behind me touched my shoulder, and I turned, shocked. It was a woman who at first looked quite strange. Then I recognized the shop lady. She had run after me to tell me that she had fresh apricots in stock at last.
As I began to climb the hill I felt very tired and heavy. Perhaps I should have rested for another day after my illness. Perhaps I should not have drunk all that cider. Perhaps Lizzie and Gilbert had drained my strength away into their vitality, their ability to change the world and to survive. They had taken away a piece of me which they would now use for their own purposes. Perhaps I ought to feel glad that other people could thus feed upon my substance.
I felt unprepared and undressed but the hand of inevitability was upon me. This was the meeting from which I would not be put off, begging and pleading for another chance. I felt my heaviness as that of an irresistible crushing weight. Yet I had no clear idea of what I was going to do. There was no blunt instrument and no taxi. But I had come to where I had never been before, the blessed point of sufficient desperation.
I toiled up looking at the gardens and the flowers and the garden gates. I noticed how different each house was from the other. One had an oval of stained glass in the front door, another had a porch with geraniums, another had dormer windows in the attic. I reached the Nibletts blue gate with its irritatingly complicated little latch.
The curtains were partly drawn in the front bedrooms in an unusual way. I rang the ding-dong bell. The sound was different. How soon did I realize that the house was empty? Certainly before I confirmed the fact by peering in through the curtains into the larger bedroom and seeing that all the furniture was gone.
I went back to the front door and, for some reason, tried the bell again several times, listening to it echo in the deserted house.
‘Oh excuse me, were you wanting Mr and Mrs Fitch?’
‘Yes,’ I said to a woman in an apron who was leaning over the fence from the front garden next door.
‘Oh, they’ve gone, emigrated to Australia,’ she told me proudly.
‘I knew they were going, I hoped I’d catch them.’
‘They sold the house. They took their doggie with them. He’ll have to go in quarantine of course.’
‘When did they leave?’
She mentioned a date. The date was, I realized at once, very soon after I had seen them. So they had lied about the date of their departure.
‘I’ve had a postcard,’ said the proud woman. ‘It came this morning. Would you like to see it?’ She had brought it out with her to show me.
I saw, on one side, the Sydney Opera House. Upon the other in Hartley’s hand:
‘What a lovely card.’ I gave it back to her.
‘Yes, isn’t it, but England’s good enough for me. Are you a relative?’
‘A cousin.’
‘I thought you looked a bit like Mrs Fitch.’
‘Too bad I missed them.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know their address, but there it is, when people are gone they’re gone, isn’t it.’
‘Well, thank you so much.’
‘I expect they’ll write to you.’
‘I expect so. Well, good day.’
She returned to her house and I moved back to the path. The roses were already looking neglected, covered with dead flowers. I noticed an unusual stone lying half covered by the earth and I picked it up. It was the mottled pink stone with the white chequering which I had given to Hartley, and brought back in a plastic bag on that awful day. I put it in my pocket.
I walked round the side of the house into the back garden, and stood on the concrete terrace outside the picture window and peered in. The curtains had been left here too, and pulled across a little, but I could see between them into the empty room. The door was open into the hall and I could see the inside of the front door and a faded place on the wallpaper where the picture of the mediaeval knight had hung. I began to feel a frenzied desire to get into the house. Perhaps Hartley had left me a message, left at least some significant trace of her presence.
The back door was locked and the sitting room windows were securely closed, but a kitchen window moved a little. I fetched a wooden box from the otherwise empty garden shed and stood on it, as Titus had stood in order to look through the hole in the fence. ‘You stood on a box, didn’t you.’ ‘Yes, I stood on a box.’ I eased the window out and got my finger into the crack. Then the window came open, not having been properly latched on the inside, and I was able to swing my leg over. A moment later, panting with emotion, I was standing in the kitchen. A terrible quietness crept in the house.
The kitchen was empty, not entirely clean, and a tap dripping. Little rolls of fluff moved around on the floor in the draught from the window. I opened the larder, where there was already a trace of mould on the shelves. I walked about the sitting room and went into the two bedrooms. There was nothing, not a handkerchief, not a pin, no memento of my love. I went into the bathroom and looked at the stain on the bath. Then at last I saw something of interest. Beyond the edge of the linoleum, where it ended against the wall, there was the tiniest line of white. I stooped and pulled. A letter had been hidden, thrust in under the linoleum. I drew it carefully out and looked at it. It was my last letter to Hartley and it was unopened. I inspected it for a moment or two, wondering if it could have been opened and then stuck itself up again as letters sometimes do. But no. It had never been opened at all.
I was about to pocket it but decided not to. I tore it across into four pieces, stuffed it well down into the lavatory pan and pulled the chain. I went back and secured the kitchen window, then let myself out of the front door. The woman next door watched disapprovingly and even opened her front window and stared after me down the hill.
When I had reached the bottom and turned to the right into the village street, I suddenly saw a familiar figure approaching me. I was aware that it was someone I knew and was not pleased to see, just before I recognized it as Freddie Arkwright. Escape was impossible. He had already seen me and was bearing down.
‘Mr Arrowby!’
‘Why, it’s Freddie!’
‘Oh Mr Arrowby, I’m so glad to see you, I’ve kept missing you! I knew you were here. I was down at Whitsun and I hoped I’d see you, what luck to meet you now!’
‘Well, Freddie, it’s been a long time. How are you, what are you up to?’
‘Didn’t Bob tell you? I’m an actor!’
‘An actor? Good for you!’
‘I always wanted to be. That’s why I went after that job with you, but it was like a sort of romance, I didn’t think it would ever come real. And I loved working for you, it was great, all about London, all over the place, we did whizz about, didn’t we? Then when you went away, I thought “Why not?” and then when I got my Equity card, and I wasn’t so young either, somehow it always helped me that I’d worked for you, you always brought me luck, Mr Arrowby. You were so kind to me in those days, you encouraged me so much. “Decide what you want and go for it, Fred, it’s just a matter of will power!” I remember you saying that to me more than once.’
I did not recall saying this nor did it sound like anything which anyone would say more than once, assuming he had ever had the misfortune to say it at all, but I was glad that Freddie had such rosy memories. We walked down as far as the footpath which led to the coast road. ‘My, those were good times, Mr Arrowby, Savoy, Connaught, Ritz, Carlton, you name it, we were there! The old Carlton’s gone of course, but London’s still the best city in the world, and I’ve seen a few now. Paris, Rome, Madrid, I been there on jobs. I was in a film in Dublin a while ago, did we drink!’
‘What’s your stage name?’
‘Oh, I kept my name, Freddie Arkwright, it seemed to be me. Can’t say I’ve ever had any great parts, but I’ve loved every moment. All along of you, you were so kind to me, you encouraged me so much, and then everyone was saying, “Oh, you’re a friend of Charles Arrowby, aren’t you”, well, I wasn’t going to say no and it helped a packet. My, it’s good to see you, Mr Arrowby, and you don’t look a day older. Fancy your coming to live here, I came from here, you know, I was born at Amorne Farm, my uncle and auntie still live there. You’re retired now, aren’t you?’
