The garden surrounded the house, most of it on a slope, with areas of lawn fringed with rhododendrons and dotted with fruit trees. It looked less well-kempt than Bill remembered. That would be an expense, he thought. There would be lots of expenses. Might the others agree to let it out for part of the year, or would that have been prohibited by Fay?
‘Let’s find the key,’ he said. ‘It’s supposed to be in a safe round the side.’
He hadn’t anticipated that they would be the first to arrive, but he was glad they were. He found the safe without difficulty, entered the code they’d been given, and took out the keys – not the big old-fashioned one he remembered, but a modern pair for a five-lever mortise and a Yale.
‘Are the others bringing their spouses?’ Isabel asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Bill opened the door into the kitchen: entirely unchanged, he noted, with a mixture of relief and misgiving. ‘I don’t know if they have spouses.’
Isabel considered this for a moment, hanging back in a way that caused Bill a flare of impatience.
‘Did you think I might be the only one? Is that why you –’
‘Why I what?’ Bill turned to face her. She looked anxious now; that wasn’t a good sign. ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid I didn’t think about it that hard. You seemed keen to come, so . . .’
He was spared the rest of this circumlocution of the truth by the sound of a car straining up the track. Isabel raised her eyebrows, and Bill took a step towards the door. The car stopped outside the gate: he heard doors slamming and the sound of voices. Perhaps another spouse after all. Then the car began wheezily backing down the hill, and after a moment someone came through the gate, carrying a suitcase. Judith. Of course it would have to be Judith. He watched her approach across the gravel, judging the moment for his greeting, and then, on a whim, launched himself through the front door.
‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘Judith Malik, as I live and breathe.’
‘Bill,’ she said. Her smile was just the same: jaunty, considering, fearless. She looked a bit older in the flesh than she had in those website photos, but otherwise . . .
‘This is Isabel,’ said Bill. ‘My wife, Isabel Crookham.’
Isabel didn’t move. She was standing behind Bill now, in the doorway. They were all stuck, Bill thought, just for a moment, like chess pieces arranged so that none of them could move without peril.
‘Oh, well, I know Isabel, of course,’ Judith said. ‘Though you won’t recognise me.’ She smiled again, and Bill felt Isabel stiffen. ‘Bach Choir,’ said Judith. ‘You sang the soprano solos in the Messiah with us, a couple of Christmases ago. You were wonderful.’
‘Oh!’ said Isabel. ‘That’s right, I did. I’m sorry, I don’t remember . . .’
‘I didn’t realise Bill had married a celebrity,’ said Judith.
She picked up her case, which had been set down on the gravel, and Bill and Isabel moved aside.
‘Hardly a celebrity,’ Isabel was saying, and Bill felt a dart of pity for her. He could tell that Judith had finished with her, having delivered her compliment – and having won Isabel over more effectively than she could have imagined. It was more than a couple of Christmases ago, that Bach Choir gig, and there hadn’t been as much work recently, certainly not in London.
But he felt a dart of feeling for Judith, too. Not quite pity; it had never been possible to pity Judith, and he was already certain it still wasn’t. But Judith had been at least as good a singer as Isabel, once upon a time. Somehow her being in the Bach Choir made him feel that things hadn’t worked out quite as he’d imagined, or as she might have hoped – but that was ridiculous, he told himself. Judith radiated purposefulness and prosperity. She would despise his blundering sympathy. He flushed, sharply conscious of the hazards ahead; the ease with which he might be tripped up.
‘This kitchen looks exactly the same, doesn’t it?’ Judith said now. ‘What about the rest of the house?’
‘We’d only got this far,’ Bill said. ‘Should we wait for the others, or . . .?’
But Judith was already moving on. They followed her, Isabel just ahead of him. The living room was through the door on the left, Bill remembered, the bedrooms off to the right. Two on this floor, and at the end of the corridor a staircase led down to a couple more, cut into the hillside. He felt suddenly queasy, as though everything that had happened here was plainly visible still, the imprint of it left behind among the furniture and the whitewashed walls.
