Ivy Tree (35 page)

"I might count it an achievement to have made the police take a look at you."

"At me?" For a moment I regarded him blankly. "Oh, that" It must have been obvious that I genuinely hadn't realised for a moment what he was talking about. I thought he was disconcerted, but he said steadily: "I promised I'd warn you. Here's the warning, now. I'll give you twenty-four hours, as from now, to make your break with Connor, and leave. I don't care what story you tell, or what excuse you offer, but you must break this thing up, and go. And don't imagine that, in the event of Mr. Winslow's death, you can come back. I promise you that if 'Annabel' is a legatee in his Will, and turns up to lay claim to a single penny of it, I'll have you investigated so thoroughly that you won't see the outside of Durham Gaol for ten years. And what will happen to Connor and his sister, I neither know nor care." Through the ensuing silence the tap dripped, a small maddening sound, like a reiterated note on a harpsichord, a little out of tune.

"Adam." Rigid self-control made my voice colourless almost to stupidity. In the harsh light his face was as hard as stone, and as strange. There was nothing in it but weariness and contempt. "Adam, I—I didn't mean to have to tell you now, because I—I felt as if I couldn't face it just yet. But I can't let you go on thinking ..." I stopped, and took a breath, as though the place were stuffy, and I needed the air. "I lied to you the other night by the sundial."

"Really?" The lift of his brows was cruelly ironic.

"Oh, not the way you think! You got the lies and the truth inverted, and I let it stay that way, because I couldn't stand the truth any longer... it was easier to let you believe I was a liar and a cheat than to—to have to face you as myself. You see," I finished, "I really am Annabel Winslow."

"Well?"

"You... you don't believe me?"

"I find it interesting to try to follow this extraordinary game of yours. But I'm afraid I'm in no mood for it tonight." "But I am Annabel 11 am I"

"I assure you that if you stay around, you'll have plenty of chance to prove it." My voice was beginning to shake loose from that precarious control. "If you forced that on me, mightn't you find it a bit embarrassing?"

He laughed. "All this, and blackmail too?"

"No, oh no! I only meant that there might be questions that only I—and you—could answer. If you tried that tack ..." I struck my hand suddenly against the metal side of the cooler and cried, passionately: "Why did I ever start this god-damned, stupid thing? I might have known—I did know! Talk about Julie being immature and romantic-minded! Will I ever grow up? Letters in the ivy tree, meetings in the summer-house, and now, when I ought to know better, this—this stupid, stupid business that was meant to make me feel safe, and it's only frightening me to death!" I blazed round at him. "All right I So you don't believe me! Go on, call my bluff! What do you want to ask?"

He stood there for a moment longer, his eyes vacant almost, like the eyes of someone suffering from shock. Then, without a word, he turned on his heel and went out of the byre.

•••

I found I was leaning against the chilly metal of the cooler. The shaking had stopped, but I felt cold, with a sweating, empty slackness, like someone who has just vomited. My brain felt bruised, and incapable of any thought except a formless desire to get to bed, and sleep.

"Well, by God!" said Con, just behind me.

Even then, I turned slowly, and stared at him with what must have been a blank and stupid look. "Where were you?" Then, my voice tautening: "How much did you hear?" He laughed, and lounged out of the inner shed into the light. He looked quite composed, even over-composed, and his eyes were brilliant and his expression confident. His mouth was cut a little at the comer, and a graze showed swollen, but it only served to lend him a sort of extra rakish attraction. He came close to me, and stood there, hands deep in pockets, swaying backwards and forwards on his heels, graceful and collected. "Oh, I kept my distance I thought that Forrest and I hadn't much to say to one another, girl dear. And I thought that maybe you'd handle him a bit better than I could. And it seems I was right, me jewel. Was it you switched the engines off?"

"Yes. As an alibi for murder it wasn't bad, on the spur of the moment, Con." The brilliant eyes narrowed momentarily. "Who's talking about murder now?"

"I am. You switched the engines on, and the lights, so that they could be seen and heard from the house, and then you ran upstream and across the stepping-stones, and met Julie in the clearing."

"And if I did?" The bright eyes were narrow and dangerous. He had stopped swaying. Suddenly I realised what I should have known even before he came so near. He was drunk. I could smell whisky on his breath.

"And if I did?" he said gently.

"Adam was right. You did mean to kill her. there, Con."

