An Open Window

  An Open Window

  Roger Ormerod

  Copyright © Roger Ormerod 1988.

  The right of Roger Ormerod to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by his in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  First published in the UK by Constable & Company Ltd 1988.

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

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  3

  4

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  6

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  8

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  15

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  22

  Extract from Time to Kill by Roger Ormerod

  1

  There was a foot on the back of my right hand, pressing my fingers into the soggy turf. I tried to lift my head. The foot went away, and a face was lowered, staring at me sideways. I tried to speak. All I managed to get out was a groan. ‘You’ll be all right, chum,’ the face said. ‘They’ve sent for an ambulance.’

  ‘My…’ I croaked. Oh dear Lord! ‘My wife…’

  The face went away. A more distant voice said: ‘She must be dead. Got to be.’ Another voice, gruff and choked, agreed. ‘God, yes.’

  I managed to raise my body, one hand still implanted, and draw up my knees. There was difficulty in breathing, and I realised my vision was bad, the images swathed in smoke. A breeze drew it aside and I could see the nearest caravan. Beneath its forward end, half tangled with the front manoeuvring wheel, there was a shape that was wearing Amelia’s red and yellow anorak and her blue jeans. I whispered her name and began crawling towards it.

  ‘Take it easy, old chap,’ said the original voice. ‘They’re on their way.’

  I continued to crawl.

  She had her arm over her face. My eyesight was steadying, and I could detect that her right leg was at a strange angle. I touched her arm and she slowly lowered it, as though afraid of what she might see.

  ‘Richard?’

  ‘‘Lo, love.’ Then my voice failed me.

  ‘It’s my leg,’ she said simply, almost in apology. Her face crumpled.

  ‘They’re on their way.’ But that was now evident, two sirens overlapping and interlocking as they raced closer.

  She hadn’t mentioned her left arm. Somehow she’d managed to get it up to her face to protect it from the blast. The sleeve was torn, hot flesh flaring through. The blast! It was only then that I remembered. I took her hand so that they wouldn’t be able to sneak her away from me, and felt free to turn my head.

  The caravan that had been on plot 13 was now no more than a ravaged frame, with smoking wreckage scattered around it. The woman who had to be dead was the one I’d last seen with her key in the door lock, a cold cigarette in her lips and her lighter in the other hand. Amelia had been moving towards the caravan to make a protest that I’d known would be unfounded. But she’d had no time to say one word. As the woman swung the door open and walked inside, the caravan had exploded, my last recollection, before the foot on my hand, being the flare of red behind the side window.

  And now I could do no more than sit and wait, trying to force my brain into activity.

  Right from the beginning I had felt we were making a mistake. Of course, some definite action had had to be taken. The tenancy on our cottage in Devon had expired, and though we might have renewed it I think both of us realised we simply had to find something permanent, of our own, where we could settle. Plant a tree or two and watch them grow—that sort of thing. And it was clear that using the cottage as a base for sorties in all directions, looking for a suitable property, was not working out. All it was doing was depleting our capital.

  I can’t remember who first mentioned the possibility of a caravan. The idea was that you took your home around with you, thus providing more freedom of movement. This was in March. With the summer ahead of us, it seemed to combine adventure with exploration, all with a hint of happy holiday capers in the background. There was an intuition of unperceived difficulties, but I ignored it, putting it down to a reluctance to part with my Triumph Stag, which had become part of my lifestyle. We went to look at caravans.

  But the Stag would not do, the gentleman who sold the things assured me. With even the smallest of caravans, it would have a tendency to wag the car, when of course the objective was for the car to wag the caravan. Besides, if we were intending to spend some considerable time living in the caravan, we would need a large one.

  These remarks should have warned me, but I was an innocent in these matters.

  So…away with the Stag and in with the Volvo Estate. A gentleman’s car with plenty of beef. Try wagging that, I thought, as we took it to pick up the fourteen-foot caravan we’d chosen. We drove away, and the caravan hung behind like a drooping tail. It followed exactly where the car went, and might not have been there.

