She had a long, clever face. Her clothes were in various shades of grey, and hung loosely off her. They looked homespun, but Selim could tell they were expensive. She wore several large silver rings.
‘I worked with Hugo,’ she said, and then he did remember. Nell’s father designed gardens. This woman was his partner. She had been some sort of an academic too.
She said, ‘He liked symmetry. He had a very good eye. But he knew bugger-all about botany.’
Selim detested the way English women swear.
‘I used to drive him mad,’ she said, ‘asking for the Latin names. He thought I was a frightful pedant. But we had a lot of fun.’
Selim saw that he ought to make some comment on the dead man too, but he could think only of banalities. ‘He was nice to me. Nice to all of us.’
‘Anyhow,’ she said, and left a pause.
When she went on, it was in quite a different manner. She talked about gardens in a way that was probably a coded comment on Selim’s predicament. About enclosure and exclusion and confinement. She said, ‘You know the East Germans call the Berlin Wall the “Protection Wall”? Some of them probably believe that’s what it is. We think they’re imprisoned, but they just think they’re safe. Gardens and prison camps, they have a lot in common.’ Selim thought about the dark hedges surrounding the pool garden. ‘Nell’s very interesting on all this stuff,’ said Helen. ‘She’s the only person who ever makes any sense on our committee.’
‘Committee?’ Selim asked vaguely.
‘On prison gardens,’ she said. ‘Very therapeutic. And useful training too. A lot of the people I employ have been inside.’ She looked at him sharply. ‘I thought you and Nell were such friends. Haven’t you asked her about her work?’
No. He hadn’t.
Then she was there, Nell. She propped herself on the table in front of them, her belly cupped in her hands. She said, ‘Everybody’s being sweet but I had to get out of there.’
Helen said to her, ‘My friend Roger told me an odd story about your father. He said Hugo once threatened to shoot him.’
‘What’s he on about? Daddy would never have done that. “Never never let your gun/Pointed be at anyone.”’
‘Not that sort of gun. A revolver. This was in the war. In Berlin.’
Something stirred in Nell’s mind. A memory of lying on chilly green-slimed stone fenced in by women’s legs. By this woman’s legs.
‘Was Roger at Eton, do you think?’
‘What? Well, he could have been, easily. He’s arrogant enough.’
‘Did he tell you the rest of the story?’
‘No. I asked, but he told me not to bother my pretty little head. He can be obnoxious, can Roger.’ There was a kind of fondness, though, in the way Helen said it. Nell let it go. A person dies and a legion of stories dies with him. She’d never get to know her father any better now.
*
‘We had a funeral here today,’ said Flora. ‘The agent, used to be. He ran this place for thirty years. Everyone’s in floods. I really don’t think we can do this week.’
‘You’ll find,’ said her producer, ‘that you can, and we will. We’ll be on the usual train.’
‘No, honestly. It would be too crass. I can’t go flouncing about on camera as though nothing has happened. It’s just not decent.’
‘Flora my dear, I’m sitting across from Chris on foreign news. He’s talking to a presenter who’s standing on top of an office block in Beirut. I’ve just heard him say, “If they come up onto the roof, move so the cameraman can get them in shot. No one likes being filmed murdering a journalist.” That guy is still broadcasting. For God’s sake, Flora. You’ve got a job to do. I thought you posh girls were supposed to be so gutsy.’
‘He bloody well hung up on me,’ said Flora.
‘Won’t take no for an answer?’ Benjie was flat on his back on a sofa, shoes off but funeral suit still buttoned.
Lil sat upright, black lace feathering around her knees. She said, ‘Well I suppose everyone will be going back to work tomorrow.’ She was in demand these days. A very expensive tour operator paid her a tremendous sum to give tea parties for their clients in the long dining room on days when the house was otherwise closed. She would put on her biggest rings, and tell stories about Princess Margaret – always the same ones so she wouldn’t be tempted into any real indiscretion. There were, of course, cucumber sandwiches. ‘What do you think?’ she had asked Hugo once. ‘Is there anything to choose between this and prostitution? Morally, I mean. Of course it’s nothing like as dangerous, and only disgusting when one has to shake their clammy hands.’
Flora stared out of the window. The telephone rang again.
‘Hello,’ she said blankly.
