The examiner, a wiry gentleman in a grey suit and trilby hat, was waiting at the top of the hill where she’d left her car parked, ready for her test.
‘There he is,’ she muttered, blenching.
‘Selina, I want you to listen to me.’ When she turned, William gave her a mock-stern look. ‘You’re going to pass your test with flying colours, I promise. So chin up and keep smiling, yes? Just don’t knock any more old ladies on bicycles into the gutter,’ he added with a wink. ‘Examiners tend to draw the line at attempted murder, I believe.’
She laughed reluctantly and left him.
The examiner shook hands with her, looking her up and down from under the brim of his hat. He walked around her car, checked the L plate was in the correct position, and then demanded to see her provisional licence and insurancecertificate. Once she had produced these and they had been checked, he asked whether she could read a sign on the wall opposite, which she did without hesitation.
‘Well, Miss Tiptree,’ the examiner said in a kindly manner, opening the driver’s side door for her, ‘your papers are in order and your eyesight is excellent, so let’s get on with the test. You said you’ve been driving without supervision for about six months now, so this should be a formality. But let’s see, shall we?’
The next hour passed in a terrifying blur. First, the examiner asked a series of taxing questions on the Highway Code, and also asked her to demonstrate various hand signals out of the window for him, including the correct procedure for indicating a right-hand turn. She was relieved when the examination on theory came to an end and he finally asked her to start the engine.
There were a few hairy moments driving about Bodmin’s busy town centre, with pedestrians seeming to leap into the road at every turn, but she felt that she acquitted herself adequately. When he asked her to drive out into the surrounding countryside, she stopped in good time to avoid a stray dog, and remembered not to drive at her usual breakneck pace. To her secret pleasure, there was no backsliding or slipping of the clutch on the dreaded hill start, and her reversing proved acceptable too, despite her taking two tries to get the angle right. The emergency stop had been a little shaky, she had to admit. But after giving her a dreary lecture on not hogging the middle of the road and making sure she took blind corners more cautiously, the examiner at last filled out a Certificate of Competence to Drive with her nameand address on it, and handed it over with a smile. She had passed her test!
‘Drive safely now, Miss,’ he told her in an avuncular fashion, and touched the brim of his hat as he got out of the car. ‘It was nice meeting you. Good luck.’
She left the car where it was and hurried down to tell William, who was waiting for her outside the butcher’s shop, reading a newspaper. As she came skipping towards him, he looked up with a smile. ‘There, I told you, didn’t I? There was nothing to be worried about.’
Selina stared at him in wonder. She had not even shown him the certificate yet. ‘But … how did you know I’d passed?’
‘My dear, nobody who’d just failed their driving test would be smiling like that.’ He bent his head to kiss her on the lips. It was the merest peck, as they were in public and not even courting, but it was enough to make Selina catch her breath. He hesitated, frowning as he straightened. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. It was damned impertinent of me and I apologise. But I couldn’t help it … You just looked so adorable.’
Laughter bubbled out of her throat at this admission, causing several sombre-faced passers-by to turn and stare at her. ‘Oh, William!’ she choked, a hand to her mouth.
His brows rose. ‘What on earth have I done to amuse you now?’
But Selina couldn’t find the right words, so only shook her head, smiling at him shyly. ‘Let me go and park the car somewhere less awkward, then we’ll meet for lunch, shall we? Nancy should be fine looking after the children a little while longer and I feel like celebrating.’ She halted, biting her lip. ‘Unless you need to get back to work, that is.’ Williamwas always so ready to spend time with her, often at a moment’s notice, that she sometimes struggled to remember that he was a busy and important man, with better things to do than go gallivanting about the town with a young woman like her all day.
‘I do need to work, but I shall stay late instead.’ William tucked the newspaper under his arm. ‘I’ll call into the office briefly, and meet you in half an hour at our usual nosebag. How’s that?’
‘Perfect.’
