CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Not long after Charley and Spence departed for Croydon, Anne came to a decision. She must visit Owen without prevaricating any further. The longer she left it, the worse it would look.
Owens’s appearance, when he finally came to the front door, shocked her. He looked ill, uncharacteristically dishevelled, his face pale and drawn. The tired eyes lit up at seeing Anne. Morosely, without a word of greeting, he let her in. Following him into the living room, she couldn’t help but notice how slowly and unsteadily he walked in his bare feet. He sunk into an armchair almost immediately while she was still standing.
She sat down and regarded her old friend with concern. “You look terrible,” she told him. Owen merely shrugged and continued to maintain a stubborn silence. “I’ve been worried about you,” she said and added apologetically, “I’d have come sooner but…” Her voice and demeanour began to crumble.
Anne toyed with a tissue and became increasingly cross with herself for not being able to say the words of reassurance she had painstakingly rehearsed in her head for hours, words that continued to dance on her tongue but refused to pass her lips. “Are you alright?” she asked. Even as she spoke, it sounded a ridiculously feeble thing to say.
No reply.
“You must take no notice of Steve Taylor,” she said in a rush, unable to bear the awful atmosphere any longer, “Cathy warned me he has a temper. That sort, they never think before they open their mouths. An uncle of mine was just the same…”
You believed him, though, you all did, Owen Shepherd was thinking, but dared not say aloud. I could tell from the look on your faces. You think I’m a pervert, worse. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not, he kept telling himself over and over. Haven’t I always tried to be a good, honest, decent person? Ask mother, she’ll tell you. Only, his mother was dead, he suddenly remembered and wanted to cry, but…what was the use? Crying wouldn’t bring his mother back, any more than it would wipe away Steve Taylor’s haunting accusation.
“I should have stayed on, I realize that now and I’m sorry.” Anne wished he would say something, anything. “It was just…such a shock, Steve getting completely the wrong end of the stick like that. His marriage is on the rocks, of course. I dare say he’s afraid of losing Lynette, although I’m sure Cathy would never stop him seeing her. He obviously adores the child. Seeing you giving her a big hug like that, I suppose he was jealous.” Anne sensed it must appear to Owen as if she were clutching at straws.
A big hug like what…? Owen wanted to demand an explanation. A big hug like…Well, what, exactly? She was upset. I was comforting her, that’s all. The words ticked over in his brain like a noisy clock. Yet, he remained tongue-tied.
“Shall I make us a nice cup of tea?”
Owen nodded and was relieved when she disappeared into the kitchen. Was there any milk, he wondered? He doubted it. But Anne, he knew, took black tea with lemon sometimes and so did he. There was a lemon in the cupboard…wasn’t there? “What did it matter?” He moaned softly. What does anything matter any more? Anne was plainly uncomfortable in his presence and she had been such a comfort since mother died. To whom else could he turn if, deep down, she suspected the worst? What is so wrong about a single man living with his mother, for heaven’s sake? It had long been a source of pain and resentment that no one would have given a man’s single status a second thought years ago.
Anne returned with a tray. “There’s no milk, but I found a lemon and some biscuits.” She laid the tray on an occasional table, arranging cups and saucers with what Owen thought was an unnecessary clatter.
“I didn’t take Patricia.” He finally managed to get the dreaded words out. “I could never do such a dreadful thing, never!”
Anne calmly handed him his tea. He refused a biscuit. She sat down.
“You do believe me?”
“Of course I believe you. The thought never entered my head,” she lied. It had, in spite of her better judgement, but not for long.
“But…?” Owen glared. “There is a ‘but’ isn’t there? I can see it written all over your face.”
“No buts, Owen, I promise. Only…” she hesitated before speaking her mind, “you haven’t been exactly straight with me have you?”
“How do you mean, ‘not straight’ with you?”
“Kirk Spencer found a letter, written by your mother to Fern McAllister. Fern must have dropped it after the funeral. I’m ashamed to say he read it aloud and I did nothing to stop him.”
“That bloody letter!”
Anne was shocked all over again. In all the years she had known Owen Shepherd, she could not recall ever hearing him swear. “So why…?”
“Did we change our name when we moved here?”
Anne nodded. Owen took deep breath and told her about Carrie McAllister’s disappearance.
“But you were never charged.” It was not a question.
Owen shook his head. At the same time, his heart sank. He would have much preferred to hear her say, ‘But you didn’t do it.’ Wiping his brow with the back of his hand, he pressed on. In for a penny… “There’s more...”
