Growing Up for Beginners

by Claire Calman

  ‘But – but – he might have forgotten all about me by now. It’s thirty years ago. Anyway, no doubt he’s still married to that uptight twit.’

  ‘No. His wife died a few years ago, Andrew told me.’

  ‘She died?’ Cecilia sank back into her chair.

  So he was free but hadn’t come to find her. Maybe he had tried? No, she would not kid herself. He had made his decision back then and she knew what he was like. He would rationalise it, tell himself it was the right thing to do, then live with the consequences, no matter how awful it was.

  ‘And when did you discover all this?’

  ‘A couple of days ago.’ Olivia looked embarrassed. ‘Just before New Year.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come and see me at once?’

  ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’ Olivia sighed. ‘Look, I didn’t because I’m not like you, OK? I needed time to take it in as I was pretty freaked out about the whole thing. I’ve been spending time with Andrew and he’s been telling me all about my – about him.’ She gave a small smile. ‘It’s been good, Ma.’

  ‘But how on earth did you make the connection?’

  ‘Andrew’s a conservator there and he restored a painting for him. For Conrad.’ Olivia paused for a moment. ‘And he showed me a photo of it, then was gobsmacked because he clocked that the woman in it looked so like me. It was you, of course. Painted by Dad. Philip.’

  ‘That painting? I can’t believe he still has it. I assumed he’d have hidden it in the back of a cupboard or sold it, or given it away by now.’

  ‘It clearly means a lot to him. It was damaged somehow, and Andrew says he was creeping about the Conservation department for almost a whole year peering over people’s shoulders before he asked Andrew if he would work on it to restore it. And then when Andrew asked him about where it came from, he clammed up and went all weird on him.’

  ‘Weird? What kind of weird?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there, OK? He just said he was touchy about it.’

  ‘But what can I do? I can’t just show up at the BM. I’d give the man a heart attack. He’s over seventy.’

  ‘Well, all the more reason to hurry up before he pops his clogs and it’s too late then.’ Olivia picked up her bag. ‘It’s not for me to tell you what to do, but you do need to do something. Send him a belated Christmas card, why don’t you? Pop in a PS saying there’s one teeny thing you forgot to mention before.’

  ‘You’re not going now?’

  ‘Yes. I have to. I need to be by myself, Ma. I’m still upset. I’ll be all right; just give me a bit of time, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Olivia wound her scarf round and round and buttoned up her coat again.

  ‘Do you – do you still think about him sometimes? Didn’t you wonder what had happened to him?’

  Cecilia looked at her daughter as if the question were nonsensical.

  ‘Of course. Every single day.’

  ‘Do you still have feelings for him, then? After all this time?’

  Cecilia smiled then. The relief at being able to say it out loud at last.

  ‘I’ve never stopped loving him.’

  48

  At Last…

  January 2013

  It is a fiercely cold day, the wind abrading Conrad’s cheeks and making his nose run and his eyes water as if he is an old man. Bugger it, he is an old man, he reminds himself. He is nothing but a ridiculous, foolish old man. And this is a fool’s errand, no doubt. She will not be there; she may barely even remember him. And how old must she be now – dear God, the woman could well be senile, a toothless wreck covered in drool. No, no, she is not old – don’t be ridiculous. She is… he thinks… sixty-six or sixty-seven… yes, sixty-six. Her birthday falls in February, so nearly sixty-seven. He checks his A-Z once more. It is only a few minutes’ walk from the bus stop.

  As he gets nearer, he grows more nervous. What on earth was he thinking of? He should have called first, or written a note – something fairly light-hearted, nothing too weighty or overblown. But how will he even address her? Back then, he called her – the thought brings a flush of pleasure to him even now – ‘My Love’. And she was. It was as simple as that. On the phone, he used to say ‘ML’, the initials. She hated her given name, Pauline, so much that she couldn’t bear for him to use it ever. So, it turns out that she has changed her name. Well, of course – she always said she would. He could have checked the records, but did not think of it.

