Heart's Ease

by Sarah Harrison

  Charity wasn’t a great drinker, but she knew that she was getting slightly pissed. They’d moved on from The Jockey, where they’d talked about his job and hers, to a rather more salubrious cocktail bar, tricked out like a yuppy winter wonderland in silver, gold and ice-blue. The fresh air in between had highlighted her tipsiness, and along with it a change in conversational gear.

  ‘No show today then?’ she asked.

  ‘I bunked off.’

  ‘You’re the boss.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  She was perched on a bar stool, he was at her side, eye to eye.

  ‘What am I doing here?’

  The question was largely rhetorical. She leaned back slightly to gain some perspective, and he placed a restraining hand on her shoulder, smiling past her at the woman behind. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘This isn’t my scene really.’

  ‘No? I’d never have guessed.’

  She quite liked to be teased by him, it made her feel frivolous – flirtatious, even.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What is it then – “your scene”?’

  She could hear the inverted commas round the last words.

  ‘I like my work.’

  ‘Oh’ – he spread a hand – ‘me too.’

  ‘But your work is different,’ she pointed out, and then stalled. Well that was stating the blindingly bloody obvious.

  ‘Drink up,’ he said. ‘You need that curry.’

  She got back to halls in a horribly expensive taxi, still worse for wear, but with at least some of the alcohol soaked up by dhansak and naan bread. She felt pleased with herself as she pulled off her boots and clothes, cleaned her teeth and collapsed on the bed. When she closed her eyes she had a bad attack of the whirls, something she had only suffered once before in her life and sworn never to repeat. It was some time in the small hours as she stood in the bathroom gazing at her rumpled reflection, a pint glass of water in her hand, that some distant bell in her brain reminded her that there was something she should have done. But accessing the actual information was beyond her and she went back to bed.

  Twenty

  The thing about Christmas Day, Marguerite privately considered (she would never have said so aloud) was that it was anti-climactic. By the time the turkey was being basted, the bread sauce made and the festive board laid in all its glory, the actual feeling of Christmas was largely over. That potent, poignant mix of anticipation and nostalgia was past for another year. Now there were only the ritualized practicalities to be gone through, differing only slightly according to host and location. There was the fraught giving and receiving of presents, those which might be considered too extravagant, a tad stingy, not quite right in a variety of ways, but the thought behind them was always duly honored. The feasting which left the adults bloated and soporific and the children hyperactive. The queen (though not so often these days), the obligatory short, dyspeptic walk and the games requiring more energy than most people had left. Until finally some nice family film could be turned on so the children could calm down and the adults subside comatose into the soft furnishings.

  But this year Felicity had thrown a curved ball by announcing that Christmas dinner would be at six! It had traditionally been earlier, because of the children, but she decreed that it was time for a change.

  ‘We’ll have a walk in the morning, those who want to go to church can go, all have brunch at twelve, presents, and champagne from five.’

  ‘What about the children?’ Marguerite had asked, before she’d had time to consider if the question was wise. Her daughter’s shining smile turned on her like a searchlight.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘No, sorry darling, I was only thinking about Cissy – won’t that be awfully late for her?’

  ‘No, Ma,’ said Felicity. ‘It won’t. Because it’s only once a year and when it gets late one of us will take her up to bed And we have a couple of other people coming tomorrow. I’ve checked, and early-evening dinner will suit them better.’

  If Marguerite could have turned the clock back forty-five seconds she would have done so. She could feel Hugh busy not looking at her. When in doubt, leave well alone.

  She soon had something else to think about. Bruno arrived early evening on Christmas Eve and looked awful. He had put on weight, but looked far from healthy, his face pale and puffy, his eyes dull and his hair unkempt. His clothes were clean, but creased and greyish – the unmistakable look of garments that had been stuffed into the machine with too many other things and dried in haste. Heaven knows what his sheets were like … Apart from that, his mother told herself, he seemed his usual self, and it was nice to see how the children rushed to greet him. Uncle Bruno! That made silly seasonal tears sting her eyes. Mercifully, Hugh did his not looking or noticing thing again.

  She wondered too who the other people were who were coming, but buttoned her lip – she’d find out soon enough.

  Bruno knew it was only a matter of time before his mother made her move. He accepted that concern for offspring was in the job description, and his were the least interventionist of parents. But he still didn’t look forward to fending off the enquiries, which eventually came on Christmas Eve.

  ‘How is everything, love?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Are you comfortable in the flat?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Come on, Daisy,’ put in Hugh, passing her Buck’s Fizz, ‘it’s a student flat, remember those?’

  Seeing his mother’s expression Bruno thought it best to take pre-emptive action. ‘I am actually looking for somewhere else, perhaps a bit nearer college?’

  ‘Good idea.’ That was it, Marguerite told herself, he had a long walk every day to college and back. ‘Do the college have contacts?’

  ‘Yes, no problem.’

  With a bit of luck that would have put her off the scent. Nosy parkering aside it was good to see them, and to be here in Fliss and Rob’s luxurious house and see the kids again. Rob had told him about Ellie leaving, that was a real downer. She and the lucky bloke were coming tomorrow which would be a bit weird.

