Evie, page 18
From the door of her cottage Hester had watched the fight until the three men lurched into the interior of the barn and become lost in its shadows. At first she could hear Norman Clark shouting for his wife. Then silence had fallen. Baffled and increasingly anxious, Hester considered crossing the yard and attempting to use the telephone to call for help. But Dave had told her to stay inside her locked door. So she waited. The cups of tea she had made for her menfolk growing slowly cold. Thurza sat solidly in her playpen, her thumb in her mouth, and watched her mother.
After five minutes of silence, Hester felt a sense of acute alarm hollowing her stomach. If Dave and Ferdie had succeeded in overpowering Norman, why hadn’t one or the other of them emerged from the barn to tell her so? If they had managed to use the telephone, why could she not hear the bell on the police car as it sped through the lanes towards the lower farm? What if both men were dead? Could Norman have taken Dave by surprise and impaled him on a hayfork? And then throttled Ferdie with his huge hands? And if so, where was he? Was he about to emerge from the barn and begin a systematic search of the lower farm buildings? A search that would inevitably lead him to her cottage, to herself and to Thurza? Should she approach the barn, and if there was no sign of the men, use the telephone to raise the alarm? Thurza, her arms around her golliwog, was nodding off, half asleep amongst her blankets. The wind had risen and the rain was now torrential, filling the yard puddles and clouding the rising water in the stream. Hester stepped into her rubber boots, thrust her arms into her muddy, waterproof coat, and pulling its hood up over her head, leant into the weather and covered the distance between her and the entrance to the barn at a fast, slithering run. She approached the telephone and saw at once the severed wires and the dangling mouthpiece. She stared around, her eyes adjusting slowly to the shadowy space where gloom became near darkness behind the high wooden structures of the stalls. But where was Dave? Where was Ferdie? And where, in heaven’s name, was Norman Clark?
Above her and in concentrated silence, Dave and Ferdie were struggling to secure Norman, initially, by tying his feet together with the skein of binding twine. Fumbling in their haste, they were aware that he was regaining consciousness, moving his limbs, rolling his head and mumbling disconnected words. The twine was hard to control, slipping and unravelling as Ferdie tried to wind it round the huge man’s ankles. Dave found a piece of rope which would have proved to be too short even if Norman’s lids were not flickering and then, his eyes barely focusing, opening. He hauled himself into a sitting position and stared round in confusion. It could only be seconds before he became fully aware of his situation.
Below, at the entrance to the barn, Hester could hear nothing above the drumming and gurgling of the torrential rain and the gusts of wind which rattled everything that was hinged or latched or bolted, every loose slate or swinging gate or unsecured window or door. Hester’s instinct tempted her to climb the steps into the loft but her reason reminded her that all three men were somewhere in the barn, either amongst the stalls or in the loft overhead. If Norman Clark had managed to elude or overpower Ferdie and Dave, he could have climbed down from the loft and be hiding somewhere close to her. Possibly watching her. She dared not move further into the barn or climb the steps to the loft as this would cut off her only means of escape. If she became trapped, Thurza would be defenceless in the cottage.
She left the barn and in the teeth of the gale rounded it until she stood under the end wall, where the iron ladder ran up to the charred sill, thirty feet above her. She raised her head and shouted her husband’s name. But the wind snatched the sound and bore it away. Picking up a bent and discarded bucket, she slammed it against the ladder. The sound of metal on metal was significant even within the noise of the gale. She struck the ladder again and then again.
In the loft the sound seemed to rouse Norman Clark to full consciousness. He lurched to his feet and in one surge of power, seized a bolt of wood, caught Ferdie a glancing blow to the side of the head which sent him sprawling, and butted Dave in the face with his forehead, knocking him, briefly, off his feet.
Hester had stepped back and was several feet from the base of the barn wall and looking up towards the opening above her. The wind took the pale hair that escaped from the hood of her waterproof and whipped it across her eyes which were already half blinded by the stinging rain. Squinting upwards she saw the figure of a man clinging to the charred frame of the opening in the wall.
