Next morning she found Alastair's note.
The unstamped envelope lay on the hall floor, on a tray of sunlight. It bore only her name. Should she tear it up unopened? But she was free of him, free enough to be able to read what he'd written. It might give her insights. Insights were what a writer needed.
She walked upstairs, reading. The stairs shook the page in her hands. Halfway up she halted, mouth open. In her flat she read the note again; phrases were already standing out like clichés. Was it a joke? Was he trying to disturb her?
I suppose you told the police everything. It doesn't matter if you didn't. I've never seen anyone look with such contempt as you did at me. I don't want anyone to look at me like that again, ever. When you read this I shall be dead.
What an awful cliché! Betty shook her head, sighing. His note read like an amateur's first story. But did that mean it wasn't true? Could he have killed himself? She wasn't sure. She had realized how little she knew about him when she'd opened the door of his room.
At first, peering into the small dim cluttered room, she had thought she was looking at a mirror on a table beside the bed: she was there, gazing dimly out of the frame. But it wasn't a mirror; it was a photograph of her, taken without her knowledge.
Venturing into the room, she had made out diagrams and symbols, painted on the walls. Magic. The unknown. She'd felt the unknown surrounding her dimly, trapping her as she was trapped in the photograph: the many shadows and ambiguous shapes of the room, Alastair looming in the doorway. But she'd strode to the photograph. Herbs were twisted about it; something had been smeared over it. It stank. She swept it to the floor, where it smashed.
Alastair had cried out like an animal. Turning, she had seen him as though for the first time: long uneven mud-colored hair, a complexion full of holes, a drooping shoulder. All of a sudden he looked ten years older, or more. Had he managed to blind her in some way? When he tried to block the doorway she shoved him aside, unafraid now of him and his furtive room. "Don't you touch me!" She could see him clearly now.
But could she? Could she tell how true his letter was? Of course she could—if she wanted to; but she wasn't interested. She buried the note beneath her notebooks. It was time she worked on her new book.
She couldn't. Her notes gave her no sense now of the people she'd talked to. The void of her room surrounded her, snatching her ideas before they formed. One strong emotion remained, where she'd pushed it to the back of her mind. She had to admit it: she was curious. Had Alastair really killed himself?
To find out she would have to go near his home. That might be what he'd intended. Still, she would be safe in daylight: good Lord, at any time of day—he couldn't harm her. Early that afternoon her curiosity overcame her apprehension.
Alastair's home was one of a terrace of cottages in central Brichester, washed and dried by April sunlight. Betty ventured along the opposite pavement. A cyclist was bumping over cobbles, a van painted with an American flag stood at the end of the terrace. Sunlight glared squarely from the cottage, making Betty start. But in a moment she was smiling. None of the curtains in the cottage was drawn. Alastair had been bluffing. She'd known that all along, really.
She was walking past the cottage—it would be silly to turn, as if fleeing—when the door opened.
She gasped involuntarily. It was as though she'd sprung a trap, snapping the door open, propelling a figure forward into the sunlight. But it wasn't Alastair. It was a tall woman, somewhat past middle age, wearing a flowered flat-chested cotton dress. She gazed across the street and said "You're Betty, aren't you?"
Betty was still clutching at her poise; she could only nod.
"You must come in and talk to me," Alastair's mother said.
Betty was aware of her own feet, pressed together on the pavement, pointing like the needle of a compass—halfway between Alastair's mother and flight. She could feel the effort she would need in order to turn them to flight. Why should she? The woman seemed friendly; it would be rude to walk away, and Betty couldn't think of an excuse.
"Please," the woman said, smiling bright-eyed; her smile was a gentle plea. "Talk to me."
Perhaps she wanted Betty to help her understand Alastair. "I can't stay very long," Betty said.
The front door opened directly into a large room. Last night the room had been dim; blocks of sunlight lay in it now. Brass utensils hung molten on the walls, jars of herbs on shelves were tubes of light, large containers stood in the corners. There was no sign of Alastair.
Betty sat in a deep armchair; the knees of her jeans tugged at her, as if urging her to rise again. "I'd love to live somewhere like this," she said. Perhaps Alastair's mother meant her to talk without interruption; she nodded, busy with a kettle over the grate.
Betty chattered on, surrounded by silence. Alastair's mother brewed tea and carried the pot to the table between the chairs. She nodded, smiling gently, as Betty drank; her square plump-nosed face seemed homely. Not until Betty had begun her second cup did the woman speak. "Why did you do it?" she said.
Betty had become tense, had been sipping her tea more rapidly because there seemed no other way to respond to the gentle smile. Now her heart felt hectic. "Do what?" she said warily.
The woman's smile became sadder, more gentle. "What you did to my son," she said.
But what was that? Betty felt heavy with undefined guilt; heat was piling on her, though the day was cool. She was about to demand what she was supposed to have done when the woman said "Seducing him then turning him away."
Betty had never had sex with him—thank God, she thought, shuddering a little. "Oh really, Mrs.—" (annoyed, she realized that she didn't know the woman's name) "—I didn't seduce him at all."
"Whatever you choose to call it." The woman's mouth smiled gently, but her eyes gleamed. "It didn't take you long to get him into bed with you," she said.
An odd taste had accumulated in Betty's mouth. Her tongue felt gluey; she sipped more tea, to loosen her tongue for a denial, but the woman said "Perhaps you didn't appreciate how sensitive he was." She smiled sadly, as if that were the best excuse she could find for Betty.
"Perhaps you don't realize what he's been up to," Betty said.
"Oh, I think I know my son."
There was a tic at the root of Betty's tongue. It made her irritable, made her almost shout "Do you know he practices witchcraft?"
"Is that what it was. Is that why you turned him away." The woman gazed sadly at her. "Just because of his beliefs. I thought you young ones weren't supposed to believe in persecution."
"I don't believe in that sort of thing," Betty said furiously. "It's against life. He was trying to trap me with it."
The woman's voice cut through hers. "His body was good enough for you but not his mind, hey? You should like me less, then. I'd only begun to teach him what I know."
She was smiling triumphantly, nodding. "Yes, he'd just begun to learn his craft. And just for that, you killed him."
Betty felt her eyes and mouth spring wide; the odd insistent taste of the tea filled her mouth. "Oh yes, he's dead," the woman said. "But you haven't seen the last of him."
The teacup clung to Betty; the handle seemed to have twined around her finger like a brittle bony vine. She tugged at it. She must leave hold of it, then she would walk straight out. As the cup rolled in her hands the black mat of tea-leaves seemed for a moment to writhe, to grin, to be a man's wet face.
Her hand jerked away from her, the cup smashed against the table. She stood up unsteadily, but the woman was already on her feet. "Come and see him now," the woman said.
She was pulling Betty toward the door to the stairs. The door was ajar on a glimpse of dimness. The dimness was widening, was darkening; it was reaching to pull Betty in. And in the dimness, lying on the bed, or sitting propped on the stairs, or lying ready for her at the bottom— She dragged herself violently out of the woman's grasp. For a moment fury gleamed in the woman's eyes, as she realized Betty was still stronger. Betty managed to head straight for the front door, although the walls moved like slow waterfalls.