Keeping the World Away

by Margaret Forster

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘They’re seconds, don’t worry,’ Ginny said.

  ‘I like them. I’ve no money with me but next time I’ll buy two.’

  ‘Take them now, pay later. I’ll wrap them for you.’

  Before Stella could stop her, Ginny had lifted two cups and saucers and was wrapping them. ‘Conrad isn’t here,’ she said. ‘Did you want to see him?’

  ‘No.’ She said it too quickly, too abruptly.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Sure. I was just wandering about, really, aimlessly …’

  ‘And you found your feet leading you here,’ Ginny said.

  Stella heard the edge of sarcasm in her voice, and flushed. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact. I don’t know why. I was …’ and then she stopped. She couldn’t begin to tell this woman, with whom she had nothing more than a nodding acquaintance, how desperate she felt.

  ‘Where did you come from?’ Ginny suddenly asked.

  Startled by the odd question, Stella said, ‘Southampton.’

  ‘But your accent is Welsh, no?’

  ‘Yes. Tenby, originally. Then London. Then the war, and I ended up at the hospital there.’

  ‘Quite a change, here, then.’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be leaving soon, though.’

  She couldn’t think why she said that. It could only lead to more questions, the sort she had no answers for. Silently, she held out her hands for the parcel Ginny had made. They were still shaking. Ginny noticed and instead of handing the package over put it to one side and, taking hold of Stella’s arm, led her to the chair beside the till and gently pushed her down onto it. ‘You can tell me,’ she said, ‘I’m used to it, it doesn’t worry me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, you’re obviously in a state. It’s about Conrad, isn’t it, whatever you say. You’re not pregnant, are you?’

  Horrified, Stella gasped. ‘No!’ she kept saying, shaking her head violently. ‘No! It is not about your husband! I hardly know him, I’ve never even spoken to him outside this place. You’re quite wrong, how can you think …?’

  ‘So what’s this about, why are you so distraught? Why did you come here?’

  ‘I told you, I don’t know. I’d nowhere to go and wanted to go somewhere, anywhere.’ Stella took deep breaths and dabbed frantically at her eyes.

  ‘Have you been ill-treated? Have you been thrown out?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then I give up. Sit a while, get yourself together. I don’t mind. I’ll go and make you a cup of tea. Relax, don’t upset yourself any more, for God’s sake. Do you smoke, would you like a cigarette as well? Wait there. I won’t be long.’

  But Stella had no intention of waiting. The humiliation was enough without having to be grateful for a cup of tea. She waited until Ginny had gone across the yard to her house and then she got up and went over to the door leading to the workshop where she knew there was another exit. There was a sink in the corner of it, and she stopped and splashed her face with cold water, wiping it dry with the sleeve of her coat. The door at the other end was bolted and she had trouble forcing the bolts back, but at length she managed it and was outside. But then the door would not close properly, and she panicked. She could not leave it flapping open, but Ginny would be coming with the tea any minute. So she picked up a stone and, closing the door as far as she could, wedged the stone against it. It would do. Conrad would notice it as soon as he returned and, though it would puzzle him, he would simply bolt it again.

  She heard his motor-bike coming up the hill before she saw it. To her right, there was a high wall, to her left, the house from which Ginny would emerge. There was nothing she could do, no possibility of slipping quietly away, unnoticed. And yet, instead of dreading the coming encounter with Conrad, she felt only a strange kind of relief. He would listen. She’d gone too far now to care about further embarrassment.

  Taking another deep breath, she waited.

  *

  Conrad was startled to see Stella standing in front of the pottery. He thought that the unpleasant husband must have been lying, and that she hadn’t been asleep in the cottage at all. But then he had stopped to call on Phoebe. It had been too good an opportunity to miss, with an alibi so handy, should Ginny be suspicious. A hurried meeting, no time to take her to bed, though he would have risked it and enjoyed the frantic haste – Phoebe had been furious at the idea. ‘No,’ she’d said, as he pressed her against the wall as soon as she let him in, ‘I won’t have it like this.’ It was exactly how he liked to have it, urgent, sudden, answering his need, but Phoebe, like Ginny, like every woman he had ever known, no matter how passionate her nature, liked to set the scene. Speed insulted them. Perhaps at first, the first few times, they could match his impetuosity, but the longer an affair went on, the longer sex had to take. It was why he always moved on, except with Ginny.

