The Ivy Tree Read online

  Another time I would have appreciated the way Norma said the word, as if describing a dangerous and fascinating kind of wild beast; but just now I had room only for one thing. ‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s all right. But – well, it’s odd, Norma, the whole thing, and I don’t like mysteries. Did Mavis find out anything about her? Who she is, where she comes from?’

  ‘No.’

  I looked unseeingly down at the tray of crockery in my hand. Fleetingly, I was there again: the Roman Wall in the sunshine, the bubble of the curlews, the smell of thyme, the swans preening and dipping in the lough below, and, facing me, that hard blue stare, as genuinely dangerous, I felt sure, as anything that Norma could have dreamed up . . .

  I said abruptly: ‘I want to know who she is. But I don’t want to speak to her. Look, Norma, she’s got a dress-box or something with her, and it’s labelled. I’m going into the kitchen again, now, because I don’t want to look as if I’ve any interest in it. Will you ask Mavis to go over, say something – any excuse will do – and get a look at that label?’

  ‘Sure. You leave it to me. Anything for a spot of excitement. Oh, and tell them to get a move on in there: I’ll be out of cups in a minute.’

  When I got back from the kitchen with the cups, the corner table was empty. Mavis was at the counter with Norma. I said, a little anxiously: ‘Did she see you looking?’

  ‘Not her,’ said Mavis. ‘Funny sort of woman, eh? Norma says you don’t know her.’

  ‘No.’ I set the tray down on the counter. ‘The box was labelled, then? What was the name?’

  ‘Dermott. A Miss Dermott.’

  I turned slowly to look at her. ‘Dermott.’

  ‘Does it mean anything?’ asked Norma.

  Mavis said: ‘Dermott? That’s an Irish name, isn’t it?’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Norma quickly. ‘Mary, do you know her?’

  I said sharply: ‘Did you see the address? Was there one? Did you see where she was from?’

  Mavis was looking at me curiously. ‘Yes, I did. Some address near Bellingham, a farm. White-something Farm, it was. Mary, what—?’

  ‘Whitescar?’

  ‘Yes, that was it. Then you do know her?’

  ‘No. I’ve never seen her in my life. Honestly. But—’ I took in my breath – ‘she must know someone I know, that’s all. I – I’ve met someone from Whitescar . . . she must have heard I worked here, and came to see. But what an odd way of doing it, not to speak, I mean . . . Oh, well,’ I managed a smile, speaking lightly. ‘That’s that little mystery solved, and nothing to it after all. Thanks a lot, Mavis.’

  ‘Think nothing of it.’ And Mavis, dismissing the incident, hurried away. But Norma, lifting the piles of clean cups and saucers from the tray I had brought, and stacking them slowly in place, eyed me thoughtfully.

  ‘Nothing to it, eh?’

  ‘Nothing at all. If she’s here tomorrow I’ll speak to her myself.’

  ‘I would,’ said Norma. ‘I would, too. Find out what she’s playing at . . . Friend of a friend of yours, eh?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Something like that. I could see the likeness now: the poorish copy of that dramatically handsome face, the sepia print of Connor Winslow’s Glorious Technicolor. ‘My half-sister keeps house at Whitescar . . .’ She would be some half-dozen years older than he, with the different colouring she had probably got from her Dermott father, and none of the good looks that his Winslow blood had given Connor. But the likeness, ill defined, shadowy, a characterless travesty of his vivid charm, was there, to be glimpsed now and then, fleetingly, by anyone who knew. I thought, suddenly: I wonder if she minds.

  ‘I wouldn’t let it upset you,’ said Norma. ‘Really I wouldn’t.’

  ‘I won’t. Thanks, Norma. Don’t worry.’

  She wasn’t looking at me. She began to rearrange a carefully stacked pile of chocolate biscuits.

  ‘There’s a man in it, isn’t there?’

  ‘Well, you could hardly—’ I paused. It was easier that way, after all. ‘Yes, I suppose there is.’

