Soon after the journey began the progress of Julian’s labour had either slowed or stopped. This lessened his anxiety; delays were no longer disastrous and safety could take precedence over speed. But he knew that the delay dismayed the women. He guessed that they now had as little hope as he of eluding Xan for weeks, or even days. If the labour was a false alarm or was protracted, they might yet fall into Xan’s hands before the child was born. From time to time, leaning forward, Miriam asked him quietly to draw into the side of the road so that she and Julian could take exercise. He, too, would get out and, leaning against the car, would watch the two dark figures walking backwards and forwards along the verge, would hear their whispered voices, and know that they were distanced from him by more than a few yards of country road, that they shared an intense preoccupation from which he was excluded. They took little interest and showed small concern about the route, the mishaps of the journey. All that, then—very silence seemed to imply, was his concern.
But by the early morning Miriam told him that Julian’s contractions had started again and were strong. She couldn’t hide the triumph in her voice. And before dawn he knew exactly where they were. The last signpost had pointed to Chipping Norton. It was time to leave the twisting lanes and risk the last few miles by the main road.
At least they were now on a better surface… He had no need to drive in constant fear of another puncture. No other car passed them and, after the first two miles, his taut hands relaxed on the wheel. He drove carefully but fast, anxious now to get to the forest without delay. The petrol level was getting dangerously low and there was no safe way of filling up. He was surprised how little ground they had covered since the journey first began at Swinbrook. It seemed to him that they had been on the road for weeks: restless, unprovisioned, hapless travellers. He knew that there was nothing he could do to prevent capture on this surely final journey. If they came to an SSP roadblock there would be no hope of bluffing or arguing their way out; the SSP were not Omegas. All he could do was to drive and to hope.
From time to time he thought he heard Julian panting and Miriam’s low murmur of reassurance, but they spoke little. After about a quarter of an hour he heard Miriam stirring in the back and then the rhythmic clink of a fork against china. She handed him a mug.
“I’ve held back the food until now. Julian needs strength for her labour. I’ve beaten up the eggs in the milk and added sugar. This is your share, I get the same. Julian has the rest.”
The mug was only a quarter full and the frothy sweetness would normally have disgusted him. Now he gulped it down avidly, longing for more, feeling at once its strengthening power. He passed back the mug and received a biscuit smeared with butter and topped with a nugget of hard cheese. Never had cheese tasted so good.
Miriam said: “Two for each of us, four for Julian.”
Julian remonstrated. “We must share equally”—but the last word was caught up in a gasp of pain.
Theo asked: “You aren’t keeping some in reserve?”
“From a three-quarter packet of biscuits and half a pound of cheese? We need our strength now.” The cheese and the dry biscuits had increased their thirst and they finished the meal by drinking the water from the smaller saucepan.
Miriam handed him the two mugs and the cutlery in the plastic bag and he placed them on the floor. Then, as if fearing her words might have implied a rebuke, she added: “You were unlucky, Theo. But you got us a car and it wasn’t easy. Without it we wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
He hoped that she was saying, “We depended on you and you didn’t fail us,” and smiled ruefully at the thought that he, who had cared so little for anyone’s approbation, should want her praise and approval.
And at last they were on the outskirts of Charlbury. He slowed down, watching out for the old Finstock station, the curve in the road. It was immediately after the curve that he must look for the right-hand track leading towards the forest. He was used to approaching it from Oxford and even then it was easy to miss the turning. It was with an audible sigh of relief that he drove past the station buildings, took the curve and saw on his right the row of stone cottages which marked the approach to the track. The cottages were empty, boarded up, almost derelict. For a moment he wondered whether one of them would provide a refuge; but they were too obvious, too close to the road. He knew Julian wanted to be deep in the forest.
He drove carefully up the track between untended fields towards the distant curdle of the trees. It would soon be light. Looking at his watch he saw that Mrs. Collins would have arrived to release the old couple. Even now they were probably enjoying a cup of tea, telling of their ordeal, waiting for the police to arrive. Changing gear to negotiate a difficult part of the rising track, he thought he heard Julian catch her breath and give an odd little sound between a grunt and a groan.
And now the forest received them with its dark strong arms. The track became narrower, the trees closed in. On the right was a dry-stone wall, half demolished, its broken stones cluttering the path. He changed down into first gear and tried to keep the car steady. After about a mile Miriam leaned forward and said: “I think we’ll walk ahead for a little while. It’ll be easier for Julian.”
The two women got out and, with Julian leaning against Miriam, made their careful way over the ruts and stones of the track. In the car’s side lights a startled rabbit was for a moment petrified, then scampered before them, white-tailed. Suddenly there was an immense commotion and a white shape followed by another crashed through the bushes, just missing the bonnet of the car. It was a deer and her fawn. Together they lurched up the bank, tearing through the bushes, and disappeared over the wall, their hoofs clattering on the stones.
From time to time the two women stopped and Julian bent over with Miriam’s arm supporting her. After the third time this had happened, Miriam signalled Theo to stop. She said: “I think she might be better in the car now. How much further?”
“We’re still skirting open country. There should be a turning to the right fairly soon. After that it’s about a mile.”
The car shuddered on. The remembered turn revealed itself as a crossroads and for a moment he was irresolute. Then he drove to the right, where the track, narrower still, sloped downhill. Surely this was the way to the lake and, beyond it, the remembered wood-shed.
Miriam called out: “There’s a house, over to the right.”
He turned his head just in time to see it, a far dark shape glimpsed through a narrow gap in the great tangled heap of bushes and trees. It stood alone on a wide sloping field. Miriam said: “No good. Too obvious. No cover in the field. Better press on.”
They were now moving into the heart of the forest. The lane seemed interminable. With every lurching yard the path narrowed and he could hear the scratch and scrape of branches on the car. Overhead the strengthening sun was a white diffused light hardly visible above the tangled boughs of elder and hawthorn. It seemed to him, desperately trying to control the steering, that they were slithering helplessly down a tunnel of green darkness which would end in an impenetrable hedge. He was wondering whether memory had deceived him, whether they should have taken the left turn, when the path suddenly widened and opened on to a grassy glade. They saw before them the pale glimmer of the lake.
He stopped the car only yards from its edge and got out, then turned to help Miriam half lift Julian from her seat. For a moment she clung to him, breathing deeply, then let go, smiled, and walked to the edge of the water, her hand on Miriam’s shoulder. The surface of the pond—it was hardly a lake—was so thickly strewn with the green blades of fallen leaves and water weed that it looked like an extension of the glade. Beyond this green and shivering cover the surface was viscous as treacle, beaded with minute bubbles which gently moved and coalesced, broke apart, burst and died. In the patches of clear water between the weeds he could see the reflection of the sky as the morning mist cleared to reveal the opaque first light of day. Beneath this surface brightness, in the ochre depths, the sinews of water plants, tangled twigs and broken branches lay thickly encrusted with mud like the ribs of long-sunken ships. At the edge of the pond clumps of sodden rushes lay flattened on the water and in the distance a small black coot scurried in busy agitation and a solitary swan breasted her way majestically among the weeds. The pond was surrounded by trees growing almost to the water’s edge, oak, ash and sycamore, a bright backcloth of green, yellow, gold and russet which seemed in the first light, despite the autumnal shades, to hold some of the freshness and brightness of spring. A sapling on the far bank was patterned with yellow leaves, its thin boughs and twigs invisible against the first light of the sun,
