The Stranger Came Read online

  'I am anxious,' he said, 'that you should feel what the Trust is, not something dead but a responsibility going on through time. The benefits of a private trust accrue only to individuals, who die and the trust with them. The trust which benefits the public, however, need have no set time of ending. To go on indefinitely, that's a kind of immortality by actio popularis. You don't think that's too fanciful?' The word applied to anything he might say amused her.

  She shook her head, smiling.

  'To my mind, it resembles the condition of marriage. Marriage begins with a contract – its intentions, deriving from a preceding situation, are framed at that moment of ceremony – but time passes. There's the test. When changes come, the marriage has to cope. If it does, time, you may say, enriches it. The relationship simply goes beyond, bursts the boundaries, of those original intentions; but not of the contract, the ceremony, which has taken account of all that possibility of growing, to the end of time and beyond. Yes.’ He lapsed into some private thought of his own, then, returning, shot her a sharp glance. 'I am speaking of the ceremony, the contract, of a Christian marriage.’

  Of Maitland's marriage.

  'Yes.’ She managed the single dry syllable as he waited the blank white wall of his forehead raised against her.

  After all she was the one this old man had chosen to judge.

  May Stewart that day in the office not introducing her to Maitland's wife, she had known. Yet the secretary had seemed to take to her from the first morning. They had got on so well together. Had she really been stupid enough to imagine she had made some kind of ally of May Stewart, devoted May, devoted to Maitland – Stupid! Contradictory images tumbled through her head, of Maitland loving her, of Maitland in her arms, of Maitland speaking of anything and everything under the sun except the life he led with his wife. That dull ageing woman! If Maitland was too loyal, she did not have to be told to know how he must feel. Must. Let her marry Maitland and she would show this lawyer with his contracts and ceremonies what love meant. Hadn't Maitland the right to be happy?

  Opening her mouth to speak, she was forestalled. 'You mustn't let me bore you,' Julian Chambers said, 'about the Trust. I wanted you to understand the very particular feeling some of us have for it. There must not be any risk, however remote, of scandal. That's why Mr Norman won't be allowed to sign cheques.’

  Expecting anything but this, she was disconcerted.

  'You didn't know?' Chambers speculated. 'I had the impression from Mrs Stewart that you knew.’

  'I might have heard something.’ Her mind had stopped working. She struggled to find something sensible to say. 'The pair of them talking ... I didn't feel it was any of my business.’

  'Mrs Stewart has authority to draw upon the Trust account for routine payments below a certain level. That is a matter of administrative convenience. Above that sum, as normal practice, other signatories would be required for confirmation. In any case, whatever the sum there is no need for Mr Norman to be involved.’

  As he finished abruptly, she was conscious only of her own relief. All her guilty imaginings had been nonsense. It was shameful that she should have let it happen, for she felt no guilt; there was no reason for her to feel guilt. None of this had anything to do with her, only with Monty Norman. Not judged, she was being treated as a confidante. Here was something she would share with Maitland. It would have been easy for her to weep.

  As Julian Chambers rose to his feet, she stood also.

  'I have no intention of impugning Mr Norman's honesty. The point is general. It would be rash to give it any particular application to Mr Norman. I wouldn't want to be misunderstood.’

  She nodded without entirely following what he was saying. Beside his tallness, the emotion she felt was a deception of memory. Her father's friend, the headmaster, avuncularly towering had bent down to joke with her.

  ‘Kaffee fiir mich, bitte, es ist zu kalt fiir Bier und Wein. Don't tell me you have no German. A little Hebrew perhaps?’

  'Have you met Mrs Ure?'

  'I'm sorry?'

  'Maitland's wife.’

  'She came to the office – and for the last meeting.’

  'She is a very fine person. A lady – if you will allow me that expression from another time. I have known her for a great many years. All of her life, indeed. I am very fond of Lucy. You understand?'

  From his great height, balefully, he had left no room for doubt.

  Beyond any hope of a mistake, Sophie understood why she had been summoned.