  ‘Oh well.’ This, for Norma, would apparently have explained behaviour a good deal odder than Lisa Dermott’s. ‘Well, you take it from me, dear, have done with it if it bothers you. If she’s here tomorrow I’d walk right up to her, if I was you, and just ask her straight out what she’s playing at and what she wants.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I will.’

  But I wasn’t there next afternoon to watch for her coming. I gave my notice in that night.

  3

  Go fetch me some of your father’s gold,

  And some of your mother’s fee,

  And I’ll carry you into the north land,

  And there I’ll marry thee.

  Ballad: May Colvis.

  When the knock came at my bedroom door I knew who it was even before I looked up from my packing.

  My landlady, Mrs Smithson, was out: I had been to look for her as soon as I came in, only to remember that Wednesday was her regular evening for the cinema and late supper with a friend. Even without this knowledge I could never have mistaken the tentative, even nervous quality of this knock for Mrs Smithson’s forthright rapping. As clearly as if the thick, shiningly varnished door were made of glass, I could see who stood there; the toffee-brown eyes under the brown, undistinguished hat, and the drawn-down corners of the soft, obstinate-looking mouth.

  I hadn’t heard anyone come upstairs, though the bare and echoing linoleum of the two flights to my room was a more than sufficient herald of approach. She must have come up very softly.

  I hesitated. She must know I was here. I had seen no reason for silence, and the light would be showing under my door.

  As the soft, insistent rapping came again, I threw a swift look round the room.

  The ashtray by the bed, almost full . . . the bed itself, disordered . . . evidence of the hours spent smoking, thinking, counting the stains on the fly-spotted ceiling, before I had finally risen to drag out and pack the cases that stood – proof of a more tangible kind of disturbance – in the middle of the floor.

  Well, it was too late to do anything about them now. But there, on the table near the window, was a more cogent witness still – the telephone directory, borrowed from downstairs, and open at the page headed: ‘Wilson – Winthorpe . . .’

  I went silently across the room, and shut it. Then I turned back to the dressing-chest and pulled open a drawer.

  I said, on a note of enquiry: ‘Yes? Come in.’

  When the door opened, I had my back to it, lifting clothes out of the drawer. ‘Oh, Mrs Smithson,’ I began, as I turned, then stopped short, my brows lifted, my face registering, I hoped, nothing but surprise.

  She said, standing squarely in the doorway: ‘Miss Grey?’

  ‘Yes? I’m afraid—’ I paused, and let recognition dawn, and with it puzzlement. ‘Wait a moment. I think – don’t I know your face? You were in the Kasbah this afternoon, the café where I work, weren’t you? I remember noticing you in the corner.’

  ‘That’s right. My name’s Dermott, Lisa Dermott.’ She pronounced the name Continental-fashion, ‘Leeza’. She paused to let it register, then added: ‘From Whitescar.’

  I said, still on that puzzled note: ‘How do you do, Miss – Mrs? – Dermott. Is there something I can do for you?’

  She came into the room unasked, her eyes watchful on my face. She shut the door behind her, and began to pull off her plain, good hogskin gloves. I stood there without moving, my hands full of clothes, plainly intending, I hoped, not to invite her to sit down.

  She sat down. She said flatly: ‘My brother met you up on the Roman Wall beyond Housesteads on Sunday.’

  ‘On the Ro— oh, yes, of course I remember. A man spoke to me. Winslow, he was called, from somewhere near Bellingham.’ (Careful now, Mary Grey; don’t overplay it; she’ll know you’d not be likely to forget a thing like that). I added slowly: ‘Whitescar. Yes. That’s where he said he c
ame from. We had a rather – odd conversation.’

  I put the things I was holding back into the drawer, and then turned to face her. There was a packet of Players in my handbag lying beside me on the dressing-chest. I shook one loose. ‘Do you smoke?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Do you mind if I do?’

  ‘It’s your own room.’

  ‘Yes.’ If she noticed the irony she gave no sign of it. She sat there solidly, uninvited, in the only chair my wretched little room boasted, and set her handbag down on the table beside her. She hadn’t taken her eyes off me. ‘I’m Miss Dermott,’ she said, ‘I’m not married. Con Winslow’s my half-brother.’

  ‘Yes, I believe he mentioned you. I remember now.’