“Oh?” Anne waited.
“Before the McAllister business, I was accused of molesting a young girl.”
Her heart began to pound against her chest. “And...?” she prompted in the same unnervingly neutral tone that was starting to get on his nerves.
“I was charged with all sorts. Oh, the charges were dropped,” he added quickly. “but by then the damage had been done. The whole sorry business never went to court. It just gave the local rag a field day instead. No names, of course, except mine, splashed across the front pages. The usual gutter press lies…guilty unless proven innocent. It was horrible. We never quite got over it, Mother and me.” All this time he hadn’t been able to look at her. Now he did. Her face was ashen, lower lip trembling. “I have never in my life knowingly done anything to be ashamed of,” he told her simply. It crossed his mind to tell her about the sleepwalking, but decided enough was enough for now. “Do you believe me?”
Before Anne could reply, the doorbell rang. She leapt up. “I’ll go,” she said and ran out of the room. Did she believe him? Of course I do. Well, don’t I...?
Opening the door, she was more relieved than delighted to find Cathy Taylor on the doorstep holding Lynette by the hand. “I won’t come in,” Cathy told her breathlessly. “I went to the hotel and they said you might be here. Would you do me a huge favour and take Lynette for the day?” To the child she said, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you darling?” But Lynette‘s face expressed misgivings. “I know it’s a cheek and I wouldn’t ask but…there’s no one else and Steve and I need to talk.”
“I’d love to have Lynette, you know I would…” She smiled at the little girl who smiled shyly back, “But won’t Steve mind...I mean…after yesterday?”
“I’ll deal with Steve,” Cathy declared in a no-nonsense voice that rang with conviction and resolution, “Will you help, Anne, please?”
“But, Owen…” Anne gesticulated meaningfully.
“Steve was out of order yesterday and well he knows it. He should be here now, apologizing to Owen. Fat chance of that, I’m afraid, but you can take it as read that Steve knows he overstepped the mark. Believe it or not, he’s really a very nice person,” she added and her eyes filled with tears.
Anne looked directly at Lynette. “I was thinking of taking the bus into Lewes later. Would you like that? It’s a lovely old place and there’s a castle too.” In her mind’s eye she could see herself and Patricia admiring the stupendous view of the old town and extending panorama of downs, river and forest from the ramparts of Lewes castle. Patricia, though, she conceded with a bright smile, may have been more interested in her ice cream…
“A real castle…?” Lynette was ecstatic.
“A real castle,” Anne assured her, “So you’re up for it then?”
“Yes, please!” the child turned to her mother, “A real castle, Mummy. That is so cool.”
“I dare say.” Cathy laughed, exchanging brief, knowing looks with Anne before kissing her daughter goodbye, and was gone before either quite realized it.
“Come in, child, come in.” But even as Anne led an excited Lynette into the house, she was already finding it hard to conceal her concerns about Owen.
She need not have worried. Seemingly oblivious to his appearance, Lynette ran to the armchair, clambered on Owen’s lap and gave him a hug. It seemed to Anne that Owen was like a dying man given a new lease of life. The dour expression brightened instantly. He beamed at Lynette. Suddenly, he frowned. It was like a light going out, thought Anne distractedly. He flung her an aggrieved, self-conscious glance before extricating himself from Lynette’s embrace and lowering the child gently to the floor.
If the little girl noticed Owen Shepherd’s change of mood, she gave no obvious sign. “We’re going to see a real castle!” she exclaimed and clapped her hands with delight, just as Anne had seen her do once before, just as Patricia had done all those years ago…
“You had better go and get ready Owen,” Anne told him, “Half an hour and that’s your lot. Lynette and I haven’t got all day to hang around waiting for you, have we Lynette?” She winked at the child who surprised and amused her by winking back.
“Come on, Grandpa Owen,” Lynette urged the lolling figure in the chair, “Get a move on or we’ll be here all day!”
To Anne’s surprise and relief, Owen laughed aloud. “Okay, okay, just let me tidy myself up a bit, eh?” His light, easy chuckle was music to Anne’s ears as he left the room.
“Would you like a cold drink, dear?” Anne felt slightly flummoxed. Accustomed as she was to talking to children in the course of her job, this was an altogether different, even daunting experience.
“A diet coke would be cool,” Lynette told her with huge smile.
Together, they headed conspiratorially for the kitchen with a view to raiding Owen’s fridge.
