by Alison Giles
It tasted good. I curled up in an armchair and switched on the television. A 1940s’ black and white film was nearing its climax. I tried to concentrate, to pick up the threads of the story, but found it impossible to focus my attention. The turmoil of the last thirty-six hours was too immediate.
Throughout supper, which we’d eaten at the kitchen table, Andrew had kept up a stream of light conversation. The children, I discovered, were Tom and Justin, aged eleven and nine and ‘noisy little terrors’. I blinked. Andrew must either have started young or be older than he seemed. Still, he was saying, it was good to see them enjoying life; and Ginny, he had to hand it to her, was a first-rate mother.
I learned that old Mr and Mrs Partridge had been on holiday to ‘Oh, somewhere in the Balearics’ and – he turned to me: ‘This will sound familiar’ – hadn’t stopped moaning since they got back about not being able to tune in out there to the British weather forecast. ‘Seems their only interest was in comparing hours of sunshine and making sure they were getting their money’s worth.’ Mrs Tuckett – ‘Why couldn’t she have chosen anywhere but here to retire to!’ – had managed to get herself elected on to the village hall committee and had been so rude to Commander Lancaster that now there was some doubt that he’d allow his paddock to be used for the summer fête. More seriously, had Flora heard that there was a brucellosis scare at Upper Farm? Philip – his brother, I deduced – was only too thankful he’d switched over to arable.
It was all village talk and I was torn between disdain and reluctant fascination. Whichever, I was more comfortable sitting on the sidelines listening.
Andrew left at about ten, gripping my hand and hoping he’d see me again soon.
I helped clear away the dishes and wash up.
‘Andrew’s nice,’ said Flora, as she dried her hands. ‘Parents left everything but the old Dower House to Philip, of course. Andrew and Ginny …’ She lapsed into silence. I shrugged mentally; it was no concern of mine. It was what I was gleaning about my father that tantalised me. Over a cup of coffee before bed, I brought up the subject of his paintings again.
‘I really had no idea,’ I said.
‘I expect you’d like to have the one of you.’
‘May I?’
‘Of course.’
I expressed my gratitude. I wished I could make her out.
Flora was glancing at her watch. ‘I’ll show you your room. You’ll need a hot water bottle.’ She fished one out from a cupboard and filled it from the kettle simmering on the hotplate.
I was glad of it; the bedroom was icy. Flora produced a nightdress and toothbrush. ‘Come down when you’re ready in the morning,’ she said.
Despite everything, or perhaps because of it, I must have fallen asleep straightaway. I woke to the sound of hooves clopping along the lane. It took me a moment or two to orientate myself.
I got out of bed and, wrapping the eiderdown round me, pulled back the curtains. The room was on the opposite side to the kitchen, facing east. Frost glittered on the ground, and a faint glow behind the trees indicated mat the sun would soon dispel the greyness.
I dressed and crept downstairs. The grandfather clock, ticking away sonorously, registered a few minutes past seven. For a moment I considered sneaking out to the car and driving off before Flora appeared. After all, I’d completed my mission. But then the childishness of such an action dissuaded me. I would at least wait and bid her a civil farewell.
Warming myself by the Aga, I heated the kettle and brewed a pot of tea. To my surprise, it was the back door that opened. ‘Oh, there you are,’ said Flora. She deposited a handful of eggs beside the sink. ‘Breakfast?’
In the end, it was mid-morning before I left. Somehow Flora persuaded me to take a walk through the woods before I departed. ‘You should,’ she said. ‘Your father loved it.’ She didn’t suggest accompanying me.
The lane petered out to a track, horseshoe imprints fresh there in the damp earth. Between the shadows of branches meeting overhead, sunlight glinted, dappling tree trunks and ground. I stood and breathed in great lungfuls of sweet-tasting air, gasping at yet relishing its coldness. It seemed to reach right through me, scouring out restraint. I stared up at the sky and shook my head in wonder. Every sense tingled.
