Other Aliens Page 9

  When she got back to the hotel, Janet thought, she would tell Frank about the curious bus stop in the oat field. It made her think of the famous scene in North by Northwest when Cary Grant got off the bus at a cornfield to find himself being strafed by a murderous crop duster. Unconsciously she scanned the skies over the fields of grain, noting a threatening buildup of heavy, dark clouds in the west. There was no rain in the forecast.

  The road grew worse for another kilometer or so, and the combination of racket and constant jolting began to affect Janet’s temper. She continued, as well as she could, consulting the bus map in her guidebook, but this was increasingly a pointless exercise, as she had no idea where they were headed, though it did appear to be roughly west, which was the direction of Bromley Hall. The engine coughed, gave out a series of odd shivers and a loud pop. With a final, fatal gasp the bus coasted to a stop.

  The driver, twisting the key in the ignition and jamming his foot down on the gas pedal, cursed in a language Janet didn’t understand. The engine made a feeble grinding effort, then fell silent. Dead, Janet thought. A shiver darted the length of her spine and tightened her jaw. The doors flapped open, the driver sprang from his seat and out onto the dusty road. The Russian (Polish?) women stopped their chatter, glancing this way and that, their faces mirror images of mild concern. Janet crossed eyes with one and attempted an inclusive, gregarious, comrade-like smile, but the chilly, searching gaze passed over her as if she were invisible. The driver had lifted the heavy wing of the engine cover and stood gazing forlornly down into the dark interior. As the Russians (Poles?) gathered their bags and packages, Janet opened her purse. Careful of the binding, she nestled the travel guide in its depths.

  Though there was clearly no need for haste, she was quick to follow her fellow passengers out of the bus. Surely some arrangement would be made. They would send another bus, or someone—the Russians?—would pull out a cell phone and call a taxi. The two matrons accosted the driver, who had one arm thrust into the maw of the engine. He regarded them hostilely. “Is dead,” he said.

  English! Janet rejoiced. She wouldn’t be left out of the negotiations. The Russians raised their voices, doubtless berating the driver, his vehicle, the country, the government, God, man, and fate, while Janet and the driver looked on, uncomprehending. When at last the women paused for breath, the driver extracted his arm from the machine and brushed his hands together twice in the manner of a teacher dismissing a naughty class. “Is dead,” he repeated. “No go.”

  “Excuse me,” Janet said, stepping alongside the women, who had turned their exhortations upon each other. “What are we to do?”

  The driver drew himself up, his eyebrows contracting down and together, intent on making himself understood. “No go,” he exclaimed. He raised an arm, extending a long finger toward the empty road ahead of the bus. “You walk.”

  Janet followed the finger. The road stretched away through the oat fields, rustling in the thin, hot breeze; the sun beamed down where they stood, but the bank of storm clouds in the distance was building, darkening, threatening. No cars, barns, houses, side streets, signs, bus stops; nothing relieved the monotony of the scene. The volume of the matrons’ voices lowered and they appeared to be in consultation about a plan of action. “This is ridiculous,” Janet complained to the driver. “Don’t you have a phone you can use to call for help?”

  “No phone,” he said, patting his shirt to demonstrate the absence of that which Janet now desired above all else in the world. Again he raised his arm, stabbing the warm air between them. “You walk.”

  The Russians hoisted their capacious bags and, turning in the direction they had come from, set off down the road. Janet watched them closely, waiting for the glint of a cell phone to appear between them, but they weren’t even speaking to each other. They strode briskly, as if they had a clear notion of a destination.

  But there was nothing that way for a mile at least, and the stop, if it was a stop, was only an intrusion of unmarked concrete into a field of oats. Was their plan to wait there until another bus came along? And if so, might it not be best for Janet to follow them, to have, at least, two other women in sight on this desolate road? She took a few hesitant steps after them. The driver gave a short, exasperated gasp. “No,” he said, rushing past her to cut her off. “This is way.”

  Janet pulled her head back and wrapped her arms across her purse. Was he going to accost her?

  Again he pointed the index finger. “You look,” he said.

  Janet turned and trained her eyes down an imaginary line issuing from the tip of the insistent digit. The clouds glowering over the trees in the distance were not encouraging. She noticed an odd slice of pinkish light pulsing between earth and sky, just above the clump of trees. It was an affecting, magical scene: gently rolling fields, trees, the dark sky, and that slab of pinkish light reflected as if from bright stone. Oddly shaped. Was it crenellated?

  “Is that Bromley Hall?” Janet said softly, wonderingly.

  “Yes,” exclaimed the driver. “You walk.”

