Ruby was in the kitchen taking a lemon meringue pie out of the oven when I reached home.
‘Not bad, though I say it as shouldn’t.’ She looked with satisfaction at the crisp billows, touched with gold. Brough, who was sitting at the table eating a sandwich two inches thick, looked at the pie appreciatively. His neck was bulging over his collar, his uniform straining at the seams.
‘It looks delicious,’ I said. I waited for Brough to finish his sandwich and go out. ‘Now, Ruby.’ I detained her forcibly from returning to the cooking pots by placing my hand on her arm. ‘Tell me the truth. Are you quite happy here?’
Ruby looked puzzled. ‘Why, Roberta! As though I could be anything else. Naturally, we all miss your dear dadda, but I’m ever so fond of your mother and it’s such a lovely old house. And Oliver, bless him, he’s a dear boy. And I was afraid, dear, you’d resent me but instead you’ve shown me nothing but kindness. When you’re all so good to me, how could I not be happy?’
‘I think the boot’s on the other foot but we won’t argue about that. The thing is, I want to go back to London. To live, I mean. I can only do that if you’ll stay and look after my mother.’
‘Bless you, dear, I’d like nothing better. It’s good of you to trust me with such a precious duty. I know how much she’s going to miss you but like all mothers she thinks more of her children’s happiness than her own.’
I kissed Ruby warmly. ‘You must let me know if there’s anything you want.’
I went away to make telephone calls.
FIFTY-THREE
‘You can’t think what a relief it is to have you back,’ Sarah said as we ate scrambled eggs and smoked trout for supper in the kitchen of the little house in Paradise Row. Five days had passed since I had been to Ladyfield and met Burgo in the China House. ‘The last girl who had your room was even worse than the others. She always left her knickers soaking in the basin. And she left the lid off the fucking bread bin with boring regularity. Every day I came back to stale bread. And the one who had Jazzy’s room ate curry every night. The whole place stank like an unwashed armpit.’ It can be seen from this that Sarah ran a tight ship but I was, of course, used to that. Her language reminded me of Liddy and thereafter of other people. It could not be helped. I was in the same condition that poor Jasmine had been in when she came to Curraghcourt. Associations would be made however hard I tried to divert my thoughts. ‘Anyway, that apart, it’s terrific to have you back.’
‘It’s lovely to be back.’
Sarah stared at me through horn-rimmed spectacles, her round brown eyes serious. ‘I hope you’ve put it all behind you. It was an almighty cock-up but you’ve lived to tell the tale. I only hope his wife is making him pay by demanding constant attention to her tiniest whim during the day and turning the cold shoulder to him at night. He’s probably a shadow of his former self.’
I realized she was talking about Burgo. ‘Actually I saw him just the other day and he looked buoyant and flourishing.’
‘What? You idiot! You madwoman!’ Sarah put her hands to her temples and opened her mouth wide as though about to scream. ‘You actually agreed to meet him?’
‘I didn’t intend to. Burgo and his sister arranged it between them. Don’t worry, I wasn’t in the least tempted to start it up again.’
‘You mean the bastard wasn’t content with nearly wrecking your life once but wanted to do it all over again?’
‘He isn’t really a bastard, you know.’ I saw Sarah’s nostrils flare. ‘Honestly, all he wanted was to recapture that first fine careless rapture. He’s used to having what he wants. Luckily, I wasn’t interested. But I won’t hear him abused.’
Sarah put down her fork and looked at me accusingly. ‘You’re still in love with him!’
‘I promise you, cross my heart and hope to die, stick my finger in my eye, I’m not.’ This made me think of Flavia. ‘I swear I no longer love him. But I wish him well. There’s nothing wrong with that.’
‘No-o-o.’ I saw that from now on Sarah would regard me as someone who needed to be protected from her wildest excesses. Well, perhaps she was right.
‘In fact meeting him again provided the impetus for moving back to London so I’m grateful, really. I was in a state of hopeless indecision.’
‘Oh?’ Sarah pounced like a stoat on a rabbit. ‘So what’s the state of play, Bobbie? In my experience a girl only really gets over a man she’s been desperately fond of by spotting a better one waiting in the wings. Does this immunity to the charms of Burgo Latimer MP have anything to do with Kit? I dread to think of the complications, if so.’
