One Summer at Deer’s Leap

‘Think I’ll go and unpack. Then I’ll write to thank Beth. By the way, she was really pleased with the flowers.’

‘So she should be! Your dad grew them!’

‘Won’t be long,’ I smiled. Long enough, though, to let Mum get over whatever wasn’t pleasing her.

I hung the green dress on a hanger, then wondered what to do with the two silk arum lilies, because even to say the words ‘artificial flowers’ is blasphemy in our house. So I stuck them in a drawer because they were a part of the weekend, and I couldn’t bear to throw them away.

I sat back on my heels. To open my case was to let out Deer’s Leap and Jack Hunter and the promise I’d made to Beth and Jeannie to forget him. Yet I couldn’t, because somehow he was a part of that house; was connected to Deer’s Leap in some way, and I had to know how.

Common sense told me to leave it, that ghosts didn’t exist. But Beth had half admitted that maybe they did in the very real, very solid form of a World War Two pilot whose plane had crashed more than fifty years ago. A very attractive man and Piers’s exact opposite.

Piers. I hoped he wouldn’t ring tonight when the spell of Deer’s Leap was still on me. Just to hear him say ‘Cassandra?’ very throatily – he rarely calls me Cassie – would intrude on the magic. For bewitched I was, with the enchantment wrapping me round like a thread of gossamer that couldn’t be broken. One gentle tug on that thread would pull me back there whether I wanted to go or not.

And I wanted to go.

By Monday morning I’d sorted out my priorities. All thoughts of the weekend were banned until after I switched off my word processor. I have to set myself targets. The contract said that Harrier Books wanted the manuscript by the end of December, so it couldn’t be delivered any later than the first week in January, even allowing for the New Year holiday.

I write in my bedroom. There’s a deep alcove in one corner that is big enough to accommodate my desk. My latest extravagance was to hang a curtain over it so that when I’d finished for the day I could pull it across and shut out my work. What I couldn’t see, I figured, I couldn’t worry about. The curtain has proved to be a good idea.

I had just finished reading last Friday’s work and got my mind into gear, when the extension phone on my desk rang. It would, of course, be Jeannie. People had got the message now that up until four in the afternoon it was best not to ring. Only my editor was allowed to disturb my thoughts.

‘Hi!’ I said brightly. ‘You made it home OK, then?’

‘Cassandra?’ a voice said throatily.

‘Piers! Why are you ringing at this time?’

‘Do I need a chit from the Holy Ghost to ring my girl?’

‘I – I – Well, what I mean is that it’s the expensive time. You usually ring after six …’ I closed my eyes, sucked in my breath and warned myself to watch it.

‘I rang yesterday. Didn’t your mother tell you?’

‘Of course she did.’ My voice was sharper than I intended.

‘You didn’t ring me back.’

‘I was late getting home – the traffic. I was tired …’ I tell lies too, Piers.

‘So how did the weekend go?’ It seemed I was forgiven.

‘It was nice.’

‘Only nice, Cassandra?’

‘Very nice. Jeannie’s family are lovely, though I didn’t meet the children,’ I babbled. ‘They were away at camp and –’

‘You sound guilty. Did you have an extraordinarily nice time?’

‘Piers! I’m not feeling guilty because I have nothing to feel guilty about! If I sound a bit befuddled it’s because I had a whole paragraph in my head and now it’s gone!’

‘You’ll have to think it out again then, won’t you?’

‘It isn’t that easy! Once it’s gone you never get it back again – not as good, anyway.’

‘Oh dear! I’ll ring again tonight if you tell me you love me.’

‘Why should I, at ten o’clock in the morning?’

‘Cassandra – what’s the matter?’ The smooth talking was over. He actually sounded curious.

‘Nothing’s the matter. I’m working, that’s all. If I were a typist in an office I probably wouldn’t be allowed private calls and I certainly couldn’t yell that I loved you over the phone for everyone to hear!’

‘You don’t yell it. “I love you” has to be said softly …’

‘Yes, and secretly for preference.’

‘Then say it softly and secretly from your bedroom.’

‘Piers …’ I said in my this-is-your-last-warning voice. ‘I am busy!’

‘OK! Pax, darling. I’ll ring tonight! Get on with your scribbling.’

I sat back, part of my make-believe world once more, reading from the screen, searching my mind for the lost paragraph.

