by H. S. Cross
—But I forget myself. Your servant, J. S. Audsley.
Mr. Audsley welcomed them in the name of the Gaiety Arts and of their patron, Lord Huntington—the orchestra broke into a tune, and a boy in the ceiling swung a spotlight on a gentleman in a box. Yes, he welcomed them all on this night, the hundredth anniversary of the theater’s foundation. The Gaiety Arts had been under continuous management by the Audsley family since that time. The ceiling, he said, stood twenty-five feet higher than in his grandfather’s day. They now boasted electricity throughout, though they still favored the gentle glow of lime at the foot—tinkle of triangle, murmur of flute—and now there were stalls where they in the gods used to stand. And gracious, what a lot of standing there had been for his grandfather’s Lear. Five hours and a happy ending. Oh, yes, Cordelia lived! Violins from the pit, more laughter. But Mr. Audsley’s purpose before them was not to boast but to invite them all—including they in Mount Olympus—to join the players upon the stage after the performance and lift a glass in thanksgiving for the century that had blessed the Audsley family. Stomping, cheers. God Save the King.
* * *
—There was a cake, and Guilford Audsley—
—Chap with the bicycle.
—gave Nick and me our own tour!
—Gracious! said Bea.
—He showed us all the cranks and gears. The stage gets moved underneath by five men walking around a treadmill, and the footlights have to be lit in the trap—that’s what they call it under the stage because all the trapdoors open into it—and then they crank them up through a slot onto the deck—that’s what they call the stage—
—Really, darling, his mother said, I’m exhausted just hearing about it.
—And he let us turn the rain machine and rattle the thunder sheets—
—We can hear the rest in the morning.
—But I don’t want to forget anything! We got to stand on the stage and look at the house—that’s what they call the audience. And he asked us to come back tomorrow and watch the play from backstage!
—We’re going home tomorrow, his mother scolded. Don’t you remember?
—We won’t even have to pay.
—You know it’s impossible.
—Why? Please!
—Enough, Gray. You’re behaving like a child.
He slept poorly, rehearsing tirades against her, and spent the next morning sullen and morose. As he was shoving clothes into his trunk, Tony dropped an opened letter into the pile:
—There’s proof, you swine.
—Of what?
—Read it, Herr Schumann. And don’t ever forget Herr Wagner gets his man.
* * *
Merchant Street, King’s Lynn, 29 Feb, Dearest Bea. Could Gray come to London for Easter straight from school? Great favor, extremely so. His mother wished to extend her stay in Shetland and to take a ferry with Peter Andersen to the northernmost island, called Unst. I’ve a feeling Peter has invited me to meet his parents for a reason, and I hope the reason will prove a happy one. And if he were to ask her a certain question … I feel so agitated, and my heart flutters so absurdly whenever I see Peter that I feel like a girl, not a matron of thirty-nine! Never had she betrayed the slightest hint of feelings for his godfather, not before and not during these days in London. Crashing relief, not being on my own … William’s insufferable purse strings. He had attended to her, played cards when she wanted, taken pains to portray the recent term as jolly. Must ask you not to mention … loves his godfather dearly … may take time … But she, without once confiding, had drowned their understanding and gone tarting around with Peter, his own godfather and his father’s oldest friend. If matters develop, I shall tell Gray once we’re home, and spend the rest of the holidays just us two, to show I love him just the same.
19
The drive from the station always gnawed at her, and as they bumped through the awful lanes, Elsa wondered what she’d find at home. The last Swan Cottage had seen of human company had been the boy, eyes bloodshot, and her, two days into the curse, dragging their cases through January fog. Now, as they rounded the bend, her shoulders eased to see the place still standing. Swans floated in the brook, willows dragged around them, the ivy had overrun the lattice, and dried holly clung to the door.