There was a little silence. His eyes never wavered. He said again, softy: "And if I did?" I said steadily: "Only this, that if you thought I'd stand for anything like that, you must be a fool and an imbecile. Or don't you think at all? What sort of person d'you think I am? You said yourself not long ago that you knew I was straight, heaven help us, because otherwise you'd have been too scared of my trying to twist you in what we're doing. Well, you blundering criminal fool, did you really think I'd see you kill Julie, and not send the whole works sky-high, myself included?"

He was laughing now, completely unabashed. "All right, me darlin', murder's off the cards, is it? But you know, I'm not the fool you make me out to be. You weren't supposed to know anything about it. Oh, you might have suspected all you liked in the morning, when her poor drowned body came up on the shingle, but what could you prove? You'd have kept quiet, and held your grandpa's hand, wouldn't you?"

"Oh my God," I said, "and to think I felt sorry for you tonight, because you were so much alone."

"Well," said Con cheerfully, "there's no harm done, is there, except a little keepsake from Forrest," He touched his cheek. "Did you manage to shut the bastard up after all?"

"I don't know.'*

He had begun to rock on his heels again. Somewhere behind die brilliant gaze was amusement, and wariness, and a speculation that for some reason made my skin crawl.

" 'Adam', wasn't it, now? How do you come to be calling him 'Adam', girl dear?" My heart gave a jerk that sickened me. I said, and was relieved to find that my voice sounded nothing but normal, and very tired: "That was one thing you and Lisa slipped up on. They must have got to Christian names. When I went today to get the strawberries, he called me 'Annabel'... And now I'm going in. I can't talk to you tonight. I'm tired, and you're in the wrong kind of mood. Sufficient unto the day. You're luckier than you deserve that nothing's happened; and I can't even guess what Adam Forrest'll do tomorrow, but, just at the moment, I don't care."

"That's my girl." He spoke a little thickly. Before I realised what he was doing, his hands came out and he took me by the shoulders. His eyes between the beautiful lashes were sapphire-blue and laughing, and only slightly liquid with drink. "It's beautiful you are, acushla, did you know?"

"I could hardly avoid it, with Julie in front of me all day."

His teeth showed. "Good for you. But you take the shine out of Julie, bejasus and you do. Look, now—" I stood stiffly under his hands. "Con, you're drunk, and you're getting maudlin, and I loathe this stage Irishry anyway. If you think you can plan to murder Julie, and then bat off and drink yourself stupid, and then come and blarney me with a lot of phoney Irish, you can damned well think again. And—" this as he moved, still smiling, and his hands tightened—"if you try to kiss me, that'll be another slap on the jaw you'll get, so I'm giving you fair warning."

His hands slackened, and dropped. He had flushed a little, but he still smiled. I said levelly: "Now, for heaven's sake, Con, get to bed and sleep it off, and pray to every saint in heaven that Adam Forrest chooses to hold his tongue. And take it from me, this is the last time I cover up any single thing for you. Good night."

As I reached the doorway I looked back. He was standing looking after me with an expression where I could only read amusement and affection. He looked handsome and normal and quite sober and very nice. He smiled charmingly: "Good night, Annabel."

I said shortly: "Don't forget to put the light out," and went quickly across the yard.

I wrote a letter to my love,

And on the way I lost it; One of you has picked it up.

And put it in her pocket.

Traditional.

I HARDLY slept that night. I lay, it seemed for hours, watching the wheeling moonlight outside the open curtains, while my mind, too exhausted for sleep, scratched and fretted its way round the complications of this absurd, this crazy masquerade.

I suppose I dozed a little, for I don't remember when the moon went down and the light came. I remember realising that the dark had slackened, and then, later, a blackbird fluted a piercing stave of song alone in the cold dawn. After he fell silent there was a deep hush, for the space of a long breath, and then, suddenly, all the birds in the world were chattering, whistling, jargoning in a mad medley of sound. In spite of my weariness and my fears, I found myself smiling. I had never heard the dawn chorus before. It was an ill wind, indeed, that blew no good.

" My moment of delight must have worked like the Ancient Mariner's spontaneous prayer, for soon afterwards I fell deeply asleep. When I looked at the window again it was full daylight, and the birds were singing normally in the trees. I felt wide awake, with that floating bodiless calm that sometimes comes after a night of scanty sleeping. I got up, and went over to the window,