But it didn’t come. All I could think was that for once, in all the four years of our on and off affair, I’d challenged Piers and almost won!

‘Pop out and get me a few tomatoes, there’s a good girl. And tell your dad it’ll be on the table in five minutes!’

Once I got back in my stride, and sorted the wayward paragraph, the words had come well; it was going to be a word-flow day, I’d known it. I’d just come to the end of a page when my stomach told me it was lunchtime and my mind told me it needed a break.

I saw Dad at the end of the garden, so I waved and yelled, ‘Five minutes!’ then went into the tomato house, sniffing in the green growing smell, loving the moistness of it and the lush, tall plants heavy with red trusses. A few tomatoes, at our house, meant a bowlful and not half a pound in a plastic bag. I bit into one, marvelling that half the country didn’t know what a fresh tomato was.

I felt very relaxed. Once I’d got into my stride again, nothing intruded on the make-believe world at my fingertips. I had forgiven Piers, I realized, for ringing when he shouldn’t have done and I had not thought once about the kissing gate through which a World War Two pilot had disappeared.

Now my thoughts were free to roam again, my self-discipline on hold, and I wondered how I should go about finding the name of the family who lived at Deer’s Leap before the Air Force took it and they had to find somewhere else to live.

They might have moved to Acton Carey or further afield. They may even, since losing their acres under a runway of concrete and seeing their trees felled and hedges ripped out, have given up farming in disgust.

It was best I began the search in Acton Carey, but this would be risky, as Danny or Beth would be bound to hear of me doing it. I could not, I realized, visit locally without calling on them and if Lancashire villages were like Yorkshire villages, they would soon discover that a red-haired foreigner had been asking questions in the pub. Villagers close ranks at such times, and mention of anything remotely concerned with the ghost they wanted to sweep under the mat would be sidestepped at once! I would be taken for a journalist, no doubt, and that would be the end of that.

Of course, I could drive past the spot as near to the same time as possible, and I told myself I was a fool for not knowing when it had been. Yet had I known something so weird and wonderful was going to happen, I’d have noted the time exactly and had my tape recorder at the ready! But just a glimpse of a furtive redhead in a bright red Mini on that lonely lane would be worthy of note. I knew how it was at Greenleas if a strange car – obviously lost – drove past.

‘I said dinner in five minutes! What are you doing, Cassie?’ Mum stood in the doorway, flush-cheeked. ‘Composing another chapter?’

I said I was sorry, and pushed the remainder of the tomato into my mouth so I couldn’t talk. Composition was the furthest thing from my mind, so I was glad it’s bad manners to speak with your mouth full. That way, I couldn’t tell any lies.

‘Good job it’s only cold cut and salad,’ Mum grumbled, ‘or it would be spoiled by now.’

Monday, being washday, it was always leftovers from Sunday dinner, because that was the way it had been for the twenty-five years of my parents’ marriage. It was one of the things I loved especially about Mum – the way nothing changed.

A flood of affection touched me from head to toes and I put my arm round her and said, ‘The sky would fall, Mum, if it wasn’t – cold cut and salad, I mean!’

She threw me an old-fashioned look, which turned into an answering smile, then said, ‘Did I hear you on the phone, this morning?’

‘Yes. Piers.’

‘And what did he have to say?’ She chose to ignore my brevity.

‘Not a lot. He didn’t get the chance. I tore him off a strip for ringing during working hours.’

‘Then you shouldn’t have! You’re never going to get a husband, Cassie, if you carry on like that. Men don’t like career women!’

‘Men are going to have to put up with it till I’ve done my third novel. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, Mum, nor two! Anyway, I sometimes think me and Piers aren’t cut out for one another.’

‘Oh?’ Mum’s jaw dropped visibly, which was understandable since to her way of thinking I was as good as off the shelf. ‘Then all I can say, miss, is that it won’t end at a third book. You’ll want to be famous, and before you know it you’ll have left it too late! I think Piers is very nice indeed, if you want my opinion.’

‘Mum!’ I stopped, put my hands on her shoulders and turned her to face me. ‘I like Piers – very much. And yes, I know you watched him grow up, more or less, and he’s considered a good catch around these parts.’

‘He went to university!’ Mum said huffily.

