The Nightingale's Nest

by Sarah Harrison

  She hooted. ‘So it was eyes meeting across the patient’s inert form— sorry. Sorry, Pamela, that was—’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘You’re right, it was something like that.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m pleased. You deserve it.’

  Oddly, it wasn’t so much Louise’s minor lapse of taste that upset me as her last remark. Why did I ‘deserve it’? Was I such an obviously dull, worthy, undemanding young woman? I wished now that I’d appeared a little less wide-eyed and self-deprecating about her nightclub. I reminded myself that if she had even an inkling of the people I mixed with in Crompton Terrace, and my thoughts about them, she would have been astonished.

  But this little irritation didn’t last for more than a moment. Hearing Alan’s voice, and knowing I was to see him, had gone a long way to restoring my balance after the shock of seeing John Ashe. I had not had even the most innocent friendship with a man since I’d been widowed. The only men I’d known had been colleagues, none of them had attracted me, and if any of them had taken a shine to me I hadn’t noticed. Nor, to be fair, had I missed male attention. I had got used to my single, independent status, and to carrying a torch for Matthew, to whom no one else compared. Now I saw that comparisons were odious: Matthew had been who he was, my first and special love. That did not mean I should measure all other men against him – I did myself and them a disservice by denying their uniqueness. Perhaps it was significant that I had not at any stage compared Alan to Matthew, but simply accepted him for himself.

  I looked forward to Thursday.

  Another party was in the offing at Crompton Terrace. Christopher Jarvis had pulled off a coup, the modish American artist was to exhibit at the Sumpter in the autumn, and the Jarvises were going to entertain him before he returned to New York, the weekend after next. Oddly, although they anticipated having fifty guests, there was less fuss than there had been over the luncheon. I had the impression that this was the kind of thing they did fairly often; it did not involve complicated negotiations with Chef but simply the ordering in of quantities of champagne and the ingredients for Manhattans and dry Martinis. They also (via me) hired the services of a barman, Buck, who would see to the drinks on the night, and a jazz saxophonist who I gathered was a friend. A select few, including the American artist, would go out to dinner afterwards.

  Once more I was invited, but in a more casual way. I declined politely. Better to hold back: I didn’t want to be thought of by anyone as a hanger-on, though I did wonder if John Ashe would be there and if he would notice my absence.

  Georgina arrived to stay on the Tuesday. Her youthful presence was like that of a bird, chirruping and whooping and flying about the place. I was a little underemployed and spent quite a lot of time in the afternoons out in the garden. I discovered an ancient, rusty lawnmower at the back of the shed and brought it back into commission with the aid of a can of oil purchased in the village. I had never mowed a lawn in my life, but I no longer felt self-conscious about taking on these tasks. Here, unlike at my mother’s, there was no sense of experts looking on. If the Jarvises noticed what I was doing at all they were frankly admiring and delighted, since it accorded with their view of me as an absolute treasure. Also, the ‘lawn’ – which scarcely merited the title – was such that whatever I did to it could only be an improvement.

  One afternoon when I was up at the end of the garden tearing bindweed away from the roots of the shrubbery, Georgina came out to see me and was duly impressed.

  ‘You are a Trojan, Pamela – I swear this place has never had so much attention.’

  ‘I like doing it,’ I said truthfully. ‘Just so long as everyone realises I’m no expert.’

  She chortled. ‘They wouldn’t know the difference!’

  I thought it best not to enter with her into even the gentlest criticism of my employers, and asked instead: ‘How long are you staying?’

  ‘I’m not sure . . . To be honest I’m at a loose end, and I’d so much rather be here than at home. Mummy and Daddy are sweet, but they’re desperate to see me engaged. I think they hoped I’d come back from Switzerland with prospects in that direction. If I’m hanging about down there I have to face their enquiring looks at breakfast every time I go to a party. Honestly, Pamela, it’s like something out of Jane Austen. And all the men are idiots so there’s no encouragement I can give them, poor things. The men or my parents.’