  Could he have done more to find her? Yes. So, why hadn’t he? Pride, for one thing. After his pleading letter went unanswered, he retreated into himself – his books, his work, always a refuge – and told himself it was better this way. Benedict flunked most of his exams but at least he stayed out of serious trouble. No college would touch him, of course, but at eighteen he managed to get some casual work, helping out in the kitchen at a local restaurant. The hours were a good fit for Benedict. No need to stir himself before lunchtime. Go in to work in the afternoon, work till late, go out with the other staff at midnight when the place closed. It was an odd sort of life but he seemed, for a brief time at least, to be more stable, and Conrad could tell himself that he had done the right thing.

  She could not have wanted to find him. He has to accept that. He has worked in Prints and Drawings at the British Museum for some thirty years, and even after his retirement, he continues to go in at least twice a week, so an enquiry would reach him almost immediately. Two minutes on the BM’s website would track him down. Even now, his face is as familiar to the curators, the security guards as the Rosetta Stone.

  This is the street. He glances down at the scrap of paper in his hand on which Andrew has written down her address, though he has committed it to memory. Andrew passed it to him in an envelope with no comment. On the paper are just the address and phone number and the words: ‘The woman in your painting: now called Cecilia Herbert.’

  This is the door. Her door. He stands in the street, unable to lift his hand and knock, unable to turn away – go back, back to his calm, familiar life, the life he has told himself is a good life, an honourably lived life. It does not do to think of what might have been – too easy to conjure up a fantasy. Perhaps, after all, they would have made each other horribly unhappy. She would surely have been driven mad by him – his stiffness, his lack of spontaneity, his linguistic pedantry? She was a creature of impulse, of passion. What, in the end, would she have wanted with a stodgy academic such as himself?

  He swallows. The door is dark green with dull brass fittings. He stands well back from it as if standing too close might cause him to be sucked in and he would no longer have a choice. What if…? What if…? For over thirty years, there has not been a single day when he has not thought, What if? What if I had allowed myself to seize that chance, to choose at least the possibility of happiness – even if only for a handful of years before she tired of me? Eleanor would have been all right either way, in all probability. Eleanor could always be relied upon to be all right. Had staying made a real difference to Benedict? It was impossible to know. Perhaps, if Conrad had left back then, the boy might even have been forced to pull up his socks and grow up a bit? Still, look at him now. Alive, married, with a child, a business – even happy, by the look of it. He nods. The boy is all right, thank God.

  He turns to go. He cannot do this. Let sleeping dogs lie. He is not equal to this sort of thing, doesn’t have the vocabulary for it. And she is bound to be changed, of course. The thought that she could have tried to cling to youth, might be tarted up with heavy eyeliner and vermilion lipstick in a gruesome parody of the beautiful woman she once was makes him feel sick and trembly. But what is he now? An old man. His hand reaches up automatically to smooth back his thinning white hair, once so thick and dark. He squares his shoulders. Well, come on, man, are you doing this or not? Come along now! Say hello, have a cup of tea, reminisce for half an hour, trot off back to your study, ghosts laid to rest. Yes.

  He steps forward, t
wo long strides, lifts the knocker and raps sharply twice before he can think any more. He has done so much thinking; his whole life has been devoted to the intellect, to the cultivation of the mind, and it has brought him deep satisfaction, fulfilment. But not much joy.

  And then, suddenly, she is there – here – before him.

  There is so much he wants to say, is desperate to say, but he does not speak. Conrad, who has lived his entire life through the medium of the written word: writing, reading, studying, lecturing – Conrad, for whom words have been as gods, at last has no words.

  He takes a hesitant step towards her, cautious as if she might flee at any moment. But still she stands there, though he sees she is trembling. He had forgotten – almost – how small she is. She doesn’t even reach to his shoulder, yet she makes him feel powerless as no one else on this earth could do.

  ‘You have come,’ She looks up at him, and he sees that her eyes are shining with tears. ‘At last.’

