by Angela Huth
After a while she gathered up the black skirt which had served her for fifteen summers, and decided her moment had come. One final look at the melancholy sight of the Farthingoes’ friends bumbling ungainly on the dance floor, and she turned into the house.
Rachel knew its geography well. Firm of purpose, she moved swiftly up the stairs, across the landing past Frances’s room -glimpse of women with gold shoes thrown off, dabbing at their hair – and on to the wing destined one day for Toby’s aged mother. She came to a door on which a No Entry notice had been pinned: a command which had plainly taken Fiona many hours to accomplish, decorated with a border of poppies and ice creams – the pathos of unacknowledged effort, Rachel thought. She would remember to congratulate Fiona if she saw her again.
She pushed through the door into an unlit passage, turned into the first door on the right. The room, Frances had once told her, was sometimes used for an overspill of guests: its decoration reflected its status. Rachel went straight to the window, opened it in the hope that the night air, quite cool by now, would soon dispel the stuffy smell of unaired cotton and lavender bags. She looked at the bright half moon balanced on the crest of a giant cedar, and listened to the faint soughing Cellar Music playing Lullaby of Broadway. Excited by her distance from the party, and her absolute privacy, she pulled back the bramble-printed cover of one of the twin beds: it was made up with clean pink sheets. She then unzipped her dress and let it fall to the ground. By the dim light of the moon it looked like the soft ashy mound of the remains of a bonfire. Shoes off, next: the relief of stretching the toes – and into the strange bed.
The pillows were of the prim kind that are often designated for visitors. They did not cave protectively about her head, nor did the sheets have the cool stroke of linen. But it was escape, escape. The mossiness that precedes oblivion lapped over her body. Within moments she slept.
* * *
Ant Cellar, bearing in mind his reputation of value for money, did not leave the bandstand during the first short break: he squatted on the floor drinking a can of beer, his pose out of keeping with his white dinner jacket. But it was only fucking human, as he said so often, to let the act slide for a moment or two after hours of non-stop fantastic playing. The rest of the boys had gone off for fifteen minutes – not a moment more, mind – rest and refreshment. To fulfil Frances’s wish for ‘never a moment without music’, Ant had employed his old uncle (his old mum’s brother), once a cocktail-bar player who had made quite a reputation at a pub in Marlow, to fill the gap. Uncle Bill couldn’t run to the white gear, but had turned up neat enough in a black dinner jacket and red bow tie, and was plunking very nicely through a lot of old tunes on the piano. So the lovely Frances ought to be pleased. Where was she?
Ant, looking about, saw her daughter – wretched-looking little mite – offering him a piece of paper and a pencil. He kew what she wanted. With the weariness of one who has suffered many years of autograph-fatigue – but with a lovely smile to cheer her up – he wrote his signature with a flourish, and added ‘with love’. The child seemed pleased, thanked him.
‘Enjoying it?’ asked Ant.
Fionia struggled between loyalty and honesty.
‘Quite.’
‘Some spectacle. Terrific, I’d say. Where’s your mum?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘If you see her, tell her I’d like a word. Promise. There’s a darling.’ Another friendly smile.
Fiona backed away, unable to speak, clutching her precious piece of paper. She began to run: over the empty dance floor, up the steps of the terrace, into the heavy-lily air of the drawing room, scurrying between guests, some of whom tried to clutch at her dress and called her name. But she would not stop. She did not care what happened to the rest of the party now, and she did not want to be part of it. She had Ant Cellar’s autograph, her most precious possession in the world, and all she wanted to do was to lock her bedroom door, and think about his kindness.
It wasn’t until she was in bed, autograph under the pillow, that she remembered his request. Well, she had not seen her mother or, for that matter, her father, for ages. She wondered whether to get up again and keep her sort-of-promise, but she couldn’t bear the thought. Besides, Ant, if he ever found out, would be bound to forgive her. He was a forgiving sort of man, she could tell.
