"Asking For The Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hill Reginald)

CHAPTER I

Oh, the bells, bells, bells! What a tale their terror tells.

The phone rang.

Swithenbank heard his mother answer it.

'John!' she called. 'It's for you.'

Stuffing the last fragments of toast into his mouth, he rose and went into the hall.

'Hello,' he said.

Everything was quiet. It was like being in church. The morning sun could only manage a dim religious light through the circle of stained glass in the front door and the smell of pine-scented polish was as heavy as incense on the dank autumn air. Could he not have noticed how cold it was here in his childhood? He vowed to bring an electric blanket if he came at Christmas. If he came.

'Hello? Hello!' he said and put the receiver down.

'Mother!' he called.

Mrs Swithenbank appeared at the head of the stairs. Her hair was a deep shade of lavender this month. For a woman in her late fifties, she had a trim elegant figure despite an enormous appetite which she never hesitated to indulge.

'Who was it on the phone?' asked her son.

'Didn't she tell you, dear?'

'She? No, the line was dead.'

'Was it? Oh dear. Perhaps she'll ring again.'

'Didn't she give a name?'

'I think so, dear. I always ask who's calling. In case it's Boris or one of the others so I can say you're out. Though I don't really like to lie.'

'It's just the modern equivalent of the butler saying I'm not at home, Mother,' said Swithenbank in exasperation. 'So, what did this woman say?'

'Well, to tell the truth, I didn't really catch it, she had such a funny voice. Very distant somehow. But it wasn't Boris or any of the others. I mean, I know it wasn't Boris, because it was a girl. But it wasn't Stella or Ursula either, or I'd have said.'

'Oh Mother!'

'It sounded a very odd name,' she said defensively. 'Una something, I think. I'm sorry I missed it, but after all, dear, I'm not your secretary. I'm sure she'll ring again.'

The phone rang.

Swithenbank snatched it up.

'Wearton two-seven-nine,' he said.

'John, dear fellow! Caught you at last. How are you?'

'Hello, Boris,' said Swithenbank, scowling at his mother's retreating back. 'I'm fine. I was going to call before I went back.'

'I would be devastated if you didn't. In fact that's why I'm ringing really. I'm having a few of the locals round for drinks tomorrow, Saturday, about seven-thirty. I thought I'd ask our old gang to hang on for a bite of supper afterwards. You know, Stella and Geoff, Ursula and Peter.'

'I know who the old gang are,' said Swithenbank acidly.

'We're all dying to see you again. It's been six months at wasn't it?'

'Yes. I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the funeral, Boris.'

'Don't worry. We all understand. It's been difficult for you.' The voice dropped a sympathetic semi-tone. 'No word yet? On Kate, I mean.'

'No,' said Swithenbank shortly.

'It must be awful for you. Awful. It's a year now, isn't it?'

That's right. A year.'

'Twelve months, and nothing. Awful. Cheer up, though. I suppose no news is good news.'

'I can't imagine why you should suppose that,' said Swithenbank.

'I'm sorry. What I meant was… look, do try to get along tomorrow night, won't you?'

'I can't promise, Boris. I'll give you a ring later if I may.'

'Fine. Good. Excellent. 'Bye!'

Swithenbank was smiling as he put down the phone. He went into the kitchen where his mother was washing the dishes.

'That girl on the phone. The name couldn't have been Ulalume, could it?'

'Ulalume? Yes, that sounds very like it, though it doesn't sound very likely, does it? By the way, I'm going into town when I've finished these. I'll probably have lunch there.'

'Mother,' said Swithenbank wearily. 'You've been going into town and having lunch there on Fridays for the last twenty years at least. Everyone in Wearton expects it. I expect it. I can only hope that you may be visiting the hairdresser, too. But I cannot be surprised.'

'I'm not trying to surprise you, dear,' said his mother mildly.

Fifteen minutes later he heard her call goodbye as she passed the open sitting-room door. Almost simultaneously the phone rang.

By the time he got into the entrance hall his mother had picked up the receiver.

'It's that girl again, dear,' she said. 'I must dash or I'll miss my bus. 'Bye!'

He did not touch the phone till he heard the front door close behind her.

