The White Shepherd

by Annie Dalton

  What a relief to be Paulette for a few hours, Anna thought, and believe, even temporarily, in an everlasting home. A moment later she saw Paulette’s eyes light up.

  ‘God bless that lovely man! You know he came to see Mr Swanson?’ she told Anna. ‘I do my best not to eavesdrop, but I could tell from his tone, you know, that he was trying to make everything right between them. He was so sweet.’

  Anna glanced over her shoulder and saw Kit gallantly shepherding the alarming old lady through the press of people. She was about to agree warmly that he was a lovely man when Paulette gave an enthusiastic wave to someone over by the doors. ‘That’s my poor husband looking for me. He can’t stand crowds. I’d better go.’ She gave Anna a quick hug, then valiantly set off towards her husband.

  Anna found that she was smiling. Paulette’s mention of Kit’s visit to Laurie had touched her to the heart. How good of him to try to make peace between Laurie and Huw before it was too late. It was already too late, in fact, but Kit couldn’t have known that. Even if he had gone years earlier, it would still have been too late. To resume his relationship with Huw after so many years of estrangement, Laurie would have had to lie to Huw by omission, to fake friendship, in other words, or he’d have had to disclose the secret of his long love affair with Huw’s father, which he could never do.

  Kit saw Anna looking around for him and smiled. ‘Stay there!’ he mouthed, gesturing towards his elderly companion. ‘I’ll come back for you.’

  So Anna stayed. The crowd was thinning now, and all at once Isadora was coming towards her, enormous earrings swinging. ‘Anna, how lovely you look! Wasn’t that a glorious concert?’

  ‘It was,’ Anna agreed. ‘I found that last song a bit depressing though.’

  ‘Not a cheery note to end on,’ Isadora agreed. ‘But Jewish folk tales are notoriously gloomy.’

  ‘Is that where it comes from, a folk tale?’

  Isadora nodded. ‘An old Hassidic teaching story.’

  ‘Have you read it?’ Anna felt a childlike impatience to know what it said. Somewhere in the darkness of this story there had to be a kernel of light and hope, surely, or Laurie couldn’t have loved it so much?

  ‘I have, but years ago,’ Isadora said, just as her distinguished looking companion caught her up. ‘You can probably find it online,’ she called to Anna as he bore her away, no doubt for an intimate dinner for two.

  ‘Finally!’ Kit said, arriving at her side. ‘That was worse than a rugger scrum! Poor old Lady Bracknell was nearly knocked off her feet.’

  Anna felt her eyes widen. ‘Lady Bracknell, seriously?’

  ‘No, but she might as well be!’ he said, laughing. ‘My parents always said that if Oscar Wilde had met her first he’d have put her in The Importance of Being Earnest instead of Augusta Bracknell.’ His expression became sober. ‘Huw just asked me if you and I could join him and Sara for a late supper. It means putting up with Sara, unfortunately, but I know it would mean a lot to Huw.’

  ‘Of course I’ll come.’ Anna was hungry apart from anything else, but more than that she was intrigued by Sara Traherne and this was an opportunity to study her at close quarters.

  An hour later Anna was sitting opposite a stony-faced Sara as Huw and Kit swapped anecdotes. Sara had virtually ignored Anna since they’d arrived at Gee’s, the iconic North Oxford restaurant that exactly resembled a beautiful glasshouse. While everyone else tucked in to their food, Sara just picked at hers but drank steadily throughout the meal.

  Anna guessed it was partly to compensate for his wife’s hostile silence that Huw had embarked on his mildly scurrilous stories about his undergraduate days. Several involved Kit. After the third or fourth of these, Sara set down her glass with a theatrical thunk. ‘If I have to hear one more tedious anecdote about your golden fucking youth …’ Leaving her threat unfinished, she seized an almost empty bottle of red wine, tipped the dregs into her glass and knocked them back.

  Between courses, Anna left the table to go to the ladies’ cloakroom. When she came out of her cubicle she saw Sara standing in front of the mirror reapplying her lipstick, something which seemed to be taking all her concentration.

  Quickly washing and drying her hands, Anna went to join Sara at the mirror. Huw’s wife immediately fixed her with an aggressive female stare that took Anna right back to her short-lived teenage clubbing phase. It gave her the exact same sinking feeling she’d felt then.

