The Night Book Page 7

  She switched off the engine of her Mercedes and listened to the ticking of the engine block as it began to cool. She took slow, deep breaths and looked around her. Yellow cornfields stretched away from both sides of the road. In the distance, she could see a bright red combine harvester threshing its way methodically through the tall stems of corn, throwing up a huge cloud of dust. The machine was too far away for her to hear. Apart from the ticking and clicking of the car’s engine, all was silence.

  Suddenly a bird, not much bigger than a sparrow, landed on her car’s iconic bonnet emblem and stared intently at her through the windscreen, cocking its head rapidly from side to side as it did so. It didn’t seem at all afraid. It was probably a male; she must be on its territory. There was likely to be a nest in the hedge next to the car.

  Meriel knew a surprising amount about birds. Her late father had been a keen amateur ornithologist and he had taught her a lot. She was pretty sure this was a yellowhammer, with its bright yellow and chestnut plumage, and its typical lack of shyness around humans.

  Then, when it began to sing, she was certain, and she smiled. It was such a sweet, funny little song. She could hear her father imitating it for her now.

  ‘Little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheeeeeeeeeese! Little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheeeeeeeeeese!’

  Suddenly, without warning, Meriel was overwhelmed by tears. She crossed her arms over the steering wheel and sank her forehead onto them, swamped with helpless sobs that juddered through her entire body. She didn’t really know what she was weeping for. Her father? Herself? Shock at what had just happened; this whole horrible, horrible mess she’d got herself into?

  She surrendered to the moment and, somewhere at the back of her mind, vaguely hoped that no one would pass by to witness her distress. But no one did.

  It was just her and the yellowhammer.

  Meriel had been aware of Cameron’s growing sexual jealousy for some time but until now he’d managed to veil it, probably because he feared that to reveal it would put him in a weak, even supplicatory, position. He had, after all, absolutely no rational grounds to doubt his wife’s fidelity.

  But, that morning, the simmering cauldron of his covetous, malign mistrust had at last boiled over.

  It had been ugly and frightening and she worried that it was a deeply disquieting sign of things to come.

  They’d intended to go to the Cox’s summer party together. Cameron had told Meriel he was ‘rather looking forward to it, as long as I don’t have to talk to anyone from your joke of a programme’.

  Meriel knew that her husband’s principal motive for going was to buttonhole Lake District FM’s commercial manager. Cameron wanted to discuss some kind of cut-rate advertising deal for his businesses, not just on the local station but right across the network. Plus he’d be doing a bit of brown-nosing with Peter Cox. There’d been talk of the station manager presiding over an advertising hook-up between the radio station and the local ITV company, and perhaps even roping in the regional press outlets too. Cameron could never see a pending deal without wanting to stick a finger in the pie.

  But when she’d come downstairs ready for the party, he’d exploded.

  ‘We’re not going with you fucking dressed like that. Go back up and put something halfway decent on. Jesus, Meriel, you look like a pimp’s whore and I’m no pimp. Change. Now.’

  She’d been genuinely at a loss.

  ‘What are you talking about, Cameron? It’s just a summer dress! I’ve worn it before! You said you liked it. You said—’

  ‘Liar. I’ve never seen that thing before and if I had I’d have carried it in tongs to the nearest dustbin. Which I will most certainly do when you’ve taken it off.’

  ‘I’m not going to take it off! It’s fine! It’s just a lace dress with—’

  ‘Lace? Lace? I can see more flesh through the holes in that thing than if you were wearing a fisherman’s net. And those shoes! What do they call things like that? Brothel heels, that’s it. You look disgusting. You’re going to change them, too.’

  Meriel, whose voice had only started to return the day before, didn’t want to risk losing it again by shouting, but she was struggling to keep her temper.

  ‘Cameron,’ she said huskily, ‘these heels are three-and-a-half inches. Four at most. I’ve worn higher. What on earth’s come over you? I think you’ve gone mad. You’re behaving like a total . . . oh, don’t make me say it.’

