London Rain

by Nicola Upson

  ‘Josephine! What are you looking so shifty about? Have I caught you stealing the towels?’ Lydia smiled and walked over to the sink to wash her hands. ‘There’s no need to be so surprised – we’re having dinner, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, of course. It’s just that I thought you’d still be in the studio.’

  ‘You should know as well as I do – there’s plenty of time to go walkabout in that part.’ She meant no malice by the remark, but Josephine felt it as another rebuke. ‘Where’s Marta?’

  ‘In the foyer, plucking up the courage to speak to Vita Sackville-West.’

  ‘Ah – so we have competition.’ For a moment, Josephine thought she had imagined the ‘we’, but the illusion was short-lived. ‘Listen, darling – whatever it is that Marta’s building up to telling me, I know already.’ Lydia turned to face her, and the challenging expression in her eyes belied the casualness of her voice. ‘You forget how well I know her, Josephine. Better than you do.’ Josephine opened her mouth to disagree, but the words died in her throat and she could think of nothing to replace them with; it would be pointless to deny the conversation that Lydia had prophesied, but the subject had been introduced too suddenly for her to have any clear idea of how to tackle it head on. ‘You see, Marta’s always nice when she’s about to tell me something I don’t want to hear, and these last few days she’s been very nice. So what is it?’

  ‘If Marta’s so transparent, I shouldn’t need to tell you.’

  ‘Humour me.’

  ‘We’ve fallen in love,’ Josephine said, scarcely needing Lydia’s laughter to tell her that the declaration sounded like something out of a bad first novel. ‘I’m sorry, Lydia. We never meant it to happen. You weren’t together when it started, but since then we’ve seen a lot of each other and it’s grown into something that neither of us wants to give up.’ The apology was instinctive, rooted in her surprise at having to be the one who broke the news, but still she resented it. She tried to remind herself of how selfish Lydia had been in the early days of her relationship with Marta, obsessed with work and caring little about anyone else’s happiness, but self-justification was beyond her now that it mattered, and she realised that Lydia was waiting for her to say more.

  ‘And?’ she prompted.

  ‘And what?’

  ‘And what are you and Marta going to do about it? Is she throwing me out? Breaking off all contact?’ Josephine hesitated, suddenly aware that they had never actually discussed what Lydia was to be told beyond a declaration of their feelings for one another; her uncertainty over what she could and could not promise on Marta’s behalf made her angry and vulnerable, and Lydia hammered home her advantage. ‘Are you moving to London to be with her?’

  ‘You know I can’t do that.’

  ‘So she’s going to Scotland?’

  ‘Of course not, but . . .’

  ‘Then I don’t quite see what’s changed. The two of you might be in love, but you’re apart more often than you’re together and that makes people very vulnerable. Don’t think I’m giving her up.’

  ‘She’s not yours to give up, Lydia – not in the way that matters.’

  ‘Really? So why do we still have a life together? Why are you and I even having this conversation? As you very kindly explained, Josephine, back when this little affair of yours started – and yes, I know perfectly well when that was – Marta and I were finished. She could have just left it that way and made a new start with you, but she didn’t – she picked up the telephone and invited me back into her life because this halfway house you offer her wasn’t enough.’

  ‘That was a long time ago. Things are different now – Marta’s different, and so am I. Stronger, more certain of what we want.’

  ‘Yes and no. But that’s what I mean about knowing her – you have to be with someone for a long time before you can say that. I see Marta’s moods when her work doesn’t go well and her highs when it does. I know when she cries in the night because she can’t quite leave her past behind and you’re not there to help her. Those precious weekends you snatch here and there are all very lovely, I’m sure, but they’re not real, Josephine – and in your heart you know that.’

  The depth of Lydia’s understanding floored Josephine, and for the first time in her life, she genuinely understood what it meant to have to fight for someone. ‘I love her, Lydia. That feels real enough.’

  ‘Oh, we all love her, darling. The question is – what are we going to do about it?’ It took Josephine a second or two to realise that it was a genuine question, requiring an answer. ‘I suggest we carry on exactly as we are if you’ve nothing more concrete to offer.’

  ‘You can’t care about Marta if you’re prepared to do that.’

  ‘This streak of romance you cling to really isn’t very modern, Josephine. Look around you – we all make do, we all make compromises. That’s the world we live in now. I know how much Marta loves you, and I know that the love she has for me is companionship – but I’ll settle for it. I don’t want to be on my own, and I have very little pride left to speak of.’

  ‘You think Marta will agree to that out of pity?’

  ‘Not pity, no – but the trouble with Marta is that she’s fundamentally decent. She’ll tell me about you because it’s the right thing to do, and the knife will go in – but she hasn’t got the heart to twist it, and you’re not in a position to force her to.’ Josephine turned to go before her doubts conspired to defeat her, but Lydia caught her hand. ‘I was so relieved when I knew it was you,’ she said.

