Faith Fox

by Jane Gardam

  Thomasina glittered as they caught the plane to Karnak next morning, the general held his head high and the security man in the airport pinched Thomasina’s bottom as she stepped through the gate. The general smiled so lovingly at a stewardess that she blushed and brought them a half bottle of champagne.

  At the Winter Palace, where crowds of tourists sat on suitcases weeping at the total failure of all bookings, their air of Olympian confidence, the general’s marvellous trousers and Thomasina’s tall relaxed figure unfussed among the life-size palms on the grubby marble somehow produced a key a foot long and a room with doors so high they would have admitted giraffes. The bed in this room, which was Farouk Dynasty, was covered in old brown satin. A basin and ewer stood at a tilt on a stalk of twisted metal and from a shadowy dressing room an old gentleman was evicted wearing a long pale-pink robe. He said that he had been expecting to spend the night with them in order to clean their shoes.

  Laughing like school children, they ordered dreadful sandwiches and even more dreadful wine and slept together for the second time. In the morning they opened shutters upon the Valley of the Kings, gold and rosy in the dawn, and watched matchstick people with boot-black faces and pastel-coloured robes prancing and jolly on either bank of the Nile. And the Nile ran fast and green, busy with feluccas sharp-winged as ancient birds on a frieze.

  Thomasina and the general did not refer to the events of the night, though they both knew they were more precisely and deliciously remembered than even those of the night before, wreathed in sandstorm and whisky; but on the terrace at breakfast they often caught each other’s glance and smiled, and the general tenderly asked her if she’d like more coffee. When they crossed by felucca to the tombs, he said, ‘I hope you’re as happy as I am, Thomasina,’ and she smiled and took his arm.

  There was a change, though. As they stood in one of the patterned walled tombs of a young queen, there was a little bundle in a corner, the dust of a child. No one knew, said the guide, if it were a miscarried child or a child dead just after birth, but it must have been a child greatly loved or desired to have been buried with such honour. Thomasina said nothing, but afterwards the general remembered the moment. Thomasina’s coolness, which had left her at the Mena House for an almost languid glow, returned, and at the dinner table that night she began to work out the expenses of the trip, insisting she pay half. When he protested, she said that times had moved on since his day and she was nobody’s mistress.

  In bed later he lay in silence and she moved towards him and caressed and cajoled but didn’t apologise.

  It was a different sort of lovemaking, Thomasina almost ferocious, and the at first reluctant general very surprised.

  On the plane home she read a book about the royal houses of the Ptolemaean dynasty and the general thought that he had never seen her more beautiful. He was now as much in love with her as a dizzy boy. He dropped his money about, mislaid his passport, longed for the night. He would even have agreed to staying in Cairo again, even at the hotel overlooking the stadium as they had planned first, but when she said No, home, he agreed. He would have agreed to anything. He wondered when she would tell him that she would marry him. Pale England in the autumn light, the smooth broad road from Heathrow, the luxurious taxicab, the traditional talkative driver, made him feel as if life were just beginning again—real English life as it had once been. He was exalted.

  It was only after they were in the taxi and the general leaning forward to tell the driver where in London they should go that it became clear to them both that neither knew where that was.

  Thomasina was leaning back, looking reflective.

  ‘My club?’ he said.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Covent Garden,’ he said. ‘We can have dinner there.’ But not sleep there, he thought: I can’t take her to bed there.

  It was a huge distance. On his own the general would have taken the tube or a couple of buses to Berkshire. And the general, Thomasina thought, had not seen her mock-Tudor house near Edgecombe. They sat silently considering these facts.

  Thomasina said as the taxi with thirty pounds on the clock reached central London, ‘I think we’ll make it Waterloo, if you don’t mind, Giles. I think I’d like to go home.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I shall come with you.’

  ‘Absolutely no.’

  ‘You are being ridiculous,’ he said, wondering how he had displeased her.

  But she was first out of the taxi and had paid the fare before he had even begun to negotiate the suitcases. She seemed not to notice his annoyance.

