Dangerous to Know Page 2

  They had moved house whenever Walter’s work dictated; this had meant changes of school for the girls and the ending of Hermione’s fragile friendships with the mothers of some of their fellow pupils. The Browns had lived in Merbury for five years, in a square modern house on a small estate inserted into the original village. The furniture, most of it originating from Hermione’s father’s house, had followed them round, with the sale of a few antique pieces to finance the purchase of new carpets and, occasionally, where the old ones would not adapt, new curtains.

  Walter, during his childhood, was accustomed to frequent moves dictated by his father’s army career; it was a pattern he had subsequently followed, although he said he intended to stay in Merbury. He had plans to become important there, now that he was too old for the Territorials. He never spent an evening at home if he could find a reason to be elsewhere.

  As the two girls grew older, and heard him often proclaim that he believed in serving others, they sometimes asked why he did little to help at home.

  ‘After all, charity begins there,’ said Jane, who had become rebellious in her teens, even dying her hair blonde, but Walter confined her to barracks until she agreed to dye it back to its original mud brown.

  Jane had hated the last move, which tore her away from established friends and a school where she was doing well, and she failed to get into university – a blow to Walter but not to Jane, who wanted speedy independence. At eighteen, when she was officially of age, she left home and went to work in a shop in Reading, sharing a flat with two other girls; some weeks later she moved in with Felix, a man she had met at a party. They separated after less than a year and now she was living in a squat with a group of young people who were mostly unemployed.

  Sarah was in Italy, working as a nanny near Florence. She often wrote to Hermione and urged her to come out for a visit, but how could she? People thought all women had achieved equality with men now, but it was still a question of money; if you were married without an income of your own, you were as surely chained as your mother or your grandmother had been, unless you were prepared to break away and take your chance.

  Hermione had not found the courage for that. Besides, if she did escape, what would Walter do? He might hunt her down and force her to return. He would want to punish her for the disgrace she would inflict on him if she left him.

  But some money would make life more tolerable. She had no qualifications for work as a secretary or for any other sort of career, and even if she found someone to employ her as an untrained worker, Walter would discover what she was doing because she would have to pay tax. She knew women were taxed separately now, but he would be sure to find out and he would make a scene at her place of employment, if she managed to find one, and get her dismissed.

  There must be an answer, though, some means of working without him finding out. It would be a beginning.

  On the way home, she thought about the possibilities, in between wondering about the pretty old lady and her hideous daughter.

  3

  Walter saw the woman on the train again a week after she had been subjected to the lewd barracking of the drunken men. He recognised the neat ankles, the small black low-heeled shoes. This time the skirt which showed beneath her coat was patterned with tiny flowers. Perhaps she travelled up every day, a commuter like himself. He had not noticed her before, and he often looked at the legs of women in trains. Their faces, and the rest of them, he found unsettling. Like Hermione an only child, he was adrift when his daughters were born. A boy he could have managed, taught to hold a straight bat, play football, use a gun, all the masculine skills he admired, but girls were different. He hid his fascination with their soft prettiness when they began toddling about. Hermione had known better than to expect his help with their rearing; modern men changing nappies and pushing prams around were out of line, in Walter’s view: let them see to the home – mend fuses, paint the place, change tap washers, dig the garden; the rest was for women. With all this sharing advocated now, neither partner knew who had responsibility for what. He’d made sure that things were properly organised; Hermione knew her duties and he was master in his own house. He was respected in the village – not yet a churchwarden, true, but a sidesman now, dressed each Sunday in his dark suit, and crisply shaved. Hermione took her turn at arranging the flowers and cleaning the brasses as well as other parish duties for which he readily volunteered her services.

  Now, sitting opposite the woman who had been the butt of those louts’ insults, Walter could see her face. She had a pale complexion, a full mouth, and her long, dark hair was softly drawn back past her ears, in which she wore gold studs. Walter, using his evening paper as a screen, surveyed her discreetly and felt an almost overwhelming urge to unpin that hair, spread it out, run his fingers through it, smell it.

  He thought about speaking to her, apologising for failing to protect her on that earlier occasion. But probably she had not recognised him, would not connect him with that experience; better not let her know that he had been a witness who had done nothing to halt her persecution.

  Even so, when she got out of the train at Stappenford, he followed her.

  Mrs Fisher had enjoyed her little chat in the dining area at Primmy’s store. She often sought encounters with strangers when let off the lead Wendy so firmly held. Opportunities for conversation were not easy to contrive and people sometimes failed to respond when she spoke to them; perhaps they thought her intrusive when she meant only to be friendly. Of course, she was old, and maybe they thought that she had lost her wits; often the old were ignored or patronised, and sometimes bullied.

