TEXT 2
The taxi, an old Rover smelling of old cigarette smoke, trundled along the empty, country road at an unhurried pace. It was early afternoon at the very end of February, a magic winter day of bitter cold, frost, and pale, cloudless skies. The sun shone, sending long shadows, but there was little warmth in it, and the ploughed fields lay hard as iron. From the chimneys of scattered farmhouses and small stone cottages, smoke rose, straight as columns, up into the still air, and flocks of sheep, heavy with wool and incipient pregnancy, gathered around feeding troughs, stuffed with hay.
Sitting in the back of the taxi, gazing through the dusty window, Penelope Keeling decided that she had never seen the familiar countryside look so beautiful.
The road curved steeply; ahead stood the wooden signpost marking the lane that led to Temple Pudley. The driver slowed and with a painful change of gear, turned, bumping downhill between high and blinding hedges. Moments later they were in the village, with its golden Cotswold stone houses, newsagent butcher, the Sudeley Arms, and the church – set back from the street behind an ancient graveyard and the dark foliage of some suitably gloomy yews. There were few people about. The children were all in school, and the bitter weather kept others indoors. Only an old man, mittened and scarved, walked his ancient dog.
“Which house is it?” the taxi driver inquired over his shoulder.
She leaned forward, ridiculously excited and expectant. “Just a little way on. Through the village. The white gates on the right. They’re open. There! Here we are.”
He turned in through the gates and the car drew up at the back of the house.
She opened the door and got out, drawing her dark blue cape around her against the cold. She opened her bag and found her key, went to unlock the door. Behind her, the taxi driver manhandled open the boot of the car and lifted out her small suitcase. She turned to take it from him, but he held on to it, somewhat concerned.
“is there nobody here to meet you?”
“No. Nobody. I live alone, and everybody thinks I’m still in the hospital.”
“Be all right, will you?”
She smiled into his kindly face. He was quite young, with fair bushy hair. “Of course.”
He hesitated, not wishing to presume. ‘If you want, I’ll carry the case in. Carry it upstairs, if needs be.’
“Oh, that’s kind of you. But I can easily manage…”
“No bother.” He told her, and followed her into the kitchen. She opened the door, and led him up the narrow, cottage stairs. Everything smelt clinically clean. Mrs. Plackett, bless her heart, had not been wasting time during the few days of Penelope’s absence. She quite liked it when Penelope went away, because then she could do things like wash the white paint of the bannisters, and boil dusters, and buff up the brass and silver.
Her bedroom door stood ajar. She went in, and the young man followed her, setting her case on the floor.
“Anything else I can do?” he asked.
“Not a thing. Now, how much do I owe you?”
He told her, looking shamefaced, as though it were an embarrassment to him. She paid him, and told him to keep the change. He thanked her, and they went back down the stairs.
But still he hung about, seeming reluctant to leave. He probably, she told herself, had some old granny, of his own, for whom he felt the same sort of responsibility.
“You’ll be all right, then?”
“I promise you. And tomorrow my friend Mrs. Plackett will come. So then I won’t be alone anymore.”
This, for some reason, reassured him. “I’ll be off then.’”
“No trouble.”
PILCHER, Rosamund. The shell seekers. London: Coronet Books, Hodder and Stoughton,1989. p. 9-11.
The taxi driver learnt during their conversation that the
narrator was