  ‘Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?’

  ‘If you like. But I just meant that someone else might have offered her everything, and you have too many other concerns to do that. Even if you didn’t, we’ve been friends long enough for me to know that you’ll never give yourself completely to another person, no matter how much you care. As long as Marta loves you, there’ll always be a part of her that comes running back to me.’

  For a moment, Josephine was too shocked by Lydia’s words to register that they were no longer alone. Millicent Gray stood awkwardly in the doorway, and Josephine wondered how much she had heard of the conversation. In the end, it was Lydia who left first. ‘I’ll see you upstairs,’ she said, as if nothing had happened between them.

  Josephine picked up her bag to follow, wishing that she could recover as quickly. She had no idea how she was going to face anyone when she was so upset; if Lydia’s intention had been to fill her full of doubts, then she had succeeded – and that in itself felt like a betrayal of her own love for Marta. She made for the door, reluctant to show any more of her emotions in front of Millicent Gray, but the stranger stopped her in her tracks. ‘She’s right, you know. Don’t fool yourself.’

  Josephine turned to her, surprised. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘Right about what?’

  ‘All the hope and all the pain – and to get where? You put up with it because you think you’re going to be enough for them – one day. But you never will be.’

  Part Three

  London Rain

  1

  She must have walked for miles, drifting with little sense of purpose through a London she had never seen before and would never see again, a strange, nocturnal world of the dispossessed. People lay on pavements under rugs or curled tightly in doorways, while thousands more had given up on sleep altogether and were content simply to squat on the kerb with their feet wrapped in newspaper, refugees by choice, waiting for the day to reward their patience. Josephine wandered among them, having slipped from her club in the early hours to seek the peace and clarity that had eluded her since her conversation with Lydia. It was an unlikely place to find refuge: the streets were full of voices and a commotion that jarred with the time of night, and only in the still, bare mystery of the area around Buckingham Palace – cleared of revellers by police just after midnight – did she find anything resembling genuine silence. Yet the anonymity of the crowd soothed her, and the air – chilly and bracing as
patches of cold, thick fog drifted up from the river – cleared her mind.

  After the shock of the night before, Josephine was thankful that she and Marta had not made plans to watch the coronation procession together. Keeping her temper with Lettice and Ronnie and the inevitable enthusiasm of the day was challenge enough, but sharing Marta’s company without being able to talk properly would have been impossible. She had left Broadcasting House as soon as the rehearsal was over, claiming a headache which quickly obliged her by becoming a reality, and had ignored all subsequent messages from Marta to ask if she was all right. Tonight, she would have no choice but to face up to what had happened, and their evening would be very different from the one they had envisaged. She had no idea how Marta would react to the decision she had made, or even if she would be capable of standing by it, but she had to try while her resolve was still strong. She had turned things over and over in her mind, trying to think of an alternative, but there was none – or at least none that she could live with. Her conscience dogged her as she walked, stronger even than her desolation at the thought of walking away from a love she had neither looked for nor expected, but had gradually come to depend on. Whether she knew it or not, Lydia had delivered the performance of a lifetime; her words seared into Josephine’s consciousness, and there was no escaping the truth of them.

  She retraced her footsteps towards Oxford Street, noticing that Hyde Park was by far the city’s most popular sleeping place. Daylight promised an end to the long vigil, but there was still a heavy mist that limited Josephine’s horizon to twenty or thirty yards. Through the railings, she could just make out a series of shadowy, indistinct figures moving across the grass, some carrying sleeping bags or folding up blankets, others trying to rub some life back into stiffened limbs, and she felt a pang of guilt for voluntarily leaving the bed that any one of them would have paid handsomely for. In the space of a few hours, she had relived her whole relationship with Marta, tormenting herself with thoughts of how she might have done things differently. It would have been so much easier if their initial reaction to one another – wariness, fed by strong opinions that were not always in harmony – had lasted, but was she fooling herself now to think that the tension between Marta and Lydia was already there by the time she appeared on the scene? Marta was the first genuine love that Lydia had known after a series of fickle if passionate affairs, but even she could not compete with the actress’s obsession for her work. And Marta had had her own agenda for getting close to Lydia, driven by demons of which only she was aware.

  For Lydia’s sake, Josephine had tried to steer them through their problems, but – perhaps selfishly – she had obviously not tried hard enough. Then Marta had chosen to confide in her rather than in Lydia, and the jealousies that friendship had barely managed to keep in check spilled over irrevocably. Looking back now to that brief but intense bond, Josephine saw all too clearly the beginnings of a strong mutual attraction, but she had been blissfully ignorant of it at the time. Marta had left – for good, as far as Josephine was concerned – and Lydia waved a tentative white flag of truce which Josephine was happy to accept. It was funny how much and how little had changed, she thought, remembering the fights and awkward conversations that she had tried to mediate in those early days; she had always been caught in the middle of Marta and Lydia, and still it was no different.