Having sacked one unsatisfactory lodger in order to make room for me Sarah had decided she might as well get rid of both. I had learned, to my great pleasure, that Jasmine was coming back to live in Paradise Row. In fact we had only just missed seeing each other. She had departed, twenty-four hours before my return, for three weeks in Portofino with Kit. I presumed MI5 was bearing the brunt of the cost of an expensive hotel. This meant that for a while Sarah and I had the tiny house to ourselves. Sarah had met Kit when he came to pick up Jazzy and take her to the airport. I imagined the little red car bursting with matching luggage.
‘I swear I’ll be only too pleased if Jazz and Kit make a go of it. It was my intention that they should … delight in each other’s company.’
‘Get off with each other, you mean? What on earth was this Irish place like? From what Jasmine said it sounded like a cross between The Celtic Twilight and a film by Buñuel.’
‘It was … very beautiful.’ I saw that Sarah was waiting for me to go on. ‘A castle dating from the thirteenth century, though most of what you saw was Georgian, set in two hundred acres of semi-wild parkland.’
‘Sounds idyllic if you like that sort of thing.’ Sarah looked unenthusiastic. She was town-born and -bred and disliked the country. ‘But what about the occupants? From what you said on the phone I got the impression they were rather dull. But you were always so cagey.’
‘I was afraid of being overheard. The telephone was inside a sedan chair with a door that didn’t fit very well.’
‘A sedan chair?’ Sarah laughed. ‘But of course. Fancy me not guessing that. Well, Jazzy was a little more forthcoming than you. She gave me a thumbnail sketch of the major players. Constance was the name of the maiden aunt, as far as I remember. Jazzy said she was kind and vague and madly intellectual and in love with someone Jazz thought was possibly gay.’
I stood up to check that I had turned off the grill. I knew I had but remembering Constance with sudden sharpness, and knowing it was unlikely I would ever see her again, threatened my composure. I felt like a beetle pinned to a board beneath Sarah’s magnifying glass. ‘Certainly sensitive and intelligent. Perhaps intellectual, too. She became a great friend.’
‘Of course Jazzy thinks anyone who reads the words of bra advertisements in the underground is a serious bluestocking. Tell me about the lover.’
‘Eugene isn’t gay, just a little self-centred and thin-skinned.’ I remembered Eugene throwing himself between Constance and the bullet. ‘But not without courage. I came to be very fond of him.’ Sarah frowned. ‘But not fond in the way you’re thinking. He and Constance are now deliriously happy.’
‘There were three children, weren’t there? From what Jazzy said they sounded difficult.’
‘Difficult? No, I don’t think so. Liddy’s the eldest. Bored, restless, teetering always on the edge of depression. Eating problems, rebellious, the usual teenage identity crisis. Flavia’s the youngest. She feels everything acutely, overflows with affection – the girls were suffering from lack of attention from their parents. And Flurry, the boy, he’s clever but finds relationships baffling. He lives in his own world. Perhaps he’s the happiest because of that.’
‘Well, that adds up to difficult in my book.’
‘I can’t tell. I haven’t had much to do with children. All I know is I loved them dearly.’ I felt a shiver of pain, and concentrated
on scraping a blob of scrambled egg from the cloth with the blade of my knife.
‘Goodness! The place seems to have been charged with emotion.’ Sarah’s tone was sarcastic. She mistrusted expressions of affection, though I knew this was nothing more than a defence. She pretended to be tough and cynical because she was afraid of being hoodwinked by other people’s insincerity. ‘Presumably you didn’t extend this devotion to the neglectful parents?’
‘Their father was away a lot in Dublin. Their mother was in a coma. But she got better.’
‘Ah, yes, Jazzy did mention the pretty waiflike wife.’
I explained about Violet’s stroke and her gradual recovery. Sarah grew sympathetic despite herself.