  ‘He told me all about you,’ she said. ‘I didn’t believe him, but he was right. It’s amazing. Even given the eight years, it’s amazing. I’d have known you anywhere.’

  I said, carefully: ‘He told me I was exactly like a young cousin of his who’d left home some eight years ago. She had an odd name, Annabel. Is that right?’

  ‘Quite right.’

  ‘And you see the same resemblance?’

  ‘Certainly. I didn’t actually know Annabel herself. I came to Whitescar after she’d gone. But the old man used to keep her photographs in his room, a regular gallery of them, and I dusted them every day, till I suppose I knew every expression she had. I’m sure that anyone who knew her would make the same mistake as Con. It’s uncanny, believe me.’

  ‘It seems I must believe you.’ I drew deeply on my cigarette. ‘The “old man” you spoke of . . . would that be Mr Winslow’s father?’

  ‘His great-uncle. He was Annabel’s grandfather.’

  I had been standing by the table. I sat down on the edge of it. I didn’t look at her; I was watching the end of my cigarette. Then I said, so abruptly that it sounded rude: ‘So what, Miss Dermott?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It’s an expression we have on our side of the Atlantic. It means, roughly, all right, you’ve made your point, now where is it supposed to get us? You say I’m the image of this Annabel of yours. Granted: I’ll accept that. You and Mr Winslow have gone to a lot of trouble to tell me so. I repeat: so what?’

  ‘You must admit—’ she seemed to be choosing her words – ‘that we were bound to be interested, terribly interested?’

  I said bluntly: ‘You’ve gone a little beyond “interest”, haven’t you? Unless, of course, you give the word its other meaning.’

  ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘No? I think you do. Tell me something frankly, please. Does your brother still persist in thinking that I might actually be Annabel Winslow?’

  ‘No. Oh, no.’

  ‘Very well. Then you have to admit that this “interest” of yours does go far beyond mere curiosity, Miss Dermott. He might have sent you to take a look at me, Annabel’s double, once, but not more than’ – I caught myself in time – ‘not more than that. I mean, you’d have hardly followed me home. No, you’re “interested” in quite another sense, aren’t you?’ I paused, tapped ash into the waste-basket, and added: ‘“Interested parties”, shall we say? In other words, you’ve something at stake.’

  She sounded as calm as ever. ‘I suppose it’s natural for you to be so hostile.’ There was the faintest glimmer of a smile on her face: perhaps not so much a smile, as a lightening of the stolidity of her expression. ‘I don’t imagine that Con was exactly, well, tactful, to start with . . . He upset you, didn’t he?’

  ‘He frightened me out of my wits,’ I said frankly. I got up from the table, and moved restlessly to the window. The curtains were undrawn. Outside, the lights and clamour of the street made a pattern two storeys below, as remote as that of a coastal town seen from a passing ship. I turned my back on it.

  ‘Look, Miss Dermott, let me be plain, please. Certain things are obvious to me, and I don’t see any advantage in playing stupid about them. For one thing, I don’t want to prolong this interview. As you see, I’m busy. Now, your brother was interested in me because I look like this Annabel Winslow. He told you about me. All right. That’s natural enough. But it isn’t just pure coincidence that brought you to the Kasbah, and I know darned well I never told him where I worked. It sticks out a mile that he followed me home on Sunday, and either he came here and asked someone where I worked, or he saw me go on for the late Sunday shift at the café, and then went back and told you. And you came next day to have a look at me . . . Yes, I admit I did see you before today. How could I help noticing you, the way you stared? Well, no doubt he and you had a talk about it, and today you’ve followed me home. Am I right?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘I told you I was being frank, Miss Dermott. I don’t like it. I didn’t like the way your brother talked to me on Sunday, and I don’t like being watched, and I’m damned if I like being followed.’

  She nodded calmly, as if I had said something a little pettish, but fairly reasonable. ‘Of course you don’t. But if you’ll just be a little patient with me, I’ll explain. And I’m sure you’ll be interested then . . .’

