The Dark Frontier by A. Decker (best books to read non fiction .txt) 📕

and a bag on her arm. She was staring over at Ellen with what Marthe took to be a disapproving curiosity.

“Not here,” Marthe said. “I think it best if we throw the ashes in from the side of the river, where it’s more discreet.”

She led Ellen back over the bridge and down some steps to a mooring point for boats. Here Marthe watched Ellen deep in contemplation before she slowly cast the ashes into the river, where they followed in the wake of the now distant barge until they disappeared from view.

It was on their way back up the steps that Marthe suggested Ellen take a few days’ break in Ticino before returning home.

“I’ve been thinking, Ellen. When Jack said he had just come back from Locarno, it occurred to me that this would be a perfect place for you to relax by the lake and take your mind off everything for a few days before you return to England.”

Ellen was not sure she needed any further reprieve from the reality of life without Frank. But when Marthe insisted that she would join her in a few days’ time, Ellen was persuaded.

“I have some things to do for Urs first,” Marthe explained, “but I can be with you in Locarno at the weekend.”

Chapter 28

Ellen recalled from her A-level studies that Wordsworth saw Locarno spreading out like Heaven before him. To her it seemed more like a dark underworld. And on reflection, she was quite glad that Marthe had been unable to join her after all. It left her free to focus her thoughts without any distraction. But they had proved uncomfortable thoughts, made all the more disagreeable by the strange behaviour of Signor Sciarone. So, the moment she found her seat on the train out of Locarno, she felt an instant sense of release.

And when she arrived back at Marthe’s place before making the onward journey back to England, Ellen was imbued with a sense of awakening. The start of something new – albeit tinged with sorrow. She was keen to get back home at last.

Nevertheless, even the intimacy of Marthe’s embrace that she was leaving behind only partly explained the heaviness of heart that Ellen felt when the moment finally came for her to say goodbye. A good four weeks or more had passed since Frank’s death, and she was filled now with a strangely subdued kind of eagerness as Marthe drove her to the station and the start of a new life. Already there was a hint of spring in the air, but the warmth of the sun through the windscreen was deceptive. The streets still had a colourless, dejected look about them. It was a look that seemed to reflect Ellen’s own traces of disquiet, which were still held uneasily in place by an ill-defined cocktail of guilt and a sense of regret at not having had a chance to say her farewells to Dr Zellweger. He had been called out on an emergency.

“Don’t worry about it, Ellen,” Marthe reassured her. “If it was not an emergency, he would have been too busy organising his next symposium. He does not have enough time even for me at the moment. But I will say goodbye to him for you.”

Once again Ellen put herself in her debt, but Marthe was already on another track.

“Are you going to your bank when you get home?” Marthe asked.

Ellen was thrown by the non sequitur of her question, and it took some time for its significance to sink in.

“Once I get home, of course. I hadn’t really given it much thought.”

“Do you think the bank would accept me as a customer also? Urs and I have been discussing whether to buy a small apartment in London.”

Her concentration was on the traffic, which obscured the expression in her eyes, but her lips in profile quivered slightly with what might have been a smile. Or was it nervousness? Ellen did not know what to say, but Marthe’s line of questioning intrigued her, and she could sense it teasing both of them as they continued the remainder of the journey to the station in silence.

They had to say goodbye just inside the entrance, because Marthe had forgotten to bring any identification that would allow her through customs to the platform on the French side of the border. It was the most self-effacing frontier crossing Ellen had ever seen, as if it was trying desperately to be something else. An oddly nondescript corner of the station for one of the country’s main gateways to France. It looked more like a left-luggage office that had not been given a coat of paint for fifty years. Not the kind of place for fond farewells.

Only a solitary traveller ventured down the narrow corridor ahead of them which led into France. A lady with a familiar-looking air, who evidently had no one to say goodbye to, except for the porter who wheeled her baggage along beside her.

Ellen and Marthe both watched as they vanished from sight. Neither wanted to say goodbye. And neither of them spoke. Ellen felt Marthe’s arm around her waist.

“Promise you’ll come and visit soon,” said Ellen. “Come and stay. You could look for a flat while you’re there.”

Marthe said nothing in reply, but her arm tightened around Ellen’s waist.

“Easter would be a good time,” Ellen added, and Marthe kissed her gently on the cheek. Their lips touched fleetingly as she pulled away from Ellen. It was quick and painless in the end. And silent. Not until Ellen was halfway down the corridor into France did she hear her voice.

“I promise. Have a safe journey,” she said, and Ellen turned to see her blowing a kiss.

The train to Paris was almost empty, for which she was thankful. She wanted time to herself. To relax and not have to puzzle over the mysteries of the past year or so. It was all the more inexplicable, then, that she chose to sit in precisely one of the few compartments in