Spring cleaning was the first order of business. Curtains dusty, windows dim, the cloths she used to line the sills against hoarfrost now mildewed. No one had prepared the way for spring bulbs, but they’d forged a channel through the weeds and dead leaves. The patio chairs needed a new coat of paint. Two summers of black had to be the limit, but could she bear anything else? She went to lay down in the guest room; she’d thought that all she needed was her own home, but salt was stinging the pimple on her cheek.
* * *
He was finally tall enough to ride his father’s bicycle, but the gears rubbed and the tires wouldn’t hold air. He wheeled it down the lane to old Jack, who with spit, tar, scraps, and grease restored it to use. The bicycle had been known in its day, and when he rode it through the village, people stared. Though he had no messenger’s cape, he sped around the marshes, and at night he shut it in the toolshed, checking the floor for flowerpot shards.
The surgery stayed closed. Behind the door by the disused bell, objects waited like a sleeping kingdom—vials, stethoscope, doctor’s bag—lying as they’d been when the clock stopped. If the door were opened, would the place come to life as if no time had passed, or would it be as in his dreams where he went to tell his father everything that had happened while he was away?
* * *
Elsa knew a cold shoulder when she saw one, and while normally it was best to ignore it, Peter’s train was due. She’d planned to tell him gently, side by side on the settee, but now she had to say it over an unmade bed, wrinkled sheets piled between them.
—You know I’ve seen quite a bit of Peter this winter.
The linen billowed like a parachute, helping no one.
—And you might as well know, I’ve grown quite fond of him.
He mashed the pillows into the cases.
—Don’t do that.
Dropping them pointedly, he stood at mock attention as she presumed they did at his school.
—I haven’t known how to say it.
—How about, we’re to be married.
Did he take this tone with his schoolmasters? Who could stand it?
—Peter is your godfather, after all. You get along famously. I thought you’d be glad to have him about.
She tucked in the quilt.
—In any case, we’ll have a few days with him and then we’ll spend the rest of the holidays just us two.
—To show you love me just the same?
* * *
For some people life changed constantly. Peter knew men who were always turning over new leaves, embarking on new ventures, meeting another girl of their dreams. They told him there were plenty of fish in the sea, even more than the apostles caught when Jesus bade them let down their nets. But Peter didn’t want nets of women, even if by some estimations they outnumbered eligible men ten to one. He wanted—but he tried to repress melancholy thoughts as they bloomed, rather as one plucked strangling vines from the garden.
He’d known Elsa since she met Tom, and while he’d never actively disliked her, for years there had been a rivalry between them, or so he thought. She’d won, of course, but losing Tom to her had stung less than he’d expected because by that time he’d met Masha, who eclipsed every sun.
He’d been a widower far longer than Elsa, and when Tom died, he’d tried to treat her as he wished people had treated him. He worked beside her in kitchen or garden. He was calm when tears overcame her. He talked of Tom to her and around her. This winter he’d been in Norfolk on survey and had visited her in King’s Lynn, where it seemed she lived out the school terms in her brother’s house, filling her time as some unpaid nurse at a charity hospital. They took to walking together, and he found it was like having a head cold clear up so h
e could taste things again. She seemed more awake than he remembered, perhaps the setting, or perhaps something brought out by her brother, whom she despised. Peter had extended his stay and convinced her to look for paying work. She was an experienced nurse. She oughtn’t to slave for nothing in peacetime.
How his twenty-year-old self would laugh to see him stepping off the train to meet the woman he’d once wished would drown in the Isis. Clouds banked across the marshes, skies the color of a bruise. She collected him in Tom’s motorcar, and when he put his arms around her, it felt different than in Norfolk.
—I’ve told him, she said.
* * *
There was a map amongst the books, and he took it out with the bicycle, staying away longer than he’d ever before dared. It showed him all the roads, how they tangled and bent back. He’d lived in the Isle of Thanet all his life. He knew the footpaths to Witchell’s Gate, the way to St. Nicholas-at-Wade, but now he could see how they all connected, how far, how up and down. His legs grew harder, his arms stronger.
