The Long Shadow (15 page)

Squatters, she asserted. Everyone has squatters these days (she made it sound like a new hair-style) if they leave their house
unoccupied.
And anyway, it was the agent’s business, not hers. Imogen could ring him up if she liked, his number was, what was it? She’d got it upstairs, somewhere. And talking of upstairs, she, Dot, would like to go up to bed now, if Imogen didn’t very much mind, she’d had a long day.

Even for Dot in her can’t-hear mood, this was taking
imperturbability
a bit far. Imogen watched, puzzled, as her
stepdaughter
made her exit, yawning excessively, as though to say, See if you can make me care!

But later on, as she passed their door on her way to bed, Imogen heard a sound that reassured her a little. Dot and Herbert were quarrelling. This indication that Dot had reverted to her normal self filled Imogen with relief.

*

You couldn’t call it eavesdropping, exactly, not when they were talking so loudly. Besides, wasn’t it Imogen’s right—indeed her duty—to know what was going on in her own house? They might be talking about the mysterious writing in Ivor’s desk: that Herbert had done it, or something.

It wasn’t like listening at the keyhole. All she was doing was sitting on the stairs. And anyway, no one could possibly catch her at it, they’d all gone to bed long ago.

Her conscience finally set at rest by this last consideration, Imogen leaned forward, her forehead pressed against the banisters, trying to tune-in to the mumble and staccato of voices going on behind the closed door. Rather to her surprise, it was Herbert whom she could hear most clearly.

“I did
not
give her the key,” he was protesting with unusual vigour, “I didn’t even know she was back. And anyway, I haven’t
got
a
key….”

Poor Herbert. Always weakening his case by throwing in a second reason after the first, like throwing a pike in after a goldfish. I haven’t
got
a key…. Dot would soon make mincemeat of
that
one.

She did. What about Mrs Timmins’ key? And the key at No 36? And the one with the house-agents? And the one that had always been kept under the brick by the back door….

Such a jangling plethora of keys…. Herbert must have found the clink of them terrifying, but he went gamely on:

“I didn’t! I tell you I didn’t …”

If only he could have stopped there—but on he went, like a lemming to its doom: “…and even if I had, it couldn’t have been on a Tuesday, because …”

Game, set and match to Dot. It was annoying the way Dot always let her voice drop as soon as victory was assured, but Imogen could still make out quite a bit of it: to the effect that
some
men consider their wives’ feelings now and again, and that if Herbert was as sorry as all that for the wretched woman, then why didn’t he something something something and be done with it?

It was annoying not to be able to hear the crucial words, but Imogen felt in no doubt as to the gist of it.

That
Woman.
Herbert must have been seeing her again. Or promising that he wouldn’t, and then leaving around a
picture-postcard
of Cheltenham Town Hall which ended up “Till Friday—Take care of yourself”, or some such inflammatory message.

Friday? Friday? No, it was
Tuesday
they were fighting about this time.
This
Tuesday. Today, in fact—or yesterday, rather, it being already long after midnight.

“I tell you I don’t
know,
I wasn’t
there,”
Herbert was affirming desperately. “And if I had been, I’d never have
something 
something
something
!
Have a heart, Dot, how can
I
help it if she takes it into her head to …”

*

Not very gallant; but then what lover is, when driven into a corner by his wife? By now, Imogen could hardly suppress her
giggles as she pictured Herbert and his lady whipping that
dust-sheet
over themselves when they heard the unexpected sound of Imogen’s key in the door; and then lying there, growing more and more restive and uneasy, while Imogen explored the house at her leisure, made herself tea, talked to the cat…. Just like Herbert to choose, as the moment for their getaway, that very moment when Imogen had come back into the room; and getting himself
hopelessly
entangled in the dust-sheet in the process.

Or maybe it was his lady-love? Maybe it was a beautifully shared ineptitude that had brought them together in the first place? Two ineffectual hearts beating as one … it was
touching,
really, and on this occasion it would seem that luck had been on their side. While Imogen ran screaming to the neighbours, imagining goodness knows what of murder and
mayhem
, Herbert and That Woman could easily have slipped out into the street and got away unnoticed. They could even have slammed the front door, tripped over the scraper, and paused to exchange a few honeyed words about whose idea it had all been in the first place, and still they’d have got away with it.

After all her terror that afternoon—to have the whole thing ending in farce.

Maybe all the rest of the mysteries would turn out to be farce, too. Maybe by tomorrow they’d all be laughing their heads off. Ha ha! Ho ho! Would you credit it …?

*

And it was only after she was in bed, and on the very verge of falling asleep, that it occurred to Imogen that it couldn’t possibly have been Herbert at the Twickenham house between four-thirty and five yesterday afternoon. According to Cynthia (who knew, because she’d been baby-sitting) he and Dot had left here, all dressed up for the evening, before six-thirty. He must have arrived home, then, by six at the latest.

