‘It doesn’t sound a very happy childhood.’
‘Oh, it was like most people’s, I suppose. Good and bad. Nothing terrible. It’s not that easy to be happy as a child, is it?’
‘I think most people would say the opposite. No responsibilities, no worries about money, no fear of the future, no regrets, no knowledge of wickedness, sickness, death.’
‘But children are made to dance to other people’s tunes too much. The boredom and stupidity of school is agony. And then girls can be so beastly to one other. One feels the wounds of rejection and humiliation and failure so deeply. My pony was the best thing about my childhood, actually.’
‘I know from Fleur that no man can hope to rival a horse in a girl’s affections.’
‘That’s true, of course. But what you mean is that childhood’s saving grace is living utterly in the moment. One’s pleasures, when they come, are unmixed.’
‘I’d like to recapture that childlike intensity of feeling so I could always remember this – being here with you – whenever I’m in a committee meeting or listening to a dull speech.’ Burgo walked round in a circle, looking up at the sky while the breeze lifted his hair and ruffled his shirt. ‘A cloudless sky. The sea burning my eyes with its sparkling. Seagulls; the grating of shingle beneath my feet. The pink of the inside of this shell’ – he held it out towards me – ‘is the colour of … what would you say? Roses? Flesh? Let’s agree to be utterly irresponsible and live in the moment.’
I took the shell and put it in my pocket. ‘We can try.’
We had tea in a café on the seafront of the nearest town. We bought toothbrushes, toothpaste and underwear. I bought a comb and Burgo bought a shirt. Then we drove back to the Fisherman’s Reel. There were two other couples in the bar so we retreated to the orchard. Mrs Slattery came out with a cold bottle of Sancerre and cushions for our chairs. The setting sun warmed the top of my head and a cat sat on my knee. Burgo smoked a cigar while I ate crisps. I was so happy that I could not keep myself from smiling.
Despite the dropping temperature we ate outside. The soup was homemade tomato, the boiled potatoes and runner beans home-grown, the chicken one of Mrs Slattery’s own. Burgo talked about what it was like to be a Member of Parliament. He described esoteric rules: no shaking of hands, for example, and no applauding. Approval was expressed by waving order papers, cheering or, if there was one, banging the table with one’s hands. If you wanted to make a point during a division you had to put on a collapsible silk opera hat kept in the chamber specially for the purpose.
‘It sounds just like a boys’ public school, with arcane slang for Matron and tuck.’
‘It’s quite absurd, I agree. But there’s so much about my life that’s ridiculous. I can’t think why I enjoy it so much. I often spend from breakfast to at least ten o’clock at night – sometimes the debate and voting goes on until dawn – at the House, tabling questions, attending meetings, dictating letters, researching in the library, meeting constituents. On Fridays I come down to Sussex and spend two days visiting schools, factories, housing projects, retirement homes, sitting through several hours of surgery, trying to put people’s lives straight when they’ve gone so crooked that only emigration or a world war would do any good. Then there are lunches and dinners, parties, bazaars, fêtes – you name it, I’m supposed to be there.’
‘Even tennis tournaments.’
‘Ah, well, I must admit that wasn’t in the line of duty. Don’t be angry – I asked Fleur to let me know when you were next going to Ladyfield. I wasn’t expecting it to be the next day but the minute she rang to tell me about the tournament, I arranged with my pair in the House to be away for the afternoon and hopped on to the next train. I know it sounds like wolfish behaviour but I was desperate. I knew you’d try to avoid meeting me. Are you furious?’
Was I? I disliked the idea that Fleur and Burgo had discussed me in such evidently frank terms, but the end was so entirely what I had myself desired that it would be hypocrisy to be annoyed. And had I not myself arranged a few hours ago to conduct Oliver to the Nine Elms so he could try to seduce the barmaid?
I laughed. ‘I don’t think I can be angry with you.’
‘I should hate myself if I ever gave you real cause.’