‘Yes, and he’s doing well. But he hasn’t asked me to marry him, yet.’

‘He hasn’t?’

‘No. And if he did, I wouldn’t know what to say. Maybe I ought to have gone to live with him in London like he wanted, but I didn’t fancy being an unpaid servant and a mistress to boot!’

‘A mistress, Cassie! Then I’m glad you told him no! Clever of you, that was. Men never run after a bus once they’ve caught it!’

‘I know. I didn’t come down with the last fall of snow!’ We were getting on dangerous ground, especially about the mistress bit. ‘But I want to be married, I promise you.’

‘Your dad would like a grandson, you know.’

‘I’m sure he would. I want children, too, and after book three I shall think very seriously about getting married.’

‘To Piers?’

‘Probably to the first man who asks me, Mum!’

With that she seemed happy and we walked in silent contentment to the back door where Dad was washing his hands in the water butt.

‘Now then, our lass!’ He gave Mum a smack on her bottom and she went very red and told him to stop carrying on in the middle of the day.

It stopped her thinking about her unmarried daughter, for all that, and the grandchildren she was desperate to have about the place. I gave her a conspiratorial wink, and peace reigned at Greenleas.

Jeannie phoned just as I’d pulled the curtain across my workspace, pleased with a fair day’s work.

‘Hi! How’s it going, then?’

‘Great!’ It could only refer to the current novel. ‘I must spend the weekend partying more often!’

‘Well, Beth meant it when she asked you up there for Christmas. I think she quite took to you!’

‘I’d love to go, Jeannie. I keep thinking about Deer’s Leap and being sad for Beth that she’s got to leave.’

‘She doesn’t have to, but it’s best all round they don’t ask for the lease to be renewed. The twins will start senior school in September. A good state school will be high on her list of priorities. Boarding in winter costs a lot of dosh, you know.’

I said I was sure it must.

‘Meantime, Cassie, you might get to stay there again in exchange for baby-sitting the place. Beth and Danny have hired a caravan in Cornwall for a few weeks in the summer. It’ll be the first decent holiday they’ve had in years. Beth’s a bit worried about leaving the house, though. She wouldn’t want to come back and find squatters in it.’

‘Yes, and there’s the dog and the cats to think about, I suppose.’

‘Kennels and catteries cost money, I agree. So would you baby-sit the house, Cassie? Wouldn’t you be a bit afraid on your own?’

‘You mean you’re really offering?’ I gasped.

‘You’d get a lot of work done, that’s for sure, with nothing and no one to distract you. With luck you could do a fair bit of wordage.’

‘I don’t think I would be afraid – especially with a dog there, but why didn’t Beth say anything about it at the weekend?’

‘Because I’ve only just thought about it. Are you really interested, Cas? I could come and join you, weekends. Shall I mention it to Beth?’

‘She might think me pushy. And what if she doesn’t like the idea of a stranger in her home?’

‘You aren’t a stranger. I told you, she likes you.’

I wondered – just for a second – what Mum would make of the idea.

‘We-e-ll, if Beth agrees …’ I said.

‘She’ll agree. She’s sure to worry about the animals and the houseplants, and we could cut the grass between us. I might be able to fix it so I could stay over until Mondays – get some reading done in peace and quiet.’

‘Mm …’ Jeannie has to read a lot of manuscripts.

‘Well then?’

‘If you’re sure, Jeannie?’

‘I can but ask. I bet they’ll both jump at the chance. It would have to be unpaid, of course.’

My heart had started to thump again, just to think of a whole month there. Deer’s Leap in the summer. I could write and write and only stop when I was hungry.

‘OK, then. I’m game …’

I thought, as I put the phone down, that I was stark, raving mad. For one thing, Mum and Dad wouldn’t like the idea and for another, it wasn’t very bright of me to go there. Not because I’d be afraid on my own – Deer’s Leap would take good care of me – but because I’d be heading straight into trouble. For the past two days I’d been looking for an excuse to get back there without Beth or Danny knowing; to drive down the long lane that led to their house and hope to find the airman again, thumbing a lift. Yet now it seemed it could be handed to me on a plate. I could drive up and down the lane as often as I wanted; could open the kissing gate and find where the path led – and to whom. I could even do a bit of gentle nosing in the village, because once they knew I was living at Deer’s Leap they’d treat me like Beth and Danny and the twins – one of themselves.

