Fire And Hemlock Part 19

"Who says it should be yours?" Polly said irritably. "What law is it that says that?"

"I do," said Ivy. "It's because there's no law that I have to go out and collect it. But you've always been against me," she added, as if it were an accepted fact. "You never come here unless you're after something. What do you want this time?" do," said Ivy. "It's because there's no law that I have to go out and collect it. But you've always been against me," she added, as if it were an accepted fact. "You never come here unless you're after something. What do you want this time?"

It's not her fault, Polly told herself. Still trying to speak lightly, she clenched her hands round her cup and said, "You know your trouble, Mum? You're a miser-a happiness miser. And I'm not always after something. This is the first time I've ever asked you for anything, and even now it's only information. Do you remember Mr. Lynn at all?"

"Mr. Lynn? And who might he be?" said Ivy.

"A man I used to know when I was small. He played the cello and used to send me books."

"One of those," said Ivy. "Your Mr. n.o.bodies. You were always making things up. The way you used to believe in them used to make me fear for your reason, Polly. I'll never forget the time you made yourself believe poor David Bragge was sending you presents, when it was your father all the time. I've forgiven you now, of course. But you knocked the happiness clean out of my hands over that."

"It was not Dad," Polly said, "who sent me those books." "Then it was was David," Ivy said broodingly. "Ah, well." David," Ivy said broodingly. "Ah, well."

"No," said Polly. "It was Mr. Lynn."

"Go on!" Ivy said, chuckling a little. "You made him up!"

Polly stood up and put her cup on a chair arm, balancing it carefully. Mr. Leroy had got at Ivy through Mr. Lynn sending The Golden Bough The Golden Bough. Had Mr. Leroy made Ivy like this? It was a horrible thought, because, if so, it was indirectly Polly's fault.

"Look at you," Ivy said, brooding still. "You've rotted your mind with reading books. You can't take a realistic view of life like I do. You can't see the world as it is any longer."

"Thank you for that," Polly said, gasping a little. "You make it hard for anyone to be sorry for you, Mum. Goodbye."

"You're not going already?" Ivy protested. "What have I done to deserve this? Where are you off to so fast?"

"Nowhere," Polly said, without thinking. Hearing herself say it, she gave a cackle of laughter as she hurried out of the house. Behind her, Ivy called out, "This is what you get for wasting good money on a college education!"

Polly ran, in order not to hear any more. No. No! she thought, as she shut the back door. I didn't make Mr. Lynn up-surely-did I? And yet, if you thought of it, what more likely thing for a lonely child to do? Particularly if that child was not happy and knew her parents were going to get divorced.

If so, it was a pretty odd set of things to make up, she thought.

But not impossible, she had to admit.

Without calculating, she walked toward the Rose and Crown, the way she had so often gone once with David Bragge's secret notes. And there was the Rose and Crown, and there was Mr. O'Keefe leaning against the wall, just as he always used to do. Does he ever go away at all? Polly wondered. Mr. O'Keefe seemed just the same as ever, just as shabby, just as skinny, wearing the same disgraceful dirty hat-though there seemed to be a few more teeth missing from the wide smile with which he welcomed her.

"h.e.l.lo my darling! It's a long time since you were here carrying me your notes. You've had time to grow up a lovely young woman since you came this way last. Look at the hair on you still! Such lovely hair. I used to dream of it at nights!"

"Oh-thank you-I suppose it is is a long time," Polly said, rather taken by surprise at this welcome. "How are you, Mr. O'Keefe?" He was well, he told her. Couldn't complain. And Polly? Polly explained she lived with Granny these days, and then asked what she realized she must have come to ask. "Tell me, Mr. O'Keefe-are you still in touch with David Bragge?" a long time," Polly said, rather taken by surprise at this welcome. "How are you, Mr. O'Keefe?" He was well, he told her. Couldn't complain. And Polly? Polly explained she lived with Granny these days, and then asked what she realized she must have come to ask. "Tell me, Mr. O'Keefe-are you still in touch with David Bragge?"

Mr. O'Keefe's eyes slid into the unshaven corners of his face and he looked at her narrowly. "I am. But take advice from me. He's not the man to go to in your trouble, my darling."

"I-Oh. I only wanted to ask him something," Polly said. "Why not?"

Mr. O'Keefe tipped a skinny hand to his mouth, acting someone drinking. He winked, a slow, sad wink. "Far worse than I am," he said. "Don't see him, my darling. It wouldn't be fair to the both ofyou."

"Then-could you give me his telephone number instead?" Polly asked.

