A Hallowed Place

by Caro Fraser

  Rachel plucked Oliver from his high chair, wiped jam from around his mouth with a damp flannel and set him down on the floor, where he staggered purposefully towards the back door. Outside, Charles was cutting back a tangle of overgrown clematis from an apple tree. Rachel watched as Oliver squatted down next to Charles and began to fill one of his tipper trucks with handfuls of gravel. She turned back to the heap of things which she had prepared for Oliver’s day out, and checked through them. Baby car seat, juice, bib, banana just in case he got hungry and fretful before they got to Stanton, nappies, change of clothing … How long until she was packing pyjamas, too, and his velvet elephant that he took to bed? Perhaps sooner than she wished. Rachel knew Leo. When he wanted something he could be totally ruthless. He would fight for this shared residence order. If he succeeded, Oliver would be away from her every other weekend. It wasn’t that Rachel didn’t want Leo to see Oliver regularly. Of course he should. But not every other weekend, while he was still so little. Rachel did not think she could bear for Oliver, who eclipsed everything else in her life, to be away so often. There seemed to be no room for compromise. The last thing she wanted was an acrimonious legal dispute, but it seemed there was no alternative. If she and Leo couldn’t agree, they would just have to let a court do it for them.

  At the faint sound of a car engine she glanced up and saw Leo’s Aston Martin turning in through the gateway. Oliver stood up and began to run towards it, and as Rachel’s heart leapt a little in fear, Charles loped after him and scooped him up. There had been no danger, Leo’s car had already stopped, but the flicker of a few seconds’ anxiety didn’t help Rachel’s already disturbed mood.

  Leo sat behind the wheel for a moment, watching as Charles lifted a laughing Oliver on to his shoulders, where he sat, chubby legs dangling down over Charles’s chest. He felt jealous. No question about it. Charles had an intimacy with Oliver that he could not have, not even with his own son. Well, perhaps that was his own fault, seeing the child so infrequently over the past few months, but he was going to change that. His solicitor was already seeing to it.

  He got out of the car and came towards Charles, who suddenly looked faintly apologetic and lifted Oliver from his shoulders. Beecham, you’re a tactless sod, Charles told himself. The two men shook hands, trying to appear at ease with one another, then Oliver, after a moment’s hesitation, let Leo pick him up and kiss him.

  ‘Rachel’s inside, getting his stuff ready. Like equipping an overseas task force, so far as I can see,’ said Charles. ‘Want some coffee?’

  Leo shook his head. ‘I won’t hang about, thanks.’ Oliver wriggled out of his arms and headed for the house.

  ‘Fair turn of speed on him,’ remarked Charles, watching him. ‘Four minute mile material, I’d say.’

  ‘Not if he’s anything like his father,’ said Leo. Why had he said that, used that word? Was he trying to tell Charles something?

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ replied Charles. ‘As I recall, you’re pretty nippy round a squash court.’

  There was a brief, uneasy pause. The relationship, which had been so unforced and friendly just a year ago, had quite changed. Rachel put a distance between them. It had to be that way, thought Charles. Even though he hadn’t exactly pinched Leo’s wife, the situation was awkward. ‘Right, come inside and get his gear,’ he said. They walked towards the house, chatting about Charles’s latest documentary to try to ease the vague tension.

  Rachel stood in the kitchen, putting things methodically into Oliver’s baby bag. Even the sight of his stupid car can do it to me, she thought. Indifference, that’s what I want to feel. I want to look at him and feel nothing. She heard their voices as they approached the back door and turned to greet Leo with a polite smile, bracing herself for the tumbling sensation she always felt in her heart when she saw him.

  Ten minutes later, as Charles stowed Oliver’s things in the boot of the Aston Martin, Leo was struggling to put the baby seat in.

