After the Party

by Cressida Connolly

  ‘That’s hardly fair,’ said Greville. ‘The boy’s been with us all the time you were away; with, may I say, precious little thanks from you. He’s got used to being here. We’ve grown extremely fond of him.’

  ‘He’s not yours,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling,’ said Patricia. ‘No one’s pretending for a minute that he is ours. We’re simply trying to help.’

  Phyllis was startled by the noise which came out of her mouth at this. It wasn’t quite a sob, nor a howl of indignation, but something between the two. At length she spoke.

  ‘Help? Is that what you call it?’

  ‘I hardly think your tone is called for,’ said Greville.

  ‘Don’t be so pompous, Greville. Just for once,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘Pill, really!’ her sister remonstrated.

  Phyllis looked across at Hugh, hoping that he would say the definitive thing, the thing that would make this dreadful proposal evaporate. But he simply sat, immobile, with his hands folded on the table in front of him. Phyllis felt a sort of curdled fury at the way he sat with his back so straight, the knot of his tie just so; at his hair tidily brushed back with the Bay Rum pomade he bought at some grand barber’s in London. Even the clean neatness of his nails made her feel poisoned with her own anger. He was like a shop dummy: useless, utterly useless.

  ‘It’s very good of you, I’m sure,’ said Phyllis, standing up. ‘But we must really be going now. Hugh?’

  ‘Well, p’raps you’ll think over what we’ve discussed. You may feel rather differently on reflection,’ said Greville. ‘I don’t believe you’ve had time to consider the matter yet, have you, Hugh?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hugh. ‘No.’

  Phyllis knew that she had to get out of the house before another word came out of her mouth. She felt that if she tried to say anything else a stream of liquid venom might spill out of her. The sense of it – rising, hot like lava – was so overwhelming that she actually held one hand over her lips, to keep it in.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Patricia. ‘Sleep on it, why don’t you: see how you feel in the morning. We’re only trying to help, surely you can see that?’

  Phyllis recognized the tone of her sister’s voice. It was the same tone of false brightness that she used to address their mother: a special conciliatory voice for the mentally deficient. Patricia came around the table and put her hand in the small of her sister’s back. Her touch was so light that Phyllis could not tell whether she was being ushered out of the dining room, or comforted. Perhaps it was both.

  The one thing to look forward to before the children came home for Christmas was the reunion in early December, billed as the 18B Social and Dance. Here at least Phyllis and Hugh could be guaranteed a warm welcome. As among those who had been detained for the greatest length of time, they found themselves lauded, now, by other followers. Old friends from local meetings clasped their hands with real warmth when they met, and a special dinner in Bognor Regis, always among the most active branches, had been given in their honour. Hugh had been asked to write about his time in detention.

  Phyllis planned to go up to London the day before the dance. She told Hugh that she was meeting up with Rowena and June, neither of whom she’d had a chance to see since their release. Both of them were coming to town for the reunion. They were staying in Bloomsbury, while Phyllis was at a small private hotel in Pimlico, to be near Victoria station. It was true that she was to lunch with her friends and they’d rather thought they might go together to Dickins & Jones afterwards: Phyllis needed to buy a refill for her powder compact and some new gloves and June wanted to find a hat and Rowena had nothing to wear to the dance. She was deliberately vague as to when she was to see her women friends, not that Hugh pressed her on such things. In fact she had altogether another plan for the evening. She had invited Jamie to dine with her.

  It wasn’t that there was any need for secrecy. She had known Jamie all her life, after all. But she had been so very grateful for the letters and drawings he’d sent her while she was in prison. Everyone else was so stiff and formal on paper, but Jamie – who was sometimes awkward and tongue-tied, in person – brought such animation, such a sense of life to the page. There had been times when, feeling especially lonely, she had gone to the back of the drawer where she kept her night-things and got out all of his letters and gone through them again, one by one, savouring the glimpses of the landscape of her childhood which they depicted. More than anything else, Jamie’s letters had made her feel that the invisible cord which connected her to her old life was not after all entirely broken. Sitting against her wooden bedhead on the Isle of Man with his letters laid out on the counterpane before her, she was no longer simply a prisoner. She was someone with a past, a kind and decent place that she came from: she was not only someone in disgrace. Jamie had given her this and with it had come a glimmer of hope that she might one day be restored. She felt she owed him a great debt of gratitude and that it was right that she should thank him, face to face.