Having parked the car in a quiet side street, Selina bought some pretty spring flowers from a street seller and hurried to the church on the corner, wandering through the graveyard until she came to Helen Bourne’s final resting place, adorned now with a handsome marble headstone. She lay the flowers on Helen’s grave and stood back, not sure what impulse had driven her to visit the graveyard today, and lost for words now she was there.
The headstone had not been ready in time for her funeral. Selina studied it now, remembering that dismal day, the mourners standing in thick snow, everyone shivering in the chill air, snowflakes whirling about. Helen had been her nearest neighbour, and she had felt it important to pay her last respects but had left the children at home, not wanting to upset them with another funeral so soon after their own dear mother’s. To her surprise, only a handful of townsfolk had shown up, mostly close acquaintances of the Bournes, but she had put that down to the bad weather. William had been there too, of course, along with Cameron and his new bride.
After her name and dates came the carved inscription,Missed by her loving brother, Cameron Bourne.
Selina wondered if that was true. Did Cameron really miss his sister? They had been so close for years, and yet Cameron had not stayed above an hour after the funeral, only showing his face briefly at the wake he himself had arranged at a local hotel. He had attended the inquest and given evidence of his sister’s mental health around the time of her death, which he’d deceptively described as ‘robust’. Even though his testimony directly contradicted the doctor’s belief that Helen had been depressed and struggling with her nerves, the coroner ruled Miss Bourne’s death ‘accidental’ and gave permission for the funeral to take place. To Selina’s astonishment, there had been no suggestion in the official verdict that Helen might have deliberately taken an overdose.
‘I expect it was done to spare the family’s feelings, and also allow any insurance policies to be paid out without question,’ William had said grimly when she queried this oversight. ‘And given there was no note …’
‘Yes, I see what you mean.’
She had studied Cameron throughout the inquest, however, and could not help wondering if he felt guilty, knowing his sister’s death might have been averted if he had not abandoned her so cruelly.
It seemed unlikely. Leaving the inquest, he had been pale but composed. A grieving brother, but not a man who might be blaming himself.
At the funeral, though, Cameron had wept as his sister was laid to rest. His new wife, Fiona, a heavy-set woman of about forty with rouged cheeks and scarlet lipstick, hadproduced a handkerchief from her bag and passed it to him without comment.
Later, at the wake, a sleek fox fur draped about her shoulders, she had shaken hands with Selina in a casual manner that suggested Cameron had told her little about his nearest neighbours on the moors. Avoiding Selina’s searching gaze, he’d slipped away with his wife as soon as possible, excusing them both on account of Fiona’s ‘condition’, a remark which had left the poor woman pink with embarrassment. So she was pregnant already, Selina had thought, glancing covertly at his wife. It was hard not to wonder if that had been the reason for their precipitous wedding last year. Since it was none of her business, though, she soon put it out of her mind.
She herself had been so busy since Helen’s funeral that she’d not given much more thought to the Bournes, except to note one day in the local gazette that Bourne Cottage was up for sale. The happiness and well-being of her sister’s children, her blossoming friendship with William MacGregor, and her care of cousin Nancy as her pregnancy progressed had occupied her every waking moment, leaving little time for idle speculation.
Now, here she was, bringing Helen Bourne flowers. A woman who had slept with her sister’s husband and done her best to make Selina unhappy too.
‘I’m sorry,’ she addressed the headstone self-consciously. ‘Sorry about everything. Not noticing that Cameron had left, not going over more often during the heavy snows to see if you needed help, and not remembering to call again once the weather began to ease. If I had … Well, perhaps you wouldn’t be in the ground, and I wouldn’t be herespeaking to your headstone.’ She glanced about the ancient churchyard, but thankfully there was no one else in sight. ‘I don’t know if you can hear me, or even care that I’m here. You were never very pleasant, let’s be honest. But some of that may have been Cameron’s fault, and you led quite a miserable existence out there at Bourne Cottage. So I hope you’ve found peace, Helen, and that you’re happy at last. Goodbye.’
