The movements were deft and forceful. None of the tottering, none of the giggles; a normal old lady of sixty-five years, oddly dressed, nothing more than eccentric. She sat herself comfortably among Sarah's papers, picked them up casually, glanced at a copy of Mr Pardoe's will, put it down with a smile.

'Working dear? It's so bad for your eyes. Don't you like this simple will? It was all my idea.'

'Shall I draw the curtains?' Sarah said thoughtfully. In case we have visitors?'

'They're all out, dear. Don't worry, I have ears longer than stalks, and why do you think I insist on keeping a sheep? I'll know as soon as I hear a car and if anyone comes to this door, Hettie will bleat for me, then I'll just go back to being senile and you humour me, all right?'

Of course,' Sarah murmured. 'I quite understand.'

Mouse Pardoe beamed. 'I knew you would. Ernest said so.'

CHAPTER EIGHT.

The late Mr Pardoe,' said Jennifer Pardoe, 'was a bit of a bully. Full of charm and also full of s.h.i.t.' She belched slightly after the use of a rude word whose sound she obviously felt was agreeable. 'He was very lovable and very forceful and I was always known as the Mouse. I loved him greatly, hopelessly, but also realistically. I didn't have much option, even if I thoroughly disapproved and consider then, as I do now, that most property is theft.

My opinion was never heard, my wishes never considered, until, when he grew older and beyond temptation, he started to listen and I suppose I got the upper hand. He had a pa.s.sion for respectability, although he wasn't in the least respectable. It's a shame so many things come too late.' She sipped tea out of a mug with all the grace of a thirsty labourer, looked at Sarah over the rim.

'No,' she said, answering a question which hung in the air. 'I myself am not in the least respectable. Neither are you. I have always regarded the mere notion of respectability as such a waste of time.' Sarah nodded a mild a.s.sent.

Anyway,' Mrs Pardoe continued, 'we made certain confessions to each other, my husband and I, long before he died, which somehow put us on an equal footing. I won't elaborate now.

He ceased to care about property and such, and made the will you've read because he trusted me.

He trusted Julian too, but Julian was on a bender at the time, not booze, you understand, the other kind of addiction, misguided love. Then my husband died in a typically stupid fashion. People surrounded me, immediately, telling me what I should do. They hemmed me in, and even if I'd finally got my better half into the habit of listening to me,' no-one else did.

The children, never. I knew they were going to push and pull me in all sorts of directions, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with all this property we own, so did he really, getting it in the first place was only a sort of game to him. But I wasn't going to be allowed to have my own way.'

'Who,' Sarah asked, 'was going to stop you?'

I merely made a suggestion about what we should do with all this property and Edward hit me. I ruined Edward as a child, let him get away with everything. He was such a pretty baby,' Jennifer Pardoe said simply, as if that was explanation enough. No-one was going to listen, as I said. The tradition of not listening to me was far too well established and I really can't stand confrontation and conflict. So I decided to go mad. Remove myself into the realms of the harmless and also make sure I got attention.

You get a lot of attention when you're mad. I've rather enjoyed it, even though it is a bit of a strain, sometimes. When mad, you can be a total exhibitionist, something I was never allowed to be, wear what you like, say what you like, marvellous, you ought to try it.'

'Lying in the cabbage patch?' Sarah asked.

'Yes. Wonderful. But if I did it without being mad, some fool would call an ambulance. I've realized I'm probably quite a bit mad to begin with. It must help, don't you think? I like walking about with the sheep too, and talking to the birds, why not? Only I couldn't if I were supposed to be sane, could I?'

I don't see why not.'

'My dear,' said Mrs Pardoe, patting her knee, 'I know that you have the uncanny knack of understanding almost everything, but one thing you can't know at your age is how much power you lose in the world when you grow old. You have to create another power base as your own crumbles.

Basic politics. Mine, by the way, have always been slightly left of centre. Ernest Matthewson never used to approve.' She peered at a Mickey Mouse watch. 'I'd better go. We'll have to continue this another time. I wonder, will that boy Rick come up with ice-cream and my newspaper today? Probably not, what with the rain and all.'

She gurgled her tea again and proffered the mug. All confessions, Sarah noticed, needed some kind of liquid accompaniment. They could not emerge from a dry mouth.

'That boy Rick is in love with your daughter,' Sarah said. 'The feeling is reciprocated.' Mrs Pardoe nodded.

'Calf-love, I hope.'

'Calf-love can be real.'

'Well, there couldn't be a better candidate. A nice working-cla.s.s boy, just like Mr Pardoe once was. Given the right chances, he'll go far. I must go.' Sarah wanted to stop her but there was nothing she could do against such steely determination.