  Today there had been the clever shopping to display and discuss; Wendy had an eye for bargains. She took her mother shopping most weeks, but trips to Primmy’s were rare treats; usually they went to the supermarket, where Mrs Fisher was left on a chair near the door – a few chairs were supplied for the fragile – while Wendy made her well-planned assault on the shelves, pushing her trolley round without ever having to backtrack as she selected what was needed from her neatly written list. Sometimes, just for the fun of outwitting her daughter, Mrs Fisher would dart from her chair – or at least would move as rapidly as she could manage – and venture down the busy aisles in search of some small luxury for herself – scented soap instead of the serviceable Lux, pleasant enough of course, which Wendy bought for them both, or a bar of milk chocolate. She still had control of her own money, though she paid much of it over by banker’s order to cover her keep. She had to be wary, on these forays among the shelves, to ensure that she returned to her seat before Wendy finished her own shopping. Once, there had been an embarrassing experience when she had been called for on the store Tannoy. She always paid at the quick check-out, since she never had more than two or three items, and she would buy presents for Wendy on these excursions – Turkish Delight, if available, or peppermint creams, or hand lotion. These were things Wendy liked but thought frivolous and never bought for herself. She always seemed angry when her mother gave her such gifts but her plain, bleak face would change expression, the nearest she ever came to a smile. Mrs Fisher knew that Wendy had never forgiven her for being so pretty herself and failing to hand on her looks.

  While she was a child, there had been hope of improvement; Wendy had not been overweight then, and it could be said that her sallow skin and bootbutton eyes were striking. Her mother had always dressed her in strong colours which complemented her appearance; pastel shades would merely have emphasised her own want of appeal. Her hair had been thick and luxuriant, with a natural wave; she had worn it long and loose, held back from her face by an Alice band, except for school when it had been plaited in two long braids. When she was twelve she had cut it off herself, with her mother’s cutting-out scissors, declaring that attending to it – brushing it, the lengthy drying process when it was washed – was a waste of time which could be more usefully spent. Since then she had seemed to cultivate, almost revel in, her ugliness.

  Wendy w
as a good pupil at school, always among the top few in her class, but she did not enjoy games or music, dancing or drama, the more relaxing side of the curriculum. She went to a teacher training college, and thereafter taught in schools overseas, where she married a fellow teacher with missionary aspirations. They spent some years in South America, where Wendy’s husband was killed in a road accident; there were no children. Mrs Fisher had thought her son-in-law a nice man, though dull; she had seen little of him since they had been spreading enlightenment and the word so far from home, but she felt sorry for Wendy, who soon after she was widowed picked up a severe infection and was ill for some months. After that she decided to return to England and she became, in due time, headmistress of a suburban primary school where her old-fashioned methods enabled the children to do well, since they were taught to read and write and even to add and spell, but eventually she clashed with younger colleagues who believed in free expression. She retired early and began working voluntarily with handicapped children. Mrs Fisher believed that here Wendy had found her true metier; the work required great patience and in this area Wendy had it in abundance; the children loved her, and her great experience was of immense value. She was, however, no longer young, and was often tired and therefore irritable when she came home; Mrs Fisher, in her turn, strove to be patient and understanding.

  During the day, while Wendy was out, she had some freedom and she had made friends simply by going about the place on her own, visiting the library, and Brenda’s, the café where she sometimes had morning coffee. Well, perhaps they were not exactly friends, since she had never dared invite anyone home after the time she asked Mr Potter to tea. They had met in the chemist’s where he was buying corn plasters, and Mrs Fisher had recommended a chiropodist Wendy had found for her. Mr Potter had knocked over his teacup and had not only drenched the carpet but broken the cup, which had rolled against the fender. Mrs Fisher had mopped up the spill and had tried unsuccessfully to pretend she had smashed the cup, but Wendy had met Mr Potter departing as she came back from school. There were remarks stating that of course you are free to have your friends in, but just who are these friends? Where did you meet Mr Potter? Not at church, I’m sure. And I can’t permit people who can’t behave to enter my house.

  But it had once been Mrs Fisher’s house, and the china was originally hers, too. The late Mr Fisher, however, seeking to avoid death duties and at the same time aid the daughter he admired but found hard to love, and confident that by so doing he would ensure his widow’s security, had left the house to Wendy with her mother entitled to life tenancy.

  Wendy, then living in a flat near her school, had moved in at once. The house was hers, after all. Her father’s insurance arrangements paid off the outstanding mortgage and a lump sum was left which Wendy used to convert part of the large house into two flats. She and her mother lived on the two lower floors; a separate entrance led to the tenants’ flats above, and since they were at work all day, Mrs Fisher never saw them except occasionally at weekends when they were permitted to use the front garden. She and Wendy retained the use of a tiny rear plot. Wendy had sold the rest to a developer and three bungalows now stood where the Fishers had grown vegetables and where there had been a long lawn with a cedar tree giving shade. It had been a profitable transaction. Mrs Fisher sometimes wondered what Wendy had spent the profits on; she still dressed drably. Perhaps she had given all the money to the handicapped children.