  Nobody had warned us.

  We put our furniture into store, left a forwarding address with the Post Office, using our solicitor’s name and address, and headed away towards Wales.

  There are people who have years of experience with towed caravans, who disappear with them on every fine weekend in the summer, returning tanned and relaxed on Sunday evenings. I’ve met them on caravan sites. They stroll over to watch you backing in, and shout advice. ‘Left hand down. Easy now. Right full lock.’ They know it all. We knew nothing. I never reached the stage of relaxing. Tanned, yes, but relaxed no.

  To start with, you have to avoid towns. A long car with a long caravan takes a lot of space. Which means you can’t park. Try finding three empty meters in a row, or winding the whole thing up the curves of a multi-storey car park. It’s just not feasible. So where do you stop? You look for lay-bys, that’s what you do. You pull in gingerly, and stop to make a cup of tea. It’s no good expecting to spend the night there, though. Heavy traffic thunders past and shakes the whole set-up. So how on earth are you going to free yourself from the caravan in order to do your shopping, your laundry, take on drinking water, and all the other necessities? Don’t tell me to try a friendly farmer and ask if you can use his field. He’s too scared he’ll never get rid of you.

  Your only course is to find a licensed site that takes touring caravans. Suddenly you realise that you’re not as fancy-free as you thought you were. You have become completely dependent on caravan sites.

  Which seems all right at first. There’s a booklet you can buy, listing all registered sites, so that a general route can be planned. But as the season wears on—and it did wear on—they become filled with jolly holidaymakers, and you have to track around from one to the other, searching for empty plots. One terrible evening we didn’t find one until nearly midnight. Then I had to knock-up the site boss, and the harrowing business of backing into the slot had to be done in the dark. Suddenly the car was surrounded by experts in pyjamas and dressing gown, all waving torches and shouting: ‘Left hand down, steady as you go. Full right lock.’ And sundry other advice, all part of the fun.

  It’s the backing, you see. I knew the general idea. You steer the opposite way to where you want the caravan to go, then when it’s doing that, you reverse the process and follow it with the car. Sounds easy. Just try it. As soon as the caravan begins turning, you lose touch with the back end and don’t know where it’s going. I never did get it right. Once I’d managed to force the caravan into its numbered plot, got it on its stays and level, and unhooked the car, all I wanted to do was stay there as long as possible.

  That was where the first snag arose. We had deci
ded that the best plan was to settle at one site and make forays with the unattached car to all the estate agents within reach. In this unfettered condition the Volvo felt like a greyhound. I drove it with the verve I’d used when handling the sporty Stag. So the caravan was becoming a liability, to my mind. I began to grow paranoiac about it, indulging in the odd furtive kick at its tyres. So I was all in favour of settling at any accommodating site that pleased us.

  But there was a regulation. There always is. You couldn’t stay longer than fourteen days without moving on. This was something to do with bye-laws which changed your status from touring to resident, with dire results to the site owner. So, at least every fortnight, we had to move on. We were getting nowhere, finding nothing that suited us, and we were already into August.

  It was then that we discovered the second, and major, snag. All these holiday sites would close at the end of September. This meant that we would have to discover a site that truly was residential, the thought of which, for a whole winter, we found appalling. The caravan, which had seemed so large when we bought it, was shrinking daily and becoming claustrophobic. It also seemed to be taking on weight and bulk. Every time I hitched up and drove away, it was a proliferating hazard at my back. I had to force myself not to try to overtake anything faster than a farm tractor.

  We had discovered a site, about four miles inland from Aberaeron. This one we liked. A farmer had converted a field, and had only twenty caravan plots. Not too crowded, yet large enough to justify a modern toilet block, with washing machines. Ideal. Twice we discovered that plot 13 was empty, and enjoyed our fourteen days there. So I made an arrangement with the farmer. He would try to keep plot 13 empty, being assisted in this by superstition, and we would leave him for a fortnight, then return. This arrangement began at the beginning of June, and had worked well for several return visits.

