Why Aren't They Screaming? (2 page)

‘Loretta Lawson?' The woman's voice was brisk and upper middle class, not one that Loretta recognized. ‘Ah, good,' she said when Loretta had identified herself. ‘So glad to have caught you. You weren't in bed, I hope? Clara Wolstonecroft here, I'm a friend of Bridget Bennett's. Has she spoken to you?'

Loretta murmured that she had.

‘I thought so. I tried your number earlier and it was engaged. She's told you about the cottage?'

Clara's diction was loud and clear, as if she was used to communicating with foreigners whose grasp of English could not be relied upon. Loretta had a momentary flashback to her schooldays when she had habitually been addressed in this manner by her rather grand Latin teacher. She struggled to repel the vision of herself in bottle-green uniform that Clara had unknowingly conjured up.

‘So do you think you might be able to move in for a few
weeks? Actually' – Clara's voice dropped to a tone that was probably intended to be confiding – ‘you'd be doing me the most tremendous favour. It's a trifle delicate, as a matter of fact. The thing is – goodness, how thoughtless of me, bothering you with all my problems when you're feeling like a squashed hedgehog! My niece had glandular fever once, she looked quite appalling. How about it?'

‘It's very kind of you ...' Loretta began, her doubts about the project suddenly returning. Clara's eagerness to have her as a tenant, combined with the mysterious reference to a ‘tremendous favour', had unnerved her. Did Clara have an ulterior motive for wanting her there? And what could it be? Loretta was still trying to frame a tactful inquiry that might elicit answers to these questions when Clara interrupted her.

‘That's settled then,' she announced, either misinterpreting Loretta's hesitant response or pretending that she had. ‘How soon can you move in? Is Saturday all right? Let's make it Saturday – Wayne's moving out in the morning, thank God, and I'll invite some of the neighbours round to supper to meet you. We don't want you to be lonely! Come around five, that'll give Mrs Abbott time to clear up the mess in the cottage. By the way, you don't have any unusual hobbies, do you?'

Loretta said that she didn't, even more perplexed. What on earth had her predecessor as Clara's tenant been up to? All she'd gathered about Wayne was that he was American and lectured on Ernest Hemingway: did that offer any clue? Casting her mind back to her meagre store of knowledge on Hemingway, the first thing Loretta came up with was bull-fighting, which was obviously out; it seemed highly unlikely that Wayne had rustled a local cow and made passes at it with his gown in the garden outside the cottage. The other pastimes she associated with Hemingway, drinking and shooting, seemed much more possible. Wrinkling her nose, Loretta hoped she wouldn't find a cache of empty bottles under the bed, or, even worse, the remains – feathers perhaps? – of any harmless creature Wayne had blasted out of the sky. Deciding that these reflections were further evidence of her feverish state, Loretta turned to the business of taking down Clara's instructions on how to get to her house to
collect keys to the cottage. Ten minutes later she went to bed, more than a little concerned about what to expect from her hastily arranged visit to Oxfordshire.

Moving out of London at three days' notice, even for a short period, posed more problems than Loretta had anticipated. There were discussions at college as to how her work should be shared out among colleagues over the next few weeks; clothes to be cleaned and packed (a task made all the more difficult by Loretta's resistance to what she thought of as ‘country' clothes and their consequent absence from her wardrobe); books to be returned and borrowed from the London Library; and arrangements to be made with her downstairs neighbour to water plants and forward mail. She was quite relieved when she shut the front door of her flat on Saturday morning and carried her bags down to her white Panda. She had arranged to stop for lunch at an Indian restaurant in Holloway Road with a friend from her department, and it was just after three when she finally set off for Clara's.

