by Angela Huth
Gillian was the most recent in a history of terrible mistakes – though for her, Thomas realised even at the time, drink and boredom had spurred him more than any real attraction. There was a back catalogue of cringe-making rebuffs. Once, on an aeroplane to Paris, he had bought a girl in the next seat to him several glasses of champagne. Having discovered their mutual liking for the Norwich School of watercolourists, it soon became plain she was willing to join him for the weekend. Thus encouraged, Thomas had not thought it untoward to put a gentle hand on her knee, by way of confirming the unspoken understanding. Unwittingly, he had pressed some alarm bell within her. In an instant, the stupid girl became a hysterical tiger, screaming at the air hostess, clawing at his face, demanding he should be reported to the captain and removed. (‘By parachute?’ he remembered asking, as she was dragged away from him.) Much embarrassment all round, though in the event he came out of the whole crisis quite well. The air hostess joined him in Paris instead.
For all his good intentions, Thomas never learned from his mistakes, and his mistakes exhausted him. The nervous energy consumed by his fantasies left him physically drained, nervous, ill-tempered, detached. These days there were few occasions when he experienced an untroubled mind, a body devoid of craving. When this did happen he meant to make up to Rachel, a tolerant creature on the whole, for his past misdemeanours. But he was so out of practice in the art of humouring a wife that whatever suggestion he made came out grudgingly: it was no wonder Rachel turned it down. The cycle had become too complex, now, to break: he was forced to find some solace in good claret and malt whisky.
This particular Sunday evening Thomas was suffering irritating guilt about his churlish behaviour towards his wife and son. On his way back from the station – a desultory farewell, as usual, that no doubt Jeremy took to be lack of interest and paternal love – he determined to make amends. Some distant childhood habit reminded him Sunday was the Lord’s day, and it was appropriate to try loving one’s wife as well as one’s neighbour. But as he drove through the slow traffic he knew his heart could not be in any suggestion of an evening at a film or, worse, dinner, just the two of them, in some restaurant. His mind was desiccated from six days’ thinking about the girl with the amber hair. His body was sluggish from the large lunch and several nights’ lost sleep. So, once again, his good intentions failed him.
When Thomas arrived home he found, surprisingly, nothing had been touched, and Rachel was not about. He was too tired to imagine, or care, where she might be. In fact, her surprising absence was something of a relief. He stared at the mess of things on the dining-room table and at the further chaos in the kitchen beyond. He waited for the rage, the irritation at such incompetence, to come. Instead, he was aware of a strange inspiration: he would clear it all up as an act of contrition – a thing he had never so much as thought about in his life before.
Indeed, the thought was so peculiar that Thomas continued to stand looking at the detritus for several moments, unmoving, while he reflected on the brainstorm that had accosted him. A vision of Rachel’s incredulity and pleasure produced a curious excitement. A moment later it occurred to him that the whole idea was mad: if he undertook such a thing once, it might well become incumbent upon him to repeat the process. Rachel might grow to expect such help from him regularly. And that . . . oh no. The habit of domestic help was something too awful to contemplate.
All the same, he began to move slowly, clumsily, gathering up plates, putting away clean silver, struggling with the dreadful problem of how to deal with cold vegetables stuck in their wax of hardened butter.
Two hours later, hands puffy from the long session of scrubbing pans in hot water, he looked round in some triumph. There was nothing further to be done. It was all, he thought, just as Rachel would have left it. He flung open the kitchen window, victorious.
But the task over, elation fled. Back in his studio, he contemplated the Cotterman picture for a while, depressed. The taunting memory of the girl with the amber hair returned to him. There were still eighteen hours until he would see her again. And then? Plans were smudged in his mind. Buy another Cotterman? Or two, or three, if necessary. Of course, to ease the way. Then, well – caution. Above all, he must be very careful. Take things slowly. Not frighten her. Win her confidence, her respect. Which one day might grow into equal desire. . . .