* * *
Thomas had always prided himself on his ability quickly to resume dignity if, at some unfortunate moment, it eluded him. Within a few moments of his sobbing declarations of love to Rosie, he was walking with her calmly over a moon-bleached lawn as if nothing untoward had taken place. She held his arm, they walked in step. With her free hand she held both her fan and the skirt of her dress. Thomas could see a regular flash of pretty velvet shoes buckled with glass jewels. They were supposed to be following Serena, but she had hurried ahead of them and was nowhere to be seen. Thomas sensed that Rosie’s enthusiasm for the meeting with her daughter had waned. Rather, she seemed preoccupied and entranced by every aspect of the summer night.
‘I have a notion, Thomas, sometimes, that on nights like this the world is tipped upside down. What do you think, now?’
‘Quite,’ said Thomas, able in truth to agree. Never had his own world been so completely turned upside down.
‘What I mean is, the night sky could be a daisied lawn, while we could be walking on a sky of stars.’
‘Quite,’ said Thomas again. He found his own perception of the earth’s turnabout lagging a little behind Rosie’s, but wished to convey an understanding of her fancies at all cost. ‘Not many daisies,’ he added.
‘No, but you know what I mean.’
‘I do, of course I do.’ Flushed with agreement, he squeezed her small hand.
‘Marvellous, marvellous party,’ said Rosie. ‘I’m glad I came. Such surprises.’
Thomas’s instinct was to agree most heartedly with this sentiment, too, but he knew he should be cautious from now in his declarations. Nothing too soppy, or she’d be off like a bird. He chose another tack.
‘Very glad, though, my children chose not to come. Wouldn’t have been their sort of thing at all.’
‘No, they were wise. I doubt if Serena’s enjoyed it.’ Rosie paused for a moment, head cocked on one side. Moonlight becomes you, Thomas said to himself. The potency of old lyrics is as powerful as Keats when a man in love has had a certain amount to drink.
‘Listen,’ Rosie was saying. ‘I hear music, Mr Arkwright. Different music from the band.’
They listened. From behind a thick bay hedge came the melancholy combination of saxophone and bass guitar playing Michelle. They rounded a corner and found themselves in a garden thick with white roses, many of their petals scattered on the ground. In the space in the centre of the rose beds a small dance floor had been laid. Here, two couples danced like statues loosely soldered to their base – not, Thomas quickly realised, husbands partnering their own wives, but some kind of slightly nefarious mixture which he hoped he and Rosie were about to join. The musicians, dressed approximately as gypsies, eased their way into another yearning Beatles’ song.
‘Shall we be dancing a while?’ whispered Rosie. ‘I’d like to dance again, just this once.’
Thomas led her through the white roses, heart scattered as their petals, moon swinging wildly in the sky, limbs deliquescent with joy.
‘Rosie,’ was all he could say, and they danced.
* * *
Ralph, in his impatience, paid little attention to Frances’s transformation of the garden. He was bent on finding his mother and taking her home. Soon as possible.
He passed couples in conversation on the scattered garden seats, faces a kaleidoscope of pink lights reflected from the braziers’ flames. Their apparent contentment depressed him: why was there no available woman for him to sit with before a brazier, too? Only his sister, it seemed, shared his aloneness. He found her in the densest shadows of a cedar tree, sitting on the ground. He joined her. They both lit cigarettes.
�
��Seen Mum?’
‘Just came across her in the vegetable garden.’
‘Alone?’
‘Course not.’ Serena gave the faintest snigger.
‘Oh God. She’s incorrigible.’
‘Making up for lost time, perhaps. She’s been in Norfolk, what, six years? Long time for her in one place.’
‘Who knows what goes on there? Who was the man?’
‘No idea. Fat. Vaguely familiar.’
Ralph sighed, got up. ‘Enjoying yourself?’
‘No.’
‘Want to come with me?’
‘I’m fine here.’
‘Can’t think why you agreed to come.’
‘Mum’s sake. Not that she’s shown any signs of wanting actually to be with her children, as per usual.’
‘I’d better find her, take her home.’
‘You’ll be lucky.’