Peter did not leave after the promised couple of days but installed himself for the holidays entire. He and Peter had a tradition of long walks through woods or sands. From Peter, he’d learned the difference between a gannet and a gull, between bonxies and hawks. He could tell a mockingbird from a nightingale. He knew why crickets cricked fast in the heat, and what happened to ducklings when they hatched without a mother. His chief complaint in the past had been that Peter didn’t stay long enough. Now, like Russia, alliances had changed.
* * *
He hadn’t expected it to be so difficult to return to Swan Cottage as a fiancé. Tom haunted it less each year, but still Peter slept in the guest room. He knew he mustn’t think of her bed as Tom’s; he must think of it simply as the larger bed, though how could he ever sleep there without divorcing himself from human feeling? Could they not sell the cottage and leave Kent altogether? If he broached the subject, she’d surely recoil, though what if she herself yearned to go somewhere new, perhaps even to stay with him until a place could be found for them in Scarborough? It had a hospital, didn’t it, sea cliffs, and a train? No matter where they lived, though, he’d have to give up the bothy, his refuge in grief.
He’d decided recently to start telling himself the truth: he was no longer recovering. Thirteen years he’d spent crippled, a visitor in other people’s homes, whether nests or cottages. The bothy in Boggle Hole, the only place he could call his, could never hold a family. His parents were almost seventy, but he was not. To live under a shadow was to waste life, and however long or short, you only got one whack at it.
* * *
Peter refused to let her call in the sweep. He would investigate the chimney himself; there might be nests. Meantime, he suggested, Gray could assist her in the kitchen. She realized Peter was trying to help by forcing them together, but the way the boy chopped carrots, as if with an axe, sent her straight to hostilities:
—Your term report came today. Do you mind telling me what happened?
He swept the carrots into a bowl and began shelling the peas.
—Don’t you ignore me! I’m well aware you’ve never failed an examination before.
He flinched but didn’t break his rhythm.
—If you want to spite me, kindly find a less wasteful way to do it. It costs a great deal to send you to that school.
She snatched the bowl from him, but her fingers slipped and peas scattered across the flagstones.
—Why does everything come down to you? he cried.
—Why else would you do this?
She took the report from her apron and slapped it on the table. He spoke with disdain, the sort Tom could cart out when he chose, the sort they learned in their schools to bend the world to their will:
—You’ve no idea. You’ve no bloody idea.
The first and last time he’d used that word to her, she’d washed out his mouth and his father had read him a lecture. He used it now on purpose, a weapon of two syllables, to show he wasn’t hers anymore.
—You’ve lost your father, she said, but have you ever considered how it feels to lose your husband, the person you’ve pledged your life to?
—Clearly not so bad that you can’t find another.
—You spiteful—
He tore off his apron and hurled it at her. She drew her breath and bent to pick up the shards of the bowl.
—Your Housemaster mentioned another letter, she said. One he’d sent home with you?
* * *
—We knew it wouldn’t be easy, Peter told her.
—Left this on the table before running off on that bicycle.
Elsa passed him an envelope: Mrs. T. Riding—by hand. Script fast, ink brown. Recommend sitting for the Remove at the beginning of term … might arrange with your permission … difficulty do him good …
—He fails his exams and this man wants to push him ahead? Peter balked.
—There’s something I like about that Housemaster of his, Elsa said. He always signs himself John Grieves when the rest use surname and initials.
—Intricate to handle, eh? The man has a touch with mothers, I’ll say that for him.
—In person he has a certain sternness, not at all like his letters.
Peter avoided writing letters as much as possible, but now he felt a stab of envy, that this man had filled the page, and through it her kitchen, with his cause, one he fought alongside the boys, becoming to them both father and king.
—Is the lady in love?
—Don’t be absurd. He’s far too brooding.
—Miss Ousley doth protest too much methinks.