Judith put her suitcase down in the biggest bedroom, the one that had been Fay’s, and went to look out of the window.
‘Gorgeous view,’ she said. ‘I remember that well.’
Even from the doorway Bill could see the still-familiar sweep of fells, with Nag’s Pike in the middle of it – but Judith had turned away again now, having given the panorama barely more than a moment’s attention. She didn’t bring her case with her when she left the room. Bill made a little noise, a sort of throat-clearing, and Isabel frowned at him.
‘Oh, and the living room!’ Judith said, doubling back the other way. ‘Goodness, do you remember that game we played – the sound-effects game?’
Bill shook his head.
‘You did a bird,’ Judith said. ‘Can you still do that? Birdsong?’
‘I don’t think so. I haven’t tried for years.’
‘I bet you can,’ Judith said. She stopped in the middle of the room, silhouetted against the window which filled the whole of the opposite wall, and looked straight at him for the first time. ‘Is this going to be fun, do you think? I was absolutely dreading it.’
Bill stared at her. The mixture of frankness and dissimulation was devastating. It seemed to him that she was playing a role, saying things simply to make the position she’d taken convincing to herself.
‘It’s been a long time,’ he said, as easily as he could manage. ‘I suppose . . .’
But Judith had turned to inspect the ancient sofas, the fireplace, the Heaton Cooper print of Derwentwater that hung above it.
‘What do you make of it?’ she asked. ‘Fay leaving us this place? Does it make any sense to you?’
‘Well,’ Bill began. ‘From a legal point of view, it’s clear that she . . .’
Judith was a lawyer too, he remembered.
‘I’ve been wondering whether there was something odd about the whole set-up, back in the day,’ Judith said.
There it was again: plunging in head first to show there was nothing to worry about, and making it impossible, then, to edge towards things with any sincerity.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
Judith made a dismissive gesture. ‘You were too wrapped up in Marmion to notice.’
Bill blushed deep scarlet. Jesus, he thought, the woman was lethal. Isabel was looking at Judith, not at him, thank God.
‘What was she like?’ Isabel asked – and then, after a tiny hesitation, ‘Fay, I mean?’
Judith cast a glance at her, then sat down in the middle of the smaller sofa. He’d forgotten that, Bill thought: that ballet dancer grace, revealed when you least expected it. That pleating movement just then. Nothing like the way she spoke: or perhaps it was. Economical, elegant.
‘I think she saw herself as a cross between a godmother and an older sister,’ Judith said. ‘Much older. Though in fact she probably wasn’t a lot older then than we are now. Do you realise that?’ She looked at Bill: another frank, nothing-to-hide look. He moved towards the armchair nearest the door, but didn’t sit down. Isabel was hovering, agonised, beside Judith’s sofa.
‘We met her at a reception in the Master’s Lodge in our first term,’ Judith went on. ‘She found out it was Stephen’s birthday the following week, and she invited us to dinner.’
Bill had forgotten all that. If he really tried, he could summon a memory of the dark green walls of the Master’s drawing room.
‘Gosh,’ said Isabel – although the story was hardly remarkable, repeated in this
way. Perhaps that was Judith’s point.
‘I think it must have been a whim,’ Judith said. ‘I think she must have done it from time to time, with students, but she took to us. We were entertaining, I suppose.’
‘Were we?’ Bill asked.
‘We were a troupe,’ Judith said. ‘An amusing act. Though whether we would have been, quite so much, without Fay, I don’t know. She chiselled us off from the rest of the choir. Made us into a sort of semichorus, you could say. Bill might disagree.’
Bill looked from Judith to Isabel. The oddness of the situation made him feel a little dizzy. These two people – women – here together, and the others who weren’t. Like mixing flavours that didn’t go; that emphasised what was missing.
‘I’m going to make tea,’ he said. ‘Anyone want a cup?’
‘Is someone bringing food?’ Judith asked.
‘There’s the pub,’ Bill said. That would be a blessing: getting away from High Scarp to more neutral territory. He felt his spirits lift, just a tiny bit.
