In A Dry Season

SIX

Matthew and Gloria decided to have their party on Christmas Eve, but first we all went ice-skating on Harksmere Reservoir. Already there were lots of people around and fires burned in braziers set up along the edges of the ice. It was dark and there was something hypnotic about the mix of ice and fire in the twilight – to me there was, at any rate – so I was skating in a sort of trance. If I shut my eyes I could see the flames dancing behind my eyelids and feel flashes of warmth as I sped by the bank.

People started drifting back to Bridge Cottage at about seven o’clock, then the other guests started to arrive, including more airmen from the base, some with their girlfriends. Alice’s Eric was away in North Africa by then, but Betty’s William hadn’t passed his medical, which didn’t surprise me at all, so they would only let him in the Home Guard.

Michael Stanhope came dressed in his usual artistic “costume,” including hat and cane, but he did bring two bottles of gin and some wine, which made him most welcome indeed. He must have had a cellarful of drink. Alcohol wasn’t always easy to come by then, most of the distilleries having shut down, and it was very expensive if you could get it. I could picture Michael Stanhope, knowing a war was coming, hoarding his private stock away, bottle by bottle. I hoped he wouldn’t run out.

Matthew and Gloria had decorated the tiny front room as best they could, with balloons, concertina streamers and fairy lights over the mantelpiece. The whole place had a warm, cozy feel with the blackout curtains up, especially when you thought of the icicles and the frozen puddles outside. There was also plenty of mistletoe and a fake Christmas tree dressed in lights and tinsel.

The only cigarettes we had in stock were Pasha, and Gloria said they tasted like sweepings from the factory floor, which they probably were. The Canadians had some Players, though, so the room soon seemed to fill with smoke. Mark and Stephen had also contributed a bottle of Canadian Club whiskey.

Unfortunately for Gloria, John Cooper’s musical taste hadn’t extended much farther than opera, so the record collection she’d picked up along with the radiogram was of little use to her. So far, she didn’t have many records of her own, so we listened to the radio. Luckily, there was a Victor Sylvester concert on that night, and soon people were dancing close together in the cramped space.

Matthew had hardly let Gloria out of his sight for a moment all day, but as the tiny cottage grew more crowded and noisy, it was harder for them to stay together.

Couples danced or chatted. Cynthia and Johnny Mars-den hogged the sofa and kissed one another. Once, I even saw him trying to put his hand up her dress, but she stopped him. Gloria drank too much Canadian Club and then switched to gin. She wasn’t loud or falling down or anything, but there was a sort of glaze to her eyes and a slight wobble in her step. It all got more pronounced as the evening wore on, as did the way she held her cigarette slightly askew as she swayed in time to the music.

I got distracted by an RAF radio operator, who first dragged me under the mistletoe and gave me a kiss that tasted of tinned sardines, then proceeded to explain the intricacies of radiolocation to me. I should have told him I was a German spy. Hadn’t he seen those “Walls Have Ears” posters everywhere?

It must have been close to ten o’clock by then, and the party was still going strong. I suppose quite a few people were already drunk. I had only been drinking ginger ale – well, I did have just a drop of Canadian Club – but I was feeling light-headed because of all the gaiety. When you had a party in wartime, especially at some important time like Christmas, the fun was just a little louder, a little gaudier and a little more desperate than at peacetime parties.

Michael Stanhope was holding forth to a young corporal about how artists had a duty to shun propaganda in their search for truth. “If governments listened to the artists,” he said, “there would be no wars.” The corporal would probably have moved on ages ago had Mr. Stanhope not been topping up his gin every few minutes.

Matthew, I noticed, was leaning against the wall deep in conversation with two men in army uniforms, no doubt trying to find out what military life was really like once the training was over.

I realized I hadn’t seen Gloria for a while and wondered if she was sick or something. She had been drinking quite a lot. I needed to go to the toilet anyway, so as gently and politely as I could, I disengaged myself from the radiolocation lecture. It was cold and dark outside, so I put my coat over my shoulders, picked up the torch with its tissue-filtered light and headed out into the backyard.

