by Rosie Thomas
‘Um …’ She knew that she looked blank. ‘Oh, someone from the WI about the flower rota for the church. I don’t know why they come to me. They’ve always hated my efforts when I’ve arranged them.’
Sophia put her head back and laughed. ‘Oh dear me, nothing changes at Ladyhill. After I got back from being finished, with all the weird Constance Spry ideas I’d learned, there were endless feuds about what was suitable for church. They wanted to go on sticking sheaves of purple asters into green enamel buckets, just like always …’
With Sophia still chattering, they went out into the sunlight again. The sun was lower and the walls and lawns and the copper leaves of the big tree were all gilded with the same soft light. A pair of swifts skimmed and looped over the grass, and Julia saw a cloud of midges hovering in the sweet, still air.
It was a beautiful afternoon, she thought. The scented, midsummer height of the year. Her boredom had gone, lifting itself like a black depression that had dogged her for months, and leaving her senses cleansed and sharpened. She said to herself, Josh, and the tips of her fingers touched the folded square of paper in her pocket.
They reached the group around the table, and she saw Alexander smile. She realised that it was in response to the brightness in her own face. He had taken Lily on to his knee, and her face was smeared with dirt from the flowerbeds.
‘Where is it?’ Faye asked.
Julia blinked. ‘Where’s what? There’s the tea.’
‘Her sunhat.’
Everyone around the table laughed, and Julia laughed too. She felt light, light-headed, ready to float. ‘I forgot it.’
In the midst of the good humour Faye shook her head indulgently. ‘Well, never mind. It’s cooler now.’
Composing herself, Julia asked, ‘Would anyone like some more tea?’
*
That evening, after the boys and Lily had been put to bed, there was a family dinner. Julia cooked, skimming to and fro in the temporary kitchen and improvising boldly with the ingredients, as Felix would have done. Toby sat with the newspaper and a whisky and soda, and Sophia laid the table and then came to help in the kitchen, devoting herself mostly to peering over Julia’s shoulder and exclaiming, ‘Who taught you to cook so brilliantly?’
‘You haven’t tasted it yet. It was my friend Felix.’
‘The black man? The decorator?’
‘Yes, that one.’ Julia’s dryness was, as always, lost on Sophia.
‘Elizabeth Singer said he did the most lovely room for her. All grey and pink, like being inside a cloud. Clever of you to bring him and George together …’
Julia looked out of the window. The sky had faded to grey suffused with pink in the west. The trees were lush, heavy masses with impenetrable shadow beneath. Alexander and China were coming slowly across the grass towards the house. They had been out, at Julia’s suggestion, to pick herbs from the old bed in a corner of the garden. Julia had taken it over in the spring, looking for something to concentrate on, and to her amazement the chervil and the parsley and all the rest had flourished. China was carrying an armful of green and grey fronds. Her other arm was linked through Alexander’s. Their faces were turned to each other and they were talking animatedly. China was hatless now, and Julia could see the line of her throat, and the neat chignon drawn up at the back of her head.
She wondered what they were talking about.
Julia was still jealous of China. Alexander and his mother seemed to share a closeness that excluded her. It might have been easier, Julia reflected, if she had been able to dislike her mother-in-law. As it was, she couldn’t even resent Alexander’s attachment because she would have liked to possess some of China’s cool grace herself. She was calm and at ease even here, at Ladyhill, with Faye and Sophia.
Julia went on chopping vegetables for the salad. Alexander and China passed out of sight again, around the corner of the house.
What chance is there for us? Julia thought. I’m jealous of Alexander’s mother. And of his house. These walls. The thickness of them, into the window embrasure, confronted her with their solidity. She thought of the other walls, stripped of their scaffolding now, piebald with new and blackened stone. And the guilt for what has happened to it stalks me around every corner.
But the buoyancy of Julia’s mood didn’t change. By admitting them, she felt that for once she had arranged her fear and guilt like hard facts listed on a sheet of paper, and now she was free to turn away to dreams and images. There is something that’s mine, she thought. There’s Josh. Not just what I remember, but now, today. She hugged the knowledge to herself as she worked, and the happiness bubbled out of her in little, unconnected snatches of singing.