  He strode off and bought first-class tickets for the train and was ahead of her at Guildford station, finding another taxi fast, helping her aboard; but again lost face because he didn’t know the address. He looked stonily at the large house, the overgrown garden. Apples had splattered down among the trees on the front lawn; rambler roses over the trellises needed cutting back. It was a garden he’d like to get his hands on. They waded through the papers and letters behind the door and stood on the parquet and Persian rugs in the hall as she read some of the postcards.

  ‘Shall I open a window or two?’

  She frowned, looked at him, read a postcard over again.

  ‘Do you really live all alone here? Is it safe? Great garden all around and right off the road. Bit of a temptation to people, isn’t it?’

  To his amazement (it was three o’clock in the afternoon, for God’s sake), he found himself longing to take her to bed again. And seventy-two!

  ‘I’ll get some coffee,’ he said, and he turned to where he thought there might be a kitchen.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t. Stay here.’ She went over to him and stroked his cheek. ‘I’m sorry. So sorry, Giles. Could you just stay in the hall? I’m going upstairs to change and wash and . . . ’

  ‘Very well.’

  When she came back he was sitting on an antique oak stool much too small for him, fist on either knee, and her heart melted for a moment. She said, ‘It’s just it’s this house. Spindleberries. Where we lived. I can’t come back just yet. I thought I could. I find I can’t.’

  ‘I understand.’

  Not once had she mentioned Holly’s name since they had met. He waited.

  ‘I think I’d like to go to Scotland now,’ she said.

  ‘Now? Scotland?’

  ‘Yes, I think I’d like to go to Scotland. We might get sleepers.’

  ‘Out of the question.’

  She seemed to brighten up. ‘I’ll make some tea,’ she said, ‘Sit down somewhere. You’re overdone.’

  Later he found on the phone that there were no sleepers for weeks and at her disappointed face said that they might perhaps drive there tomorrow or the next day. Do the old car good, he said. But not straight off. Bit of rest first. Plenty of friends there—places to stay, and good bed-and-breakfasts. Cousin in Caithness. Lovely in the Highlands just now.

  She looked bewildered and then relieved, kissed his forehead as she passed his chair, watched him pick up the suitcases and led him upstairs. In her bedroom she said, ‘If you went to get the car now and picked me up here in the morning . . . ’ but he said, ‘No, I’m not going to do that. I’m staying here tonight.’

  ‘You can’t sleep with me. Not here.’ She was looking over his shoulder.

  ‘I’ll sleep in another room. I’m going into London for the car now, and I’ll be back here about ten.’

  ‘Can you get dinner somewhere?’

  ‘Of course.’ He looked stern. ‘You have something in the fridge, I dare say?’

  She looked at him scornfully and let him out of the front door, from where he had to walk a mile to the station.

  All evening she paced about the house, agonising that he wouldn’t come back.

  At ten there was no sign of him, nor at half past. She had made up a bed for him and turned up the
central heating, picked a few flowers, put together a tray of drinks and taken bread out of the freezer for morning. The house felt frighteningly still and she was wide awake. Jet lag, she thought. I’d better not drink. Yet I never get jet lag and all I’ve had is horrible aeroplane champagne.

  She couldn’t remember if she’d eaten anything since and went to the kitchen, where she found a crumby plate from her supper and some pants and stockings drying on the Aga rail. Upstairs her dresses had been hung up, her sponge bag emptied. She must have been quite busy. She rang Pammie for the third time but there was still no answer. At last she went into Holly’s old room. Baby clothes lay in soft neat clumps. Teddies and old dolls were in a box. There was a crib and baby blankets. She sat on the bed.

  This is a big step. I am here. Tomorrow I’ll start thinking. He will not come back and I shall write to him and finish it off. Good clean break. He was a nice man. It was mad, really. I’m amazed I could remember how to do it.

  The lights of the Jaguar swung across the garden, then across the bedroom, and in a moment he was at the door with another suitcase for Scotland and wearing a tweed suit. He smelled of very good soap and walked in as if she were his wife of years. But he made no more enquiries about sleeping quarters and no comment when she said, ‘No—not there,’ as he made for Holly’s room. She opened another door.

