Read Online The Girl Next Door by Ruth Rendell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ruth Rendell
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tea, drink whisky (a fatal choice, this), stay in bed and read some more, put on the radio. If one of those remedies worked and sleep came back until, say, six, he’d think himself lucky and feel quite cheerful. But it seldom did, so he did nothing and thought about Uncle James instead. It was Lewis’s fault for telling his uncle something he would never have told his parents, that he went these summer evenings to a secret place to meet a crowd of friends and play all sorts of games. It must have been the end of July or early August. Whether it was after the end of term or before that he couldn’t remember, and again he cursed himself for forgetting so much.
Uncle James was staying with them in Brook Road. It was the time his mother noticed how James was often out in the evenings. Lewis saw it too but it meant nothing to him. He was a child to whom the ways of grown-ups were necessarily strange. Lying awake, Lewis looked back across his long life, from twelve years old through his teens and Bancroft’s School, Cambridge, and medicalschool, at last after general-practitioner training, a place in a GP partnership in Ealing. Meeting and falling in love with Alison, the whole thing coming to grief until he settled into marriage with Jo. All the way along the road he must have learned how to live or he should have done, acquiring experience and sophistication. If he had talked to Uncle James then, when Lewis was forty, he would have known where his uncle went and why he wanted to see the qanats, but not when he was twelve. Not in 1944, when, in spite of the war and the bombs and parents’ fear for them, middle-class children living in Loughton were naïve and innocent.
Uncle James nagged him about the tunnels. Lewis wouldn’t have used that word then, it wasn’t respectful, but that is what they were. At last he said yes, but not in the evening. It would have to be a Sunday morning. No one went there on a Sunday, or few did. The English middle class kept the Sabbath holy. All the shops were shut and all the churches were open. Lewis’s family went to church only on Easter or Christmas Eve or for weddings and funerals, but he had been sent to Sunday school when he was younger and the prevailing view, held even by non-churchgoing people, was that you respected Sunday, kept your children from playing in the street, and passed a quiet day at home after a heavy lunch. Knowing this as a fact of life, Lewis knew that the tunnels would likely be empty even though it was a fine sunny day.
A walk across the fields, especially with a popular relative, was not only permitted, it was encouraged. He and Uncle James set off up Tycehurst Hill and turned into Shelley Grove, a still unfinished road where further building had been stopped by the war, and where Alan Norris’s family lived in one of the few houses. The path across the fields went past the hollow oak, where picnicking children sat in the room-size space between spreading branches and ate bread and margarine and fish-paste sandwiches. No children this Sunday morning, though. Nearby, dividing field from field, stood a great screen of elms, destined to be felled in a few years’ time to makeroom for house-building, instead of waiting for Dutch elm disease to take them. They took the field path that led up the slope to the Hill, and Lewis, remembering a recent visit to Loughton cinema, wished he could do what someone had done to a captive in the film and blindfold Uncle James so that he couldn’t tell where they were or see the entrance to the qanats. But he was interested in seeing where they were and paused only for a moment before ducking his head and walking down the steps on the drought-baked clay and under the tarpaulin roof.
Lewis was no sooner inside than he knew—he hardly understood how—that they were not alone. Several habitual “members,” as George Batchelor had named them, were already there. Listening, Lewis heard girls’ voices, though not what they
Uncle James was staying with them in Brook Road. It was the time his mother noticed how James was often out in the evenings. Lewis saw it too but it meant nothing to him. He was a child to whom the ways of grown-ups were necessarily strange. Lying awake, Lewis looked back across his long life, from twelve years old through his teens and Bancroft’s School, Cambridge, and medicalschool, at last after general-practitioner training, a place in a GP partnership in Ealing. Meeting and falling in love with Alison, the whole thing coming to grief until he settled into marriage with Jo. All the way along the road he must have learned how to live or he should have done, acquiring experience and sophistication. If he had talked to Uncle James then, when Lewis was forty, he would have known where his uncle went and why he wanted to see the qanats, but not when he was twelve. Not in 1944, when, in spite of the war and the bombs and parents’ fear for them, middle-class children living in Loughton were naïve and innocent.
Uncle James nagged him about the tunnels. Lewis wouldn’t have used that word then, it wasn’t respectful, but that is what they were. At last he said yes, but not in the evening. It would have to be a Sunday morning. No one went there on a Sunday, or few did. The English middle class kept the Sabbath holy. All the shops were shut and all the churches were open. Lewis’s family went to church only on Easter or Christmas Eve or for weddings and funerals, but he had been sent to Sunday school when he was younger and the prevailing view, held even by non-churchgoing people, was that you respected Sunday, kept your children from playing in the street, and passed a quiet day at home after a heavy lunch. Knowing this as a fact of life, Lewis knew that the tunnels would likely be empty even though it was a fine sunny day.
A walk across the fields, especially with a popular relative, was not only permitted, it was encouraged. He and Uncle James set off up Tycehurst Hill and turned into Shelley Grove, a still unfinished road where further building had been stopped by the war, and where Alan Norris’s family lived in one of the few houses. The path across the fields went past the hollow oak, where picnicking children sat in the room-size space between spreading branches and ate bread and margarine and fish-paste sandwiches. No children this Sunday morning, though. Nearby, dividing field from field, stood a great screen of elms, destined to be felled in a few years’ time to makeroom for house-building, instead of waiting for Dutch elm disease to take them. They took the field path that led up the slope to the Hill, and Lewis, remembering a recent visit to Loughton cinema, wished he could do what someone had done to a captive in the film and blindfold Uncle James so that he couldn’t tell where they were or see the entrance to the qanats. But he was interested in seeing where they were and paused only for a moment before ducking his head and walking down the steps on the drought-baked clay and under the tarpaulin roof.
Lewis was no sooner inside than he knew—he hardly understood how—that they were not alone. Several habitual “members,” as George Batchelor had named them, were already there. Listening, Lewis heard girls’ voices, though not what they
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