Distant Voices

He nodded. ‘I’m over from the States for a few months. I’m a photographer and I’m doing a series on beautiful old England.’

There was something so wistful about his smile that I felt my heart do a quick bump.

As I moved quickly round the tables with my tray I could feel his gaze following me and every time I re-emerged from the kitchen with a new plate of scones and clotted cream, there he was watching.

When I took his bill to him he grabbed my wrist. ‘Honey, wouldn’t your husband spare you for half an hour – just to have a drink with me at the pub? I hate going alone.’

I felt my stomach lurch. I had told him Steve expected me. It wasn’t strictly true, of course. He had told me that there was a rush job on at the garage again that night, and he might not be back until even later than usual. As I said, I was depressed, and bored.

I took a deep breath. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I could manage a very quick drink, but not here.’ I thought of the prying eyes and quick tongues of the village folk. ‘Have you a car?’

He nodded.

‘Then pick me up outside the post office.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘I’m on till we close this evening, at six. I’ll see you then.’

His name turned out to be Graham, and he told me at once he had a wife and two kids in Wisconsin. We spent a couple of hours driving round the leafy lanes and then went to the fifteenth-century pub in the next village. He brought me home and dropped me at the end of our lane before going back to his hotel.

It was a perfectly innocent and very enjoyable outing, and so was the next, three nights later when Steve was again especially late. After that Graham took to dropping in at the tea rooms every evening as we were closing and I would tell him whether or not I would be able to spare an hour or two.

Steve was more and more regularly late at the garage as they seemed unusually busy so I saw more and more of Graham. I never mentioned Graham at home. The first time, Steve had come home in a temper from work, very unusually for him, and I knew it had not been the right moment. Then after that it became increasingly difficult.

Then came the time, inevitably, when Graham kissed me.

It happened so gently, so naturally, I hardly noticed it coming and before I could help myself I had returned it, passionately allowing him to draw me against his chest till I could hardly breathe.

‘Oh no Graham. No!’ I pushed him away suddenly. ‘No, don’t. I love my husband.’

‘Sure, honey.’ Gently but firmly he drew me back again. ‘He won’t miss a kiss or two, for a lonely man.’

But I was scared. I turned my head away and pushed with my fists against his chest. ‘Don’t Graham. No. I want to go home, please.’

Reluctantly he released me. ‘Okay Linda, if you’re sure that’s what you really want.’ He looked at me closely and as those silvery eyes met mine I felt my heart give a disloyal little lurch. It wasn’t what I wanted at all.

He dropped me off at the end of the lane as usual and I made my way through the fragrant twilight to the cottage. Steve wasn’t home, so I let myself out of the back door and into the garden. I could smell a whiff of pipe smoke from next door. Ian Johnson and his wife were sitting on their porch chatting quietly.

I had kicked off my sandals to walk on the dewy lawn, so I suppose they didn’t hear me. The cottage was in darkness so they must have assumed I was still out.

‘It’s that pretty little wife of his I’m sorry for,’ came Ian’s voice, low but clearly audible. ‘She doesn’t suspect a thing.’

‘’E deserves to be shot ’e does,’ came his wife’s voice. ‘Such a lovely couple they were. And I was so pleased when old Irene said they could live in her cottage. Hoping for some little ones next door, I was, and now this ’as to ’appen.’

‘She’s bound to find out.’ Ian again, and a fresh cloud of smoke wafted over the roses as he drew on his pipe.

As I stood, listening, I was shaking with cold. My hands gripped the skirt of my dress and crushed the fabric convulsively. I felt terribly sick.

What were they talking about? I wanted to run next door, to scream, to cry, to ask questions, but in my heart I already knew the answer.

Steve’s boss had never been all that keen on overtime in the past, so why should he have started working till all hours this summer especially? Certainly not just to help us with our finances, and I had never bothered to go to the garage to check. I could feel a great sob, like a lump in my chest, and I turned and fled into the cottage before it could come out like a scream of misery.

I sat for an hour or more in the dark listening to the steady calm ticking of Aunt Irene’s grandmother clock. Then I heard the front door open and close again softly.

‘Linda, are you home?’ Steve called quietly.

I couldn’t say a word. I sat in the dark, my hands still clutching my skirt.

‘Lyn?’

He pushed open the parlour door and clicked on the light.

‘Lyn! What are you doing here?’ He gazed at me in astonishment.

I hadn’t actually been crying, but my face must have told him everything for he sat down suddenly on the edge of the rocking chair and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘You know, don’t you.’ It was a statement, not a question.

I nodded dumbly.

‘Oh Lord, Lyn. I’d have given the world for it not to have happened.’ He stared at me miserably. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘You’d better tell me the truth,’ I whispered at last. And I waited, my face in my hands, while he told me.

‘Her name’s Lauren. I met her a few months before you and I were married. She went to work in London, and then three months ago she came back. I serviced her car and we got chatting.’ He shrugged. There was a long silence, then he raised his head and looked at me. ‘She’s going to have my baby, Lyn. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Do you love her?’ I couldn’t recognise my own voice, it was so cracked with fear.

He nodded. Then he shrugged desperately. ‘Not as much as I love you. You mean everything to me, Lyn, you know you do, but …’

‘But! While I’ve been working my fingers to the bone, struggling, saving … you’ve been spending money on someone else. The whole village knows except me. You louse! You hypocrite. You foul, beastly rotten dirty beast!’ I was screaming at him now, and I saw him stand up, his face pale.

‘Quietly Linda, please,’ he tried to interrupt me, but I couldn’t stop.

‘You mean, unkind, disloyal bastard!’ The tears were streaming down my face now. ‘How could you! How could you? Well, if you don’t want me, thank goodness there is someone who does!’

Blindly I pushed past him and groped my way out to the front door. I opened it and ran down the path between the hollyhocks in my bare feet.

I don’t think he tried to stop me. I didn’t wait to see.

I turned out of the gate and ran down the road. I had only one thought in my head. To go to Graham. I was so hurt and angry and miserable I didn’t think at all beyond that one thing.

I ran most of the way to his hotel, not caring about the cars that flashed past me in the dark or the one or two passing pedestrians. My feet hurt terribly on the tarmac and my hair whipped in tangles against my burning face. The receptionist looked at me in horror as I pushed open the revolving door, but she rang through to Graham’s room without comment and ten seconds later I was in his arms.

He helped me to his room and rang down for drinks and some coffee. Then he sat me down firmly on the bed.

‘Calm down, Lyn honey. Tell me slowly,’ he ordered. He reached over into his bedside cabinet and produced an enormous box of tissues.

Somehow I blew my nose and stopped crying. Then, gulping, I poured out my story to him.

After a few moments there was a knock on the door and a maid brought in the tray with the coffee and drinks. She stared at me curiously, then I saw her eyes widen as she noticed my feet. They were bleeding. At the sight of them suddenly I burst into tears again, and she was bustled off on Graham’s instructions to get a bowl of warm water and antiseptic.

By the time they had finished fussing over me I had managed to stop crying and when we were alone again at last I gave him a watery smile.