  On a Friday at the end of August we were way north, exploring the Lleyn peninsular, so that it was a fair drive back to Aberaeron. By that time I was worried. There was something that needed doing to the carburettor and the Volvo wasn’t pulling well, or the caravan was getting heavier. It was pouring with rain all the way south along the coast road, and we had just discovered this business about everything closing down in a month’s time. We had found nothing in North Wales. Property was even tighter there than farther south. Or dearer.

  So…arriving later than I’d have liked at our favourite site, tired and discouraged, I drove in through the gate without stopping to make our presence known, and discovered that there was a caravan already parked in plot 13. I stopped, well back.

  There could have been other plots empty, but somehow this one had become ours. It had almost seemed that we were coming home. To Amelia, as weary and miserable as I was, it appeared to be an affront, and she was out of the Volvo before I was. The caravan occupying plot 13 was smaller than ours, and a young woman was just climbing out of a Ford Cortina. She hadn’t, in the past few minutes, brought in the caravan, as it was settled with a possessive air on its jacking struts. Amelia moved as though to protest. I hurried after her. The young woman had a cigarette in her lips, and was reaching up with her key, a lighter in her left hand flicking uselessly in the flirty breeze.

  I can still recall only that first flare of flame beyond the side window.

  We waited. I cannot detail what was happening, nor how long we were there, because everything seemed distant and disconnected. I remember that it had stopped raining. I could see that our own outfit seemed reasonably undamaged, and I could hear Cindy barking in the Volvo. I worried a lot about Cindy, who was our small West Highland terrier, and a lot about Amelia, who had remained silent apart from answering when I first spoke to her. I also worried that I now had a great many worries to contend with, and that I seemed to be unable to marshal them in my mind for inspection.

  Eventually they loaded Amelia into the ambulance and insisted I should go with them. I made feeble protests, confused about my priorities. The car…the caravan…Cindy…There was an assurance they’d be all right. I noticed that the sun had come out. It would, wouldn’t it!

  This was on a Friday. They insisted on keeping me under observation over the weekend, which allowed me to remain with Amelia. All I’d suffered was a blow on the side of the head from a passing portion of caravan. Amelia was much more badly injured: a severely burnt left arm and multiple fractures to the right leg. She would be immobile for at least a month, and in difficulties for quite a while afterwards. I was beginning to make frantic plans in my head.

  On Sunday we had a visit from a young policeman. Or rather, I had—Amelia was not yet fit to talk to visitors. The dead young woman was named Nancy Rafton, he told me. She was twenty-five, and had been at the site for three days. She had been travelling alone. They were tracing her relatives through the registration of her car. I gave as much information as I could. He took it all down solemnly, and right at the end lifted his eyes and asked:

  ‘So you can give no information about the enquiries she’d been making, sir?’

  I must have looked blank.

  ‘She’d been enquiring for your wife—Amelia Patton.’

  I could only shake my head.

  On the Monday, and with Amelia settled in her plaster and her bandages, I took a bus to Aberaeron, got a lift out to the caravan site, and found Cindy being walked by a little girl, both quite happy with the arrangement. Our caravan had been backed into plot 7, the car was parked beside it, and everything was locked. I stopped to answer anxious enquiries and to thank everybody for their concern over Amelia’s health, then sought out the farmer, who had my keys.

  Yes, he confirmed, Nancy Rafton had enquired for Amelia Patton, and she’d stayed only because we were expected back. No, she’d given no hint of her business. It was intriguing, but I could do nothing about it.