For an instant she was flustered, but then she laughed:
—You needn’t worry. I’m not in love with the man. I’m in love with his goodness.
He rounded the table and took her in his arms, his mouth on hers like a man with his wife. Peter had always considered it the prerogative of manhood to choose his contests, but he was learning that real contests always chose you. When the boy returned, Peter announced an outing to the woods. He had sandwiches and flask already in a rucksack. The boy, perhaps relieved to avoid his mother, changed his shoes and accepted the binoculars.
—Made a go of the cutthroat? Peter asked as they set off down the drive.
The boy couldn’t deny it, as his face was nicked, but with the admission, Peter realized he had lost ground. Early in the visit, when he’d presented the shaving accouterments Elsa had contrived for him to give the boy, his godson had informed him that he knew perfectly well how to shave; when occasion demanded, he borrowed safety razor and soap from a friend at school. Peter was hardly surprised. Safety razors made shaving so easy anyone could do it, but since the box from Taylor’s had included a straight razor, and since he had to make it look as though he’d procured the box himself, Peter had enlarged upon the advantages of classic shaving. Now the boy had defeated his argument, demonstrating his need for a safety by sacrificing his own face.
When they finally settled down in the woods, Peter offered a cigarette, which the boy refused, whether from habit or spite, Peter couldn’t say.
—About your mother and me, he began.
—It doesn’t matter.
He was only a boy, emotions outsize, convictions overfirm.
—It matters very much. I know how difficult it’s been, for you both. And, you know, being a godfather means I promised to look after you if your father should ever—
—I know.
Was it this brutal if you raised them from the start? If ducklings imprinted on you at birth, they’d follow anywhere. What did it take with boys?
—I don’t intend to replace him.
—Because you can’t.
He was used to going where his subjects flew.
—You can still call me Uncle Peter. Plain Peter if you like. I’ll still be your old godfather.
If looks could strangle.
—What did you make of The Complete Stalky, by the way?
; The boy made to pack their things away even though they’d just arrived.
—I think you’d be surprised how well I’d understand. I went to public school, too, you know.
A fleeting expression, like disgust crossbred with boredom. Thunder rumbled, and they abandoned their position. The boy strode ahead, but Peter paced him:
—It wasn’t Marlborough like your father. Our Headmaster had a certain sense of humor, even when dishing out the hidings.
He angled his face against the wind, sleet pricking his cheeks like shards of glass.
—I do wish you’d speak up about whatever’s on your mind. Your Housemaster said there’d been some sort of awkwardness?
The boy stopped, fists clenched:
—If you ever speak to me again, I’ll kill you.
20
Was Paris everything it was cracked up to be? John supposed it was. The coffee satisfied a place in his throat that he’d never known before. The bread, cool on the tongue, bore little resemblance to the slabs they slung onto plates at the Academy. The butter tanged. John paid little attention to wardrobe, but it was clear by the way Parisians looked at him that even his good suit fell short of standard. Their easy manners, their broad avenues, and their bright skies all testified to enlightenment.
Cordelia had been grave and silent in Yorkshire, but once they had, as she put it, sprung her mother from the hospital, she had become gregarious. Crossing the Channel, she’d stood on the deck, gripped the wet handrail, and scanned the approaching coastline like a general surveying a battlefield. She begged to be allowed to present her own passport at the border, and on the train to Paris, she examined the stamp as if she feared it had disappeared. Once they’d established themselves at their pension, she fell into an acquaintance with an American couple, also resident, a Mr. and Mrs. Vandam, whom she would have called by their Christian names (Everyone does it in America!) if John had not intervened. This pair of soi-disant artists were clearly flattered by the girl’s hero worship, and soon they were inviting her to join them for a chocolat chaud, lunch, museums, walks, each outing the result of intricate negotiations on John’s part between her freewheeling ambitions, her mother’s aversion to conflict, and his own sense of propriety.