The weather was warm and sunny, just as it should be but rarely is in mid-May, and she was in high spirits. These slumped suddenly on the M40 just beyond High Wycombe as a bout of tiredness combined with an unwelcome thought: she had not travelled along this road since the previous autumn, when she'd had a brief and exceedingly painful affair with someone she'd met at Bridget's house in Oxford. She wondered fretfully whether this was an omen for the present trip, then laughed at herself. Usually the least superstitious of people, she had recently discovered a morbid tendency, which she attributed to her illness, to seek out signs and coincidences. Pop music was the answer to this non-sense, she decided; picking up a tape from the parcel shelf, she pushed it into the cassette player and filled the car with Tina Turner. She sang along happily, and in no time at all she was at the end of the motorway and had spotted the right turn off the A40 to Forest Hill.

Turning off the main road, Loretta drove along a twisting lane through the village and found herself in what seemed like another world. The hedgerows to either side groaned
under a weight of white blossom, and the fields were a patchwork of bright and mossy greens. She passed thatched cottages so overgrown with lilac and white flowers that they themselves might have been rooted to the spot. A herd of long-horned cattle gazed incuriously at her from a field; one of them, larger than the rest, rubbed his head patiently against the top strand of the wire fence. A couple of miles further into this paradise Loretta saw a road to her right and a sign pointing along it to the village of Flitwell. Although this was Clara's postal address, Loretta followed her instructions and drove on, keeping an eye out for the narrow lane which apparently preceded the house. In the event, she saw the house first, a long and slightly forbidding building standing alone on the right-hand side of the road, flanked on either side by trees. The lane, down which Loretta had been told to drive, was so overhung that it looked like the entrance to a tunnel; the diminution of light when the car began to make its way down the narrow hill was startling. At the bottom she saw a dusty lay-by to her left, empty even though it was large enough for several cars, and parked. Deciding to leave her luggage in the car for the time being she made her way back up the hill. It was steep, and she found herself panting before she reached the top. Turning right at the main road, she stopped for a moment to get her breath back and take in the details of Clara's house. She was in the right place; a modest wooden sign above the front door bore the name ‘Baldwin's'. Loretta wondered whether it had been built, or at least owned, by someone of that name. A member of Clara's family, perhaps? The house was low and, had it not been constructed of a honey-coloured stone which Loretta took to be local, might well have appeared – unfriendly? It seemed the wrong sort of word to apply to a house, but the building certainly hadn't been designed to impress the visitor with its open charm. It was asymmetrical in shape, the front door and window to each side being bunched at one end, next to the lane. To the left, a blank wall stretched for several yards. It looked, in fact, as though a barn and a house had lurched drunkenly together after some bucolic revel and failed to part. The upper storey showed even less evidence that it was part of a dwelling; only one window, situated directly above
the front door, provided a break in the façade. Loretta wondered if the builder had been particularly unsociable, or whether he had simply intended to shield his affairs from the gaze of passers-by. Not that there could be many of those; peering in both directions, she noticed that Baldwin's was the only house in sight.

Realizing she had been standing in the road for several minutes, Loretta stepped forward and lifted the knocker, an evil-looking brass sprite with one leg folded across the other. As she brought it down, the sound was completely drowned by the sudden roar of a plane passing low overhead. She stepped back and stared up into the sky, but it was gone. Loretta moved closer to the door and tried again. This time the sound echoed through the house, but she heard no evidence of occupation. Loretta looked at her watch, satisfied herself that she wasn't early, and knocked a third time. Just as she was beginning to think no one was in, the door finally opened.

‘Sorry,' said the young woman half-hidden behind it. ‘I was in the bath.' As she opened the door wider, Loretta saw that the girl was wearing nothing but a large white bath towel which she had clutched to her chest; it made a rather fetching contrast to her thick chin-length black hair. ‘I hoped I'd have finished by the time you got here,' she went on, stepping back so that Loretta could enter the hall.

It was light and spacious, with a colourful tiled floor, and Loretta's first impression of the house as unwelcoming was immediately dispelled. She was facing a back door which led into a conservatory; to her right, a door stood open into the kitchen, and wide stairs rose to the upper floor. To her left, a long corridor stretched along the blank front wall of the house. The wallpaper, wild flowers on an off-white background, was dotted with a startling collection of water-colours, oriental prints and china plates.

