Again, Charlotte tried to explain about Cedric. “But I could see, before he showed up, that they would help. One put me on quite a cosy plateau. Don’t be upset. There are other auditions. Now, thanks to you, I know I can handle them.”
No point in mentioning that two more of the pills, wrapped in tissue paper, lay in her purse, beside her library card: a small umbrella against the next rainy day.
chapter 15
Freddie was raising the knocker when he saw the note: WELCOME. PLEASE ENTER QUIETLY. SHOES! Inside was ample evidence that his fellow students of the Golden Road had heeded this last request. The row of grubby, down-at-the-heel footwear made him recall his visit to the shoe museum in Northampton. The whole history of feminism is here, Felicity had claimed. On the one hand, she gestured at a jewelled slipper, women forced to lead useless, ornamental lives; on the other, she indicated a factory worker’s clog, working like animals. Men too, he had said, pointing to a coal miner’s boot. But even the poorest man had someone to boss around, said Felicity. We were the slaves of slaves. At which point he lost it. However poor, a freeman was no slave. You’re right, she said, briefly penitent, and began to discuss how industrialisation had affected women. Now, he thought, setting his boots beside a pair of running shoes, surely she would understand Hazel’s situation.
Entering the living-room was like leaving London. The air smelled of lavender, the photo of the guru again had an offering of white flowers, and a dozen people were lying on their stomachs, holding their ankles and rocking. Freddie found a space near the window and joined in. After a minute or two, he managed to keep time to the mournful drumbeat.
“And now,” said Mrs. Craig, whom he hadn’t seen, lying near the guru, “let’s try this the other way round.”
He had come to talk to her, but exercise by exercise grew more absorbed until, during the final meditation, he drifted off. He woke to someone rubbing the balls of his feet. Mrs. Craig, wearing baggy purple trousers and a white T-shirt, cut short his apologies. “The class is meant to leave you relaxed. I often wish I taught in a commune or a boarding school where people could go directly to bed rather than back out to the streets. So how’s your spine?”
He stood up and twisted from side to side. “Better,” he said. Although he hadn’t felt in particularly bad shape before, his whole body did now feel loose and vigorous. “What do I owe you?”
“Five pounds.”
“Is that the top of your scale?”
“The bottom.” She pressed her palms together.
“Here.” Freddie held out a ten-pound note. “I have a sliding scale for roofs, and I charged you near the top.”
“Do you mind putting it in the basket by the door? It’s a little superstition of mine, not to handle money directly.”
Freddie eyed her with renewed admiration. Stooping to the basket, full of five- and ten-pound notes, he said, “I’m here under false pretenses.”
“That’s all right. I told you you didn’t need to believe for this to work.”
“No, I mean I have an ulterior motive. I came because I wanted to ask you about Hazel.”
Behind him the door swung open and the silver cat stalked in, gave him a yellow-eyed stare and continued across the room to weave around his owner’s ankles. Mrs. Craig, busy with the combs in her hair, ignored him. “I ran into her the other day,” she said. “She was better than when we had tea, though still shaky.”
“Did she say anything?”
“We’d barely exchanged greetings before Jonathan appeared.”
She bent to fondle Lionel, and Freddie asked if they could sit down for a minute. He hoped for a cup of tea or some root infusion, but Mrs. Craig just floated onto the nearest cushion and looked at him expectantly until he did the same. Telling her was easier than Mr. Early. She knew the cast of characters. And when Freddie got to the point, that he was afraid Jonathan was keeping Hazel against her will, Mrs. Craig nodded. “Now that you mention it, our meeting in the street was quite charged. He was so tense, there were sparks coming off him—and she wasn’t glad to see him, either.”
“I want to help her.”
Like Mr. Early, Mrs. Craig seemed nonplussed. “What did you have in mind?”
He’d pictured Hazel in this room, seated on a cushion while Mrs. Craig fed her beetroot and Lionel offered his feline attentions, but her slight stress on “you” did not encourage such revelations. “I want to be sure she’s living there because she wants to, not because he’s somehow tricked her.”