  Stella looked dishevelled and wild. Her hair was all over the place and it looked as though she had been crying – her complexion, usually so pale and smooth, was red and blotchy. She was standing with her hands clasped in front of her so tightly that the knuckles showed white, looking like a penitent schoolgirl. As he went towards her, she took a step back and gestured at the back door of the workroom.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t close it properly.’ He shook his head, mystified, but told her it didn’t matter. ‘Your wife,’ she said, ‘she was being very kind, making me tea, and I … well, I wanted to leave, it was very rude of me …’

  At that moment, the door was pushed open, sending the stone flying. Ginny appeared, a mug of tea in her hand. ‘Why ever are you here?’ she said, addressing Stella. ‘I brought you tea. Take it.’ Then she turned and went back into the workroom, ignoring her husband. They heard her bolt the door again, making a great deal of noise.

  ‘I’ve offended her,’ Stella whispered.

  ‘I’m afraid you have,’ Conrad said, but he smiled. ‘Why don’t we sit down while you drink your tea? Over here, in the sun. It’s sheltered, the view’s good.’ Gently, he took her arm and guided her to the bench. She sipped the tea, and he waited. ‘I called on you,’ he said, eventually, when she hadn’t spoken.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Your husband said …’

  ‘He isn’t my husband. My husband was killed in the war. I’m a widow. Alan’s my friend.’

  ‘He was very unfriendly to me.’

  ‘I’m sure. He isn’t well, he was badly injured.’

  ‘I guessed that. I should have shown more sympathy.’

  ‘Oh no, he hates pity.’

  ‘I didn’t mean pity. I meant understanding, made allowances.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference.’

  ‘Right.’ Conrad paused. He wanted to ask why Alan had pretended to be her husband but decided it was a stupid question. Maybe he just wanted to protect her reputation. ‘Anyway,’ he continued after a while, ‘I didn’t want to give him a message for you. I wanted to explain, myself.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The painting you showed me. I’d like to buy it, if you’re willing to sell it.’

  ‘It was a present, from Alan. He found it on a junk stall, in London.’

  ‘Ah. Well, yes, I see, selling it might not be a good idea, I suppose. He would mind, would he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does he care about art?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what he would mind is your giving, I mean selling, the painting to someone, to me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It would suddenly become precious, just because he’d bought it for you, not because he valued it for itself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, then, that’s that. Forget what I said.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How much would you pay for it?’

  ‘You mean you would sell it? What about Alan?’

  ‘I’m leaving him. He need never know.’

 
Conrad shifted uncomfortably on the bench. He had a sudden vision of a mad Alan arriving to accuse him of being the reason Stella had left him. He’d looked capable of such behaviour.

  ‘I’m going now, today, tonight,’ she was saying. ‘I need money to get me back to Tenby. I’ll sell you the painting. How much?’

  ‘Five pounds?’ It was a not inconsiderable amount to him. Only by giving the painting to Ginny as her birthday present could he justify such a sum and even then he wasn’t absolutely sure it was worth it.

  ‘Fine. I’ll bring it to you this evening before I go. Will you have the money?’

  ‘I think so, yes. But how will you manage to bring it? Won’t Alan be suspicious? What will you say?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. But I’m going. I’m leaving. I haven’t thought exactly how.’

  The last thing he wanted to do was aid and abet her, so he kept silent. He wanted her to go. Sitting with her had become embarrassing. But she must have felt it, too, because she got up and said she would bring the painting when she’d worked out how best to leave, and she walked off down the hill looking purposeful, her arms swinging in an oddly military way. He watched her until she had disappeared from view, regretting that he had ever taken an interest in her. Ginny, coming round the corner from the house, was surprised to find him slumped in thought. ‘Where’s the girl?’ she asked. ‘You should be careful,’ Ginny added. ‘She’s too highly strung, she’s a bundle of nerves.’