‘Remember, we said we were going to be irresponsible and live in the present? But would it be cheating if you went on telling me more about your life during the week? Just so I can imagine it tomorrow when you’re back governing the nation and I’m sieving lumps out of custard. How depressingly our destinies have conformed to the stereotype. Wasn’t it James the First who said that Parliament can do anything but make a man into a woman?’
‘He was wrong. The laws about transsexuals are being amended to do just that.’
We sat outside, talking, holding hands discreetly beneath the table until the mosquitoes chewed our ankles and it grew dark. Inside the lounge bar was closed for redecorating so the snug was crowded.
‘Want a nightcap?’ Burgo asked. I shook my head, aware of many eyes upon us. ‘Well, then … shall we go up?’
A man leaning against the counter made a great play of looking at his watch and then winked at Burgo.
‘Goodnight, sir. Madam.’ Mrs Slattery nodded at us from behind the bar. Her fishy eyes were curious, her smile conspiratorial. I wondered what there was about us that proclaimed so deafeningly that we were unmarried and in love. That is to say, not married to each other. A burst of raucous laughter accompanied us up the stairs.
The room was small with a sloping beamed ceiling and a floor with a gradient nearly as steep. It contained a bed, a wardrobe, a chair on which stood a table lamp and a minute triangular washbasin in one corner. The curtains were faded and the furniture painted with a lurid green gloss, but everything was clean.
‘I’m afraid they’ll be amusing themselves at our expense for the rest of the evening,’ I said as we surveyed each other across an expanse of white candlewick. ‘I wonder why we’re so conspicuous? I think it’s your fault for being so tall.’
‘Darling, don’t you realize you’d be conspicuous anywhere? There isn’t a man between eight and eighty who won’t look at you and speculate what it would be like to hold you in his arms. It was the first thing I thought of that day at the Carlton House—’
There were several sharp raps from the other side of the wall.
‘What was that?’ I asked, startled.
Burgo dropped his voice. ‘It must be Mrs Slattery’s mother-in-law.’
I giggled and at once there was more knocking.
‘The walls must be paper thin,’ whispered Burgo. ‘I’ll close the window—E-ow!’
‘Burgo! Oh, that must have hurt!’ He had banged his head against one of the beams and fallen on his back, luckily on to the bed. I forgot to keep my voice down and the knocking was louder and more indignant than before.
‘I think I’ve fractured my skull. The room’s gone dark.’
‘Let me see!’ I leaned over him. ‘Oh, you poor, poor darling! There’s blood. Just a minute.’ I edged my way round the bed to the washbasin and soaked the towel in cold water. ‘Is it absolute agony?’ I knelt on the bed beside him and dabbed tenderly at the tiny cut.
‘Absolute.’ He put his arms around me and pulled me down on top of him. ‘There’s only one cure for it. Now, my darling … now … now …’
There had followed a fusillade of knocking which, I am ashamed to say, we ignored.
I lay in my bed at Curraghcourt, tears sliding down my face, and wondered how I should ever get over it. Where was Burgo now? I imagined him lying awake in his flat in Lord North Street, thinking of me, trying to guess where I had gone – why I had gone. During those terrible telephone conversations after the newspapers had got hold of the story I had tried to explain why I could not allow him to give up everything for me. He had accused me of pride. He had asked me if I loved him enough to put up with a few months of disapproval and misunderstanding. He had sworn that his love wou
ld not falter. Besides, he had added, though he would have to offer his resignation as Minister for Culture, he had friends in the constituency and he thought he might hold on to his seat. If we were discreet and he worked hard and behaved himself he might, after a few years out in the cold, be allowed to creep back into office. When I heard the determination in his voice I knew that whatever he might say about being ready to consider the world well lost for love, he was pinning all his hopes on being able to recover his position.
