The Prodigal Wife

by Marcia Willett

  ‘Why can’t Daddy be here?’ she’d ask, and Cordelia would explain, again, the peculiarities of service life.

  She still hated weekends and usually made certain she had things, apart from work, to which she could look forward. Today she’d failed in that respect and, in the end, she’d walked for hours on the cliffs with McGregor, enjoying the glory of the early autumn day and arriving back exhausted. Yet while they’d walked she’d had an odd impression that someone was watching her, that same ‘eyes on the back of the neck’ sensation she’d had in Mangetout. There were other walkers out on the cliffs, and it was foolish to imagine that she was being followed, yet she’d been unable to free herself of the feeling.

  It was very cold now. The wind was strong, scouring along the cliff-top, whirling around her stone balcony. She went inside and lit the candles, pulling the curtains against the darkness.

  Later, Fliss lay awake, staring into the darkness listening to the wind. Hal was deeply asleep, turned away from her, and she was comforted by his bulk, conscious of his warmth. She simply couldn’t sleep. The day unreeled before her mind’s eye: that first sight of Henrietta, the expression on Jolyon’s face each time he looked at her, the way they’d driven off together after tea.

  Hal had slipped an arm around her as they’d waved them off. ‘Lucky old Jo,’ he’d said happily. ‘What a gorgeous girl.’

  She’d agreed with him, happy for Jo too – and even more anxious now she’d met Henrietta and liked her so much. But why should she feel so anxious? Cordelia was right to point out that now was exactly the right time for Jolyon to show how strong he’d become. All day he’d been calm and confident, despite the presence of his family and Henrietta’s nervousness. She’d been careful not to show her feelings for Jo but once or twice Fliss had seen a little glance flash between them, and her heart had gone out to both of them.

  ‘Don’t waste time,’ she’d wanted to say to them. ‘Be happy.’

  Perhaps this anxiety sprang out of her own experience. She and Hal had not seized their chance of happiness together but had allowed the family to separate them. Of course, they had been so much younger; too young and inexperienced to stand out against the united disapproval of Prue and Grandmother. Fliss smiled sadly in the darkness. How innocent and foolish they’d been, yet she could barely remember a time when she hadn’t loved Hal. All those years ago, she’d waited for some sign from him; for something more than the quick private demonstrations of love that were much more than brotherly or even cousinly; some proof that he was just as serious as she was. She’d allowed her imagination to wander into the future, inventing an endless variety of scenes in which Hal declared himself at last. Oh, the agony of young love…Fliss closed her eyes, tucked herself more closely against Hal’s back, and slept at last.

  On Monday, just after lunch, Cordelia telephoned Henrietta. She’d dithered all morning, arguing with herself and postponing the call, half wondering if Jolyon might still be with Henrietta and dreading that she might interrupt something.

  ‘But what?’ she asked herself crossly, nerves on edge. ‘If they’re in bed they won’t be answering the telephone and if not…’

  The answer was clear: she simply didn’t want to give the impression of being an inquisitive mother, asking carefully worded questions. Instead, she prowled: sorting papers, closing reference books and putting them away, finishing the crossword, whilst McGregor rolled a sympathetic eye from time to time in her direction. And all the while her resolution grew stronger: today she would phone Henrietta and tell her about Angus’s party.

  She decided that she would be quite light-hearted: ‘You’ll never guess who’s just moved back to Dartmouth?’

  No, no, said the voice in her head, that’s a bit too disingenuous; almost as if you expect Henrietta to be pleased about it.

  Something more casual, perhaps: ‘By the way, I’ve been invited to a party on Wednesday. Angus Radcliff. Remember him?’

  No, no, that wouldn’t do at all: much too tactless. How could Henrietta possibly have forgotten him? No, she needed to be firm, direct and almost indifferent.

  ‘By the way, I’m going to a party on Wednesday evening. Angus Radcliff’s moved down to Dartmouth and he’s giving a housewarming party. Lots of old friends are going. It should be fun.’