  A few rough notes of ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’ drifted out from the mist, picked up and amplified by voices in other areas of the park. Each section of town, it seemed, favoured a different style of entertainment; over in Piccadilly and Regent Street, where the revelry was at its most raucous, musicians were treating the crowds to dance songs of the day; here, closer to the military side of the pageant, with small camps of soldiers dotted all over the park, the mood harked back to the war. It reminded her of Armistice night in London, not least because she had felt as detached from the air of celebration then as she did now; to her, and to many others for whom peace had come two years or three months or five days too late, the triumph stood shakily on foundations of grief. The war had changed all their lives in one way or another, and perhaps Marta’s most of all; the loss of a husband and a lover had taken its toll years later with the most tragic of consequences, and Josephine still felt the urgency of those conversations, still admired the courage with which Marta had claimed and paid for her past. They had grown close in exceptional circumstances, but it remained a feature of their love that it never dealt in trivialities. What Lydia had rightly referred to as snatched weekends also carried an obligation to make things count. Not a moment of their time together had been wasted.

  It was ironic that the fear she felt now at the prospect of losing Marta should resemble so closely the fear of loving her. She remembered how Marta had returned out of the blue, not for Lydia but for her, and how she had tried to persuade Josephine that they had a future together. At first, Josephine had resisted – partly from a reluctance to betray Lydia, partly because her own feelings terrified her. Until then, she had never taken risks with her emotions, and she knew that her desire for Marta threatened the easy, unruffled life she had chosen. The first time they made love, she had felt an intensity that left her more vulnerable than she could ever have imagined, and she had dealt with it by running away, by making more of her responsibilities in Inverness than she needed to and demonstrating through her cowardice that there would be long absences to fill, that the all-consuming commitment in which Marta needed to trust was impossible. Marta responded by turning to Lydia for the security that Josephine could not give, and the compromise became a way of life. Josephine was as much to blame as anyone, but now it was she who felt betrayed by it.

  At dawn, the bugles sounded a reveille from the camps in the park and Josephine took it as her signal to face the day. By the time she reached Marble Arch, men and women from the St John Ambulance brigade had begun to line the processional route, bringing the first note of order to the day in disciplined lines of black and white. In Oxford Street, alarm clocks tied incongruously to lamp posts had served their purpose and people were beginning to stir: rugs, boxes and mattresses of infinite variety were packed neatly away, while women did what they could to restore their make-up after the long night-time vigil. Some still slept, wrapped head to toe in newspaper, but most sat hunched over a flask of tea or a nip of something stronger to keep out the cold, reluctant to move about for warmth in case they lost their place. Every so often, the smell of bacon rose up from a tiny camp stove, and those who had not been so well-prepared looked on in envy. There was an air of expectation now: most people had grown impatient with any entertainments brought for their own amusement, and the ground was littered with discarded books and knitting; instead, they talked to their neighbours or passed round early editions of the morning papers, keen to share what information they could about the forthcoming spectacle. It was an extraordinary scene, and it reminded Josephine of one long theatre queue snaking all around the city – peaceful, good-natured and stoic, a moment of history in itself.

  The entrances to the side streets were packed as well now, and Josephine saw her own weariness reflected in the faces of those who still had twelve cramped hours of waiting ahead; in fact, the only people not to look tired were the hawkers of food and souvenirs who would live for weeks on what they had taken during the night, and had no intention of stopping until every opportunity was exploited. She looked at her watch; it was long before the allotted time of seven o’clock, but many of the wooden barriers had already been put in place and the crowd seemed to swell as she looked at it. Gritting her teeth, and trying in vain to think of something which would make her queue all night in such a determined fashion, Josephine fought her way back to Cavendish Square to dress for the King.

  2

  Vivienne woke early, just as it was getting light. She left their bed, conscious that this was the last time she would ever think of it as theirs, and pulled the curtains back quietly so as not to wake Anthony. It was a lacklustre, depressi
ng day which should have belonged to the dark months of winter. A damp, insistent mist hung over the trees, utterly at odds with the celebrations on the city’s streets, but so in tune with her own mood that it could have been designed especially for her. She watched as yellow squares of light began to appear one by one in the windows opposite, a checkerboard of anticipation, and wondered what it would be like to wake to the ordinary excitement of a historic day, shared with thousands, rather than to this lonely, personal sense of change. As it was, she was amazed by how calm she felt.

  Leaving Anthony to sleep until the alarm did its work, she went downstairs to the kitchen. There was some ham in the pantry, left over from the supper that he had been too late home to eat the night before, and she got it out, together with a fresh loaf and some pickles. She cut the bread carefully while she waited for the kettle to boil, listening to Anthony moving about in the rooms above, struck more forcefully than usual by the familiar noises of their marriage. Eventually, he joined her in the kitchen, immaculately dressed and wearing an aftershave that seemed absurdly extravagant for the time of day. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.