‘Poor woman! What a cruel thing to happen! I can hardly bear to imagine what it must have been like. But I’m beginning to understand why you were happy in Ireland. The situation was tailormade for you and you for it. I can see you rushing round righting wrongs and setting things in order. It was exactly what you needed after that bastard’ – she caught my eye – ‘after you’d managed to get your psyche into a double clove-hitch and convinced yourself you were personally responsible for the Fall of man and his expulsion from the Garden of Eden.’ This made me think of Kit and as though on cue Sarah said, ‘Kit was there quite a bit, wasn’t he? Before Jazz arrived, I mean.’
‘He spent several weeks at Curraghcourt during the ten months I was there. What did you think of him?’
‘Charming. Intelligent. Friendly. Perhaps a little too charming. He said sensible things about the law and barristering. But I noticed that when Jazz told him you’d lived here too, before you went to Ireland, Kit responded like a pointer spotting a still-warm feathered corpse. He stiffened all over – well, the parts I could see, anyway – and he grew mighty thoughtful. He was having a good look at everything, much more interested than he had been. So what gives?’
‘Nothing gives. I swear Kit and I were friends, never lovers.’
‘You mean he tried to get into your pants but you wouldn’t let him.’
‘Kit wants to make love to every woman he sees. That’s the only thing that bothers me. I hope he’s not going to make Jazz unhappy by being unfaithful to her.’
‘I’m not worried about her. She’ll bounce back all right. She got over Teddy in less time than it takes to jug a kipper, didn’t she? It’s you I’m worried about. Why do you look as though you’ve seen a ghost and it’s dogging your footsteps and tugging at your sleeve?’
‘I’m all right, Sarah, really. I’m delighted to be back here. I just need to get my teeth into some work and then I’ll be able to slip back into my old way of life before I met Burgo. It’s what I long for. To have everything simple and straightforward and to be fancy-free.’
‘Mm.’ Sarah took a wedge of treacle tart. She was a hearty eater and scornful of both hemlines and waistlines. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me. You don’t trust me.’
‘I do. Absolutely.’
This was true. It was myself I didn’t trust. I saw that she was not satisfied but I had no desire to take her into my confidence. I thought it would be easier to pretend to myself that I was not miserable if I did not have sympathetic eyes following me about the house.
Sarah had been called to the bar during the last year and had also taken up real tennis and Italian lessons; a defence, she said, against the grimness of the previous tenants and their horrible habits. She had a new boyfriend, a stocky, jolly Welsh barrister who was a bachelor, so she was out a good deal. I had nothing to do. I went to art galleries and sat for hours before masterpieces, then went away having seen very little of them. I took myself to the cinema and the theatre but would have found it difficult to explain the plots. I walked the streets of London, trying to adjust to the noise, the dirt, the smells, the crowds. The hardness of the pavements, the glare of the lights, the constant blare of noise acted on my feelings like an abrasion of nerve-endings. The Thames flowing nearby was a great comfort. I spent many hours gazing at its ever-changing expanse, watching the ships sail up and down it, imagining it flowing out to the sea, to wild places.
‘Here’s something that’ll interest you,’ said Sarah about three days after my return to Paradise Row. She threw The Times across the breakfast table. ‘Fourth or fifth item down in the personal columns.’
I read it quickly. Latimer. On 22 April, to Anna and Burgo, at the Princess Alexandra Wing, St Edward’s Hospital, a daughter (Isobel Helen). Thanks to all staff. On the opposite page, in the society column, was a photograph of the parents, holding something tiny swaddled in shawls. Anna looked happy, Burgo looked amused. Minister celebrates happy event, said the caption. I did not bother to read on.
‘Surely that was about the time he was trying to get back with you?’ Sarah’s brown eyes were indignant.
‘It was the day before.’ I paused, wondering what I really felt. ‘I suppose the attention wasn’t on him and he didn’t like that. He was bored so he thought of me.’
‘Don’t put yourself down.’ Sarah was severe. ‘More likely the baby is a sop to his career.’
‘Poor little thing, if so. She looks pleased, anyway.’
‘You don’t mind, Bobbie, do you?’
‘No. I’m glad, really. It seems to put a very positive full stop to everything. I expect he’ll be devoted to his daughter once she’s old enough to admire him. Perhaps a nursery was what the marriage needed, after all.’