Then I heard it – the sound of running water. Twenty yards further on, I came across a broad stream meandering up to the edge of the path and away from it again. I hunched down beside it, watching the flow of ripples round stones. I looked for fish but couldn’t see any. Maybe it was too early in the year.
I’m not sure how long I stayed there. Eventually, cramp in my legs forced me to straighten up. Reluctantly I wandered back, pausing every now and again, as though I could capture and hold within me every whisper and scent.
When I got back to the house, Flora was in the garden picking daffodils. ‘I thought you might like to take a few with you,’ she said. ‘They’ll come out in a day or two.’
In the kitchen, the watercolour had been set aside from the others and lay ready on the table. Flora carried it out to the car and stood waiting as I took it from her and placed it carefully in the back. The daffodils I laid on the passenger seat.
‘Well, goodbye.’ I hesitated awkwardly beside the open car door.
Flora reached out and touched my arm. ‘Take care,’ she said.
The daffodils! I’d dumped them unceremoniously on the draining board when I first came in. I zapped off the television, jumped up and found a vase. Pity to let them die. I crushed the ends as my mother had taught me, and found myself wondering whether Flora would have done the same. I fingered the tight buds lightly. No hot-house blooms these; they smelled of the country and freedom. Impatiently, I brushed away something that was more than a physical sensation. I didn’t wish to be reminded of Cotterly.
I’d driven up the hill out of the village in a state of confusion. It wasn’t until I reached the motorway and was able, with my foot hard down on the accelerator, to put distance between myself and the source of my bewilderment, that I began to feel a sense of normality returning. Cars beat a steady rhythm along the uniform stretches of tarmac. This was the world I knew. As I crossed Hammersmith flyover, the buildings on either side enfolded me in the familiar again. Relieved to be home, I’d staggered up the stairs fully laden, balancing Father’s painting between raised knee and chin as I turned the key in the lock. I’d left it just inside the door.
Now I wondered what to do with it. I almost regretted having accepted it. It was disturbing somehow – my father imposing an image of me on the landscape he loved. Had he sent me down there simply to make a reality of the fantasy he’d painted? Just once? Or did he have some deeper intention? I’d assumed my visit was aimed at satisfying some need of Flora’s. Having met her, that hardly seemed likely. What was he up to?
Dammit. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. I’d done what he asked. That was the end of it.
I carried the flowers through to the sitting room, changed my mind about placing them on the coffee table, and instead made space on top of the cupboard in the corner. I picked up the phone, trailed its lead across the room, and perched on the arm of a chair.
‘Clare? Are you in? Can I invite myself over? … Supper? Hadn’t thought about it. I could bring a tin of … Right. See you in ten minutes.’
I was my old resilient self again. I threw on a coat, grabbed my contribution to the feast, and clattered down to the street. I loved London, particularly at night. Lights everywhere; the buzz of traffic; bright, exuberant voices of passers-by; traffic lights alternating red, amber, green. I walked the three blocks, humming to myself.
It was eleven-thirty when I returned, pleasantly weary. My old schoolfriend, temporarily grass-widowed by her boyfriend’s attendance at a conference in Stockholm, had been a good choice of companion for the evening. She didn’t believe in moping – whether over a broken ornament or, as she assumed in my case, a bereavement. Instead, she kept up a bright bubble of chatter and encourag
ed me to help her drain a large bottle of Spanish red.
I fell into bed. My last thought before falling asleep was that I’d forgotten to ring my mother. Too late now. I’d do it tomorrow.
CHAPTER 4
I wondered, next day, whether Mother would ring me at work. I rather hoped she might; I’d have an excuse to keep the conversation brief. I felt uncomfortable at the prospect of speaking to her. I’d never lied to her before. Not about anything of any consequence. However, I’d decided from the beginning that there was no need for her to know about my visit to Flora. The whole matter, I’d reassured myself, was totally unimportant, and the sooner it was done, finished, forgotten, the better.