Mr. O'Keefe tried to dissuade her, but he did not pretend not to know it. At length he gave her an old betting slip and lent her a pen, and Polly wrote the number against the wall of the Rose and Crown as Mr. O'Keefe dictated it. She gave the pen back and thanked him fervently. "Hey, now! Don't go doing that!" he said. Polly turned back, not sure what he meant. "Smiling like that at the men," Mr. O'Keefe said. "You've a soft heart someone will take advantage of, if you go tempting us poor lads that way."

Polly laughed, hoping that was the right way to respond, and ran to the nearest phone booth. It was no wonder, she thought, seeing her face in its mirror as she dialed the number, that Mr. O'Keefe thought she was in trouble. She looked white and strained and desperate.

David's voice, when he answered, sounded thick with drink.

"This is Polly Whit-"

"Polly!" David shouted. "Long time no see! Must be years since Ilast clapped oculars on-" His voice thickened and stammered as he remembered the circ.u.mstances in which he last saw Polly. "Live with your grandmother still? Nice old lady."

"Yes, that's right," Polly said. "Listen, David, this may strike you as an odd thing to ask, but do you remember the time someone kept sending me books-?"

"And Ivy thought it was me. Wasn't me," David interrupted earnestly. "Remember it well. Always had a soft spot for you. Lovely, warm-hearted kid you were, Polly. How old are you now? Fifteen, sixteen?"

"Nineteen," said Polly, and cut through his amazement at how time flies by asking, "Who did you think those books were from?"

"Seem to remember Ivy said it was your father," David said. "Muddled sort of business. You said not, didn't you? Always inclined to believe you rather than Ivy, Polly. Soul of honor you were to me. Come round and see me. Tomorrow. Make an effort, be sober tomorrow. Say you'll come."

"I'm leaving for college tomorrow," Polly said. "I'll come round when I'm back at Christmas, if you like. Didn't I say the books were from Mr. Lynn?"

"Can't say I remember you mentioned any name. But if the books weren't from your father and they weren't from me, it stands to reason they had to be from someone else. Clever thought, that," David said, pleased with himself. "Polly, I'm longing to see you again. I know I'm nothing but a lonely old soak these days, but you'd gladden my heart, Polly. Do come round."

"I'll come at Christmas," Polly promised, and rang off rather wis.h.i.+ng she had not said that. He sounded as if he cherished a sentimental affection for her a little warmer than she had bargained for-maybe all those compliments that used to annoy Ivy so had not been a game after all-and this was what Mr. O'Keefe had been warning her about. Oh, well.

Polly squeezed out of the phone booth and let the heavy door shut behind her. David had provided the one hint so far that Thomas Lynn might indeed have existed. If only for that, she would have to go and see him at Christmas. As he said, someone must have senther those books. It was not much, but it was something. She remembered reading those books, all of them, vividly, and, what was more, she had gone on remembering them even through the plain four years when her memories ran single again.

So, who else could she ask?

The obvious answer was Seb. But if there was any truth at all in those hidden memories, Seb was the one person she could not not ask. She might as well go straight to Mr. Leroy and Laurel. Oh, that was rich! Polly gave an unhappy laugh as she strode unseeingly home to Granny's. She had indeed gone to see Mr. Leroy and Laurel, earlier this summer. And Laurel had then been to her simply Seb's stepmother, a beautiful Mrs. Leroy she had never met before. ask. She might as well go straight to Mr. Leroy and Laurel. Oh, that was rich! Polly gave an unhappy laugh as she strode unseeingly home to Granny's. She had indeed gone to see Mr. Leroy and Laurel, earlier this summer. And Laurel had then been to her simply Seb's stepmother, a beautiful Mrs. Leroy she had never met before.

Fancy forgetting Laurel! she thought as she strode. Or Mr. Leroy, for that matter!

It had been when Seb had at last cajoled, bullied, and pleaded with her to get engaged to him. And then he said she must meet his parents. The Leroys had not been at Hunsdon House. Polly had gone up to London, to their large and exquisitely furnished flat. She had been awed by the statues and pictures and antique furniture in it. A great contrast-she realized now-to the flat where she had gone to visit Mr. Lynn. And she wondered if Mr. Lynn could have lived in this magnificent flat at one time, when he was married to Laurel. There had even been, she remembered now, a picture in the hall with a little light over it-an Impressionist painting of a picnic party-which could have been the very one she had caused Mr. Lynn to steal nearly nine years before.

