Trio

by Sue Gee

  I hope you don’t mind – I just don’t feel ready for that . . .

  Would it hurt her? Was he being too hesitant?

  I do understand. But just come! Come on Saturday. Can you do that?

  I can, he wrote, putting away his books. Moths bumped against the glass shade of the lamp, seeking and frantic. He scooped them up with jam jar and envelope, and shook them out into the night.

  Books were heaped up on the staffroom table. It was always a muddle in here: people coming and going from classes, flinging stuff down before lighting a pipe or cigarette, or taking tea from the trolley. Then they got out their books for the next lesson, bunged the last lot into pigeonholes.

  The windows were wide open on to the hills. The talk was of cricket – the Test Match at Lord’s, where Duggan and Gowens had booked seats for July, and Northumberland County. Events in Europe featured less: Chamberlain was in talks with Hitler, and he’d keep this country out of a war, said Armstrong, lighting up.

  But Steven, coming in one break-time, dumping his things on the table, saw something which brought him up short. A book lay on a pile in the corner, half-hidden by a text book, but the jacket’s image leapt. Outlined in thick black ink, a great fist smashed through to the foreground. Behind were bombed-out buildings. He made to see the title, the author, but Frank was suddenly there, scooping everything up as the tea girl came rattling in, and turning to greet her.

  ‘Good morning, Molly!’

  ‘Morning, Mr Embleton. Morning, everyone.’ She pushed the trolley into its corner. People swarmed round.

  Steven took his place in the queue and watched Frank go over to the pigeonholes. What was he reading? What bookshops had he visited in London? What was the meaning of that fist, those half-glimpsed ruins?

  ‘Frank?’

  ‘Steven.’ Frank gave him his easy, beautiful smile. Was it too easy? Was it a mask?

  ‘How was London?’

  Steven had asked this before, on the first day of term, just had the reply, ‘Very good, thanks. And how was your Easter? You went to the concert?’

  ‘I did. Everyone missed you.’

  Someone in particular had missed him, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch on that. Was Frank even aware of how much he was searched for at the end of every concert, how much he meant? If he wasn’t, it was not for Steven to tell him.

  ‘I missed everyone, too,’ said Frank. ‘Remind me what they played.’

  And then they were talking about the music – how quickly the conversation had been diverted – and about Miss Renner at the memorial window.

  ‘Poor Miss Renner. There are so many women like her.’

  Should he tell Frank about how much she’d upset Diana? It almost felt like breaking a confidence, though surely he must remember those long-ago days in the classroom, have heard those reproaches to his beautiful, half-attentive sister.

  The bell rang down the corridor, Frank got to his feet. ‘We’d better go.’

  Since then they’d talked only about classes, exam timetables, Straughan’s summer-term meeting – all the usual stuff.

  Now: ‘How was London?’ Steven asked again. ‘You haven’t really said much about it.’

  They were moving up in the queue; clouds of steam rose from the tea urn, drifting with cigarette smoke into the crowded room.

  ‘I saw some good people,’ said Frank, and reached for the teacup Molly was passing. He gave it to David Dunn, limping up alongside. ‘How was your class?’ he asked him, and in moments was drawn into conversation about a boy called Makin, who could be difficult, and had been difficult today.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Frank took his own cup, and Steven took his, and a bun, and gave up. He couldn’t bring himself to ask: Who are you seeing? What are you reading? Why, these days, do you never talk about yourself?

  But as he went back across the room and stood drinking his tea by the window, away from all the smoke, he acknowledged that he, too, was concealing things. If Frank had asked him about going back to the Hall after the concert he would have talked about the supper, and perhaps mentioned the pretty piece by Elgar which Margot had played, and which, it seemed, so haunted her father. Would he have asked Frank about that? About why? There were criss-cross currents running everywhere, it seemed, in that little group of people.

  And he had his own secret, now. He wouldn’t have mentioned the brief moments he and Margot had had alone together, nor those fleeting kisses in the empty hall. He wouldn’t say that they were writing to one another, almost every day, nor that he longed to be with her.

  Elgar on a summer afternoon. As he turned into the gates he could hear it, the windows of the drawing room pushed up high, the music floating out into the golden air. When he looked back on this day, that was how it seemed: that the mellow sun was lighting not only the trees and garden, but the very air itself. Even the summer house, even the cedar, and the worn old swing, were outlined with gold.

  Midges danced before him as he walked up the drive, a ­dragonfly suddenly hung there, its wings translucent. Then it darted away. High on a chimney pot a blackbird was singing as only blackbirds sing. Steven stopped on the flags, and stood taking everything in: the deep rich light and the stretch of shadows which intensified it; the scent of grass and roses, and of the lavender planted all along the terrace, humming with bees; the music dancing into the quietude, weaving in and out of the blackbird’s song.

  And he felt then something he had not felt for years – the long years of illness, anxiety and grief – nor had expected ever to feel again: happiness, pure and simple.