Hello? Hello?' he said.

For twenty seconds or more there was no reply then as from a great distance a thin infinitely melancholy voice said, "Ulalume… Ulalume,' stretching the words out like a street-vendor's cry.

"For God's sake, stop fooling around!' commanded Swithenbank, his voice authoritative and controlled. But the control disappeared when a voice behind him said, 'Mr John Swithenbank?'

He spun round. Standing in the open doorway was a man, tall, slim beneath a short fawn raincoat, early thirties, rather a long nose, mop of brown hair falling over his brow and shadowing the light blue, watchful eyes.

'Who the hell are you?' demanded Swithenbank.

'I met a lady on the drive – she said just to walk in. Something about the bell not working.'

He reached out of the door and pressed the bell-push. A deafening chime echoed round the hall. He looked embarrassed.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'm interrupting your call. I'll wait outside, shall I, till you're finished.'

'It is finished,' said Swithenbank, replacing the receiver firmly. 'What do you want with me, Mr…?'

'Inspector. Detective-Inspector Pascoe,' said the man. 'Could I speak with you, Mr Swithenbank? It's about your wife.'

'You'd better come in,' said Swithenbank. 'Hang your coat up if you think it's going to be worth it.'

Pascoe wiped his feet, removed his coat, and carefully hung it up on the old-fashioned hall-stand which loomed like a multiple gallows behind the door.

Boris Kingsley replaced the phone on the bedside table. He was sitting on the edge of the bed and the mattress sagged beneath his weight. He was naked and he contemplated his bulging belly with the helpless bewilderment of a weak king confronting a peasants' revolt.

'When did you last see your little Willie?' asked Ursula Davenport, snuggling against his back and peering over his shoulder.

He dug his elbow into one of her bountiful breasts.

'About the same time you saw your little Umbilicus,' he said.

'Will he come?'

'What?'

'Johnny, I mean.'

'Why do you call him Johnny? No one else calls him Johnny. You always try to suggest a special relationship.'

'We had once. At least, I thought so.'

'But Kate put paid to that,' said Kingsley spitefully. 'Funny, I often think that both you and Stella got married on the rebound.'

'Stella?' She raised her eyebrows.

'Your sister-in-law, dear. There are depths beneath that unyielding surface.'

'I'm glad to hear it. I wasn't conscious of a rebound,' she said evenly. 'Unless it was from Stella moving into the bungalow. I could hardly stay on, could I?'

'I wish you'd stayed and the bungalow had moved,' grumbled Kingsley, walking across to the window and peering out.

The lawn had that tousled unkempt look even the best kept grass gets on a dank October morning. He had the sense of peering down at a wild moorland from some craggy height. Away to the right ran an avenue of trees, while straight ahead was a tangle of neglected shrubbery which reinforced the impression of desolation till he raised his eyes a little and the cheerful red-brick of the Rawlinson bungalow some three hundred yards away re-established the scale of things.

'Pa should never have sold your father that land,' said Kingsley with irritation. 'It ruins the view.'

'I dare say Stella will think the same about little Willie if she's out in the garden,' said Ursula.

'She should be so lucky,' said Kingsley. 'How do you think your brother is since his accident?'

'You are an evil-minded bastard sometimes, Boris,' she said.

'And you're the vicar's wife,' he mocked. 'Is it sermon on the mount time?'

She rolled off the bed as he approached.

'I think it's time to go home and have breakfast.'

'Stay here,' he suggested. 'When's Peter due back from his concert?'

'Not till this afternoon.'

'Well then.'

'But old mother Warnock is due here in half an hour.'

'She'll devil us some kidneys. You can say you dropped in to invite me to address the Mothers' Union.'

'Boris, dear, she'd stand up and denounce us before the first hymn next Sunday morning. No, I'll have a quick shower and be off.'

She left the room before he could attempt to restrain her by force or persuasion.

He did not appear too frustrated by her evasion but strolled round the room getting dressed. Unhappy at the selection of trousers in the large mahogany wardrobe which occupied half a wall opposite his bed, he took a key from a chest of drawers and unlocked a smaller oak wardrobe in the corner by the window. Here were hanging the heavier twills which the chill of the morning invited.