Meanwhile, Cathy hurried back to Hillcrest in search of Steve. He hadn’t been in Lynette’s room when she went to wake him, nor was there any sign of him in the restaurant where she and Lynette had breakfast. A charming and very attentive receptionist had informed her that Mr Taylor had left early without taking breakfast and, no, he hadn’t said where he was going. Convinced she would catch him later at the bookies or the pub next door, she had been more angry than worried. They needed to talk. An intense, frank heart-to-heart just might save their marriage. And it might not, of course. One thing was obvious, that without it they would not be man and wife for very much longer, even for Lynette’s sake.
Cathy sighed. Her first concern had to be Lynette. Acknnowleging it a mark of desperation that she should even consider leaving her daughter with Anne Gates, she was in no doubt that Steve would go ballistic. But what choice did I have? We need some time alone. Lynette liked Anne, and would see it as a treat. Yet, when they arrived at The Orion only to be told by Joe Harvey that Anne had gone to see Owen Shepherd, she’d entertained second thoughts and more. Lynette, however, was not in the least bit upset about seeing Owen again. “Maybe Grandpa Owen will let me feed the hens,” she cried with all the innocent enthusiasm of a ten year-old. “He’s not your grandpa,” Cathy said absently, “and you shouldn’t call him that. I’m sure he’d rather you called him Owen.”
“He wouldn’t. He told me so,” the child airily declared, “Grandma Anne likes me to call her that too,” she added.
“Yes, well, she would,” thought Cathy uncharitably. “Perhaps it would be better if you called them Uncle Owen and Auntie Anne?” Cathy suggested. But Lynette was having none of it. Her mother knew better than keep fighting a losing battle and made a mental note to tackle Anne about it soon.
In the event, she had only a few qualms about leaving Lynette at the Shepherd’s house. Her daughter was so excited about going to Lewes that Cathy wished she had thought of it herself. It would have made a delightful family outing. Who are you kidding, woman? She remonstrated with herself and proceeded to focus on the matter in hand. First, she had to find Steve and then…What, exactly? There was nothing else for it, she would have to play everything by ear and hope for the best. “The story of my life,” she complained to a passing seagull squawking madly overhead.
The bird soared upwards and flew on, with all the passionate indifference of nature’s own.
Failing to find Steve at any of his favourite haunts, Cathy finally ran him to earth at the pier’s Palace of Fun squandering their holiday money on fruit machines. “Are you winning?” she asked by way of letting him know she was right behind him.
“No.”
“Surprise, surprise...”
“Shit!” Steve felt in his pockets for some change. Finding none, he turned and gave Cathy a beseeching look. She promptly turned on her high heels and walked away, but not before lifting an eyebrow that spoke volumes. Casting an anguished eye over the machine’s tally, certain that just one more go would result in a jackpot win, he tore himself away and ran after her.
“Wait up!” he yelled.
Without looking back, she crossed to the rail and rested both elbows on it, the better to peer beyond the murky, lapping water beneath at the pitiful remains of a West Pier left more battered by public opinion, she suspected, than anything even nature could throw at it. She had heard the stories as to how it met its end of course, everyone had. A vicious beast, rumour, Cathy reflected morosely.
“Where’s Lynette?” Steve demanded.
“She’s with Anne,” Cathy told him, struggling for composure, “and before you jump down my throat, I have every confidence in her. Lynette likes her, so where’s the harm?” To her surprise, he did not rant and rave as she’d expected. Even so, she decided against tempting fate by making any mention of Owen Shepherd. “We need to talk. We can’t do that with Lynette around, and you’re usually drunk by the time she’s asleep,” she pointed out.
“I wonder why that is?” he countered before visibly reining in his temper to ask, “So where do we go from here?”
“We need to talk. I mean, really talk, not just blame each other and go on the defensive all the time. We need to say how we feel, really feel, both of us listening, really listening, to the other.”
“I agree. So do we go back to the hotel…or where? How about over there?” He pointed to some seats on a nearby groyne protruding from the pebbly shoreline like an accusing finger. They watched, fascinated and momentarily hypnotised by a rhythmic crashing of wave after wave against its weathered defences hurling a fine spray in all directions.
Cathy shook her head. “It’s too public.”
“Haven’t you heard the old saying about never feeling so alone than in a crowd?”
“Is that how you feel, alone?”
“Don’t you?”
She nodded, nonplussed. Suddenly, she felt vulnerable. She had been expecting resistance, sulks, even a shouting match. Yet here was Steve not only prepared to be accommodating but waxing philosophical as well.