  ‘I see . . .’ I shook my head. ‘Yes, it must be difficult.’

  ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry about your father.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I sometimes think about one of mine dying,’ she went on cheerfully, ‘and try to imagine what it would feel like.’

  ‘Very, very sad,’ I said.

  There was a reflective pause. ‘On the other hand,’ she said, snapping a twig off one of the shrubs and pulling off the leaves one at a time like a child with a dandelion clock, ‘it would be even more frightful to feel nothing.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘That’s what bothers me – that I might not feel anything. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt anything. Not properly. Not passionately.’

  This I did find surprising. I stopped yanking at the weeds and straightened up stiffly.

  ‘Georgina – I’m sure you have.’

  ‘You’re being nice,’ she said, throwing the twig away and folding her arms. I sensed that it was not a compliment, and tried again to reassure her.

  ‘You don’t strike me as an unfeeling person. Quite the opposite.’

  ‘Well, no, I’m not . . . I don’t think I am.’

  ‘And don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re very young. You’ve hardly had time to experience strong feeling. Perhaps –’ this only occurred to me as I spoke – ‘you’ve simply been happy. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing, I suppose. But it’s not as if I go about thinking, “I’m happy! I’m happy!” ’

  ‘People don’t. If they’re fortunate it’s their everyday condition.’

  ‘Pretty dull, don’t you agree?’ she said glumly.

  ‘If you were miserable for some reason it wouldn’t seem dull, believe me.’

  It wasn’t intended as a dig, but she was a nice girl, and she blushed. ‘No. I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ I decided to end the conversation before it became too personal. ‘All I’m trying to say is, don’t worry. You’ve got your whole life before you and I bet it will be packed with highs and lows of every kind.’

  She brightened up, and laughed. ‘I tell you what, let’s meet up in ten years and compare notes!’

  As she wandered off in the direction of the house, I reflected that I had been eighteen – about the same age as Georgina was now – when I had been wed and widowed in the space of two weeks. I could not remember ever having been as carefree as she was most of the time, but when it came to powerful feelings, I had certainly had my share.

  At about four o’clock I tidied up, washed my hands and returned to the office. Christopher Jarvis closed the newspaper he’d been reading and swung his feet down off the desk like a schoolboy caught skiving.

  ‘Pamela! Have you been out there subduing nature again?’

  ‘Trying to.’

  He gazed at me admiringly. ‘Is there nothing you can’t do?’

  ‘I’m no gardener, but I enjoy it.’

  ‘We really should employ someone . . .’ he remarked contentedly. ‘Now then, I don’t have anything else for you to do, and I’ll let you go in a minute, but first there’s something I want to ask you.’

  I pulled out the chair from behind my desk and was about to sit down, but he jumped up. ‘No, no, don’t let’s be formal. Please –’ He motioned me towards one of the safari chairs and sat down on the other himself.

  The truth was I felt much less at ease here than I would have at the safety of my desk. It was altogether too unusual.

  ‘Don’t look so worried,’ he said teasingly. ‘It’s nothing in the leas
t unpleasant, far from it. I think my wife told you that our friend John Ashe was very struck with you when he met you the other day.’

  ‘I can’t think why.’ My nervousness had made me sound tart, and I scrambled to regain lost ground. ‘I mean, I’m flattered, but we hardly spoke.’

  ‘He’s a student of human nature,’ explained Jarvis. ‘Prides himself on it. Anyway, to get to the point, he happened to mention that he was looking for some part-time secretarial help in his business, and as you’re if anything rather underemployed here I wondered whether you’d like me to mention your name.’

  I clenched my teeth to prevent my jaw from dropping.

  ‘I’ve said nothing to him, I hasten to add, but I’m pretty confident that if I were to do so the job would be yours. It would only amount to a couple of half-days a week, and it wouldn’t affect your salary here – after all, you’re ours first and foremost!’

  Disconcerted as I was it still struck me that Jarvis had given the matter a good deal of thought for a man simply putting in a preliminary word. I ceased to worry about how blunt I sounded.

