”

“Yes.”

“Then please do come in.”

Ought she to offer him a drink? It wasn't a social call, but doing something rounded off awkward edges.

“Would you like a drink?” she enquired politely. “I'm afraid choice is limited. Gin or coffee?”

“You decide.”

“Well, I really prefer coffee.”

“Coffee it is then.”

She was rather pleased about that. She wanted to save the gin for Cathy. She wished she had thought to go out and buy an adequate stock of booze to make it a real welcome home celebration for her. She kept forgetting that she wasn't hard-up any more. Thanks to her new post, she had a deeper purse, and the money in the bank, from the sale of Casa Esmeralda, was a hefty materialistic cushion to lean on. Having to give up work during her mother's illness had meant stringent economies all round. The smooth in-flow of money had given her the confidence to move from the old home she had shared with Inez, into a less cumbersome flat with a modern layout that yielded more attractive results for less expenditure of effort.

“Nice place you have here,” said Keith Gifford conversationally.

“I like it. Black or white?”

“White, please.” He watched her pour milk into his coffee, then accepted the cup from her.

“Now,” she said, sitting opposite him, crossing her knees and hooking her foot round her ankle. “Give.”

“Just routine, like I said on the phone. On June 6th, what exactly happened?”

“Starting from when?”

“From when you got out of the plane. You hurt your ankle, I believe?”

“That's right.”

“Go on.”

“Well –” she swallowed hard – “Felipe Sanchez stayed with me while Rock Bennett went for help. But surely it's the plane you want to know about?”

“Just carry on. You're doing fine. Bennett went for help. You and Sanchez stayed.”

“And Monica Perryman.”

“Yes?”

“She was in the part of the plane that got the brunt of the damage. The tail. Felipe got her out, she lived for five or ten minutes, no more.”

“Sanchez attended to her?”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Felt her pulse, loosened any tight garments, that sort of thing.”

“He covered her with his coat. Is that what you mean?”

“Yes, that's what I mean. Was he alone?”

“No, I was there.”

“There, or some distance away?”

“All right, I was some distance away.”

“Didn't that strike you as odd?”

“In what way?”

“Wouldn't it have made Mrs Perryman happier to have a woman in attendance while a strange man administered help?”

“I don't exactly know what he did. I was too far away to see what was happening.”

“I'm distressing you, Miss Hurst. I'm sorry, it's not a very pleasant experience to have to recall.”

“You're only doing your job. I'm sorry I can't be of help. It isn't a question of not being co-operative, I just can't tell you the things you want to know.”

“But you have told me,” he said.

He was a pleasant young man, performing an unpleasant task. In appearance he was not unlike Rock Bennett. That is, high charm-rating, pretty blue eyes. Why hadn't she fallen for Rock Bennett and made life a whole lot simpler for herself? But she had. She remembered a distinct flicker of attraction, which Felipe's arrival had promptly stamped out. She looked at Keith Gifford. Nothing happened. She was glad when he went.

The next time her doorbell rang it was:

“Cathy!”

“In the flesh, love. Edward wanted to come with me, but I said this was strictly a hen party. How's my favourite blonde? Oh dear!”

Anita laughed shakily. “Does it show?”

“A bit. Tell Aunt Cathy who has done what to you.”

“A man. And it's not what you're thinking.”