* * *
‘It wasn’t so bad at first. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Virginia’s beautiful, and Strick had this lovely place, on a bluff above the James River. It was an enormous house, with acres of land all around, green pastures for the horses, and white split-rail fences. And there were dogwoods and wild oaks, and in front of the house a garden with a vast swimming pool and tennis courts. It was so mild and so sunny, even in winter. And I had a huge room all to myself and a bathroom as well, and there were servants. A cook and a housemaid, and a coloured butler called David, who came to work each day in a pink Studebaker. Even the school my mother sent me to was all right. It was a boarding school and I imagine, wildly expensive, because all the girls’ parents seemed to be just as rich as Strickland was, and after a bit, when they’d got used to the idea of me being English and having a British accent, I became a sort of novelty, and it wasn’t so difficult to make friends.’
They were in the garden together, under the mulberry tree. They had carried out a rug and some cushions, and lay, side by side, on their stomachs, like a couple of schoolgirls exchanging confidences. Being like that somehow made it easier to talk.
‘Were you never lonely?’
‘Oh, heavens, yes. All the time, really, but it was a funny sort of loneliness. A little part of me that I carried around all the time, but it was hidden. Very deep. Like a stone at the bottom of a pond. I mean, I never ever felt that I belonged, but it wasn’t too difficult to behave as though I did.’
‘What about when you weren’t at school.’
‘Even that wasn’t too bad. They knew I didn’t want to ride, so they left me alone. I’ve never, actually, minded being alone, and besides, there were usually people around the place. Friends staying, with children of my age, or people coming for tennis, or to swim.’ She smiled. ‘I can swim really well, and I can even play tennis too, though I’m not what you call a champion.’
‘Gabriel, why did you never come back and see your father?’
Gabriel looked away, pulled at a tuft of grass within reach, shredded it between her fingers.
‘I don’t know. It just never worked out. At first I thought I’d come back and be with him when he went to Glenshandra. That was where we really were together, just him and me. He used to take me out on the river with him, and we spent hours … just the two of us. I wanted to go to Glenshandra, but when I tried to tell my mother, she said she’d fixed for me to go to summer camp, and why not leave it for this year. There’d be other years. When you’re only fourteen, it’s not easy to argue and get your own way. And my mother is an almost impossible person to argue with. She has answers for absolutely everything, and in the end you’re always defeated. So I went to summer camp, and I thought my father would write and be furiously angry with us all. But he didn’t. He just said the same thing. Perhaps next year. And that hurt me, because I guessed perhaps he hadn’t cared as much as I thought he would.’
‘Did he write to you?’
‘Yes, he wrote. And I got presents at Christmas and for my birthday.’
‘Did you write back?’
‘Oh, yes. Thank-you letters.’
‘But he must have missed you so much. Those five years when he was all on his own. He must have longed to have you with him. Just sometimes.’
Gabriel said, ‘He should never have let me go. I wanted to stay with him. I told my mother that, and she said that it was impossible. Apart from the practical problems, he was too busy, too involved with his work. His job always came before anything else.’
‘Did you tell your father?’
‘I tried to. He came to see me at the school in England, and we walked around the games field, but somehow by then it was too late to get through to him. All he said to me was, “I have too many commitments. You need your mother.”’
‘And you’ve never forgiven him for that?’
‘It’s not a question of forgiving, Laura. It’s a question of adapting. If I hadn’t adapted, I’d have become a screwed-up mess, the sort of nutty kid who has to be wheeled off to the local headshrinker. And once I’d adapted, it was too late to go back, even for a little while. Do you see that?’
‘Yes,’ said Laura slowly. ‘I think I do see. I think you did very well. At least you accepted an impossible situation and made some sort of a life for yourself.’
‘Oh, I made a life all right.’
‘What happened when you left school?’
‘Mother wanted me to go to college, but I jibbed at that. We really had a row, but for once, I stuck my toes in and won, and did what I wanted to do, which was to study fine arts at a place in Washington.’