  They met at the restaurant. The place had red plush seats and tablecloths as stiff as invitations and smelled faintly of methylated spirit and brandy and cigars. It was a speciality of the establishment to wheel a silent trolley across the thick carpet and flambé certain dishes in little copper pans at each table, steak with a heavy sauce, or crêpes Suzette. Jamie had got there first and stood as she was shown to their table, unfolding from his chair like an accordion. He was so familiar, so dear, that Phyllis began to smile even before they’d said hello. He looked very young in his white shirt, even though he was the same age as herself: perhaps it was because his skin was brown from living so much outdoors; or it might have been that she was so used to looking across a table at Hugh, who was so much older. To Phyllis it was not only that Jamie looked youthful; he seemed almost to shine, like a figure in a church window caught in the light. She found that she was so glad to see him that words failed. For the first few minutes they simply sat, beaming at each other. When they began to speak the words tumbled out of them in no particular order. Yes, he was still at the farm and had managed to keep on the dairy cows, or most of the herd. He had moved the milking parlour into a new building at the far side of the old yard and had brought in a full-time cow-man so that he could spend more hours in the art studio he’d made in the old byre, closer to the house. Three land girls – they weren’t girls at all, but older women with tight perms and each as tough as an old boot – had come to help. They were rather garrulous. The three had become something of a fixture at the Plough & Harrow, did she remember it, the public house about a mile and a half away, at the crossroads? He hadn’t known women could put back pints of beer in such quantities, nor use such dreadful language: they swore like stevedores, all three of them. Now he was preparing work for an exhibition at a nice gallery in Cork Street. Small landscape paintings, mostly, one or two portraits as well as half a dozen little figures in clay. Phyllis talked about what a shock it had been, to find London so altered, bomb craters and broken windows everywhere and rubble. She told him that they were thinking of moving house in the new year, perhaps to a nearby seaside town. She did not give the reason because she did not want him to pity her any more. She wanted to be gay and light. She told him a silly story about trying on hats with her friends this afternoon. He made her tell him all about all the children and then about her sisters. She said Nina was as bossy as ever and Patricia just as condescending as she had been when they’d played at being knights and ladies, all those years ago.

  She had never paid the bill in a restaurant before. Jamie was most reluctant to let her pay; for all that he was an artist now, he still had certain standards. She’d paid in cafés at lunches, having Welsh rarebit with a sister or friend, but certainly not in a proper restaurant and at night – and she felt rather daring now. It was the first time, also, that she had had dinner alone with a man other than her husband.

  ‘Shall I see you into a taxi?’ Jamie asked. They were st
anding on the pavement, Phyllis pulling on the new green gloves she’d bought earlier. They were made of glossy leather, like holly leaves. She thought they looked fetching, with her camel-hair coat and autumn-coloured silk scarf. The night was clear yet mild, so she did not button her coat but knotted the belt loosely.

  ‘D’you know, I think I’ll walk. I’m only staying a few minutes away.’

  ‘I’ll stroll with you,’ he said, falling into step beside her. It was nice of him, to adapt to her pace: being so tall, she imagined he’d prefer to stride out. Hugh always walked just a fraction in front of her, so that she had to struggle to keep up.

  ‘It was so good of you, to write me all those lovely letters while I was … while I was away. I can’t tell you what a difference they made. I’ve been wanting to thank you.’ All of a sudden she felt very shy.

  ‘Oh no, there’s no need. You’d have done the same for me,’ he said.

  Phyllis pondered this as they walked. With a prick of conscience she realized that she wasn’t at all sure that she would have done the same. She might have written once or twice, but she’d never have kept it up, she didn’t think. She simply wouldn’t have known what to say to someone who was in prison.

