A Dedicated Man

THREE

Further up the hillside, Penny paused as she stood on a stile and looked back on the dale she loved spread out below her. There was the church by her cottage. High Street and the whitewashed frontage of the Dog and Gun. On the other side of the river, past the cricket pitch and Crabtree’s Field, the commons sloped up, rougher and rougher, to Crow Scar, which that day was almost too bright to look at.

But she couldn’t gaze long without thinking of Harry, for he was the one who had shown her Swainsdale’s secrets, given it depth and life beyond its superficial beauties. And now she fancied she could see the collapsed section of Tavistock’s wall. The stones that had been used to cover Harry’s body seemed darker than the rest.

Looking back the way she had come, Penny saw the two young lovers fuse in a tight embrace on the grass. She smiled sadly. When she’d first approached them, she had noticed how flustered and embarrassed they had looked.

Again she thought of Harry. Suddenly, the memory of a picnic they’d had ten years ago came into her mind. It must have been on the exact spot where Sally and Kevin were lying. She remembered the view of the village clearly, and they had been near a small copse, as Emma had sat in the shade, knitting. The more she concentrated on it, the more details came back. It was just around the time when she and Michael had started drifting apart. He had been reading Shelley’s poetry. Penny could even remember the scuffed brown leather of the book’s cover; it was a second-hand edition she’d bought him for his birthday. She and Harry had spread the red checked cloth on the grass and started to unload the hamper. Somehow, their hands had touched by accident. Penny remembered blushing, and Harry had busied himself looking for the corkscrew. It was for the Chablis. Yes, they had drunk Chablis, a good vintage, that day, and now, ten years later, she felt the crisp flinty taste of the cool wine on her tongue again.

The picture faded as quickly as it had come. How innocent it had all been, how bloody innocent! Wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, she jumped down from the stile and strode sharply on.