  ‘I don’t know the nature of Mr Ashe’s business.’

  ‘Oh, he’s an entrepreneur . . .’ Jarvis waved expansively. ‘Nightclubs, dance halls, theatres, that kind of thing. Quite an empire and a considerable fortune built up since the war. He’s a true self-made man. A remarkable individual, actually.’

  ‘And he doesn’t have a secretary?’

  ‘Apparently not.’ Jarvis smiled. It was just as well he chose to find my spikiness amusing. Another employer might not have been so tolerant. ‘Or not at the moment. As I say, he’s unusual, he doesn’t conform to the way of the world.’

  Clearly, I was supposed to find this reassuring. ‘I see.’

  ‘So. What do you think? Shall I have a word?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been here for long—’

  ‘And here you shall stay, believe me! I assure you the very last thing we want is to lose you, we’ve no intention of doing so. But I’m conscious of the fact that Amanda and I don’t use you to your full capacity, and this, I’m sure, would be interesting work – and paid well above the going rate.’

  ‘I’d like to think about it,’ I said.

  ‘Well of course you would. And as I say, this is just between us at this stage. Look on it as a tip: you can act on it or leave it, and no harm done. But do give it serious consideration.’

  ‘I will.’

  He got up. I was being gently dismissed, and I needed no second bidding. Trying not to appear as flustered as I felt I straightened my desk and picked up my bag and jacket.

  As he held the door for me, Jarvis asked: ‘How is your mother?’

  It seemed to me that over the past few days people used this question as a kind of lightning conductor, to absorb the electricity of more contentious topics.

  ‘Pretty well. I’ll be visiting her at the weekend.’

  ‘She’s fortunate to have such a good daughter.’

  I didn’t answer. When, I wondered, would people realise that to be reserved was not necessarily an indication of virtue?

  All evening, my head whirled. Whatever Christopher Jarvis said, I could not help thinking that he had not made the suggestion unprompted. It was true I was flattered. And pleased, too, that I hadn’t been completely superseded by Suzannah Rose Murchie in John Ashe’s estimation. Whatever reason he’d had for visiting her on that silent Monday afternoon, slipping in and out of the house like a ghost, it looked as though I had only to give the word to become his trusted assistant.

  Whether I wanted to or not was another matter. I told myself that Friday, the day after tomorrow, marked a perfectly acceptable time limit for my decision. Unless pressed I would mention nothing about it until then. Apart from anything else I wanted to enjoy the pleasurable anticipation of my meeting with Alan Mayes.

  Christopher Jarvis must have thought the same thing, for he didn’t touch on the matter. It was a day humming with what was left unspoken. When I encountered Dorothy in the kitchen at lunchtime I was aware, for once, of having secrets she would have given her right arm to know. But I might have guessed that her intuition about certain things wouldn’t let her down.

  She and Chef were enjoying a smoke on the back step, but when she saw me she came in at once.

  ‘Not up the village today?’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  She leaned on the kitchen table. I could feel her eyes running over me speculatively. ‘Not like you to lose your appetite,’ she said slyly. ‘Why’s that then?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You know what they say, don’t you?’ She cocked her head in an attempt to catch my eye.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s one of the symptoms of love.’

  ‘Or of an upset stomach,’ I countered tartly.

  ‘Aah . . .’ she commiserated, not entirely seriously. ‘Come to think of it you have lost a bit of weight.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ I glanced down at myself reflexively and realised at once that this small gesture of vanity had fuelled her suspicions.

  ‘Of course,’ she said instantly, backing off like the crafty monkey she was, ‘it could be the stress and strain.’

  For the life of me I couldn’t think what I might have said to anyone who might in turn have said something to her. Or was I simply so transparent? These days I seemed surrounded by people who presumed to know me, or what was best for me, better than I did myself.

  Fortunately, Alan wasn’t one of them. When I saw him standing beneath Fortnum’s clock I experienced an easing of mind and body. Perhaps he did too, for he saw me coming and waved, and by the time we were standing face to face we were both smiling broadly.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘You’ve no idea how much I’ve been looking forward to this.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Now then – what would you like to do?’