Bridge Cottage had two outbuildings; one was the toilet and the other was used for storage. I could hear the radiogram playing “In the Dark” from inside the house as I made my way down the flags to the toilet.

Suddenly, I heard sounds nearby. I paused, then I heard them again, a grunt and a muffled little voice calling out. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from at first, then I realized it was behind the outbuilding. Puzzled, I tiptoed over and pointed my torch at the wall.

What I saw made my skin tingle. Even in the poor tissue-weakened light, I could see it was Gloria pinned to the wall by Mark, the Canadian airman. Her back was against the large “V” sign someone had chalked there during the summer Victory campaign. Her dress was bunched around her waist, and the pale white flesh of her bare thighs above the stocking-tops stood out in the darkness. I remember thinking she must be freezing cold. Mark was crushed forward into her, one hand over her mouth, the other fumbling at his waist.

Gloria was calling out in a muffled voice, “No, please, no!” over and over again, trying to struggle against him, and he was calling her filthy names. When he saw my light, he swore at me and took off around the front of the house.

Gloria leaned back against the wall, gasping and sobbing, not looking at me, her hair and clothes in disarray. Then she straightened her dress, leaned forward with her hands on her knees and was sick right onto the garden. It was warm and made the ice crack. I could see the chalk dust from the “V” on the back of her dress.

I didn’t know what to do. I knew nothing about these things back then and I wasn’t even sure what sort of scene I had witnessed – except that there was something very wrong about it.

All I knew was that Gloria looked hurt, upset and in pain. So I did what came naturally; I opened my arms and she fell into them. Then I held her close and stroked her hair and told her not to worry, that everything would be all right.

The birds struck up the dawn chorus first, then the milkman’s float rattled by, and soon Banks was listening to the myriad strange sounds of an unfamiliar street through the half-open window of Annie’s bedroom. A baby cried for feeding; someone slammed a door; a dog started barking; a letter box snapped shut; a motorcycle revved up. Everything sounded all the more foreign since Banks had got used to the silence of his new cottage.

Annie lay beside him breathing softly; she would be silent for a while, then let out a soft exhalation partway between a sniff and a sigh. There was enough light through the thin curtains for Banks to see her. She lay on her side, curled away from him, hands clasped in front, where he couldn’t see them. The single white sheet had slipped down far enough for him to see the curve of her waist, follow it up to her shoulders and hair. She had a small mole about halfway. Gently, Banks touched it. Annie stirred a little but still she didn’t wake.

Banks lay on his back and closed his eyes. His only fear last night, what almost held him back until that intimate moment in the backyard, when his arm moved of its own volition, was that he would feel the same way he did when he slept with Karen. He should have known better; he should have known this was different. He did know. But the fear was still there.

Their lovemaking had been a little tentative at first, but that was only to be expected. It never happened in real life the way it did in movies, with both lovers exploding together in a climax of Wagnerian proportions as fireworks burst, orchestras crescendoed and trains rushed into tunnels. That was pure Monty Python. In real lovemaking, especially with people new to one another’s bodies, there are disappointments, mistakes, hesitancies. If you can laugh at these, as Banks and Annie had, then you are halfway there. If you find yourself looking forward to the hours of practice it will take to learn to please one another more, as Banks did, then you are more than halfway.

Afterward, skin warm and damp and tangy with sweat, she had rested in the crook of his arm and he knew then that he wouldn’t wake with a burning desire to be alone.

Just for the briefest of moments he gave in to a wave of paranoia and wondered if this was a trap Riddle had set for him. A new approach. Give him enough rope to hang himself. Were there hidden cameras in the bedroom walls? Was Annie Riddle’s secret mistress? Were the two of them plotting Banks’s final downfall? The thoughts scudded across his mind like cloud shadows over the daleside. Then, as quick as it came, the paranoia was gone. Jimmy Riddle obviously didn’t know who DS Cabbot was, or what she looked like. He clearly didn’t even know her first name, otherwise he wouldn’t have sent Banks within twenty miles of her.