Dave, once more on his feet, blood streaming from his nose, saw that Ferdie still lay where he had fallen but was already stirring while Norman, having reached the aperture, was staring dizzily down at a figure far below him.
Through the rain and the blood which was seeping from his wounded forehead and eye, Norman saw the shape of the girl. The damp hair blowing, the smudged, white face, lifted, the lips moving soundlessly.
‘Dave!’ Hester shouted desperately. ‘Ferdie! Where you be to?’ The gale carried the words away.
Norman Clark could barely see. Objects were haloed. His vision doubled and there were two girls below him, looking up at him, shouting to him. Two girls, where there should have been only one. Then the two girls blurred together and he saw her. Evie! He dropped to his knees on the edge of the sill and leant precariously out into space. He shouted her name, his voice a hoarse whimper.
Hester looked up at the contorted face peering down at her. She saw the wild eyes, the blanched skin and the blood. Recognising Norman Clark and seeing no sign of either Dave or Ferdie Vallance, it seemed logical to Hester that both had been overpowered. That they were either dead or unable to defend themselves or her and that she was alone, facing a madman who believed she was his missing wife. Then she saw Dave. Standing behind the kneeling man, Dave stooped, got an arm round Norman’s thick neck, hauled him to his feet and away from the edge of the drop. For a moment and before Norman began to struggle, Dave caught sight of Hester.
‘Get away!’ he shouted to her. ‘Get home and bar the door!’ For a moment Hester hesitated but Norman was still bawling Evie’s, name, still convinced in his deranged and damaged mind, that it was Evie, thirty feet below him. Evie – her face half hidden by blowing hair and the hood of her mackintosh – who was staring up at him. She was about to turn and run when Norman, summoning all of his remaining strength, snatched up the bolt of timber he had used to strike Ferdie and was standing, confronting Dave, his arm raised to strike, his back to the aperture. In the seconds it took for Dave to reel back, Norman had flung his weapon aside, stooped, grasped the highest rung of the iron ladder and swung his weight out, over the lip of the sill.
At that moment, with her hood blown back from her face, her hair plastered to her skull and Norman Clark’s voice calling her Evie and commanding her to stop, Hester began to run. Her boots slithered as she stumbled and splashed through the storm water that was flooding across the yard. A freak gust of wind caught Norman’s words and to Hester it seemed that he had reached the ground and was closing in on her. He was angry now. His voice an hysterical shriek, his abusive words threatening violence. Reaching the corner of the barn, she stopped, flattened herself against the streaming wall and looked back.
Norman was a yard from the top of the ladder. His fingers groping and slipping, his feet struggled for purchase on the worn rungs. Above him, braced against the edge of the aperture, Dave and Ferdie peered down.
If Norman did not know why they made no attempt to reach him or dislodge him, they knew. Hester too. She moved forward a few steps and stood, stock-still in the lashing wind and rain, watching, hypnotised, as Norman continued his slow, precarious descent.
Chapter Ten
Roger Bayliss checked his watch when, on the left-hand side of the road, the looming shapes of Stonehenge solidified in the murk. He had planned to reach the henge by eleven-thirty and was gratified that he had made it, almost precisely on time. He selected a place where the short grass that bordered the roadway was level with it, eased his onside wheels onto it and applied his handbrake.
‘Coffee?’ he suggested to Alice. Eileen had prepared two meals for this journey. Flapjacks, shortbread and a flask of coffee were designed to keep the travellers fed until lunchtime when a substantial hamper would be broached.
‘Know what that is, Evie?’ Roger asked when the coffee was poured and the food distributed.
‘Some rocks?’ Evie answered, biting into a piece of the shortbread and without much apparent interest in the majestic standing stones.
‘Yes. But they are very old rocks,’ Roger told her.
‘I thought all rocks were very old,’ Evie said.
Alice laughed.