  Chapter 11

  When the door opened, it was May Stewart, who raising her hand to her lips cried, 'Did I startle you? I got a fright myself – I was sure you had gone out for lunch without saying.’

  'No…' She looked at her watch, it was after one. 'Is it so late?'

  'Are you feeling unwell again? You shouldn't have come in today.’

  Mr Terence's thesis leaned forlornly against the bundle of undelivered hospice material on the table.

  'We'll post them,' May Stewart had said in the morning; but now they had missed the first collection. 'And Mr Chambers? You didn't see him either?'

  'It was after I saw him I felt sick and had to go home,' Sophie had told her vindictively.

  'Did he speak to you…about Mr Norman?'

  'There wasn't a lot I could tell him. Mr Norman has a lot of good ideas. I told him that.’

  'Do you know he wants to sign the cheques?'

  'Well, you do.’

  'That's not the same! I've worked fifteen years for the Trust. It means something to me. Anyway, only up to a hundred pounds.’

  'It's between you two, isn't it?'

  'But I can't just let things go. I have a responsibility. And another thing – he comes in when he likes. I've always worked regular office hours, though I needn't have. No one was here to bother. I just wouldn't have felt it was right.’

  Sophie had escaped then, and been left alone in the workroom to brood.

  Now May Stewart was asking again, 'You're all right?'

  'I didn't sleep well last night.’

  To offer that was weak, an excuse; like the ones she had made all her life, to her parents, to schoolteachers, to lecturers at Balinter. The habit of apologising was a hard one to break, no matter how angry you were, how full of contempt.

  'Have you eaten yet?'

  'I'm not hungry.’

  The secretary shepherded her along the corridor to her own room. 'Fruit and biscuits,' she said. 'I always bring too much. You can share and then we'll make coffee.’

  Into two round plastic containers, she sliced apple, banana and a peach carefully divided between them. She handed one over.

  Staring into the little bowl, Sophie explained, 'I'm not hungry. I think I'll go for a walk – don't worry, I won't take too long.’

  A light flush touched the secretary's fine high-boned cheeks. 'I rather thought, Sophie, you and I had become friends.’

  Sophie put a piece of the fruit into her mouth. The chunk of banana was slippery and tasteless.

  'Last week,' she said, 'Monty Norman tried to get me to share a bag of potato sticks. Apparently that would have made us blood brothers.’

  'Blood brothers?'

  'Allies, I suppose he meant.’

  'Why should he suppose you would want to be an ally of his?'

  'Perhaps because we both owe our jobs to Professor Ure'; and added deliberately, 'Maitland.’

  'It's so wrong, Sophie,' May Stewart said. 'You don't have to put it into words. I know how you must feel about the man.’ Then as Sophie stared, she cried out, 'He's an impossible man!'

  With the side of her fork, Sophie cut into the soft flesh of the peach. She did it automatically, working out that it was Monty Norman who was impossible, but the juice of the peach ran between her teeth and the rich sweetness of it surprised her into pleasure. She cut another piece and popped it into her mouth, and looked up to find the secretary smiling at her.

  'Thing is, the first time I saw him he
reminded me of the Professor. I was sure I was going to like him. Isn't that silly?'

  'They couldn't be more unlike.’

  'I haven't put it into words,' May Stewart said, 'but it's been so nice to have young company. I love this job, no two days are the same – well, you've found that out – but the one drawback was the lack of company, apart from the odd temp or a bit of part-time help. Not the same thing, is it? And then you came. I was so pleased.’

  Why try to get rid of me then? Sophie wondered. Why tell Chambers about Maitland and me, you evil old bitch? 'You're not at an age when you'll ever lack company,' the secretary was going on. 'For me I suppose you could say the Trust fills a gap. I still miss my husband, though it's a long time since he died.’

  If he died, Sophie reflected maliciously. If he didn't run away; if, that is, he ever existed at all. She wouldn't be the first old maid to invent a husband.

  'I haven't heard you talk about him before.’