  The trouble with people who were reliably punctual was that you started to worry the very second after the appointed hour. Mac and Charity had agreed that she would be there between six and seven (a little leeway was permissible, even advisable, on Christmas Eve), so as the seventh chime of the long case clock in the hall faded, he became concerned. Was there some hideous delay on the motorway? Or worse, had she herself been the cause of a delay, involved in an accident from which the red tail lights trailed back as the hectic flashing blue converged?

  Get a grip, man!

  No news was good news. She would be here in her own good time with, of course, explanation, which he would brush aside – what did it matter? she was here now. The anticipated relief, the bliss, of that moment carried him through till about eight thirty when another possibility wormed his way into his thoughts and began to make its presence felt. He did his best to dismiss it. He prided himself on being the least neurotic of men, it was practically a qualification for his job, and he knew Charity to be the most truthful and dependable of women. Her directness was one of the qualities that had drawn him to her. It was simply beyond credence that she would have – no, it would not happen – she was not capable of simply changing her mind …

  But there was no call, no message, nothing. Against his better judgement he rang the number of her mobile phone, recently acquired for contingencies like these, but an alien voice parroted back at him. Of course if she was driving she wouldn’t answer. He wouldn’t want her to.

  By ten p.m. his preparations, such as they were, began to take on a pathetic, mocking appearance. Silly old man. Deluded, vain. Stupid. He packed up the makings of a light supper and put them away in the fridge, but fiddling about with clingfilm and tinfoil made him feel like a fusspot, so he retrieved the smoked salmon and egg mayonnaise and ate some of it though he wasn’t in the least hungry. He’d left the curtain
s open in the drawing room so he could see her car arrive, but that too now seemed pathetic, and he half-drew them and turned off one of the lights so if she did show up he wouldn’t be caught out watching and waiting.

  Almost the worst thing was the not knowing. The pointless imagining. He tried to fight it to no avail. Everything about this silent, desolating absence was wrong. Either something appalling had happened, or she had behaved in a heartless and cruel way. Either way it didn’t bear thinking about. He was in torment.

  At one point he went out, simply because he could no longer bear to be inside, surrounded by the evidence of his idiotic, hopeful fantasy. He dragged on boots and Barbour, picked up his large torch and told himself he was going to get some air, stretch his legs … Perhaps just a look round the empty school to see that all was well.

  There was an almost-full moon, and the further he went from the lights of the house, the better he could see, so he turned off the torch. Everything was calm, and bleached-looking. One read of scenes ‘silvered’ by moonlight, but it was more a kind of luminous grey, pewter at best. Monochrome but clear, like an old black and white film of the sort he had pictured himself perhaps watching with Charity, one of those witty romantic comedies with Hepburn and Tracy, whom he had allowed himself to think they slightly resembled … Damn, damn!

  He walked right round the school building. The original house hadn’t been large, but had been somewhat randomly extended and adapted over the years, so there were bays and promontories to be negotiated. As he passed one of the dark corners quite a large animal scuttled across, low to the ground – it might have been a cat, a fox, or an extremely large rat. He turned on the torch, but it had already disappeared into the night or more worryingly its hole. He reminded himself to come back and check in the morning – if it had been a rat he needed to know. While the kind of parents who sent their children here were by definition liberal, something told him their open-mindedness wouldn’t extend to tolerating vermin.

  At the far side of the school were the outhouses – the chicken run, the garage, the goat pen, the greenhouse and sheds for fuel and tools. During term-times these were checked every evening by him or whoever was on duty, because they were a prime spot for hiding out, to smoke dope or test the efficacy of French letters. More from habit than anything else he shone the torch into each of them in turn. The goats just stared back with their blank, dazzled eyes, the poor old chickens were a bit flustered, clucking and rustling like maiden ladies discombobulated to be rudely disturbed this late.

  It was as he set out across the yard, back towards the driveway that he became aware that he was not alone. There the soft crunch of a footstep in the lane to his right, and a suggestion of movement. Without hesitation he swung the beam of the torch in that direction.

  ‘Who’s that? Someone there?’

  ‘For God’s sake put the gun down, it’s me!’

  He was always to remember how clear and strong her voice came back. Not the voice of a startled intruder, even less that of a shamefaced stop-out – just plain exasperated.

  ‘Charity?’ In the relief of saying her name, a warm tide of joy flooded through him.

  ‘Who else were you expecting?’ Her arm was raised in front of her face, and now she put down the bag she was carrying and pushed back the hood of her quilted coat. ‘Can you please stop with the interrogation technique!’

  Obediently he switched off the torch. Round here there was just enough light from between the curtains of his living room for them to make one another out. He stopped a few feet from the front door, and she came across the gravel towards him, carrying what he could now see was a supermarket bag. Her rucksack was over the other shoulder, she was loaded down. When she reached him, she dumped the bag again, wriggled out of the rucksack and put up a hand, palm outwards.

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘I shan’t. Come in.’

  He picked up the bag and the rucksack – they weighed nothing, nothing! – and she followed him into the house, closing the door behind them.

