Perfectly Pure and Good (19 page)

He watched the lawn, noticed with weary guilt the way it resembled a hay field. The night was cooling fast; drizzle made the grass glisten. Tomorrow, time allowing, he could scythe it, tonight all he could see was the ghostly vision of Sarah Fortune, naked against the green. Then he was out of the car, walking automatically towards the cottages, his feet soft on the surface, hissing in the grass. He could say he thought he had heard an intruder; he could say he had come to enquire after her health after Joanna had told him the story of the rogue tide; he could say there was no time to come sooner, which was a lie. He could mention Elisabeth Tysall's headstone and ask Sarah's opinion, but he was still afraid; it was ridiculous and he turned to go back, saw the lamp outside the cottage they had given her, illuminating the scrubby roses and against the block of light from the open door, her figure, bent double. He heard the pitiful bleating of the sheep, heard Sarah's voice, soothing in return. Julian quickened his step. She did not seem remotely surprised to see him.

Òh, it's you. Look, we've got to do something about this sheep.'

`Why?' His own voice sounded like a bleat of protest.

`She's been making a noise all evening, that's why, all afternoon too, butting her head against the door. Took me a while to realize it wasn't a simple desire for my company. One of her horns is growing into her eye.'

Julian squatted on his haunches. The sheep flinched; Sarah pressed the fleece against the frame of the door. He noticed that the left horn was partly swathed in a steaming rag, then saw with horror how the tip had grown at a crooked angle, so that instead of being level with the forehead, it grazed the ball of one bloodshot and weeping eye. There was a hideous sore patch beneath.

`She's in pain. She'll be covered with flies in the morning,' Sarah was saying, matter of factly.

'I've tried to yank the horn back, she's been very good, but the horn's too hard. So I wrapped a hot dishcloth round it. Thought it might soften it. Is that the right thing to do? She doesn't like it.'

Julian swore under his breath, trying to remember any jewels of animal husbandry his father had learned in that last of his many enthusiasms. What was it Father had wanted to do at the time, or was it Mother's idea, collecting rare breeds of sheep? Put something back into the land, Mother had said.

Ì can't see properly,' he muttered, feeling the animal tremble beneath his hand. `Do you mind if we take her inside?'

It was bizarre, standing in the cruel light of the kitchenette where a kettle bubbled on the cooker, with the sheep trying to back away from where he held her between braced legs.

`The heat does seem to soften it. Here, hold on to her muzzle ' Sarah obeyed with both hands.

The terror in the wall eyes of the animal seem to fill the room. Slowly, with considerable strength, Julian lifted the horn with a wringing motion of both his arms, twisting it up and back, well clear of the eye. Quickly Sarah wiped the moisture which had gathered round the wound below. Hettie bucked and reared. Enough was enough. They let her bolt for the door in shambling haste, dishrag unwinding as she went.

`She looks like a woman coming out of the hairdresser's, half done, I never knew sheep needed similar attention.' She had turned to wash her hands in the sink, up to the elbow. Julian did the same.

Ì wouldn't have seen you in the nurse's role,' he said lightly.

Òh, I wouldn't know about that,' Sarah said with equal lightness. 'Would you like a drink?

Plentiful supplies.'

Any animosity between them was gone. He felt himself shiver, remembering the crumpled horn, boring into an animal's head like the memories penetrating his own skull. The cottage was cool indoors, designed to repel heat in summer, preserve it in winter. Sarah was dressed in a cotton sweater, short sleeved with a deep V, buttercup yellow, her hair springy clean, the smell of soap, shampoo and perfume easily overpowering the farmyard traces of sheep and the lingering medicine smell of Miss Gloomer's bedside.

They sat in the small living room. A large shawl of many colours was flung over the sofa; an ugly table lamp had been removed to the floor to diffuse the light, transforming the place so much that even the single bar of the electric fire seemed cheerful. On the first sip, he noticed that her whisky was excellent and she sipped her own with the evident pleasure of a connoisseur.

`Did you detour this way to tell me I was fired?' she asked without rancour, as if the answer did not much matter.

`No. You're retained for having a certain expertise with a sheep. How did you learn that?