‘How fascinating.’
‘Yes, it was great. I had a little apartment and a car of my own, and if I wanted to, at weekends, I could go back to Virginia and take my friends. Mother didn’t approve of any of the friends, who all voted Democrat and had long hair, but apart from that it was O.K. At least, it was for a bit…’
‘Why only for a bit…?’
Gabriel sighed and pulled up another piece of Gerald’s lawn. She said, ‘I don’t know if you know anything about Strickland Whiteside.’
‘No. Nothing. Alec’s never spoken of him. I’m afraid he hardly spoke about your mother.’
‘After I left school … I don’t know, nothing happened, but I used to catch Strickland watching me, and I felt sleazy, and I knew things weren’t the same any longer. I started taking some trouble to keep out of his way. That’s one of the reasons I went to Washington, to get away from Virginia. But of course, finally, when I’d got my little degree, I had to go back, and the first night I was home, my mother went to bed early, and Strickland made the most violent pass at me. He’d had a few drinks and I think he was feeling a bit randy, but it was horrible.’
‘Oh, Gabriel.’
‘I knew I couldn’t stay. The next morning I told my mother I was going to New York, to stay with a girl who’d been a friend of mine at school. She bucked slightly, but she didn’t raise any objections. Perhaps she had an idea of what was going on in Strickland’s pin-brain, but if she did, she gave no indication. She’s always been a very controlled person. I never saw her lose control of any situation. So I called the girlfriend, packed, and got myself to New York. I thought I’d get a job or something, but New York was never my scene, and the first morning I was there, I caught sight of my reflection in one of the Fifth Avenue store windows and I thought, “What the hell are you doing here?” Anyway, after two days I still hadn’t found anything to do, but as it turned out that didn’t matter. Because that evening we went to a party down in Greenwich Village, and I met this man. He was British and funny and nice; we talked the same language, were on the same wavelength. And oh, the joy of being with someone who laughed at the same idiotic things as I did. Anyway, he took me out for dinner and said that he had this yacht down in the Virgin Islands, and he’d asked some friends down for a cruise, and would I like to go too. So I went. It was great. The most beautiful yacht, and heavenly sailing, and gorgeous romantic little coves with white sand and palm trees. And then the two weeks were over, and all the others went back to New York, but he stayed on. And so did I. I stayed with him for six months. We lived together for six months. I said goodbye to him two days ago. Two days. It feels like two years.’
‘But who was he, Gabriel?’
‘I suppose you’d call him an upper-class drifter. I told you, he was English. He’d been in the army. I think he had a wife somewhere. A lot of money, because he didn’t have a job, and it costs something to keep a fifty-foot sloop in the Virgin Islands.’
‘Were you happy with him?’
‘Oh, sure. We had a great time.’
‘What was his name?’
‘I’m not going to tell you. It’s of no account.’
‘But if you were happy, then why did you come back to England?’
Gabriel said, ‘I’ve started a baby.’
There was a silence, which was no
t a silence at all, because the garden was filled with birdsong. Then Laura, inadequately, said, ‘Oh, Gabriel.’
‘I only realized that I had—about a week ago.’
‘Have you seen a doctor?’
‘No, nothing like that, but I’m perfectly sure. And at the same time, I knew that if I wasn’t going to have a child, if I was going to have an abortion, I had to move pretty quickly. But that wasn’t the only reason I came straight home. The real reason was that I wanted my father. I just wanted him. I needed him. I needed to tell him, and to talk to him, and to hear his advice and … oh, just to be with him, Laura. And then when I got to London and he wasn’t there, I thought that the only thing I could do was to find you and talk to you.’
‘But you didn’t even know me.’
‘I had to tell somebody.’
Laura’s eyes filled with tears, and swiftly, ashamedly, she brushed them away. She said, ‘I’ve never had very strong views about abortion. I mean, I’ve never campaigned either way, for or against. But hearing you even say the word fills me with such horror and revulsion.… Oh, Gabriel, you mustn’t have an abortion!’