‘Did anyone film the funeral?’
‘Of course not. Well, Heather, the Lanes’ old nanny. Not in the church, but people arriving. The burial. I was furious.’ Flora stopped short. ‘Why?’
‘Right. What we’re going to do is we’re going to make this week’s episode a tribute to the man who died. What’s his name? You do your usual intro, but make it elegiac. Then we interview the guys who worked with him – keeper, gardeners, all those types. And Mrs Rossiter. She’s great on camera. And you said he’d been there thirty years. Spirit of the place. Change and decay. All that kind of thing. Weather forecast’s terrible so we can do moody darkness-closing-in lighting. And falling leaves. Very sad and respectful. It’s a great human story. Great television. We’ve done enough history. This is our chance to do the people who are the life of the estate now. Blah blah blah. You get?’
Flora said, ‘I can’t begin to tell you how distasteful I find this conversation. We just came back from the funeral. I haven’t even changed my clothes.’
‘Fine. Fine. I’ll leave you to get on. This Heather, we can reach her, can we? I’ll give you a shout in the morning.’
Selim
Flora said, ‘You can stay as long as you like, Selim. The Changing Hut’s free from this Saturday. It’ll be boring for you once Nell’s gone back to London, but do make yourself at home.’
Hut? I thought it was a joke, or an insult, but The Hut, so called, would house a large family comfortably. There is another building in the walled garden called The Shed: its furnishings include a set of eighteenth-century dining chairs and a stuffed bear. They rent it out weekly for a sum approximately equivalent to a quarter of my annual salary. In this country landowners don’t call their houses ‘palaces’. That would be flashy. How they must laugh as they book their holidays in Rajasthan.
I actually changed here once. ‘Anyone forgot their bum-bags?’ Nell’s father said, sixteen years ago. ‘There are some spares in the hut.’ And so there were, along with enormous threadbare towels, board-stiff from having been dried in the sun. Now the towels are smaller and newer, and have a sickly fake-floral detergent smell. There are bowls of dried petals – not, I would guess, from the garden but bought in a packet. Nell opened all the windows at once, and then looked at me. ‘Sorry, perhaps you’re cold? I can’t stand potpourri, can you?’
There’s a new swimming pool closer to the house – heated. Its ‘hut’ – the portico of a classical temple, perfect but for the fact that there isn’t a temple behind it – was once an orangery. It has showers and a fridge full of beer. The pool that my windows overlook has reverted to being an ornamental pond, with water lilies. Tall black hedges enclose it. A pine tree spreads its wings over my refuge like a hen. Its needles patter on the tarred roof. I feel safe here, but not happy.
I rang Sunita again this evening, careless of what time it might be at home, and as soon as I heard her voice I began to cry. She was speechless too, but she held the boy to the receiver and his clucks and gurgles crossed the Eurasian landmass.
My mother writes to tell me that when her friends ask her about my ungodliness she doesn’t know what to say. Her letters are sent to Cousin Amina who reads them to me over the telephone. Amina said this morning, ‘Like siste
r like sister. How we distress them. My mother tells me that every time she thinks of my examining male patients she weeps for me. My degradation, she calls it.’
October
Nell and her mother lay on a rug facing each other, each propped on an elbow. Between them, bracketed by their curved bodies, lay Jemima, Nell’s tiny daughter. For over an hour they had been crooning hymns to her while she fought with all her indomitable will to cling to wakefulness. Even now her narrow mauve feet twitched ceaselessly.
‘She’s trying to swim back up,’ said Chloe.
‘Did I do that?’
‘I don’t honestly know. Nanny Gee hardly ever let me near you.’
‘Is she afraid of sleep? I think she has awful nightmares.’
‘Poor little bunny. We don’t think enough about how scary sleep is. How’s she to know she’ll ever wake up again?’
Flora stood on the edge of the ha-ha, the park her backdrop, striking poses. Her voice came to them across the lawn piecemeal, in overemphasised fragments of speech and occasional trills of laughter. She was talking about trees. She knew almost nothing about the subject, but Goodyear had coached her well.
‘Quincunx … alchemical … Mr Norris … isn’t it AMAZING to think … no power-tools … chop chop chop … I mean, the BLISTERS … and can you imagine? Must have thought NO ONE will EVER see it … now … balloon … perfectly HORRID … TERRIFIED.’
