Mr Wrong (24 page)

‘Sharon,’ he whispered; ‘Sharon, Sharon,’ and stretched down his fingers to her in the dark.

Instantly her hand was in his, each smooth and separate finger warmly clasped. She did not move or speak, but his relief was indescribable and for a long while he lay in an ecstasy of delight
and peace, until his mind slipped imperceptibly with her fingers into oblivion.

When he woke he found John absent and Sharon standing over the primus. ‘He’s outside,’ she said.

‘Have I overslept again?’

‘It is late. I am boiling water for you now.’

‘We’d better try and get some supplies this morning.’

‘There is no village,’ she said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

‘What?’

‘John says not. But we have enough food, if you don’t mind this queer milk from a tin.’

‘No, I don’t mind,’ he replied, watching her affectionately. ‘It doesn’t really surprise me,’ he added after a moment.

‘The village?’

‘No village. Yesterday I should have minded awfully.

Is that you, do you think?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘It doesn’t surprise you about the village at all, does it? Do you love me?’

She glanced at him quickly, a little shocked, and said quietly: ‘Don’t you know?’ then added: ‘It doesn’t surprise me.’

John seemed very disturbed. ‘I don’t like it,’ he kept saying as they shaved. ‘Can’t understand it at all. I could have sworn there were houses last night. You saw
them didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, don’t you think it’s very odd?’

‘I do.’

‘Everything looks the same as yesterday morning. I don’t like it.’

‘It’s an adventure, you must admit.’

‘Yes, but I’ve had enough of it. I suggest we turn back.’

Sharon suddenly appeared, and, seeing her, Clifford knew that he did not want to go back. He remembered her saying:
‘Didn’t you say you wanted to explore?’ She would think him weak-hearted if they turned back all those dreary miles with nothing to show for it. At breakfast, he exerted himself
in persuading John to the same opinion. John finally agreed to one more day, but, in turn, extracted a promise that they would then go back whatever happened. Clifford agreed to this, and Sharon
for some inexplicable reason laughed at them both. So that eventually they prepared to set off in an atmosphere of general good humour.

Sharon began to fill the water-tank with their four-gallon can. It seemed too heavy for her, and John dropped the starter and leapt to her assistance.

She let him take the can and held the funnel for him. Together they watched the rich, even stream of water disappear.

‘You shouldn’t try to do that,’ he said. ‘You’ll hurt yourself.’

‘Gipsies do it,’ she said.

‘I’m awfully sorry about that. You know I am.’

‘I shouldn’t have minded if you had thought I was a gipsy.’

‘I do like you,’ he said, not looking at her. ‘I do like you. You won’t disappear altogether when this is over, will you?’

‘You probably won’t find I’ll disappear for good,’ she replied comfortingly.

‘Come on,’ shouted Clifford.

It’s all right for
him
to talk to her, John thought, as he struggled to swing the starter. He just doesn’t like me doing it; and he wished, as he had often begun to do, that
Clifford was not there.

They had spasmodic engine trouble in the morning, which slowed them down; and the consequent halts, with the difficulty they experienced of mooring anywhere (the banks seemed nothing but marsh),
were depressing and cold. Their good spirits evaporated: by lunch-time John was plainly irritable and frightened, and Clifford had begun to hate the grey silent land on either side, with the woods
and hills which remained so consistently distant. They both wanted to give it up by then, but John felt bound to stick to his promise, and Clifford was secretly sure that Sharon wished to
continue.

While she was preparing another late lunch, they saw a small boy who stood on what once had been the towpath watching them. He was bare-headed, wore corduroy, and had no shoes. He held a long
reed, the end of which he chewed as he stared at them.

‘Ask him where we are,’ said John; and Clifford asked.

He took the reed out of his mouth, but did not reply.

‘Where do you live then?’ asked Clifford as they drew almost level with him.

‘I told you. Three miles up,’ he said; and then he gave a sudden little shriek of fear, dropped the reed, and turned to run down the bank the way they had come. Once he looked back,
stumbled and fell, picked himself up sobbing, and ran faster. Sharon had appeared with lunch a moment before, and together they listened to his gasping cries growing fainter and fainter, until he
had run himself out of their sight.

‘What on earth frightened him?’ said Clifford.

‘I don’t know. Unless it was Sharon popping out of the cabin like that.’

‘Nonsense. But he was a very frightened little boy. And, I say, do you realize . . .’

‘He was a very foolish little boy,’ Sharon interrupted. She was angry, Clifford noticed with surprise, really angry, white and trembling, and with a curious expression which he did
not like.

‘We might have got something out of him,’ said John sadly.

‘Too late now,’ Sharon said. She had quite recovered herself.

They saw no one else. They journeyed on throughout the afternoon; it grew colder, and at the same time more and more airless and still. When the light began to fail, Sharon disappeared as usual
to the cabin. The canal became more tortuous, and John asked Clifford to help him with the turns. Clifford complied unwillingly: he did not want to leave Sharon, but as it had been he who had
insisted on their continuing, he could hardly refuse. The turns were nerve-racking, as the canal was very narrow and the light grew worse and worse.