Gabriel grinned. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve already decided I couldn’t go through with it. I decided this morning, when I was talking to Drusilla, before you were all awake. When I saw that great fat baby of hers, I was suddenly, absolutely, sure that I wanted this one.’
‘Does the father know about it?’
‘No, I didn’t say anything.’
‘Oh, darling…’ The tears started again. ‘So silly to cry, but I can’t help it. Perhaps I shouldn’t be, but I’m happy for you.’
‘You don’t think Alec’s going to flip when we tell him?’
‘You know him better than that.’
‘What I’d really like to do,’ said Gabriel, ‘is to come back to London with you both … maybe stay till the baby’s born.’
‘Stay as long as you want.’
‘We’ll be a bit of a tight fit in that little house.’
‘We’ll get Alec to buy us a bigger one, with a garden.’
They laughed together, two women conspiring gently against the man they both loved. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted. Not a bigger house, but a baby. But I’m thirty-seven now, and every now and then my insides go mad, and so far I haven’t been very lucky. That’s why I had to have this operation. That’s why I’m here and why I didn’t go to Glenshandra or New York with him. But if I can’t have a child, then you having one…’
‘Will be the next best thing?’
‘No. Never that. Never next best.’
A movement from the house disturbed them. Looking up, they saw Gerald emerge onto the terrace through the French windows from the drawing room. They watched while he collected the folded garden furniture, set it up in the sunshine around the white iron table. When this was done, he picked up some small piece of rubbish—a matchstick perhaps—and stooped to pull a stray weed or two from between the stone flags. Then, apparently satisfied that all was shipshape, he disappeared indoors.
‘What a marvellous guy,’ Gabriel observed.
‘Yes, marvellous. He was always Alec’s hero. Poor man. A bachelor for sixty years, and here he is with a houseful of women. So many of us. Women on their own. Women without men. Old May, up in her room, darning socks and with her life behind her. Drusilla, with nobody but her baby. Silvia Marten, Eve’s friend, coming and going, hungry for company. She’s probably the loneliest of all. And you. And me.’
‘You, lonely? But Laura, you have Alec.’
‘Yes, I have Alec. And it’s been very nearly perfect.’
‘What’s missing?’
‘Nothing’s missing. Just another lifetime that I had no part of.’
‘You mean my mother. And Deepbrook. And me.’
‘You most of all. Alec would never talk to me about you. It was like a barrier between us and I never had the confidence nor the resolution to break it down.’
‘Were you jealous of me?’
‘No, I don’t mean that.’ She lay, trying to work it out, to find the right, tremendously important words. ‘I think I was lonely for the same reason as Alec. You weren’t a barrier, Gabriel, but a void. You should have been there, with us, but you weren’t.’
Gabriel smiled. ‘Well, I’m sure here now.’
‘How about Erica? Will she be worrying about you?’
‘No. She thinks I’m still cruising round the Virgin Islands with a jolly party of socially acceptable New Yorkers. When my father gets back and the future’s a little clearer, I’ll write to her, tell her what’s happening.’
‘She’ll miss you.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Is she ever lonely? Is she one of the lonely ones?’
‘Never. You see, she has her horses.’
They stayed there for a little longer, and then Laura looked at her watch, stirred herself, and sat up.
‘Where are you going?’ Gabriel asked.
‘I’ve been neglecting Eve. I must go and help her. We’re such a houseful and she does all the cooking herself.’
‘Shall I come too? I’m a dab hand at peeling potatoes.’
‘No, you stay. You’re allowed to be lazy on your first morning. I’ll give you a shout when it’s time for lunch.’
She went across the grass, the breeze blowing her pink cotton skirt, her long hair. She climbed the steps onto the terrace and disappeared into the house. Gabriel watched her go, and then rolled over onto her back, the cushion beneath her head.