It couldn’t be done, all the way from Twickenham.

And it didn’t occur to her, drowsy as she by then was, that Dot, too, must have known that it couldn’t be done.

“W
ELL, WHAT ABOUT
Robin, then?” Dot suggested. “After all, he
is
his son. You
can
inherit handwriting, can’t you?”

What a futile suggestion. They all knew Robin’s handwriting—cramped and reluctant, and as different from his father’s as it could well be. Robin hated writing, particularly letters, and it showed.

“Well, Cynthia then,” Dot went on, doggedly unhelpful, “
She
might … Oh no, though. Those airmail letters … all thin and pointed … No.”

Dot, it seemed to Imogen, was being singularly useless in this crisis—indeed, she seemed to lack all sense of it
being
a crisis, standing there in the doorway, arms resignedly folded, as though helping Imogen with clues in a crossword puzzle. When,
immediately
after breakfast, Imogen had asked her to come along to the study and give some advice, she had come reluctantly: and once there, had stared at the pages Imogen tremulously held out to her with a sort of wooden incomprehension.

“No,” she had said at last: “No …”—though whether it was the facts in front of her that she was rejecting, or Imogen’s obvious intention of bothering her with them, was not made clear. Pressed for further comment, she had allowed, grudgingly, that the handwriting was “rather like” her father’s: adding, as a rider, that “Millions of people have the same handwriting”.

“Just like they have the same Christian names,” she finished triumphantly, brandishing the false analogy like a rabbit out of a hat. And on Imogen’s suggesting, mildly, that in the case of
handwriting
, “millions” was surely an overstatement, she had merely shrugged, and pointed out that Well, it must be
someone.

A deduction that couldn’t be faulted; and so, her ruffled ego soothed by having thus scored an incontrovertible point in logic,
she condescended to join Imogen for a few minutes more of futile speculation. Indeed, after a bit, the thing clearly began to get a hold on her, for the names of Robin and Cynthia proved to be only the first on a list of ever-mounting improbability and randomness.

Indeed, it seemed to Imogen that her step-daughter was
treating
the whole thing as if it was a game, and not even a game of skill; and so, as tactfully as she knew how, she attempted to narrow the field a little. The forger must, for example, be
someone
who had at least been acquainted with Ivor; and who had, right now, access to the house by night and by day.

“I suppose you mean
I
did it,” said Dot, aggrieved; but she could not sulk for long, because almost at once she had an
inspiration
: a very sudden and intriguing one, to all appearances.

“Myrtle!” she exclaimed. “What about Myrtle? You know, that friend of yours with the earrings. The one who—”

Who was Ivor’s mistress during that summer of ’69. Imogen could understand why Dot’s voice had faltered in embarrassment; but in fact she herself had never felt any great resentment over the affair. Ivor’s mistresses had always been less important to him than his reviews and his television appearances, and Imogen had always understood this perfectly well: it was the mistresses who were put out by it. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy love, he did; but he enjoyed praise even more, and incidentally found that it demanded far less in return. This had been Myrtle’s trouble all along, she hadn’t understood the kind of competition she was up against: and so she had come a cropper, just like the rest of them.

Still, it was all a long time ago now, and there were no hard feelings. Myrtle and Imogen had managed to remain quite good friends—indeed, was it not Myrtle who had been the first of all her acquaintances to summon up the courage to invite her to a party after Ivor’s death? And incidentally, to introduce her to the awful Teri; but you couldn’t in fairness blame her for that.

“Myrtle?—Oh no, not
Myrtle
,” she said aloud. No need to increase Dot’s embarrassment by labouring the point right now, but in fact Imogen had come to know Myrtle’s handwriting very well indeed during that summer, when letters had arrived for Ivor
by every post, full of yearning and passion. He’d loved it, Imogen remembered, except for the bother of answering them.

“Well, then, what about …?” Dot was resuming, tireless as an armoured tank; but at just this moment Robin strolled into the room.

It was unusual to see Robin up and about by nine-forty-five in the morning, but Imogen checked her instinctive reaction of
surprise
, and began explaining to him, right from the beginning, the mystery she had stumbled upon last night in Ivor’s desk.

Robin listened, apparently with attention, until she had finished. Then he picked up a page of the manuscript and held it
alongside
the “Please leave my things alone” note. He examined the latter with especial care.

“Why don’t you answer it?” he enquired at last, dropping it back on to the desk: “Dear Spook: With reference to yours of the 16th, we would like to inform you that your request will be receiving our early attention, and in the meantime why the hell can’t you leave
us
alone?—Signed, Imogen, Robin, Dot, and—”

“Not me! … Don’t include me …!”