  I drove to the hospital, leaving Cindy in good hands. We had plans to make. By the time Amelia would be discharged, the caravan sites would be closed. It was decided that I should begin a search around, using the car alone, for rentable properties, to tide us over the winter. This I did. Oh yes, I discovered, they were available, but furnished and at a prohibitive price. I began to lose hope.

  On the Wednesday of the second week I returned to the hospital, spent a few minutes in the car park with my pipe, marshalling optimistic phrases in my mind and practising my smile, then went inside.

  A man was sitting beside Amelia’s bed.

  He would have been in his thirties, and just the type of man most unsuited for hospital visits. His face was thin and dour, his mouth was like a trap, afraid to open too far in case anything encouraging escaped, and his general demeanour was that of exhaustion and misery. He was, it appeared, an enquiry agent working for a solicitor in Boreton-Upon-Severn. Another one! I caught Amelia’s eye at that, but she made no comment. Was she, he wanted to know, the niece of Walter Mann? Yes, her mother had been Walter’s sister. Age? Forty-one, said Amelia firmly. Even then, this man never faltered. Amelia, ill and in bed, managed to look very much younger than her age. I wondered whether she’d noticed his lack of reaction. Certainly her eyes brightened with amusement.

  And so it went on. Where born? Father’s name? Mother’s full name…

  ‘What is this about?’ she asked at last.

  He seemed surprised. At least, an eyebrow looked as though it might rise. ‘Didn’t you know? Then I’m sorry to have to tell you that your uncle Walter died on Saturday. I’ve been told to leave the solicitor’s card, and get you to phone him. He’ll want to see you, I expect.’

  Very formal, he was, very correct. He got to his feet, nodded shortly, and left. There was a visiting card on the bed. Mantell & Carne, Solicitors, Boreton-Upon-Severn. Scribbled across it was: ask for Philip Carne.

  ‘Better call him, I suppose,’ I said.

  ‘Now?’

  It was four-thirty. ‘Why not?’

  I fetched the trolley with the pay phone and plugged it in, found change, and dialled. When I’d re
ached Philip Carne, I handed the phone to Amelia.

  For a minute I watched her nodding, listened to her saying ‘yes’ and ‘no’, and gained nothing. In the end she said: ‘Will you have a word with my husband, please?’

  I took it from her. His voice was young and brisk. Walter Mann, it seemed, had died only two days after making a new will, in which Amelia was named as residual beneficiary. Carne would have liked to see her, but in the circumstances, would I obtain a power of attorney, and take her place? And please bring along such documents as Amelia’s birth certificate, marriage certificate, etc…etc. And when could he expect to see me?

  His crisp efficiency overwhelmed me. I barely had time to say a word. I fed in more money and said: ‘Just a sec.’

  Then I explained quickly to Amelia. She was the one at the end of the will who got what was left after the other beneficiaries and the capital gains people had taken theirs. ‘I’d better go, I suppose, though you’d think he’d send a cheque or something. These things take months to finalise.’

  She nodded, her eyes huge. ‘I suppose you’ll have to.’ Solicitors and the law have always seemed rather awesome to her.

  ‘Would Friday suit you?’ I asked the phone. ‘Around three.’

  ‘Excellent.’ He’d have been rubbing his hands if one of them hadn’t held the phone. ‘We must have a conference, and then I can read the will on Sunday.’

  He hung up before I could query that. Did he expect me to hang around over the weekend? Certainly I didn’t want to dash back and forth from Boreton to Aberaeron, a journey of around 150 miles, I guessed.

  ‘How very annoying, Richard,’ said Amelia. ‘You’d think he’d have covered it with a letter.’

  I tried to sound casual. ‘They’re like that.’

  But not the ones I’d known. Will reading, for instance, with the family present, was a thing of the past. Letters, run off through the photocopier, including signature, were more the order of the present day, even for the major legatees. It was, indeed, annoying, so I dutifully frowned. But all the same, there was a touch of mystery in the background. I said nothing about that, and told her I would arrange about the power of attorney the following day.