  They had reached her hotel. Somehow Jamie was standing now in front of her. He hadn’t yet stooped down to peck her cheek in parting, but she detected a preliminary movement of his shoulders and neck which heralded their bidding each other goodbye. Without thought or intention she responded. Before she knew it she had taken a step closer to him and taken his bare hand in both her gloved ones and was pulling him towards her, pulling his hand inside her open coat. She felt at that moment as if everything was pulling. At the same moment she raised her face up towards his, but he was so tall that her mouth only reached to his neck. She could smell his skin, a clean smell like freshly ironed linen. His neck was smooth and warm.

  ‘Come up with me,’ she said.

  ‘Phyllis, I can’t.’

  ‘You can, Jamie. It’s all right, Hugh’ll never know.’ It was inconceivable that he meant it: Jamie, who always did what she wanted him to. He didn’t step back, and although he had somehow retracted his hand he had also bent down, so that the sides of their two faces were now touching, so that she felt the warmth of his cheek against hers.

  ‘I’ve been dreaming about you kissing me for years and years, ever since that time when we were together, with the horses. Do you remember? I’ve dreamed about us spending a night together. I thought we’d never have the chance, but here we are. Haven’t you thought about it, too? About me?’

  When he spoke his mouth was still against her hair.

  ‘Of course I have. I did. It isn’t that. It’s that I’ve met someone, you see. I couldn’t now, well, I wouldn’t want to …’

  Phyllis took an abrupt step backwards.

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me?’ she said. She felt a disappointment that made her want to wail, as if it was very much older and sharper than this present one; as if it had been waiting for decades to reveal itself.

  ‘Well, you know that I’ve always cared for you very much; very much indeed. And somehow I had an inkling that you might have felt a bit the same, or at least that you did some of the time. Not always. Anyway, I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. I thought we see each other so seldom that you didn’t really need to know.’

  ‘Who is she, though?’ said Phyllis. It didn’t make any difference who she was, Phyllis understood that. Yet an irrational part of her thought she could use the woman’s name as a kind of ammunition, to persuade him he’d made a mistake. If he heard the name coming from her mouth, he would surely change his mind.

  ‘No one you know, she’s not from here. England, I mean. Her name’s Natasha. She’s got relations in London whom she came to at the beginning of the war. She’s a potter, makes bowls and plates with birds on. I met her at the gallery. She’s been living at the farm with me.’

  ‘Oh, Jamie. I feel so stupid now.’

  ‘You really don’t need to. You mustn’t feel anything bad. I’ve forgotten already. It was nothing.’

  ‘It’s only that you’re so very dear to me.’

  ‘I know. As are you to me.’

  Somehow they had each stepped back so that two feet of London air now stood between them. Phyllis felt that she might weep from the pity of it if she lingered for so much as another moment. She turned and stepped towards the pillars which flanked the hotel’s entrance. The paint on the nearer column was coming away in big flakes, revealing an earlier coat in a slightly different, paler colour. It reminded her of the bark of the tall plane trees in the parks.

  ‘You will keep in touch, won’t you?’ Jamie called after her.

  But Phyllis could not answer and she didn’t turn around.

  Phyllis, 1979

  I have to admit, things were pretty sticky after Hugh died. There’d been some capital – he’d had shares in the rubber company at one point – but Lord alone knows what happened to it; he may’ve sold out in order to pay for the building work when we moved to Littlehampton. His pension had been stopped some time before, you see. He’d made Greville his executor, which was normal in those days: people from our background thought money was men’s business. Widows were just meant to grieve quietly and get some responsible male to manage the banks and bills. Although it was me, of course, who had to live with the consequences.

  After the war, when the motor trade was on the up, Eric asked Hugh to come back and help out at the garage again. Well, I say the garage but of course there were several, by then. A chain of them. Not on the forecourt, he wasn’t reduced to oily overalls. He helped in the office. Paperwork. It was good of Eric, he could see after we’d moved out of the house Hugh built that the light had gone out of my poor husband; and to be honest it was a relief to get him out for a few hours and to have a little extra money. Well, I say it was good of him but he owed us a lot, really. I don’t doubt that he and Nina were spared prison because of having turned us in; but I didn’t know that at the time. Didn’t find out till years later and by then I was living up here and hardly saw my sister anyhow. They did well for themselves, those two, in any case: had their boys and their flourishing business and a big house adjoining a golf course. Eric had always aspired to playing golf, he was that sort of man.