Here also hung a woman's dress in white muslin with blue ribbons to gather it gently in beneath the bosom. On the shelf above was a wide-brimmed floppy hat in white linen trimmed with blue roses. He touched it lovingly, then caressed the soft material of the dress with his open hand.

When he turned from re-locking the wardrobe Ursula was standing dripping wet in the bedroom doorway.

'I couldn't find a towel,' she said.

Til come and rub you dry,' he answered, smiling.

Geoffrey Rawlinson let his binoculars rest on his chest, stood up, collapsed the seat of his shooting-stick and, leaning heavily on it so that he drilled a trail of holes across the lawn, he limped back to the bungalow.

He heard the phone being replaced as he negotiated the high step into the kitchen, and a moment later his wife came into the room, snapping on the light so that he blinked as it came bouncing at him off chrome, tile and Formica. The changes Stella had made in the kitchen never ceased to amaze him. It was, he claimed, more automated than the War Room in the Pentagon. But even in high summer it still needed artificial light till the sun was high in the sky.

'Children off to school?' he asked.

'Yes. Please, Geoff, how many times do I have to ask you? Don't dig up the floor tiles with that thing!'

'Sorry,' said Rawlinson. He leaned the shooting-stick against the waste-disposal unit and took up his heavy blackthorn walking stick which was hooked over the rack of the dishwasher. It had a thick rubber ferrule which squeaked against the floor as he walked towards his wife.

'Who were you phoning?' he asked.

'The butcher,' she said. 'Is she still over there?'

'I've been looking at the birds,' he answered in tones of gentle reproach. 'That pair of whitethroats is still here. It's really incredibly late for them. I think one of them may have been injured and the other's waited for it. Touching, don't you think?'

His wife regarded him without speaking. Her face had all the individual features of great beauty, but there was something too symmetrical, too inexpressive about them, as though they had been put on canvas by a painter of great technique but no talent.

Rawlinson sighed.

'I don't know. Just because you saw her walking down the old drive last night doesn't mean she was going to bed down with Boris.'

'Don't be a fool,' she snapped. 'Peter's away singing, isn't he? And why else should she be skulking around out there on a nasty damp evening?'

'You were,' he observed quietly.

'I was in my own garden,' she said sharply. 'If she wanted to visit Wear End, she could easily drive round by the road. After all, she does have her own car, which is more than we can afford.'

'It's her own money,' said Rawlinson.

'It's the money you had to pay her for half of your own house,' retorted Stella.

'We've been over all this before,' he said. 'I had to buy her out. And there was something left over from Father's will to pay for all this modernization.'

He gestured at the kitchen.

'While she lets her husband freeze in that draughty old rectory and spends all her money on cars and clothes!'

'She has to live there too.'

'Not when Peter's away she doesn't.'

'Oh, for God's sake," he snapped. 'She's my sister, so leave it alone.'

'And Peter's your cousin. And you're my husband. But what difference does that make to anything?' she yelled after him as he stumped out of the kitchen.

An hour later she took him a cup of coffee in his study.

The light was on above his draughtsman's drawing-board but he was sitting at his desk with his bird-watching journal. The writing was on the left-hand page. On the other he had sketched with a few deft strokes of a felt-tipped pen a pair of whitethroats in a sycamore tree. In the background loomed the bulk of Wear End House with its windows all shuttered.

She put the coffee down by the drawing.

'Are we going to Boris's tomorrow night?"

'I suppose so.'

'Will John be there?'

'He's got the face for it.'

'What do you mean?"

'Oh, leave it alone, Stella!'

'I think he deserves all our sympathy and support.'

'Last time you said it was the biggest stroke of luck he'd had!'

'I still think that!' she snapped. 'But the difference between thinking and saying is called civilized behaviour.'

'OK. OK. Let's drop it,' he answered moodily. 'I must try to get some work done or we'll have nothing to put down the waste-disposal unit.'

At the door she paused and said, 'I don't mean to nag, Geoff, but things…'

'Yes, yes. I know.'

'How's your leg this morning?'

'The same. And better.'

'How can that be?' she asked.

'Nothing changes,' he said, reaching for his coffee, 'but you learn to live with pain."