  'He was the kindest of men. Of course, my friends didn't want me to marry him. They meant well. As if I didn't know everything they could whisper to me against it. He was already in a wheelchair – the illness had got to that stage. At the most, they told me I could only hope for two years with him. But we proved them wrong. He lived for almost five years after we were married. It was a kind of miracle, they said. Someone called it once the power of love and that meant so much to me. People say things to us we never forget for good or ill. The power of love…I had been a nurse, of course.’

  'I can't picture that.’

  'Oh, yes. That's where we met – in hospital. After he – afterwards I couldn't bear to go back though. I don't know why. I'd had enough of it, I suppose.’ She smiled. 'I've sometimes thought, you know, perhaps I was afraid if I went back into hospital work I would meet someone else – someone ill, of course – and fall in love again. Nurses are fools in that way.’ In alarm, she shook her head. 'But don't misunderstand! I wouldn't have married anyone else. Not really ever, I don't think. Jerry spoiled me for anyone else. Such a kind man.’ And then casually, softly, as if to herself, but fixing Sophie with a look that would not be denied, she went on, 'He was paralysed even when I met him, before I married him – from the waist down. There never was any question of – I don't know anything about that side of life. Despite the “Mrs.”’

  In this office there were no windows to the outside. The untouched pieces of apple in the bowl had turned brown under the white lamp.

  'Oh, Sophie,' the secretary said, 'don't waste your life. You know what love is, but you don't know what loneliness is. Don't let yourself be lonely.’

  'I think I'll take that walk now,' Sophie said getting to her feet. The secretary's face tilted palely up to her. 'Maybe I'll buy a magazine, one of those woman's ones, the advice columns always make me laugh.’

  Later, her head buzzing with words, she would think of funnier things, angrier things, and more dignified things. But on the spur of the moment, it had to do and, from the look on May Stewart's face, it seemed to be enough.

  In the conference room, she taped the bundles and addressed them, and kept one eye on the door. Everything took a long time; she kept getting things wrong and redoing them, determined there would be no faults to find. Wearied, she looked down into the service area. Rain was seeping on to the sodden remnants of cardboard boxes.

  When the door opened, she swung round, startled into the habit of excusing herself, 'I've finished all I had to do.’

  'Good for you,' Monty Norman said, not coming in. 'Is May in her office?'

  'I can't think where else she would be.’

  'I've done a good morning's work,' he said, standing in the doorway, rubbing his chin and watching her. 'I had some leads I wanted to follow up. You and May must have wondered where I was. You'll be surprised. Things are going well. You know like the song says? ‘"There's a good time just around the corner.” I didn't hear you come in last night.’

  The suddenness of the transition confused her. 'Come in?'

  'To the flat. No two people walk the same way. Everybody's footsteps coming into the hall, I know them now. I said to myself, Sophie's making a night of it.’

  'You didn't hear me because I was already there. I came home in the afternoon. I didn't feel well.’

  He blinked. 'You were there all the time? Me listening and you were there all the time.’

  The intentness of his gaze made her uneasy. He put his hand into his pocket and then held it up with the back towards her. When he turned it, she saw that he had a packet of contraceptives held by the squeeze of his palm like a conjuror. He held it between finger and thumb and seemed to take it with his other hand, but it was empty and then he showed her that both were.

  'I expect I'll find something to do with them. The joke's on me,' he said. 'Speaking of which, I am now going off to make the good May laugh.’

  'I don't think she feels much like laughing today.’

  'She say anything to you about the cheques business? Doesn't matter. All a misunderstanding. You'll see. I'll be…' and he hesitated, 'nice to her'; offering the word with a wink and a nod, only too pleased to share it with her.

  Later, from behind the closed door she heard his voice murmur and May Stewart mingle her laughter with his like a betrayal so that she could have wept at how alone she was.

  Chapter 12

  'What made you think Professor Ure would be here today? I mean, today of all days!'

