Sands of Time

‘Polly’s making it up.’ Felix could sense that something was wrong. He pinched his sister’s arm. ‘There’s no gate there.’

‘Well, I saw him!’ Polly stamped her foot, rubbing furiously at the spot her brother’s small fingers had so expertly tweaked. ‘He was getting dressed; he put on a white shirt and brown trousers and he had blond hair like mine!’ She was by far the fairest of the three children and Helen found herself staring at her daughter. No, the little girl was wrong. He had been fairer than Polly. Much fairer.

‘Who was he?’ It wasn’t until the children were in bed that evening and the dishes washed and put away that Tim broke his tight-lipped silence.

‘There wasn’t anyone, Tim.’ She had pulled a cotton shirt on over her dress as the sea breeze, coming in through the window, turned cooler.

‘Don’t give me that!’ Tim’s voice was hard. ‘If you could have seen yourself lying there, your legs apart; it was disgusting. You reeked of sex!’

She shook her head. ‘Tim! It’s not true. There was no one there. I swear it.’

‘So, Polly was lying?’

‘She has a good imagination, Tim. You know there’s no gate. How could there have been anyone there?’

But Polly had described him.

‘It was so hot and peaceful in the garden I thought I could sunbathe. What’s so wrong with that?’ Suddenly she was indignant. ‘No one could see me! If I hadn’t fallen asleep I would have made sure I was dressed before you all came back. Not that it matters. The kids have seen me with no clothes on before –’ They both wandered round the house at home nude in front of the children from time to time. They had discussed it and decided that probably it was the right thing to do – to demonstrate modesty, but no shame in the human body.

‘You had love bites on your neck, Helen.’ His voice was so cold she felt herself shiver. ‘I didn’t put them there.’

For a moment she stared at him in silence, then she walked over to stand in front of the mirror which hung over the sideboard. Pushing back the shirt she lifted her hair off her neck and stared at herself in the glass. The two flaring red marks were obvious and unmistakable.

Charles.

Charles Douglas.

The name came to her suddenly out of nowhere.

‘He was going back to the front,’ she said, frowning, puzzled by her own sudden unexpected remembrance. ‘It was our last meeting. He was killed three weeks later. On the Somme.’ She turned back to Tim. ‘I remember now. He was so young. So handsome.’ She shook her head, dazed, aware of the anger and incomprehension on her husband’s face. ‘It was a dream, Tim. I was dreaming about him. It wasn’t real.’

But the marks on her neck were real. Silently she turned back to the mirror and raised her fingers to touch them. They felt bruised. Painful.

‘And you dreamt those into being I suppose.’ He was still angry.

‘I suppose I must have.’ She shrugged. ‘Tim, please. You know there’s no one else. I love you!’

‘I thought so.’ The hurt in his voice was palpable.

But she had known she was cheating on him when she had turned to Charles and unbuttoned his shirt even as Charles had known he was cheating on his own wife and children.

She sat down, realising suddenly that she was shaking. ‘It was so real.’ She shouldn’t talk about it. She shouldn’t say any more, but suddenly she couldn’t stop herself. ‘He was so frightened. So lonely. He knew he was going to die. They must have all known they were going to die. He was living on borrowed time and his wife didn’t understand him. She was a stupid, vain woman, who was only interested in herself and her own imagined ills. She wasn’t there for him, Tim, when he needed her. When she saw the terrible scars on his body she shuddered and turned away.’

How did she know all this?

Tim was staring at her. His face was white. He said nothing as she went on: ‘There was no one there for him. That was why he came. Just to talk. Just to describe a little of what it was like; to try and defuse some of his nightmares. It was so harmless at first. He was little more than a boy and he loved his Mary so much, but she was lonely too. They married just before he was posted overseas and when he left she was pregnant. She didn’t see him for more than a year. He came back on leave to a stranger with a young baby. When he came back again a year later on a stretcher she had another child. That one wasn’t his. She said it was his fault. She stormed and raged at him and tried to justify herself. What was he to do?’