Thomas began to pace. Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards past the seascape. He longed magically just to be there, walking, this Sunday evening. Far from London. With her. Not talking much. Just sniffing the sea, feeling the breeze. If the place was as deserted as in the picture, then he would suggest they sat for a while in the dunes. He would put an arm round her shoulders, perhaps. See how she reacted to that. The thought made him shudder. Ridiculous idea, that he should ever get as far as the Cotterman dunes with her. What a fool he was. But if he did . . . he must bloody well restrain himself. Oh God, he said out loud, slow me down. Let me take the girl with the amber hair very slowly.
* * *
That Sunday afternoon Mary and Bill and their dog Trust walked on Brancaster beach. It was fine, but cool. They wore gumboots and thick jumpers against an edgy breeze. Mary had tied a scarf over her head so that only a fringe of grey hair was free to skitter about her forehead.
They had been coming to the beach for years, in all weathers. High summer was the only time they avoided. Then, crowds – people had discovered the empty stretches of dune and sand in the last decade – penetrated further and further along. Although by normal seaside standards the place was still thinly populated, they liked it best when it appeared as they had first known it, long ago, empty but for a lone distant figure looking for mussels, watching the birds or walking a dog.
Over the years they had observed the gradual disintegration of the wreck. Once a sturdy shell of a ship blown up in the last War, it had slowly succumbed to barnacles, seaweed, lashing storms and strong currents. Now, when the tide was out, just a few posts of blackened steel remained – too few even to indicate the former shape of the ship’s bones. At high tide the two or three small posts protruding from the water could be missed by all those unfamiliar with the disappearing skeleton.
There was a high tide this afternoon: sea dull as an elephant’s shank in moments when cloud obscured the sun. Then, when the sun passed, herbaceous blues and greys and greens of a sophisticated garden border.
Mary loved the beach, its ankle-high gusts of sand stinging her boots, its ribbed distances scrunchy with shells, its wind-wrinkled pools blinking fast as troubled eyes. But she did not like the sea. It made her think of death, endings, the remorseless indifference of Nature.
She threw a piece of driftwood a long way for Trust. The dog bounded off, mindlessly pleased to fetch the wood for the thousandth time. Mary stood watching him, shielding her eyes against the glare, legs firmly parted, small face pale as a bird’s egg in the momentary sun.
‘If I should die . . .’ she said.
Bill, a yard away, could scarcely hear her voice against the brush of sea.
‘What’s that, darling one?’
‘If I should die first, you must keep bringing Trust here for his walks.’
Bill moved nearer his wife, tightened the knot of her scarf beneath her chin.
‘Such silly thoughts,’ he said.
‘But if I should,’ persisted Mary.
‘You won’t. But if you do, don’t worry about Trust. Death shouldn’t break old plans and habits.’ He smiled at her.
The breezes stung Mary’s eyes. Bill saw them fill with pink, child’s tears, that do not dull the whites. Mary sighed, unable to say more. The sigh ended in a small shudder that contained her immeasurable fears of the future combined with a sad nostalgia for the past. Bill took her hand. They began to walk to meet the returning Trust. The dog, so constantly easy to please, bounded towards them. Its fat golden body reverberated from the powerful wagging of its tail. The piece of driftwood dropped from its mouth at Bill’s feet. He th
rew it again, much further than Mary. Trust jumped and swerved fatly into the air, then thudded off after it once more.
‘Ursula said of course we could stay with them for the Farthingoes’ ball,’ Mary said, omitting to add If I’m still around.
‘Good, good,’ said Bill, not interested in such matters, but pleased his wife’s more lugubrious Sunday afternoon thoughts had been deflected. ‘We must get back. I must get cracking with the saw. Poor old tree. It was that one lonely poplar, planted by your father – God knows why, mad decision in such an exposed position – that inspired me with the whole idea of the arboretum. If it’d been one of our young ones down, don’t suppose I would have made half so much fuss.’
Mary sighed. She had long since discovered the best way to rescue Bill from a trough of regretful thought was to increase her deafness.
‘They’re such an energetic couple, Toby and Frances.’