  ‘I have come.’

  All his life, Conrad has taken charge, made decisions, led the way, but here, in this moment, he is unequal to it. He wants to draw her to him, to wrap her in his arms and hold her there where she belongs. Perhaps she hates him for pushing her away, for choosing Benedict, his wife, his safe existence over her. Or perhaps – worse? – she didn’t care much at all and thought herself well shot of him? He does not know how to do this, any of it. There is no text to turn to, no footnotes, no appendices to shed light on it.

  He has pictured this moment so many times over the years – what he would say, how he would declare his love or, when he was feeling angry with her for having disappeared and left no word, he imagined being cool and imperious with her, showing her he didn’t care any more, that she was as nothing to him.

  Her face crumples then and he steps forwards and folds her in his arms, cupping her precious head against his solid chest, his hand stroking her still-soft hair.

  His chin rests gently on top of her head and he stands there, holding her, letting her weep into his shirt, feeling her soft body melt into him.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve really come,’ she says into his damp shirt.

  He speaks into her hair, his voice low, catching in his throat: ‘It would have been a hell of a lot sooner if I’d known where you were.’

  ‘Really?’ She looks up at him then, her green eyes glistening.

  ‘Really.’

  He looks down at her, at her hair – now faded, a quiet copper colour – but still in its single plait, snaking over her shoulder. The sight of it stirs him and at last he says what he needs to say.

  ‘There has not been a single day when I have not thought of you.’

  She nods. It is the same for her.

  ‘I heard you still have the painting? Maybe you should have got rid of it. Then you could have forgotten me.’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘It would have made no difference.’ He taps his head. ‘You were always in here.’

  ‘And here?’ She rests her hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat.

  He lays his own hand on top of hers, pressing it closer.

  ‘Sole occupancy.’

  She takes his hand and draws him into the hallway, then into the sitting room, where she stands before him. She curls her own small hand into the larger frame of his.

  She looks into his eyes and at long last whispers the words he has dreamed of for years, for decades.

  ‘Dear Heart,’ she says.

  He enfolds her in his arms, looking down at her upturned face:

  ‘My Love. My Love. My Love…’ Rocking her, holding her, now looking down into her eyes. God, those eyes, that look that first found its way into the cold, dark cavern of his heart and lit a flame there, that smile that has stayed with him all this time.

  It is so long since he has kissed a woman with love, with affection, with desire, that he is not sure he remembers how. But still, it is her face, her lips – long-remembered, as familiar as if he had kissed them every night for all these past years. At last then he kisses her and she loops her arms up and round his neck. At last.

  Nothing else is.

  49

  Now, Voyager…

  Eleanor is packing. She is good at this. If she were to keep an updated CV, she would be tempted to include ‘Packing’ under ‘Additional Skills’. There is something rather satisfying about the process, the containment of separate items into an orderly whole. She packs her husband’s case first. The habit of putting him first is so deeply ingrained after over twenty years that the idea of doing anything else flits through her head so fleetingly as barely to be noticed.

  She coils his belts tightly to tuck them into his shoes. Flattens his pairs of socks – Roger does not like his socks to be balled because then they look ‘lumpy and untidy’ – and counts out enough of each type: navy to go with his new deck shoes, tan or burgundy to match his pairs of loafers, black for evening. He has instructed her to pack enough for ‘two-point-five weeks’ so that they will only have to avail themselves of the ship’s laundry service twice during the voyage. She interleaves his shirts with white tissue to minimise creasing, as a good wife does. Roger is a man who prefers everything just so, you see; he likes order and stability and predictability. He expects his wife to be exemplary in every way: to pack perfectly, to ask about his day, to show concern when he is tired or fretful, to soothe him with soft words and considerate actions: a perfect cup of coffee, a beautifully cooked meal, a shoulder rub, an endless capacity to listen, to absorb his woes and worries like a sponge so that he can be free of them.