And why should I doubt that this would be so? Supposing it was only a question of waiting a while before we had everything we wished for? What was I doing, wilfully sacrificing all my happiness? And perhaps his? Suddenly I sat up in bed, threw back the covers and felt again for my shoes. I would get dressed immediately, ring for a taxi and begin the long, complicated journey home without delay. I would leave a note for Constance thanking her for her kindness, explaining that I was sorry to let her down but that circumstances beyond my control … From Paddington I would go straight to Lord North Street. It would be dark by then. The reporters would have gone home. The couple on the ground floor would let me in. I would run up the stairs, take the key from the Chinese jar, let myself into the flat. He would probably be out. I would get into bed to wait for him as I had done several times before. He would come in weary, sad. I would see in his eyes recognition, joy … Ah! I paused in the act of reaching for my dressing-gown. Supposing Burgo was thinking of me at this moment with feelings that included relief that I had taken matters into my own hands, that I had saved him from the infinitely painful business of ending it?
I guessed he would find it impossible to say the words that would break the ties between us. Burgo was like other men in that he shrank from emotional difficulties. In pursuing me he had not thought of his career, his wife, of what he might lose. Men are such simple creatures, motivated by lust, ambition, immediate gratification. Supposing his enemies were too much for him? He had brains, money, looks, charm. Many men were envious of him. He might not be able to win back what he had lost. He would try, I knew, to keep from me the knowledge that every day he regretted his sacrifice. But I would see through the pretence. As I grew wrinkled and grey-haired and my bust merged with my waist and my conversation became a dull reiteration of prejudices, he would look at me and ask himself if it had been worthwhile and I would know what he was thinking. Men do not love as women do. They may remain fond, as of an old dog or a comfortable pair of shoes, but fondness would not compensate for everything that Burgo had given up.
So I told myself for the thousandth time as I lay back in bed and pulled the covers over me once more. I was a coward. I could not endure the torture of seeing his love grow less day by day. But surely I did our love a disservice? It was not as the common run of loves. It was worth so much more than tawdry ambition. A politician’s life was one of cynical manoeuvres, suppressing convictions, distorting the truth in order to catch the eye and ear of those who had crawled higher. As I pressed my hands to my temples I heard a soft thud which came from the direction of the window.
It was too dark to see into the shadows. I waited, still holding my breath. A faint scratching sound was followed by another thud. Something, or things, were creeping across the floor. I felt for the light switch, pressed it. Nothing happened. With shaking fingers I found the matches and lit the candle, holding it high. Five pairs of eyes gleamed, blinked. One pair headed back towards the window.
I let out my breath in a long slow sigh. Only someone as deprived of pets as I had been could have failed to recognize immediately that the overpowering smell in my room was that of tom-cats.
‘Puss, puss!’ I called.
They hesitated. One more courageous than the others advanced a step towards me before sitting down and washing his hind leg. ‘Come here! Good pussy.’ I patted the bedclothes. The brave one strolled over and the others watched to see what would be his fate. I scrabbled enticingly with my fingers on the eiderdown. After staring at my hand for some time he sprang and landed by my knees. Gently I stroked his ginger ears. He began to purr. I scratched him under his chin and he rolled over in ecstasy. A clinking sound drew my attention to the tray which Constance had left on the floor. The other cats were licking out the soup bowl and crunching up the pink wafer biscuits. A spat broke out over the cheese which was so hard I had been unable to eat it.
I got out of bed and divided the remains of my supper fairly between them, not forgetting the brave one. They gulped the scraps down as though they were starving. When they had finished the brave one leaped back on to the bed and washed briefly before curling up to sleep. Three jumped into the chair. One climbed the curtains of my bed to lie in the canopy. It was evident from the speed with which they made themselves at home that my room was in regular use as a cat’s dormitory. While I observed them two more cats dropped over the window sill and, skirting me warily, made their way over to the tray to lick the empty dishes.