Ralph wandered away to continue his search. This time he came upon the hedge that guarded the more private dancers from the rest of the party. He stood for a while listening to the music, thinking there could be no sadder sound than a saxophonist and a bass guitar plucking away at the darkness. Then, dreading the moment, he turned into the rose garden and saw his mother dancing with the man who bought so many of her pictures. For a moment he felt the illusion of looking at old photographs. This scene was the top one: behind it shuffled dozens of similar images from his childhood, Rosie forever dancing with some new man.
He left quickly, not wanting to be seen. Back in the marquee – its warm, plush lily smell a sudden comfort – less people were on the dance floor, but many of the supper tables were occupied by breakfasters. Martin and Ursula sat together in a corner – Ursula, endearingly, eating a large pile of scrambled eggs very fast. They seemed preoccupied. Ralph had no wish to take up their invitation to join them. But he knew his mother was unlikely to be available for some time yet. Perhaps, he thought, the best way to pass the time would be to sleep. Well-acquainted with the upstairs of the house, he would find an unoccupied bedroom and doze for an hour or so. Perfect solution. He hurried inside and up the stairs he had climbed so often on days in the recent past, at Frances’s request.
* * *
Ursula finished her second plate of eggs and bacon, energy restored. This was the part of the evening she had most looked forward to: she and Martin had danced with everyone they were obliged to dance with, now they could remain together until the band stopped playing. Martin drank black coffee.
‘You know that evening – ?’ Ursula said.
‘Evening of the cat?’ He always read her thoughts so quickly.
‘Yes. I never had a chance to tell you.’
‘About the place?’
‘Quite.’
‘You told me about the wedding. You’ve been biding your time about the place.’ They both smiled. Martin often teased his wife for not choosing the right moment.
‘It just so happens,’ said Ursula, pushing away her empty plate and helping herself to a peach, ‘the farmer’s wife said this . . . perfect farmhouse would one day soon be up for sale.’
Martin felt a coil of annoyance squirm within him. Why here, of all places, did Ursula have to bring up the old subject once again? She had been wise enough not to mention it for months now. But he gave himself time to regain his calm, still looking at her lively, luminescent eyes so full of hope. She was more beautiful now than when he had married her. His eyes still on her face, he began at last to respond: uncalculated, not quite truthful words.
‘What I haven’t had the chance to tell you,’ he said, ‘is that . . . I’ve come round to agreeing with you almost completely.’ (To be honest, he had not given the matter much thought, as usual, though of late the irritations of Oxford, caused mostly by extreme quantities of tourists, had occurred to him.)
Ursula held her breath, watched Martin’s fine eyes stare now into some invisible depths of the pink tablecloth.
‘I’ve come to realise the terrible decline of the place, these days,’ he went on. ‘My room is the only part I like any more. So it seemed to me that you’re probably right, and perhaps in a year or so we should begin to think in terms of a change. . . .’
The stilted words of his declaration amazed himself as much as his wife. As she grasped his hand, incredulous, he then felt an overwhelming sense of relief. It was a strain, defying your spouse year after year: now, the geat unspoken restraint between them would surely begin to fade. Perhaps he should have conceded years ago. . . . As it was, there was no hurry. He would not be able to abide sudden change, of course -Ursula would understand that. But his promise was there. Enough for the moment.
Ursula continued to grasp his hand. Trying to contain herself, she knew she must quickly repay this concession with a show of anxiety about Martin’s own worries.
‘What about your work?’ she asked.
‘Oh, that.’ He shrugged. ‘Shouldn’t be impossible to arrange something.’ He finished his coffee, tugged at his wife’s jumbled hair. ‘You’ve waited so long,’ he said, ‘so patiently.’
At that moment, Ant Cellar and his refreshed bandsmen struck up again. Martin and Ursula were unable to resist the empty dance floor. They swept together like a couple who have enjoyed dancing together for a long time, and whose every movement signified a deep, elusive accord. Other guests, slower to make up their mind, seemed hesitant to join them. They found themselves dancing alone for quite a while, whirling between the flowered pillars, faithful to every change of rhythm. Ursula knew there would still be some waiting, but she also knew they danced in private celebration.
