“Promise you’ll never go coy on me,” he said, a few evenings later, taking her hand across the table as the Greek coffee steamed between them. “Nothing more irritating than womanly wiles.”
The food at The Olive Tree had turned out to be disappointingly run of the mill, but Faith definitely couldn’t say the same for the evening. She smiled at James, and squeezed his hand back. She thought she understood what he meant. In his line of work women were an open book, so to speak. He had no patience with feminine mystique: much better to be up front, up for a good time. He found Faith refreshing, he said. And he certainly turned out to be in need of refreshment.
That first fortnight they saw a lot of each other. Despite the bookings she’d taken on from her pregnant friend, Faith had a run of free evenings, and James seemed keen to fill them. After the Greek restaurant they went to an Italian in Botley, then a pub out towards Witney. Faith liked the way James was keen to try places further afield than she usually went. He was broadening her horizons already.
But she insisted on cooking for him after that. They hadn’t eaten Chinese together yet, and Faith liked cooking Chinese food. All that fuss and fiddle; all those subtle flavours. It made her feel exotic, sophisticated, competent. She spent most of the afternoon chopping and blending, rolling and simmering, in her garden flat off the Iffley Road.
In the days when the house had been occupied by one family, the basement had been taken up by a big open-plan kitchen-cum-family-room, and it hadn’t been altered much when the property was split into flats. People had been put off by the layout of Faith’s flat – a kitchen big enough for a Victorian-size family, and only a tiny bedroom, and tinier bathroom, carved out of the sitting area – but it suited Faith down to the ground. A flat that was mostly kitchen was the perfect place to run a catering business from. The huge stainless steel range cooker and the halogen hob were just what she needed, and they’d even left the American-style fridge-freezer, which was big enough to hold a whole banquet.
It was raining outside, but Faith’s kitchen was full of light. While she sliced cloves of garlic wafer-thin, she listened to Fox FM and wove a fantasy about James ringing in with a request for her. Amy Winehouse, perhaps: he knew she liked Amy Winehouse. Of course she knew doctors didn’t have time to ring in to radio stations, but even so she managed a quiver of anticipation each time the announcer’s voice returned. She imagined her parents tuning in and hearing it, wondering whether it could possibly be their Faith.
Faith hadn’t mentioned James to her parents yet. She was biding her time, waiting for the right moment; she had a feeling they wouldn’t know how to take it. They’d be worried about the age difference, for a start. Her Dad was older than her Mum, but they’d see it differently in her case – and true, James was ten years older than her, not six. Faith was an only child, and they’d always been protective. As she peeled root ginger with a paring knife she’d bought especially for oriental cookery, Faith wondered whether other people had the same feeling, that two parents know better than one child. They’d certainly always had their doubts about Grant, her Mum and Dad, but who could blame them for that?
In theory Faith was still seeing Grant when she met James. She’d been with him on and off for years; since school, in fact. Back then he’d been the boy everyone wanted to go out with, and as far as Grant was concerned he still was. One thing you could say for Grant: he didn’t have a problem with self-esteem. They’d always had flexible boundaries – his phrase, not hers – so there was no reason Faith couldn’t see James too. But after her second date with James she’d told Grant it was time to call it a day. He took it well, as she knew he would.
“You’ve met someone special,” he said, in his annoying I-worked-it-out-for-myself way. “I’m glad. Just hope he’s special enough.”
Like hell you do, thought Faith. By then Grant’s anti-romantic view of life had begun to grate. “Oh, I think so,” she’d replied, and left it at that. She wasn’t going to gratify Grant’s curiosity any further.
James was late, as he often was, but his apologies made fifteen minutes of suspense worthwhile.
“I took a taxi, so I wouldn’t have to drive home,” he said. He bent slightly to kiss her, then produced a bottle of white wine, wrapped in tissue paper, from his briefcase. “The guy in Oddbins said this was perfect with Chinese. It all smells fantastic.”