  But the next part had been the worst; the very worst, all the more so for being so utterly unexpected. He’d stepped quickly towards her, only stopping when they were a few inches apart from each other. She thought he was going to scream more abuse at her, but she was wrong.

  He tossed his head back, hawked deep in his throat, snapped forward again and spat at her, full in the face.

  She was so shocked that for a few moments she was rigid, unable to move.

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s come over me, my darling,’ he hissed. ‘The realisation that my wife’s a tart and a faithless one at that. You might not have shared my bed for months but I’ll bet you’ve been in someone else’s. God knows what you get up to when I’m not here.’

  He reached forward, grabbed the sleeve of her dress and pulled it towards him to wipe his mouth. ‘It’s all this is fit for.’

  Meriel had run blindly from him then, snatching up her handbag and keys from the hall table on her way outside to her car. She could hear him shouting behind her, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then she was in the Mercedes and driving away. She thought she saw him in her rear-view mirror, gesticulating from the front door, but then she was on to the main road and heading towards Keswick.

  As soon as she reached the town she drove to the Skiddaw Hotel in the market square, and walked straight into the ladies’ room.

  She needed to sponge the sleeve of her dress, wash her face, and reapply her make-up.

  Her hands were trembling, but she managed it.

  They’d be steadier later.

  When she wrote the next entry in her diary.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The parking attendants at River House somehow managed to find the space for Meriel’s Mercedes SL convertible that had been unavailable for Seb’s Spitfire.

  She’d had to wait for almost twenty minutes after she stopped crying before she felt ready to drive on to the party. She hardly ever smoked but she found a half-empty pack of cigarettes in the glove box and smoked two of them, one after the other. Listening to the radio helped calm her nerves too.

  Then, just as she was about to pull out of the layby, she’d caught sight of her reflection in the rear-view mirror and realised her face was streaked and smeared with mascara.

  It had taken another fifteen minutes to completely redo her make-up, for the second time that afternoon. By the time she eventually reached River House she was half-expecting to see the first guests leaving, but the gravel apron was still crammed with cars. She couldn’t help looking to see if Seb’s funny little two-seater was among them, but there was no sign of it and Meriel felt an unmistakable pang of disappointment.

  She and Cameron had been to last summer’s party here – how strange to recall that they were still sharing a bed then; now the very idea was unthinkable – so Meriel knew not to bother picking her way through the house. She walked around the side path that led directly to the garden. As she drew closer to it she could hear the sound of voices and laughter, and she had to stop for a moment to gather herself.

  You’re fine, Meriel told herself firmly. You’re completely fine. Yes, you’re married to an out-and-out shit but so are lots of women. You’ll find a way, one day, to escape. Surely. There has to be an answer to this, whatever your sodding agent says.

  Surely.

  Seb saw her before she saw him. He’d been on the point of leaving, Meriel was the only reason he’d bothered coming in the first place and if she wasn’t here, then he might as well go home.

  He caught his breath. There she was, talking to
their hostess at the entrance to the marquee. She must have only just arrived. He swallowed.

  She was wearing a stunning off-the-shoulder cream lace dress, cinched in at the waist with a narrow silver belt. The hem was trimmed with tassels that gently swayed just above her knees. The effect was distinctly 1920s flapper. On her feet she wore backless summer sandals that looked to Seb to be trimmed with satin – cream, to match the dress.

  Seb thought she was the loveliest creature he had ever set eyes on.

  He wasn’t usually shy with women but now he found himself hesitating before going over to her. It wasn’t just her extraordinary beauty that dazzled him. There was something else, an elusive feeling he couldn’t quite bring into focus. He was conscious of standing on the threshold of something; an instinct – no, a certainty – that in the simple act of crossing the lawn, he would in fact be crossing the Rubicon and committing himself irrevocably to some unknown future. The sense that he was exactly, perfectly balanced on a point of no return was so strong that he felt almost paralysed.

  And then Meriel turned, and saw him, and smiled, and put her head slightly to one side, as if to say: ‘There you are.’

