Liam's Story

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  The muffled exclamation of her distress cut through his anger. The iniquity of his position, Stephen reminded himself, was not her fault. Apologizing, knowing the conversation was not going the way he had intended, he rubbed his forehead wearily. He would have liked to start again, but the presence of the other man in Zoe’s flat was as tangible as the heat on the window behind him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Zoe, I have to go. I’m phoning from the agent’s office and it’s a courtesy call. I’ll write as soon as. I can. By the way – did you get my letter from Istanbul?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said eagerly, ‘I did, last week. And your transcript of the diary…’

  ‘Good, well, I’ll write again soon – let you know more about what’s going on.’ For a moment he was tempted to end the conversation there, but his need to know about the other man was too great. Tersely, he said: ‘Who’s your friend, by the way? Or shouldn’t I ask?’

  There was a short silence. Her response, when it came, was just a shade too dismissive. ‘Oh, it’s only Philip. He – well, my car’s playing up again, and he offered to give me a lift down to Sussex. It wouldn’t have mattered,’ she added with a false little laugh, ‘but I’ve got an appointment this afternoon to see Tisha’s old house…’

  ‘I see.’ It sounded plausible and he would have liked to believe her, but not even the mention of Tisha’s name could overcome a hot surge of jealousy. So Philip Dent was on the scene again. ‘Well, I hope he’s a good driver. Have a nice weekend.’

  She seemed nonplussed by his acidity. ‘Stephen, it’s not like that. Please don’t…’

  But he never could abide lies. Quite deliberately, he cut the connection, hating the false intimacy of telephones, the emotions stirred by the sound of a voice, the sheer impossibility of closeness that they underlined. And to the recipient, he thought sardonically, a call could be such an unwelcome interruption.

  Standing by the window, with sunlight filtering through the young leaves of plane trees outside, Zoe listened to the empty hum of the line and knew the disconnection was not accidental. Angry, hurt, disappointed, and most of all frustrated, she turned on Philip.

  ‘There now – see what you’ve done!’

  ‘Hey, just a minute, Zoe – you did ask me to take it.’

  ‘I know – but now he’s got entirely the wrong impression!’ She slammed out of the room and began to gather her things in a fury, dumping them in the tiny lobby.

  ‘Oh, damn and blast!’ she ground out between gritted teeth. ‘Damn him – damn you, Philip – and damn the blasted car! If it hadn’t been for that, this would never have happened. And if you hadn’t been so ridiculously early…’

  Severely put out, Philip of the perfect looks and elegant manner paced the room with less than his usual composure. ‘I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t offered to take you down to Sussex,’ he declared huffily.

  ‘Me too. But as you did, perhaps we’d better get going.’

  Without another word he picked up the lightest bag and set off down the stairs, keys jangling irritably between his fingers. Left behind to lock up, Zoe hoisted the paraphernalia of bag, camera and sketch-book, in that moment regretting everything to do with Philip Dent. Sliding into the front seat of his open-topped Saab, she wished she had taken the train to Brighton, and had her mother collect her from there.

  But two days ago, when they ran into each other, he had seemed pleased to see her, keen to treat her as a friend and not an ex-lover. When he mentioned Clare – met only once since that unfortunate evening with Stephen — Zoe was consumed by curiosity. She wanted to know what was happening, and Philip seemed to need to talk. He had mentioned a drink at the weekend, and she had mentioned Sussex, and here they were...

  That Stephen should have chosen that moment to telephone! Half an hour earlier or later, and he would have been none the wiser, and because there was nothing for him to worry about, she would have had nothing to explain. It really was too bad.

  Fretting and fuming, she answered Philip in monosyllables, but it dawned on her at last that there was an edge of malice to his probing, and now that he had recovered himself, a certain smug satisfaction at her discomfiture. She was too upset to hide her feelings; wanting to hurt him, too, she answered with brutal frankness.

  ‘Yes, Philip – Stephen is important to me. He’s the most vital man I’ve ever met. Being with him is like being alive to your fingertips – and yes, I’d dearly love to spend the rest of my life cooking his meals and darning his socks. Are you satisfied?’