  Keeping her eyes blearily on Anna, Sara seemed to be struggling to articulate some enormous grievance. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t find out!’ she exploded at last. ‘Well, did you?’

  ‘Find out?’ Anna felt a flicker of real fear. Sara was very drunk now, and Kit had several times described her as unhinged.

  ‘You’ve been poking about in my private business, you interfering judgemental bitch.’ Taking an unsteady step towards her, Sara pushed her face right into Anna’s, her alcohol-laden breath making Anna’s nostrils flare. ‘You have no idea what you’re dealing with. None!’ She frowned, as if she’d lost her thread, then her expression cleared and she jabbed her finger into Anna’s chest. ‘So let me give you some free advice.’ She swayed on her feet. ‘Don’t play with fire! Unless you – you enjoy being burned! Now fuck off and leave me in peace!’ She hastily disappeared into a cubicle.

  Humiliated and shaken, Anna had to return to the table where Kit and Huw were still reminiscing. Huw’s tiredness had apparently dropped away as he relived happier times with his friend.

  ‘Huw’s been telling me all these wonderful stories about Laurie,’ Kit said as she sat down beside him. ‘I knew he was a musical genius, but it turns out he was a bit of a Doctor Dolittle too. You know, talked to the animals!’

  ‘I’m sorry I missed it,’ Anna said.

  ‘Tell her the one you just told me,’ Kit said to Huw. ‘You’re going to love it, Anna.’

  Still reeling from Sara’s assault, Anna did her best to be a responsive audience as Huw repeated his story.

  ‘As you know, Laurie often spent school holidays with my family. We had a cottage we went to in Norfolk, surrounded by open fields. Often when we were out walking, we’d see hares. Dad had a dog in those days, a springer spaniel, and it loved to chase them, but of course it didn’t have a prayer of catching a full-grown hare. Then one day this spaniel – her name was Jess – found a young hare in the lane. It must have been hit by a car. My dad insisted we had to leave it. If you’ve read his poetry you’ll know he was very big on nature taking its grim and bloody course,’ he added with a laugh. ‘But Laurie wouldn’t have it. He had this way of going completely white in the face when he felt passionate about something. “I’m taking it back to the cottage,” he told my father. “So it knows that some humans can be kind.” Well, we could all see that Laurie was absolutely set on saving this hare. So my dad gave one of those weary adult sighs, and Laurie carried this limp little body back to the cottage. Laurie and I made it a nest out of a box and an old blanket and put it in our room. And it just lay there, panting with distress, and I heard my mother telling my dad, “You should have left it in the hedge. It’s going to die in the night, Owen. Imagine how broken-hearted that little boy is going to be then.”’ Huw stopped to take a quick swallow of his wine.

  Anna seemed to be the only person who had noticed that Sara still hadn’t come back from the cloakroom. Maybe she’d passed out? Or she could have slipped out of the restaurant when no one was looking and hailed a taxi to take her back to Dritan?

  ‘Anyway, bedtime came,’ Huw said, resuming his story. ‘And this part of my story is a little embarrassing, Anna, because it involves a night light. Even at eight or nine years old I was too afraid of the dark to sleep without one. So you have to picture two little boys sleeping in their beds, with a night light flickering on a chest of drawers and this young hare lying apparently close to death on its piece of blanket. And then something, a small movement, woke me, just in time to see the hare sit up in its box and pull down one of i
ts long ears to wash it. Then it went lolloping over to Laurie’s bed and jumped up on to his stomach.’

  ‘Can you believe that, Anna?’ Kit said.

  She smilingly shook her head.

  ‘I saw Laurie’s eyes fly open,’ Huw went on. ‘I don’t think either of us dared to breathe. Then, very slowly and gently, Laurie sat up, and the hare climbed right up on to his chest and began to sniff all around his face with absolutely no fear. And Laurie whispered, “It knows. It knows I saved it.” And I actually believe it did.’

  It was a charming story, but Anna had found it almost unbearable to hear Huw talking about his old friend with such affection. She knew the truth, the unpalatable truth, about Laurie and Huw’s father, and as she smiled back at Huw she felt like Judas.