“And if she isn’t?”
“Then I’ll take her wherever she’d like to go.”
Mrs. Craig regarded him thoughtfully. “Hazel may not have many alternatives. She can’t be alone, and there’s no family besides her parents.”
“She can always stay with me.”
“Mightn’t that be like exchanging Broadmoor for Wormwood Scrubs?”
Freddie felt his jaw sag. “You think I’d keep her locked up? No way. She’d have keys, cash, she could come and go as she pleased.”
Mrs. Craig patted the air. “Forgive me. People do tend to assume the worst of a man offering hospitality to a woman.”
“Oh, you mean the sex business. No problem. I have a girlfriend.” He smiled. “If you knew Felicity, you’d understand I don’t normally think women need rescuing.”
“What do you want me to do?”
There was something witchy about this woman, for sure. He tugged at the tassles of his cushion. “I wondered if you might go over, to see how she’s doing.”
“And should I say I’ve spoken with you?”
“You’re the best judge of that. I don’t want to add to her problems.”
“Good answer. I’ll pop round when the time feels right. Meanwhile, maybe you should have a chat with Felicity.”
More witchy behaviour, for hadn’t he suggested that Felicity was already on board? Mrs. Craig rose in her effortless fashion and, followed by Lionel, left the room. Perhaps, Freddie thought, that was something he’d learn later on the Golden Road. Kneeling to retrieve his boots, he saw the basket with its crumpled pile of money still by the door. Pigs could fly before this would happen in Cincinnati.
“Out,” said Felicity, “of the fucking question.”
She had listened to the story without a single interruption—a bad sign, he now recognised. “I thought you’d been acting funny these last few weeks. If you want to leave me for someone else, go ahead, but don’t expect me to pull the trigger. God, Freddie.” She heaped biryani onto her plate. “It’s so sleazy. We spend all this time talking about how society uses women, just discards them when they don’t look a certain way, and you pretend to be so sympathetic. Then you meet a pretty woman and that’s it. Bye-bye, principles. Bye-bye, Felicity.”
He’d heard her angry before, plenty of times, but never this note of self-pity. As she helped herself to raita, he remembered the early days of their relationship, her arm in a sling, her stories. I should tell her, he thought, that I don’t have what it takes, but the need to enlist her help with Hazel overshadowed the demands of truth.
“Felicity, this isn’t about love. This is about a person who happens to be in trouble. I was sure you’d be glad to help. You’re the one who taught me how many women are in abusive relationships, how hard it is for them to leave. What if I stayed at your house, and you stayed at my flat with Hazel?”
At the next table, two men and a woman were squabbling. “Rabbit,” the larger man said loudly.
Felicity cracked a papadum. “We live in a big city, in the twentieth century. If this woman’s in trouble, there are plenty of people who can help.”
“Who?”
“Social services. Or call rape crisis and they’ll give you advice.”
Freddie imagined himself phoning offices. If he couldn’t convince Mr. Early or Felicity, how was he going to convince a stranger? “Listen,” he said, “maybe I’m completely off the wall. All I know is that Hazel is sick and confused and even her next-
door neighbour agrees there’s something weird about the setup. If you were in that state, wouldn’t you be pleased to know you had a place to stay, no strings attached, for a few days?”
“Don’t try to manipulate me,” said Felicity between mouthfuls. “Forget about this woman. Let’s try to sort out why things are so difficult between us.”
“But I promised. I told her if she needed help, I’d be there, anytime.”
“You’re not a fucking boy scout, Freddie. You already have a promise—” she tapped her chest—“to me.”
Just like him, to have said something and forgotten. He tried to think of recent vows. At Christmas, he dimly recalled, they’d discussed her moving in. Where would you work, he’d asked. At the kitchen table, Felicity said. When he pointed out how awkward that would be, they’d gone back and forth about practicalities until Felicity concluded it was probably best for her dissertation if she remained in Bethnal Green. But promises? He didn’t remember any promises.
Now she put down her knife and fork and leaned across the table. “I hate ultimatums. But if you go ahead with this woman, our relationship will change.”