  It was so quiet that he thought he could hear her turn the page. Was she playing to welcome him? Had she heard his footsteps? He walked slowly up towards the window, and waited for the piece to end, watching that intent, absorbed face, those slender fingers. He’d heard this piece only once, at the supper party, but he remembered it, as he had not expected to be able to remember music. Perhaps, now, everything she did would be charged, and unforgettable.

  She stopped, he waited. Then she looked up, and visibly jumped.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ He moved closer to the window. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ She got up, and came towards him. The sun struck the floorboards, dust danced everywhere. The window was pushed up so high he could climb through into the room. He made to do so, and she laughed.

  ‘Come on.’

  He thought it was the kind of thing which perhaps the children had done long ago: clambering up and scrambling in, getting told off by Miss Renner. But if Heslop saw him now—

  ‘Where’s your father?’

  ‘He’s having supper with the Lindsays.’

  ‘Is the dog having supper there too?’

  She laughed, and nodded, but Steven knew it must be so – if the dog were anywhere about he’d have come racing out at the first footfall. And he ducked down a little, climbed through the window. It felt like the freest and most spontaneous thing he had done for years.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello.’

  They stood before one another as they’d done in the fire-lit hall, and still, for a moment, there was shyness between them. Then he stepped forward, and held out his arms, and she came into them, swift and sure. He held her close, he stroked her head as she leaned on his shoulder. They were so much of a height. And it felt as if they had all the time in the world, that for as long as they wanted there was no need for anything more than this: just holding each other at last.

  He might have murmured any number of romantic things; he might have kissed her. But at length he held her a little away from him, and said: ‘We have nothing in common.’

  She looked at him, half laughing. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘I don’t think so. We feel so easy together, don’t we?’

  ‘We do now.’ She
lifted her hand to his cheek, began to stroke it. And she thought: Now I can be myself with him. After all this hesitation and doubt. And now – life can begin.

  Life can begin! She wanted to dance across the room.

  He took her hand away from his cheek and kissed it. ‘Tell me why you were playing that piece.’

  ‘Just because it was the last thing you heard me play.’

  ‘Thank you. It’s lovely.’ He kissed her hand again. ‘Well, now – what shall we do?’

  She raised a dark eyebrow, and he laughed, seeing then not the lost little girl who had haunted him, but a young woman at ease in the world, as he had first sensed her to be.

  ‘May I get you a drink?’

  ‘That would be wonderful – just something cold. Shall I come and help?’

  ‘No, wait here. Draw breath after your journey.’

  He brushed her lips with his, released her. ‘Come back soon.’

  ‘I will.’ And she walked from the room; he heard her quick footsteps down the passage to the kitchen. Out in the hall, the grandfather clock struck three. For a moment he simply stood there, taking in the warmth of the room, the space of it, wondering that he should be here, with everything about to happen. He had a look at the tables with their piles of The Field and Country Life. Then he walked slowly over to the piano, and let himself try the keys. What a sound they made, on this great instrument: he thought of Miss Aickman, gallantly bashing out hymns at Assembly. How grand it must be, to play.

  The music stood open before him on the stand: he picked it up, and turned the pages back to the beginning.

  Dream Children. He had a sudden memory of Heslop, at the supper party, standing before the fire. A tapestry fire screen stood there now, put in place for the summer, but he remembered the leaping flames of a cold spring evening, and the way Heslop had closed his eyes as Margot began to play. Perhaps it was just because he loved the piece, but it had felt much more significant.

  And what was this? Opposite the first page of the score was a quotation; he began to read.

  ‘And while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech: “We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all . . . We are nothing, less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been . . . ”’

  Steven frowned. What could this be about? Beneath ran the source of the lines: ‘From Dream Children; a Reverie, by Charles Lamb.’

  He knew nothing of Elgar, not really. Was he still alive? He knew nothing of Lamb, except for a dim memory of reading Tales from Shakespeare at school. This must be from an essay, but what did it mean? And what might it mean to Heslop?

  He turned to look out of the window: at the long lawn stretching down to the ha-ha, where the children would have played, and run about; at the swing, now so still in the late afternoon sunlight, but on which they had swung so often. And he thought of Heslop, lonely and bereaved, standing here too, or perhaps at an upper window, looking down on them all; looking down in particular, perhaps, at one of them.

  Footsteps came along the dark passage from the kitchen, there was the chink of glasses.

  ‘Here we are.’ In she came, with a tray – a tall jug, two tumblers – and set it down on the table by the far window, pushing books aside. She was wearing a green linen dress he thought he had seen before – was it the one she had worn when they first met last summer, she and Frank walking down through the leafy square in Kirkhoughton, Frank so easily introducing her? He had been so immersed in his grief and longing, walking and walking over the moor, writing to Margaret almost every day. To meet a sophisticated young woman whose name so nearly echoed hers: it had left him stupid and tongue-tied. And now—

  He turned back to the piano, replaced the score. One day perhaps he might ask her about it; today it felt far too intrusive. And today, after all, was for them, and them alone.

