But did I want that? Didn’t I just want to flirt a little and forget Piers for the time being?
Deer’s Leap got its name, Danny thought, because just above the paddock there was once a little brook and when deer and wolves roamed the area, the shallow curve was where the deer – and maybe predators – crossed. It made sense, I supposed. It was a pretty name and that was all that mattered.
I thought again about the awful person who would be living here next summer and wished it might be me, knowing it wouldn’t be, couldn’t be. So instead, I thought about my novel and whether the publishers would like it when it was finished, reminding myself that an author is only as good as her last novel, vowing to work extra hard when I got home to justify this weekend away.
I told myself that on the count of four I would get out of the bath, drape myself in a towel, then dry my hair – in that order – yet even as I stood at the open window, hairdryer poised, little wayward pulses of excitement at the prospect of the party still beat insistently inside me.
‘Grow up, Cassandra!’ I hissed. ‘Nothing is going to happen tonight – nothing out of the ordinary, anyway! For Pete’s sake, why should it?’
‘Because you want it to!’ came the ready answer.
Beth was testing the summer punch when I got downstairs, ten minutes before seven. She was dressed in layers of lace curtain and muslin and said that later she would put on her yashmak.
‘I’m the Dance of the Seven Veils,’ she grinned, explaining it was the best and coolest way to cover up her avoirdupois, which any day now she intended to do something about.
‘Sorry about my two lilies,’ I said, thinking I should have tried harder. ‘I’m a lily of the field, actually …’
‘You look all right to me!’ Danny, in the costume of a Roman soldier, handed me a glass of punch. ‘This get-up isn’t too revealing, is it? It was all I could borrow from the amateur dramatics that fitted.’
‘I think you look very manly.’
‘You’ve got quite decent legs, Danny.’ Jeannie, in a long robe borrowed from the same source and with a terracotta jug balanced on one bare shoulder, said she was a vestal virgin and the first one to make a snide remark was in for trouble!
Beth said she wasn’t at all sure about the punch, and helped herself to another glass just as the first car arrived, followed closely by four more in convoy – sort of as if they’d all been waiting at the crossroads until seven.
The table with the upturned glasses began to fill up with assorted bottles; there were shouts of laughter and snorts of derision at the various costumes. Someone who was old enough to know better said I could come into his field any time I liked!
Danny put on a Clayderman tape and said there’d be music for smooching later, when everybody had had one or two. Jeannie put down her jug and floated around with trays of food. I followed behind with plates and folded paper serviettes, looking for a pilot with short fair hair by the name of John or Jack. He wasn’t there.
‘He wasn’t there,’ I said later when everyone had gone and we were sitting on the terrace, saying what a great party it had been. ‘He didn’t show …’
‘Who didn’t show?’ Danny held a glass of red wine up to the light, saying it was a decent vintage and wondering who had brought it.
‘The man I gave a lift to,’ I said. ‘He thanked me, then disappeared through the kissing gate.’
‘When?’ Danny took a sip from his glass, and then another.
‘This morning, on my way here. He wanted a lift to Deer’s Leap.’
‘What was he like?’ Beth was looking at me kind of peculiar.
‘Tall. Fair. Young,’ I shrugged. ‘I remember wondering at the time if he could dance. His name was John, he said, though mostly people called him Jack.’
‘He actually spoke to you?’
‘Why shouldn’t he, Beth? He looked so authentic that I asked him where he got the uniform from.’ I slid my eyes from one to the other. They had put their glasses down and were still giving me peculiar looks. ‘Listen – what’s so strange about giving a man a lift?’
‘In a country lane?’ Jeannie blustered.
‘Now see here,’ I said, because something wasn’t quite right – the expressions on their faces for one thing. ‘I’m a big girl now. I can look after myself.’
‘No one is saying you can’t,’ Beth soothed.
‘Then are you trying to say I imagined it – that I was driving under the influence? For Pete’s sake, I’ve just told you I spoke to the man!’
‘Then you’re the first one who has. Most people round these parts don’t stop – quite the opposite. They get the hell out of it if they think they might have seen him.’
‘So he is real? Other people have seen him?’
‘We-e-ll, the hard-headed people around here wouldn’t admit it if they had; don’t want to be made a laughing stock. He’s a ghost, you see, Cassie.’
‘A ghost! You can’t be serious! He was as real as you or me! Have you seen him, Beth?’
‘Yes. I think I might have.’
There was an awful silence and I felt sorry for spoiling what had been a smashing party. But my mouth had gone dry and my heart was thumping because I knew Beth meant what she was saying.
‘I see. And rather than be thought a nutter, you said nothing?’
‘Yes – we-e-ll, I only told Danny. But the airman is dead. That much I do know, Cassie, and he should be left alone to rest in peace!’
‘But he obviously isn’t at peace! You think if you ignore him he’ll go away – is that it?’
‘Are you a psychic?’ Danny asked.
‘I think I might be, but I don’t dabble.’
‘Then in that case you’d attract him, wouldn’t you? All we know is that his name was John – or Jack – Hunter, and his plane crashed in 1944, about the time of the Normandy landings. The Parish Council put the names of the crew on the local war memorial. You probably passed it on your way here.’
‘Go on …’ I looked from him to Beth, and she nodded.
‘Seems he was a Lancaster bomber pilot. There was an airfield near here once – that much we did find out – but people are reluctant to talk about it.’
‘Then they shouldn’t be! Can’t they see he needs help?’
‘You said you didn’t dabble,’ Jeannie said softly. ‘Now isn’t a good time to start. Leave it, Cassie.’
‘I don’t believe any of this!’ My voice sounded strange. I felt strange. I really didn’t believe they could be so offhand about it.
‘Good. Then just keep telling yourself that and there’ll be nothing to worry about, will there? No one wants a fuss,’ Beth said gently. ‘Imagine the tabloids getting hold of it! There’d be no peace around here for anybody!’
‘It certainly seems there’s to be no peace for Jack Hunter. What did he do?’
‘Nobody seems to know. All I could find out was that he was close to a girl who once lived here.’
‘And he’s still looking for her,’ I persisted. ‘Then don’t you think it’s about time someone helped him to find her?’
‘Cassie love!’ Danny put an arm round my shoulders.