‘But these are very, very old rocks, Evie,’ she said, ‘and very special ones. Don’t you think they look a bit special?’ When Evie agreed, Roger embarked on a short lecture expounding most of the known facts about the history of the henge. The words, ‘burial-mounds’, ‘rituals’, ‘Beaker folk’, ‘solstices’, ‘pagans’ and ‘druids’ were introduced, defined and hopefully became part of Evie’s vocabulary. To make the place come alive for the politely listening girl he described how Thomas Hardy had used the henge as the location of the arrest of Tess, the heroine of one of his most famous novels. But as Evie had not read the book or ever heard of Tess Durbeyfield, the connection between the unfamiliar place and the unread novel meant little to her. Although she nodded and smiled vaguely at Roger she was more interested in the road ahead as they pulled out onto it and resumed their journey. Roger Bayliss was disappointed by this. He smiled at Alice when she leant across and patted his knee as he changed gear, accelerated and gave the great, grey stones a last glance.
Their route through London avoided the well-known landmarks. Evie, who had been hoping to catch a glimpse of Big Ben and Buckingham Palace, was disappointed. Roger became concerned that this part of the journey was taking them much longer than he had anticipated. It was decided that they would not stop for lunch until they arrived at Tilbury.
The gale that was lashing the West Country had veered north, leaving London grey and cold as the December afternoon approached.
‘A good day to be leaving England,’ Alice said as they threaded their way into the docks where there was still plenty of evidence of wartime bomb damage. Rows of fragile warehouses stood, skeletal and precarious, amongst warped and twisted cranes and hoists. The scene was a monochrome of greys and sepias until they saw the ship.
The Orontes, in common with her sister ships, was painted a curious shade of muted, pinkish gold. Set in those murky surroundings, she glowed like a harvest moon at twilight, then, when a brief break in the cloud flooded the scene with wintery sunshine, blushed like an opal. Or a pumpkin in a pantomime.
‘Is that my ship?’ Evie breathed. ‘Is it? Is it mine?’
By now the vessel loomed over them, its gangways busy with people and porters pushing trolleys laden with luggage ranging from cabin trunks to hatboxes.
‘Yes,’ Alice said. ‘It’s yours. There’s the name on the stern. You see?’ Evie had not imagined that her ship, indeed, any ship, could be so large. She stood, her face expressing her awe, astonishment and an underlying, overwhelming excitement. Probably because all these were feelings she associated with Giorgio, when she exclaimed ‘Mama mia!’ her Italian accent was perfect.
Two hours remained before Evie had to make herself known to the emigration officer. They parked the car, and although Eileen’s lunch was excellent, they barely noticed it, eating quickly and hungrily. After Evie’s papers had been checked, her case labelled ‘wanted on the voyage’ and wheeled away, there was a delay before the boarding passes would be handed out.
There seemed to be nothing left to say. They smiled awkwardly and found a draughty cafe where Roger bought them mugs of tea.
‘What have you done to your wrist, Mrs Bayliss?’ Evie asked suddenly, taking Alice by surprise. From time to time on the journey, when they ate their lunch and now, as Alice sipped her tea, Evie had caught glimpses of the bruises and contused flesh just visible between the sleeve of her coat and her glove. Alice blushed, and pulling her cuff down over the injury, made a confused and unconvincing attempt to explain it. Evie shook her head.
‘Something happened this morning, didn’t it?’ she persisted. ‘Was it when you came to fetch me from Rose Crocker’s?’
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Alice said, ‘Really it doesn’t, Evie. Let’s not spoil our last—’
‘It was Norman, wasn’t it? He came looking for me again! I knew it! I just knew he would!’
‘But he didn’t find you, Evie! And he never will! In a couple of hours you’ll be—’
‘Safe? Will I be? Will I ever be? And he hurt you, Mrs Bayliss! And what about the others?’
‘The others?’
‘The others in the valley! Hester and Dave and their Thurza! And Ferdie and Edward John! Mrs Crocker and everyone else who helped me!’
‘That’s all been taken care of, Evie.’ Roger spoke calmly and with more confidence than he felt. ‘Everybody was warned. The police were called. Norman Clark has no idea where you are or where you are going and no one who does know will tell him. He has broken his bail and will be in custody by now. Drink your tea and let’s get you aboard.’
Evie found a place on the rail and waved and blew kisses until her face and their faces blurred into unrecognisable shapes.