At the time, this had meant nothing to Polly. She had thought about nothing but not letting Seb down, and she had been quite startled by how very pleased Seb's father had been to see her. "Well, now, this is clever of you, Sebastian!" he had said, more than once. Polly had not wholly cared for Seb's father, his ragged gray hair, his yellowing teeth, and the loose, dark pouches under his eyes. "Clever, Sebastian, clever!" he said, and his loud, chesty laugh dissolved into the cough it reminded her of. Laurel had almost glared when Mr. Leroy said this. She had smiled, and she hadtalked softly and charmingly to Polly, but Polly could tell Laurel was not pleased, not pleased at all.

It had been obvious enough for Polly innocently to ask Seb about it in the street afterward.

"Yes, I knew she'd object," Seb said, "so I didn't tell her."

"Why? Did she want you to marry someone else?" Polly asked. "I suppose you're her heir, aren't you? She must have had other plans for you."

Seb gave a loud, hacking laugh, quite unlike his usual well-controlled churring. "Plans!" he said. "Inherit from Laurel! I'll be lucky! I'm only a half Leroy anyway. My mother was as ordinary as you are." Then he became serious and put his arm round Polly, which was a thing he very seldom did in the street. "The fact is, Pol, I'm in a fairly tense situation with Laurel. Laurel and my father used to be married before, you see, before my father met my mother."

"And Laurel doesn't get on with your mother?" Polly guessed.

This made Seb laugh again. He churred this time, long and amused. "My mother's dead. She died nearly nine years ago."

"Oh," Polly said, stricken and embarra.s.sed. She had been thinking of the way Ivy hated Joanna, and she wanted to kick herself for being so self-centered. She could tell Seb was upset. He was almost grinding her against him. Yet she could tell he was laughing at her too. She was too confused to ask any more.

That was puzzling, Polly thought now, marching home to Granny's, and it was even more puzzling how pleased Mr. Leroy had been to see her. She shuddered. If there was one thing she was sure of now, it was that Mr. Leroy had it in for her. So what was was going on? She ran through her memories, across the jolt where she had done G.o.d alone knew what, and on into the plain, single four years beyond. Back and forth. There was always that jolt, then such a difference: Mr. Leroy glad to see her, and Seb behaving as if he had never met her before that party of Fiona's. going on? She ran through her memories, across the jolt where she had done G.o.d alone knew what, and on into the plain, single four years beyond. Back and forth. There was always that jolt, then such a difference: Mr. Leroy glad to see her, and Seb behaving as if he had never met her before that party of Fiona's.

Polly well remembered first seeing Seb at that party. Fiona said Seb had gate-crashed it. She had seemed rather surprised thatPolly had not come across Seb before. Seb had made straight for Polly. Polly had looked at him, tall, smooth-haired, with his air of self-possessed slight scorn for other people, and Seb had seemed immediately familiar, although Polly had never, as far as she knew, set eyes on him before. They had fallen easily into conversation.

Which was, Polly had thought then, just how she had always thought it should be. It had surprised her later that something so much as it should be should turn out to be so unexciting.

This made Polly laugh now, a short jolt of laughter. Unless, she thought, Seb and Mr. Leroy had forgotten too. So many people had-Granny, Ivy, Nina, Leslie. But she could not believe that Mr. Leroy had forgotten. Seb, on the other hand-Seb had always been on her side in a way. Perhaps Seb had forgotten too, in which case there was no point in asking Seb anything.

So who else was there to ask?

Polly turned into her own road, where Hunsdon House stood blocking one end, facing the fact that there was almost no one else to ask. Thomas Lynn, if he had ever existed, had been so separate from her everyday life that it had been an easy thing to slice him out of it-as easy as Granny filleting plaice for Mintchoc. Except that he had not been separate at all. Almost everything Polly did in those five years went back to Mr. Lynn somehow. The four years after that had been formless and humdrum years. Polly had done things, true, but it had all been without shape, as if she had been filleted away from her own motives and the things which gave her shape.

Granny looked at Polly when she came in. "Have you fetched it out yet?"

"No," said Polly.

She spent the whole night packing, and going round and round in those memories. And she did not understand. Quite apart from the truly strange things she now remembered-which she thought she must must partly have imagined-Mr. Leroy had been so determined to stop her seeing Thomas Lynn that she knew it had been important to go on seeing him. Yet it was equally clear that Tom himself had been trying to freeze Polly off. Which put a stop to everythingrather, didn't it? partly have imagined-Mr. Leroy had been so determined to stop her seeing Thomas Lynn that she knew it had been important to go on seeing him. Yet it was equally clear that Tom himself had been trying to freeze Polly off. Which put a stop to everythingrather, didn't it?

