one of those moments of delighted love for his mother, of startling new discoveries in his exploration of her, which are among the unexpected compensations of growing up. And Bunty, who knew when to vanish, sailed hastily back into the house feeling almost as young as her son.
Flashes of pleasure and warmth, however, did nothing to solve the problem of Kitty, and the shadow and weight closed on him again more oppressively than ever as he straddled his bicycle and rode out of Comerford by the farm road that would bring him out close to The Jolly Barmaid. In the grassy verge by the cross-roads he put one foot to the ground and sat gazing at the house, thinking hard. People had almost given up standing about staring at the place by this time, the centre of attention had shifted now to wherever Kitty was likely to be. The news was out, in morning papers and news bulletins and by the ever-present grapevine that twined across the back fences of the villages and burrowed its roots into the foundations of the town. Kitty Norris! Can you believe it?
The vulgar new sign in its convolutions of wrought-iron gleamed at the edge of the road. The doors would not be opened for business until after the funeral, for which permission had been given at yesterday’s adjourned inquest. How it would have annoyed Armiger to have to forgo a weekend’s takings just because someone was dead. The funeral, they said, would be on Monday, and Raymond Shelley was seeing to the arrangements, not Leslie Armiger. The conventionally-minded, with magnificent hypocrisy, were already beginning to censure Leslie for want of filial feeling, and were quite certain in advance that he wouldn’t go to the funeral. Why in the world, wondered Dominic, should he be expected to? He’d been expressly dismissed from his position as a son, and forbidden to feel filial; if he suffered any regrets for his ex, or late, father it constituted a gesture of generosity on his part, it wasn’t in any way due from him. And what did he feel now for Kitty, who had flown slap into the net to make sure he should not be snared? He must know by now. Everybody knew. Even when Dominic rode past the first farm cottages the air felt heavy and tremulous with the reverberations of the news, and two women with their heads together over the fence could only be retailing the rich imaginary details of Kitty’s fall.
Dominic began to follow the course Kitty had taken that night. Here she had halted before sweeping out in a right-hand turn and heading for Comerbourne; it had then been about a quarter past ten. Somewhere on her way she’d changed her mind and wished she’d stayed; somewhere before the next right-hand turn into the lane that wound its way to Wood’s End, and there brought her into the rear farm road, the ridge-road from the back of The Jolly Barmaid, that followed the old contour track between the upland fields and the low, moist river meadows. Probably she’d driven this stage slowly and cautiously; she was a fast driver by inclination but not a reckless one, and at night the frequent bends and high hedges of the lane contained and shrouded even the beams of headlights.
Natural enough, when she changed her mind, to go round like this instead of turning and driving back along the high road; natural enough, that is, if she only made up her mind when the cross-roads came in sight, and what could be more likely? A cross-roads is an invitation to pause, to think again and confirm your direction. So she turned down here, saying to herself: I will, I’ll have one more go at making him see reason.
A third of a mile or so, and the lane brought her to the next right-hand turn, under the signpost at Wood’s End. Hardly a village, just a few farm cottages, the long drive of the farm, one tiny shop, and a telephone box. And from here to the right again, into the old road, and maybe just over a quarter of a mile to go to the tall boundary wall of The Jolly Barmaid. She had parked “along there under the trees by that little wood.” When he reached the spot it was easy to see why, for the road broadened there into a wide stretch of trampled grass on the left, like an accidental lay-by under the hanging wood, and there she could get off the road. For by that time it must have been nearly, if not quite, half past ten, closing time at the pub, and though most of the customers would be using the main road, there was always the possibility that some of the countrymen would be leaving by this way.
Dominic dismounted, and pushed his bike slowly the last fifty yards or so from the place where she had parked to the rear exit from the courtyard. It was not a gate but a broad opening in the high wall, blocked with two iron posts so that no cars could drive out that way. The barn-ballroom was quite close, she had only to cross this remote corner of the yard to the doorway and walk in. And there Armiger had waited for her, full of his new plan, entertaining no doubts of her complacency.
How long had it taken, what happened in there? Not long, surely. She trying to get him to listen to her plea for Leslie, he riding over everything with his great schemes for the future, and convinced that she was with him; like two people trying to convey to each other two conflicting urgencies, without a word in common in any language. If she had reached this place about half past ten, or a little later, allowing for parking and locking the car and perhaps for some final hesitation, Dominic estimated that she must have taken flight well before eleven. Armiger would never let the exposition of his deal take him more than a quarter of an hour, he went straight at things. There was a pretty good indication of the times involved, too, in Kitty’s declaration that she had reached her flat by about ten past eleven; granted that was discredited by the evidence of her neighbours, yet it must be the time she had felt she ought to give, the correct time to round off the version of her movements which she wanted to have believed. Between ten and five minutes to eleven she came running out of the ballroom and left Armiger lying at the foot of the staircase, thought Dominic with certainty.
And then what? She would want only one thing, as she herself had said, and that was to get away. Would she drive on to the next turning and go right round The Jolly Barmaid again to the main road? Or turn there under the trees and drive back by the way she had come? She’d turn, he decided, after only a moment’s thought; this way was quieter and also shorter. There was plenty of room to turn under the trees. Almost certainly she headed back towards Wood’s End. And in fourteen or fifteen minutes she should have been home. Why wasn’t she?
He thought over and round it, and he was sure that was the only point on which she had lied. And why? There was an hour lost. Whatever she’d done with it, he was quite certain she hadn’t gone back and killed Alfred Armiger, so why wouldn’t she tell them what had happened during that missing time? Because there was someone else involved? Someone equally innocent, whom she refused to harm?
Her whole desire had been to get away. If she hadn’t done it it was because she couldn’t.
He had begun to push his bike back towards Wood’s End, trailing his toes in the fallen leaves under the trees. He chose to walk because his mind was grinding over the meagre facts so slowly that his feet had to keep the same pace. Here she turned and drove back, and yet she didn’t get home to Comerbourne until after midnight. She was going along here, probably fast, running away from her sense of outrage and frustration and shame; and somewhere along here fright fell on her, too, the dread that she ought to have waited to make sure how badly he was hurt; but by then it wouldn’t stop or turn her, it would only drive her on all the faster. So why didn’t she get home soon after eleven, as she should have done?
And then he knew why.
It was so simple and so silly that it had to be true. He heard the busy low note of the engine cough and fail, felt the power die away, and saw Kitty reach for the tap with one impatient toe, to kick it over on to the reserve, and then draw back furious and exasperated because it was on the reserve already, and yet once again she’d done her inimitable trick. Half the day she’d probably been saying to herself cheerfully: “Plenty of time, I’ve got a gallon, I’ll call at Lowe’s before I leave Comerbourne, I’ll look in at the filling station at Leah Green, , , ” making easy promises every time the necessity recurred to her, until it didn’t recur to her any more.
“I never learn. I run dry in the middle of the High Street, or halfway up the lane to the golf links.” He could hear her voice now, and remember every word she had said about her two blind spots. Nobody who didn’t know Kitty as he did, nobody who wasn’t in her confidence as he was, could ever have unearthed this simple explanation for her