I suppose,' Mouse was saying, 'I should get a stick if I'm going to keep up this doddery charade.

By the way, girl, have you any idea what should happen to this estate?'

'Yes. You've just endorsed it. It was you gave the instructions to Ernest, wasn't it? Not Julian?'

Of course. Only it was supposed to look as if it was Ernest's idea, I mean anybody's but mine. I told him I wanted the children to realize that they had everything they needed already. I want them to realize of their own accord, without anyone telling them. I wanted them to know how you work out your own destiny and money only makes it harder, sets you apart.'

And why did he suggest me?'

Mrs Pardoe looked away, put on her hat and let the feathers hang down to her chin.

'They're supposed to go at the back, these feathers, more fun this way, aren't they?' Sarah's gaze did not waver; Mouse met it.

'My old friend Ernest never does anything without a dozen motives, you know?'

I never knew he was quite so clever.'

'He isn't, he's simply cunning. What he really said about you was . . .' she paused, her first hesitation, as if the symptoms of insanity were resumed with the hat.

'Yes?'

'You were a catalyst. Does that mean a very sleek cat? Can a catalyst do something about Hettie the sheep? She's been driving me mad.'

Mrs Pardoe lurched across the wet lawn, singing in the rain.

Catalyst is not what Ernest said, Sarah thought. He would never have used such a word. Nor would he have understood that someone who acts out another role, like Mrs Pardoe's madness, becomes the part they play.

Miss Gloomer was dying. When Julian came back from his ten o'clock call, he drew level with the house he could never quite love as home since his father had died there, although he had loved its cla.s.sless eccentricity once. He pulled into the drive, sat where he was with his hands on the steering wheel, watching the windows through the rain. Mother woke and slept early; no light shone from Edward's room with its sweeping view of the coast. I should not think of him as a spy as well as a failure, Julian thought. I should not delight that he and Joanna are likely out of the house in separate directions for fear of what they might do to comfort one another on a wet night like this; I have an evil mind.

He watched the lawn, noticed with weary guilt the way it resembled a hay field. The night was cooling fast; drizzle made the gra.s.s glisten. Tomorrow, time allowing, he could scythe it, tonight all he could see was the ghostly vision of Sarah Fortune, naked against the green. Then he was out of the car, walking automatically towards the cottages, his feet soft on the surface, hissing in the gra.s.s. He could say he thought he had heard an intruder; he could say he had come to enquire after her health after Joanna had told him the story of the rogue tide; he could say there was no time to come sooner, which was a lie. He could mention Elisabeth Tysall's headstone and ask Sarah's opinion, but he was still afraid; it was ridiculous and he turned to go back, saw the lamp outside the cottage they had given her, illuminating the scrubby roses and against the block of light from the open door, her figure, bent double. He heard the pitiful bleating of the sheep, heard Sarah's voice, soothing in return. Julian quickened his step. She did not seem remotely surprised to see him.

Oh, it's you. Look, we've got to do something about this sheep.'

'Why?' His own voice sounded like a bleat of protest.

'She's been making a noise all evening, that's why, all afternoon too, b.u.t.ting her head against the door. Took me a while to realize it wasn't a simple desire for my company. One of her horns is growing into her eye.'

Julian squatted on his haunches. The sheep flinched; Sarah pressed the fleece against the frame of the door. He noticed that the left horn was partly swathed in a steaming rag, then saw with horror how the tip had grown at a crooked angle, so that instead of being level with the forehead, it grazed the ball of one bloodshot and weeping eye. There was a hideous sore patch beneath.

'She's in pain. She'll be covered with flies in the morning,' Sarah was saying, matter of factly.

'I've tried to yank the horn back, she's been very good, but the horn's too hard. So I wrapped a hot dishcloth round it. Thought it might soften it. Is that the right thing to do? She doesn't like it.'

Julian swore under his breath, trying to remember any jewels of animal husbandry his father had learned in that last of his many enthusiasms. What was it Father had wanted to do at the time, or was it Mother's idea, collecting rare breeds of sheep? Put something back into the land, Mother had said.

I can't see properly,' he muttered, feeling the animal tremble beneath his hand. 'Do you mind if we take her inside?'

It was bizarre, standing in the cruel light of the kitchenette where a kettle bubbled on the cooker, with the sheep trying to back away from where he held her between braced legs.

'The heat does seem to soften it. Here, hold on to her muzzle ' Sarah obeyed with both hands.