  Sara returned looking extremely white. Huw said they were both bushed and should probably head home to bed. Though Gee’s was only a couple of streets from Anna’s flat, Kit insisted on driving her to her door. Sitting beside him in the car, nervously fingering Kit’s silver bee, she felt a creeping despair. She’d been invited for a civilized dinner at one of Oxford’s most desirable restaurants and ended up being threatened in the toilets.

  Tansy was right. She and Anna must give off some unsavoury pheromone. No matter how hard they tried to break with their pasts, people could sniff them out. Sara had smelled Anna’s brokenness, she’d smelled her hurt and shame, and like a jackal she’d attacked.

  ‘You seem a bit subdued, love,’ Kit said as he pulled up outside her house. ‘Did Sara say something? I was concerned when I saw her following you into the loo. She has a tongue like a viper when she’s been drinking.’

  ‘She didn’t say anything,’ she lied. ‘She just asked what shade of lipstick I was wearing.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Kit gently tilted her chin, so that he was looking directly into her eyes. His expression was so tender that it made her ache. ‘I’d hate for her to have hurt you.’

  She’d told Kit she didn’t know which Jane Austen character she felt like as she swept into the Sheldonian on his arm. But that had been another lie. For a brief unguarded moment she had been Elizabeth, arm in arm with her Darcy. Only, Anna bet that nobody had ever followed Elizabeth Bennett into the women’s toilets and called her an interfering, judgemental bitch.

  ‘Thank you so much for supper and bringing me home,’ she managed. Before Kit could move to kiss her, she quickly got out of his car and fled inside.

  EIGHTEEN

  When Anna returned home with Bonnie next morning after their walk, she longed to stay home with her dog, watching old Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey movies. The sordid end to her night out had left her feeling bruised and grubby, and she just wanted to hide from the world. But it was Sunday morning and she and her grandfather had a long-standing date to see Turner’s later paintings at the Tate. So she dropped her dog-walking clothes into the hamper, showered, changed, made-up her face and drove to Bramley Lodge to pick him up.

  Two and a half hours later, as she took her grandfather around the exhibition, she felt her depression lift. Turner’s paintings had helped, but it was really her grandfather she had to thank. On the drive down he had wanted to hear all about Laurie’s memorial. He’d quickly spotted and admired Kit’s pendant, which she was still wearing, then immediately asked if she’d heard any more from Bonnie’s previous owner; ‘Your American admirer,’ as her grandfather called him. ‘And do Kit and Jake know of each other’s existence?’ he’d asked slyly.

  ‘Well, no,’ she’d admitted, and found herself blushing and laughing.

  And somehow she’d found herself telling him about Sara’s drunken outburst. She hadn’t gone into details. Her grandfather didn’t need to know about Dritan or Frankie McVeigh. She was glad she was driving because she could keep her eyes fixed on the road while she was pouring it all out.

  ‘There’s a reason people used to call it the “demon drink”,’ he’d said when she’d finished. ‘It was the booze talking last night, not Sara, and today, assuming she even remembers what happened, she’s probably filled with self-disgust. She sounds like a deeply unhappy woman.’ He stopped talking while Anna negotiated a tricky roundabout then said huskily, ‘It makes me happier than I can say, Anna, to see you going out into the world again. Don’t let that woman’s problems drive you back into yourself.’

  He’d understood, she thought now as they halted before a painting of a seascape which seemed on the point of dissolving into light and fire. He’d understood exactly how low, how wrong Sara had made her feel. Her grandfather, on the other hand, had always had the power to steady her, to lift her up, reflecting Anna back to herself as someone worth knowing, worth loving. Even if his version of Anna was not the true one, she could feel herself flowering in the warmth of his love and approval. Her life wasn’t like he thought, but for a few hours she could enjoy the pretence that it was.

  Her grandfather was still gazing at the painting. ‘You know how John Ruskin described Turner?’ he said, turning round to Anna. ‘He said he was “an archangel packed into the squat body of an eccentric cockney”!’

  She smiled. ‘Good quote.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ he said, eyes shining.

  ‘Ready to move on?’ Anna was becoming aware of an impatient queue of people building up behind them waiting for their turn to view the painting.

  He nodded. ‘Yes, thank you, darling.’

