Undercurrent by Frances Fyfield Page B

step back. There were things she wanted to know and things she didn't, but any invitation to confidence meant an invitation to the whole thing, didn't it? She couldn't select what she heard and wanted to hear, and he was a decent man, for all that. A fairly conscientious father to a child who was not his own, persisting even when Angela tried to shut him out, which she did when the going was good, calling him into play only when she and Tanya needed him.

    'Well bloody good luck, read the instructions on the packet and don't take an overdose. What more can I say?' she said lightly.
    They were back in the castle vestibule, facing the bridge over the moat, him switching off lights, fixing the lock. The sound of the sea, so prevalent at height, was subject here to the intermittent noise of cars on the road. She wanted to ask him about his dog but that was another sore point.

    'What about you? Saturday Night Fever again?' 'I've got my own telly, Neil. I'll watch it on that.'

    She had her own key and her own mobile phone in this phoneless house and her entry was virtually noiseless. The only dead giveaway would be the smell of the wrapped fish and chips she carried or the chance encounter on the way to the far back regions of the first floor, above the kitchen and removed from everything else. She delayed on the way home, glass of wine in a pub, just to show she was alive and well.

    People in pubs never asked questions provided you asked them first - they were far too busy answering but if she were to keep up this habit of social evasion, she had better get a dog. She could hide behind a dog; a dog would signal that she was not alone. Dogs deflected questions quicker than bubonic plague. Dogs in this place could become the most abiding topic of conversation. If she got a dog, she could hide out with other dog owners and talk of nothing else.

    'Shhhhh,' she said to Senta, once inside the door. She paused on the landing, arrested by the voices from the dining room. The vicar, the baker, the candlestick maker, but particularly the American saying something in his shy accent which made them laugh and her flee to the shelter of her own room where she closed the door, firmly. Corkscrew, salt, pepper, TV, all there. The rest of the world, the English Channel included, could live entirely as it wished, provided, until morning, it left her alone. In the morning, she would be braver.

    But the, television programmes were inane; they could not begin to hold her attention. She refilled the wine glass and began to write the letter, all over again.

    Dear Philip,
    I hope all's well with you and the love affair has lasted. I just wanted you to know there never were any hard feelings, whatever I might have said at the time. I really just want you to be happy. . .

    She took a large slug of the wine. No, I DON'T want you to be happy. I want you to be non-existent.
    If I weren't so full of funerals, I'd dream of yours, but it wouldn't be the same, would it, standing round as the EX partner, while some other bitch is allowed the lion's share of the grief She continued: So, if you're happy, I'm happy for you. . . best of luck darling. . .

    You bastard, you cold-hearted stinker. You never knew me; you never wanted to know Me. What about Me? You DISTRACTED me, when I should have been paying attention to someone far more important than you. You never helped. I needed someone who would HELP.
    She blew her nose. Scribbled through the lines, then began writing again.

    Over the mountains and over the waves, Under the fountains and under the graves, Under floods that are deepest, which Neptune obeys;
    Over rocks that are steepest, Love will find out the way.

    And then with her hand scribbling faster, fresh wine in her glass, I'm jilted forsaken, outwitted, Yet think not I'll whimper or brawl- The lass is alone to be pitied, Who ne'er has been courted at all . . .

    That was much better. And there were other things to think about. Such as what to do