  And so she walked toward what she believed to be Bromley Hall, but after half an hour it occurred to her that the driver had sent her on a fool’s errand. The road curved steadily, and though she could keep the stand of trees in sight, the glow she had taken for a tower faded. It could have been a trick of the light, a mirage. She lost track of time but the sun was still high and bright and the air thick and hot. Far ahead she saw a small, dark smudge moving across a field. When it turned into the road, taking on a wedge shape, she heard a droning engine growing louder; it was a truck. Should she attempt to flag it down? As it approached, she studied it for important clues. She was a middle-aged woman alone on a country road, utterly defenseless, without even a cell phone to call for help. The truck was moving toward her at a leisurely pace. It wasn’t large or new; it had a cab and a short flatbed. Gradually she made out two men in the front, and the bright-green plastic wrapping of the enormous hay bales in the bed flapped in the wind. Farmers, she thought. Harmless people. Good country people. The truck was very close, and she could see that the man in the passenger seat was wearing a cap. She was uncertain which way to look. She looked down at her scuffed shoes, and then they were alongside her, passing her, and she glanced up in time to see the driver, a large, placid, rosy-faced, redheaded man with pale eyes and deep creases framing colorless lips, raise his palm over the windowsill in a taciturn greeting. Janet felt her own arm bend at the elbow, lifting her hand to return the wave as the truck rumbled past her and she was once more alone on the road to Bromley Hall.

  This encounter, or nonencounter, with the farmers in their truck lifted her spirits. First it revealed that there was a crossroads not too far on that went off in the direction of the stand of trees. The casual manner of the farmer suggested it wasn’t altogether unusual for a pedestrian to plod along this road; the locals didn’t wish her ill, which was sometimes the case in the countryside at home. She squinted ahead, not entirely confident but hopeful that within the hour she would arrive at her destination. It was very warm and she was thirsty, and those clouds were moving toward her and she toward them. In the field, occasional sudden blasts of small birds, rising, dispersing, settling again, served to distract her from the tedium of the empty road. Her bad ankle had begun to throb. When she looked back she could no longer see the broken-down bus and its monosyllabic driver; the road had curved away from them.

  At last she stood at the crossroads. Straight ahead the road continued, rising in the distance among misty hills, lined on both sides by rustling fields of oats. To the west—it was west, she felt certain of that—it was a different world. The road itself was different, narrow, paved in a cracked, faded gray tarmac, tufts of weeds gnawing at the edges. A low stone fence that commenced just past the corner surrounded a long, bright-green pasture in which three ponies with heavy manes and fetlocks stood urgently cropping grass, as if, Janet thought, they had a deadline to meet. She gazed past them at the
stand of trees among which Bromley Hall might beckon, and she thought the trees at least, if not the pink-hued hall, but surely the same stand of trees, appeared to have leaped a good distance to the south. This puzzled her and she stood for a moment trying to get some sort of bearing. A cloud engulfed the sun, tossing down a shadow that swept across the grain, carrying in its wake a cooling breeze like a wave of water, susurrating and sensuous, a sound so arresting that two of the ponies lifted their shaggy heads and flared their black nostrils to test the freshened air. Just beyond their field, which ended in a rail fence of more recent vintage than the wall, was a dirt drive, widening to a neat white-gravel yard bordered by heather and a strip of grass, and framing an attractive L-shaped gray stone cottage with chimneys on either end of a deeply pitched roof. A neat line of whitewashed windows and two dark-blue doors. A small red car, a Fiat, Janet thought—she knew Fiats were popular in this country—was parked just in front of the door nearest the road.

  As she approached the house, that door opened and four people, two men and two women, came out into the drive, talking amiably, exchanging parting remarks, laughing at pleasantries. They didn’t notice Janet approaching along the road, but she could see them clearly and she rejoiced in the sight; they looked so civilized and sociable, well-dressed, prosperous, cheerful, at ease in their country hideaway. One of the men was wearing red slacks—that was too bad—but the women both wore practical summer skirts and linen blouses. All four fair haired, light eyed, though Mr. Red Pants had more gray than gold in his neatly trimmed coiffure. Late forties, early fifties, Janet guessed. They milled about the car, then one couple got in while the other drew together on the gravel. It was like an advertisement for the good life, for the car, or whatever insurance company covered the house, or the home security system. Look how safe we are, how secure, how cheerful, plenty of money, away from the hassle of the city, look at our fine stone house, our pristine gravel (how did they keep it so white?), our heather border, our field with ponies, the grass, the oats, and the sky beyond.

  The sky. As the car doors slammed and the farewells turned to hand signals, the woman waving from her doorstep looked up past the fence at the sky. Janet followed her eyes. It was blue in that direction with a few thin clouds high up. The house itself blocked the woman’s view of the gathering storm in the west. Janet could see it, though, piling up darkly. It didn’t appear to be moving and might spend itself over there, over Bromley Hall. When she looked back at the house, the car was inching toward the road. The woman—the home owner—stood on her doorstep with her hands on her hips. She was looking straight at Janet and as their eyes met, she smiled. Her mouth moved; she spoke softly to her husband, who had turned toward the half-open door of the house. She took a step out onto the gravel, dropping her hands to her sides, and as Janet drew nearer, the woman watched her, silent, still smiling. Her husband closed the door and joined his wife, saying something, whispering perhaps, close to her ear, then he too lifted his eyes to Janet and smiled. They were going to wait until she was closer before speaking to her. They would direct her to Bromley Hall. They would know all about the buses out here, and they would have a phone if she decided—and she had begun to think it might be the best idea—to call a taxi, go back to the hotel, and spend the afternoon with Frank in the comfortable, cool room overlooking the garden. How perfect it would be there if it rained. How romantic.