  ‘Here, let me,’ said Charles. ‘It’s a bit of a knack.’ Leo stood back and watched as Charles expertly threaded belts and tightened straps. ‘The thing goes round the front and then through, not the other way round. Had me completely baffled the day we first got it.’ Just this casual reference made Leo feel marginalised. Charles and Rachel and Oliver were a happy little unit, one which he, Leo, by his mere presence today, was threatening to destabilise.

  ‘What are you going to do with him?’ asked Rachel. She stood a few feet away from the car watching operations, her arms folded. Leo had sensed from the moment he arrived the brittle state of her mood. He put it down to anxiety over Oliver’s day out. It did not occur to him that her apparent aloofness was an attempt to stifle any betrayal of the feelings she still had for him. He was unaware that they existed. It had never been his habit to consult too closely the state of Rachel’s mind or heart. She belonged to Charles now. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to smuggle him out of the country. I’ve got a hearing tomorrow.’

  ‘Leo—’

  He cut in, holding up an apologetic hand: ‘Sorry. I’m going to take him to the house, make him some lunch and then, if the weather holds out, I thought he might like a ride on the narrow-gauge steam railway. Would you like that? A ride on a train?’ Leo asked Oliver, as he picked him up and put him gently into his car seat.

  Gratifyingly, Oliver smiled and said ‘train’ three times.

  As Leo searched for the straps, Charles stepped forward to help, but Leo said, ‘Thanks - I can do it. I have got a little experience.’

  Charles stepped back again. Poor bastard, he thought. What a rotten situation, having to come here and take his own son out for the day. He could see Rachel’s point of view about Oliver’s age, but it seemed to Charles it might be more sensible to let the child go to his father every other weekend. Might as well establish a regular relationship now. Better for Oliver. Better for Charles, too.

  ‘What time will you be back?’ asked Rachel. She stepped forward to stroke Oliver’s hair and absently tuck down the label of his jumper.

  ‘About half six?’

  Rachel nodded, bent to kiss Oliver, and Leo closed the car door. She watched with a small pain in her heart as they drove away.

  ‘Cheer up,’ said Charles, putting an arm around her. ‘I’m taking you to lunch in a couple of hours. I’ve booked a very special place on the river. Then we have the whole afternoon to ourselves to do exactly as we like.’

  ‘Are you glad?’ she asked, unable to keep the resentment out of her voice. ‘I mean, you seem relieved that he’s gone off for the day.’

  ‘I’m not glad,’ replied Charles carefully. ‘But it’s only for a few hours.’

  The tension within Rachel gave way and she began to cry. Charles held her against him, wondering. After a few moments he lifted her face to his and kissed her. ‘We have two whole hours,’ he murmured. ‘And nothing to interrupt them. I suggest, unless you can think of anything better to do, that we go to bed. Unless, of course, you want to listen to the omnibus edition of The Archers. Or do both at the same time.’

  Rachel gave a little laugh through her tears and kissed him. ‘Just you.’

  When they made love, Rachel was conscious that she was searching her heart and mind for some elusive feeling. She badly wanted to be able to dwell on the wonderful fact that Charles loved her so generously and so completely, to let the comfort of that flood her and make her want him as much as he did her. But even as he entered her, and she gave a gasp of pleasure at the familiar sensation, Rachel knew that she wished, in spite of everything, that it could be Leo, and she had to fight the temptation to close her eyes and pretend that it was.

  When they reached the house, Leo took Oliver out of his car seat and carried him and his belongings to the house. He hadn’t been there since late spring, and the air was close and musty, despite the fact that Mrs Lee from the village came in every two weeks to water the plants and keep the place dusted. Leo went from room to room, opening windows. Wh
en he came back downstairs he found that Oliver had taken all the logs out of the log basket and was filling it with books from the lower shelves.

  Scooping him up, Leo glanced round the room. There wasn’t much damage Oliver could do to the room or himself, but there wasn’t really anything for him to play with either. Although Leo had brought Oliver’s high chair from London, he hadn’t thought to bring any of his toys. They would have to go into Oxford after lunch and see what they could find. He wanted there to be things here, familiar things, which Oliver would look forward to playing with, and which would make it a home for him, as much as the flat in London.