“Let’s hope.”
Faith felt bashful, suddenly, about letting him into her flat. She had a vision of his house: all Persian rugs and deep armchairs, she imagined. Oil paintings on the wall and expensive light fittings. Her flat was furnished from Ikea, the lower end of their range, even. It was the first place she’d ever had to herself and she loved it, but she could see it wasn’t the right habitat for James.
He was charming about it, though. “What a gem,” he said.
“Me or the flat?”
“Both, of course.”
He poured them both a glass of wine, then slipped his spare hand around Faith’s waist and pulled her towards him in that assertive way she liked so much.
“I wish we’d met twenty years ago,” he said, and Faith giggled.
“But I was six then, and what would people have said to that?”
She’d already discovered that James had a secretive side, but the mystery, the hint of tragedy, only added to his attraction. It showed his sensitivity, that there were things he found it hard to talk about. But he certainly wasn’t evasive. If she’d had any worries on that score, they were settled that evening.
“It’s only fair you should be in the picture,” he said, following her into the kitchen, picking things up from the side and putting them down again. “Know that I’m used goods. A bit battered around the edges.” And he smiled his crinkle-eyed smile and cocked his head slightly, as if to check that Faith was real, that she looked the same from a different angle. She had the pleasant feeling that he couldn’t quite believe his luck.
“I’d be more worried if you’d stayed single all this time,” Faith said. She lifted a tray of spring rolls out of the oven and smiled at the look on his face.
James didn’t have children: that was one of the tragedies of his life, Faith reckoned. And it wasn’t just one marriage that had failed to produce babies.
“I should never have married Susan, to be honest,” he said, when they were sitting down, their plates loaded with immaculate little parcels and dumplings and sticks of satay. “It wasn’t her fault. I assumed it was what I needed, the best way to cope with grief. Like getting back on a bicycle when you fall off, before it starts to hurt too much.”
He’d taken off his jacket – he wore beautiful suits, properly tailored, and shirts made of expensively thick cotton – and thrown it over the arm of the sofa. Faith could see his pager clipped to the inside pocket, the reminder that he was never completely off duty.
“I was utterly devoted to Helena,” James went on, chewing contemplatively on a prawn wonton. “We were madly in love. We’d been married five years but we were still like newly-weds, completely silly about each other.”
He glanced up at Faith. Go on, she wanted to say. Unburden yourself: it’ll do you good. Do us both good.
“I wish now that we’d started a family sooner. We didn’t think there was any rush. We were married at twenty-seven; no need to fret about fertility. And – “ he stopped, winced slightly, “ – I’m sure this will sound awful to you, Faith. It certainly does to me now. But I saw pregnant women every day, dealt with all the complications and difficulties. It didn’t hold much glamour for me, the whole idea. The thought of my wife going through it …” He shook his head, leaned back in his chair. They were nearly at the end of the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, but Faith didn’t want to get up just now to open another. “Well, of course that was more foolish than I could have imagined. Helena would have been happy to have a child straight away, and then I wouldn’t have been left completely alone.”
Faith didn’t know what to say. Poor James; sh
e could see what it had cost him to admit to all that. He looked older, all of a sudden; the lines around his eyes looked careworn rather than humorous. She sat quietly for a moment, then she got up and fetched another bottle of wine, and the last tray of food from the oven.
“What happened to Helena?” she asked, when she was sitting down opposite him again.
“She drowned,” James said. “A sailing accident. Freak wind. She was an expert sailor, thoroughly competent, but it was – I don’t know, some kind of mini tornado, the coastguard said. The rest of the sea was flat calm, so they didn’t expect anyone to get into trouble that day, and by the time they realised her boat had gone down it was too late. It took weeks for her body to be washed ashore.”
His eyes had filled with tears, Faith saw, with a sort of thrill that she immediately felt guilty about.
“I was on duty that weekend, or I’d have been with her,” he said. “And I spent most of the next year wishing I had been.”
