Twice Shy

The fierce sky slowly melted to mauve-grey clouds drifting over a sea of gold and lingeringly then to gentle white over palest blue, and I got up and dressed, thinking that the sky's message was false: problems didn't fade with the sun and Cain was still downstairs.

Cassie's eyes, when I left, were saying all that her tongue wasn't. Hurry. Come back. I don't feel safe here with Angelo.

'Sit by the telephone,' I said. 'Bananas will run.'

She swallowed. I kissed her and drove away, burning up the empty Sunday-early roads to Mill Hill. It was still only eight-thirty when I turned into Oaklands Road, the very earliest that Jane Pitts had said I could arrive, but she was already up and in a wet bathing dress to answer the doorbell.

'Come in,' she said. 'We're in the pool.'

'We' were two lithely beautiful teenage girls and a stringy man going bald who swam without splashing, like a seal. The roof was open to the fair sky and a waiting breakfast of cereals and fruit stood ready on one of the low bamboo tables, and none of the Pittses seemed to mind or notice that the new day was still cool.

The stringy man slithered out onto the pool's edge in a sleek economical movement and stood shaking the water from his head and looking approximately in my direction.

'I'm Ted Pitts,' he said, holding out a wet hand. 'I can't see a damn thing without my glasses.'

I shook the hand and smiled into the unfocussed eyes. Jane walked round with some heavy black frames which converted the brown fish into an ordinary short-sighted mortal, and he dripped round the pool beside me to where his towel lay on a lounging chair.

'William Derry?' he said, blotting water out of his ears.

That's right.'

'How's Jonathan?'

'Sends his regards.'

Ted Pitts nodded, towelled his chest vigorously and then stopped abruptly and said, 'It was you who told me where to get the form books.'

All those years ago… information so casually given. I glanced around the amazing house and asked the uppermost question. 'The betting system on those tapes,' I said. 'Did it really work?'

Ted Pitts's smile was of comprehensive contentment. 'What do you think?' he said.

'All this-'

'All this.'

'I never believed in it,' I said, 'until I came here the other day.'

He towelled his back. 'It's fairly hard work, of course. I shunt around a good deal. But with this to come back to… most rewarding.'

'How long…' I said slowly.

'How long have I been gambling? Ever since Jonathan gave me the tapes. That first Derby… I borrowed a hundred quid with my car as security to raise some stake-money. It was madness, you know. I couldn't have afforded to lose. Sometimes in those days we had hardly enough to eat. It was pretty well desperation that made me do it, but of course the system looked mathematically OK and it had already worked for years for the man who invented it.'

'And you won?'

He nodded, 'Five hundred. A fortune. I'll never forget that day, never. I felt so sick.' He smiled vividly, the triumph still childlike in its simplicity. 'I didn't tell anybody. Not Jonathan. Not even Jane. I didn't mean to do it again, you see. I was so grateful it had turned out all right, but the strain…' He dropped the damp towel over the arm of a chair. 'And then, you know, I thought, why not?'

He watched his daughters dive into the pool with their arms round each other's waists. 'I only taught for one more term,' he said calmly. 'I couldn't stand the head of the Maths department. Jenkins, his name was.' He smiled, 'It seems odd now, but I felt oppressed by that man. Anyway, I promised myself that if I won enough during the summer holidays to buy a computer, I would leave at Christmas, and if I didn't, I'd stay and use the school's computer still, and be content with a wager now and then.'

Jane joined us, carrying a pot of coffee. 'He's telling you how he started betting? I thought he was crazy.'

'But not for long.'

She shook her head, smiling. 'When we moved out of our caravan into a house – bought it outright with Ted's winnings – then I began to believe it would last, that it was safe. And now here we are, so well off it's embarrassing, and it's all thanks to your dear brother Jonathan.'

The girls climbed dripping out of the pool and were introduced as Emma and Lucy, hungry for breakfast. I was offered bran flakes, natural yoghurt, wheat germ and fresh peaches, which they all ate sparingly but with enjoyment.

I ate as well, but thought inescapably of Angelo and of Cassie alone with him in the cottage. Those planks would hold… they'd kept him penned in for two whole days. No reason to think they'd fail this morning… no reason, just a strong feeling that I should have persuaded her to wait with Bananas.

It was over coffee, when the girls were again swimming and Jane had disappeared into the house, that Ted said, 'How did you find me?'

I looked at him. 'Don't you mean why?'

'I suppose so. Yes.'

'I came to ask you to let me have copies of those tapes.'

He breathed deeply and nodded. 'That's what I thought.'

'And will you?'