‘That seems to have been some dream!’ Tim said drily as she lapsed into silence. ‘So, exactly where do you fit in?’

Helen shrugged. ‘I was the other side of the hedge.’

‘A neighbour?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘And you comforted him.’

She looked away. ‘So it would appear.’

‘And he left you radiant. Sated. Covered in love bites.’ He moved towards the door.

‘Tim, please. You have to believe me –’

But he had gone. She heard him open the door, pull it closed behind him and walk away down the quiet road towards the sea.

She sat still for a long time, staring out of the window. Slowly it grew dark. She didn’t bother to turn on the lights, aware that the tears had long since dried on her face. It was all so stupid. A dream. How could they quarrel like this over a dream? Then she touched the bruises on her neck again and she sighed. They were not part of a dream.

There was no sign of Tim. Where had he gone? She pictured him walking miserably on the beach, alone in the dark and she ached to follow him, comfort him, explain. But how could she when she couldn’t explain it herself?

It was nearly midnight when, still sleepless, she pushed open the door and stepped out into the garden. The moon had risen, bathing everything in silvery light. Faintly she thought she could hear the gentle shush of the sea on the sand in the distance. She could smell the sharp salt of it over the soft sweetness of the honeysuckle and roses in the flowerbeds near her. The grass was wet with dew as she stepped down off the step. She could see the china gleam of her mug lying where she had left it. No one had thought to pick it up. Or her book, which was lying open, the pages damp and wrinkled.

Quietly she walked towards the hedge. The gate was there as she had known it would be. She put her hand out to the cold wood and pushing it open she stepped through. The house across the lawn was large, imposing in the moonlight. A cedar tree stood in the centre of the lawn, throwing stark black shadows slanting over the grass. The silence was intense. She could no longer hear the sea.

She walked slowly towards the house, staring up at the windows. They all looked strangely blank, blinds shutting out the moonlight in every one. Beyond the house more hedges bordered a deserted country lane. There was no sign of the row of little holiday homes which in her world lined the road to the sea. She turned round in sudden fear, looking for the gate through which she had come. It was there, standing open as she had left it. Beyond it she could see the huge oak tree under which she and Charles had lain. There was no chalet there now. No cherry tree. No washing line with small swimming costumes and brightly coloured towels hanging where she had forgotten to take them in.

And suddenly she was crying. Crying for her dead lover, buried so long ago somewhere in the mud of northern France, and for her husband walking in lonely misery on the beach in the moonlight and for her children who had gone to bed puzzled and unhappy at the sudden atmosphere between their parents on what had up till then been a holiday of total happiness.

Almost as though the thought had conjured her out of the night Helen was aware suddenly of a small girl walking towards her across the grass.

‘Don’t be sad, Mummy.’ Polly slipped a small warm hand into her cold one. ‘Is it that house that makes you sad?’ The little face looked up at hers earnestly. ‘I don’t like it. The windows can’t see.’

So, Polly was aware of it too, with its blinds and its aura of unhappiness.

‘Someone has drawn the blinds, darling. That is why the windows can’t see. It is a sad house because someone has died.’

‘The man I saw kissing you?’

Dear God! What else has she seen.

‘He was an old friend, darling. From long ago.’

‘Why did he die?’

Helen frowned. Her mind was wheeling between times and she didn’t know how to answer. ‘He lived a long time ago, Polly, and he had to go to fight in the war.’

‘So he’s a ghost.’ The child was still staring up at her trustingly.

‘I suppose he is. Yes. At first I thought he must be a dream, but if you saw him too then he can’t be.’ Helen glanced back over Polly’s head towards the neighbouring garden and suddenly it was as it had been; the large house was gone. The great trees had vanished. In their place the line of small holiday bungalows with defining hedges and fences once more stretched away in the moonlight.