‘You’re happy in your work,’ Sophia said.
Alexander and China came back into the kitchen, and China held out her armful of foliage. ‘Is this enough? Or far too much? I didn’t want to strip your herb-garden quite bare, but they look and smell so good.’
Julia took them, smiling at her. ‘Everything grows here. You turn your back, and it’s a foot tall. I’ve never seen anything growing before. It’s like magic.’
Alexander put his arm round her, proprietorial. ‘It smells wonderful in here. Thank you for doing everything.’
‘I’ll just put these in,’ Julia said, ‘and then it’s ready. Are we going to have champagne?’
‘Of course we’re going to have champagne.’ Alexander held up two green and gold bottles, and Julia tried not to think of the last time she had seen Johnny Flowers. Going up the stairs, twenty yards from here, with a bottle of champagne in his hand. ‘To drink a toast to my wife and my daughter. Happiness, and happy birthday.’
It was a good evening.
They ate and drank and talked about small things. Faye and Sophia, the daughter looking more and more like her mother, beamed and contradicted each other from either side of Alexander. China and Toby made their different, stately responses and Julia presided over the table, laughing and encouraging them, and turning her glass in her hand so that the champagne bubbles caught the light.
Alexander watched her, his face softening.
It was late when Faye and Sophia and Toby, carrying their little boys wrapped up in blankets, made their way across the dark grounds and back to Faye’s cottage. Alexander went with them, carrying a torch, and Julia and China did the washing-up together.
‘You look happy tonight,’ China said.
Julia had to stare down into the greasy water to stop herself jerking round to search China’s face. She was afraid of China knowing what was happening. China saw everything, Julia was sure, even though she said little.
‘Don’t I usually look happy?’ Julia answered, too lightly.
After a moment, China said, ‘No, not always.’
Julia had to say something. She launched into it at random. ‘Really? I suppose it takes time to adjust to … such a different life. To having Lily. I suppose it’s lonely here, in a way. Alexander is busy. There’s the work on the house, and his music, and he’s away a lot.’
That was true, at least. While the workmen were at Ladyhill the rebuilding had possessed him. It was not enough for him to watch. He put on overalls and clambered up the scaffolding, lifting bricks or mixing concrete or doing whatever unskilled jobs helped him to assuage his longing for the house to be made whole again. Julia saw his expression, sometimes, as he worked. It was burning with intense eagerness and she would turn away, facing the familiar circuit of jealousy and guilt.
When the insurance money and the small stock of capital was all gone, Alexander flung himself into earning more money. He took on any work that was offered to him, shutting himself away with his piano and his notebooks for hours on end. He had decided, more recently, that the rewards were much better in America. He had made two long trips, one to New York and one to the West Coast in search of film work. Julia had wanted to take Lily and go with him, but Alexander had refused, saying it would be too uncomfortable for them to travel cheaply. Then Juli
a had asked him if she could find some work of her own, so that she could contribute, but he had said no to that, too. ‘Lily’s your work,’ he had said, smiling at them both. ‘More than enough, I should think.’
Julia’s mouth had set in a thin line and she had changed the subject.
She swished the dish mop to and fro in the bowl, now, conscious of China waiting for something more. She stayed silent, listening to the silence.
‘Is it as external as that?’
China would express herself succinctly, of course. External. To do with outer things, and not the dangerous ones like Julia’s and Alexander’s feelings for each other.
‘Of course,’ Julia lied. China’s grey-blonde head nodded, just once, and she polished a slow circle on a dinner plate that was already dry. Julia was possessed by a longing to tell her the truth. Not just about Josh, but about the long seam that had split open tonight with the telephone’s ringing. About how she felt that Alexander and Lily and Ladyhill together had stitched her into a straitjacket, and the prospect of bursting out of it was unbearably enticing. More. About her jealousy – even of you, China, did you know that? – and her resentment of her reduction to Alexander’s wife and Lily’s mother, no more herself, and about her guilt, and her fears of the smoky vault of the house and its terrible ghosts, and how they had come together with all the rest to obliterate the love. She had loved Alexander at the beginning and now it was gone, leaving her stiff and dry. Nor did she know what Alexander felt, any more. He was as gentle with her as he had always been, and as stimulating and uncompromising in upholding what he believed in, but it was as if he had simply stepped a little further away. They went through the motions of being married, that was all.
