‘What King?’ I asked in surprise. ‘There’s no king now in Portugal.’ But the man had hurried away, leaving me isolated, alone. The barbecue party broke up then and the guests all formed two long ranks on either side of the graveyard. And beyond them, in the distance, I saw a procession heading up the hill towards me. They were carrying nothing, no coffin, no cross. Yet they were all dressed formally, in black frock coats and tall stovepipe hats …
I saw they were heading straight towards me, these grim mourners, that I was standing right in their path between the two rows of barbecue guests, who had all bowed their heads now, their earlier merriment quite forgotten. I moved to join them to hide myself. But of course I discovered that I couldn’t move. My feet were stuck, rooted to the ground. I struggled to free them. But it was useless. And I knew with certainty then, without looking round, that there was a great freshly dug grave right behind me that had not been there before, which had mysteriously opened up for me just at that moment.
The dream annoyed me for a long time when I woke, even after I’d brought the rest of the lamb back to my tree and come down again to swim in the calm of the hidden pool at the end of the lake. It struck me as some kind of symbol of failure in my life here in the woods, or of some vast egoism within me, for where had Clare and Laura been in the dream, both so much part of that Portuguese landscape in reality? Had they ceased to exist, even in my unconscious? And was the open grave my punishment for that?
I’d stopped thinking about Laura because of the pain that brought. But I hadn’t thought of Clare, I realised now, because I’d left her, betrayed her, had pushed her into the arms of a stranger to save my own skin. I’d no idea where she was. And so, indeed, I’d not cared to think about her. For she must have been in some home or institution for disturbed children now, and that made it worse.
I saw the cruel folly of my behaviour then, as far as Clare was concerned at least. And as I swam I very nearly got out of the water there and then to give myself up. How could I have left this already disturbed child, my daughter in all but blood, to the mercies of some institution? Now that I was properly fed at last, rested, fit and clean, I saw the full horror of my situation: a dead wife and a child that I had inexcusably deserted. I would have to start making amends that very day. This time I would definitely give myself up.
It was then that I’d seen the man in the early morning sunlight, dressed in a gamekeeper’s outfit, with a gun and an Alsatian, on the other side of the lake, coming out of the undergrowth up by the ruined footbridge. He’d raised the shotgun, making a pass with it in the air; then he’d levelled it straight in my direction.
Of course, as I have already explained here, the man was Ross; Ross, the grave-faced, dirty tricks specialist once attached to our section in Mid-East Intelligence; Ross, one of Marcus’s hit-men, who, on some hunch perhaps, had come to this hidden valley to search me out. And from then on that bright morning, I stopped thinking of Clare and Laura again and thought only of myself, as I ran from Ross and his great dog, up and about the lake, until, having killed his dog, he came to trap me behind the old pumping-shed, where I had no escape. I moved from the useless cover of the laurel bushes then, the dead beast at my feet, drew the arrow on the corner of the shed where I expected him to appear at any moment, and waited.
But he never appeared. I thought perhaps he’d smell the remnants of the cooking fat inside the shed. His dog certainly would have done. But Ross moved on, past the other side of the building, whistling softly, calling out for the animal.
‘Karen?’ I heard his voice clearly. ‘Karen?’ The tone was fainter now in the still air as he moved away, up towards the brook where it came into the lake, and on up the valley towards the old quarry after that, I supposed. I gave him fifteen minutes before I dumped the big Alsatian into the covered well behind the shed, leaving one of the metal covers off, so that when Ross or his colleagues returned to look for the dog, and if they ever found it, they would assume that it had had an accident, had been drowned, running headlong into the watery pit.
The well was deep in any case. The water level didn’t start until more than six feet down. They might never find the beast. I was pleased once more, rubbing any fingerprints I might have left off the metal cover with handfuls of dry leaves; pleased that I’d survived again, given Ross the slip and killed his fearsome dog, too. Yes, I was pleased with killing again. Perhaps I’d found a taste for it which I didn’t want to admit. But in any case, I thought with some pride, I was really learning to live in the wilds at last. I had beaten the system.
I tidied up the ground around the well, throwing leaves about and brushing away the remains of the dog’s blood from my shoulder. And then suddenly, without any clothes on, having escaped from Ross straight away from the bathing pool an hour before, I was cold in this dank, shaded spot by the laurels next the well. I shivered, before turning quickly to get out into the sun again, back to my tree. And when I turned I saw the woman, watching me from the sunlit space where I’d expected Ross to appear, by the corner of the shed.
It was the woman from the Manor. She looked much taller, close to, dressed as the outdoor girl once more, in an open shirt and cords, with her long dark hair running straight back over her head. And I could see her thin, finely arched eyebrows clearly now; they weren’t made up. She looked at me solemnly, as she must have been doing for some time while my back had been turned: a serious face, quite immobile, intent, as if she were studying, trying to interpret a difficult canvas in an art gallery. Then she moved, but only a fraction, lifting the old pump-action Winchester.22 she was pointing at me a little higher, so that it covered my heart.
Seven
I raised my hands automatically, feeling more awkward than frightened, stupid in my nakedness.
‘Ah,’ she said slowly, looking up at my arms. ‘There’s not much need for that, is there? Unless you’ve got something hidden up there in all that nest of hair. A little gun, a knife?’ she added quizzically, smiling a fraction.
She spoke carefully: an American accent, East-Coast, New York State, Connecticut? New England, at least. And yet somehow it wasn’t absolutely convincing East Coast. There was a touch of somewhere else, something harsher and more natural, lurking behind the over-educated consonants, a breath of the Mid-West perhaps. There was money and there was culture in the voice, but it wasn’t certain that both came from the same place. The timbre was fine, though, a thing beyond background, only of nature: distinct, resonant. Like a small bell, the tone stayed on the air for a moment at the end of each sentence. She said nothing more then, just went on examining me carefully, with that same studied concern: a curiosity, almost a surprised welcome, as if for some rare species she had long sought and had now stumbled upon in this least expected of places.
‘Well,’ I said at last, feeling that one of us had to break the silence. ‘You’ve caught me. Clever of you. You’re the Lady of the Manor, I suppose?’ My voice, as well as this latter phrase, sounded forced, very formal, as if both came from some other man, a stranger who stood beside me. I felt I should be shaking hands with this woman, accepting a cocktail from her, perhaps, in some fashionable American drawing-room. Yet I had no clothes on.
‘Yes. I’m Alice Troy. And all this,’ she gestured round the thick circle of trees, ‘all this is my property. You’re trespassing. Where are your clothes? You’ve been swimming, I guess?’