  ‘She’s leaving her fellow, the man she lives with.’

  ‘Not for you, I hope.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I hardly know her.’

  ‘So why does she come here when she’s upset? Tell me that.’

  ‘Ginny, I swear on anything you like that I haven’t so much as shaken that girl’s hand. She brings me her little water-colours and no more.’ But he had to tell Ginny that Stella would be back, and that he would be giving her money. He couldn’t afford any misunderstandings. He explained that he was going to buy the painting for her. To his relief she was intrigued at the prospect and as eager as he was to have it in her possession. They went into the house arm in arm and sorted the cash out to have it ready and waiting.

  It proved a long wait. Stella did not appear that night, nor the next day. By the following day they were convinced she never would come with the painting. They swapped theories: Ginny was sure that Stella had, after all, found it impossible to desert her man; Conrad reckoned Alan was preventing her from leaving, perhaps even to the extent of locking her in. ‘He won’t let her go,’ he said to Ginny, ‘he needs her too much. And she’s not strong enough, in every way, to make the break. He’ll watch her like a hawk, she won’t get the chance.’ Sometimes he wondered if he ought to go and rescue Stella, but quickly abandoned that idea. Then, in the early hours of the next morning, Stella appeared. Ginny heard the crunch of gravel on the path outside their bedroom window, then the knock on the door, and woke Conrad. When he opened the door, Stella was standing there, her bicycle leaning on the wall. She was shivering and holding out the painting, uncovered, so that he could see what it was. He told her to come in while he got the money but she wouldn’t, only urged him to hurry. Once she had the cash in her hand, she turned away and set off on her bicycle without another word. Conrad heard later that the bike had been left at the station.

  Afterwards, going over and over what had happened, Alan blamed the painting. It was irrational, but it seemed to him that something about what he’d seen as an innocuous little oil painting had started a change in Stella which had developed rapidly into a crisis. He had seen no sign of it. Again and again he went over their life before that day he went to London, and it had been, he was sure, harmonious, peaceful. They had been placidly chugging along, each recovering in their own way from what had happened to them. Were they happy? Neither of them ever used that word, it was too daring, too dangerous. But they had not been unhappy, had they? About Stella he didn’t know, but for himself being with her made him as near to happy as he would be ever again.

  He had waited a long, long time sitting on a boulder, watching her on the cliff path. He saw her reach the highest point, and then she was lost to view. The walk to the end of the headland would take her half an hour and then another half an hour until he would see her, at the same point, returning. But he never did see her. An hour went by, an hour and a half. He was cold and stiff, and finally, realising she must be going the long way back, by the road, he went home. Already he was anxious, with faint feelings of doom stirring in his mind, visions of accidents and attacks and all manner of catastrophes. They had no telephone, she couldn’t ring him, nobody could, should there be any need. He kept expecting a policeman to arrive but nothing disturbed the intense silence. Mad ideas began to occur to him: could Stella somehow have returned without his having known? Could she be upstairs? Could she be in her hut? He searched, knowing he was being foolish, and ended up lurking in the hut, her studio.

  There was little to see there. Everything was tidy. No work appeared to be in progress, but then she’d just taken her latest efforts to the man at the pottery. The place looked abandoned, as though she had left it not expecting to return, and this filled him with a dread so awful he began to feel dizzy and had to sit down. It wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be. Agitated, he tried to calm himself by walking up and down, searching for some evidence that he was wrong. Her things were still here, her paints, her easel, none of them cheap. She would never go without them. Then he saw the painting he’d bought her, hanging on its own on the only wall without windows or door. She’d said she loved it: she would never leave that behind. Relieved, he sat down again and stared at it.

  That was how Stella found him. Opening the door quietly, intending to take the painting then and there and run away with it, she saw him hunched on the stool in front of it. He turned, and for a second the anguish showed in his face before the weight of worry lifted and he smiled so beautifully that she thought she could not do it, could not hurt him so cruelly. ‘Thank God,’ he said, and tried to get up, but sank back weakly. ‘Thank God,’ he repeated. ‘I was imagining … all sorts of ghastly things.’ She didn’t reply. It seemed vital not to engage in conversation. What she must do was to take the painting and go, before he realised what was happening. But Alan wanted to talk. As though aware that he mustn’t nag, mustn’t ask her to account for her lengthy absence, he said, as she picked up the painting, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t even remember what I said, or why, but whatever it was that upset you I’m sorry, I’m sure I was wrong, let’s just forget it, can we? It’s been a bad day.’