  ‘D’you want the landing light left on?’ he asked. ‘I’ll leave my door open.’

  She heard him moving about his room, the click as he put down his watch on the bedside table, the little rattle as his cuff links were dropped on the dressing table. She heard him brushing his teeth, drawing back curtains, opening the window a little. The creak as he lowered himself into bed.

  Good God, men, she thought. They’re bloody awful. Where have I brought myself? What do I want? Why can’t I let myself go? Or get rid of him?

  ‘It was Andrew’s car,’ she said, ‘and Andrew in it. My son-in-law.’

  The general swivelled a tired eye. Thomasina was looking lovelier than ever, he thought, her skin clear from fresh Scottish air, a couple of days’ fishing and some splendid rain. He could not look at her without delight. And yet . . .

  ‘Your son-in-law? There was nothing up there at all, Thomasina, just the moor.’

  ‘No. There was a car by the roadside. It was Andrew’s Toyota. Holly used to drive it.’

  He thought, I must be very careful now, and very kind.

  Before she could have time to wait for his reaction to Holly’s name being mentioned at last, he said, ‘Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of Toyotas around here, you know.’

  ‘He was with a woman. A very small dark woman. They were sitting talking. Miles from anywhere.’

  ‘No, Thomasina. It would be an extraordinary coincidence, wouldn’t it? Wasn’t your—wasn’t Holly married to a London doctor?’

  ‘There was no sign of the baby in the car, I think,’ said Thomasina.

  He said carefully, ‘Ah. A baby. I think I heard there was a baby.’

  ‘Faith,’ she said. ‘Ghastly name, isn’t it? Better than Hope or Charity, I suppose. Well, it wasn’t anything to do with me.’

  ‘I’m afraid I had no children. We didn’t have this problem.’

  ‘Perhaps you were lucky.’

  Then she saw his face.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘We can get tea here,’ and in the teashop, looking at the stream and the white wooden bridges outside over the stream, he said, ‘If you would like to talk about . . . ’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘not a bit. Terrible shock, you know, and I keep thinking, “Holly darling, how dare you? Just going off like that and leaving poor old Andrew.” But you know, she wasn’t one who would want us to mope. She was very sensible and positive. Awful bore it happened, but it does happen, doesn’t it? Nothing to be done.’ Her light voice was the voice he had first heard across the health farm drawing room. He thought, And it’s the voice of the lost.

  ‘And the—baby? Faith?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh. Well, I think she’s not really my department. There are the other grandparents, you know, and a brother. They live up here. Just about here. Big Northern family all rallying round. Marvellous people, of course, Yorkshire people.’

  ‘Will you mind her being a North Country granddaughter?’

  ‘Oh, you mean her accent? Well, of course not. That would be too bourgeois. And it can be very homely and nice. I’d have preferred a Scot, of course, but there. Andrew hasn’t a trace of Yorkshire in him even though he’s from a local school, I believe. Stuffy old stick-in-the-mud, but I have to say you could take him anywhere.’

  ‘He must be very cut up.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Oh, do look at that sheep. Yes, it was strange seeing him just now with that woman. D’you know, it was the first time,’ she said with an open and completely empty smile, ‘that I realised old Holls had gone. Let’s get on and find the hotel. Priors Meadow. It can’t be far. Actually, it’s quite near some of Andrew’s family, I think. Next village.’

  The general said carefully, ‘So it could have been Andrew?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘It was.’

  Pammie at the same moment was settling herself in a first-class carriage as the King’s Cross train drew out of York station and laying out for herself on the little shelf beside her the equipment for mixing up a knockout gin and tonic—brittle plastic beaker, three miniature bottles and a plastic swizzle stick. She was alone in the carriage. She kicked off her shoes, took a quick shuftie at the Minster in its cream-and-gold glory behind the scaffolding, wondered about a cigarette, lit a cigarette, lay back, closed her eyes and translated herself to Surrey.