Julia wanted him back, but tonight had shown her that she wanted other things, too. Craved them, with the desperation of an addict.
She lifted her head and looked straight ahead of her. ‘Were you happy, when you lived here?’ Julia asked softly.
Perhaps China would give her some clue to help her to interpret her own life.
Alexander’s mother put the plate down, very gently, on top of the other five that she had already dried. ‘My husband was a difficult man to live with,’ she said. ‘I don’t think yours is.’ Julia knew it was a warning.
China had accepted her as Alexander’s wife. It surprised her, when she thought about it. There were enough things about her to object to, Julia reflected. But now that she was married, she understood, there was to be no failure. She was Alexander’s wife, and that should be enough. Of course China would be Alexander’s supporter. She wouldn’t want her daughter-in-law to confide her doubts or fears. And to Julia, that seemed perfectly natural and predictable.
‘Of course not,’ she murmured. She tipped the water out of the washing-up bowl and wiped it dry. She heard Alexander coming in, bolting the outside door. A moment later he came into the kitchen. Seeing them together, Julia was struck more forcibly than usual by their likeness. It was less in the features themselves than in the lines their features adopted.
‘I think. I’ll go upstairs,’ China said. Alexander kissed her on the forehead. Julia wanted to shout at him, But I’m here. Don’t you love me, as well? More than her? The pettiness of her jealousy shocked her a little. And then, like an antidote, she thought, Josh.
‘I hope you’ll be comfortable in Lily’s room,’ Julia said politely to China.
‘Of course I will. Goodnight, both of you. It was a lovely day.’
China went up to bed, and left Julia and Alexander alone together.
His face was still soft when he looked at her, as it had been across the dinner table. The skin at the corners of his eyes fanned into fine wrinkles. Alexander habitually protected his own tenderness with an ironic shell, but when it showed, as it did now, it touched Julia directly. She reached her hand out to him, but then she remembered all the knot of other things, and turned the gesture into an awkward shrug.
‘You were like you used to be, tonight,’ Alexander said.
‘Used to be?’
‘Yes. Funny, and alive. Careless, as if it didn’t matter what anyone said or thought. I love that in you.’
‘If you wanted me to go on being those things you shouldn’t have married me. We shouldn’t have had Lily.’ As soon as she had said the sharp words, she wished she could take them back again.
Alexander sighed. ‘Let’s sit down and have a nightcap.’
They went through into the little sitting room. It smelt of Toby’s cigar smoke, and Julia opened the windows wider. She breathed in the earthy chill of the night air, suddenly wishing that she could close her eyes and sleep.
Alexander poured a whisky for each of them and they sat down on the sofa.
‘Why shouldn’t I have married you?’ he asked.
Julia lifted her hand, palm upwards, and sliced the air with it. The gesture took in the room, the house with its black-shadowed spaces, the gardens and fields beyond it, and the quiet countryside. It took in Alexander, and the baby, and Julia herself. They stared at each other, recognising what it meant, refusing to acknowledge it. Bitterly, Julia said, ‘If you hadn’t married me, you would still have your house.’
Alexander was angry then. His infrequent anger kindled very quickly when it came, burning up his equanimity. He caught her wrist in his hand, jolting her. ‘If I hadn’t married you I wouldn’t have you here with me. I wouldn’t have Lily. Houses can be mended. This one will be mended.’
Julia looked at him, and saw the familiar expression. Determination that was almost fanatical. She couldn’t gauge whether he was determined for themselves, or just for Ladyhill.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know it will. But at what cost?’
‘I thought you didn’t care about money,’ he snapped back at her. ‘I don’t give a damn what it costs.’