  ‘So much for feminism,’ he replied contemptuously. ‘I thought you wanted to be a free woman, devoted to your art.’

  ‘I’ve changed.’

  ‘All the nice girls love a sailor, eh?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be fatuous!’

  ‘But he doesn’t trust you, does he? Not that I blame him – after all, you threw me over for him, and now he thinks – ’

  ‘I did not throw you over for him! Clare’s a liar if she said that – I hadn’t even met him when I said goodbye to you!’

  ‘But if he trusted you,’ Philip went on, regardless, ‘my being in your flat this morning wouldn’t have meant a thing.’

  That hurt, because it was uncomfortably close to the truth; hurt more, because such lack of trust was unjustified. She could have wept with fury, but would not give Philip the satisfaction.

  ‘Do you have to be so hateful, Philip? So gloating? You’ve got your revenge on a plate – I hope it tastes good.’

  He pressed his foot down on the accelerator, and after that, neither of them spoke. In the glorious weather of early June, trees in full leaf zipped past overhead; Zoe had glimpses of vivid colour in gardens and forecourts, but they were travelling too fast for appreciation. Only as they slowed behind the massive, tubular bulk of a road tanker did she find her self-obsessed thoughts suspended. With an anxious glance at the speedometer, she realized the tanker was doing something like fifty miles an hour in two-way traffic along roads which were far from straight.

  Philip was clearly anxious to overtake. Zoe held her breath. The chemical symbols for petroleum spirit loomed large. Afraid to look at the road ahead, she glanced sideways, seeing massive double wheels too close for comfort and an unfamiliar logo, Q8, emblazoned on the tank above. Q-eight, Q-eight, Q-eight, drummed menacingly through her head until they were safely past. In relief she involuntarily murmured it aloud, and instantly the hidden meaning became clear. Not Q-eight petrol, but petrol from Kuwait!

  ‘Kuwait,’ she repeated, stunned by the connection with Stephen. It was oil from Kuwait that he would be transporting out of the Gulf, and for which he would be risking his ship and his life. Guilt washed over her. Hung up on her own frustrations after that telephone call, Zoe had all but forgotten the reason for it. All but forgotten Stephen and the knife-edge of his situation.

  ‘Yes,’ Philip said, obviously glad of a neutral topic with which to break the silence, ‘it’s a new company. Prices seem reasonable, though.’

  ‘Reasonable?’ she repeated, a shrill edge to her voice. She thought of the twenty-six lives aboard Stephen’s ship, the hundreds, possibly thousands more who were engaged, at this very moment, in the same trade. ‘I suppose anything’s reasonable, if you don’t count the human cost...’

  Sixteen

  Zoe borrowed her mother’s sports car to meet her appointment near Worthing, and despite the persistent anxiety of her thoughts, had to admit that it was fun to be driving the old Triumph Spitfire, its engine and gleaming red bodywork kept in excellent repair, and at enormous expense, by Marian’s ‘little man’ in the village. It typified her mother. She loved anything with a smart label, preferably antique or vintage, and in prime condition.

  That element of perfectionism extended to her personal life. With two failed marriages behind her and a number of relationships which had, at some stage, been ‘meaningful’, Marian seemed to have resigned herself to the fact that she was better off as a single woman. This was something of a relie
f to Zoe, who over the years had lost track of the different partners and the innumerable houses to which she had been invited during breaks from school and college.

  As women, Zoe and her mother were temperamentally opposed. Having recognized and accepted that, it was easier now to set it aside, to concentrate on the things they had in common. They shared an interest in the history of art and furniture, but where they diverged was in this matter of genealogy. Marian found it hard to be rational about her own past and had a tendency to lay most of her considerable problems at Letitia’s feet. She was bitter too, about her relationship with Zoe, maintaining that Tisha had managed to alienate Marian’s only child. There was no point, Zoe had discovered, in repeating that one swallow did not make a summer, or, in this case, that one summer did not make an alienated child, because Marian pegged all her guilt on that.

  Nevertheless, she was intrigued by Tisha’s past, wanting to know, if not to discuss, the reasons for the old lady’s secrecy. But every time the subject came up, Zoe had to steel herself for the usual epithets of cruel, paranoid, mean, selfish, when applied to Letitia Mary Duncannon Elliott. And every time, Zoe had to remind herself that her mother’s story was both sad and unfortunate for all concerned.