  You won’t believe this. I’m not sure that I believe it. It was a riot. Tibetans, dear. Holy men. Yes, I am talking about Faith Fox and Andrew. She is to live in ruins on the North Yorkshire moors. The very strangest people you ever saw in your life and Andrew, let me tell you, quite a different person. D’you know, he got out of the car in this great wilderness, every bit as wild as Dartmoor and not even the cafes and coaches, and he went striding off into the heather leaving me all alone? Well, cold feet, I suppose. His brother, well, you would never, never, dream they were related. Much older. He looks a different generation from Andrew, but masses of curly hair and not grey. He’s a sort of evangelist, I suppose, and his wife’s tiny and black. No, I don’t mean black black, I mean sort of dark. All over. Sort of heart of darkness. Gaunt and tiny and intense. Not my sort at all, I’m afraid. You can see she’ll be very attractive to men. Great eyes in a little head. No trace of the North about her. I don’t know where he can have found her. Rather plummy voice, actually. Overdone Oxford sort of voice, quite old-fashioned. But young, she’s young, and she’s not a Sloane. Arty. There was a child about somewhere, quite an old one, I think, but I didn’t see it. You couldn’t think anyone so tiny could have produced a child. She just stands about, looking at you.

  Most frightful lunch they gave me. Some sort of salt fish. I expect it must have been got in for the Tibetans, though it would have been a mistake, Tibet being so far from the sea. They probably never touch it. No common sense about. Yes, I saw some Tibetans. They were lumping about in some sheds. They looked fairly doubtful to me.

  Cells, my dear, to sleep in. Workshops full of looms. They must have cost a bomb, yet there was no central heating and not a carpet or a curtain. Jack—the brother—showed me around. And, d’you know, Andrew never said goodbye. He went off somewhere with Heart-of-Darkness and it was brother who took me to the train. Thought we’d never get here, he’s a frightful driver, and we were in some sort of smelly pick-up full of beer cans. They’d had a batch of hooligans staying from Teesside. They take in the unloved. Our darling Faith! He kept wanting to stop and show me churches and bits of ruins and I had to be quite firm. As it was, I missed the train I’d booked a seat on and I had to jump for the next. I just managed
to run into the buffet and grab a drink and leap into the train as the doors banged, dragging my luggage in off the platform. I hadn’t taken luggage but this Jack had made me bring home a plastic bag full of potatoes. There was no sign of him but, just as we pulled away, here he is, wandering down the platform with his arms full of newspapers for me. The kindest man—but, you know, impossible. He dropped all the papers trying to wave goodbye. Very lovable man. He’s asked me to go back, by the way, for a retreat. I retreated all right, straight back south.

  She took a swig of gin and looked out eastward over the plain to low hills of hanging woods. A plump and amateurish white horse was picked out in the chalk and above it ran the line of the moor. She felt a surprising pleasure. Finishing the gin, she thought of Thomasina—and could not see her anywhere near such a place. I don’t think he’d have asked her back, she thought. I think I rather hit it off with the evangelist. But by God, I couldn’t have taken much more.

  What a day! she thought. I’m getting too old for this. There and back to North Yorkshire by bedtime. That drive! She had a frightening moment of being quite unable to remember why she had come and this was followed by something even more unpleasant. It was like pain. It was guilty sorrow. She couldn’t place it.

  She fell heavily asleep, waking just north of London with enough time to do her face and look at her hair and wriggle herself tidy inside her silk-and-wool suit with the black binding (Harvey Nicks). She patted a black silk scarf, thinking, Black. Oh dear, Holly’s funeral. Oh, poor Holly Fox.

  Back home old Hugo wandered across to her with whisky. ‘Child safe?’ he asked. ‘Settled in?’ and Pammie stared, placing the anguish.

  She had forgotten to look at Faith before she left or to say goodbye.

  The two Smikes were waiting for the go-ahead to set off on their night out when the Toyota arrived in the courtyard on its journey from Philip’s school. Philip got out and came over to them. ‘Yer goin’ down Middlesber?’ he enquired in a voice that would have been unrecognisable in his classroom.