  ‘Let’s get the shopping out of the car and make you some lunch,’ he said and kissed Oliver.

  While Leo ate a ham sandwich and glanced through the Sunday Times, Oliver worked his way steadily through a plateful of bread and Marmite fingers. When he had eaten as many of these as he wanted, he rolled up the remaining three, mashed them between his fingers and dropped them over the side of his high chair, glancing candidly at his father for his reaction. Leo sat watching him as he did this, marvelling as he always did at the texture of the boy’s skin, the silkiness of his hair, and at his ability to spread food in all directions. There were glistening little lumps of mashed banana adhering to the floor and to the wall, where they had flown after Oliver had wrested the spoon from Leo’s grasp while Leo tried to feed him. Leo hadn’t realised that Oliver fed himself these days and clearly found his father’s attempts to spoon stuff into his mouth pretty patronising and offensive. Leo went to the sink for a cloth, and as he came back Oliver began to batter the table of his high chair with his beaker of juice, showering himself and Leo with sizeable splashes of baby Ribena. The expression of exuberant delight on his son’s face made Leo laugh aloud, and at this Oliver began to laugh too and bang his beaker harder.

  ‘Right, enough of that.’ Leo took the beaker and guided it towards Oliver’s mouth. As he watched the toddler drink, Leo realised that there was a quality to this time with Oliver that had not existed when he and Rachel had lived together. She had always been possessive of Oliver in a way which Leo had assumed was naturally maternal, but it had meant that Rachel did most things for Oliver. While he had not felt exactly excluded, Leo hadn’t had the chance to spend sustained periods of time with the baby, doing everything for him as he was now. He liked this intimacy, the way that he and Oliver could concentrate on one another without any distractions.

  As soon as he saw that Oliver had quenched his thirst and was about to embark on another bout of beaker battering, Leo took it away and wiped him comprehensively with the damp end of a towel. Then he released him from the high chair and let him lurch into the living room while Leo cleared up the mess of lunch.

  In Oxford that afternoon they bought a little tractor which Oliver could sit on and push along with his feet, a cart filled with coloured building blocks, a very basic Thomas The Tank Engine train set, and a variety of little cars and farm and zoo animals. By the time he and Oliver had pootled up and down on the narrow-gauge steam railway, which Oliver loved to distraction, Leo realised that it was four thirty, and that he would barely have time to get him back to the house and give him tea before taking him home to Rachel.

  After a messy meal of scrambled egg and toast, Oliver insisted on playing with each one of the toys which he and Leo had bought that afternoon. Leo had not the heart to refuse him, realising that he would actually rather capitulate to most of his son’s demands than be subjected to the ear-splitting wailing which Oliver was capable of setting up when thwarted. At six o’clock, while Oliver, who was now grizzly with tiredness, pushed Thomas The Tank Engine round and round the plastic track for yet another time, Leo tried to call Rachel to say he would be late. There was no answer.

  Clearly she and Charles had gone out for the afternoon and were late themselves. Fine. Oliver could play with his new toys until he dropped, which wouldn’t be long now, and then he would take him back.

  In the barn at the far end of the garden, Rachel and Charles were sorting books on to shelves. Charles had decided to turn the barn into a proper work place, and now that the builders had finished he was moving in the contents of his study, plus a new computer system.

  ‘Was that the phone?’ said Rachel, pausing with a book in hand.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Charles. ‘I think I’m growing progressively deaf.’

  ‘When is the phone line going to be installed here, anyway?’

  ‘Tuesday, I hope. It’s not going to be much of a work place without one.’

  ‘Look, d’you mind if I leave you to it?’ sighed Rachel. ‘Oliver’s going to be back in half an hour and I’ve got a few things to do in the house.’