Dot clapped her hand over her mouth, as if suddenly conscious of the idiocy of her exclamation. Robin smiled drily.

“Bit slow on the uptake this morning, aren’t we, dear?” he enquired of his sister pityingly.

Imogen did not bother to listen to her retort, or to the boring brother-and-sister wrangling which was bound to follow. They were being useless, both of them: tiresomely and deliberately useless; but suddenly it didn’t matter any more, because she knew, now, what she was going to do. Do entirely by herself, with no need of help or co-operation from either of them.

She should have done it several nights ago, really; but better late than never.

*

It was cold here, behind the floor-length study curtains; colder than she’d imagined it would be, for inside the room the fire still glowed red: in the midnight quiet she could hear, now and then, the soft fall of the coals. But here, in her chosen hiding-place,
the heat did not penetrate. The heavy curtains, chosen specially to keep the draught from Ivor as he worked far into the night, and often into the beginnings of dawn, formed now a total barrier between herself and the warmed room; while behind her were the french windows: nothing but a black, icy expanse of glass between herself and the freezing garden.

She’d been standing here, flattened against the glass, for more than an hour now. She’d heard the clock in the hall strike one, and then two; and still no one had come.

She’d made things as easy as she could for them—even
tempting
. The manuscript open at the right page; pens, pencils, fresh paper all to hand. The front door she’d left unbolted, and slightly ajar, while the study door itself was invitingly half-open, just revealing the faint glow of the dying fire. Never can marauder have encountered so nearly-loving a reception.

Who would it be? Acquaintance? Friend? Close member of the family?

Which was the area of her life which, after tonight’s
revelations
, would never be the same again?

She could feel her mind revolving now, faster and faster, into some kind of half-dream. She pictured first Teri, mincing into the room, skinny and black as a winter twig against the glow of the dying fire. Then Dot, mountainous, larger than life in some kind of spreading cloak. She was laughing, as in real life Dot hardly ever laughed … and then, suddenly, Imogen was wide awake again: tensely, quiveringly awake.

For someone
was
coming. Footsteps, soft as dropped plasticine, were moving across the hall … pausing … lapsing into silence as they reached the open doorway.

A sultry, ominous silence. It was like thunder-clouds gathering in your ears.

Perhaps it had been a mistake to leave the door so invitingly open? Perhaps it had put the visitor on his guard: what are they up to?—why haven’t they shut it as usual?—how can I feel right if I don’t start by turning the door-knob gently, gently, in the way at which I have become so skilled …?

Imogen was intensely, piercingly aware of the unseen eye that must be peering now through the crack of the door, just as her own eye was peering through the crack in the curtains: two glances that must never meet and yet shared an intense,
unspeakable
intimacy as they scanned precisely the same cosy, treacherous scene of firelight and old, well-loved books….

Well, not precisely the same. Ivor’s big leather armchair would be outside the intruder’s field of vision as yet; as also would be the papers, laid out so invitingly, like a flytrap, on the old polished mahogany of the desk. Moreover, the eye at the crack of the door doesn’t know, yet, about its counterpart behind the curtain. It doesn’t know that it is being spied on. All
it
is doing is seeking for general assurance that the room is empty. Compared with this other eye, behind the curtain, it is innocent.

Dark as a tree, the thing came round the door.

Except that trees don’t. The huge, headless thing had moved half way across the room before Imogen took in that from the base of the trunk peeped human feet, bare, and pinkly gleaming in the firelight. And it wasn’t headless at all … nor even huge … quite ordinary in fact, for what she had taken for chest and shoulders was now flung off—a hood merely, loose and dark—revealing—as in any fairy-story—a beautiful girl. The golden hair swung to her waist, and the shadowed curve of the soft cheek took on an unearthly loveliness as she moved into the ambience of the dying fire.

In fact, what with one thing and another, Piggy was hard to recognise. With her hair loose like this … with her usual sullen, wary expression replaced by this look of rapt, incredulous wonder … with the silly, pretentious burnous in the near-darkness swaying like a magic cloak around her—Imogen stared, incredulous, as the girl moved, with incomparable slow grace, towards the centre of the room: towards the big leather chair which had always been Ivor’s.

*

Imogen did not need to peer through the crack between the curtains any more: did not need actually to
see
the girl sinking on
her knees, burying her face in the old, worn leather, and drinking in its nostalgic scent as if it was oxygen and she on the point of death. Nor did Imogen need to hear—indeed, she stopped her ears in order
not
to hear—the endearments, the soft, wild
pleadings
into the empty night:

“Come back, my love! Come back! I’m here, I’m waiting …!”