‘I was absolutely filthy, everything's in chaos today,' the girl went on. ‘Clara's still up at the peace camp, they're trying to get enough tents up before it gets dark. She was going to ring you to let you know about Wayne but I expect she forgot. She's been at the camp most of the day. Anyway, I'm sure we can sort something out. Why don't you put the kettle on and
I'll be down in a minute. Through there,' she said, indicating the kitchen door and heading for the stairs.

Loretta made to follow her, and realized she didn't know the girl's name, or who she was.

‘Wait a minute – you said something about Wayne – is there a problem?' Her heart was sinking at the prospect of having to turn round and drive back to London.

‘Only that the little shit has decided not to move out till tomorrow,' the girl called cheerfully from the top of the stairs. She stopped and leaned over the banister. ‘But Clara said not to worry, we'll fix you up here and you can still meet the neighbours. Though God knows what they're going to eat, I don't think Clara's thought about food. But I dare say she'll manage, she always does. I'm Imogen, by the way, Clara's my mother. You can call me Imo. I take it you're Loretta? Bit silly if you weren't.'

With this she disappeared, leaving Loretta to make her way to the kitchen. It was an L-shaped room, with one window giving on to the main road and another, which hadn't been visible from the front, looking out on to the trees which overhung the side lane. It was a dark room, but not unpleasant; a deep red Edwardian wallpaper covered the walls and gave an impression of cosiness which was enhanced by the presence of an Aga. Suddenly aware of how weary she was – this damned illness, she thought – Loretta pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. She was very glad that she wouldn't have to return to London that night, even though Imo's promise of alternative accommodation had been a bit vague. She wondered if Imo, with her dark hair and white skin, resembled her mother. Bridget hadn't mentioned Clara's daughter, perhaps because the girl looked the sort of age at which she might be away at university or college. Maybe Imo was home for the weekend? And was the girl's father about to appear? Loretta assumed all would become clear in the course of the weekend.

Remembering Imo's suggestion that she put the kettle on, Loretta got up and looked for an electric kettle. It took her a couple of minutes to realize there wasn't one. Instead, a heavy, old-fashioned whistling kettle of a type she hadn't seen since childhood was standing half-full on the shelf
above the Aga. Loretta lifted it down, added more water, and raised one of the two chrome lids which covered the hob. She had an idea that one end would turn out to be hotter than the other and was about to try the second when she was startled by a crash from the hall. Her first thought was that she was about to come face to face with a burglar, and she looked round wildly for anything that might serve as a weapon. At the same time she heard a sliding noise, as if a heavy object was being pushed or pulled laboriously across the floor. Next came a series of panted curses.

‘Bloody
thing!' she heard, then a noise like a kick and a muttered ‘ow'. This was followed by the same voice uttering, or rather bellowing, a single word:
‘Clara!'

Loretta unfroze and moved towards the door. Since the newcomer knew her hostess, it seemed unlikely that he was a burglar. But how had he got into the house? Loretta was sure she had closed the front door behind her.

‘Clara!'
The voice was even more impatient. ‘Oh God, where
is
the woman?'

Loretta opened the kitchen door and collided with the owner of the voice. As she fell back into the room she realized she was still clutching the pewter jug of dried flowers she had grasped a moment before in lieu of a weapon. She thrust it behind her, feeling for the edge of the table, meanwhile surveying the newcomer with as much equanimity as she could muster. He was looking at her oddly, and Loretta felt she couldn't blame him in the circumstances.

‘Can I help?' she asked brightly, crossing her arms in front of her as though she'd never been near the flowers, which were now back in place on the table.

‘I'm looking for Clara,' the man said, still observing her warily. He was in his late thirties or early forties, thin and dark, with rather intense eyes.

‘She isn't here, she's at the peace camp.' Loretta repeated the information Imo had given her, realizing as she did so that she knew nothing about the camp – its location, or Clara's connection with it. She hadn't even been aware that there
was
a peace camp anywhere in the vicinity of Flitwell.