  She was just about to wheel her grandfather on to the next painting when she saw a familiar figure walk into the room. ‘Did you know Desmond was coming?’ she asked, surprised.

  ‘Desmond’s here?’ Her grandfather peered around Anna, but couldn’t seem to see the larger than life Rasta. ‘Are you sure it’s him?’ he asked doubtfully. ‘I mean, Desmond isn’t someone you can easily miss!’

  It belatedly dawned on her what the problem was. ‘You’re too low down.’ And there were too many ill-mannered people looming over him, she thought grimly. ‘Hang on!’ Anna quickly wheeled him around. ‘Is that better?’

  ‘Oh, it is Desmond!’ Her grandfather broke into a delighted smile.

  He was already striding towards them, silver dreadlocks flowing over the shoulders of his ancient leather jacket. ‘Look who it is! My friend the culture vulture,’ he said, laughing. ‘And you’ve brought your beautiful granddaughter with you.’

  The two men had met at a local class on the history of art and instantly clicked. Still handsome in his late sixties, Desmond radiated enthusiasm for art and life, and Anna’s grandfather found him a welcome relief from the non-stop recitation of woes that passed for conversation amongst the majority of residents at Bramley Lodge.

  ‘Who’s calling who a culture vulture?’ he teased. ‘So what do you think now you’re here?’

  ‘This stuff is good, man,’ Desmond said, ‘but I can’t take it all in at one go or my brain starts to swim, you know? I like to sit in front of one painting for a while, let it soak in, then go away, drink some coffee and let the magic go to work undisturbed.’

  ‘I wish my art teacher had thought like you,’ Anna said, smiling. She was remembering a school visit to the Uffizi where the teachers had seemed hell-bent on forcing them to view as many works of art as humanly possible in the time available. ‘Talking of coffee,’ she added, ‘shall we go to find a cafe somewhere?’

  ‘Or a bar, maybe?’ Desmond suggested, eyes glinting.

  They found a pub by the river and ended up staying on for lunch. When they eventually parted, Desmond made them promise to come to his house the following weekend for a proper Jamaican slap-up meal. ‘And if your grandfather thinks he’s man enough, I might even break out my bottle of white rum,’ he told her.

  ‘That sounds like a challenge to me,’ Anna’s grandfather said.

  Anna’s phone pinged. She’d had a text from Kit: Hi, beautiful bee girl. Couldn’t have survived last night without you. Would love to wine and dine you next weekend if you’re free?

  ‘See that smile?’ Desmon
d said to Anna’s grandfather in a loud whisper. ‘Any time a young woman smile like that, there is always a man involved!’

  That night as she lay in bed reading, Anna’s mind was still whirling with light-drenched Turner skies and landscapes. In fact, despite her strenuous efforts to concentrate, Turner was currently winning out over Owen Traherne’s biography. Though she liked Kit Tulliver, the man, she sometimes found his writing hard-going, and her mind kept wandering back over her day.

  She’d enjoyed seeing her grandfather sparring with his rascally friend. George Ottaway had lots of life in him still, she thought. But it must be humiliating to go from being the kind of man who had hiked up mountains with energy to spare, to someone who was so dependent on others. As care homes went Bramley Lodge was a palace of privilege. Even so, Anna found herself grinding her teeth when she heard how some of the carers spoke to him. She wasn’t sure who she hated more – the ones who talked down, or the impervious-seeming ones, all falsely breezy and brisk.

  Her grandfather’s wits were as sharp and steely as ever, yet today as she’d wheeled him around the exhibition, and later when they were in the pub, people had looked through or over him, as if he was some kind of elderly child. Though his wheelchair offered freedom of a kind, it also reduced him to a non-person; a Munchkin, she thought, thinking of pocket-sized Paulette. Even wearing heels she barely cleared five feet. Anna had an inadvertent image of her helplessly buffeted by the people around her. Then Anna saw herself turning around, arching her neck and eventually seeing Kit in the crowd.

  She sat up, letting the book slide to the floor.

  Paulette was too short. Just as her grandfather in his wheelchair had been too low down to see Desmond through those tutting Turner fans. She couldn’t have seen Kit, not from where she was standing. But if Laurie’s nurse hadn’t seen Kit, who had she seen?