Rough Cider Read online

  Rough Cider

  Peter Lovesey

  Peter Lovesey

  Rough Cider

  ONE

  When I was nine; I fell in love with a girl of twenty named Barbara, who killed herself. True.

  It’s an extraordinary story. I’ve been telling myself for years that I must put it in writing. I can’t expect the memories to stay vivid forever. I’m past fifty now.

  I have any number of excuses for delaying so long. Where should I start, for instance? Not in 1943, for sure.

  To tell it right, I must take you into a self-service restaurant in Reading in 1964, where you meet me at the self-assured age of twenty-nine, eating sausages and chips and rashly trying to read Machiavelli’s The Prince at the same time. A Friday lunch. I know it was Friday because at the end of the week I was in the habit of escaping from the university for a quiet couple of hours on my own. My luckless duty as the most underemployed member of staff in the history department was to offer a course on Europe in the twentieth century to all-comers in the first year. Like many other fiascos, my course was the brainchild of a committee, this one dedicated to promoting a concept known as supportive studies. It was optional and would not be examined. The “all-comers” consisted of a phalanx of political agitators who filled the two front rows, plus sundry casual callers who came in to sleep because all seats were taken in the library. After it I was in no mood for luncheon and pretentious conversation in the senior refectory.

  “Excuse me, is this place taken?”

  I raised my eyes from the book and stared. It’s a long cultural leap from Machiavelli to a girl with pouting lips like Bardot’s, blond hair, and gold-rimmed glasses.

  She was carrying a full tray.

  I took a glance around me. There was no reason for her to have come to my table. The restaurant was three-quarters empty. There were two unoccupied tables to my right.

  I’d better explain that I’m obliged to use a stick to get about. My right leg is practically useless. At thirteen I became a victim of polio. Ninety-nine people in a hundred who contract the virus display only minor and temporary symptoms. I was the hundredth. Compared with others I’ve met, mine is a small disability. I try not to let it limit my possibilities. I refuse to wear a leg-iron, so I keep myself vertical with a stick, an ostentatious ebony cane with an inlaid silver band and a leather handle. The reason I mention this is that from time to time I’m bothered by well-meaning people who impose themselves on me to attest their concern for the disabled. My first thought when I saw the girl with the tray was that she was one of these. I didn’t want to be patronized, even by a stunningly good-looking girl.

  I guessed from her age (she was not more than twenty) and the glasses that she was a student, but her clothes were definitely more town than gown; red chiffon scarf, black blouse, and peacock-blue corduroy skirt with dark stockings and black, sling-back shoes. Something was wrong, though. Even to my inexpert eye the skirt was inches too long for Britain in 1964. Her accent was unfamiliar, also, which may have explained why she didn’t understand the form in a British self-service restaurant.

  I gave her the benefit of the doubt and cleared my newspaper from the place opposite.

  She sat down, reaching behind her neck to pull a thick, blond plait over her right shoulder.

  “Thank you. I’m really obliged to you.”

  So she was American.

  The balance shifted back in favor of the university: very likely she was one of the new intakes who wasn’t yet into more casual clothes. She even might have been so raw as to have sat through the lecture I had just delivered.

  “Hope you don’t object to the smell of curry,” the girl said with a nervous laugh as she lifted the metal cover off her plate. “If there’s anything hot and spicy on the menu, I’m enslaved. Mexican food is my number-one favorite, but you can’t get it here. Have you eaten Mexican? You should. You really should.”

  So she wanted conversation, as well as a place at my table. I was sure I recognized the zealous tone of the do-gooder. I pretended to discover an interest in a wrestling-bill on the wall beside me. A barrell-shaped brute called Angel Harper was scheduled to grapple in the Town Hall with Shaggy Sterne, who was the hairiest human I’d ever seen.

  “You’re from the university, am I right?” she said, as if an interest in professional wrestling were positive proof. Then, not waiting for an answer, “Would you care for some water? I swear I shall die if I don’t have water with this.”

  She sprang up like a fireman and went to look for water.

  I shifted my eyes to her retreating figure. The white ribbon at the top of the blond plait danced to the swing of her hips. Let’s admit it-deep down I was flattered that she’d chosen to join me.

  She came back with two glasses of water and placed them on the table. She had pale, slender hands and clear varnish on her nails. “I wasn’t sure if you said you wanted any, but if you don’t, I guess there’s a fair chance I shall be able to use a second glass.”

  I moved my lips in a token response and looked down at my book.

  A few seconds passed before she took a sip of water and started again. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you Theo Sinclair?”

  I shut the book and frowned. She’d used my name. My first name. This was 1964, remember, when we addressed undergraduates, even freshers straight from school, as Mr. or Miss, unless we were playing rugby with them or recruiting for the Communist Party. We gave respect and expected it in return.

  As before, when she’d asked a direct question, she was too nervous or too loquacious to let it stand. “I’m Alice Ashenfelter from Waterbury, Connecticut. Do you know the States? Waterbury is a couple hours’ bus ride from New York City. You don’t mind if we talk? I heard so much about English people being reserved and everything, but I found it isn’t true at all when you get over the first bit.. Aren’t you going to ask me how I got to know your name?”