  And he swiftly crossed the soft lawn, and stood by her side, and he was with her.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  He’d discovered the secluded seventeenth-century inn purely by accident – his accident. The old inn was tucked away in the sleepy village of Faugh, six or seven miles further down the Eden Valley from River House. The place had recently cropped up in a local news bulletin for some reason and he had blithely pronounced it ‘Faw’.

  It joined the long list of Seb’s mispronounced Cumbrian place-names. Colleagues gleefully listed every one of his howlers on the newsroom noticeboard, along with the frosty letters of complaint from locals that invariably followed each gaffe.

  Gradually he learned where the pitfalls lay. The village of Torpenhow was inexplicably pronounced trappena; Aspatria was spattry and Brougham broom. As for Rogersceugh, a tiny hamlet perched close to where Hadrian’s Wall marched into the sea on Solway’s coast, the place was double booby-trapped for an unwary newsreader. It was rogerscuff to the plain-spoken; rogerscew if you were posh.

  Faugh had turned out to be faff, and when the news editor had finished hauling him over the coals for that particular solecism (‘Why the fuck don’t you just ask someone before you go into studio, Seb? I’m going to start fining you a fiver a time if this goes on much longer’) Merryman had calmed down, adding: ‘There’s a good pub there, too – the String of Horses. Great food, cosy rooms . . . very romantic. You should take that girlfriend of yours for the night, next time she’s up here. Oh sorry, I keep forgetting. She’s dumped you, hasn’t she?’

  Now, as the sun began to settle in a cloudless sky towards the fells that lined the western horizon, Meriel’s and Seb’s convertibles were winding their separate ways towards Faugh along country lanes that closely shadowed the course of the Eden.

  He’d left River House a few minutes before her; there was no point in arousing needless suspicions.

  Although, actually, the hell with that, Seb thought defensively as he took a final sharp right towards the pub, now barely a few hundred yards away. Suspicions about what, exactly? As far as the world was concerned he and Meriel were just going for a drink together, weren’t they? And perhaps some supper. They were colleagues, after all. This was 1976; modern times. They weren’t in some angst-ridden scene straight out of Brief Encounter.

  What was more, he reminded himself, they’d planned to have lunch together earlier that week, hadn’t they? It would have been in a pub that was a favourite with station staff. All completely open and above board. Going for drink with Meriel . . . sinking a couple of beers with Bob Merryman after work . . . where was the difference?

  He groaned aloud. It was no good. This was total horseshit, and he knew it. He shook his head at his own meretriciousness as he swerved into the String of Horses car park and pulled on the handbrake.

  Seb ran both hands through his hair.

  The difference was bloody obvious: he wasn’t falling hopelessly in love with Bob Merryman; he was going down, and going down hard, for Meriel Kidd.

  An image of taking her to bed suddenly flashed vividly into his mind. The thought alone was practically enough to stop his heart.

  He stepped out of his car and stood for a moment in the warm early-evening sunshine, forcing himself to take a couple of slow, deep breaths. He closed his eyes; he was almost dizzy with expectation and excitement. After a few moments he opened them again and stared at the three-hundred-year-old building in front of him.

  Seb began walking towards its ancient oak door, framed by blue wisteria that clustered in long, tumbling drapes on either side.

  He was going to see about a room for the night.

  Five miles behind him, Meriel was conducting her own inner conversation.

  It had begun almost as soon as she slipped away from the party, discreetly following a little while behind Seb. She drove between the same hedgerows that occasionally parted to offer glimpses of the gleaming river below.

  Unlike Seb, Meriel made no attempt to deceive herself.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she muttered for the third or fourth time. ‘What do you think you’re doing, Meriel Kidd?’

  She beat a rapid tattoo with her fingers on the steering wheel before answering her own question.

  ‘I’ll bloody well tell you. Playing with fire, that’s what.’

  She could not remember feeling so conflicted and confused.

  And aroused.