The thumping was getting worse and a persistent little pulse behind my nose had joined in. I knew if I had one iota of sense I should be praying that Beth wouldn’t want me there.

Yet I knew I would go back, because Deer’s Leap had me hogtied and besides, there was a pilot who needed my help – not only to find his girl but to be gently told he was a name on a war memorial.

Then the phone rang again and I knew it was Piers.

Oh, damn, damn, damn!

Chapter Three

Piers was quite loving on the phone. Not very loving – that isn’t his style. Piers prefers a hands-on, eyes smouldering approach, which doesn’t come over too well on a telephone. But he was very nice, asking if I’d had a good day workwise, and when was he to be allowed to come up and see me – since it didn’t seem I was in all that much of a hurry to go and see him!

Then he said that of course he understood that I was a working woman and must be given my own space. He didn’t mean one word of it – I can tell when he’s talking tongue in cheek – but at least he’d got this morning’s message.

‘You do want to see me, Cassandra?’ he persisted. ‘I’ve got a few days owing; could pop up north any time next month.’

I said of course I wanted to see him and that next month would be fine; by then I’d have finished chapter ten and sent off a copy to Jeannie, I added, and probably caught up with myself. I was a little behind schedule, he’d understand, on the deadline date.

I would also, with a bit of luck, have removed myself to Deer’s Leap, and out of his reach. It wasn’t that I was being devious or two-faced, I was merely keeping one jump ahead of him, and if I had to tell a few lies it wasn’t entirely my fault since Piers is a chauvinist. He always has been, come to think of it. Looking back, the signs were there even when he was at the spotty stage, long before he went to university.

‘I can tell your mind is miles away, so tell me you love me and I’ll leave you in peace,’ he said, throatily indulgent.

‘You know I do,’ I hedged, putting the phone down gently, marvelling that twice in one day I’d had the last word. Then I forgot him completely because of far more importance was telling Mum that I might be about to baby-sit a house in the back of beyond, and didn’t she agree it was a smashing idea?

Mum didn’t think it was a good idea at all.

‘You said that house is isolated, Cassie! How can you even begin to think of spending a month there alone?’

‘For one thing, I’d have no interruptions and –’

‘You can say that again, miss! And you could be lying dead in a pool of blood and no one any the wiser!’

‘Mother!’ I always seem to call her that when she lays it on a bit thick. ‘Of course I couldn’t! I can look after myself!’

‘Famous last words!’ Her cheeks had gone very red.

‘Mum! Please listen? I want to go to Deer’s Leap. I love the place, but if you want a better reason, then I need time alone. This book I’m on with now is the important one, and I want it to be better than Ice Maiden. I’d have a whole month to myself. I could even get the first draft finished and after that, editing it would be a doddle!’

‘And you’re sure you wouldn’t be nervous, alone?’

‘No, Mum! Of course not! And Jeannie will almost certainly be there at weekends; from Friday evening to Monday afternoon, actually. That gives me almost four days to write like mad and I’d be safer at Deer’s Leap on my own than I would in the middle of Leeds or Liverpool – or London! Mum – you know it makes sense. And you could ring me and I’d ring you …’

‘We-e-ll – I’ll have to see what your dad has to say about it …’

She was weakening, so I didn’t say another word.

After that I hovered over the downstairs phone, then over the phone on my desk, willing either to ring, willing it to be Jeannie. I was so exhausted willing and hovering that when it finally shifted itself I stood mesmerized, looking at it.

‘Jeannie?’ I whispered.

‘How did you know it was me?’

‘Have you spoken to Beth?’ I begged the question. ‘What did she say?’

‘She’s quite taken with the idea. They both are – with reservations, of course.’

‘Like what?’

‘She’s a bit anxious about you being nervous, but I told her you wouldn’t be.’

‘Is Beth nervous alone there during the day?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘There you are then. Is it on, Jeannie?’

‘If you’re sure – then yes, it is. I’m looking forward to a few weekends there.’

‘It’s going to be quite a thrash, all the way from London. Will you drive up?’

‘No way. I’ll get the train, then I can work. Lord only knows how much reading I’ve got to do. Could you pick me up at Preston station?’