  The area around the house had changed so much in recent years. Mrs Fisher had once known all her neighbours, but other houses had changed hands and some, like hers, had been converted into flats, even knocked down and replaced by small boxes on the original site. There were none of her old friends left.

  ‘I hope you weren’t talking to that woman at our table, Mother,’ Wendy had said, after Hermione Brown had left them in Primmy’s.

  ‘I asked her if the seats were free,’ Mrs Fisher truthfully answered.

  ‘It doesn’t do to go talking to strangers,’ Wendy said. ‘It’s a waste of time and uses up energy.’

  What a lot you miss, my dear, thought her mother, wondering if it would be fine tomorrow so that she could walk up to the shops or the library and find someone with whom she could chat.

  Walter followed the woman from the train along the platform, up the steps and over the footbridge. She crossed through the booking hall and went into the street beyond. It was raining, and the road and pavement glistened in the light from the street lamps. Several cars waiting near the station entrance swiftly swallowed the passengers their drivers had come to collect; other travellers hurried into the car park which stretched beside the track. Walter’s quarry, her umbrella up, hurried along the road towards the town, and he, moving without reason, motivated by an impulse he did not examine, set off in pursuit. He could see the coil of her long dark hair lying between her shoulder blades as he strode behind her. He had an umbrella too, and he raised it; as well as protecting him from the weather, it was a useful concealment as he kept pace with her, not overtaking.

  At the top of the hill leading from the station she turned left and walked away from the shops towards the residential area of Stappenford. He followed. There were other pedestrians about, all hurrying, most with umbrellas raised. One man held a newspaper over his head. It was a fine, driving rain, the sort that does not instantly soak but penetrates by degrees. Walter trod in a puddle but he did not notice, so intent was he on his pursuit. The woman turned a corner and he noted the name of the road as he followed her down it. Some two hundred yards along it she turned left again, then disappeared. She had entered the driveway of a house. Walter marked it; it was near a letter box. When he reached the house, she had already vanished inside. The number, 18, in neat white figures was painted on a board fixed to the gatepost.

  He studied the house, a semi-detached, solid construction built probably in the 1930s, well maintained and painted. A porch light illumined the front door, which was glossy black. As he watched, the light went out. He turned away and walked back to the station to catch the next train home, where Hermione exclaimed at how wet he had managed to get walking the short distance from the platform to the car in the station yard.

  She scurried round, finding him dry socks and another pair of shoes, meanwhile finishing the dinner preparations. He had a meeting that night and had cut it rather fine, with his diversion. There was no time to do more than complain to Hermione that the fish pie was dry and contained too much pepper.

  She had hung his raincoat by the boiler in the lobby beyond the kitchen, but it was still wet when he left. He wore his Barbour coat instead; he liked to look the part of a country gentleman in Merbury.

  After he had gone, Hermione, let off lightly that evening with only minor fault-finding, washed up and laid the table for breakfast, as she did every night. Then she took the local free paper into the sitting-room. She had retrieved it from the piles of paper kept for recycling in the garage. Walter never read it, banishing it unopened every week, but, denied the daily paper which Walter bought at the station, took to the office and never brought home, she always rescued the free one. She liked to read the local news, and there was an advice column which answered questions on family problems. The replies were always wise, whether the difficulty was sexual or about the rearing of children or the management of pets. Sometimes Hermione contemplated writing in and describing her own troubles, but she knew the counsellor would tell her to cut her losses and get out; that was the line she took in such cases.

  But I can’t, thought Hermione for the umpteenth time.

  Tonight, after reading the advice to a troubled stepmother whose own children could not get on with their new siblings – You must remember, wrote the columnist, they did not choose one another; you and their father chose each other and the children had to take their chance – she began reading the Domestic Situations Vacant column; this was something she could do, a way of earning money for which she was equipped. Today there were advertised a clea
ning job three miles away, at Prendsmere, and another in Creddington, which was about twenty-five minutes by bus.

  The wise counsellor would advise positive action, Hermione knew. Before she could think better of it, and with Walter safely out of the house, she telephoned both would-be employers and made appointments to meet them the following week.

  Then she went to bed. The weekend, always the most difficult part of the week, lay ahead. One thing unfailingly took place several times then. What would happen if she refused? Out of touch though she was, Hermione knew that now you could refuse, though Walter reminded her that with her marriage vows she had surrendered the use of her body to him for life. It was also true that she had promised to obey him. How archaic that sounded to modern girls like Jane and Sarah. Now you could go to law and accuse your husband of rape.