  ‘I heard you play,’ she said, pouring a glass.

  ‘I’d hardly call it playing.’

  ‘Have you ever?’ She handed him the glass, turned to pour her own.

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Well—’ She came to stand beside him. ‘If Donald Hindmarsh can stumble through his scales I’m sure we can do something with you. Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’ They chinked glasses, he smelled the sharp tang of lemonade. ‘Delicious,’ he said, at the first sip. ‘Thank you.’ Then: ‘He’s a good lad, Hindmarsh. The class joker, but he does his best.’

  ‘I know.’ She gestured to the sofa. ‘Shall we sit down?’

  They sat, they drank.

  ‘I was so thirsty after that walk.’

  ‘This is Mrs Barrow’s finest.’

  ‘Thank her from me.’

  Everything felt easy and known. And charged with excitement and desire.

  He said, turning to look at her: ‘You’ve been very bold, I think.’

  ‘Bold?’

  ‘Writing. Inviting. Bold moves. Is that right?’

  ‘I’d say brave,’ said Margot. ‘“Bold” sounds – I don’t know – did you think me too forward?’

  ‘Not at all. I don’t think I quite realised what was going on.’ He shook his head. ‘What a fool.’

  ‘Inside, I was trembling.’

  ‘Oh, Margot.’

  He put down his glass. She put down hers. His arm went round her, she put her head on his shoulder. For a long moment they sat there in silence, listening through the open windows to the buzz of bees in the lavender, the blackbird’s endless song.

  ‘You never hear that on the moor.’

  She nestled further into him. ‘What do you hear?’

  ‘Curlew. It’s the most glorious sound, like bubbling water.’ He tried to imitate it, and she laughed.

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Lapwing, mostly. They look so pretty, and they sound so sad.’

  She turned to look up at him, turned his face towards her. ‘You’ve been sad for a long time, haven’t you?’

  He shut his eyes, thinking, and trying not to think. For a moment Margaret’s dear bright face came floating up before him. Night after night without her came back to haunt him. He felt Margot go very still in the curve of his arm.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he murmured, and tightened his embrace. Then he drew her face up to his, and then they were kissing unstoppably.

  At last they drew apart. He reached for her hand.

  ‘My love.’ He had never thought he would say those words again, nor ever want to say them. He stroked her hand, gently, from wrist to finger. She shut her eyes. ‘My love.’

  She lay back, feeling his touch. ‘That’s so lovely. Go on, go on—’

  He went on stroking, drew her to him again.

  ‘May I ask you something?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Have you ever—’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Nor wanted to? Do you mind my asking you that?’

  Out in the hall the grandfather clock struck the three-­quarter hour. She was silent. The chimes had been with her all her life, marking lessons, mealtimes, bedtimes, concerts. Now they were marking this breathless moment, a new life beginning: could it really be so?

  But up from the past came the end of a summer day, the end of a game of tennis; of walking back to the house as the shadows lengthened. Frank had pulled her to him, he had kissed her hard.

  ‘Stop it! You’re like my brother—’

  ‘You’re not like my sister. Please, Margot. Please.’

  ‘No!’

  She broke away, ran into the hall as the clock struck six, as if it were waiting, saying to her steadily: here you are. This is where you belong. She stood there tremb
ling. With fear? With longing? She heard a racquet flung into the porch. Then he was gone.

  ‘Margot?’ Steven’s hand went on stroking hers, over and over, gentle and thrilling.

  ‘I don’t know how to answer,’ she said slowly. ‘A long time ago, I couldn’t decide if I wanted someone or not. I decided I didn’t – it didn’t feel right. We managed to stay friends, we’re still very good friends.’

  She stopped. Should she tell him who it was? Might it make things difficult between him and Frank at school? More powerful was the thought that she would be betraying Frank, who surely must have had a million girls at Oxford, and long since forgotten that distant kiss, but with whom she felt now – oh, such a bond!

  ‘Since then,’ she said, into the quiet of the sunlit room, where she had spent countless hours of practice, playing, performing, ‘music has been everything. It’s filled my whole life. I know lots of people, I’ve been out with lots of people, but—’ She turned to kiss him. ‘No one has touched me. I’ve never felt about anyone as I feel about you.’

  ‘Astonishing.’

  ‘Astonishing that you should care for me,’ she said, and turned to kiss him again.

  The sun began slowly to slip down the sky, but at the front of the house the warmth of the day was everywhere: in this room; in the hall, where sun poured in from the open door; on the flagstones where the bees still droned in the lavender. The one cool place was the kitchen, where they went to make a little meal – late lunch, early supper.

  ‘Scrambled eggs?’

  ‘Grand.’

  This was the first time he had been in here without a crowd of people. As he watched her slice bread, break the eggs, fetch a jug of milk from the pantry, he remembered those sudden sharp words across the table from Miss Renner, and Diana’s flushed distress. How quickly Heslop had come to her rescue.