But the fridge in the kitchen was full. Milk, bread, bacon, sausages. Exactly the same food as twenty years ago, he could swear. Surely this wasn’t the Penrith solicitor acting on his own initiative? Fay, then, from beyond the grave? What else, he wondered, a little horrified now, had she prescribed for the weekend?
‘No need for the pub,’ he called, his voice jaunty now in the same way as Judith’s. ‘Someone’s been shopping for us.’
June 1995
Judith
‘I don’t know how you could,’ said Cressida.
She and Stephen were sitting on either side of Judith’s hospital bed. The late-afternoon sun threw a triangle of light across one corner of the cramped room, making the rest of it look dim and rather desolate. Judith’s head ached abominably, but she’d refused the last round of painkillers because they made her feel so groggy.
‘Cressida . . .’ said Stephen, but Cressida ignored him.
‘I really don’t,’ she said. ‘Right under Marmion’s nose. How could you imagine she wouldn’t find out?’
‘She’s got concussion, Cressida,’ said Stephen. ‘This isn’t the time or the place.’
‘I might not get another chance.’ Cressida’s face was rigid with determination. ‘I can’t say this with Marmion in the room.’
‘Is she likely to visit me?’ asked Judith. Her head throbbed with every word, but it pleased her to be able to speak; to be able to understand what was being said and respond to it, even if the exchange was unpleasant.
‘Of course she’s visited you,’ said Cressida. She seemed unimpressed with Judith’s accomplishment in contributing to the dialogue. ‘She was here most of yesterday evening.’
Judith took this in. Every thought hurt too, as though her brain was working on some backup system involving cogs and pulleys that jolted distressingly among the bruised tissue in her head. The facts – those Cressida was referring to, and others connected to them – were surprisingly clear, as though they had been lying in wait while she swam in and out of consciousness, up and down from vivid, violent dreams. She had fallen, while they were climbing Nag’s Pike with Fay; that was why she was here. She’d hit her head on a stone, and Bill had rushed to her side, and his distress had revealed their treachery to Marmion. Marmion was distraught, and Cressida, it seemed, was angry. Judith had lain here now for . . . Actually, she had no idea about that. Was it one day, or two, or more?
‘How long have I been here?’ she asked.
‘Only since yesterday,’ said Stephen. ‘You’ve been pretty out of it, though. Do you remember what happened?’
‘I’m not sure what I remember, and what I remember being told.’ The images in her mind – the mountain, the blue sky, people screaming silently – seemed to have arrived pre-packaged: it was as if someone had stocked the shelves of her memory with merchandise more brightly coloured than she would have selected for herself.
‘Do you remember the helicopter?’ Stephen asked.
‘No.’
Cressida made a cross sound, as if she was being deliberately flouted. ‘Judith,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry if I’m being bossy, but this has got to stop.’
‘This?’ Judith rolled her head with an effort to face Cressida’s side of the bed. It would be easier if she and Stephen sat next to each other. Cressida had the sun behind her, too: there was a dazzle around her head like a vindictive halo.
‘Whatever you want to call it. Your thing with Bill.’
Judith shut her eyes. She could feel things slipping away from her, not making sense any more.
‘I’m very sleepy,’ she said.
‘That’s convenient,’ said Cressida.
‘For heaven’s sake leave it now,’ said Stephen. ‘Let her be. It’s not the time or the place.’ And Judith knew she’d heard those words before, so that it must be a dream. She let herself sink, sink, blissfully sink, until the room, the voices, had faded from view.
June 1995
Cressida
‘Stephen.’ Cressida shut the door of Judith’s room behind her and hurried after him. ‘Stephen, wait.’
Ahead of her, Stephen halted. It was ridiculous, Cressida thought, that there hadn’t been a single moment until now when they could talk. Every time she’d thought she might be left alone with him these last couple of days, something had prevented it. And of course everyone was worried about Judith, and about Marmion too, so that it seemed selfish to be thinking about what had happened the other night. But Cressida was worried that if she didn’t say something, it would soon be as if it had never happened. She could already feel the memory of the waterfall, the whisky, the wonderful moment in the kitchen when he’d kissed her becoming hazy and uncertain, eclipsed by the bigger drama of Judith’s fall and Marmion’s betrayal.