  She digs out an extra pair of cufflinks – little gold anchors once given to him by a client – and pops the box in next to his bow tie. Roger would like those for a cruise, she is sure. She can imagine him trying to be chummy with the captain and dropping random bits of nautical know-how into every conversation to show that he is not a ‘landlubber’; the thought makes her smile.

  Roger will take his beloved e-reader, of course, but Eleanor decides to pack a few books for him as well in the second case, where there is plenty of room – ‘physical books’, as he has taken to calling them, a phrase that makes her want to hit him over the head with the heaviest ‘physical book’ she can find. She pops upstairs to her studio to fetch the ones she hopes he will find time to take another look at. As an afterthought, she adds her birthday slippers.

  Both cases are heavy. Well, no matter; Roger’s invaluable PA, Linda, has, as ever, pre-empted the problem by arranging for a courier to pick up the two large cases this afternoon and they will be delivered directly to the cruise ship in dock at Southampton so that Eleanor would not have to struggle with hefting them on and off the train on her own. Like Roger, Linda is marvellous at that sort of thing – logistics, timings, arrangements. Roger’s plan was for Eleanor to take the train down to Southampton in the morning – plenty of time as the ship wouldn’t set sail until the afternoon. Roger is currently away for work in Jersey again for a couple of nights, so will fly back from there direct to Southampton tomorrow. Pointless to come all the way back to London, then have to slog down to Southampton again. Roger would meet his wife in their luxury suite an hour or two before the ship departs. It is all arranged.

  In a holdall, she carefully places her wood-engraving tools and materials and, in a small portfolio, a sheaf of her favourite Japanese hand-made paper. She would love to take her press, too, but it is impossibly heavy and needs to be bolted into position. For now, she can manage without. Several years ago, when she had first studied engraving, her tutor had showed them how to make a reasonable proof – a test print – from a woodblock they had carved without using a press at all, just by pressing the paper onto the inked woodblock with any kind of heavy weight. This trip is really a gift, she thinks: so many weeks of time and space to draw, to read, to think, to work. Engraving is a slow and painstaking business. Her tutor said – making them all laugh – that you needed to be ‘a finicky fucker’ if you were goi
ng to be good at it. She is endlessly patient and, yes, a finicky fucker when it comes to something that is a labour of love for her. She likes the absolute absorption that comes when she is working on a woodblock, the way each groove she makes feels beneath her fingertip, the moment of revelation when she peels the paper away from the inked block to see those grooves transformed into the print. That last one she did was good and she is rightly proud of it. And she will do more.

  The courier rings the bell and Eleanor checks the luggage labels and hands over the two large cases with a smile. So, it is done.

  Night-time. Eleanor cannot sleep. Although she is anxious about the trip, she is also beginning to feel excited. It is a strange, unfamiliar feeling, pawing at her like a cat desperate to get out and explore. After a couple of hours, she gives up and goes downstairs. By her handbag is a new novel – out in full view instead of secreted in a hiding-place. It is a hardback, a glorious piece of self-indulgence. It is thick and heavy, solid and comforting in her hand. She opens it and dips her nose briefly into the silent centre of it, then runs her fingertips lightly over the words. Irresistible. She curls up on the sofa under a blanket, opens the book to her favourite part, the final page, and begins to read… slipping into the words and… at last… into sleep.

  She wakes very early, unfurling slowly from her soft cocoon, a butterfly emerging into the first hour of its first day. It won’t be light for at least another hour or two, but no matter. She is wide awake and tingling with anticipation. A quick shower, clean clothes, tea and toast, and she is ready. From her jewellery box, she picks out a couple of pieces given to her by the children: a pair of moonstone earrings from Hannah on her birthday, a jade pendant brought back by Daniel from his own gap-year trip, a simple silver bracelet, some sparkly crystal beads. She darts round the house, doing a final check, setting various lights on timers, making sure the window locks are secure, leaving a note and payment for the cleaner, who will pop in regularly to keep an eye on the house.