Arthur Lightfoot leaned on his hoe and watched the young woman in the telephone-box. Her Triumph Spitfire was parked with its nearside wheels on the -wedge of carefully tended grass which lay in front of the village war memorial. Lightfoot made no secret of his watching. Generations of his family had lived and laboured in Wearton and there was as little chance of a native turning from the close contemplation of a stranger as there was of the soldier on the memorial dropping his rifle.

Lightfoot was a man whose face had been weathered to a leathery mask beneath an unkempt stack of gingery hair. His deep-sunk eyes rarely blinked and his mouth gave little sign of being fitted for human speech. To age him between thirty and fifty would have been difficult.

What nature had done for the man, art had done for the woman. She had blonde hair, a good but not over emphatic figure and a face which happily confessed to twenty-five but left you guessing about thirty-five. It had a slightly preoccupied expression as she came out of the phone-box and took a couple of uncertain steps towards the car. Then, as if feeling Lightfoot's gaze upon her, she turned, looked back at him, and strode with sudden determination across the road.

'Excuse me,' she said, then, her eyes caught by a double row of staked dahlias close by the side wall of the old stone cottage, she exclaimed, 'Aren't they lovely! Such colours for a murky day.'

'Frost'll have 'em soon,' said Lightfoot.

'Are they… do you sell them?'

Lightfoot made a gesture which took in the full extent of his smallholding.

'I grow what I need,' he said. 'What I don't need, I sell.'

He did not look like a man who needed many dahlias, so the woman said, 'May I buy some?'

'Aye. Come in and take thy pick.'

He held open the rickety gate for her and she walked along the row of blooms pointing to her choices which he cut with a fearsome clasp knife taken from his pocket. When she reached the angle of the cottage she stopped and said, 'I see you had a fire.'

The ground behind the cottage was scorched and blackened and a pile of charred rubbish looking like the remnants of several outbuildings had been shovelled together alongside a wired pen which housed three pigs.

'Aye,' he said.

'Not too much damage, I hope,' she said, looking at the back of the cottage which also bore the mark of great heat. The window-frames looked as if they'd been recently replaced and reglazed.

'Enough. Nought that money won't mend. Are you done choosing?'

'I think so. Perhaps another pink one. They are gorgeous. Is it good soil?'

'Soil's what you make it,' he answered. 'Many a barrow-load of manure and many a barrowload of compost I've poured into this soil. See there!'

He pointed to where a broad pit which seemed to be full of decaying vegetable matter was sending coils of vapour into the dank autumn air.

'Hot as a curate's dreams in there,' he averred, watching her closely.

She glanced at him, amused by the odd expression.

'It doesn't look very appetizing,' she said. 'What's in it?'

'Everything,' he said. 'What pigs won't eat yon pit gobbles up. Dustmen get slim pickings from Arthur Lightfoot.'

His sudden enthusiasm made her uneasy and she was glad to hear the rickety gate shut behind her.

'That your car?' asked Lightfoot as she regained the footpath.

'Yes.'

'Ah.'

He didn't offer to say more so she asked, 'Could you tell me the way to a house called The Pines? I've got a vague idea, but I might as well hit it first time.'

'Swithenbank's house?'

That's right.'

'Them dahlias for Mrs Swithenbank?'

'As a matter of fact, they are.'

'She's not fond of dahlias, Mrs Swithenbank,' said Lightfoot. 'She says they're a wormy sort of flower.'

'I'm sorry for it,' said the woman, irritation in her voice now. 'Can you tell me where the house is or not?'

'Second turn left, second house on the left,' said Lightfoot.

'Thank you.'

When she reached the car, he called after her, 'Hey!'

She laid the flowers on the passenger seat before turning.

'Yes?'

'Mrs Swithenbank doesn't like people parking on her lawn either.'

Angrily she got into the car, bumped off the grass strip in front of the war memorial, and accelerated violently away.

Arthur Lightfoot watched her out of sight. Turning to his wheelbarrow, he tossed in a couple of weeds prior to pushing the barrow towards his compost pit and tipping the contents on to its steaming surface.

'Feeding time,' he said. 'Feeding time.'