  The inner voice was silent and Cordelia rehearsed this once or twice. It seemed to strike the right note. After all, she wasn’t asking Henrietta’s permission or approval; she was simply telling her en passant, as it were. It needed to be dropped into the conversation – which posed its own problem. She could think of nothing to say just at the moment that didn’t relate to Jo. And that brought her back to the question of when it would be tactful to telephone. For her reaction to the invitation to be convincing then it needed to be today: not too soon after the invitation had been received, in case it gave it too much importance, but neither too much at the last minute lest she should give the impression that she’d been afraid to mention it.

  The voice in her head said that it couldn’t matter less, since Henrietta wouldn’t know when she’d received the invitation.

  She might ask, Cordelia answered silently, and then I shall be able to be truthful.

  The voice laughed hollowly.

  I do tell the truth, Cordelia told it indignantly, even if I don’t always tell all of it.

  Irritated by the knowledge that she was talking to herself she went back to her desk. She would phone at two o’clock; now she must work. Her mobile began to play its silly tune and she seized it.

  Angus said, ‘Hello, Dilly.’

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘How wonderful to hear a human voice.’

  ‘Is there any other kind?’ he enquired.

  ‘There’s the one in my head,’ she answered grimly. ‘And I promise you that there’s nothing human about it. I think I’m going mad.’

  He chuckled. ‘Poor darling. What’s it saying this morning?’

  ‘It’s mocking and deriding me. It tells me that I’m a lying, specious woman.’

  ‘Oh dear. That sounds bad.’

  ‘Uncomfortable, anyway. It’s too near the truth for my liking. I’ve decided to telephone Henrietta and tell her that I’m going to your party.’

  There was a short surprised silence. ‘But that’s fantastic, Dilly.’

  ‘Yes, it is. I feel very brave and virtuous, except that I’m trying to decide how soon I can phone her.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘Well, in case Jo’s still there, you see. I can’t bear looking as if I’m a nosy, prurient mother trying to find out if they spent the night together.’

  He roared with laughter. ‘Even if you are?’

  ‘Well, obviously I want to know, simply because I long for them to be getting along together and I want them to be happy. And I’d like to feel sure that Henrietta isn’t going to throw one of her wobblies. She said to me once, “Well, you and Dad must have thought you were in love and look how that finished up.” She’s afraid to trust her emotions.’

  ‘I think you’re being a bit oversensitive about phoning.’

  ‘I know I am,’ she cried irritably, ‘but this is the morning after a big day. She’s been to The Keep to meet the rellies and it’s a bit difficult to ignore it.’ She took a deep, calming breath. ‘Fliss phoned last night. She said it went really well.’

  ‘That’s good then.’

  ‘You don’t have to use your soothing voice. I’m OK now.’

  ‘Great.’

  She knew he was grinning; she could hear it in his voice. She grinned too. ‘I shall phone her at two o’clock and then I’ll phone you. Be there.’

  ‘Oh, I will. Are you working?’

  Cordelia snorted. ‘Are you kidding? I’ve put in two commas, and taken them out again. That’s about the sum total of my output this morning.’

  ‘When shall I see you?’

  ‘On Wednesday, at your wretched party.’

  ‘Fine.’

  She felt an ir
rational hurt that he’d accepted her tart reply so readily; hadn’t offered to come over later. She frowned. ‘And now I really must do some work.’

  ‘Phone me when you’ve spoken to Henrietta. ’Bye, Dilly.’

  She stared crossly at her computer screen, looked at the small clock in the bottom right-hand corner: twelve forty-three. She could give up and have some lunch or she could force herself to write just one sentence. Experience told her that she’d feel very much better if she could compose even a very short sentence. She set herself to concentrate.

  Are we the first generation to need to be friends with our children?

  An hour later she glanced at the clock and on impulse seized her mobile. A voice informed her that Henrietta’s phone was switched off. Cordelia cursed quietly but comprehensively, and went to make herself some lunch.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The village street lay empty and hot in the afternoon sunshine. Henrietta strolled slowly, hands in pockets, relishing the warmth of the sun. On each side the terraced cottages seemed to slump together, drowsing beneath their thatched roofs, rosy sandstone walls crisscrossed about with trellises of clematis and trailing honeysuckle. It was so quiet that she could hear a nectar-laden bee droning as it worked amongst the delicately tinted Japanese anemones. Nasturtiums, gold and yellow and orange, spilled over doorsteps and cobbled paths, climbing sandy banks and cascading down walls. In one small vegetable patch chrysanthemums and dahlias grew among tall runner beans whose late-flowering scarlet flowers drooped upon pale bamboo sticks.