‘All right if we stop soon?’ asked John eventually.

‘Stop now if you like.’

‘Well, we’ll try and find a tree to tie up to. This swamp is awful. Can’t think how that child ran.’

‘That child . . .’ began Clifford anxiously; but John, who had been equally unnerved by the incident, and did not want to think about it, interrupted. ‘Is there a tree ahead
anywhere?’

‘Can’t see one. There’s a hell of a bend coming though. Almost back on itself. Better slow a bit more.’

‘Can’t. We’re right down as it is.’

They crawled round, clinging to the outside bank, which seemed always to approach them, its rushes to rub against their bows, although
the wheel was hard over. John grunted with relief, and they both stared ahead for the next turn.

They were presented with the most terrible spectacle. The canal immediately broadened, until no longer a canal but a sheet, an infinity, of water stretched ahead; oily, silent, and still, as far
as the eye could see, with no country edging it, nothing but water to the low grey sky above it. John had almost immediately cut out the engine, and now he tried desperately to start it again, in
order to turn round. Clifford instinctively glanced behind them. He saw no canal at all, no inlet, but grasping and close to the stern of the boat, the reeds and rushes of a marshy waste closing in
behind them. He stumbled to the cabin doors and pulled them open. It was very neat and tidy in there, but empty. Only one stern door of the cabin was free of its catch, and it flapped irregularly
backwards and forwards with their movements in the boat.

There was no sign of Sharon at all.

Praise for Elizabeth Jane Howard

‘She is one of those novelists who shows, through her work, what the novel is for . . . She helps us to do the necessary thing – open our eyes and our
hearts’

Hilary Mantel

‘Magnificent, addictive . . . deeply enjoyable, beautifully written’

The Times

‘Elegantly constructed and intelligently and wittily written . . . remarkable’

Daily Telegraph

‘A compelling storyteller, shrewd and accurate in human observation, with a fine ear for dialogue and an evident pleasure in the English language and landscape’

Guardian

‘Howard is such an astute observer of human behaviour. She conveys volumes with tiny, brilliant touches . . . This is Howard’s true magic: her humanity transcends
the individual’

Sunday Times

‘Love and relationships are the abiding themes of Howard’s novels . . . [this is] a novel about constants – loyalty, kindness, compassion – and like the
best of its characters, never less than heart-warming and wise’

Observer

‘A dazzling historical reconstruction’

Penelope Fitzgerald

‘A lyrical read full of period detail pricked with the sharp emotional intelligence for which Howard is rightly feted’

Literary Review

‘Howard has lost none of her creative imagination, none of her insight, none of her comedy and none of that rare and miraculous ability to magic us into a room with the
characters’

Spectator

‘Beautifully written and utterly engrossing’

Woman and Home

‘Howard’s brilliance lies in her forensic depiction of sexual and emotional loneliness’

Times Literary Supplement

‘A compelling insight into love, relationships and a fascinating time. It is a real treat’

Sunday Express

‘The Cazalets have earned an honoured place among the great saga families . . . rendered thrillingly three-dimensional by a master craftsman’

Sunday Telegraph

‘Charming, poignant and quite irresistible . . . to be cherished and shared’

The Times

‘Superb . . . hypnotic . . . very funny’

Spectator

‘A family saga of the best kind . . . a must’

Tatler

‘As polished, stylish and civilized as her many devotees would expect’

Julian Barnes

‘An intelligent and perceptive writer’

Peter Ackroyd

‘She writes brilliantly and her characters are always totally believable. She makes you laugh, she sometimes shocks, and often makes you cry’

Rosamunde Pilcher

Elizabeth Jane Howard was the author of fifteen highly acclaimed novels. The Cazalet Chronicles –
The Light Years
,
Marking Time
,
Confusion
and
Casting Off
– have become established as modern classics and have been adapted for a major BBC television series and most recently for BBC Radio 4. In 2002 Macmillan published
Elizabeth Jane Howard’s autobiography,
Slipstream
. In that same year she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. She died in January 2014, following the
publication of the fifth Cazalet novel,
All Change
.

ALSO BY ELIZABETH JANE HOWARD

Love All

The Beautiful Visit

The Long View

The Sea Change

After Julius

Odd Girl Out

Something in Disguise

Getting It Right

Falling

The Cazalet Chronicles

The Light Years

Marking Time

Confusion

Casting Off

All Change

Non-Fiction

The Lover’s Companion

Green Shades

Slipstream

First published 1975 by Jonathan Cape Ltd

This electronic edition published 2015 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-5098-1612-5

Copyright © Elizabeth Jane Howard 1975

Cover design: Katie Tooke, Pan Macmillan Art Department

Cover Photograph © Olga Astratova / Trevillion Images

The right of Elizabeth Jane Howard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

‘Toutes Directions’ was first published in
Cosmopolitan
in 1973

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
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liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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