  “Hello,” the woman said as Janet neared the drive. “You’ve walked a long way.”

  “I have,” Janet agreed. At the edge of the gravel she paused. The man hung back near the door. He looked friendly, but uncertain, and that diffidence made her reluctant to enter the loose enclosure of the drive. “The bus broke down,” she said to the woman. “Way back there.” She gestured at the road. “And the driver told me I could walk to Bromley Hall. Am I going the right way?”

  “Bromley Hall!” the woman exclaimed. She turned to her husband and said, “She’s looking for Bromley Hall.” They both laughed.

  “I thought it was just there.” Janet pointed toward the clump of trees now thoroughly enshrouded in clouds.

  “That’s Smithfield Church,” the woman said. “Bromley Hall is on that road but it’s ten, maybe fifteen kilometers further on.”

  “More like fifteen,” said the man. He had stepped off the porch and was striding lightly across the gravel.

  “That was unkind of the driver,” the woman said. “He should have told you.”

  “He didn’t have much English.” Janet defended the driver for no reason but that he had been called unkind. “He just pointed and told me to walk. I think he was a Sikh.”

  “Oh God,” the man said. Janet thought he might complain about the takeover of public services by immigrants and she would be forced to defend Sikhs, who did rather well in the Manhattan taxi line, she thought. Better than the Arabs, who were so volatile.

  But the man didn’t elaborate and his wife said, “You must be thirsty. Would you like a glass of water?”

  “That would be very welcome,” said Janet.

  “I’ll bring it,” the man said, turning back to the house.

  Janet stood still, gazing in at the cool gray stone. An arbor shaded the farther entry, covered by a climbing vine she didn’t recognize. No blooms, bright-green berries. “Your house is lovely,” she said. “And so secluded.”

  “Thank you,” the woman said. “We live in the city but we’re here all summer long. In fact, we’re going back tomorrow.”

  The door under the arbor opened and the man came out carrying a large glass of water. Without thinking, Janet announced, “I left my phone at the hotel. Now I’m thinking I should skip Bromley Hall and go back.”

  As the man joined them, the woman said to him, “She’s left her phone.” His eyebrows shot up and he exchanged a look with his wife that Janet couldn’t read. As he handed her the glass he said, “It doesn’t matter. We don’t get much of a signal out here.”

  “Is there a taxi service nearby?” Janet asked. “I’m a bit discouraged about the bus.”

  “That dreadful bus,” the woman said.

  “There is,” the man informed Janet. “It comes from Smithfield.”

  “It’s a little expensive,” the woman said. “But they take a much more direct route, so it’s very fast.”

  “I know the fellow runs it,” the man said. “We use them when we want to go in for an evening event.”

  “You’re welcome to use our landline,” the woman offered.

  Relief swamped Janet and she understood that she had been through a difficult and exhausting patch, but that now this handsome couple had come to her rescue like pale angels waiting on her path. Already she could see herself in the cab, it would be a Fiat, the driver a local with a charming accent, and in a flash she would be back at the hotel. Frank would fuss about the cab fare, but it was unlikely to be more than the stiff entrance fee to Bromley Hall and she could remind him of that. And look, she had met these agreeable local folks. “I’d appreciate that,” Janet said.

  Furrowing his brow, the man remarked that the bus service was a disgrace and turned back to the house.

  “I’m Nancy,” the woman said. “And that’s Charles.”

  “I’m Janet,” said Janet.

  “We’ll have a nice cup of tea while you’re waiting for your taxi,” Nancy said. The two women went in, side by side, across the drive.

  Inside the house was modern and bright, though Nancy explained that it was originally an outbuilding for the farm across the field. The floor was slate, polished to a dull shine, and the original ceiling timbers showed through the plastered ceiling. There was a vestibule with shoe racks and shelves and hooks for shedding wet outerwear and then a large open sitting room, where a stone fireplace occupied most of one wall. Beyond that a half wall created a bar with tall wooden stools drawn up to it, looking into the kitchen. It was to this sunny, cheerful room that Charles preceded the two women. “I’ll make the call,” he declared without looking b
ack at the women. “What’s your hotel?”

  “The Moorgate,” Janet replied, following him. Now she could see that the entire back wall of the kitchen was a line of tall French doors that opened onto a terrace. The view was westerly, across the oats to the trees she now knew designated the village of Smithfield and beyond that some low hills shrouded in mist among which, she concluded, stood Bromley Hall. The storm clouds were moving rapidly now, dragging a deep shadow across the field, but away from the village and this house. The wind, she observed, was high and must be from the north. “This is lovely,” she said as her hostess came up beside her. “What a serene view.”

  Charles stood at the counter, punching numbers into an old-fashioned wall phone. Nancy and Janet looked out together without speaking while Charles waited for the service to pick up. “I’ll make us some tea,” Nancy said.

  “Right,” said Charles. “It’s Charles Blake here. Yes. Very well, thank you. I’ve a guest who needs to get back to Moorgate Hotel. You know it? Yes. Will you come round and collect her then?” There was a pause. “Right,” he concluded. “Fifteen minutes. Very good.”