He sighed, shook his head. Faith leaned forward and tipped some more wine into his glass. He’d ruffled his hair while he was speaking and he looked like a little boy, sweet and uninhibited.
“I married Susan eighteen months after Helena died. It took me about two weeks to work out that I’d made a hideous mistake, and almost two years to extricate myself with as little damage as possible on both sides. I guess you could say I’ve felt a bit – wary, since then. Battle-scarred.” He grinned, managing to look both rueful and full of lust at the same time. “Until now, of course,” he said, and Faith smiled and laid her finger on his lips.
Chapter 13
“Georgie’s back,” said Shirley, when Olivia walked into the community centre the following week. She jerked her head towards the corner, Georgie’s preferred seat, and there she was. Olivia felt a jolt, a sort of shyness. Georgie had been so much in her mind, these last few weeks, that Olivia had almost forgotten what she looked like in person: the long nose, its sharpness exaggerated by age; the steel-grey hair cut aggressively short, lacking the pampered, fluffy look favoured by many of the Wednesday Club regulars.
“Is she better?” Olivia asked.
“Tough as old boots.” Shirley beamed, as though Georgie’s resilience was something for them all to be proud of. “All the same,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning forwards in a way that could hardly be missed if you happened to be watching the conversation, “not quite her old self, if you get my drift.”
Olivia surveyed the room, her gaze passing over Georgie and on to the others. Kenneth, absorbed by a puzzle whose pieces looked too numerous for a morning’s entertainment. Elsie, holding forth to a small group gathered around her. William, Marjorie, Grace, Dorothy.
Georgie was sitting a little apart from the rest, staring straight in front of her, dressed as plainly as she always was, in a white blouse and dark skirt. Odd clothes for an old lady, Olivia thought. They reminded her of photographs she’d seen of schoolgirls in India, streaming into the dusty streets in their spotless outfits.
“It’s not a uniform, is it?” she asked. “Her clothes? I mean – did she have to wear a uniform in the asylum?”
“I don’t know.” Shirley frowned. “She wouldn’t’ve kept it up after she was let out, though, would she? After she could choose what to wear?”
Olivia wasn’t sure. Something about Georgie’s clothes suggested a desire to blend in, to disappear, though the irony was that she didn’t. The other women wore flowered dresses made from some synthetic material with give in it, or the kind of trousers Olivia’s grandmother used to call slacks. But wasn’t the point that Georgie had never chosen anything in her life? That she’d never had the chance either to fit in, or to stand out?
“What happened to her baby?” Olivia asked, as she took her music out of its case. “Was it a boy or a girl, do you know?”
“A little girl.” Shirley sighed, hands on her ample hips. “She was adopted: no choice about that, I’m sure. The social workers traced her when Georgie came out of the asylum, but she was dead by then. Tragic, isn’t it? A car accident, in her twenties.”
“No …” Olivia froze, a book of folksongs in midair. She hadn’t thought the story could get any worse. “How did it happen?”
Shirley shook her head. “That’s all there is to know,” she said. “All I know, anyway. Crying shame, but there it is. All in the past now.”
Georgie looked up for a moment and Olivia caught her eye, but Georgie gave no sign of recognition. There was a fretful look beneath her usual composure, a twitch and tremor of her facial muscles.
Shirley followed Olivia’s gaze.
“Not quite her old self,” she said again. “A tad confused, poor old Georgie. But I said I was happy to have her, even so. She won’t be any trouble, not Georgie.”
The singing seemed lacklustre to Olivia today. Even the old favourites failed to rouse any enthusiasm: She’ll be coming round the mountain; It’s a long way to Tipperary. Had Georgie’s malaise, whatever it was, infected them all? Or was Olivia boring them, ploughing through the same old repertoire? After three or four numbers she stopped and leafed through a book of Irish songs she didn’t often use. The Rose of Tralee, perhaps? She hadn’t played that for them before.