I went to the window to look out. Dawn had revealed, just a couple of feet below the sill, a sloping roof ending in a parapet. To my left a larger expanse of roof stretched away among chimneypots, buttresses, gullies and turrets like a miniature village populated by cats. I counted six more. Some were sleeping; others contemplated the rising sun. Beyond the battlements the woodland, broken by brilliantly green fields, rolled away in gentle hills that in the far distance became black mountains, their peaks touched with tawny light. For a moment I had an intimation that my unhappiness, so overwhelming now, would ultimately, like all sorrows in every place, in every age, come to matter less than any one of those hills and trees, less even than a blade of grass. This was comforting.
I rescued my dressing-gown from beneath the slumbering brave one. He stirred and stretched out long skinny legs. His feet were unusually large, reminding me of lily-pads on stalks. I am not an expert on cats, or indeed any animal, but even I could see that there was something odd about this one. I stroked a soft striped paw. He gave half a purr then twitched it away, but not before I had been able to count seven toes.
EIGHTEEN
‘Good morning, Bobbie! I hope you slept well. Are you feeling better?’
Constance was standing by the side table in the hall fidgeting with a jug of drooping scarlet poppies and magenta corn-cockles as I came down the stairs. Ears of wheat stuck out above the flowers. It was the sort of thing the ladies of the Cutham Down and District Flower Club might have entered for a competition entitled ‘God Speed the Plough’ or, if the president had literary leanings, ‘Beldam Nature’.
‘Oh, yes. Thank you.’
‘I’m so glad.’ She rubbed fretfully at the mahogany surface. ‘It’s a pity the flowers are half dead already. It’s going to make an awful mess. What do you think of it?’
I walked over to the table and examined the arrangement. ‘It’s …’ I groped for an adjective ‘… unpretentious. Artless, perhaps, is what I mean.’
‘Do you really like it?’ Constance asked doubtfully.
This, my first morning as a hireling and dependant, was not the moment for truth. ‘It’s certainly original. I should never have thought of including a raffia doll in a vase of flowers.’
‘That’s one of Sissy’s fetishes, to protect the house from evil spirits.’ Constance put her head on one side and looked thoughtfully at the collection of bent stalks from which petals were already drifting down. Next to the doll a spider was beginning a web between the stalks of stinging nettles. ‘There’s something lacking in my aesthetic sense, you know,’ Constance continued. ‘I think it’s perfectly hideous. Sissy’s flower arrangements always make me feel as though I’m in a play by Eugene O’Neill. But if you admire it, it must be me that’s wrong.’
I decided to forget the flowers. ‘Shall I meet Sissy today?’
‘Yes, but I don’t know quite when. She’s doing her exercises at the moment.’
‘Is Sissy – I hope you won’t think me inquisitive but I’m a little confused – is Sissy your sister?’
‘I’m so stupid, I ought to have explained. And you must ask me anything you want to know. Sissy McGinty lives with us – has done for the last year, nearly – but she’s no relation. You might say she’s a friend of the family. Well …’ Constance looked apprehensive. ‘I may as well tell you the truth as you’re bound to know sooner or later. She’s Finn’s mistress.’
I was silent as I digested this. So there was a ménage à trois at Curraghcourt. In my experience, emotions tended to run high in such a mise en scène, no matter how sophisticated the players.
‘I hope you aren’t shocked.’ Constance regarded me anxiously. ‘Although we don’t share the same tastes in floral decoration, I’m fond of Sissy, though she isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. Naturally I realize that to those strictly brought up it may seem rather improper—’
‘I’m not shocked at all,’ I interrupted. ‘How could I be? I know nothing of the circumstances and anyway it’s none of my business.’
‘It’s awfully good of you not to mind,’ said Constance, as though relieved. ‘Father Deglan’s always hauling me over the coals about Finn and Sissy, as if I could do anything. Naturally he disapproves of sex unless it’s for babies – Father Deglan, I mean, Finn is definitely against babies – and even then he thinks it oughtn’t to be enjoyed. But the Church is flying in the face of human nature, so I tell him. Besides, Sissy absolutely adores Finn and love can’t be wrong, can it?’
Moonshine Page 24