  ‘I’m in your hands.’

  ‘Then why don’t we go for a walk in the park, and find somewhere for supper afterwards? The pictures are fun, but it might be nice to talk . . . What do you think?’

  ‘I agree.’

  As we walked together up Piccadilly towards St James’s I recalled what I’d said to Georgina about happiness – that you only valued it, or even noticed it, when for some reason it deserted you. This evening I recognised the calm comfort of happiness because for a little while I had missed it.

  We strolled around the lake and sat watching the ducks, our faces to the evening sun. During this time we talked about what we could see: the fine weather, the city, the other people, the dogs, the ducks . . . the kind of film we might go to on another occasion. After about an hour, instead of retracing our steps we left the park on the north side and headed for a restaurant Alan knew in Victoria. I hoped he wouldn’t feel obliged to overspend since I was pretty sure I earned more than him, and it was too early in our friendship to discuss such things, but it turned out to be a cheerful, unfussy chop-house, within the means of a junior practitioner and serving the sort of simple well-cooked food that suited us both.

  ‘I hope this is all right,’ he said, as we sat down at a table in the window.

  ‘It’s a real treat,’ I replied truthfully.

  ‘I’m not well up on restaurants, but they do you very well here. Have whatever you like,’ he added expansively.

  We ordered: sausage and mash for him, lamb cutlet for me, and a small carafe of red wine. Sitting face to face, rather than walking side by side, our conversation inched very gently on to more personal ground. I learned that Alan was the same age as me, the youngest of three brothers, born and raised in Scotland, his mother’s country, and that as boys they had enjoyed sailing with their father, a retired merchant navy captain. He described his mother as ‘the most contented person I know’, and I wondered what that must be like. One of his brothers had been badly damaged by the war, losing an eye at Ypres and suffering shell-shock which had left him ne
rvous and depressed; the other had survived the war unscathed as an army mechanic and was now married and doing well in motor industry in the Midlands. He himself had joined up on his eighteenth birthday but seen no action before the armistice. His army career had been about as brief as my marriage, but his older brother’s experience had inspired him to take up medicine. After the war he’d trained at St George’s and been a houseman for a while before joining Dr Cardew’s practice which, in spite of long hours and low pay, he loved. That, I told him, venturing a compliment, must be why he was so good at it.

  ‘I try,’ he said. ‘But I’m still learning. What about you? I do know of course – forgive me, but your father mentioned – that you’re widowed.’

  I smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I didn’t think you were a seducer of married women.’

  His own smile was fleeting and anxious. ‘I take it – the war?’

  ‘Yes, only a month before the end. We’d just got married. A lot happened in a short time.’

  ‘I’ll say. How awful.’

  ‘But we were so happy. I have only good memories of our time together. It’s like a beautiful thing that I keep because of the pleasure it gives me – not a millstone of misery that I can’t shake off.’

  I felt I’d summed things up about right, and he obviously thought so too, because his expression became less anxious.

  ‘And since then you’ve been independent?’

  I approved of his choice of words. It made me sound spirited and free rather than dutiful and downtrodden. I told him about secretarial college and my various jobs since, making him laugh out loud with my stories about the publishers.

  ‘You’re wicked! I bet they didn’t know there was a viper in their bosom . . . But it must have been fun, what made you leave?’

  ‘A combination of things. My boss was a bully, and I saw an advertisement that intrigued me. So for the past few weeks I’ve been working for Mr and Mrs Jarvis – he owns the Sumpter Gallery in Bowne Street.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t heard of it. I don’t go to exhibitions – lack of time rather than interest. And I’m shamefully ignorant.’

  ‘So am I. But if you’d like to I’ll take you some time. It’s terribly interesting and I know one or two of the artists who are exhibiting there at the moment. Because I’ve met them at the Jarvises,’ I explained hastily, in case he took me for some mock-modest expert on modern art.