  Twice she stamped on the Mercedes’ brakes and skidded to an abrupt halt in the middle of the road. She must turn around. Now. This was complete madness.

  But both times, instead of making a three-point turn and heading back the way she’d come, she somehow found herself driving on towards her assignation. She felt her willpower evaporating as swiftly as that morning’s mist had done.

  She must give herself some space to think.

  Meriel spotted an open gate up ahead on her left, with a farm track leading into the field behind it. She braked hard again and swung her car through the narrow gap, pulling up just inside.

  Old-fashioned hayricks and bales dotted the meadow that lay in front of her, with dozens of rooks clustering on the yellow stooks and feeding among the stubble below.

  Her father had loved rooks; Meriel remembered him telling her they were probably the most intelligent of British birds.

  So here’s Daddy again, she thought as she switched off the engine. Twice in one day. Maybe he’s trying to get through to me, tell me what to do.

  She smiled ruefully to herself and once more spoke aloud. ‘Don’t kid yourself, Meriel – you’re on your own. You’ll have to work this one out for yourself.’

  She settled back in her seat and, as accurately and calmly as she could, replayed her conversation at the party with Seb.

  When she’d caught sight of him, staring at her with the strangest look on his face, a warm thrill had at once flooded her entire body. She couldn’t help wondering if the radiance might be in some way visible to others. She felt suffused in soft, golden light.

  Then he was walking quickly towards her, and the sensation faded just a little.

  He reached her side and they stared at each other for a moment. Then both of them spoke at the same time, in the same words.

  ‘But I thought you weren’t here!’

  They laughed together, and Seb – unselfconsciously, unthinkingly – leaned in to kiss Meriel’s cheek. It was only the second time they’d made physical contact; the first was when he had shaken her hand outside the radio station nine days before. She experienced the same quiver that she had then, but managed to disguise it by quickly returning the kiss.

  ‘Seb . . . hello. What a lovely surprise. I didn’t see your car when I arrived just now. I thought . . . well . . .’

  ‘I got here late,’ Seb explained. ‘I was on a story. A wi
ld-goose chase as things turned out. When I arrived the parking goons made me stick my car round the side. I reckon the reason was that they didn’t want a heap of junk spoiling the motor show out there. I counted at least three Porsches.’

  He hesitated before asking her: ‘Have you come with your husband?’

  It was almost imperceptible, but he noticed her flinch.

  ‘No. Cameron decided . . . not to come. He said he had some contracts to go over. Something about a deadline on Monday. I came on my own.’

  He tried not to look pleased.

  ‘Right. And you got here late, like me.’

  ‘Yes. I had to stop in Keswick for . . . for a while. Then I pulled over along the way to look at the views and I lost track of time. I’d forgotten how beautiful the Eden Valley is. No wonder they named it after Paradise.’

  He laughed, and they considered each other in silence. The moments lengthened.

  ‘Well, this is very odd,’ he said at last, smiling at her.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Standing here together not talking but feeling . . . well, totally OK with it. This is only the second time we’ve seen each other but it seems I’ve known you for . . . well, I don’t know how long. Ages. For ever. It’s weird, I don’t feel I have to make any effort to make conversation with you. Sorry, does that sound mad?’

  Meriel shook her head. ‘Not at all. I know exactly what you mean. I’m feeling it, too. Perhaps we knew each other in a previous existence.’

  ‘Oh please, don’t tell me you believe in any of that rubbish.’

  She laughed. ‘No, not really. It’s just that earlier today I found myself thinking of my late father. When I stopped to look at Paradise, as it were. It left me feeling a bit thoughtful, that’s all.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Seb looked around them. ‘Over there,’ he said suddenly, nodding towards the river. ‘There’s a table come free – that one by the jetty, a bit apart from all the others. Why don’t we sit down and get to know each other properly?’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  Seb elaborately offered her his arm, bowing theatrically from the waist as she took it. Meriel dropped a mock curtsey in return, the tassels on her dress bobbing and swaying in sympathy.