It did not stop Polly trying at least to remember Ann Abraham's address, or Sam Rensky's. And she could not. They were not left out of her mind with a jolt, like the s.p.a.ce between her double and single memories. They had simply faded, as things do that you have not paid much attention to. She wrote letters to them both, all the same, in the course of the night, and addressed them after a fas.h.i.+on, hoping that the post office might just manage to deliver them. But she was not going to post them in a box at the end of a road which also held Hunsdon House. She packed them to take to Oxford too.

Granny looked at her again in the morning. "What set you off?" "A book," said Polly.

Mr. Perks and Fiona arrived in Mr. Perks' car, and Fiona helped Polly load her things into a boot and back seat already crammed with Fiona's things. Though Fiona and Polly were at different colleges, they were sharing a tiny flat this year. Fiona was in great excitement about it. She did not seem to notice anything wrong with Polly.

Granny plainly did. She looked at Polly again as she reached up to kiss Polly goodbye. "Take care," she said. "And if a book set you off, a book may help again when you've fetched it out of you. Try it. Goodbye. And don't forget to write."

2.

O first let pa.s.s the black, lady, Then let pa.s.s the brown, But quickly run to the milk white steed- Pull you his rider down.

TAM LIN.

Polly posted her sketchily addressed letters in the first box shecame to in Oxford. Then there seemed nothing she could do but hope for a reply.

A week pa.s.sed, during which she and Fiona arranged their flat. One tiny room was Fiona's and also the dining room. The other was Polly's, and doubled as the living room. There was a kitchen like a cupboard and a bathroom they shared with tenants upstairs. They saw tutors, went to lectures and libraries, worked, read. Friends of both of them poured in and out. The flat's main luxury was a telephone in the dining-Fiona's room. It rang constantly, mixing with the sound of Polly's tapes and Fiona's records. And all of it pa.s.sed Polly like a show of shadows on the wall. The only things which were real were the people and events going round in her head.

Round and round. Thomas Lynn had befriended a little girl at a funeral. I wonder if I embarra.s.sed him even then, Polly thought, trotting round holding his hand, obviously adoring him. No. She knew she had amused him. But later she had become less amusing and, in the end, plain embarra.s.sing. He had shown her she was. And she had replied by doing something...

Unless I simply made him up, she thought. Ivy could be right. It seemed so much the sanest explanation. But would you make up the smell of an old anorak, or the feel of a large hand squas.h.i.+ng your face against it? Would you make up resistance against you in the muscles of an arm you were hugging? Polly squirmed at that. It was so much the way Nina had hugged Leslie's arm, with Polly standing there like Mary Fields had done. Double purpose. You showed him you had a nice bosom, and you showed the onlooker the arm was yours to hug. Small wonder Mary had made a catty remark!

Oh! Polly thought. Why aren't all girls locked up by law the year they turn fifteen? They do such stupid stupid things! It was that same year that Fiona had run away to Germany after a German businessman her father happened to bring home one evening. If only, Polly thought, she had done something so pointless herself! But she had done something so harmful that it had expunged Thomas Lynn from her own mind and from the rest of the world as well. things! It was that same year that Fiona had run away to Germany after a German businessman her father happened to bring home one evening. If only, Polly thought, she had done something so pointless herself! But she had done something so harmful that it had expunged Thomas Lynn from her own mind and from the rest of the world as well.

The second week brought no letter from Ann or Sam, but a letter came from Seb. It was long and quite amusing. Seb had written it-or the half of it that Polly read-in stages during a court case he was working on. He said that he was beginning to regret choosing to be a barrister, and he still wanted Polly to marry him at Christmas. Polly had barely patience to read this far. "I ought to send you packing," she said, holding the letter but not reading it any more, "considering the way I feel." But that seemed mean and unreasonable. Nothing had really changed. Seb had done nothing except-Polly now knew-become devoted to her from the time she was thirteen. Or maybe even from the moment she had asked him about pop groups nearly two years before that. Polly had not the heart to break with Seb, but she had not the heart to reply to his letter either.

Instead, she recollected that Oxford was not so far from the Cotswolds, and looked up Mary Fields in the telephone directory. And there she was. Old Elmcott Farm, Elmcott.

Polly put the directory down and shrank away. She could not face Mary. She thought of Mr. Leroy as she had last seen him, gray, with dark hanging skin under his muddy eyes, and she knew she did not dare do anything which might alert Mr. Leroy. Then, at the beginning of the third week, she said to herself, "Was this the creature that once called itself an a.s.sistant hero? And why should Mr. Leroy bother? Aren't you safely engaged to his son?" She waited till Fiona went out, then dialed Mary Fields' number.

She was taken aback, all the same, when Mary answered. She had not realized that Mary's voice was so clipped and horse-personish. Or that she would remember it so well.