‘No problem.’ The thudding had started again, and the little fluttery pulse behind my nose. ‘It’s going to be wonderful. I’ll be able to get loads of work done too. As it is, I aim to send you the first ten chapters before I see you.’

‘Fine. Beth will be getting in touch later. I gave her your phone number. She said it might be a good idea if you were to arrive the day before they go – get to know the geography of the place.’

‘Like …?’

‘Oh, when the bread van calls and the egg lady. And they’ve got a water softener. You’ll have to know about that. No problem at all, but it recharges itself so she’ll explain about the gurgling noises you might hear every fourth night in the small hours. Sure you’re still keen, Cassie? If you’ve changed your mind, now’s the time to say so.’

‘I want to go. Deer’s Leap is magic. I’ll be there!’

‘That was Jeannie,’ I said to Mum, who was expecting to be told. ‘Beth and Danny are pleased about my going. And I forgot to tell you, the bread van calls, and the egg lady.’

I thought it best not to mention that I already knew that Beth left notes and money for them in a large, lidded box at the end of the dirt road near the crossroads.

‘Hm.’ Mum was getting used to the idea, I could tell. ‘I’ve never met your Miss McFadden, except on the phone.’

‘Then you should. Why don’t you and Dad drive up there one Sunday? Surely you can leave the place for a day? Jeannie would love to meet you both.’

Holidays together for market gardeners and their spouses are few and far between. It’s like being a dairy farmer, I suppose: a seven-days-a-week job.

‘Hm,’ she said again, obviously liking the idea. ‘When will you be going?’

‘Not for a couple of weeks. Beth is really looking forward to a break. They haven’t had a proper holiday for ages, Jeannie said.’

‘I know exactly how she feels,’ Mum said fervently.

‘Then a day out would be good for you both. Just pick your time and arrive when you feel like it – preferably when Jeannie’s there.’

I wasn’t being devious, getting Mum interested and on my side. As soon as she saw the house she would love it every bit as much as I did and see for herself how safe and snug it was.

‘I just might take you up on that,’ she said, filling the kettle.

That was when I had my first big panic. What if, in the entire month I was there, I didn’t see Jack Hunter? What if he only appeared once a year? His bomber had crashed not long after the Normandy landings; probably about the time I’d seen him.

The panic was gone as quickly as it came, because I knew he would be there. He and I were on the same wavelength, and he had something to tell me.

The birds awoke me at five on the morning of my departure. I focused my eyes on the bright blur behind the curtains, then yawned, stretched and snuggled under the quilt again to think about – oh, everything! About my route; where I would stop to eat my sandwiches; about leaving the A59 and driving to Acton Carey on Broads, so I could dawdle and look around me and think about the four weeks ahead.

I had no plan in my mind about discovering who lived at Deer’s Leap before the Air Force took it in the war. Nor had I the faintest idea how I would set about finding where they had gone when their home and land were requisitioned without the right of appeal.

Things would work out in their own good time. It stood to reason I’d been meant to drive along a narrow road one summer morning because a lost soul wanted a lift to Deer’s Leap. Thoughts of the supernatural didn’t worry me at all. I knew no fear except that perhaps Jack Hunter would not be able to tell me what I wanted to know.

How deeply, despairingly had he and his girl loved? Very deeply, my mind supplied, or why should the need of her, fifty years on, be the cause of such unrest? Perhaps they had not said a proper goodbye and her heartbreak had been terrible when she knew she would never see him again. All at once I was glad I had not lived during those times, nor known the fear that each kiss might be the last between me and –

Between me and whom? Not Piers, that was certain. If Piers were to walk out of my life tomorrow I was as sure as I could be that only my pride would be hurt. He and I did not, nor ever would, love like that long-ago couple. I didn’t even know her name, yet I was sure of the passion between them. Their lives had become a part of me, and until I could discover what caused such devotion from beyond the grave, I would never be free – if I wanted to be free, that was …

I sighed, and leaned over to pull back a curtain. The early morning was bright, but not too bright. Mornings too brilliant too early are weather breeders. I pushed aside the quilt, and swung my feet to the floor. Best I get up. The sooner I did, the sooner it could all begin.

By the time I got to the clump of oak trees at the start of the final mile, my mouth had gone dry. The day was warm and sunny and I drove with the windows down. My hair was all over the place, but my short, bitty style can be tamed with a few flicks of my fingers.