In my third week of being back in London, I was lucky enough to get a job working at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was a more lowly position than I might have expected, given my qualifications and experience, and the pay was not particularly good, but I needed a reason to get up in the morning. And being surrounded by beautiful things was an abiding solace and a compensation for the lonely hours before dawn when I lay awake and tried unsuccessfully to keep my thoughts within bounds.
I was doubly glad to have the job when Jasmine returned because she and Kit spent much of their time in Paradise Row. Kit was working unpredictable hours as usual. Jazz was not working at all. He was superficially friendly, embracing me warmly, asking me about my work and talking about his authors, but beneath the boyish charm was an extreme coldness. We rarely talked of Ireland because when we did a disagreeable tension crept in, which we were powerless to prevent. I suppose there were certain things that we were both anxious to forget.
When Jazzy wound her beautiful golden arms around him or pressed her lips to his cheek or nibbled his ear he would steal a look at me, a look of triumph that had an edge of accusation. I did not blame him. I was determined to work my way out of my misery. Kit seemed to have decided to copulate his way out of his. I was not remotely jealous but the walls of Paradise Row were thin and I did not particularly enjoy hearing Kit and Jazzy making love with noisy exuberance. I always thought of Violet and in this context the idea of her was literally agony.
Constance wrote regularly with the latest news, always as though she believed I was about to return and take everything up where I had left off. They were busier than ever with visitors. Scaffolding was going up round the east tower, ready for work to begin on the roof. None of our extravagant plans had been necessary to raise the additional seven thousand pounds. Finn had simply gone to the bank for a loan. He had found out, as he was bound to eventually, about the poteen fund and had forbidden its continuance, so Timsy had set up the still in the lodge which Finn had given him years before. This was much more convenient for everyone and meant that the demesne was no longer crawling with seekers after oblivion. Finn had also discovered that Timsy had been running a betting shop, taking bets on everything from the length of the present Pontificate to the chance of a dry spell lasting five days. Constance had been annoyed to find that long odds had been offered on the chance of her and Eugene ever making a match of it.
Liddy and Danny wrote letters little short of novellas to each other every week. Liddy no longer talked of going to London. Paris was the summit of he
r desire. She was eating quite well, Danny having said that he liked busty girls. Violet had managed five steps with only one stick. She would be grateful for the Harrods catalogue. Constance hoped I wouldn’t think her conceited for mentioning it but I had given her so much encouragement that she thought I might be pleased to know that two more of her poems had been published. She had been invited to join the Galway Poets, a fascinating group of people who met monthly for readings in Williamsbridge. Constance would be extremely (underlined three times) grateful for another present of you-know-whats. (I had sent her a box of forty Durex Fetherlites my first week in London. I presumed life with Eugene was proceeding satisfactorily.)
The railway was getting on well. A hundred yards of track had gone down. Dicky Dooley’s wife had come to sit at the table in the gatehouse and sell tickets. She was sulking because Larkie O’Kelly was running the grocery store in Kilmuree practically single-handed. Tins of artichoke hearts, Bobbie! And French mustard, chestnut purée and lumpfish roe!
Flavia had trained Maria and Osgar to respond to the whistle, five times out of ten. The demand for handmade butter that they were selling in the tea-room was so great they had bought another cow from Michael McOstrich and a second-hand milking-machine. Sissy and Michael McOstrich had married. The reception had been at the Fitzgeorge Arms, a lavish spree according to gossip but no one from Curraghcourt had been invited, which was not surprising.
Kieran, Turlough McGurn’s delivery boy, had quarrelled with his master and come to work in the walled garden. They had harvested the broad beans, carrots, potatoes and spring cabbages I had sown. The cauliflowers had come to nothing and most of the peas had been eaten by slugs but they had so many courgettes they were selling them in the tea-room. Mrs O’Kelly’s cakes were all right but nothing like so good as mine. (I tried not to be ignobly pleased to hear this.) They had put glass into a small area of the greenhouse for seed-sowing. They planned to restore the whole, section by section, as the money became available. Maud had said she could not hear an English accent without thinking of me. She had not said what it was she thought, but Constance felt it was near enough a compliment, coming from Maud, to be worth passing on.
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