  Charity didn’t tell him everything. She considered there was no need. She had made her decision, which was irrevocable, and with which she was entirely happy. To think of how close she’d come to making the wrong one brought on a kind of vertigo. She regretted the collateral damage, but something told her that Luke would bounce back almost at once. He always had less invested than her, because he took himself less seriously. He’d have her marked down as a cool customer and a tease, or perhaps more accurately as a woman who in spite of appearances to the contrary didn’t know her own mind. She liked Luke, and was sorry that the circumstances meant they were unlikely to see each other again, let alone be friends.

  She had needed him too, she could see that now. The encounter with him had been messy but instructive. It was a pity that inevitably he would think the less of her, but already any feelings of remorse were fading.

  She was starving. Upstairs in Mac’s kitchen she had wolfed smoked salmon and rye bread, washed down with a large scotch. He had joined her with the scotch, but not the food, feasting his eyes on her. He’d asked no questions, but once she was a little restored she’d told him the whole sorry saga of the car running out of petrol two miles up the road. She’d managed to freewheel on to the verge and left it locked, and he said that was fine, they’d go up tomorrow and check, and he’d get Charlie from the local garage to give it a tow, or provide a can of unleaded, for a seasonal consideration. She realized that this information didn’t account for how late she was, only why she’d arrived on foot, but one of Mac’s most admirable qualities was his lack of fuss. He would take her at face value.

  With the plates in the sink and the second scotch in their hands they went through to the living room. He drew the curtains fully. The fire had almost gone out but he revived the embers and threw on a shovelful of coal. It was well after midnight. They sat down at either end of the sofa.

  ‘I’m sorry I was rude,’ she said. ‘Feeling stupid doesn’t bring out the best in me.’

  He hated that ugly word, especially associated with her. ‘You weren’t stupid,’ he said. ‘It was late at night, you were tired, you made a mistake. It could happen to anyone.’

  She sent him one of her sharp sideways smiles. ‘I don’t deserve that, but thank you.’

  ‘The main thing is,’ he said, ‘that you’re here. And I can’t begin to tell you how delighted I am that you are.’

  What had she said to Luke? This isn’t who I am. For God’s sake.

  To his credit he hadn’t called her a pretentious bitch. In spite of disappointment and injured pride he had confined himself to a little justifiable sarcasm. There had been a hardening in his expression, and he’d stepped back, removing his hands from her in an exaggerated gesture of surrender.

  ‘We can’t have that …!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Me too. You have no idea.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be somewhere else … with someone else …’ she floundered.

  ‘Jesus!’ He flung his hands in the air and brought them down on top of his head, closing his eyes as if to shut her out. ‘Now she tells me.’ Hands still on his head he opened his eyes and fixed her with a flinty look. ‘Don’t let me stop you being true to yourself, whoever the fuck that is.’

  That – the gesture, the tone – had made her less sorry and more angry. All she was doing was turning down what was probably destined to be a one-night stand with a man who was surely the king of one-night stands. She could feel her resolve stiffening along with her backbone. He wanted to trade sarcasm? He’d picked the wrong woman, she was a past master.

  ‘I’m so glad you understand,’ she said.

  That did it, as she knew it would. She didn’t have to tell him to go, or resort to cliché by opening the door. He walked out of her room, his shoulder bumping hers as he went, barking a brisk, ‘Fuck the hell off!’

  Charity hadn’t always lived up to her name. There were people
out there who thought it was a downright misnomer. She didn’t suffer fools gladly and she cut ditherers no slack. But this experience changed her a little. Just enough. As she set out on the long drive to Mac’s a delayed reaction set in, and she found she was shaking. She had to pull over to recover herself. She pulled down the visor and stared at her gaunt, wild-eyed reflection in the mirror.

  You did a bad thing she told herself. You showed poor judgement and did damage. But now you are doing the right thing, so get your skinny arse in gear and get on with it.

  Some time after one she heard Mac say, ‘Come on, you’re asleep,’ and she realized she had been. One moment her eyelids had been heavy, the next he was taking the almost-empty glass from her hand.

  ‘Bed,’ he said.

  She was woozy with tiredness and scotch, and he put a hand beneath her arm and helped her up. They stood close to one another. His proximity was like that of a tall, sheltering tree.

  ‘Happy Christmas,’ he said. He put a hand behind her head, cupping it, and kissed her on the forehead. She was almost weaving, incapable of decision but the sweet comfort of that kiss told her all was well.

  He escorted her to the spare bedroom, spartan but comfortable with its single bed and washbasin, rather like her room in halls. Her rucksack was on the chair.

  ‘The bathroom’s on the right down there, you have first dibs at all times. The usual offices are next door, or there’s one at the bottom of the stairs, but it’s rather more rugged, so emergencies only.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He must have caught something in her expression, because he added, ‘Sleep well and see you later’ – he checked his watch – ‘today. No rush.’ He took her hand in both of his and pressed it. ‘In our case, unlike the poet and his coy girlfriend, we have both world enough and time. Goodnight, Charity.’

  Just before sinking into one of the best night’s sleep she’d had in weeks, she thought how wonderful it was to be with someone who, without much help from her, seemed simply to know who she was.