‘We were full of life at their age.’
Bill took Mary’s arm, steered her round the way they had come. The wind was now in their faces, the brightness puckering their eyes.
‘We’re still pretty energetic, aren’t we?’ Mary put an exaggerated springiness into her step.
‘I should say so. Not too bad.’
‘We’ve weathered quite well.’
Bill smiled again and stroked the back of his wife’s neck.
‘You’ve kept your looks and your spirits. That’s the secret.’
‘Haven’t exactly managed to fend off the arthritis, have I?’ Mary held up a small white hand, fingers swollen at the joints, but the nails were still perfect, luminescent; they had somehow defied the ribbed look of elderly nails. ‘People are always asking me – how have you and Bill managed to be happy for so long?’
Bill laughed. ‘Huh! Bloody hard work, I hope you tell them. Bloody hard work keeping up the impetus. Almost impossible, fighting off the monster of familiarity. Devours everything.’
‘After all these years – I never knew you thought that.’ Mary laughed. ‘It’s the familiarity I love. Anyway, my answer is usually something about our trying to adjust now the exhilaration of youth has turned to the slower waters of old age.’
‘Good heavens! Very grand phrasing. I wasn’t aware of doing any such thing.’
‘Of course you weren’t. You’re a purely instinctive creature. You never work out anything.’
‘But I nearly always agree with you when you’ve worked it out.’
‘Well, in this case I’m right -’
‘– as nearly always. Course you are,’ Bill reflected. ‘Half the divorces must have something to do with the fact that no-one is taught what to do when the passion goes. Perhaps we should drop a few hints to Ursula and Martin.’
‘They’re perfectly happy.’
‘Who knows? Who knows anything about other people’s marriages?’
‘Passion doesn’t have to die.’ Mary looked out to sea.
‘The death – or indeed the keeping alive – of passion is not at all the sort of conversation I’d be keen on having with the children.’
‘I can see that, with your upbringing. But it’s a hard thing to make people believe these days. This world of fast food, fast travel, fast passion. Dizzying ephemerality.’
‘Balzac asked a jolly good question: “Can a man always desire his wife?” he asked.’
‘And what was his answer?’
‘“Yes.” Definitely yes.’ Bill kissed Mary on the nose. ‘I’ll always remember that. Encouraged me no end when I was thinking of marrying you. He was most emphatic, old Balzac, on that point. He said it’s as absurd to deny it’s possible for a man always to love the same woman, as it would be to think a famous musician needed several violins to execute a piece of music. I haven’t needed any other violins, I suppose you could say.’
They both laughed, moved on. Trust bounded up behind them once more, making brief fans of sand in the air. Bill threw the driftwood. They watched the dog run after it again. Trust’s game gave a rhythm to their walks on the beach.
‘By the time I’ve finished chopping up the poplar,’ said Bill, ‘we’ll have enough logs for five winters.’
‘You can start after tea,’ said Mary. She could feel the warmth of the sun through her jersey, and, at the same time, the distance of winter.
* * *
The air of efficiency Frances Farthingoe frequently exuded was in some measure due to the tools of business with which she surrounded herself. On Sunday evening she had arranged herself in a comfortable chaise longue in the shade of one of the cedars. It was an old 1930s piece of outdoor furniture, of cumbersome wicker frame and comfortable cushions recovered (efficient forethought) last autumn. The newness of the striped linen stuff smelt faintly of mothballs. A few days in the air, and the more familiar smell of the original stuffing of the cushions would predominate again.
By her side, a garden table was equipped with everything she could possibly need for her party working session: full glass of Pimm’s, Filofax, tape recorder, file of acceptances, file of refusals, various incomplete lists, felt-tipped pens with very fine points of black, red and green.