  In the empty concrete corridor, Sam Wilson's question waited echoing on its answer. Through one of the glass panels which made up the outer wall, Sophie watched the stand of birches by the loch scratch their stripped branches against the clouds. Grey yet luminous, the light threatened snow before dark. She had written to Maitland at home, something he had forbidden her ever to do; but though she had stayed off work and waited in her room he had not come. Last night it had been his wife who answered the phone, but she had babbled something about the Trust and then there had been the sound of his voice. She stared at the bruised sky and wished Wilson would go away. She did not want him there when Maitland came.

  'The students have gone.’ Little Sam, Maitland called him; though she was not tall for a woman, he had to look up to her. As if to make up for this, his emphatic speech with its unexpected stresses made a claim to be regarded . 'Students and so staff, naturally. Numbers of my colleagues, as always, beat all but the nimblest of our clients out of the door. But all of them are gone now – gone where the good family men go.’

  He laughed too much, looked at her breasts and glanced away.

  'Family men?'

  'Today of all days. Surely tonight's the one for hanging up stockings and all that sort of thing.’

  It was Christmas Eve. She had insisted that Maitland meet her on Christmas Eve.

  'I think he has to come in for something,' she said.

  'To see you?'

  'Oh, no!' As if her mind was in compartments, the denial was natural and unforced. It would be absurd for Professor Ure to come in specially to see an ex-student – and on Christmas Eve 'of all days.’

  'But why then, I wonder…'

  'For – something else. But it means he can see me here.’

  'All this way,' Wilson said. 'Didn't you say you were working in Edinburgh now? Did you come by car? '

  'I got the train. '

  'To the station in Balinter ?' She nodded.

  'And then did you walk? From the station in Balinter? But it's miles!'

  'It didn't seem far,' she said.

  'You must want to see Professor Ure very badly. '

  She thought about that, then said, 'I would have been coming anyway. To visit friends. I'm going to stay with a friend.’

  'Who would that be? If it's someone from your time here, I dare say I'll know her.’

  It was hot in the corridor. Despite all the talk about economies, the central heating was on and set high. The heavy dryness stifled her. She stared out at the chill angular landscape, willing him to leav
e her alone.

  'It's business,' she said, as she had explained to Lucy Ure. 'I work for the Trust –'

  'The Gregory and Rintoul. Of course. I'd been told you went there. It's the Professor's pet charity.’

  Did he tell you? She wanted to ask. She hungered after the idea that Maitland could not resist speaking of her.

  'We take an interest in our old students – our ex – students.’ He smiled. 'Of course, you know you were one of my disappointments.’

  She felt the word superstitiously, that he should use it like an omen while she waited for Maitland to come.

  'I recognised you at once. When I saw you standing here, I said to myself, “but that's Sophie Lindgren who I was so sure was going to do honours.” It's a let-down when people don't do all you hoped they might.’

  She had won a class prize in the summer; and after that she had fallen in love with Maitland.

  'I don't have any regrets,' she said.

  'Early days,' but he smiled, which made it only a joke. 'So you've come all this way on behalf of the Trust. It's terribly conscientious of you.’

  'It's something that has to be decided at once.’ Her father would say good lies are built out of as much of the truth as you can use. 'The Trust is taking a party of patients to the theatre as a holiday treat. It happens every year apparently.’

  'And something's come up? You have an emergency?'

  'Patients from the hospital the original Gregory worked in,' she offered as if that was an answer.

  'He was a surgeon,' he said, having the academic's requirement to share what he knew.

  'It's a different kind of hospital now. Professor Ure's father-in-law worked there as a psychiatrist.’

  'And do you go with them? As part of your duties?'

  'They have helpers. People volunteer. But, yes, I'll be going. The secretary, Mrs Stewart, is very keen. It's not like a job to her – more like a…'

  'Vocation,' he finished for her. A boy in her seminar group when he had a paper to read hesitated so often and so skilfully that Wilson plugged every gap in his preparation, and never seemed to notice. 'All the same – the holiday season – I shouldn't think she could insist on your going.’