She could sidestep into a new existence, taking nothing but the writing with her. She could start fresh under a new name. She could change her hair, starve or stuff herself till she was unrecognizable, the woman she’d been before nothing but an unsolved mystery. While Mrs Chilton clattered away on the typewriter, and took long walks on the beach, and rolled under the covers with her gentle husband who adored – who worshipped her.
‘Darling Agatha,’ Chilton said, lips against her ear.
It felt so good to be darling, being lost didn’t matter.
A little while later, Chilton drove back to the Bellefort through the damp, late morning, his frayed woollen coat on the seat beside him, one chapped hand on the steering wheel. The rain from Sunningdale had made its way north, falling gently. A smile contoured his face, twitching at his lips. He didn’t know the turn Agatha’s fantasies had taken – running away with him and becoming Mrs Chilton. But he would have agreed to it in a heartbeat.
For the first time since the war he felt as though he might have recovered something of himself. Not his innocence, never his brothers, but something wonderfully important. A will to live beyond the need to spare his mother further pain. Only a few days prior, if he’d heard word of his mother’s death, he might have boarded a train home, kissed her corpse’s forehead, then turned his father’s old Purdey shotgun on himself and drawn the trigger with relief. At last.
Now, though. Now he felt like he might stick around another few days, just to see what happened. When he held Agatha in both his arms, good and bad, Chilton believed, the way a person does in that first miracle of reciprocated ardour, that one night of passion could translate to forever. And why not run off with her now? As far as the whole world was concerned, she was already gone.
When Chilton parked his car at the hotel, he saw Mr Race, smoking and pacing out front, thin curls of smoke followed by thicker exhalations of breath. The sight made Chilton realize he’d forgotten to smoke himself, for hours, even for an entire day. He reached into his inner coat pocket for his cigarette case and then stopped himself. He wanted nothing in common with Mr Race, whom he imagined to be the same breed as Archie Christie. The kind of man for whom Chilton felt nothing but disdain. Not that they’d care or notice. They considered disdain their own particular province. Belligerent and concerned only with themselves, even at their most generous. Men who served in the trenches and men who served in the air. Race may have been too young to belong to either group but Chilton placed him firmly in the latter.
I must say, Chilton’s opinion of Archie was unfair, having never so much as laid eyes on him, let alone having spent the better part of the night and morning making love to his wife. He knew that. But clinging to his bad idea of the man was part and parcel of clinging to the woman.
As Chilton stepped out of the car, he saw Race do something that surprised him. He dropped his cigarette to the dirt, ground it up with his foot, then scooped up the remains, tucking it into his palm as if he meant to throw it away later. Chilton hadn’t pegged him as the sort to clear away his own mess. Mrs Race emerged from the hotel a moment later, bundled up in a hat and coat. Upon seeing her husband, she broke into the happiest smile and stepped immediately into his arms, looking up at him with profound delight.
Chilton knew enough of the world not to be surprised by a woman returning to a beastly husband. But something about this did not look right. They might have been two entirely different people. Mr Race, who had seen Chilton, seemed aware of the discrepancy. He placed his hands on his wife’s shoulders, and she looked over to see Chilton. Whereupon she stepped back rather abruptly.
‘Good day, Mrs Race,’ Chilton called out, trying his best to be jaunty. ‘Mr Race.’
They murmured hello, newly subdued.
Inside the hotel, Chilton waited a moment. Then he stepped back outside. The Races were gone. He walked quietly round the back, where they stood together, quite close, holding on to each other’s elbows. They appeared not only loving, but trusting and intimate.