“Hazel, her name is Hazel.” He had the same desperate feeling he’d had at Lourdes when there weren’t enough stretcher bearers and he didn’t know who to help first.
She stood up with an expression that contained so many others that he couldn’t begin to list them. His mind was working furiously—wait, he wanted to say, don’t go—but his mouth remained closed. Felicity watched him for a few seconds longer. Then she put on her jacket, picked up her bag, and walked out of the restaurant, her silence more frightening than any outburst.
Jonathan’s first thought, when he saw Mrs. Craig on the doorstep, was that the roof was acting up. He knew he should have waited for Trevor; idiotic to think a Yank could tell the difference between Welsh slate and Spanish.
“Sorry to disturb you,” she was saying. “I wondered how Hazel was doing.”
“A little better every day.”
Mrs. Craig smiled and nodded until it dawned on him that she was in fact asking to see Hazel. He was about to offer the usual excuses—ill, tired—when he thought, what the hell. After all, he never saw her these days. Since their last conversation and her subsequent seizure, they divided the house between them like strangers.
In the dark bedroom she didn’t answer his hello, but peering around the door he caught the glint of her eyes. “Mrs. Craig is here.”
“Oh, good.” She reached for the light.
Waiting for the kettle to boil, he rummaged for the herbal tea Mrs. Craig had firmly requested and chose blackberry over camomile because the box was prettier. Upstairs, she was sitting cross-legged on the bed. As he came in, she and Hazel both stopped talking. For a moment he was tempted to pull up a chair. Why should he let them drive him away? Then, moving a magazine to make room for the tray, he caught sight of the monitor, lying next to Hazel. Surreptitiously he switched it on, flicking the volume to high.
“Call if you need me,” he said, and hurried downstairs to retrieve the listening device from the mantelpiece.
“How do you feel?” Mrs. Craig was saying. “You look rather—” a sweet sound interrupted her words, as if a tuning fork had been struck—“frayed around the edges.”
“That day I met you in the street, afterwards I had a seizure. A bad one.”
Their voices emerged from the monitor only a little mossy. He positioned himself in the armchair below the bedroom. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? He’d always yearned to know what Hazel said and did in his absence, the unseen tree in the forest seen at last.
“Oh, I am sorry.” He suddenly appreciated Mrs. Craig’s excellent diction. “How are you now?”
“Terrible. It was the first time I’d been out alone since the accident. I wanted so badly to prove I could manage.”
“And you did. Like everything else, though, you have to begin slowly. Where were you going?”
“Anywhere. I couldn’t bear to be under the same roof as Jonathan a minute longer. My skin crawls when he comes near me.”
Crawls, he thought. He stared at the aerial roots of the cheese plant, dry, hairy, searching for something they would never find.
“I have a tricky question to ask you.”
What was the old busybody after? He should never have let her in. Anxious not to miss a syllable, he raised the monitor to his ear. Then Hazel must’ve made some gesture of assent. “You know the man who fixed our roofs, Freddie Adams? He’s worried that you’re living here because of some kind of confusion.”
Freddie, thought Jonathan, but his spurt of indignation was lost in Hazel’s reply. “He’s right,” she said. “I just found out that I’d moved into my own flat before the accident.”
Was Mrs. Craig nodding, trying to interrupt? At any rate, Hazel rushed on. “I can’t tell you what a relief it is. For weeks I’ve had the feeling things weren’t quite right between Jonathan and me, but no one would come clean. It was driving me mad.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been a poor friend. He didn’t make me feel very welcome when I came to tea.”
He fought the impulse to run upstairs crying “Fire! Fire!,” drag Mrs. Craig from the room, and hurl her into the street. I already told Hazel the worst part, he reminded himself.
“Jonathan I can understand,” she was saying, “in some warped way. The person who baffles me is Maud. She stonewalls, says she has no idea what I’m talking about. That I mustn’t excite myself. Please, will you tell me what you know?”