  So, it had been something of a surprise to receive a call from her mother, last week, to say that if she was interested, Tisha’s old home was again up for sale.

  ‘I was just glancing through the property pages, and I happened to see it. Gave me quite a shock, darling, but there we are. I rang the agents, by the way,’ she had added distastefully, as though it went against principle, ‘and they informed me that it’s been for sale for some time. It’s empty, too.’

  If it had given Marian a nasty turn, the news provoked in Zoe a queer leap of the heart, bringing back memories of childhood, of that awful, uncertain time of her parents’ separation, and the summer spent with an eccentric old lady she hardly knew.

  She recalled her father’s protests, but Marian had had her way; and while the two adults sorted out their tangled emotional affairs, Zoe had been sent to that strange, ugly, Victorian house with its overgrown garden and empty rooms. It might have been the stuff of nightmares, but Zoe’s disposition had always inclined towards the adventurous, rather than the timid. And as it transpired, in comparison to the months which preceded it, and the misery of boarding school which followed, that summer had been heavenly.

  Unable to resist a desire to see the old place again, Zoe had telephoned the estate agent and, trying to sound like a serious buyer, made an appointment to view. She hated lying, but knew that no self-respecting agency could afford to indulge a matter of idle curiosity. With her age against her, Zoe hoped the vintage sports car would give credence to her tale that she was looking at property on her father’s behalf, with a view to investment. It was so typically her father, she felt the tale was one she could carry off.

  But she need not have worried. The young man who waited with the keys was singularly uninterested in who or why; so many had been and gone, it seemed that this was no more than another waste of a glorious Saturday afternoon. He did not even offer to show her round, but simply sat on the steps of the south-facing terrace with sleeves rolled up and collar open, taking in the sun.

  ‘If I really wanted to buy this place,’ Zoe remarked with amusement, ‘I think I might report you for indolence.’’

  He glanced up, sharply, uncertain as to her meaning, and for a moment looked faintly alarmed; then Zoe smiled, and he grinned back, relieved. ‘You mean you’ve no intention of buying? Well, I don’t blame you – it’s a heap. And it’ll take a fortune to repair. But we live in hope...’

  He was lazy and unprofessional, and Zoe could have told him that he was in the wrong business; but at least he was honest. She smiled again. ‘It might surprise you to know that it was not markedly different when I last stayed here, sixteen years ago. My great-grandmother had the house then, but she died the following winter, and I haven’t been back since. It passed to my mother — I seem to recall she sold the place pretty quickly, but I don’t know who bought it. Do you?’

  ‘Fifteen years ago?’ He pursed his lips. ‘Could be the people who are selling now. Same family, I mean. An old chap lived here — a widower. After his wife died, seems he lost interest, let the place go. His family live abroad. One son’s in South America — he’s the one we’re dealing with — and the other’s on an Antarctic expedition.’

  Zoe laughed. ‘So nobody’s breathing down your neck?’

  Beneath that attractive tan, he had the grace to flush. ‘Well, no, I mean...’

  ‘Never mind,’ she said easily, ‘I’m here under false pretences anyway. I tell you what – you just sit here and enjoy the sun, and let me have a browse.’

  Inside, so little had changed. Different wallpaper, perhaps, but fifteen years ago many of the rooms had been as empty as they were now, so nothing seemed strange. Although Zoe had said that the house passed to Marian after Tisha’s death, that was not strictly true. The house had never belonged to her. The circumstances of her residence here were complicated by untimely deaths in two wars.

  Tisha’s in-laws, the Fearnleys, had owned the house and willed it to their grand-daughter, Edwina. After their deaths, a firm of solicitors and a distant Fearnley cousin had acted as trustees. Meanwhile, Edwina had grown up and married young, a naval lieutenant. Their child, Marian, had been born in 1940, just two years before Edwina and her dashing young husband were killed during one of the many raids on Plymouth. At the time, their little daughter was safe at home in Hampshire with her nanny. Nanny had bestowed her charge on the closest relative – grandmother Letitia – and Tisha had been forced to don the mantle of motherhood for the second time.

