Dialogues of the Dead

It was a day of sun and light showers with a brisk west wind driving clouds down the sky and swirling leaves across the road in the MG’s path. He’d kept the hood up because of this but Rye had said, “Can’t we have it down?” and now as they sped along, she pulled off her beret and leaned her head back with eyes closed and such an expression of sheer delight on her face that now the dancing leaves seemed to Hat like rose petals scattered before a marriage procession.

Watch it, son, he mocked himself, or she’ll have you writing poetry next, you whose appreciation of verse never got much beyond “The Good Ship Venus.”

The thought was mother to a couplet.

I went out with Raina.

By God, you should have seen her.

He laughed to himself but she noticed.

“Come on,” she said, having to shout above the rushing air. “Today we share.”

He told her. It didn’t sound all that funny but it got a full-throated laugh.

Encouraged, he said, “Seeing it’s share time, how about the story of your life? How come you’re a librarian?”

“What’s wrong with librarians?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” he assured her. “Bit of an image problem, maybe. All I meant was you, with your background and looks and everything, how come you didn’t end up in the theatre? I mean, Raina Pomona, if ever a name looked custom-built for bright lights, that must be it!”

She said something but the wind caught it and whirled it away.

“Sorry?” he shouted.

“I said, once upon a time, maybe …but that was in another country and besides, the wench is dead.”

She laughed as she said this, not like before, but this time with an edge as bright and sharp as the wind that was rippling the silver blaze in her hair like a pike in a dark mere.

“You OK?” he said. “Do you want the hood up?”

“No,” she cried. “Of course not. Doesn’t this thing go any faster?”

He said, “How fast do you want to go?”

“Fast as you like,” she said.

“OK.”

They were off the main road now and on to narrow country byways. He leaned his weight into the accelerator and sent the hedgerows blurring by. He was a good driver, good enough to know that he was driving too fast, not for the bends in the road-those his technique could deal with-but for the unexpected which might lie in wait around any one of them.

But Rye was leaning against him, her right arm round his shoulders, her left hand gripping his forearm tight, her mouth so close to his cheek that he could feel the warmth of her breath mingling in the cold blast of air which their speed was driving in their faces.

He took a long left-hand curve, shallow enough to present no problems or even require any diminution of speed, but as the car came out of the bend, a deer jumped over the hedgerow on the right, paused long enough to register their approach, then bounded effortlessly into the field on the left.

Probably there was no risk of collision but instinctively his foot hit the brake, only for a second, but with the car still off-line and a scatter of wet leaves on the road, it was enough to set up a skid. As skids go, it was nothing, the kind of thing he could control in his sleep. But the road was narrow and the offside wheels were on to the grass verge in the brief moment before he regained full control. Fortunately the ground wasn’t boggy and there was no ditch, but it did make the whole thing a little more dramatic as hawthorn branches whipped across the windscreen and their faces before he brought the car to a halt which threw them forward against the seat belts.

“Well, that was fun,” said Hat. “Thank you, Bambi. Shit! Rye, are you OK?”

For the girl’s response to his attempted lightness was to let out a piercing cry of pain and collapse forward, sobbing convulsively.

He released his seat belt and turned to her.

“What’s happened? Where’s it hurt?” he demanded, looking for but not finding any signs of bleeding.

“It’s all right,” she gasped. “Really …there’s nothing …”

Gently he raised her head and looked into her face. There was no colour in her cheeks and her eyes were full of tears, but he felt no physical response as his fingers touched her neck and collarbone in search of damage.

She took several deep breaths, knuckled the tears from her eyes, and said, “Honestly, before you start getting too gynaecological, I’m OK.”

“You didn’t sound OK.”

“Shock.”

“Yeah?” He looked at her doubtfully.

“What?”

“A little skid. Over in a second. You don’t seem …”

“The type?” she completed. “So suddenly you know all about me, do you, Detective?”

“No. But I’d like to. After all, it was you who said that today was for sharing.”

“I said that? Yes, I believe I did.”

She opened the door and got out and stood there, stretching as if it were bed she’d just got out of.

Then she turned to him and said, “Didn’t you promise to provide the provisions for this expedition? Would that include coffee? Because if it does, that’s certainly something I’ve no objection to sharing.”

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