His misunderstanding was deliberate, Julia thought. There were questions that Alexander didn’t want to face.
‘Why can’t you be happy?’ he demanded. ‘You were happy tonight, weren’t you? And your happiness kindled the rest of us. Even Toby, for Christ’s sake. Why not other nights? Why not all the time?’
I was happy tonight, because …
Julia could have told him the truth, but she knew that she was a coward. Alexander was the brave one, she thought. Deflecting the question, not looking at him, she said, ‘I asked China if she was happy when she lived here. She said that her husband was a difficult man to live with. Mine isn’t.’ The bitterness had faded, and Julia was smiling faintly. ‘She was telling me, of course, to rejoice in what I’ve got.’
Alexander rubbed his hand over his face, deepening the lines at the sides of his mouth. ‘You can hardly compare my father and mother with you and me. There’s thirty years, a war and a social revolution separating us, thank God. I’m sorry, China’s very partisan. She shouldn’t be.’
Julia drank the last mouthful of her whisky and stood up, looking down at him. ‘It’s all right. Why shouldn’t she be on your side? I just wish she was my mother.’
That’s probably the truth, she thought, surprised by the realisation. ‘I wish I had someone like China to support me. I never have.’
Alexander stood up too. He put his arms round her and drew her against him, settling her head against his shoulder. ‘Julia. I know you haven’t had an easy time. Not like I’ve had, if you want to compare. But you’ve got me now, and you’re a mother yourself. You’re twenty-two. You’re grown up. You have to be, for Lily’s sake.’
No, Julia thought. I’m not. I don’t know how I would be, but not like this. Wouldn’t I be happy, if I was?
She turned her face against Alexander, digging her fingers into the roughness of his sweater, hiding herself while Alexander comfortingly stroked her hair. She felt her own selfishness and stupidity, destructiveness like a tumour inside her, but she also knew that she would go to Josh, do whatever he asked, and take what was coming. It was unthinkable to go back to this afternoon, to the suffocation that
she had felt under the rustling umbrella of copper leaves.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ Alexander said.
They had moved Lily’s cot through into their own bedroom, to make room for China. Upstairs they leaned over the bars, looking down at the baby. She was sleeping on her back, her arms and legs spread wide and the satin binding of the blanket clutched against her damp, flushed face. Wet black curls stuck to her forehead. Julia leaned closer and breathed in the scent of her, listening to her faint snores.
Love twisted suddenly and violently inside her, compelling her to reach into the cot and lift up the moist, breathing weight.
‘Lily,’ she whispered, needing to squeeze the baby against her, rubbing her face against the fat creases of the little neck. ‘Happy birthday. Think of all the years ahead. Just think of them.’ The smells of baby powder and clean skin and warm flannel mingled with the sharp scent of wet nappy. The baby whimpered and Julia cradled her head, rocking her.
‘You’ll wake her up,’ Alexander whispered.
‘She needs changing.’
Julia laid her on the bed and unbuttoned her nightdress. As she unpinned and pinned on a dry towelling square, Lily opened her eyes and stared at her, unblinking, perfectly composed. Mystified, Julia reflected that sometimes her baby was a numbing responsibility, at others no more than a reproach, and yet at other times, like this, Julia knew that she would die or kill for her.
She lifted her up again and kissed the corner of her open mouth, then laid her back in the nest of her cot. Lily’s thumb found its way into her mouth, and she sucked noisily at it. Watching her, Julia groped at a silent promise. I’ll try to do what’s best. It may not be right, but I will try.
Alexander came and put his arms on her shoulders.
‘It’s my turn now,’ he said.
He took off Julia’s cotton dress with the square of paper hidden deep in the pocket, and let it fall in a heap on the floor. His hands rested on the points of Julia’s hips, then moved slowly to the hollow of her waist, then to cover her breasts. Julia had been proud of her new, voluptuous figure while she was feeding Lily, but now that was over she had shrunk again, even smaller than before. She put her fingers up to shield the deficit, but Alexander pushed her hand away. He leaned forward to touch his mouth to the nipples, tracing a slow circle around each hard point with his tongue.