  All this time she had been watching me, and there was some quality about her steady gaze that I associated with something I couldn’t place. It made me feel uncomfortable, and I wanted to look away from her. Con Winslow had had the same look, only his had held a frankly male appraisal that made it more understandable, and easier to face.

  She looked away at last. Her gaze shifted from me to the appointments of the shabby little room; the iron bedstead, the garish linoleum, the varnished fireplace with its elaborately ugly overmantel, the gas ring on the cracked tiles of the hearth. She looked further, as if wondering, now, whether something of me, personally, was anywhere superimposed on the room’s characterless ugliness. But there were no photographs, and what books I had had with me were packed. The questing look came to rest, defeated, on the clothes untidily hanging from the drawer I had been emptying, on the handbag I had pulled open to get my cigarettes, from which had spilled a lipstick, a pocket-comb, and a small gold cigarette lighter whose convoluted initials caught the light quite clearly: M.G.

  Her eyes came back to my face. I suppressed a desire to say tartly: ‘Satisfied?’ and said instead: ‘Are you sure you won’t smoke?’ I was already lighting another for myself.

  ‘I think I might, after all.’ She took cigarette and light with the slight awkwardness that betrayed it as an unaccustomed action.

  I sat down on the table again and said, uncompromisingly: ‘Well?’

  She hesitated, looking for the first time not quite at ease, but it wasn’t discomfort that touched the heavy face; it looked, incongruously, like excitement. It was gone immediately. She took a rapid puff at the cigarette, looked down at it as if she wondered what it was there for, then said in that flat voice of hers:

  ‘I’ll come to the main point first, and explain afterwards. You were right in saying that our interest in you was more than the normal curiosity you’d expect the likeness to arouse. You were even right – terribly right – when you said we had “something at stake”.’

  She paused. She seemed to be waiting for comment.

  I moved again, restlessly. ‘Fair enough. You want something from me. Your brother hinted as much. Well, what? I’m listening.’

  She laid her cigarette carefully down in the ashtray I had placed near her on the table. She put her hands flat down on her thighs and leaned forward slightly. ‘What we want,’ she said, ‘is Annabel, back at Whitescar. It’s important. I can’t tell you how important. She must come back.’

  The voice was undramatic: the words, in their impact, absurdly sensational. I felt my heart give a little painful twist of nervous excitement. Though I had suspected some nonsense of this kind – and of course it was nonsense – all along, the knowledge did nothing to prevent my blood jerking unevenly through my veins as if driven by a faulty pump. I said nothing.

  The brown eyes held mine. S
he seemed to think everything had been said. I wondered, with a spasm of genuine anger, why people with some obsessive trouble of their own always thought that others should be nerve-end conscious of it, too. A cruel impulse made me say, obtusely: ‘But Annabel’s dead.’

  Something flickered behind the woman’s eyes. ‘Yes, she’s dead. She can’t come back, Miss Grey, she can’t come back . . . to spoil anything for you . . . or for us.’

  I watched the ash from my cigarette float and fall towards the waste-basket. I didn’t look at her. I said at length, with no expression at all: ‘You want me to go to Whitescar. As Annabel Winslow.’

  She leaned back. The basket chair gave a long, gasping creak like a gigantic breath of relief. It was obvious that she had taken my apparent calmness for compliance.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that’s it. We want you to come to Whitescar . . . Annabel.’

  I laughed then. I couldn’t help it. Possibly the laughter was as much the result of taut nerves as of the obvious absurdity of her proposal, but if there was a suggestion of hysteria in it, she took no notice. She sat quite still, watching me with that expression which, suddenly, I recognised. It was the look of someone who, themselves uninvolved, coolly assesses a theatrical performance. She had all this time been weighing my looks, my voice, my movements, my reactions, against those of the Annabel Winslow of whom she knew so much, and whom she and her brother must have spent the greater part of the last three days in discussing.

  I felt some nerve tighten somewhere inside me again, and deliberately relaxed it. My laughter died. I said: ‘Forgive me, but it sounded so absurd when it finally got put into words. It – it’s so theatrical and romantic and impossible. Impersonation – that old stuff? Look, Miss Dermott, I’m sorry, but it’s crazy! You can’t be serious!’