"I'm interested in a horse I believe you have," Polly said cautiously, and found, on listening, that her own voice had got clipped to match Mary's. "A horse called Lorenzo that once belonged to a circus." And now she'll tell me he's dead long ago, she thought.

To her surprise, Mary said, with more than a trace of eagerness, "Do you want to buy Lorenzo? He is is for sale, as it happens." for sale, as it happens."

Lorenzo was unridable, of course. Polly grinned, thinking of the amount of her student grant, dwindling fast in the bank. "I waswondering about it," she lied. "But I'd heard he was rather wild."

"Oh no. He's quite a sedate old thing these days," Mary said, also lying, Polly was ready to bet. "Who told you he wasn't?"

"The previous owner," said Polly. "Mr.-er-Mr.-What was was the name?" the name?"

"Sebastian Leroy," said Mary. " Who Who ?" said Polly. ?" said Polly.

"Sebastian Leroy," Mary repeated, "used to own Lorenzo."

He did? Like my left thumb! Polly thought. "Oh-er-" She heard her voice falter and picked herself up. "Now, that's very odd. The person who told me about Lorenzo was called something else. What was it now? Lynn. That's it. Thomas Lynn."

"I'm afraid I don't know who he can be," Mary said coldly. "Do you want to buy the horse, or are you simply pumping me about my boyfriends?"

"I-" said Polly.

"In that case, get off the line," said Mary. "I'm expecting the vet to ring any moment."

Polly put the receiver down quick, hoping Mary would not ask to have the call traced. I don't believe this! she thought. Seb! As a child, she had gone about expecting to meet giants and dragons round every corner, and they had disappointingly never seemed to be there. But they were there all the time, in the person of Seb. Had she been afraid of the wrong Mr. Leroy all these years? Oh, no, she thought. I can't think that ill of Seb. But, from what Mary said, it did seem as if Seb had not only bought Lorenzo, but had also taken the obvious steps to get Mary on his side and make her keep her mouth shut. But Mary had not denied knowing Thomas Lynn-quite. Boyfriends, she had said, in the plural.

"So what am am I to think?" Polly said aloud. I to think?" Polly said aloud.

The answer seemed to be: think of any other line of inquiry which might just be separate from the Leroys. Polly thought, for the next few days, in libraries, among friends, with a pen in her hand trying to write an essay on Keats. "As though of hemlock I had drunk,"wrote Keats. Me too! Polly thought, and could not go on with the essay. She went for a walk instead by the river, in a mild, windy drizzle, thinking, thinking, and the result of the thinking was that she went on walking through the drizzle until she came to the bus station, where she got on a bus to Stow-on-the-Water.

This is a mad thing to do! she thought, staring out of the bus window. There was brown plowed earth on either side, soaking in the drizzle, and a few sad seagulls trying to feed off the earth. Not so different from the first time she had come that way, heroically swooping from hedge to hedge in the horse-car, and yet there was all the world of difference. The bus pa.s.sed the end of Mary Fields' lane, billowing the hedges in a cloud of spray. Autumn was late this year. Trees that were still green, or dingy brown, wept leaves into the air soberly. Stow-on-the-Water, when the bus rumbled into it, was a bleak yellow color, and the tarmac of the market square was black with wet.

Polly got off the bus and walked straight into the shop of Thomas Piper Hardware. It was clean and quiet and smelled of paraffin. The striplights were on against the dark of the day. The only person there was Edna, doing sums at the cash desk.

Polly went round the shelves and found some light bulbs, which the flat seemed to need all the time, and a s.h.i.+ny red colander. She found a garlic-crusher too, and took that, because Fiona kept saying she wished they had one. Then, with these things, she approached the cash desk.

Edna looked up and smiled, friendly to the tips of her fluffy hair. "Awful weather," she said.

"Terrible," Polly agreed. "They're saying it's the wettest October on record, aren't they?"

"Oh, it is," said Edna. She laid an orange plastic bag on the desk and took Polly's purchases, ready to pack them in it. She began to ring the prices up on the till, but slowly, obviously ready to chat. "We've been warned about flooding," she said, "and what to do if the river bursts its banks. We're right down near the river here, you know."

Polly looked at her, liking her, and resolved to go about thiscarefully and reasonably. "It must be frightening," she said. "I've never lived near a river. Where I come from-Middleton-we never get any floods."

"Do you come from Middleton?" Edna exclaimed. Her face lit up. "My son used to be at school in Middleton. Leslie Piper. But I don't suppose you'd know him, would you?"

"You're never Leslie's mother!" Polly exclaimed in return.