But I’d come back with that painting. I wished I’d never seen it. I wished Flora hadn’t been at home. I wished …
I struggled through the day, formulating platitudes to disgruntled customers and seeking advice on two particularly thorny problems from our legal people. I tried not to snap at the school-leaver who dropped a tray of coffee in the corridor outside, jangling my nerves. Even the physical exertion of an aerobics class after work did nothing to relieve my mood.
I slammed into the flat that night, tired and sweaty. The first thing I would do was throw out those daffodils. I marched across the room and grabbed the vase. But Flora was right: they were already beginning to open, their bright gold centres offering themselves up. So vulnerable they seemed; so fragile. I replaced the vase. For heaven’s sake, they were only flowers.
The phone shrilled. Skidding my sports holdall out of the way, I grabbed it; then wished I’d waited long enough to prepare myself.
‘Hello, dear. Is that you?’
‘Hello, Mother. How are you? Sorry I didn’t ring last night.’
As always, she was understanding. She expected I’d been late getting back. Had I had a good weekend?
‘Yes, fine. Gorgeous weather as well.’ Then hastily, as I sank down into a chair, forcing myself to relax: ‘How were Leah and Harold?’
My enquiry was genuine enough. I was fond of my mother’s sister and her husband; and knowing she was occupied entertaining them over the weekend had somehow made me feel less guilty about my own activities.
She gave me a quick run-down on Uncle Harold’s hernia operation; and amused me by lowering her voice – as though even now Mrs Potter next door might be skulking in the flower-bed, ear pressed to the curtained window pane – to confide that they were somewhat concerned about my cousin Elspeth. ‘Taken up with a very questionable type, by all accounts.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘I can’t tell you what a relief it is that you’re so sensible.’
No, I thought. I certainly didn’t give her any worries over men. Most of those I came across these days were firmly attached elsewhere, as often as not to my girlfriends.
‘What about your weekend?’ she was asking as I banished a sudden image of Andrew.
‘Oh, lovely,’ I heard myself respond. ‘Paula’s totally immersed in nappies … yes, twins, didn’t I tell you? And James …’ I garnished the tale with up-to-date information gleaned from a recent telephone conversation with my ex-university classmate. The words slipped smoothly from my tongue.
Later, lying full length in the bath, I wondered, guiltily, at the ease of the deception. But then, Mother had never had any cause to doubt my loyalty. Nor was she by nature suspicious. I wondered how long it had been before she became aware of Father’s infidelity. Now, the thought struck me, not only was I the one deceiving her – but over the very same person.
Flora. I wanted to put her out of my mind, but her image confronted me implacably. What on earth could my father have seen in her? ‘Heart of gold,’ Andrew had said. Even at her mildest, I’d seen no sign of it. On the contrary, she must have taken some sort of sadistic pleasure in stirring me first to anger and then to tears.
I lunged for the hot tap and turned it on full pressure. The water scalded my toes and I scooped it round to merge with the cooler pool at my back. I added more oil and lay back once again, surrounded by a mist of steam which settled in a film on the tiles. I watched the small rivulets of condensation as they trickled down the mirror-hard surfaces.
Three months later – three months devoted, by dint mainly of immersing myself in work, to putting the past, that is to say anything to do with my father, out of my mind – I wallowed similarly in the ‘tastefully-modernised-en-suite facilities’ of a Georgian country house which some years ago had been converted into a highly priced hotel. It lay, as the blurb had it, ‘betwixt Warminster and Bath’. Which meant it was in the back of beyond. But, given the rates we tightly renegotiated each year, it suited us as a base for day excursions or as an overnight stop on circular tours.
It had been on our books since before I joined the company. When time for another inspection came round, I found myself volunteering. We had our regular team of appraisers of course but, having just been moved – on gratifying and, I complimented myself, well-deserved promotion – to that department, I’d persuaded the head of section, my immediate superior, that some ‘hands-on’ experience would be useful.