“Let’s go back to the hotel then.”
Cathy shook her head. “Too…” She struggled to find the word she wanted.
“Impersonal?” Steve suggested.
Cathy shrugged. It was precisely the word she was looking for but would be damned if she’d let him know that. He would imagine he’d scored a point against her, and that wasn’t a game she was willing to play. Not any more. “We could stay here. No one will take the slightest notice of us…and we won’t get wet,” she added with a wry smile. Even as she spoke, a massive surge of spray reared above the groyne, descending seconds later…much like a predator, teeth bared for the kill, only to be thwarted and sent flying.
She frowned. The fanciful image both amused and dismayed her. What could it mean? She licked her lips nervously. Why should it mean anything? It wasn’t as if she believed in premonitions…Or did she?
“Do you want to sit down?” Steve was saying.
Cathy nodded, only vaguely aware of following him to one of the sheltered seats behind them. One side, facing the sad remains of the West Pier, was vacant. They sat down. She could hear voices, but only in a kind of vocal haze. She couldn’t catch conversations, few words even, except for someone she suspected of talking on a mobile phone who kept repeating “Yes, Mum, I know. Yes, Mum, so you keep saying,” in an ear-splitting monotone. Eventually she managed to block it out and give Steve her full attention.
They talked.
“I don’t know you any more Cathy. You’re not the person I married.”
“Neither are you.”
“So we’re agreed. We’re strangers. Do you want a divorce?” The question sent a tremor through Cathy’s entire body. They had skirted around the subject in the past, but this was the first time either had spelt it out. Her confidence plummeted, and she felt sick. “Do you want a divorce?” he repeated.
“Do you?” she asked, playing for time.
“I didn’t, not for a long time.”
“And now, do you want one now?” She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation.
“Maybe it’s for the best. We’re going nowhere together. Perhaps we’d be better off apart.”
“You’d be better of you mean,” she retorted, “You can chase after other women to your heart’s content and not have to worry about the consequences.”
“Is that what you really think?” he retaliated instantly, but in such a hurt tone of voice she was forced to reconsider.
To Cathy’s sure knowledge, Steve had only ever been unfaithful once. She only suspected there had been other affairs. And could she, in all honesty, blame him? More shudders hit her, keeping time, or so it seemed, with each wave crashing against the groyne. “Do you still love me?” Her voice, putting to him directly what she had avoided asking for so long, sounded remote and distant even to her own ears.
“Yes.” Steve did not hesitate.
“But you still want a divorce?”
He ignored the question and gave her a long, old-fashioned look. “Do you still love me?”
“Yes.” She did even not have to think about it.
“So why do you push me away all the time?”
“I don’t,” she protested. Suddenly, she was totally confused, “If I do, I don’t mean to. It’s just that…”
“What?” he demanded, with an intensity of emotion that made her stomach lurch.
“I’m frightened,” she admitted. A surge of relief coursed through Cathy’s veins although her answer had come as a surprise even to herself.
“Of me?” he sounded genuinely shocked.
Cathy fell silent. She did not, could not, look at Steve. Instead, she focused on three people - two adults and a child - walking to the far end of the groyne then hastily retracing their steps, laughing, as a shower of spray all but soaked them. The child kept running to the end, dodging the spray and running back again. The adults sat down on a seat. They shouldn’t do that, she thought abstractedly. They should be keeping a close eye on the child. At a guess, the boy was about nine or ten years old
I’m frightened,” she repeated dully, “I don’t know where I come from, what kind of person I am.” She turned to Steve, panic-stricken, “Suppose I turn into some kind of monster? Suppose I hurt Lynette? I couldn’t bear it!”
Steve groped for words to reassure her. He hadn’t expected this, and was genuinely shocked. Cathy had long been frustrated by what she had constantly harked to in latter years as her ‘missing link’ childhood. But this had always taken the form of anger and resentment. Not infrequently, it had led to terrible rows between them. He’d all but given up trying to comfort and reassure her. There was no point. She always pushed him away, even blamed him. From his perspective, it beggared belief that she should feel unable to settle for the wonderful person she had become. It hadn’t occurred to him that she was screaming for help. He saw it now, though, plain enough. The woman at his side was terrified.
Cathy neither resisted his embrace nor attempted to stem the flow of tears splashing both their cheeks.
Meanwhile, the couple on the groyne rose and headed back to the beach. After narrowly avoiding another cloud of spray, the shrieking child ran after them.
To be continued on Friday.
