‘Don’t take any notice of the noises the water heater makes. It’s never been known to blow up. I’ll give you fifteen minutes before I bring supper.’
After Constance had gone I employed the patent plug method and was pleased to see steam cloud the tiles. As instructed I ignored the banging and shuddering of the heater and soon was seated up to my waist in brown but deliciously soft water, presumably straight from a bog. There was no soap but it would not do to be fussy. On returning to my room I found that Constance had lit the fire. A warm glow transfigured the rough stone walls while the delicious smell of burning turves overlaid the pungent atmosphere. It felt almost luxurious to climb, fairly clean and pretty nearly dry, into bed. The hot brick wrapped in a towel was gloriously comforting, as was the gentle hiss of flames. Constance returned with a bowl of soup that had a strange earthy flavour, some sweetish bread that was delicious, a hunk of dry cracked cheese and a packet of pink wafer biscuits, which were a little stale.
‘It was all I could find,’ Constance apologized. ‘I roasted a chicken earlier but the children finished it. It had an unpleasant taste anyway. There was a little plastic tray underneath it which I only discovered after I’d cooked it.’
‘This is fine. It’s so kind of you to look after me. I promise I’ll be better tomorrow.’
‘I’d bring you supper in bed every night if you’d only stay. Finn’ll be furious when he gets back from Dublin and finds Mrs Heaney gone.’ Her face took on the anxious expression that, despite her readiness to laugh, seemed never far away. The master of the house was irascible, apparently. It would be a mistake to commit myself to staying until I had met him and decided for myself whether he was a man sorely pressed or a heartless tyrant.
Constance took the tray from me and put it on the bedside table. ‘Won’t you lie down and make yourself comfortable? Are you warm enough?’
I nodded drowsily and murmured my thanks once more.
‘I haven’t let you get a word in edgeways, I know. Finn’s away so much and Maud’s so … well, you’ve seen for yourself. I adore the children but of course they don’t particularly want to talk to me. Anyway I worry sometimes that Flavia’s too withdrawn. Flurry’s a law unto himself, the darling. And Liddy’s just what you’d expect of a girl her age. As for Sissy, she’s an original too, no doubt about it … and then there’s Eugene.’ I dimly perceived that she blushed. Flavia, Flurry, Sissy, Liddy, Eugene. The names seem to wheel in my head like a flock of birds. Constance’s expression became eager, entreating. ‘It would be so wonderful to have someone I could really talk to.’
I smiled and looked my gratitude. The feeling was quite sincere, but I was too exhausted to speak.
‘Poor Bobbie.’ She drew a chair near to my pillow and patted my arm. ‘You’re shattered, aren’t you? Never mind, we’ll talk more in the morning. Shall I recite “The Burial of Sir John Moore” through to the end? I always say poetry to myself before I go off to sleep. I find it banishes the little annoyances of the day.’
I closed my eyes to express assent.
‘“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note …”’ Constance began in dramatic tones, but the rest was lost as a wave seemed to roll over me and drag me from the shore into the trackless deep that is dreamless sleep.
SEVENTEEN
It must have been nearly dawn when I woke. For a while I was adrift. I heard a sheep bleat distantly. I was not at home then. I opened my eyes. Dark, unfamiliar shapes advanced and receded as I tried to make sense of the perspectives of the room. As I began to knit impressions into thoughts the events of the previous day came back to me as a procession of dislocated images. Improbable as it seemed I was in a castle in the remotest part of Ireland. Immediately I was aware that the room was intolerably stuffy. It smelt of something penetratingly sour which came in waves whenever I turned restlessly between the sheets. Then I remembered Burgo and was gripped by pain.
I sat up, swung my legs over the edge of the bed and, remembering even in my misery the condition of the carpet, searched with my toes until I found my shoes. I stumbled to the window, pushed it open and took deep breaths of fresh air. The sky was dark, streaked faintly with pink. I stood for a while watching the stars fade as the horizon became a pencil-line of gold, trying not to feel or think until I was shivering so much that my jaws ached. Leaving the window open I returned to bed. Turning my face to a pillow that smelt like the lion house at the zoo I cried long and heartily.