  Like wait for Oliver, thought Charles. All day she had been distracted, clearly occupied with thoughts of Oliver and what he was doing. ‘No, off you go. I won’t be much longer myself.’

  Rachel went back up to the house, thinking, as she had done all day, of Leo and Oliver together, wondering if her desire to be with them both was born out of jealousy, or some other emotion.

  The next hour and a half dragged by. Six-thirty came and went, and still there was no sign of Oliver and Leo. Charles came back from the barn and found Rachel pacing round the kitchen in an agitated manner, and did his best to soothe her.

  ‘But it’s seven-thirty! They were meant to be back an hour ago!’ Rachel was close to tears.

  ‘It is only an hour,’ pointed out Charles. ‘Leo was probably late back from wherever it was they went. He said something about a steam railway and they always take far longer than you think they will. He probably didn’t realise where the time was going. A few hours go very quickly with a small child. Or slowly, depending. I mean—’

  ‘Charles, stop babbling!’ Rachel groaned and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Anything could have happened to them! An accident … Leo and those fast cars of his. God, I feel sick with worry.’

  ‘Well, don’t,’ said Charles. He went over to the drinks cupboard. ‘What I suggest is a large gin and tonic—’

  ‘Charles, why does alcohol always have to be your answer to everything?’ snapped Rachel.

  Charles, a little hurt by this remark, but conscious of its essential truthfulness, poured himself a hefty slug of gin. ‘I don’t know,’ he murmured. ‘It just is. It always has been. Maybe I’m just lucky that way.’ God, he hoped Leo would get the child here soon. Normally a man of placid, unruffled temperament, he found the atmosphere created by Rachel’s tense fretting distinctly unsettling. He didn’t feel he could decently switch on the television, or sit down and yawn over the Sunday papers, in case it looked callous in the face of Rachel’s vision of Leo and Oliver splattered all over the M4. Charles was pacing round the kitchen with his drink, trying to think of something encouraging to say, when headlights gleamed in an arc across the kitchen and they heard the sound of a car drawing to a halt outside.

  Rachel was on her feet in an instant and through the back door, before Charles had the chance to tell her to stay calm. He was about to follow her when he heard the beginnings of an angry tirade outside, thought better of it, sighed and sat down with his drink. It was nothing to do with him, anyway. Let them sort it out. He suddenly found himself remembering, quite unexpectedly, the cosy solitude of his house before he had met Rachel, the Sunday evenings of peace, with nothing more to do than go down to the pub …

  Rachel came back angrily into the kitchen clutching a drowsy Oliver, Leo in her wake. ‘You didn’t even change him before you set off, did you? He’s sodden! Honestly … I’m taking him straight upstairs to bed.’

  She left the kitchen. Leo stood in the doorway, Oliver’s baby bag in his hand.

  ‘Hi,’ said Charles, and raised his glass.

  On the journey back to London, filled with late Sunday depression, Leo had nothing to do but think. He thought, as usual these days, about himself. These last few months he had felt fragmented, with no cohesion to his life. The various roles
he played had no connection. Now that his day with Oliver had come to an end, his thoughts began to drift back to Joshua. One was many things to different people. How could he be a good father to Oliver, and the lover of young men? It had never been Leo’s way to impose any moral order on his life, and even now he would not admit of any contradiction in its various facets. It was a question of practicality. Loving Joshua, and young men like him, was simply an aspect of his life which he could not deny. The answer was to keep things separate. Rachel had touched a nerve when, during their argument in the pub about Oliver, she had raised the threat of bringing his personal life into question if he should pursue the matter of access. That worried him. He must be careful, very careful where Oliver was concerned. Not that there seemed to be any present scope for concern. Joshua had come into his life, wrought unlooked-for emotional havoc and left it. Perhaps just as well. At least it should be easier to get over such fresh, slight wounds. Better than the pain of a prolonged love affair. And yet that was what it should have been. He knew himself to be capable of such passion, and Joshua would have been, could have been …