Banks opened his eyes and looked at the Tibetan mandala on the wall, a circle of fire full of brightly colored, intricately entwined symbols and mythological figures, some fearful, armed, some clearly benevolent. Jem had had a similar poster on his wall, too, Banks remembered. He had said that it was a map of stages you go through to reach a state of wholeness. According to Jung, Jem also said, people who were beginning to get themselves together would see mandalas in their dreams, without knowing anything at all about Tantric Buddhism.

That kind of thinking had been one of Banks’s big problems with the whole sixties thing; he thought it was the mark of a brain softened by too much marijuana or LSD. In their long arguments about changing the system, Jem had always taken the view that you can’t change the system from within; if you’re in it, you become part of it; you become absorbed and corrupted by it. You end up with a stake in it. Maybe that was what had happened to Banks, but even back then he had never felt fully able to join in, especially with phony let’s-all-love-one-another togetherness. Annie was right; he was a loner. He had always kept his distance, even from Jem. Maybe if he hadn’t, Jem might not have died.

Annie stirred and Banks ran his hand slowly all the way from her hip to her shoulder.

“Mmm…” she murmured. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

“I see you’re awake.”

“Have been for hours.”

“You poor man. You should have got up, made some tea.”

“I’m not complaining.” Banks hooked his arm over her side and rested his palm on her stomach, easing her closer. He kissed the soft flesh between her shoulder and neck, then slid his hand up to cup her small breast. Last night he had discovered that she had a tiny red rose tattoo just above her left breast, and he found it incredibly sexy. He had never slept with a tattooed lady before. Annie sighed and pushed herself farther back toward him; curved bodies molding to one another, skin touching everywhere it could touch.

Banks forgot about Jem now. He touched Annie’s shoulder gently to turn her toward him.

“No,” she whispered. “Like this is just fine.”

And it was.

“The other night,” said Gloria the next time I saw her alone. “At the Christmas party. I want to thank you. If you hadn’t come along, I don’t know what would have happened. I just don’t want you to think it was something it wasn’t.”

“I don’t know what I think it was,” I said. I felt embarrassed, her talking to me like this. Cold, too. We were in the High Street and the icy wind whistled through my old coat as if it were full of holes. Which it probably was. I pulled the collar up over my throat and felt my bare hands freezing around the handles of the shopping bag. Foolishly, I had forgotten my mittens.

“I was just going to the toilet,” she said, “and he followed me out there. Mark did. I know I’d had a bit too much to drink. I didn’t mean to, but I suppose I might have given him some encouragement. He called me a tease, said I’d been leading him on all night. Things just got a bit out of hand, that’s all.”

“What do you mean?” I started shifting from foot to foot, hoping the movement would keep me warm. Gloria didn’t seem to feel the cold at all. Still, the land girls were provided with warm khaki overcoats.

“Earlier in the evening,” she went on. “He got me under the mistletoe. Everyone was doing it. I didn’t think anything of it but… Gwen?” She chewed on her lower lip.

“What?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Men. Sometimes, it’s just… I don’t know what it is, you try to be nice to them, but they get the wrong idea.”

“Wrong idea?”

“Yes. I was only being friendly. Like I am with everyone. I didn’t do anything to make him believe I was that kind of girl. Men sometimes get the wrong impression about me. I don’t know why. It seems like they just can’t stop themselves. They’re so strong. And believe it or not, sometimes it’s easier just to give in.”

“Is that what you were doing? Giving in?”

“No. I was struggling. I was trying to call for Matt, for anyone, to help me but Mark had his hand over my mouth. Maybe before, I would have given in. I don’t know. But now I’ve got Matt. I love him, Gwen, I didn’t want to cause a fuss, get Matt upset, start trouble. I hate violence. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come along. I didn’t have much fight left in me. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think so,” I said. I had given up on ever getting warm now. Luckily, I was so numb I couldn’t feel the cold anymore.

“Can we just forget about it?” Gloria pleaded.

I nodded. “That’s probably for the best.”

She gave me a hug. “Good. And we’re still friends, Gwen?”

“Of course.”

After Banks had gone, Annie did her usual twenty minutes of meditation, followed by a few yoga exercises and a shower. As she dried herself, her skin tingled and she realized how good she felt. Last night had been worth the risk. And this morning. That celibacy business wasn’t all it was cracked up to be anyway.