‘She’s got a point, you know,’ Roger said, allowing himself to relax the forced smile he had kept in place for the past hour. ‘I think we should get home, Alice.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Yes. If you feel up to it. I’m a bit concerned about our people. There’s probably nothing to worry about and they’re all absolutely fine, but … What do you think?’
‘I think we should go.’
The pumpkin ship was by now a diminishing blob of colour as daylight faded over the grey Thames. If Evie was still waving, they could not distinguish her from the other figures leaning on the rail. While Roger bought petrol Alice telephoned Ruth and cancelled the arrangements they had made for that evening.
‘Oh … But—’ Ruth protested. She was a woman unused to having her plans cancelled.
‘No “buts”, Ruth,’ Alice told her, firmly. ‘I do apologise, my dear. Can’t explain now. I’ll write. Byeeee.’
It was after midnight when they arrived home. There had been drifts of leaves and even fallen branches in the lanes after they left the main road but the air was still when they pulled into the yard of the higher farm. As Roger extinguished the headlights the total, familiar darkness of the countryside enveloped them. No lights showed in the farmhouse windows or in the cottage occupied by Ferdie and Mabel and their family. As their night vision began to reveal the familiar shapes of the yard they looked down into the valley where the lower farmhouse was, as usual, in darkness. Nor were any lights showing in the windows of the Crocker cottage. The distant stream was in spate. In the near silence they could hear it making its noisy way along the valley floor. The owls in the woods that rose up behind the farmhouse towards The Tops sounded drowsy. Roger heaved a sigh, part relief, part exhaustion.
‘Long day,’ he said, putting an arm around Alice.
They were both suddenly desperately tired. In silence they went indoors, carried mugs of hot milk upstairs and were in their bed within half an hour.
Roger woke early and as Alice made her way sleepily to the bathroom, he dressed hurriedly in his farming clothes. In the yard he encountered Ferdie who had just delivered the dairy cows to Mabel for the early morning milking.
‘Everything alright here?’ Roger asked.
‘Yessuh. Why wouldn’t it be? Wasn’t expectin’ you home this early though, sir. Young Evie get on her way okay, did she?’
‘What? Oh, yes. She did. It all went according to plan.’
‘That’s good, sir. Oh, there was one thing, sir.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Daphne, sir.’
‘Who?’
‘The cow my Mabel calls Daphne. The one with the crushed horn?’
‘Oh. Yes. Calls her Daphne, does she …’
‘She do, sir, yes. You knows what my Mabel’s like when it comes to cows.’
‘Well? What about … Daphne?’
‘She started calvin’ late yesterday. Don’t seem to be doin’ too well. May be nothin’ but we reckons you should take a peek at ’er.’
‘Yes. I will. Thanks, Ferdie.’
‘Pleasure sir.’
‘Um, Ferdie …?’
‘Sir?’
‘No sign of Corporal Clark?’
‘No, sir, no. Dave got your message about ’im bein’ seen hereabouts, and later on Edwin Lucas phoned the lower farm to say as he’d bin ’angin round ’is place and ’e’d told ’im to push off and that ’e was calling the police.’
‘No sign of him at the lower farm, then?’
‘No. No sign of ’im there.’
Roger re-entered the farmhouse where he encountered Eileen.
‘Wasn’t expectin’ you ’ome for hours,’ she announced testily. ‘Thought we’d got burglars, I did, when I ’eard madam moving about upstairs. And I haven’t even started on your breakfasts, not knowing as you’d be wantin’ any!’
‘Sorry, Eileen. Very sorry. Thoughtless of us …’
He left her, pink with righteous indignation and joined his wife in their bedroom.
Alice was sitting at the dressing table wrapped in a white towelling bathrobe and brushing her hair. She met his eyes via the mirror.
‘Absolutely had to have a bath,’ she smiled. ‘Essential, after yesterday.’ The bruises on her wrist were still livid. ‘Now, tell me. Is everyone alright? Did anything happen?’ Roger sat heavily in the small upholstered chair that his first wife had used when she did her sewing, a fact which Roger had long since forgotten – and looked appreciatively at Alice.