  Pathos, Stella thought, is his most powerful weapon. He doesn’t have to pretend to be pathetic and in need, he really is. He expects my heart to melt at the sight of him, so frail, so contrite, so pleading. But this time it is not going to, it cannot afford to. She ignored his outstretched hand and went to pick up the painting.

  ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ he asked. She shook her head, picked up the painting, and prepared to leave the hut. But he barred her way. He stuck out his left leg, the bad one, and at the same time snatched at her coat. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘at least say something. I don’t care what it is.’

  ‘Let me past, Alan.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To pack a bag. I’m leaving.’

  The shock, she saw, was genuine. The expression in his eyes was incredulous and he was biting his lip so hard it had drained of all colour. ‘You can’t,’ he whispered. And then, ‘Why? Why?’

  ‘You should know why.’

  ‘But I don’t. We had a silly row, I can’t remember what …’

  ‘The row doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Then what does? What happened?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t stay, I can’t. I have to get away, let me past, Alan.’

  ‘I won’t let you go. You must be ill, or mad. This is ridiculous, it’s all out of proportion …’

  ‘Maybe.’ And then, w
eakly, she added, ‘Maybe I’ll come back, maybe I just need to be by myself for a while.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘You just need to calm down, but you don’t need to go away to do that.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘I don’t know. Tenby, I suppose.’

  He hesitated. ‘Not today, though, don’t go today, please, go tomorrow if you must, let me get used to it, but don’t go now, after a day like this, with both of us upset. Go tomorrow, I won’t fuss, I promise.’

  It wasn’t that she gave in, more that all the energy drained out of her and a great weariness swept through her. She could barely follow him into the cottage. His arm went round her, and she let it be. The two of them wandered slowly across the garden, relieved to reach the cottage door. Once inside, she sank onto a chair and put her head down onto her arms, folded on top of the table. Quietly, Alan put the kettle on. She heard the tinkle of a teaspoon, the clink of the teapot lid being lifted off. She stayed where she was, feeling the steam from the mug of tea warm her hands. Mercifully, Alan said no more. He left her alone. She heard him locking the doors, front and back, and climbing the stairs to his bedroom. She couldn’t leave now. He would hear her opening the door, and there would be a scene. She hadn’t the strength for it, for anything.

  She wished that Alan had someone to turn to – knowing he had not made leaving him so much harder. She had no knowledge of any friends he might have had before the war because he wouldn’t talk about those days. The only person he had mentioned, just once, was a girlfriend called Charlotte. Nothing serious, he’d said, it wasn’t a real romance. He’d had no contact with her since they’d been in Cornwall, she was sure of that. Charlotte, whoever she was, had long since faded from his life, and apart from her he had never referred to any friend or relative. His parents were dead, he had no siblings. He would be absolutely alone after she had gone, which, in his present state, was almost too awful to contemplate.

  Going to her own room, she packed a bag and put the painting on the top before fastening it securely. With luck, she would waken before Alan and make her escape. But luck was not with her. She slept heavily, and when she did wake up she heard Alan downstairs, whistling. Never before had he gone downstairs before she took his tea to him. She could smell bacon frying. He had never before cooked breakfast. It was all she could do to dress. What should she do with her bag? If she walked into the kitchen with it, determined to leave at once, he would block her way and there would be an ugly fight – he had no intention of letting her go home even for a while. His agreement had been a ploy, to get her to stay the night, and it had worked. Going to the window, she opened it as wide as it would go and looked down. Her room was at the front, the kitchen at the back. Below her window was a flower bed with lavateras flourishing against the wall. The drop was not long. She couldn’t jump out herself but she could lower her bag. It was easy. Knowing that it now nestled, hidden among the shrubs, made her braver when she went downstairs.