The Banker's Niece 33: Home alone

Tom turns out to be a Hagrid of a man – large and hairy with a booming voice. Good-looking, but luckily not her type. The last thing she wants is a crush on someone else’s husband, especially someone as lovely as Maisie. Not that crushes are quite the problem they used to be, but even so. You never know when the beast will rear its head again.

    Tom doesn’t fancy her either, she can tell.

    ‘So you’re the idiot who drove into that snowdrift,’ he says with a raucous laugh.

    Jane winces. ‘Er, yes. I’m afraid so.’

    ‘Well, you won’t get your car out tonight,’ he says, peeling off layers: a brown waxed jacket, a bottle-green checked shirt with a quilted lining, an olive fleece. ‘The roads around here are icing over something shocking and no one’s going to want to come out and help you. What are you going to do?’

    ‘She could stay here,’ says Maisie, giving her husband a look.

    He’s silent for a few seconds but he’s turned to his wife and has his back to Jane so she can’t see his expression. The dogs watch intently. Jane wants to vanish through a crack in the flagstones.

    ‘I could probably get her out in the four-'b’-four,’ he says eventually.

    He turns back to Jane. ‘Where d’you live?’

    ‘Near Muddicombe. I don’t think it’s too far. It would be terribly kind of you. Maisie’s had me here all day and I really don’t want to impose on her any longer. And my neighbour will be wondering where I am . . . ’

    She hears herself babbling and pulls up short.

    Anyway, the last sentence is an invention. She’s long suspected that William does watch her comings and goings – how else does he always manage to turn up for drinks and nibbles fifteen minutes after she arrives home? – but she doubts he goes as far as worrying about her.

    But she’s desperate. The last thing she wants is to spend the evening feeling like a lemon, getting in the way of a happy couple. Even dragging Tom out again in such weather is preferable to that.

    ‘Muddicombe,’ he exclaims. ‘That’s miles away. What the hell were you doing up here in a blizzard?’

    ‘I, er, I –’ She can’t think of a single excuse.

    ‘We could try taking her home,’ says Maisie, rescuing the conversation. ‘I’ll come too.’

The journey takes hours as Tom drives very slowly and carefully – not at all the way she would have expected him to drive but perhaps it’s a sign of how bad the conditions are. Jane sits in the back, gnawing her glove. No one tries to talk.

    At last they reach the end of her track. Jane opens her door and leans forward between Tom and Maisie. ‘I can walk from here. Really. Just drop me here. It’s not far.’

    ‘If you’re sure,’ protests Tom unconvincingly.

    ‘Give me a ring,’ says Maisie, turning round. ‘We can have a walk together on the moor.’

    ‘I’d love that,’ says Jane. ‘I will.’

    It feels like it’s the first time she’s told the truth since Tom appeared.

    ‘If you arrange for someone to drag your car out, they can leave it at ours for you to pick up when the snow’s gone,’ says Tom.

    ‘That’s so kind. Thank you so much. I’m so grateful. That would be perfect. I’m so sorry to have been such a nuisance,’ says Jane, wanting to gag herself.

    Clutching a piece of paper with their address and telephone number, she jumps down from the vehicle and scurries off.

The snowy fields light up the night. The track is a mixture of slush and puddles. She jogs through them, not caring about splashes. She can’t wait to get home and shed her embarrassment. She forgets to be frightened of being out alone in the countryside after dark, and thinks instead of the red wine she’s going to pour herself.

But as soon as she pushes open the back door and enters her kitchen she’s hit by a wave of darkness, so strong she can hardly stand. She grabs the nearest chair and collapses on to it.

    She tries to take deep breaths as as she’s learnt in the odd yoga class she’s attended and as Sharon advised when Jane told her about these attacks. ‘They won't kill you,’ Sharon said, but sometimes that’s hard to believe.

    Soon however she does feel slightly better, less out of control, but the darkness is splintering into horrible visions.

    She sees all the inconvenience, not to say danger, she’s caused Maisie and Tom, two delightful, admirable, sensible people. Without them she could well be dead by now. What was she thinking, driving off like that?

     She sees her outburst at work and her toes curl. She’s sixty for goodness sake, not an adolescent. Henry’s probably wondering what sort of a nutter he employed. She'll probably never work again in the publishing industry.

    She sees herself at the party two days ago, vomiting into a bin and then flaked out on the floor. A disgrace. A disaster. An insult to her new best friend Lauren, who’s shown her nothing but kindness over the last five months. She remembers her rudeness to Lauren’s fiancé Gavin. She remembers lovely Joe the Taxi who’s now seen her wrecked twice out of their last three encounters, if you count him picking her up after the walk. It makes her feel sick again just thinking about it all.

    She remembers taking nearly a whole week off work because of a migraine.

    She remembers the walk and what she saw at the end of it, in the village shop.

    She thinks of Maisie's rich life and compares it to her own – jobless, husbandless, future-less.

A car stops and footsteps crunch up to the door.

    Jane’s heart starts beating so erratically that she feels faint. All she wants to do is creep out of the kitchen and hide but she doesn’t know if she can manage to stand.

    ‘Janey,’ calls William’s voice. ‘Janey? Are you there? I thought I saw you come home but your car’s not here and there are no lights on in the house and . . . ’

    The door starts to edge open. Jane pulls her coat tightly around her. Perhaps he won’t see her in the dark.

    ‘Janey,’ exclaims William.

    The door is completely open now and he’s standing in the doorway framed against the security light, bringing with him cold air and a scent of sandalwood soap. He’s wearing an old tweed jacket with a white shirt that makes his teeth and eyes shine. He’s looking straight at her.

    To her horror, a sob escapes before she has time to squash it.

    He hurries towards her. ‘Janey! Whatever’s the matter?’

    Tears gush like oil from some newly tapped well.

    He puts his arm round her and, with a sense of relief even greater than the one she feels when she has a migraine and can finally get to bed and draw the duvet over her head, she leans against him.

‘Please,’ she whimpers. ‘Just do it.’

    ‘Janey, I can’t,’ says William, falling on to his back away from her with a noise somewhere between a groan and a laugh.

    ‘Whyever not?’ she screeches. ‘I thought that was all men cared about.’

    ‘Because you’re in too much of a state, and I’m not a pig, whatever you might think about men in general,’ retorts William.

    ‘I’m not in a state. What sort of a state d’you think I’m in? Why d’you think I’m in a state?’

    No man has ever refused her before.

    ‘Because you keep crying, you daft female.’

    ‘I don’t,’ she sobs.

    No man has ever called her a daft female either.

    ‘Look,’ says William. ‘Why don’t we get up and have some supper together. I’m sure that would do you a whole lot more good than us lying here having an argument.’

    ‘We’re not arguing,’ she hiccups.

    William sighs. ‘We could even go down to the Merry Harriers and make a night of it. They do a mean cheesy potato pie and sausages.’

    He swings his legs over his side of Jane’s bed and starts rummaging on the floor for his clothes.

    ‘I don’t eat meat,’ says Jane, watching him out of the corner of her eye.

    ‘Just pie then,’ says William, buttoning up his shirt. ‘It’s my birthday today, you know. I was going to ask you out anyway.’

    ‘OK,’ she says ungraciously. ‘I s’pose I could manage.’

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