The terror in the wall eyes of the animal seem to fill the room. Slowly, with considerable strength, Julian lifted the horn with a wringing motion of both his arms, twisting it up and back, well clear of the eye. Quickly Sarah wiped the moisture which had gathered round the wound below. Hettie bucked and reared. Enough was enough. They let her bolt for the door in shambling haste, dishrag unwinding as she went.

'She looks like a woman coming out of the hairdresser's, half done, I never knew sheep needed similar attention.' She had turned to wash her hands in the sink, up to the elbow. Julian did the same.

I wouldn't have seen you in the nurse's role,' he said lightly.

Oh, I wouldn't know about that,' Sarah said with equal lightness. 'Would you like a drink?

Plentiful supplies.'

Any animosity between them was gone. He felt himself shiver, remembering the crumpled horn, boring into an animal's head like the memories penetrating his own skull. The cottage was cool indoors, designed to repel heat in summer, preserve it in winter. Sarah was dressed in a cotton sweater, short sleeved with a deep V, b.u.t.tercup yellow, her hair springy clean, the smell of soap, shampoo and perfume easily overpowering the farmyard traces of sheep and the lingering medicine smell of Miss Gloomer's bedside.

They sat in the small living room. A large shawl of many colours was flung over the sofa; an ugly table lamp had been removed to the floor to diffuse the light, transforming the place so much that even the single bar of the electric fire seemed cheerful. On the first sip, he noticed that her whisky was excellent and she sipped her own with the evident pleasure of a connoisseur.

'Did you detour this way to tell me I was fired?' she asked without rancour, as if the answer did not much matter.

'No. You're retained for having a certain expertise with a sheep. How did you learn that?

She shrugged. The sweater fell away a little at the neck; he noticed two small, raised scars, as if a mole had recently been removed.

I really don't know. I don't have any skills, animals are easier than people. Would you like some more?'

The whisky had gone in the twinkling of an eye. He nodded. She rose gracefully, her arm catching the light and he noticed three more of the little scars above one elbow, white against the golden brown of her skin. There was nothing disfiguring in any of the scars, but the sight of them filled him with a peculiar anguish.

'We spoke on Friday,' he said abruptly. 'About the late Elisabeth Tysall. What do you know about her?' Sarah followed the direction of his gaze to the marks on her neck, pulled the neck of the sweater closer to her ears with both hands.

'Nothing while she was alive, but I came to know of her. I know that her husband considered I was her double. I know that he abused her badly and she killed herself off the coast down here.

Let herself drown. Yesterday, I almost found out how. Do you know, if it had been warm, like yesterday, if she was drunk enough, drugged enough to lie down and sleep, it would have been a peaceful death, a simple letting go. No pain.'

'Do you think so?'

'Provided she had no terror. Provided she had consumed enough to want to drift away.'

Julian looked at her closely for signs of flippancy. Now he could see they were not the same, Elisabeth Tysall and this woman at his feet. They had little resemblance apart from the hair and the membership of the same league of female beauty.

I should like to know about Elisabeth Tysall,' said Sarah wistfully, 'because no-one ever asked.'

Julian took a large swallow of the whisky and put it down. The prospect of shifting the burden of guilt by speaking of it made him react like the sheep at the end of the unexplained pain, silly and slightly skittish.

'The Tysalls had a cottage here,' he began. 'At least, she made it very much theirs with improvements, but it was rented from us. They appeared to be enormously rich. I suspect the kind of rich who actually owned very little. Not our kind of rich. This isn't a glamorous place, but Elisabeth Tysall liked it. Charles, her husband, let her come here alone, although he was extremely possessive. I supposed he reckoned there was no temptation in a little seaside town.

We aren't exactly endowed with adult attractions. No casinos, no places to be seen. You don't get in the county calendar if you sit in the amus.e.m.e.nt arcade.' He looked at her meaningfully, met an innocent stare.

'She used to walk a lot. So did I, in those days when this landscape held magic for me.'

He remembered to sip slowly, feeling slightly intoxicated already, speaking faster.

'So I walked with her. I'd met Charles twice, when Father had had them up to the house for a drink. Charles saw me as a boring country b.u.mpkin, the plain man I am. I met Elisabeth for longer in the surgery when she came in for a prescription. I don't know how it happened. I couldn't keep my eyes away. Life became a vacuum between meetings. A week when I didn't see her, and there were plenty of those, was a week in h.e.l.l. She wrote letters in between, teased me, made me stand back. She was a wise flirt, warned me about Charles's savage jealousy. I told her, leave him: I'll take on the whole world for you; but she said no, you don't know me and no-one ever wins with Charles. Then all of a sudden one weekend, she succ.u.mbed. I can't describe it,' he said simply. I'd sound like a boy if I tried to describe it.' Julian sat back, exhausted by the memory.