She didn’t expect them to know the words. She sang the first line herself, softly, enjoying the bittersweet lilt of the melody, the major key that sounded more like minor.
“The pale moon was rising above the green mountain …”
Then suddenly she wasn’t singing alone: out of nowhere came a tenor voice, a little cracked but still resonant.
“The sun was declining beneath the blue sea … “
She looked up: Kenneth, his face intent, hands gripping the arms of his chair. He might be a retired doctor, Olivia thought, but his voice had been trained, once upon a time. Shooting a glance at Shirley, standing listening in the kitchen doorway, she let her own voice fall away, and Kenneth carried the ballad with a gusto she had never seen or heard in him before.
“When I strayed with my love to the pure crystal fountain
That stands in the beautiful vale of Tralee.
She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet ‘twas not her beauty alone that won me;
Oh no, ‘twas the truth in her eye ever dawning,
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee. “
There was silence when they got to the end, complete silence of the kind that conveys some shared feeling. An extraordinary voice, thought Olivia, even if it was three decades past its prime. An extraordinary thing to hear an old man singing a love song with such fervour, shaping the words and scaling the leaps of the melody as though it was newly minted. Small wonder that he didn’t wheeze along with the rest, most weeks.
Kenneth looked at her expectantly. Olivia had forgotten there was a second stanza, but she smiled and nodded and started again.
“The cool shades of evening their mantle were spreading
And Mary all smiling sat listening to me;
The moon through the valley her pale rays were shining
When I won the heart of the Rose of Tralee.
She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet ‘twas not her beauty alone that won me;
Oh no, ‘twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning,
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.”
Olivia sat very still on the piano stool. Kenneth’s voice had begun to give way towards the end of the second verse, but he sustained his tone with a sureness that revealed the strength of his technical training. It was rare, very rare for her to feel so moved by music these days. It had become bread and butter to her, a facility she could trade on. She turned to smile at Kenneth.
“Thank you,” she said.
He looked bewildered now, as though he was stunned by what he’d done. As though he’d got up and run around the room, whooping and yelling like a schoolboy. Olivia looked across at Shirley, waiting for her to say something
. But before either of them could speak they were both distracted by something else: a sob, and a little crooning moan, and a catching of breath.
Over in her corner, behind all the others – who were beginning to murmur and exclaim now, to ask each other whether they’d known Kenneth had a voice like that – Georgie was weeping.
Olivia was closer than Shirley, and she moved faster. In a few seconds she was at Georgie’s side, squatting down, taking Georgie’s bony hand in hers.
“That was a treat, Kenneth,” she heard Shirley say. “You’ve kept that voice quiet, haven’t you?”
Georgie was saying something too, muttering something Olivia couldn’t understand. She shook her head slightly and Georgie gripped her hand harder, staring into her eyes, and tried again.
“I don’t want to go back.”
“Back where, Georgie?”
“Don’t let them. You don’t know what they do.”
“No one’s going to hurt you,” Olivia said. Georgie’s skin was very smooth, very soft; as though it had been preserved in a museum case, Olivia thought. Kept from the world.
“Horrible,” Georgie said, “horrible,” and then the words were swallowed by muttering and grunting.
Shirley stood beside her now.
“Remembering the asylum,” she mouthed, the hiss of the ‘s’ like a threat. She touched Olivia’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault: anything can set her off these days, poor love.”
Chapter 14
For the third night in a row, Olivia woke in the early hours of the morning and found herself instantly alert. She had the feeling that she’d been woken by a crying baby. A cat, perhaps? Or a desperate father pushing a wakeful infant around the streets to quieten it? She listened again, but there was nothing to hear except the wind and the rain. It was a wild night, a storm racketing at the windows and whipping the bare branches of the silver birch tree back and forth through the beam of the streetlight. Not a night you’d take a baby out for a walk. It must have been a dream.
The Partridge and the Pelican Page 10