‘She hasn’t really been up, has she?’ asked Nell.
Chloe rolled very slowly over onto her back and said, ‘She jolly nearly did. By mistake. She was posing in the basket for a photographer. Pink and white dress to match the balloon. It’s supposed to be on the front of the Radio Times next week. And then there was a gust of wind.’
‘Oh no!’
‘Lots of shrieking – you can imagine, but they grappled her back to earth OK.’
‘She’s really brilliant, isn’t she?’
‘I suppose so.’ A pause. ‘Well no. I don’t. I just so disapprove of the whole thing.’
Nell looked at her. ‘I didn’t know that. You’re very good at not showing it.’
‘I’ve been the agent’s wife since I was twenty-three years old. You learn not to show what you think. Anyway I know I’m not fair to her. I know she’s not malicious. She’s generous. But the fact is she wrecked Dickie’s life. Sheer bloody carelessness. You can’t expect me to forgive her.’
This had never been said between them. It’s because I’ve had a baby, thought Nell. I’m thirty-six years old. At work I’m quite somebody. But it’s only just now she’s noticed I’m one of the grown-ups.
Chloe said, ‘But anyway, I dislike all this fakery. All this publicity. It’s so … so tarty. But we could never say anything. That’s the hard part. Daddy hated that too, you know.’
Nell took this in.
‘I thought he loved his life. I’ve been saying that to everyone.’
‘Mmmm. Well yes he did, most of it. Remember how easy it was to find him if he was out in the garden – whistling all the time. That was the sound of a contented man. Being a servant, though. Having to bite your lip. It’s humiliating.’
Very cautiously Nell stretched her arm across the sleeping baby and laid her hand on Chloe’s shoulder. ‘He absolutely adored you, didn’t he?’ she said.
Chloe’s eyes were closed. She said, ‘I can’t imagine how there’ll ever come a time when I’m not thinking about him every minute.’ After a bit she went on, ‘Yes I think he really did.’ And then, bafflingly, ‘Bad luck on Lil.’
Selim walked across the grass and squatted beside them. Nell nodded towards the baby and put a forefinger to her lips.
The crowd of technicians walked backwards ahead of Flora as she progressed slowly along the herbaceous border, her long skirt brushing against the catmint and valerian, locks of hair tumbling from her striped silk head-wrap. As she came closer her voice carried to them over the shoulder of the soundman who was holding a boom above her face. The camera trundled on silent wheels.
‘Fertilisation, you see … insemination by ruffled taffeta … Absolutely ENORMOUS hooped skirts … could hide anything, I mean, LOVERS, chamber pots …’
The procession passed on into the yew passage.
‘Flora is very interesting,’ said Selim, forgetting the injunction to silence. ‘In my part of the world people have been amusing outsiders by making themselves into imitations of themselves for centuries, but for the British I think it is a new thing.’
‘Hey Selim,’ said Nell. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in hiding? The place is crawling with strangers today.’
‘Sometimes I just think to hell with it. I think I just made up the danger.’
‘If we can get Jemima into the pram without waking her we’ll come up to the pool garden and keep you amused.’
‘Nell, I’m not another child for you. I don’t need babysitting.’ He was suddenly enraged.
‘Sorry. I just thought …’
He snapped upright, and vanished up the path.
‘I don’t really know what he’s doing here,’ said Chloe. ‘It’s a strain. He’s been getting odder and odder. When you’re not here he doesn’t ever come out.’
Jemima’s arms began to pump. That terrible thin wail, the aural equivalent of vinegar.
‘Oh little rabbit.’ The baby’s head was at once infinitely vulnerable and hard as a club. She bumped it against Nell’s chin and fought with arms and legs.
‘I’ll try the pram,’ said Chloe, heaving herself up. ‘Stay there and get some sleep.’
*
Jamie didn’t, in his view, drink all that much. He worked long hours. He flew frequently. There were nights, when he had a report to write, that he didn’t go to bed. It wasn’t a healthy life, not a life of regular meals and exercise. But he got things done. All the same, there were occasions when Nell woke up to find him, still in the bulky leather jacket he always wore, snoring on the sofa, having arrived home too pissed to undress.