From the moment Harriet had planted in my mind the idea of escaping to Ireland, I had had neither the time nor the opportunity to give myself up to grief. I had thought of Burgo frequently with longing, with tenderness, with anxiety, but I had not told myself that I had parted from the love of my life for ever. I had informed Kit that such was the case but I had not truly believed it. Now I had to say to myself, sternly, firmly, finally, that everything was over.
Until my affair with Burgo I had not believed in the alchemy of love. My romantic fantasies had featured men remote from the world’s stain, indifferent to if not actually scornful of the establishment, devoted to a life of the intellect, with a passion for Hawksmoor perhaps, or Russian objets de vertu. In other words, they had to be like me but infinitely better, wiser, cleverer, nobler and possessed of encyclopaedic knowledge. They also had to be heterosexual, which was going against Nature, but I had continued to hope. A Tory politician, and one moreover not particularly interested in the decorative arts and without epicurean tastes, was so far from my imagining that I could only bow to love’s transfiguring power.
From the moment we had declared our love in the rain-drenched laurel bushes of Cutham Hall I had realized that my proud presumption that I was in a position to dictate terms was an illusion. After that I had deliberately silenced all misgivings by losing myself in the absorbing happiness of the present. I had disobeyed every prompting of common sense to look out for myself. I had fooled myself to the top of my bent, as the saying is. I had crushed one illusion – that I knew what I was doing – with the weight of a thousand others.
After he had driven all the way from London to kiss me I had endured three days of waiting for the telephone to ring quite as meekly as that irritatingly humble Griselda whose knuckling under to her husband’s tyranny had so infuriated me when we read about her in The Canterbury Tales at school. Now I had an inkling of what love was, my understanding of human nature seemed to have expanded a hundredfold. But probably that was an illusion too.
‘Roberta.’ I could hear voices in the background.
‘Hello.’
Mrs Treadgold came into the hall. There must have been something in my voice that suggested intrigue for out of the corner of my eye I saw her pause and begin to poke the feather duster between the banisters.
‘Can you pick me up from Blackheath station at twelve on Sunday morning?’ He sounded preoccupied, businesslike.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll walk up to that little hump-backed bridge beyond the car-park and meet you there.’
‘All right.’
‘Goodbye.’ He had put down the receiver.
I favoured Mrs Treadgold with a beatific smile. She, poor woman, had a job in hand for the staircase was floridly carved and filmed with the dust of ages. I floated away to peel potatoes, each one of which seemed to be surrounded by a shimmering mist.
Burgo was leaning on the bridge, looking down at the water when I drove up. I had thought of this moment almost every minute of every waking hour. I had planned to be poised, fluent and witty, but his actual presence was devastating to my composure. When he got into the car I felt suddenly so shy I could not look at him. Somehow I put the car into gear and found myself driving somewhere, anywhere. My mind was confused. How had it happened that I found myself in this extraordinarily intimate complicity with a man I hardly knew? He was so unfamiliar, so urbane, so blindingly fair, so … well … big. He filled the interior of the Wolseley, his head almost touching the ceiling, his knees brushing the dashboard. Wha
t was I doing having secret assignations with someone who could only bring me to harm? I was courting disaster. I felt almost sick with fright.
After we had driven a couple of miles in silence Burgo pointed to a lay-by ahead. ‘Just pull up over there,’ he said, like a driving instructor about to explain the intricacies of a three-point turn. I did as I was told. ‘Turn the engine off.’
I obeyed, improvising a flight across the fields.
‘Look at me, darling.’
With reluctance I turned my head and saw that the light of mockery in his eyes, the first thing that had attracted me to him at that ghastly lunch in the Carlton House Hotel, was absent. On this occasion I was grateful. He took my hand.
‘Don’t think me conceited when I say that I knew this was going to happen. Right from the beginning. I knew it had to happen. But even though I knew it I’m still astonished that now it has. The anticipation has only been months but it feels like half my life. I shall never be the same person again.’
With those words he ceased to be an intimidating stranger. He lifted my hand and kissed it. I had the fanciful idea that we were familiars wandering the earth who, despite every probability, had found each other. I forgot that words uttered as solemn truths at moments like these can be ridiculed or disowned in time to come. I forgot that lovers have thrilled to the bio-chemistry of physical attraction since they first crawled from primeval ponds. I believed that our love was decreed by a superior natural law, that it was irresistible and unalterable.