She shrugged. The sweater fell away a little at the neck; he noticed two small, raised scars, as if a mole had recently been removed.

Ì really don't know. I don't have any skills, animals are easier than people. Would you like some more?'

The whisky had gone in the twinkling of an eye. He nodded. She rose gracefully, her arm catching the light and he noticed three more of the little scars above one elbow, white against the golden brown of her skin. There was nothing disfiguring in any of the scars, but the sight of them filled him with a peculiar anguish.

`We spoke on Friday,' he said abruptly. 'About the late Elisabeth Tysall. What do you know about her?' Sarah followed the direction of his gaze to the marks on her neck, pulled the neck of the sweater closer to her ears with both hands.

`Nothing while she was alive, but I came to know of her. I know that her husband considered I was her double. I know that he abused her badly and she killed herself off the coast down here.

Let herself drown. Yesterday, I almost found out how. Do you know, if it had been warm, like yesterday, if she was drunk enough, drugged enough to lie down and sleep, it would have been a peaceful death, a simple letting go. No pain.'

`Do you think so?'

`Provided she had no terror. Provided she had consumed enough to want to drift away.'

Julian looked at her closely for signs of flippancy. Now he could see they were not the same, Elisabeth Tysall and this woman at his feet. They had little resemblance apart from the hair and the membership of the same league of female beauty.

Ì should like to know about Elisabeth Tysall,' said Sarah wistfully, 'because no-one ever asked.'

Julian took a large swallow of the whisky and put it down. The prospect of shifting the burden of guilt by speaking of it made him react like the sheep at the end of the unexplained pain, silly and slightly skittish.

`The Tysalls had a cottage here,' he began. 'At least, she made it very much theirs with improvements, but it was rented from us. They appeared to be enormously rich. I suspect the kind of rich who actually owned very little. Not our kind of rich. This isn't a glamorous place, but Elisabeth Tysall liked it. Charles, her husband, let her come here alone, although he was extremely possessive. I supposed he reckoned there was no temptation in a little seaside town.

We aren't exactly endowed with adult attractions. No casinos, no places to be seen. You don't get in the county calendar if you sit in the amusement arcade.' He looked at her meaningfully, met an innocent stare.

`She used to walk a lot. So did I, in those days when this landscape held magic for me.'

He remembered to sip slowly, feeling slightly intoxicated already, speaking faster.

`So I walked with her. I'd met Charles twice, when Father had had them up to the house for a drink. Charles saw me as a boring country bumpkin, the plain man I am. I met Elisabeth for longer in the surgery when she came in for a prescription. I don't know how it happened. I couldn't keep my eyes away. Life became a vacuum between meetings. A week when I didn't see her, and there were plenty of those, was a week in hell. She wrote letters in between, teased me, made me stand back. She was a wise flirt, warned me about Charles's savage jealousy. I told her, leave him: I'll take on the whole world for you; but she said no, you don't know me and no-one ever wins with Charles. Then all of a sudden one weekend, she succumbed. I can't describe it,' he said simply. Ì'd sound like a boy if I tried to describe it.' Julian sat back, exhausted by the memory.

Ì remember telling her, you are so beautiful, you'll immobilize me completely with any other woman. What am I to do if you don't stay with me for ever? Leave him, marry me. I shall never react like this to any other woman, you're so perfect. Don't say that, she kept saying. Please don't say that.' He began to tremble, reached for his glass, let the good whisky slop on the floor.

À fortnight later, she came back. You know how it is when you miss someone so much it hurts.

I'd got myself into a pitch of anger because she hadn't been in touch in any way, no letter, phone call, nothing, and of course I couldn't get in touch with her because of Charles, but I was still mad to see her. My perfect Elisabeth, the fulfilment of all dreams. She wasn't perfect, though, not even remotely beautiful any more. In fact, when she barged into my surgery, she was hardly recognizable apart from the hair. Her face had been cut to ribbons. It might have been glassed: it was difficult to tell with all the stitches and the swelling. I couldn't look at her.'

Julian put his head in his hands, briefly, toyed with his glass, his palms sticky with sweat.