‘Why this hotel?’ I taunted myself, flicking foam across my stomach and watching the tendrils of froth settle over my navel. I brushed them aside to reveal again the curving indentation. Above and below it, the outline of my bikini was still faintly discernible. I considered whether, this year, I might dare to return from some hotspot with only a lower triangle of pallor. Crazy, really, that I’d never as yet summoned up the courage. My flatmates, in the days not so long ago when five of us shared two floors of a house in Maida Vale, returned each summer uniformly brown from their hip-bones upwards. ‘God, you’re so inhibited,’ one of them – Becky, no doubt – had teased me on more than one occasion, rolling her eyes in mock despair. Maybe I was. A bit, anyway. Something to do with being an only child? After all – I looked down now approvingly at my boobs – nothing to be ashamed of there.
I knew I was distracting myself from my own interrogation. Why this hotel? Why here? Why not Carlisle or Aberdeen or Norwich? Reluctantly, I confronted myself.
‘So it’s Flora country. Give or take. So what?’ I sank deeper into the water until my chin rested on its surface, the hair at the nape of my neck instantly saturated. It wasn’t as though I had any intention of going anywhere near her again. Maybe I was just taking the opportunity to prove the point – by ignoring, as I would, the turn-off to Cotterly on my return journey this afternoon. That was it.
Or was it? Just as clearly as I visualised myself driving straight back to London, I saw myself detouring at least as far as the hilltop above the village. Unable to dissolve either image, I hoisted myself impatiently up through the vapour and towelled vigorously.
It was a relief to descend to breakfast and concentrate on the details I needed to note for my report.
I attempted to write it in the garden, settled on a slatted bench with the file on my knee and the sun on my back, out of sight of the wide sweep of the tarmacked entrance. A faint burr of voices and the slam of car doors mingled with intermittent chatter of small birds and the hum of a foraging bee. I did my best to focus on the task in hand, but my mind refused to co-operate. I stared at the tip of a church spire, visible above rhododendrons which formed an effective hedge between me and the long stretches of countryside beyond.
I don’t know why I thought of Mark. Churches? Marriage? A starling flying towards its nest with a full beak? Had I missed the only boat, I wondered. Did I care?
I’d been right to finish the relationship, of course. Mother had been devastated. ‘But he’s so nice. And stockbrokers don’t come two a penny, you know. You’d have been very comfortable.’
‘He never actually asked me to marry him,’ I said.
‘He’d have got round to it … He adored you …’
I couldn’t tell her what had sparked our break-up.
We’d been lazing in bed – his bed – one Sunday morning, debating how to spend the day.
‘Let’s go
and visit your parents,’ he’d suggested. ‘Wouldn’t mind doing justice to a traditional Sunday lunch.’
I hesitated. I’d taken him home several times during the fifteen months I’d known him, usually choosing a weekday evening when the Market was quiet and he could get away promptly. We’d reach the Surrey dormitory town at about a quarter to eight, earlier if the A3 traffic was light, and drive back, fortified by my mother’s cooking, in time to fall into bed at around midnight. ‘It suits my parents better,’ I’d explained. ‘They tend to be busy at weekends.’ I’d elaborated this excuse to explain my father’s absence on the one or two occasions I hadn’t been able to avoid our calling in on a Saturday or Sunday.
I stroked the soft hair on Mark’s forearm as he put it round my bare shoulders and pulled me towards him. ‘Or, of course,’ he teased my ear with a flick of his tongue, ‘we could just stay here …’
I snuggled up to him. Then I pulled away.
He reached out for me again. I resisted. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
He grinned up at me.
‘Seriously. It’s about my father,’ I said. ‘And my mother too, I suppose. And –’ I took a breath – ‘someone called Flora.’
I expanded, Mark prompting me with the occasional question; when I’d said as much as there was to say, I drew up my knees and rested my chin on them. ‘I’ve never told anyone before,’ I said.
In the silence, I could hear two people calling to each other in the street below. Suddenly Mark flung back the sheet and leapt out of bed. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said. I turned my head; and giggled. Standing there stark naked, he looked, I decided, like some indignant Greek god straight out of a Renaissance painting.
I waited for the declamation.
It came. But not in the form I was expecting. ‘Why the hell didn’t your mother let him have a divorce?’
