“I don’t want to go to an empty, unguarded flat. Until the police get there, will you please take me somewhere warm and safe, where I can have a proper bath? I want to get rid of the smell of this place, of him, of that bastard Duval.”
Saying his name seemed instantly to undermine the front she was putting on: she was nearly hysterical.
Gould tried to calm her: “All right, but once we’ve cleaned you up we must go back to the police at your apartment.”
As they drove the half-mile to the White Horse, Marda’s pulse was racing and her body surged once again with adrenaline. Despite her extended trauma, she wanted to get out and see the whole world as soon as possible. She could not believe how alive the outside was, how sweet the air smelt, how wonderful it was to be free. She could now truly relate to how Christine felt when she escaped from the wall. But she also wanted to touch things; she felt the smoothness of the anorak she had borrowed, the plastic of the car seat, and, to Gould’s slight embarrassment, the roughness of the jacket he was wearing.
Gould became aware of her intense femininity, in spite of the pain etched on her face. Despite himself, he wondered whether she would automatically regard him as an old man, even though he was only ten or fifteen years her senior. Mark had talked a lot about his sister, and Gould liked what he had heard about her character. And he felt he wanted to make amends for taking so long to put the jigsaw together, a delay that could have killed both brother and sister. Why were academics so impractical? he asked himself.
Marda’s emotions were too crowded to think beyond the moment. Gould was a friend of her brother’s, and her saviour. And because of, or in spite of, her ordeal, she felt instinctively at ease with him, not least because he was, she sensed, the polar opposite of the loathsome Duval. That was enough, for the time being. Her nerves jangled with all the stimuli which even the dark, cold winter’s night could not disguise: a car-horn beeping, the powerful colours of the traffic lights, the glowing shop windows…she could stop where she wanted, speak whenever she wanted to, cry, laugh, sing, run…Duval had missed out so many little elements of freedom in his book, she thought; he could never have understood how Christine had really felt, not just because Duval was a man, but because he was incapable of genuine empathy.
The car stopped abruptly outside the White Horse, a hundred yards from Marda’s home. The village gossips had already been electrified by the rumours of Marda’s discovery and the police manhunt, so the bar was fuller than usual. Gould’s entry into the pub with a dishevelled and now famous ex-captive, in clothes far too big for her and leading a dog, inspired a swell of excitement not seen since VE Day. The trio ignored the stares and the few cheers, and swept up the stairs into the professor’s room.
“I need a good soak,” said Marda rather imperiously. Seeming to have regained some control, she did not ask his permission as she rushed into the en-suite bathroom.
“Please would you order me some tea and, yes, orange juice, and as many sandwiches as possible,” she called back to him, a little more politely. “I’ll have my bath first, but I just want to see some food.”
“You go ahead and I’ll go downstairs and fix that up.”
She put her head around the bathroom door. “Please don’t be long. I don’t want to be alone, not for a very, very long time. May I use your phone,” she said brightly, “to ring my friend Jenny?”
The professor carefully locked the door to the room and went downstairs. He ordered the refreshments, and spoke to the very attentive landlady: “May I borrow some women’s clothes for Miss Stewart, and may I use your phone to make a quick call?”
“Anything you like, Professor, this is the busiest we’ve been in months. Like Piccadilly Circus.” And then in a soft voice: “How is she?”
“As fine as can be expected. She’s had a very rough ride.”
The landlady led him to the phone in the room behind the bar, and promised to deliver the clothes within minutes. Gould then dutifully rang Shere police station to inform them where Marda was.
Politely refusing the numerous offers of congratulatory drinks from the over-curious crowd at the bar, he trotted up the stairs and unlocked his room. The bathroom door was half-open and the air was hot and steamy.
“Are you OK, Marda?”
There was no response.
He shouted this time, nearer the door: “Is everything OK?”
He heard the lavatory flush.
“Yes, I’m cleaner, but still starving and parched.”
“Oh, good. I’ve scrounged some clothes for you. Much more your size. They’re on their way. I’ve rung the police and told them where we are. I don’t want them to think you’ve disappeared again. A respectable professor taking a beautiful young lady and a dog to his room is not something I could hide for long-if I read you English correctly… Especially when I asked the landlady for some women’s clothes.” He hoped a little levity would help the girl.
The professor knew that Marda should be in hospital, where she would have received expert attention, yet he also admired her pluck. He was trying to jolly the girl along, hoping he might help to stop her collapsing. He knew that such anguish could not be suppressed for long, especially at the moment of safety, when the body, so long enduring, often gives up in abject surrender. One remedy was to keep talking, because it helped to let it all out, bit by bit. His job was to calm her down until she could receive proper medical help.
She came out, wearing a towel wrapped turban-style around her head and another large one around her body.
“Two big towels; you are spoiled, professor. Mostly they have a single little one in English hotels.”
She retreated into a small armchair. She had been obsessed by her starved frame when she was in her cell, but now the elation of freedom helped her transcend such concerns.
“I look like Twiggy, don’t I? I’ll have to eat six meals a day for a month,” she said, a little self-consciously, and with a slight tinge of suppressed hysteria in her voice.
She was interrupted by a knock on the door. Marda jumped slightly.
“Don’t worry. You’re safe now,” Gould said reassuringly. “Come in.”
The landlady came in with the clothes that Gould had requested, and a large tray of sandwiches, tea and orange juice, which the ex-captive fell upon.
The landlady said, “Hope everything will be all right now that you’re free. If there’s anything you want-make-up or anything of that sort, just ask me, love.” And, before leaving, she gave Marda a little hug. Marda wanted to say thank you but her mouth was too full of food, so she just nodded her appreciation.
After she had demolished five or six more sandwiches over the next twenty minutes, Marda began to ask a thousand questions. She begged for a cigarette, and Gould gave her one of his Marlboros. She was smoking, eating, drinking and talking in a frenzy.
“Take it easy, Marda, you’ll be sick,” Gould warned.
She tried on the borrowed clothes, gabbling all the time. “They fit reasonably well; they’ll do until I get to my flat; presumably my clothes will still be there, don’t you think, Professor? Might be a bit damp, though.” Her words were barely comprehensible through the thick ham sandwich wedged in her mouth.
“Marda, seeing as we’re sharing a bathroom, at least call me Irvine. My friends call me Irv.”
“OK, Irv.” She got up, and walked back into the bathroom to remove some food stuck in her teeth.
“Why did you call the police?” she asked distractedly through the open door.
“Well, for one thing, because the police need to know where you are right now, especially since Duval hasn’t been caught. I wanted to check that there is a policeman in your flat. And they mentioned again your not staying in hospital.”
“Professor, I couldn’t stand to be locked in any more, even in a hospital.”