Frances was skimming through a cookery book seeking further inspiration for the buffet. Should this book fail her, there was on the grass a pile of others to turn to. Her positive thought was that Coronation Chicken was absolutely out. She would never stand accused of such a cliché. Delicious though it could be, the Farthingoes could do better than that. Coronation Chicken – her actively critical mind whirled on – was as laughable among a certain class of people as festoon blinds. Twenty-five years after its invention, it had become the discovery of the nouveau entertainers, the excitement of the petits bourgeois at their outdoor lunches on the patio. Not suitable for a Farthingoe ball, Frances’s mind hummed on. Koulibiac, on the other hand. . . . Koulibiac was a real possibility. Koulibiac, up and coming in popularity, still had a few years to go before it, too, became a caterer’s cliché. Perhaps – just – they could get away with it. On the other hand, as a well-known perfectionist, an innovator in the transitory world of beautiful parties, Frances felt disinclined to take any risk. . . .
Even as these dilemmas fully occupied her concentration, inspiration came to her blindingly. Excitingly. Her hand trembled on the glass of Pimm’s. The inspiration, it happened, was not about the food, but about the marquee. The matter of pink or yellow had been tormenting her for several days, now. Still unresolved this morning, she had determined to put it on ice. Often, Frances had found in the past, putting problems on ice meant that the ice broke of its accord, in its own time, and revelation came. Well, once again, her method had worked. The solution was wonderfully obvious – grey! A dove-grey and white striped marquee. Thus there would be no fear of imperfect yellow or pink, and anyhow those colours were too popular. Grey would be unusual, original, subtle. There was a slight doubt in Frances’s mind that marquee contractors would stock grey and white striped tent lining, but that could be overcome. Once bent on an idea, Frances could rely on herself to triumph over any problem that might stand in its way.
Oh, the happiness of having resolved that! Real achievement. She lay back, cookery book a redundant thing in her limp hand, looking up at the thunderous branches of the cedar, its black-green needles shredding the sky. Images of September flowers against grey and white stripes crowded upon her. The brilliance of the idea! The only pity of it was that there was no-one with whom she could share her joy. Frances knew from experience that few people in the world are genuinely interested in others’ ideas unless passion for the same subject is shared. All most people judged was the finished product. They did not have the imagination to conceive of the trouble and ingeniousness that went into its making; nor did they really care. In a decade of party giving, Frances had received much praise and many congratulations – transitory rewards, which never quite made up for the loneliness in the months of struggling with practicalities that precede a party on a grand scale.
She shifted h
er gaze. At the end of the garden was the figure of a man in sunglasses. Dazed by her imagining, she thought for a moment it was Ralph. Ralph! Curiously, she had not given him a thought since his departure last night. Now, she would have been glad to see him bound over, throw himself on top of her (something he had never done, of course, since her marriage), kiss her, and above all share her happiness at having found the solution to the problem of the marquee. Then she remembered she wanted no such thing. Her passion for Ralph had finally died. Genuinely, thank God, she was free of him. The old habitual thoughts of him, natural wake to a long one-sided involvement, would soon fade away.
As her eyes focused, she saw that the man was Toby, not Ralph. The brightness of his blue shirt and white trousers dulled as he stepped into the shade. He stood at her feet, eyes invisible behind the impenetrable dark glasses.
‘I’ve been doing well,’ Frances said at last. ‘Lots of ideas.’ She could tell by the rigidity of her husband’s mouth that there was no point in elaborating further.
‘Good,’ he said.
‘There’s some Pimm’s left . . .’
‘No thanks.’
Toby sat at the bottom of the chaise longue. Frances swung her bare feet to one side so that he should have more room. Toby kneaded one of them with his hand. Frances felt a prickle of alarm down her spine. She knew from his face he had come with an announcement. A cut in the party budget, perhaps. . . . She had been as economical as possible: any further cutting would make things impossible. He must see. . . .
‘I want to ask you something,’ said Toby. ‘It may seem a bit strange.’ He fell silent, rubbing just the big toe now, staring at its accurately polished scarlet nail.
‘Go on.’
‘I want to spend a few nights in the woods, badger watching. You need the whole night, really.’
‘I suppose you do.’ Relief flared through Frances. Unasked, she would do what she could, after all, about further economies.
