Haggopian and Other Stories

She was a widow in her middle forties but still fairly trim, rather prominently featured, too heavily made-up, not a little calculating, and very well-to-do. She did not love her consort—indeed she had never been in love—but he was often amusing and always thoughtful. Possibly his chief interest lay in her money, but that thought did not really bother her. Many of the younger, unattached men she had known had been after her money. At least Harry was not foppish, and she believed that in his way he did truly care for her.

Not once had he given her reason to believe otherwise. She had only twenty good years left and she knew it; money could only buy so much youth…Harry would look after her in her final years and she would turn a blind eye on those little indiscretions which must surely come—provided he did not become too indiscreet. He had asked her to marry him and she would comply as soon as they returned to London. Whatever else he lacked he made up for in bed. He was an extremely virile man and she had rarely been so well satisfied…

Now here they were together, touring Hungary, getting “far away from it all”.

“Well, is this remote enough for you?” he asked, his arm around her waist.

“Umm,” she answered. “Deliciously barren, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it’s all of that. Peace and quiet for a few days—it was a good idea of yours, Julia, to drive out here. We’ll feel all the more like living it up when we reach Budapest.”

“Are you so eager, then, to get back to the bright lights?” she asked. He detected a measure of peevishness in her voice.

“Not at all, darling. The setting might as well be Siberia for all I’m concerned about locale. As long as we’re together. But a girl of your breeding and style can hardly—”

“Oh, come off it, Harry! You can’t wait to get to Budapest, can you?”

He shrugged, smiled resignedly, thought: You niggly old bitch! and said, “You read me like a book, darling—but Budapest is just a wee bit closer to London, and London is that much closer to us getting married, and—”

“But you have me anyway,” she again petulantly cut him off. “What’s so important about being married?”

“It’s your friends, Julia,” he answered with a sigh. “Surely you know that?” He took her arm and steered her towards the car. “They see me as some sort of cuckoo in the nest, kicking them all out of your affections. Yes, and it’s the money, too.”

“The money?” she looked at him sharply as he opened the car door for her. “What money?”

“The money I haven’t got!” He grinned ruefully, relaxing now that he could legitimately speak his mind, if not the truth. “I mean, they’re all certain it’s your money I’m after, as if I was some damned gigolo. It’s hardly flattering to either one of us. And I’d hate to think they might convince you that’s all it is with me. But once we’re married I won’t give a damn what they say or think. They’ll just have to accept me, that’s all.”

Reassured by what she took to be pure naïveté, she smiled at him and pulled up the collar of her coat. Then the smile fell from her face, and though it was not really cold she shuddered violently as he started the engine.

“A chill, darling?” He forced concern into his voice.

“Umm, a bit of one,” she answered, snuggling up to him. “And a headache too. I’ve had it ever since we stopped over at—oh, what’s the name of the place? Where we went up over the scree to look at that strange monolith?”

“Stregoicavar,” he answered her. “The ‘Witch-Town’. And that pillar-thing was the Black Stone. A curious piece of rock that, eh? Sticking up out of the ground like a great black fang! But Hungary is full of such things: myths and legends and odd relics of forgotten times. Perhaps we shouldn’t have gone to look at it. The villagers shun it…”

“Mumbo jumbo,” she answered. “No, I think I shall simply put the blame on this place. It’s bloody depressing, really, isn’t it?”

He tut-tutted good humouredly and said: “My God!—the whims of a woman, indeed!”

She snuggled closer and laughed in his ear. “Oh, well, that’s what makes us so mysterious, Harry. Our changeability. But seriously, I think maybe you’re right. It is a bit late in the year for wandering about the Hungarian countryside. We’ll stay the night at the inn as planned, then cut short and go on tomorrow into Budapest. It’s a drive of two hours at the most. A week at Zjhack’s place, where we’ll be looked after like royalty, and then on to London. How does that sound?”

“Wonderful!” He took one hand from the wheel to hug her. “And we’ll be married by the end of October.”

• • •

The inn at Szolyhaza had been recommended for its comforts and original Hungarian cuisine by an innkeeper in Kecskemét. Harry had suspected that both proprietors were related, particularly when he first laid eyes on Szolyhaza. That had been on the previous evening as they drove in over the hills.