  There had been money from the naval officer’s side of the family, but it had all been tied up for Marian; as was that rambling great house in Sussex. For years Tisha had been selling objets d’art to keep herself in little luxuries. With her daughter’s marriage, Tisha had closed up the house and taken a small flat in Pimlico, her old stamping ground. It had been such fun, she said, until Edwina’s death, but London was no place for babies and nannies, so it was back to dreary Sussex and this insufferable old house.

  Zoe could hear her saying it, hear Tisha’s voice as plainly as though she had been standing there, gazing bitterly from the window. No, not bitterly – resignedly. She might have been bitter once, but Tisha had outlived strong emotion, it seemed, and survived on a diet of cynicism. She had been allowed something from the child’s inheritance, but it had never been enough. When old man Fearnley’s collection of objets d’art ran out, she had started selling larger pieces: paintings first, then furniture. By the time Zoe arrived here, there was little left, and Tisha was reduced to living in two or three rooms. Not that she cared. As long as she had enough to dress well, and to take a trip up to town once a week to meet a few cronies for tea at Fortnum’s, she was happy.

  She enjoyed playing Letitia Fearnley, grande dame, and did it on very little. Her immaculate outfits were always set off by one or two items of good jewelry and a mink stole; and she had enough hand-made shoes to survive any fluctuation in fashion. ‘There’s nothing new, darling,’ she used to say, ‘just the same old styles made over to look different. Keep a thing long enough, it comes back again.’

  And keep things she did. The furniture might have gone, but clothes remained, hoarded in trunks and wardrobes, packed between tissue and moth-balls. Zoe had had a wonderful time with flapper dresses and feather boas, hobbling about in gilt and silver sandals, purple satin slippers, and velvet mantles fit for a queen. For a ten-year-old little girl, it had been paradise.

  In the first-floor bedroom with its long windows and balcony outside, Zoe smiled, remembering. In those days this room had been stripped bare except for the wardrobes and a long pier-glass, and an ancient chaise-longue by the window. Excellent for dressing-up. And Tisha had sat in the sun with the French windows open, watching her great-grand-daughter throu
gh half-closed eyes, an almost feline satisfaction in her smile. She had never much liked her grand-daughter Marian, and seemed to derive pleasure in telling Zoe that she had not allowed her mother to rummage through those precious things when she was a girl. But as Zoe had not much liked her mother at that time, the pleasure was mutual. Only in retrospect did that seem shameful.

  There had been added pleasure in the reminiscences the clothes provoked. Tisha might never have mentioned her early life in York, but she obviously enjoyed reliving the high points of her young womanhood, the parties, the people, the cafe society of the twenties and early thirties. And every outfit had a story; in one slinky black number by Schiaparelli she had danced with the Prince of Wales.

  ‘He had a taste for slim, dark women, even then – and in those days, darling, I was very slim and very dark.’ She had patted her short, chic, silver curls. ‘And of course people always said I had such marvellous eyes.’ She had peered closely at Zoe then. ‘A shame, darling, that yours lack colour...’ And then, back to the original tack: ‘He should never have married that Simpson woman – she had hypnotic eyes, did you know that? She mesmerized him, like a stoat... Of course,’ sighing, ‘I couldn’t keep up with their set – didn’t have the money, more’s the pity. And with poor little Edwina to think of, here, in this place, with those dreadful Fearnleys – I had to keep coming back, you see...’

  And while Zoe gazed at her, agog in childish innocence at this talk of princes and house-parties and love-affairs, she had suddenly grown sad.

  ‘Edwina was a dear little thing. Very affectionate, very trusting, just like her father. Poor Edwin.’ Another deep sigh, and at Zoe’s question, she said: ‘He died, darling, in the First War – he was wounded, rather badly I believe, and then he died. We’d been married just over a year, and he never saw his baby daughter...’ Gazing from the window into the sunny, overgrown garden, Tisha seemed lost in memory, and Zoe had been almost afraid to breathe; but then those thin shoulders shrugged, and with a smile she said: ‘What is it they say? Only the good die young...’