* * *
Mary Lutchins watched her daughter and son-in-law for a few moments: there was no chance of their leaving for a long while yet. For her own part, it was time to go home. She had had a thoroughly good time, dancing and watching, enjoying the food and the flowers, but now it was time to leave. She worried slightly about Rosie, whom she had not seen return to the marquee since their escapade among the raspberries. Then she dismissed the worry. Rosie was capable of looking after herself. No doubt some romantic adventure had befallen her, and there would be a good story on the long journey back tomorrow.
Mary made her way to the garden. Just one last look, she thought, before going to the car. She would probably never come to such a party again.
She found the sky paling at the edges, and the air damp with approaching dawn. She clutched her shawl tightly about her. If Bill had been here they could have sat beside a brazier for a while to warm themselves before the journey home. She looked up at the vast black silhouettes of the cedars: they dwarfed the smaller trees whose cobwebs of lights were woven among real cobwebs now, which sparkled more brightly with dew. Mary walked with a brisk stride to the stableyard, where her privileged car was parked. ‘At Mary’s age, she can’t go tramping across to the field on her own,’ the ever-thoughtful Frances had probably said, and Mary was grateful.
In the stableyard the clock tower said five-past-three. How the night had flown! A barn owl rose from a roof and clapped its way over to some distant tree, hooting its protest at Mary’s interruption. Ant Cellar’s music was just loud enough to step in time to over the cobblestones – Mary gave a few small skips she would never have dared in public, in memory of her youth. She found herself thinking of the unexpected strength that had come to her since Bill’s death, and the relief at no longer having to worry about his aloneness. In fact, though she could hardly bear to admit it to herself, that relief was so great she had found she had spent hours – even a whole day or two – without missing Bill. At such times hideous doubts had come upon her – doubts as to whether she had been right to hide from him the depths of her private anxieties. They might have loomed so thunderously between them that the lightness of their marriage would have been obscured. Now, she would never know. As it was, beneath the protection of the quiet, cosy life they had mutely agreed upon, the pretence of perfection had been able to thrive.
But oh, the disloyalty of such
thoughts! Mary slowed her step, appalled. The death of a loved spouse, she told herself in an attempt at justification, brings questions as well as regrets. It is futile to listen to such questions, for they can never be answered. For a while, at least, confusions must be endured, even the confusion of being perfectly all right most of the time: often, even, enjoying the new, solitary state. But when she reached the car and imagined the journey back to Oxford on her own, she felt her courage waver for a moment. The division between life and death was smaller than she had previously supposed, but the haunting thing was the space between memory and reality. Sometimes she would put out a hand, convinced of Bill’s presence, only to grasp air. Alone in the dawn, she wondered for the umpteenth time where he was. Then she gathered her resolve to stop tormenting herself, and to concentrate, as Bill would have insisted – on driving very slowly, very carefully, mind only on the road.
* * *
Ralph quietly pushed open the door of what he knew was a little-used bedroom. At once he realised his mistake. By the light of a greying sky, he saw someone was asleep. A black dress lay expired on the floor.
He found himself closing the door behind him, curious to see a guest who had drunk too much and needed help. But for all his care, he disturbed the sleeper. She raised herself from the pillow, pulling the sheet across her front: quick shadow-picture of large breasts. It was Rachel Arkwright, the sad lady he had danced with earlier.
‘Oh my God,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry. I was looking for somewhere to sleep.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Rachel was dazed, but smiling. ‘You haven’t disturbed me, honestly. I had the same idea, got here first.’
They both quietly laughed.
‘I’ll go,’ said Ralph.
‘No! Please don’t.’ Rachel raised herself a little higher, letting the sheet slip lower. She was amazed at her own request even as she heard the words. ‘Please come here,’ she said.
You cannot be responsible if your actions are faster than your thoughts, she reflected much later. Then, anything, anything can happen.
Ralph, also with no time for thought, found himself beside her. She was warm, huge, soft, smelling faintly of hyacinth, so utterly desirable that he had to be firm with himself to control his haste. Strange thing was, Rachel seemed to feel the same. He had never known a woman so eager and sweet in her responses. Mouth clamped to her strawberry-tasting lips, the despair that had lacerated Ralph’s evening vanished, and some vague amorphous shape, that he dared call hope, struggled for life in his mind.