‘Stephen, I know . . .’ she began. She could see reluctance in his face, even distaste for what she might be about to say, but she held fast to her courage. ‘It’s just – I don’t know when there might be another chance to talk.’
‘No.’ He looked embarrassed now, and Cressida felt a rush of hope. Perhaps he thought he’d taken advantage of her. Perhaps he’d been dreading this conversation because he felt guilty.
‘It was lovely,’ she said. ‘The other night. It was really lovely. I know – there’s so much else to think about now, but I didn’t want you to think . . .’
They were still several feet apart, Cressida clutching her bag in front of her and Stephen standing with his hands hanging down uselessly beside him. The light in the corridor was dim, giving the pale green paint a murky, stagnant feel.
‘Cressida,’ he said, ‘I don’t –’
‘I know it’s not the moment,’ Cressida said. ‘With Judith and Marmion and everything. But I just wanted . . .’ She gazed at him hopefully. ‘Perhaps when we’re back in Cambridge, or –’
‘Excuse me.’ An orderly came round the corner, pushing a wheelchair containing a very old man, and Stephen moved back into a doorway to let them pass. The old man looked at Cressida with red, heavy-lidded eyes, and she smiled, suppressing a stab of impatience. As they rolled away up the corridor she looked at Stephen again. She wouldn’t say anything more, she thought. She always said too much. She would wait for him now, leave the ball in his court.
Stephen wasn’t looking at her. His face didn’t move, but she assumed he was thinking, gathering himself.
‘It’s not fair to blame Judith,’ he said eventually.
Cressida stared. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s not fair to lay into her when she’s so ill. It’s not reasonable to judge her.’
‘I’m only thinking of Marmion,’ Cressida said. ‘I’m not making a moral judgement.’
‘It sounded like a moral judgement.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’
Stephen didn’t reply. A frown had settled on his face now. Cressida felt numb: this didn’t make any sense, she thought. They w
ere friends, she and Judith. They all were. You could say things like that to friends, surely. You could tell them what you thought.
‘I didn’t mean to offend you,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to seem small-minded.’
Still he wouldn’t look at her, and she felt the beginnings of desperation now. That lovely evening, she thought: the way everything had come together at last – and then the sex had been more complicated than she’d expected, but that made it even more important that they didn’t let things drift. She was painfully conscious of their inexperience, of the things stacked against them – even more, now, with all that had happened in the last couple of days.
She wished suddenly, vehemently, that she could take back what she’d said to Judith. She couldn’t bear Stephen to think badly of her, as though she’d revealed her true colours in that self-righteous outburst. The worst thing was that he was right, in a way: it was a moral judgement, or at least . . . She remembered that moment, standing outside Judith’s bedroom door at High Scarp: the murmurings of pleasure, the gurgling laughter, the unthinking rapture. All of it so different from what she and Stephen had managed; so effortlessly free from guilt or inhibition or clumsiness.
She felt tears rising now. She couldn’t bear that one occasion to be all there was. She especially couldn’t bear it if it was her envy and disappointment that ruined everything. It was all so confusing – and this was a terrible place to have this conversation, in this dingy hospital corridor. Why had she been in such a rush?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘This was the wrong moment. Can we . . .’
‘We need to go, anyway,’ Stephen said. ‘Fay will be waiting in the car.’
‘Of course.’
She was on the point of apologising again, but she stopped herself. It wasn’t all her fault, she thought. He ought to say something too; he ought to make some effort. As they reached the front of the hospital he held the door open for her. There was just a moment, then, when their eyes met, and what she saw in his gave Cressida a doubtful sort of hope. Not anger, she thought. Not warmth, either, but a vulnerability, an uncertainty, that seemed, just then, to match hers. Patience, she told herself. Patience, and a long view. Although if he was really going to Dubai in the autumn, there wasn’t much time left for that.
Every Secret Thing Page 10