Ì asked her how and why, of course. I think part of my reaction of revulsion, no more or less, was guilt, in case our affair had triggered what had been done to her. It was difficult for her to speak clearly; her mouth had been slit in one corner. She said it was nothing to do with me, Charles had done it on a whim. I didn't believe her. I was stunned and revolted and frightened, so I behaved like an impatient irresponsible doctor. I prescribed for her massive doses of tranquillizers, sleeping aids, told her she'd do best by the healing process if she slept for twenty-four hours. I rang the pharmacy, didn't even volunteer to stay with her. Instead, I went out and got drunk. Paralytic.'

He emptied the tumbler.

`May I have some more of this please, with the reassurance that I'm not going to repeat the exercise now? I've never been drunk since, though God knows I've tried.'

He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the liquid gurgling into his glass. A generous measure, enough to make him shrug to attention. The hand touching his as he took the glass, was warm, encouraging.

Ì suppose it was the next day she disappeared, when I couldn't raise my head off the pillow, cancelled Saturday surgery, where I gathered later, she called to see me. She might not have received a friendly reception, despite her state. They thought she was bad for me and they'd never exactly liked her manner, which was imperious, to say the least. I suppose a woman as beautiful has the right to be rude and defensive, so many people must want to touch.'

He was nursing the whisky rather than drinking it. Sarah sensed a man of iron self-control, who drank not for pleasure, only for oblivion.

Ì assumed she had gone back to her husband. I got a letter from him, some time later, terminating the tenancy on the cottage. I felt, as I should have done, extremely guilty, also relieved. The guilt then was nothing to the guilt a year later, when she was found in the sand banks, half a mile from the quay. The buried body, come back into the land of the living.'

`How did she come to be buried?'

`No-one knows, or if they do, they won't be telling now, but the creeks change shape all the time.

A section of bank could have fallen on her, buried her, then split apart again after months. There was a storm tide the day before she was found. It was the growth of hair, mainly, which indicated how long she'd been there. Then the police investigation, her husband saying she'd never gone back to London at all, he thought she'd gone home to America, which is where she came from originally. Elisabeth was under the sand from almost the day I spoke to her last. I wish there was some doubt: there isn't. I shall always know it was I who put her there. She came to me for help.

The one who was her lover gave her the means for suicide. The last straw. I may as well have ordered her to go and die.'

The whisky was untouched and the room was silent. Julian coughed, painfully.

`Charles came to look at the body of course. He phoned me and I told him he could stay in his old cottage if he wanted, but all he kept asking was how his wife came to be buried in the sand, as if I should know. I was angry with him, short, said I didn't want to know, shouted at him, he should have loved her. It was the same week Father died, my behaviour before that might explain why he didn't trust me. Charles simply wouldn't accept any of the explanations of how Elisabeth had been interred there so long, he wanted me to take him to see the place. I couldn't, wouldn't.

Then I was called to remove his body from where it was washed up. I knew it must be him. Do you know what I did? I kicked that sodden bundle in the ribs, put the last nail in the coffin of my self-esteem. Then I came home to bury my father. I knew then what I've known ever since.' He began to count on his fingers. `Namely, I'm not fit to be a human being among all these decent people here, let alone a doctor. I killed her, you see. I may as well have killed myself.'

Sarah got up and moved into the kitchen area where he could see her putting the kettle on the stove, lighting the gas. A moth came in through the window, fluttered in front of the mirror Joanna had used to dress, reflecting the light from the floor. Julian wanted to stop the sound of the flapping wings round the light.

`Coffee?' Sarah was asking.

`Yes.' He waited, leaned forward and caught the moth in both hands, got up and released it through the open window. Sarah came back, put the coffee on the floor beside the lamp, sat where she had been at his feet. There was nothing submissive in the pose, only a command for attention.

`Now you listen,' she said. 'There's something you should know. Don't ask for the sources of information, just believe, Elisabeth Tysall did not kill herself on your account. She planned it before she came here that last time and nothing was going to stop her. She had written a letter to Ernest Matthewson, deposited with her bank, to be forwarded to him only in the event of her death being confirmed. The bank followed her instructions to the letter. Ernest was ill, his wife intercepted the letter and finally, gave it to me. I showed it to a friend — no-one else. Elisabeth stated on page one exactly what she was going to do, how and where.