It must be still very early. The dew was thick, grey almost as frost, on grass and leaf. The air smelt thin and cool, like polished silver. It was very still, with the promise of close and thundery heat to come. Far away, from the direction of West Lodge, I heard a cock crow thinly. Through a gap in the trees to my left I saw the distant glint or chestnut, where the Forrest colt moved, cropping the wet grass. Sometimes, I think, our impulses come not from the past, but from the future. Before I had even clearly thought what I was doing, I had slipped into narrow grey trousers and a pale yellow shirt, had dashed cold water on my face, run a comb through my hair, and was out of my room, sliding downstairs as quietly as a shadow. The house slept on, undisturbed. I tiptoed out through the kitchen, and ten minutes later, bridle in hand, I was letting myself in through the gate of the meadow where Rowan grazed. I kept clear of the gap in the trees, so that, even if someone else were awake at Whitescar, I couldn't be seen. I moved quietly along under the hedge, towards the horse. He had raised his , handsome head as soon as I appeared, and now watched intently, ears pricked forward. I stopped under the guelder-rose, where there was a gap in the hedge and a couple of railings. I sat on the top one and waited, dangling the bridle. The panicles of guelder-rose, thick-coloured as Devonshire cream, spilled dew on to my shoulder, chilly through the thin shirt. I rubbed the damp patch, and shifted along the railing, so that the early sunshine struck my shoulders.

Rowan was coming. He paced forward slowly, with a sort of grave beauty, like a creature out of the pages of poetry written when the world was young and fresh, and always just waking to an April morning. His ears were pricked so far forward that the tips almost met, his eyes large and dark, and mildly curious. His nostrils were flared, and their soft edges flickered as he tested the air towards me. The long grass swished under his hoofs, scattering the dew in bright, splashing showers. The buttercup petals were falling, and his hoofs and fetlocks were flecked gold with them, plastered there by the dew. Then he was a yard away, pausing: just a large, curious, hardly-broken young horse staring at me with dark eyes that showed, at the edge, that unquiet hint of white. I said: "Hi, Rowan," but I didn't move. He stretched his neck, blew gustily, then came on. Still I didn't move. His ears twitched back, forward again, sensitive as snail's horns, as radar antennae. His nostrils were blown wide, puffing sweet breath at my legs, at my waist, at my neck. He mouthed my sleeve, then took it in his teeth and tugged it. I put a hand on his neck, and felt the muscles run and shiver along under the warm skin. I ran the hand up to his ears, and he bent his head, blowing at my feet. My hand slipped up to the long tangled forelock, and held it, I slid slowly off the fencebar, and he didn't try to move away, but put his head down and rubbed it violently up my body, jamming me back against the railings. I laughed at him and said softly: "You beauty, you love, you lovely boy, stand still now, quiet now . .." and then turned him, with the hand on his forelock, till his quarters were against the railings, and his forehand free. Then with my other hand, still talking, I brought the bit up to his muzzle.

"Come along now, my beauty, my darling boy, come along." The bit was between his lips and against his teeth. He held them shut against it for a few seconds; I thought he was going to veer away, but he didn't. He opened his teeth, and accepted the steel warm from my hand. The bit slipped softly back into the corners of his mouth, and the bridle slid over his cars; then the rein was looped round my arm and I was fastening the cheek-strap, rubbing his ears, between his eyes, sliding my hand down the springy arch of his neck.

I mounted from the top of the fence, and he came up against it and stood as if he had done it every day of his life. Then he moved away from it smoothly and softly, and only when I turned him towards the length of the field did he begin to gather himself and dance, and bunch his muscles as if to defy me to hold him. I'm not, in fact, quite sure how I did. He went at a canter, that lengthened too quickly towards a gallop, to the far corner of the long meadow, where there was a narrow wicket giving on the flat grass of the river's edge. He was biddable enough at the wicket, so that I guessed that Adam Forrest had taken him this way, and taught him his manners at the gates. But, once through the wicket, he danced again, and the sun danced and dazzled too, down through the lime leaves, and the feel of his bare back warm and shifting with muscle between my thighs was exciting, so that I went mad all at once, and laughed, and said, "All right, have it your own way," and let him go; and he went, like a bat out of hell along the flat turf of the river's edge, with that smooth lovely motion that was as easy to sit as an armchair; and I wound my right hand in his mane and stuck on like a burr to his withers with too-long-disused muscles that began to ache before long, and I said, "Hi, Rowan, it's time we got back. I don't want to get you in a lather, or there'll be questions asked.. ." His ears moved back to my voice, and for a second or two after X began to draw rein, he resisted, leaning on the bit, and I wondered if I could manage to check and turn him. I slackened the bit for a moment to break his stride, and, as it broke, pulled him in. He came sweetly, ears flickering back to me, and then pointing again as he turned. I sang to him, mad now as the morning: "Oh, you beauty, you beauty, you love, home now, and steady ..."