Page 113 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
I have to say, this suggestion came as a relief, because the whole scenario was starting to feel just a bit too much like a horror movie. You know, the ‘please don’t go down in the basement on your own’ moment.
‘I’m sure you’ve got other things you’d rather do tomorrow evening, Treena.’
‘I expect Luke will still be in the pub waiting for me afterwards, and we could probably both do with a stiff drink by then.’ She looked at me. ‘I really do think the best thing you could do is tell Ned right now. You’re making too much of it and I don’t think it’s going to be the horrible shock to him that you imagine.’
‘Yes, but he loathes Wayne and doesn’t much like the rest of them,’ I said. ‘And having kept it from him so long, I think he’s going to be angry about that, too … and just when we’re getting along so well. No, I’ll give tomorrow a shot, first.’
‘I know that stubborn expression,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘OK, I’ll pick you up at the bridge tomorrow about ten to eight.’
We went back to our table together. There was no sign of Wayne, and Ned and Luke didn’t seem to suspect anything was amiss, even if I wasn’t very chatty for the rest of the evening. Eventually I pleaded a headache, which by then was the truth, and went back to the flat, telling Ned not to bother when he would have come with me.
He gave me such a puzzled look and I think would have come with me anyway, except that Treena said something to him just as I was getting up and I made a fast getaway.
When I got back to the flat I asked Caspar (once he’d finished telling me off for being out) if he thought I was doing the right thing.
If only I spoke Russian Cat, I might have had the definitive answer.
I had dark circles round my eyes next day and Ned commented that, apart from the fact that I hadn’t got a tail, I looked like a lemur.
This made me laugh, but though Itriedto behave normally, my mind kept going back to where I was going that evening and wondering if I was doing the right thing … But it couldn’t do any harm to have things out with Saul, could it? And it might just resolve the matter once and for all.
Ned asked me later if I’d heard anything more from Mike. ‘Only if you have, or you’re worried about anything at all, you know you can count on me, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But there’s really nothing the matter at all – just the headache and then a bad night. But I think perhaps I won’t come over to the Hall this evening.’
I summoned a smile. ‘If I don’t lavish a bit more attention on Caspar, he won’t be speaking to me any more!’
‘You probably do just need an early night,’ he said, then added guiltily, ‘Perhaps I’ve been working you too hard!’
‘Oh, nonsense, I’m having the time of my life,’ I told him, and his expression cleared.
‘Well, I’m glad to hear it, because I hoped that’s howyoufelt, too,’ he said and gave me his warm, all-enveloping smile.
35
Misery
‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’ asked Treena that night, when I got into her car.
‘Yes,’ I said, even though I wasn’t any more and telling Ned suddenly seemed a much better option than a night-time rendezvous at the pig farm with my obnoxious relatives. There was a cold, shivery feeling in my stomach about it, but I am nothing if not stubborn.
‘OK,’ she said, driving off, but when she parked in the layby opposite the rutted, dark track to the farm, which showed only a glimmer of light from a downstairs window, she turned to me and said, ‘You’ve got exactly one half-hour. Then if I don’t see or hear from you, I’m leaving Luke a message and coming to find you.’
‘Agreed,’ I said, glad she’d insisted on coming with me, then resolutely set off up the track, the torch I’d brought sending a warm yellow circle of light in front of me.
I’d been able to both smell and hear the pigs as soon as I got out of the car and I could see the large, low buildings on either side of the track that must house them, as I made my way up it and across a paved farmyard. Dogs began to bark from a nearby outbuilding when I knocked on the door next to the lighted window and it was opened at once by Wayne, who grinned unpleasantly at me and moved aside just enough to let me through.
I was in a big, untidy kitchen, where someone had made a brave attempt to introduce a feminine touch, with flowery curtains andmatching cushions in the wheel-back chairs and a rack of brightly painted decorative plates.
‘You’ve come, then,’ said Saul, stating the obvious. He was sitting in an upright wing chair by the fire and, with his large head and torso, looked more impressive sitting down than he had standing up.
‘Yes, though I don’t know why it had to be at night, in the dark, like this,’ I said.
‘We don’t want people seeing you come here – and it had to be tonight, when my eldest, Sam, and his wife have gone off to her brother’s wedding down south. He don’t know nothing and she’s a blabbermouth.’
‘Right,’ I said, not moving any closer. He didn’t suggest I sit down, or have a cup of tea – or hemlock. Wayne had closed the door and I was conscious of him standing just behind me.
‘ButIknow, don’t I, Dad?’ Wayne said eagerly. ‘I’m not a blabbermouth and—’