I remember telling her, you are so beautiful, you'll immobilize me completely with any other woman. What am I to do if you don't stay with me for ever? Leave him, marry me. I shall never react like this to any other woman, you're so perfect. Don't say that, she kept saying. Please don't say that.' He began to tremble, reached for his gla.s.s, let the good whisky slop on the floor.

A fortnight later, she came back. You know how it is when you miss someone so much it hurts.

I'd got myself into a pitch of anger because she hadn't been in touch in any way, no letter, phone call, nothing, and of course I couldn't get in touch with her because of Charles, but I was still mad to see her. My perfect Elisabeth, the fulfilment of all dreams. She wasn't perfect, though, not even remotely beautiful any more. In fact, when she barged into my surgery, she was hardly recognizable apart from the hair. Her face had been cut to ribbons. It might have been gla.s.sed: it was difficult to tell with all the st.i.tches and the swelling. I couldn't look at her.'

Julian put his head in his hands, briefly, toyed with his gla.s.s, his palms sticky with sweat.

I asked her how and why, of course. I think part of my reaction of revulsion, no more or less, was guilt, in case our affair had triggered what had been done to her. It was difficult for her to speak clearly; her mouth had been slit in one corner. She said it was nothing to do with me, Charles had done it on a whim. I didn't believe her. I was stunned and revolted and frightened, so I behaved like an impatient irresponsible doctor. I prescribed for her ma.s.sive doses of tranquillizers, sleeping aids, told her she'd do best by the healing process if she slept for twenty-four hours. I rang the pharmacy, didn't even volunteer to stay with her. Instead, I went out and got drunk. Paralytic.'

He emptied the tumbler.

'May I have some more of this please, with the rea.s.surance that I'm not going to repeat the exercise now? I've never been drunk since, though G.o.d knows I've tried.'

He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the liquid gurgling into his gla.s.s. A generous measure, enough to make him shrug to attention. The hand touching his as he took the gla.s.s, was warm, encouraging.

I suppose it was the next day she disappeared, when I couldn't raise my head off the pillow, cancelled Sat.u.r.day surgery, where I gathered later, she called to see me. She might not have received a friendly reception, despite her state. They thought she was bad for me and they'd never exactly liked her manner, which was imperious, to say the least. I suppose a woman as beautiful has the right to be rude and defensive, so many people must want to touch.'

He was nursing the whisky rather than drinking it. Sarah sensed a man of iron self-control, who drank not for pleasure, only for oblivion.

I a.s.sumed she had gone back to her husband. I got a letter from him, some time later, terminating the tenancy on the cottage. I felt, as I should have done, extremely guilty, also relieved. The guilt then was nothing to the guilt a year later, when she was found in the sand banks, half a mile from the quay. The buried body, come back into the land of the living.'

'How did she come to be buried?'

'No-one knows, or if they do, they won't be telling now, but the creeks change shape all the time.

A section of bank could have fallen on her, buried her, then split apart again after months. There was a storm tide the day before she was found. It was the growth of hair, mainly, which indicated how long she'd been there. Then the police investigation, her husband saying she'd never gone back to London at all, he thought she'd gone home to America, which is where she came from originally. Elisabeth was under the sand from almost the day I spoke to her last. I wish there was some doubt: there isn't. I shall always know it was I who put her there. She came to me for help.

The one who was her lover gave her the means for suicide. The last straw. I may as well have ordered her to go and die.'

The whisky was untouched and the room was silent. Julian coughed, painfully.

'Charles came to look at the body of course. He phoned me and I told him he could stay in his old cottage if he wanted, but all he kept asking was how his wife came to be buried in the sand, as if I should know. I was angry with him, short, said I didn't want to know, shouted at him, he should have loved her. It was the same week Father died, my behaviour before that might explain why he didn't trust me. Charles simply wouldn't accept any of the explanations of how Elisabeth had been interred there so long, he wanted me to take him to see the place. I couldn't, wouldn't.

Then I was called to remove his body from where it was washed up. I knew it must be him. Do you know what I did? I kicked that sodden bundle in the ribs, put the last nail in the coffin of my self-esteem. Then I came home to bury my father. I knew then what I've known ever since.' He began to count on his fingers. 'Namely, I'm not fit to be a human being among all these decent people here, let alone a doctor. I killed her, you see. I may as well have killed myself.'