‘Do you mind very much what sort of place we have lunch?’ he asked.
‘No. Anything will do.’
He rested his hand lightly on my knee. ‘Let’s go on then and see what we come to.’
There was no attempt to repeat the uncontrolled passion of our last meeting. How astute he was, how accurately he divined my feelings. It seemed to me a confirmation of the fitness of our relationship. It did not occur to me then that he was just good at reading other people’s minds.
After a few miles of wooded lanes we crossed into Kent. Soon we saw a sign: ‘200 yards next left. The Fisherman’s Reel. Good Food and Accommodation. Recommended.’
‘It doesn’t say by whom,’ said Burgo. ‘Never mind. We can drive on if it’s horrible. I ought to have done some research. It’s been a busy few days. On Thursday the last division was at five in the morning. I made a speech about the use of clear English in legal documents. I hope it was all right. I can’t remember a word of what I said. I was thinking about you all the time.’
‘Were you? I’m glad.’
‘Are you, darling? You don’t despise me for being so helplessly in love with you that I’m reduced to a dumb animal half the time?’
Naturally I did not. I turned to look at him.
‘Mind the hedge,’ he said.
The Fisherman’s Reel was small, thatched, whitewashed and pretty with a duck-pond at its gate and apple trees in its orchardlike garden where hens pecked and cats lazed. Beyond the orchard a narrow river ran, brown and rippling beneath a tunnel of willows and elders. There were no other customers. We sat under the apple trees and drank a bottle of wine. The sun caressed the blistered table-top and my bare arms and played with the shadows on the long grass.
‘You look like a visitation,’ he said. ‘The light’s making a halo round your head and your hair’s burning like fire. You ought to have a flaming sword. I can hardly look at you.’ He took my hand and held on to it. ‘Don’t ascend on clouds of glory just yet.’
The waitress brought out a cloth, knives and forks and a jug of water. She banged the things down and told us what there was on the menu in a tone that suggested we were putting her to a great deal of trouble by requesting food. We ordered duck and green peas. It was surprisingly good: half a duck each, crisp outside, succulent within; roast potatoes; a mountain of peas that were sweet and not overcooked. I was so affected by nervous exhilaration that I ate everything. Burgo managed about half his. The waitress came out again to clear the plates. She looked at us with barely concealed hostility and asked us if we wanted pudding. With her pointed teeth and cold eyes she reminded me of a pike. Burgo praised the food and the prettiness of the place and asked her whether she was a native of Sussex.
To my surprise the woman unbent in response to his compliments. I suppose it was rare that good-looking young men bothered to be charming to her. She and her husband had bought the Fisherman’s Reel three years ago, having run a public house in the East End for twenty years. Her name, Burgo discovered, was Mrs Slattery. Mr Slattery did the cooking while she saw to the housekeeping and accounting. It had been her husband’s lifelong dream to move to the country but she missed the noise and bustle of town life. They were losing money due to the new bypass; there were not enough customers; she was bored. I noticed that though she continued to complain, the sour look left her face and she became animated, almost girlish.
‘Now what will you have, madam?’ She smiled at me for the first time. ‘Bert makes a very nice bread-and-butter pudding. Or there’s raspberries picked this morning.’
‘Raspberries, please.’ I smiled back at her but she was looking at Burgo.
‘Bread-and-butter pudding sounds too good to be resisted,’ he said. ‘But if the raspberries are home-grown I’m going to have some of those as well.’
Mrs Slattery told him about Bert’s vegetable patch and he looked as fascinated as though she had been revealing the secret of the construction of the pyramids.
‘We’ll have some of your best cognac with our coffee,’ he said and Mrs Slattery hurried away, quite delighted with us.
‘What a pity she doesn’t know who you are,’ I said. ‘If she was a Labour supporter this morning, she’d be a Conservative now.’