  At the end of the street the road forked away to the left, past the church and out of the village, but she continued on the narrower lane that led down to the farm. Here, all along the ditches grew great stands of rosebay willowherb, its flowers turned to fluffy white seed, its leaves glowing glorious, vivid scarlet. A rabbit jinked out of the ditch and dodged beneath the bars of the gate into the field, the flash of its white scut bobbing as it fled down the grassy slope. Henrietta leaned on the gate, arms folded, chin on wrists, and all the while she was thinking about Jolyon. Fragments of conversation, images of what she’d seen, little scenes, all jostled for a place in her mind. Beneath these sensations a secret, unruffled continuum of happiness lent extra colour to everything around her; even the ever-present voice of cynicism had been muffled by this extraordinary sense of wellbeing.

  Leaning on the gate she tested her feelings, trying to see Jolyon as her friends might see him. This was a difficult one because he was already well known to them through his role as a television presenter and all her girlfriends fancied him; perhaps it was just as well that she wasn’t in London. Seeing him with his family – easy-going, amusing, kind – it might be possible to wonder if he weren’t a bit too good to be true, except that she’d seen another side to his character that showed that he was quite capable of anger and resentment.

  ‘My mother’s coming down for my birthday,’ he’d said, driving home, when they were discussing future meetings.

  Glancing sideways she’d seen a bitter twist to his mouth, and experienced a quick stab of sympathy.

  ‘Not your idea?’ she’d asked, and he’d told her a bit more about his childhood and that he was finding it difficult to accept that his mother expected to be able to walk back into his life now she was alone.

  Somehow, travelling in the car in the twilight, they both seemed to find it easier to talk about the personal aspects of their lives; exposing certain fears, voicing anxieties that would have been more embarrassing to speak of face to face. The very act of travelling seemed symbolic of the journey they were making in learning about each other; as the car passed through the countryside and small villages, so they were passing through new stages of discovery.

  As soon as they arrived back, he lit the wood-burning stove.

  ‘I haven’t really needed it yet,’ she said, watching him lay the kindling.

  ‘You will, though,’ he said, sitting back on his heels. ‘Anyway, a fire makes things more cheerful.’

  He stayed for supper and, afterwards, he piled more logs on the fire and they sat together on the sofa watching the flames. There was so much to talk about: films, books, friends. The time passed so quickly, though all the while she was hoping he wasn’t noticing just how quickly. She didn’t want him to go; not yet.

  ‘D’you spend much time on your own in the gatehouse?’ she asked. She swung her legs across his knees and leaned against him, and his arm automatically passed round her to hold her close. ‘Do you eat on your own?’

  There was a short silence and she knew he was thinking this through, wondering whether he might unwittingly give the wrong impression of himself: a bit of a loner? An immature man who couldn’t get away from his family?

  ‘Not often,’ he answered. ‘It seems crazy when everyone’s just across the courtyard to sit all on my own. Sometimes I do, if I want to watch a film or something, but I’m used to having people around, you see; different people. At lunchtime it might be Fliss and Dad, and Sam when he’s home from school. Or Lizzie and Granny. Or a variation on the theme. It’s the way life at The Keep works and I rather like it.’

  She knew that he’d answered truthfully and was now wondering whether she’d be put off; she hastened to reassure him.

  ‘I know exactly what you mean. It’s like that in London. Or used to be. There were always people around in the kitchen but not always the same ones. It might have been me and the children and Iain, or Susan and a couple of people from downstairs making some tea, but I liked it too.’

  His arm tightened about her and she sensed his relief. ‘There are times when it’s nice to be alone, like now, for instance, but we’re lucky that The Keep is big enough for everyone to have privacy too.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why Iain went,’ Henrietta said sadly. ‘Perhaps he didn’t like it, though he never gave that impression.’