  Hugh was on his way home from the garage when he died. They said it was a stroke. The police thought he must have pulled over because he felt it coming on. It’s meant to start with a feeling of tightness, isn’t it; or is that a heart attack? A travelling salesman stopped in the same lay-by to consult his map – we never knew how much later he pulled in, how long poor Hugh had been there; not that it makes any difference. He spotted the car and Hugh slumped in it. He went to a house up the road to telephone for an ambulance, even though he could see it would be too late. At the time I wished I’d asked the officer for the man’s name, so I could have thanked him. Don’t know what I wanted to thank him for; noticing, I suppose. Anyway.

  Whether there really was no money left or whether Greville decided it would be an opportune moment to reimburse himself for some of Edwin’s school fees, I can’t say. You may form your own opinion. Edwin was spending half his holidays with Patricia by that time, although he still came home for Christmas itself and for Easter. But I’d lost him by then, I knew that. I think the combination of our having been away while he was at prep school and then the financial difficulties and selling the house and going to so much less nice a place; a place where he didn’t have any childhood associations – and of course his sisters not being at home so much any more, that was another thing – it all snowballed, until he actually felt more at home at Rose Green with my sister and Greville. I managed to limp along in Littlehampton for a year or two, in the house we’d moved to after the war. I took in paying guests during the school term-times to help pay the bills. To be fair, the old Party members were very good: they recommended me to people, so I generally had all three bedrooms rented out. Th
e children’s bedrooms, as they’d originally been. After Edwin had taken his School Certificate – he must have been sixteen by then – I felt there was nothing to keep me in Sussex any more, so when I heard about Lady Prendergast I made the move up here.

  She was the mother of one of the stalwarts from the old days. Most of Sir Oswald’s rich and titled supporters had fallen by the wayside by then, but Billy Prendergast was loyal to the end and I used to see him at the Leader’s birthday every year. As a matter of fact he and I got to know each other rather well, if you know what I mean. Nothing serious; he was a married man. Just a night here and there. At one of our get-togethers, Billy told me his mother was looking for a lady’s companion. You may hardly know what that is, but in those days grand old ladies often had a companion, who was meant to come from a decent background so that she’d know the ropes: how to be a useful fourth at bridge, how to write letters, that sort of thing. You were more senior than a maid – you didn’t have to do any cleaning or ironing – but quite a lot more of a dogsbody than any friend would’ve been prepared to be. It wouldn’t have suited everybody because you were at the person’s beck and call, constantly nipping to fetch a rug for their knees, or their knitting. I didn’t mind it at all. Lady Prendergast – she never told me to call her Chloe, so I never did – lived in a big old house near Sheffield, the sort of place that had a vast brass gong outside the dining room to summon people to dinner and an umbrella stand made out of an elephant’s foot. Her husband had been something or other in India, but she’d been a widow for some time before I knew her.

  I kept on the house in Littlehampton to begin with, got some tenants for it and split the income between Julia and Frances, who were both grown up by then, although neither of them were yet married. I hardly needed any money for myself – my living expenses were negligible since my employer paid all the grocer’s and household bills. I mostly saved what I was paid. I hoped to get up enough to be able to give Edwin a little, once he left school after his Higher School Certificate. The pity of it was that Edwin had been put into the same situation as Hugh had been, in his boyhood: a father who died, a widowed mother, not enough money. Having to rely on relations to help out. I planned to sell the house once Edwin left school and give him a good bit of the capital so he’d have something to start him off. In due course he got my portion of money from the sale of the Grange, too, so with the lion’s share of the proceeds from the sale of Littlehampton as well, he had enough to house himself. I used what was left to get this little flat. It suits me. Quiet, and I like the view across the hills. You get a beautiful light over there, sometimes, in the evenings. I go to the library on the bus, get my books for the week. Alistair MacLean, he’s good. Len Deighton I like. I have my ciggies and I watch Crown Court on the telly in the afternoons. Write a few letters. There are still a few bods from 18B days that I keep up with. I had a couple of particular girlfriends in prison and they come up and visit once a year or so, or I go down to them.