‘I don’t suppose she bothers to vote. They’ll be too busy to make a special trip into town. And she’s the kind who thinks politicians are only concerned with feathering their own nests at her expense.’ I was conscious of thinking much the same myself but I said nothing. ‘The trouble is, we do so little for people like the Slatterys. They work hard so we can take a large slice of their profits to support the idle, the dishonest and the broken-backed. The tax threshold ought to be much higher than it is. Of course there’s satisfaction to be got from doing a job well and leading a decent life and all that but they ought to have some kind of acknowledgement from the State. We support farmers when they have a bad year and we bail out certain flashy industries if the boss has the ear of a minister but people like the Slatterys, earning, I would guess, not much above subsistence level, have to soldier on unaided.’
I realized that his interest was genuine, that he had actually enjoyed talking to her. My own attitude to people like Mrs Slattery was regrettably self-centred, indifferent at best. I was too diffident or too lazy to try to break through barriers of dislike and resentment.
‘Tell me, darling.’ He took my hand again. ‘I was wondering: must you go home tonight? Do you think your family could do without you for a few more hours?’
‘I could telephone Oliver and tell him what I’d planned for supper,’ I said with a coolness that belied the beating of my heart. ‘Luckily my father insists we have something cold on Sundays “to save the servants”. The fact that we haven’t actually got any servants is immaterial.’
‘Would you, darling? There’s nothing I want more in the world than to spend the night with you.’
I had noticed a call-box several yards down the lane from the duck-pond. Fortunately Oliver answered. He was drowsy and inclined to protest at the idea of chopping beetroot into a bowl and folding gherkins and capers into mayonnaise but I promised that one evening next week I would drive him to the Nine Elms where there was a new barmaid who had taken his fancy. Oliver had yet to turn up on time to take his driving test, which negligence had frequently obliged me to play the part of Pandarus.
‘I’ve taken a room,’ said Burgo when I returned. ‘The room, I should say. Apparently Mrs Slattery’s mother-in-law is in
the other. She’s bedridden and we’re not to take any notice if she calls out in the night. Mrs Slattery says she’s a wicked old woman who likes to cause trouble and make people traipse up and down with trays all day. It seems there’s no love lost.’
‘She has my sympathy. Actually, they both do.’
‘You don’t mind it not being a five-star hotel?’
‘I much prefer this. Really. I don’t actually like expensive hotels. Besides … we have to be careful, don’t we?’
Burgo gazed at me reflectively. After a while he said, ‘Roberta. You have all my love.’
I recalled these words and the look that accompanied them many times in the months that followed.
Over pudding and coffee – I ate most of his – we talked of ordinary things. Except that nothing was ordinary once we had shared it, it was transmuted to something precious, ineffaceable. Afterwards we drove down to the coast and walked along the beach, peered into rock pools, dug fossils from the cliff, played with a friendly dog. We watched yachts careering across the bay and dunlins and plovers probing the sand for worms and molluscs. We collected seaweed and shells. Burgo was impressed by my ability to identify a thick-lipped dog whelk and a wentletrap.
‘Oliver and I used to spend part of the summer holiday with Aunt Cornelia who lived in Lyme Regis. Not really an aunt, but a distant cousin. She didn’t like children. We were sent out to play immediately after breakfast and we weren’t allowed to come back until six o’clock. Then we had to go straight to bed. Aunt Cornelia had been married to a professor of marine biology and his books were kept in our bedroom. I used to read Oliver to sleep with descriptions of shells and birds.’
‘Tell me more about it. I like to imagine you as a child.’
‘When the weather was good it was lovely. We spent our pocket money on food, mostly chips and sweets, and paddled and made sandcastles. But more often it rained and the wind from the sea was freezing. Oliver used to go blue. He was the thinnest child you’ve ever seen, with limbs like bamboo canes, swollen at the joints, and skin like biscuit porcelain. I used to take him into a promenade shelter and wrap him in newspapers from litter bins, tied on with string. Once we found a pair of knickers on the beach which Oliver put on over the top of his shorts. Aunt Cornelia carried them out to the dustbin between finger and thumb, smacked Oliver until he screamed and sent him to bed without any supper. We were awfully pleased, I regret to say, when shortly afterwards she was arrested for shoplifting and my father refused to speak to her ever again.’
Moonshine Page 23
