He turned back to the sitting-room.
“Bob,” said Barbara.
“Oh, don’t pester me!” he snapped.
She tried to stifle the little catch in her breath, almost a sob, but didn’t succeed, and Allen paused in the doorway and looked round. His eyes were haunted. His face was so thin and long, there were dark patches beneath his eyes; his mouth, wide and generous and droll at ordinary times, was set tightly. He paused as if to speak to her, but changed his mind. He didn’t close the door.
Barbara composed herself and went into the small kitchen.
She’d known happiness reach a point of ecstasy here; and despair; and contentment. She had been standing by the sink when the telegram had arrived announcing that her husband was missing—from a flight in Burma. She had been taking some rock cakes out of the oven when another telegram had come—only three months ago, many years after he had been “lost” and “presumed dead”. It had read:
“Your husband alive and well.”
Ecstasy . . .
And now she despaired again.
“Alive and well” had been an exaggeration, even then; he had been weak after living for years with natives in an unexplored, inaccessible part of Burma. When she had reached Burma by air and seen him, she had hardly recognised him, partly because he was in the middle of a bout of malaria. But not until they had been half-way home, in the ship, had these fits of fear taken hold of him. She put them down to some evil memory held deep in the dark recesses of his mind; but they had become worse, far worse.
Each day the same man had telephoned.
This was the first time that she hadn’t asked afterwards: “Bob, tell me what it’s about, what’s worrying you,” and thus precipitated a scene. She was determined to wait until he was ready to confide in her; they couldn’t go on like this.
She lit the grill; air got into the gas and hissed, and she turned the tap off. In the little silence which followed she heard a footstep, and looked into the hall Bob’s hand was outstretched, reaching for his hat. When he saw her, he snatched his hat off the peg.