  ‘What will Susan do? Will she have to move?’

  She shook her head, her cheek against his jersey. ‘I’ve no idea. She could hardly afford to buy him out of the house and I don’t think she could manage to run it without his income.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I don’t know. They went off in such a hurry. Nothing can be decided until they come home.’

  There’d been a silence then, as if they’d both known that they were moving on to a very serious level of discussion; she’d given an anxious, quick upward glance and he’d bent his head and kissed her.

  Leaning on the gate, remembering, Henrietta smiled a secret smile, and stretched luxuriously in the warm sunshine.

  At the third attempt Cordelia was lucky.

  ‘Sorry, Mum.’ Henrietta’s voice was apologetic. ‘I went out for a walk and forgot my mobile. I was going to phone you to say that yesterday was great. They’re so nice, aren’t they?’

  Cordelia gasped silently with relief and hurried into speech. ‘I’m so pleased, darling. Yes, they are, and it’s wonderful that you’ve met them at last. Fliss phoned just now to say how much they’d enjoyed meeting you and to invite me over to The Keep sometime next weekend.’

  ‘Oh.’ Cordelia heard surprise mingled with just the least bit of caution in her daughter’s voice. ‘It’s Jolyon’s birthday, actually. His mother’s coming down for it.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ She was determined not to be warned off here; the Chadwicks were her friends and she mustn’t allow this new relationship between Jo and Henrietta to undermine this. ‘It’s one of the reasons Fliss has asked me over,’ she said, almost confidentially. ‘She finds Maria a tad difficult.’

  Cordelia recognized the quality of the silence that followed. Henrietta was never to be drawn into any kind of gossip; her cool glance would imply that Cordelia dwelled permanently in a glass house and that the throwing of even the tiniest of stones was to be deplored. Somehow the priggish little silence gave her courage: it made her angry.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said lightly, ‘I shall be going over to The Keep sometime that weeken
d, so I’ll let you know when a bit later on, after Fliss has worked out exactly what’s happening. Meanwhile, I was going to suggest driving over to see you this week. I could take you out to lunch. We could meet at Pulhams Mill. Only not Wednesday. I’ve been invited to Angus Radcliff’s house-warming party that evening. His wife died, oh, just over a year ago, and he’s moved down to Dartmouth. There are a lot of old chums going so it should be fun.’ A pause, which Henrietta made no attempt to fill. ‘I don’t think I’d want to do the trip over to you on the same day but I could come tomorrow or Thursday, if it would suit you?’

  ‘Yes, OK.’ It sounded as if Henrietta had regained her composure. ‘That would be good. What about Thursday, then you can tell me all about the party?’

  Cordelia’s heart bumped anxiously; did she detect a hint of sarcasm?

  ‘Great,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ll try and get to the Mill in time for an early lunch but I’ll be in touch as I come along. Take care, darling. I’d better get on with some work. ’Bye.’

  She put the phone down and shut her eyes for a moment: oh, the relief of it. She’d told Henrietta, actually mentioned Angus’s name, and the sky had not fallen in; not yet. She’d made no comment, no protest, and she’d agreed to have lunch. Cordelia felt quite weak with the sense of liberation. Soon she would speak to Angus but not quite yet; she needed to savour this moment alone, to revel in it. She poured a glass of wine and took it out on to the balcony to celebrate a private victory in the warm, autumn sunshine.

  Maria slipped through the intercommunicating door of the annexe, closed it behind her and paused, listening, in the passageway that led to Penelope’s kitchen and the utility room. The noise of Pen’s drinks party drifted through from the drawing room: the caw of voices, little shrieks of laughter, the encouraging clink of crystal. She’d already had a very tiny drink, just a nip of vodka, to give her the necessary courage to enter the crowded room. It had become the least bit intimidating, appearing in the doorway, seeing first one guest and then another spotting her and immediately adopting a sympathetic expression, nudging a neighbour warningly. Nobody knew quite what to say since Adam had died. Some, pretending nothing had changed, would utter a few bluff remarks and sidle away; others would seize the opportunity to be understanding. They’d put on special voices, hold her arm comfortingly, smile with a kind of gruesome sympathy.