  I answered, “As it happens, no.” As I mentioned, I’m not proud of the way I reacted. I’ve tried since to analyze my coolness towards her. I suppose in a perverse way I resented the fact that an extremely attractive young woman felt safe enough with me to make the sort of approach she had.

  I’d got through my main course. Generally I finished with a coffee, but I decided to miss it. I looked at my watch, wiped my mouth, said in a measured voice, “Time I was moving on,” gathered my book and newspaper, reached for my stick, got up, and moved away.

  Foolishly, I thought I wouldn’t be bothered again by Alice Ashenfelter.

  At two, when I returned to my office in the Faculty of Arts building, she was waiting in there, standing in front of the Paul Klee print beside the filing cabinet.

  “Hi.”

  I turned right about and went to see Carol Dangerfield, the department secretary. Cool Carol of the beehive hairstyle, the only member of the admin staff who always survived enrollment week without a migraine or a bust-up with the prof. She kept us sane.

  “That girl in my office-the American-did you tell her to wait in there?”

  “Why, yes. Dr. Sinclair. Did I do wrong?”

  “What did she say she wanted?”

  “I don’t know that she mentioned anything. She simply asked to see you. I thought she must be one of your tutor group, so I sent her in to wait.”

  “Her name is Ashenfelter. Is she one of ours?”

  Carol Dangerfield frowned. “Unless she’s a fresher…” She opened the card index on her desk. “Apparently not. Perhaps she’s one of Professor Byron’s intakes. I could check with his secretary.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ll ask the girl herself.”

  But when I returned to my office, Alice Ashenfelter was no longer there.

  I dismissed her
from my mind. I had a host of things to do before the end of the afternoon. Everything that could be put off during the week got left for those two precious hours at the end of Friday: letters, phone calls, requisitions, a couple of tutorials, circulars to initial from the dean and the prof, and a visit to the library to equip myself for next week’s lectures.

  This session would be my fifth at Reading University, and although I’d never considered myself an academic, having scraped an upper second at Southampton where I was better known as a bridge player than as an historian, there had never been much prospect of anything else. A specialized knowledge of Europe in the Middle Ages didn’t open many doors in 1956. It turned out that the friendly professor at Bristol who offered me a research scholarship was interested mainly in the renaissance of the Senior Common Room bridge club. But with it came some lecturing experience and ultimately the Ph.D. and the move to Reading. There, I made strenuous efforts to fit the image of the thrusting young lecturer. I shaved off my beard, abandoned bridge in favor of snooker, bought a red MG and had it adapted for me to drive, and took a lease on a house by the river at Pangbourne. All in all, life was treating me well-which is when you want to look out.

  Towards four I was starting to fill my briefcase when Carol Dangerfield put her head around the door. “Have you got a minute? I thought you might be interested. I’ve been doing some checking. You said the girl in your office was named Ashenfelter?”

  “Alice Ashenfelter.”

  “Well, she’s not one of ours. There’s no student of that name registered in the university.”

  “Is that so?” I said. “I wonder what she was doing in here, then.”

  “She didn’t leave a note on your desk or anything?”

  “No.” I shifted my papers to check. “There’s nothing here.”

  “Funny.”

  “What’s funny?”

  “Well, I mentioned her to Sally Beach, who runs the bookshop and knows just about everything that goes on in this place, and she said an American girl like that-blond, with glasses and a pigtail-was hanging around the union bar last night asking if anyone knew you.”

  I frowned. “Asking for me by name?”

  She nodded and gave a quick smile. “You’ve got a secret admirer, Dr. Sinclair.”

  “Come off it, Carol. I’ve never clapped eyes on the girl before today. She happened to sit at my table in Ernestine’s this lunchtime.”

  “Happened to?”

  I fingered the knot of my tie, remembering how it had happened.

  “She had a chance to talk to you, then,” said Carol. “Didn’t she say anything?”

  “Her name, the town she came from, nothing else of consequence. I didn’t exactly encourage her. I mean, what does she want with me, a total stranger?”

  “Perhaps she met you somewhere else, on holiday, for instance, and you’ve forgotten.”

  “I wouldn’t forget. She’s, em, unusual. No, I swear I haven’t met her. Well, whatever she wanted, I seem to have frightened her off.”

  “Don’t be so sure, Dr. Sinclair,” said Carol, staring out of the window. “It’s getting dark, I know, but isn’t that her down in the car park standing beside your MG?”

  TWO

  I went down to the Senior Common Room to make myself a coffee. The place was deserted except for a couple of cleaning women who had Sinatra’s latest at full volume on the record player in competition with their vacuums. Strictly, they shouldn’t have been in there until five, but they were obviously used to having the place to themselves after four on Fridays. Like everyone else, they didn’t care to hang about at the end of the week. Everyone except me, apparently. They looked at me as if I were an agent of the head caretaker, but I gestured to them to carry on.

  Carol Dangerfield would be at the window of her office, waiting to see the next scene played in the staff car park. Would I invite my blond pursuer into my car and drive into the night-with her, or would I hold her at bay with my stick? Well, Carol was in for a disappointment unless she was planning some overtime. I made the coffee, drank it slowly, and practiced snooker shots until well after five.