They definitely needed more practice. Banks was a little reticent, a bit conservative. That was only to be expected, Annie thought, after twenty or more years of marriage to the same woman. She thought back to her lovemaking with Rob, and how natural they had become. Even when they had been apart for a year or two, they had picked up the rhythm again without any trouble when they got together in Exeter.

How could so many people have read Banks wrong? she wondered. Gossip distorts the truth, certainly, but to such an extent? Perhaps he was the empty canvas people used to project their fantasies onto. Whatever he was, she hoped he wasn’t the kind who felt a moral obligation to fall in love just because he slept with a woman. When it came right down to it, she hadn’t a clue what she wanted from the relationship, if indeed there was to be a relationship. She wanted to see more of him, yes; she wanted to sleep with him again, yes; but beyond that, she didn’t know. Still, maybe it would be nice if he did fall a little bit in love with her. Just a little bit.

Most of all, she hoped to hell that he wouldn’t regret what they had done for her sake, wouldn’t feel that he had taken advantage of her vulnerability or her tipsiness, or any of that male rubbish. As for the career business, surely he couldn’t imagine she had only slept with him because he was her boss or because she was after advancement? Annie laughed as she pulled on her jeans. Sleeping with DCI Banks was hardly likely to advance anyone’s career these days. Probably quite the opposite.

For the moment, another beautiful summer’s day beckoned, and it was a great luxury not to have to make any more serious choices than whether to go do her washing or drive to Harrogate and go shopping. She liked Harrogate town center; it was compact and manageable. The cottage needed a tidy-up, true. But that could wait. Annie didn’t mind a little mess; as usual, there were far more interesting things to do than housework. She could put the washing in before she went; there wasn’t much.

Before going anywhere, though, she picked up the phone and dialed a number she knew by heart.

It rang six times before a man’s voice answered.

“Ray?”

“Annie? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“How are you doing, my love? What’s happening? Having fun?”

“You certainly sound as if you are.”

“We’re having a bit of a party for Julie.”

Annie could hear laughter and music in the background. Some retro sixties rock like the Grateful Dead or the Jefferson Airplane. “But it’s only ten o’clock in the morning,” she said.

“Is it? Oh, well, you know how it goes, love. Carpe diem and all that.”

“Dad, when are you going to grow up? For crying out loud, you’re fifty-two years old. Haven’t you realized yet that we’re in the nineties, not the sixties?”

“Uh-oh. I can tell you’re angry at me. You only call me Dad when you’re angry at me. What have I done now?”

Annie laughed. “Nothing,” she said. “Really. You’re incorrigible. I give up. But one day the police will come and bust the lot of you, mark my words. It’ll be bloody embarrassing for me. How am I supposed to explain that to my boss? My father, the dope-smoking old hippie?”

“Police? They’re not interested in a couple of teeny-weeny joints, are they? At least they shouldn’t be. Ought to have better things to do. And a bit less of the ‘old,’ thank you very much. Anyway, how is my little WPC Plod? Getting any, lately?”

“Dad! Let’s lay off that subject, shall we, please? I thought we’d agreed that my sex life is my own business.”

“Oh, you have been! You are! I can tell by your tone. Well, that’s wonderful news, love. What’s his name? Is he a copper?”

“Dad!” Annie felt herself blushing.

“All right. Sorry. Just showing a bit of fatherly concern, that’s all.”

“Much appreciated, I’m sure.” Annie sighed. Really, it was like talking to a child. “Anyway, I’m fine,” she said. “What’s Julie got to celebrate? Something I should know about?”

“Didn’t I tell you? She’s finally got a publisher for that novel of hers. After all these years.”

“No, you didn’t. That’s great news. Tell her I’m really happy for her. How about Ian and Jo?”

“They’re away in America.”

“Nice. And Jasmine?”

“Jasmine’s fine.” Annie heard a voice in the background. “She sends her love,” her father said. “Anyway, wonderful as it is to talk to you, it’s not like you to phone before discount time. Especially since you moved to Yorkshire. Anything I can help you with? Like me to beat up a couple of suspects for you? Fake a confession or two?”

