The War Widow. Lorna Gray
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heard his step on the gravel behind but it hadn’t frightened me this time. I turned my head as Adam appeared next to me to contemplate the view, faintly perfumed with pipe smoke and inoffensively comparing my work with the scene below. He had reverted to his more usual habit of looking like a relaxed companion, although his voice was not fully restored to the ease of our tea in the hotel. He asked, “Are you ready to go, or do you want to stay a while?”
I shut my sketchbook with a snap and smiled at him.
“I’m finished, thank you. I was only passing the time while you paid your visit, and my model has very rudely walked away without so much as a by-your-leave anyway …” And then, because I knew that was, to all intents and purposes, exactly what I had done to him at Devil’s Bridge, I followed it with a hastily mumbled, “Sorry. I am very glad, you know, that you let me tag along on this drive.”
“Think nothing of it.” His quick dismissal was meant to reassure. We were already walking back around the bend to the car.
I waited until we were out of the hamlet before trying to make a fresh beginning by asking, “Did you get what you needed?”
He had to incline his head towards me to be heard over the shrill wail of the old engine and he made me think his tension over the past minutes had been because he’d been waiting for that apology because that old stiffness wouldn’t quite leave his voice and he barked out, “Very useful interview actually.” Then he grimaced a little before adding in a less stilted tone, “In case you haven’t guessed, that meeting was the conclusion of one of the threads I’ve been following for some time. It’s taken me all week to set up this visit and it was worth the effort. My latest work will be – or I should say is – based around a small mining community. Old Mr Hughs worked in the local lead mine before it shut so was able to give me all sorts of useful insights on the mechanics of that kind of life.”
“How interesting,” I said. I suspect my own efforts to sound more normal were lost in the noise from the road because I saw his eyes flick left twice to read my face before apparently being reassured that I wasn’t trying to mock. His doubt was valuable to me in its way though. It gave me the chance to realise once and for all that it wasn’t temper that had been colouring his manner on this drive; he hadn’t been trying to punish me for my rudeness. He’d simply been nervous about his meeting. And the realisation was like a glimpse of a far less justifiable tragedy than the one that was presently stalking me. The one that had made a kind, normal, safe man like him shy.
It made me say in a sudden urgency of honesty because I knew now that it mattered, “I didn’t mind staying in the car just now, you know. If I’d been in your position I’d have wanted to go in alone too. I know what it’s like when you’re steeling yourself to do an interview. You don’t need anyone else muscling in and disrupting your thoughts when you just need a few quiet seconds to think of everything you want to say. You know I had to do it all the time with the clients at the gallery.” I stumbled a little then. I’d slipped into talking about my old life at the Cirencester gallery where I’d handled the business for Rhys. In fact, invariably Rhys would have been the source of the distraction that had put me off my stride. But Adam wasn’t going to know that and he couldn’t have known that I wasn’t talking about my present placement at the Lancaster gallery, certainly not when I hastily tacked on, “I mean I still do have to talk to people. I told you that at lunch earlier.”
I faltered. I’d seen his initial surprise as I’d sympathised. That had been natural enough perhaps, but then it appeared again as I rushed into adding those last words. I’d meant to make him comfortable and he was in a way but his swift sideways glance also bore a hint of incredulity, like the rhythm of his thoughts had experienced a momentary sharpening of concentration, followed by an anticlimax when the growing feeling was dismissed as an error. Then I felt his gaze briefly touch my face again and saw him register the curiosity there, and in an instant his expression was wiped clean.
When he spoke, it was only to assure me that I wouldn’t have been in the way.
“But thank you,” he added, contradicting himself. “Thank you all the same.”
And then we were safely stowing his car on a backstreet where the salty sea-spray couldn’t cement itself onto the precious paintwork before winding our way back through the town.
He stopped as we were about to cross the main shopping street onto the road that ran down to meet the seafront and turned to me. Behind him, someone stepped out of a red telephone box and I heard the quick murmur of apology as they made him step aside.
He was himself again. He tipped his head at the box as an indication of what he intended to do next. It obviously required privacy since there was a telephone at the hotel. He knew I’d noticed, and he also clearly appreciated that I made no remark. Then he asked with his faintly mocking smile, “Do you think you can cope with walking all the way back to the hotel on your own?”
He’d obviously read my thoughts too. I’d been running an eye downhill towards the frontage of the pier that stood at the bottom and telling myself sternly that the gauntlet of terrors – imagined or otherwise – between me and the hotel was all of about four hundred yards long. Adam meant his comment as a joke. He didn’t really think I was worried. I gave him a slanting smile in return. And was still smiling when I said something vague about it nearly being time for dinner and he broke in to say rather abruptly, “I’m sorry, this is going to sound strange but since you said in the car a moment ago that you know me, I’m going to take you up on it. Can you not mention to the other guests that I drove you back just now?”
“I, er … Yes. Of course, if you like.”
His brows lowered. “Now I’ve confused you and that isn’t what I meant, I promise. I just don’t want to attract any more attention to myself than I already have. You’ve seen how it is; if I become the subject of idle chatter about a fellow guest, my cover really will be blown …”
“Absolutely,” I agreed heartily. I could tell I was beaming like a mad thing. Inside I was cold. I was rapidly thinking that he was right; I was confused and if he thought I knew him, he was mistaken. I was trying to absorb the unpalatable truth that my attempt at ordinary friendliness with this man was an even bigger disaster than paranoia. I had the horrible feeling he thought I was meaning to turn our quiet lunch at the hotel into a public dinner together at the hotel and this was his way of tactfully curbing it. Only if he was he was mistaken there too. And now I was rushing into giving him blind sympathy and I could tell from the way those grey eyes were scrutinising my face that this wasn’t the response he wanted. He drew breath and I knew he was going to try to change it, soften it and steer me into not minding the misunderstanding, and it was all going to get even more excruciatingly tangled than ever.
So I took control in the only way I knew how and paved the way for an easy – and permanent – conclusion to this ridiculousness for both of us by wrapping the moment in yet more layers of politeness. I gave him a broad smile and said brightly, “Actually, I understand perfectly. No, really I do. Fame and fortune is all very well, but not when you want a bit of peace in which to get on with the day job?”
I saw him nod. “Exactly,” he said. “Thank you.”
There didn’t seem much to say after that. I thought he would be glad to have it so easily laid out that I understood and he would get the privacy he required but I found instead that my smile had made his brows furrow again. Apparently he’d read my withdrawal beneath its cheerful mask and he was puzzled by it. Quite simply, I couldn’t get away from him today without causing some upset first.
Instinct made me slide hastily into a firm utterance of goodbye and then things went from bad to worse because he seemed determined to end things on a friendlier note after all and in the midst of the confusion of awkwardness and platitudes we ended with a swift step in to touch cheek to cheek.
I don’t honestly know who initiated it. I thought he had but there was that briefest telltale hesitation from him as I automatically reciprocated that gave me time to realise that I really had got it wrong this time. Or perhaps I hadn’t. Perhaps he’d done it in that awful impulsive way