  When I eventually walked out to the car park, it was deserted except for three cars and one girl, reclining against mine. There was a light drizzle on the wind, and you could feel the chill of an October evening. Whiteknights Park is pretty exposed. Alice Ashenfelter was wearing a coat, but she had to be persistent or dedicated or just mad to have stood there so long.

  The possibility that she was mad hadn’t occurred to me before. There was a girl living next door to us once who developed a passion for our Conservative Member of Parliament. I mean, a real infatuation. It didn’t matter that he was happily married with three young children. She used to write him passionate letters at the House of Commons. He staunchly ignored them until she started sending them in larger envelopes with pairs of Marks and Spencer panties. Apparently people in public life are subjected to more of that kind of thing than most of us hear about. Anyway, this girl was schizoid. She ended up breaking into the MP’s house at night and getting put away for a few months. The last I heard, she was under permanent sedation.

  I nodded to Alice Ashenfelter as if she were just the latest blonde who happened to be leaning against the bonnet of my car on a Friday evening.

  She took a step away from the car, clasped her hands in front of her as if in supplication, and said. “Dr. Sinclair, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, going up to your room like that.”

  “It didn’t embarrass me,” I said. “Forget it.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be a nuisance to you.”

  “You’re not,” I answered with more hope than conviction. “But it’s kind of you to mention it. Good night, miss, er…”

  “Where are you going now?”

  “Where I generally go at the end of the day: home.” I had the keys out and was fumbling for the door, always an awkward procedure for me.

  “Could we talk?”

  “Here?” I made it sound like a straight no. I unlocked the door and pulled it open.

  “Someplace else. Anyplace you want.”

  “I don’t think so.” I dropped my bag and stick into the car and lowered myself onto the seat. The moment I let it take my weight, I knew that I was in trouble.

  Alice Ashenfelter said innocently, “It looks like you have a flat tire.”

  I can cope with most of the functions necessary to maintain a car. I can change a tire. The only thing is that it involves more effort and more groveling on the ground than it would for a man with two good legs. On a damp surface in my gray worsted suit, it was a prospect that I think justified the mild obscenity I uttered.

  The girl said, “I’ll fix it. Where do you keep your tools?”

  I considered the offer. I had a pretty strong suspicion that she’d let down the tire. To accept her help would put me under some kind of obligation. Yet try to get a garage to send out a man on a Friday in the rush hour and see how long you have to wait.

  I hauled myself upright and unlocked the boot, intending to do the job myself, but her two hands were quicker than my one at lifting out the jack. She didn’t need any help in assembling it, either.

  “I can manage without your help,” I said.

  “It’s too damn cold for that kind of he-man crap,” said she. “Would you hand me the wrench, please?”

  I found myself smiling, and that was fatal. I succumbed to the logic of what she had said. She quickly and competently got on with the job. While she was jacking up the car I unfixed the spare and later I fastened the flat in its place, so I didn’t feel totally redundant.

  Before she’d finished, I knew I had to offer her a lift at the least. I was prepared to bet she’d let the tire down in the first place, but after her Good Samaritan act, I couldn’t drive off and leave her standing in the rain in the deserted car park.

  I offered to take her to a pub where she could wash her hands. She got in and we drove to one on the London Road where I was pretty s
ure we wouldn’t meet anyone from the university. When she came out of the ladies’, I bought her a lager and lime.

  “Now, would you like to tell me what that was about?” I asked.

  “Couldn’t we just pass a little time getting to know each other?”

  “Is that important?”

  She stared at me earnestly through her gold frames. “It’s normal, isn’t it?”

  “All right. Tell me what you’re doing in England.”

  “Vacationing.”

  “In October?”

  “A late vacation.”

  “Catching up on the history or just the history lecturers?”

  She reddened and looked into her drink. “That isn’t fair and I resent it.”

  “You mean, there’s something special about me?”

  She didn’t answer. She was fingering the end of her plait like a small, sulky girl. Her hair was parted in a perfectly straight line down the center of her bowed head. She was a true blonde.

  “Maybe I imagined that you were pursuing me,” I suggested. “Is it the onset of paranoia, do you think?”

  She answered in a low voice, “I think you’re making this hellishly difficult for me.”

  “If I knew what it was, I might be able to help. If you’re in some kind of trouble, I can probably put you in touch with people who will help you.”

  She looked away and said petulantly, “Give me a break, will you?”

  So we lapsed into silence for an interval.

  Finally I made signs of moving and said, “Where are you staying? Can I give you a lift?”

  She shook her head. “There’s no need. I know where I am now. It’s no distance from here.”

  “I’ll be away, then. Thanks for your work on the tire.”

  She moved her hand a short way across the table, as if to detain me, then thought better of it and curled it around her glass. “I’ll come here at lunchtime tomorrow. Could we try again?”

  I stared at her, mystified. “Why? What’s the point? What are we supposed to try for?”

  She bit her lip and said, “You scare me.”

  I didn’t know what response to give. Clearly it wasn’t meant as a joke. I shook my head to show that I was at a loss and got up.