Annie fitted the receiver snugly between her ear and shoulder and curled her legs under her on the settee. “No. But as a matter of fact,” she said, “there is something you might be able to help me with.”

“Ask away.”

“Michael Stanhope.”

“Stanhope… Stanhope… Sounds familiar. Wait a minute… Yes, I remember. The artist. Michael Stanhope. What about him?”

“What do you know about him?”

“Not much, really. Let me see. He didn’t live up to his early promise. Died in the sixties sometime, I think. Last few years pretty unproductive. Why do you want to know?”

“I saw a painting of his in connection with a case I’m working on.”

“And you think it might be a clue?”

“I don’t know. It just made me want to know more about him.”

“What was it? The painting.”

Annie described it to him. “Yes, that’d be Stanhope. He had a reputation for Brueghelesque village scenes. Touch of Lowry thrown in for good measure. That was his problem, you know: too derivative and never developed a uniform style of his own. All over the map. A bit Stanley Spencerish, too. Haute symbolism. Very much out of vogue today. Anyway, what could Michael Stanhope possibly have to do with a case you’re working on?”

“Maybe nothing. Like I said, he just grabbed my curiosity. Do you know where I can find out more about him? Is there a book?”

“I don’t think so. He wasn’t that important. Most of his stuff will be in private collections, maybe spread around the galleries, too. Why don’t you try Leeds? They’ve got a half decent collection there, if you can stand the Atkinson bloody Grimshaws. I’d say they’re bound to have a few Stanhopes, what with him being local and all.”

“Good idea,” Annie said, kicking herself for not thinking of it first. “I’ll do that. And, Ray?”

“Yes?”

“Take care of yourself.”

“I will. Promise, love. Come see us soon. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Annie looked at her watch. Not long after ten. She could be in Leeds in an hour, do her shopping there, instead of in Harrogate, have lunch and spend a bit of time in the art gallery. She picked up her car keys and her shoulder bag from the sideboard and set off through the labyrinth to her car, which was still parked outside the section station. She wondered if Inspector Harmond would make anything of that. Not unless he also knew that Banks’s car had remained parked by the village green all night. Besides, she didn’t care.

And friends we remained. We saw the New Year in together, linked arms and sang “Auld Lang Syne.” Hong Kong had fallen to the Japanese on Christmas Day and the fighting in North Africa and in Russia went on as bitterly as ever. As the winter weather continued through January, British troops withdrew down the Malayan Peninsula to Singapore.

Though I often thought about what I had witnessed, I didn’t begin to understand what had gone on against the outbuilding wall that Christmas night until much later, and even then I had no way of knowing how culpable Gloria had been. What had Mark been trying to do to her? To me, at the time, Gloria had seemed to be resisting, struggling, but when I discovered the act of sex for myself not so very much later, I found it could often be misleading that way; one often seemed to be struggling and resisting, especially during the wildest moments. Looking back now, I’d call it attempted rape, but memory, over time, has a way of altering its content.

So I did the best I could to put the whole episode out of my mind. I certainly agreed that Gloria was right not to involve Matthew. That would only have started a fight and upset everyone. His going away soon would have made it worse, too; he would be worried enough to leave her behind as it was.

Sometimes, though, at night in bed as I listened to the bombers drone over Rowan Woods, I would remember the scene, with Gloria’s bare white thighs above the stocking-tops, and those strange muffled sounds she was making that seemed lost somewhere between pain and acquiescence, and I would feel a strange fluttering excitement inside me, as if I were on the verge of some great discovery that never quite came.

On the fifteenth of January, 1942, Sergeant Matthew Shackleton shipped out. He didn’t know where he was headed, but we all assumed he would be going to North Africa to fight with the Eighth Army.

Imagine our surprise when Gloria got a letter from Matthew in Cape Town, South Africa, three weeks later. Of course, they could hardly sail through the Mediterranean, but even so, Cape Town seemed a long way around to go to North Africa. Then we got another letter from Colombo, in Ceylon, then Calcutta, India. What a fool I was! I could have kicked myself for not guessing earlier. They didn’t need bridges and roads in the desert, of course, but they needed them in the jungles of the Far East.