In her clear voice Mrs. Craig embarked on her version of their history. Hazel moving in, delicious meals, interesting excursions, articles gradually accepted. “Your job brought out the worst in Jonathan. You used to complain that he’d interrogate you if you were even a few minutes late. Once you said it was like living with a detective.”
That damn humming.
“And last spring you found out about Suzanne.”
“The Suzanne who lived here before me?”
“Exactly. They broke up when she got pregnant and she had the child on her own. Apparently Jonathan hadn’t bothered to tell you. That was what upset you, that he didn’t seem to think it was important.”
During a long pause, he twisted the volume into a roar of static, out of which Mrs. Craig’s voice leapt—“Don’t upset yourself”—followed by hushing sounds.
“And then I moved out,” Hazel said hoarsely.
“In the autumn. I’m not sure why.”
“Jonathan said it was because he was busy, overworked.”
“Maybe. You were so angry you could hardly speak.”
For a few seconds, the blood seething through his veins, he didn’t notice the absence of voices. He fiddled with the volume, turned the power on and off, all to no effect. He was halfway up the stairs when the bedroom door opened.
“Jonathan,” Mrs. Craig said brightly. “I was coming to see if we could get some more tea.”
She knows I was listening. “How’s Hazel?”
“A little tired.” She smiled. “I won’t stay much longer.”
No, she doesn’t.
She returned to the bedroom and he retreated to the kitchen. Now who’s paranoid, he thought. When had that bitch been interested in anything besides auras and massage? And, of course, her garden, a haven for his bees.
“Camomile compresses are marvellous for that,” she was saying as he carried the tea into the room.
Bending to retrieve the empty mugs, he spotted the monitor face down on the floor. No danger. One of them had accidentally knocked it off the bed. He’d been imagining they were as clever as he was. Boldly, he turned to Hazel. “Have you invited Mrs. Craig to the wedding?”
“She was just telling me,” Mrs. Craig said. “If I can rearrange things, I’d love to come.” She explained she’d offered Hazel half a dozen massages as a present—“Most beneficial for restoring inner balance”—and Hazel announced she was going for the first session tomorrow.
He flung out of the room. Suzanne, for christ’s sake, she knew about Suzanne. He’d hoped never to utter that name again, but mightn’t it be for the best, one less secret between him and Hazel? And now he knew what to emphasise, his deep feelings about having a daughter, the anguish of the decision, etc., etc. Downstairs rain was streaking the kitchen door, pattering on the leaves of the elderberry tree. Damn, he thought; then, why not? Being in the house was intolerable, and the bees could survive a sprinkle. Retrieving the veil and smoker, he stepped into the garden.
At the hives, he lit the smoker and gave two puffs into the the nearest hive. He was debating a third when it occurred to him that he hadn’t heard a word about the wedding through the monitor. Distracted, he pried off the lid. Before he could blink, he was stung twice, on the nose and the chin. Checking his hair, he pulled on the veil and gave several fierce puffs. In recent years he’d prided himself on using as little smoke as possible. Now the bees seemed to guess his rage. Even after the second dose they continued to erupt, trying to penetrate the veil. When two more managed to sting him, he pumped smoke into the hive. At last they quieted; he began searching the wax sheets for the long cells indicating an extra queen, but his hands were shaking so severely, the stings ached so sharply, the rain fell so drearily, that soon he gave up and returned indoors.
Since Walter’s departure, Sunday was Charlotte’s least favourite day of the week, most of her normal haunts closed and British family life in full swing. But at Bernie’s, it was noticeably less of a dog and could even be mildly pleasant. This afternoon they’d gone for a walk along the canal and she’d served a high tea of macaroni cheese, which the rug-rats devoured. Now they were in bed, Bernie was ironing, and she was sitting on the sofa, skimming an article about the Redgraves—she’d once been in a play with Corin—when Bernie made an announcement. “I’ve been waiting all day.” Her iron hissed over a blouse. “Rory’s moving back in.”
“Oh.” Charlotte clutched the newspaper. “Great.”
“I thought you’d be pleased. You were the one who kept telling me to take him back.”
The Missing World Page 21