Before they married Nell would come to meet him in the pub, or they’d go to Lemonia and eat sardines. She’d have spent all day thinking about imprisonment: usually she didn’t want to talk about it. So he’d ramble on. His narrative style was all over the place. He’d launch into an anecdote about some person she didn’t know, never pausing to explain the context that would have given the story meaning. As the wine went down his coherence decreased. It was fine with her. She let her mind spin out of gear and enjoyed the food.
He was, she thought, a good man. He was altruistic. He had integrity. Surprised at herself, she found that those were the qualities she wanted in a lover. Not irony, not wit, not the things she valued in her friends, but something more fundamental. And then of course there was the sex.
His every mannerism, his doggy way of cocking his eyebrows, the compact solidity of his chest, the slurred softness of his face when he’d been drinking, all spoke to her of pleasure. It suited her that he worked late, staying night after night at the paper until the foreign-news pages were put to bed. She liked to kid herself she was self-sufficient. She liked going to parties on her own. Someone once asked her ‘Why’s Jamie never with you? Has he got a wife or something?’ and she had a brief glimpse of their semi-detached life as abnormal, but it worked for them both. They were best together in darkness. Their minds were amiably disposed acquaintances, but their bodies embraced each other without reserve.
She was careless. Sleeping sometimes at his flat, sometimes at hers, she’d leave her pills in the wrong place and miss a day or two, and risk it. She got pregnant. She couldn’t fail another child. She resigned herself to marriage. She suspected Jamie was as half-hearted about it as she was, but it was hard to tell.
She was startled by the intensity of the orgasms she was experiencing. Sometimes Spiv rang her early in the morning – midnight New York time, six a.m. in London. One dawn when Jamie wasn’t there Nell said, ‘You’ve done this twice, tell me.’ ‘Tell you what?’ ‘What was sex like when you
were pregnant?’ Spiv laughed, ‘Aha! You’re having the turbo-super-charged-washing-machine effect, aren’t you?’ ‘Well yes, that’s quite an accurate description.’ ‘Make the most of it,’ said Spiv. ‘Once it’s born there’s not much time for all that.’ Spiv was a professor now, bringing up two children alone.
So they were going to be a family, but how to synchronise the selling of her flat, the surrender of his lease, the finding and acquisition of a place they could both be happy in? The task was repeatedly postponed. She badly wanted to complete her report on power-structures among prisoners. She’d been working on it for three years. And then Jamie got the Berlin job.
‘I don’t have to take it,’ he said.
She couldn’t be bothered even to pretend she thought he meant it. Of course he’d take it.
‘Go,’ she said. ‘We’ll manage.’ It wasn’t as though he was going to be any help with the baby.
A month after he went, her father had another heart attack. And then another, and then, two weeks later, the coup de grâce. Jamie stayed for three days after the funeral, and they discovered that, even as enormous as she had become, the washing-machine phenomenon was still operative. They juddered with pleasure, guilty voluptuaries in her widowed mother’s spare room, and then Jamie, who hadn’t touched a drop at the funeral, went back to his ringside seat at the decline and fall of an imperium. When Jemima was born he flew home again and wept copiously in the maternity ward, undone by joy. Once more, after only three days, he went back. What else could one expect?
Antony
Mr Giraffe summoned me, even though we had met not so very long ago.
‘The situation at the moment is volatile,’ he said. ‘People we’ve been watching will be weighing up their options. We believe it’s not impossible someone we’re interested in might contact you. You know we expect you to keep us informed.’ When delivering his messages he speaks as though he’d learnt English from a Dalek.
He gave me instructions as to what I was to do in this, that, or the other case. We were in a restaurant near Covent Garden. There were people I knew there, as he must have guessed there might be. I wonder if he was hinting that he could, if he chose, embarrass me. More than embarrass me. Ruin my life. We sat side by side, which I never like to do, on a mauve tweed banquette. It occurred to me, for the first time ever, that the hearing aid he always wears might conceivably be just that, a hearing aid, not a bug, and it was deafness that made him want to sit so close. How aged we all are. Physically decrepit and intellectually inclined towards compromise. Perhaps that’s why the Cold War is staggering towards a final whimper.
Peculiar Ground Page 31