The drive to Leeds took less time than Annie had expected. She parked north of the city center and walked down New Briggate to The Headrow. The place was busy, pavements jammed with shoppers, all wearing thin, loose clothing to alleviate the blistering heat, which seemed even more oppressive in the city than it did out Harkside way. A juggler performed for children in Dortmund Square. The sun dazzled Annie, reflecting on shop windows, making it hard to see what was inside. Annie put on her sunglasses and set off through the crowds toward Cookridge Street. A little research after her chat with Ray had revealed that Leeds City Art Gallery had in its collection several works by Michael Stanhope, and Annie wanted to see them.

Once inside, she picked up a guidebook at the reception area. The Stanhopes were on the second floor. Four of them. She started up the broad stone staircase.

Annie had never liked art galleries, with their rarefied atmosphere, uniformed custodians and stifling aura of hush. No doubt this dislike was largely due to her father’s influence. Though he loved the great artists, he despised the barren way their works were put on display. He thought great art ought to be exhibited on a constant rotation in pubs, offices, trattorias, cafés, churches and bingo parlors.

He approved of the Henry Moores standing out in open weather on the Yorkshire Moors; he also approved of David Hockney’s faxes, photo collages and opera-set designs. Annie had grown up in an atmosphere of irreverence toward the established art world, with its stuffy galleries, plummy accents and inflated prices. Because of this, she always felt self-conscious in galleries, as if she were an interloper. Maybe she was being paranoid, but she always thought the guards were watching her, from one room to the next, just waiting for her to reach out and touch something and set off all the alarms.

When she found the Stanhopes, she was at first disappointed. Two of them were rather dull landscapes, not of Hobb’s End, but other Dales scenes. The third, a little more interesting, showed a distant view of Hobb’s End in its hollow, smoke drifting from chimneys, the bright vermilions and purples of sunset splashed across the sky. A fine effect, but it told Annie nothing she didn’t know.

The fourth painting, though, was a revelation.

Titled Reclining Nude, according to the catalog, the painting reminded Annie of Goya’s Naked Maja, which she had seen with Ray when it came briefly to the National Gallery in 1990. No matter what his opinions about galleries were, Ray certainly never missed the opportunity to view a great work.

The woman reclined on a bed in much the same pose as Goya’s original, propped on a pillow, hands behind her head, looking directly at the painter with some sort of highly charged erotic challenge in her expression, bedsheets ruffled beneath her. Also, like the Maja’s, her round breasts were widely spaced and her legs bent a little, awkwardly placed as her lower half twisted slightly toward the viewer. Her waist was thin, her hips in perfect proportion, and a little triangle of hair showed between her clasped legs, connected to the navel by a barely perceptible line of fair down.

There were differences, though. Stanhope’s model had golden-blonde hair rather than black, her nose was shorter, her large eyes a striking blue, her lips fuller and redder. Even so, the resemblance was too close to be accident, especially the frank eroticism of her expression and the hint of pleasures recently enjoyed, conveyed by the rumpled sheets. Stanhope had obviously been strongly affected by Goya’s original, and when he had encountered the same sort of sensual power in a model, he had remembered this and painted it.

But there was more to Stanhope’s vision. As Annie remembered, the background of the Naked Maja was dark and impenetrable; it seemed as if the bed were floating in space, the only important thing in the universe.

Stanhope hadn’t given his model a realistic background either, but if you looked very closely, you could see images of tanks, airplanes, armies on the march, explosions and swastikas. In other words, he had painted the war into the background. It was subtle; the images didn’t jump right out at you and dominate the work, but they were there, and when you looked closely, you couldn’t ignore them: eroticism and weapons of mass destruction. Make of it what you would.

Annie glanced at the note on the wall beside the painting, then she stepped back with a gasp that made one of the custodians look up from his newspaper.

“Everything all right, miss?” he called out.

Annie put her hand over her heart. “What? Yes. Oh, yes. Sorry.”

He eyed her suspiciously and went back to his paper.

Annie looked again. It wasn’t mentioned in the catalog, but there it was, plain as day, below Reclining Nude. A subtitle: Gloria, Autumn 1944.