The baby was there. Would be born. She laid a hand on her abdomen, cherishing the future. A tiny seed, already growing. An entity. Last night on the train, she had scarcely slept, and because of this or, perhaps, delayed jet lag, she was all at once overcome with drowsiness. With her face to the sun, she closed her eyes.
Later, she stirred. Consciousness came gently, tranquilly. There was another sensation, one at first unrecognized, and then remembered from long ago, from childhood. Security, like a warm blanket. A presence.
She opened her eyes. Ivan, cross-legged, sat beside her on the rug, watching her, and his being there seemed so natural that she felt none of the normal embarrassment of a person found asleep, vulnerable and defenceless.
After a bit, he said, ‘Hello.’
Gabriel said the first thing that came into her head, which was, ‘You weren’t having an affair with Laura.’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
She frowned, trying to think what had made her say this, when they had not before even spoken of the letter. As though he knew what was going on in her head, he said, ‘Gerald showed me the letter. He came up to Carnellow to show it to me. I’m sorry about everything. Sorry it was written, but mostly sorry that it was you who had to read it.’
‘I only opened it because I wanted to find Laura. And I think it’s a mercy that I did. It could have been so dangerous, Ivan. If Alec had read it before he went to New York, it could really have been very dangerous.’
‘It can’t have made meeting Laura for the first time very easy.’
‘No. But in the last few days I seem to have done a lot of things that weren’t easy.’
‘I just hate that you had that uncertainty about us. Even if it was only for a single day.’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘There’s already been one like it. Gerald told you.’
‘Yes, he told me. But, like he said, it was a pack of lies. It’s no longer my responsibility.’ She stretched, yawned, and sat up. The garden was dazzled in sunshine, scented with wallflowers. The sun had moved, and beneath the mulberry tree the grass lay dappled in light and shadow. ‘How long have I been asleep?’
‘I don’t know. It’s half past twelve. I was sent out to tell you it will soon be lunchtime.’
He was wearing a pale blue shirt, open-necked, the sleeves rolled up and away from his wrists. Beneath this, against the brown skin of his chest, she saw the glint of a silver chain. His hands, wh
ich she had already decided were beautiful, hung loosely between his knees. She saw his wristwatch, the heavy gold signet ring.
‘Do you feel like something to eat?’ he asked.
She dragged her eyes away from his hands and looked up into his face. ‘Do you always come home for lunch?’
‘No. But today I’m taking a make and mend.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Six months in a yacht and you don’t speak the language! Naval slang for a half-day.’
‘I see. And what are you going to do with it?’
‘Nothing, I think. How about you?’
‘Sounds a good idea.’
He smiled and got to his feet, and put out a hand to help Gabriel up. ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘let’s do nothing together.’
* * *
They were all sitting around the kitchen table, having a drink before lunch, and waiting for May. When she appeared cautiously descending the back stairs, it was immediately obvious, from the sour displeasure on her wrinkled features, that something was very amiss.
‘May, what is it?’ Eve asked.
May folded her hands over her stomach, set her mouth, and told them. The door of Laura’s bedroom had been left open. Lucy had got out of her basket, found her way along the passage to May’s room, and had there been extremely sick in the middle of May’s good rug.
* * *
At five o’clock that evening, Laura, carrying a punnet of tomatoes, walked down to the village by herself. She and Eve had picked the tomatoes together. They came from the Tremenheere greenhouse, and with the warm weather, dozens of them had ripened at the same moment. They had spent the afternoon concocting soups and purées, and yet there were pounds left over. Drusilla gladly accepted a bowlful, and a basket was set aside for the vicar’s wife, but still there were more.
‘Why do the beastly things all have to come at once?’ Eve wanted to know, flushed in the face from all this culinary effort. ‘I can’t bear to waste them.’ Then she was visited by a brainwave. ‘I know, we’ll give them to Silvia.’
Voices In Summer Page 21
