Meadowland

by Alison Giles

  ‘I know. We’ve been in touch.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry—’

  ‘I think it’s better if we don’t talk about it.’

  I shrugged. ‘OK then. Well, I’ll ring you next week, shall I?’

  ‘If you like.’

  I wished I hadn’t bothered. Except that at least I had the satisfaction of having tried.

  I sat for a moment, then rang Clare. ‘How about lunch tomorrow?’

  Perched beside her in the sandwich bar next day, I allowed myself to be more forthcoming about Andrew: where he lived; how I’d met him. ‘I was visiting a … a cousin of my father’s.’ Well, it was close enough, without rubbing Mother’s nose publicly in the mire. Still protecting her, I recognised; and wasn’t sure how I felt now about doing so.

  ‘By the way,’ Clare remembered as we parted, ‘we were thinking of having a drinks do on Saturday. You’ll both come, won’t you?’

  It was a good gathering of mostly familiar faces. Familiar to me anyway. Andrew had all of them – apart from Clare and Leo – sprung on him for the first time. I’d warned him what I’d said to Clare; how I’d explained Flora. ‘At least I don’t have to ask you to watch your tongue as carefully’

  He mixed in well, without apparent effort. Oh one occasion I caught him, out of the corner of my eye, leaning against a doorway, glass in hand, making easy conversation with friends Clare and I had known since university days; and later involved in deep discussion with a banking boyfriend of one of them. But not so deep that he couldn’t break off to absorb others into a chatting circle.

  I was proud of him. An odd thought – except that maybe I’d felt some anxiety about introducing him to my own crowd. I wasn’t sure which concerned me most – their reaction to him, or his to them.

  I certainly had no reason to worry about the former. ‘Nice chap,’ commented Douglas, having weaved his social way around the room and eventually ended up at my side. Lalage and Em, even more gratifyingly, were wide-eyed: ‘Where did you dig him up?’

  ‘From Bumpkin land,’ I laughed; and for an awful moment saw my mother in me, preening.

  We stayed on, with a select few, for one of Clare’s curries. It was well after midnight by the time we made our way home.

  ‘Well,’ I asked as we sat at the kitchen table, mugs in hand, ‘what did you make of them?’

  ‘I liked them.’

  I checked him. Yes, he meant it.

  We post-mortemed companionably. But after a while, Andrew’s attention seemed to waver. He reached out and grasped my wrist. ‘Something’s not right,’ he said. ‘You’re being over-cheerful.’

  ‘Must be the alcohol.’

  ‘No. You haven’t been yourself all weekend.’

  Hadn’t I? I thought I’d been managing very well. I pulled my hand away and stood up, gesturing. ‘Refill?’

  He followed me, put his arms round me as I plugged in the kettle. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I knew I wasn’t convincing. I spooned coffee, wished the water weren’t so slow to come to the boil.

  ‘Mother,’ I said. ‘We had a major row. She’s hardly speaking to me.’

  ‘Oh, so that’s it.’ I felt him relax, his hands slide up to my shoulders. Then he released me. Moments later he gave me a gentle push. ‘Go and sit down.’

  He poured, brought the coffee over, and settled in his chair. ‘Well? Are you going to tell me more?’

  I sipped tentatively. ‘I told her about Flora,’ I said. ‘I mean, about my seeing her.’

  ‘That was brave of you.’

  I looked up. Andrew had his eyebrows raised.

  ‘Hardly. She squeezed me into a corner. I didn’t have any choice.’ I explained in more detail. ‘So,’ I managed to laugh as I finished, ‘it’s all your fault really.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I put out a hand, flicked my fingers against his. ‘I don’t really mean that.’

  He grinned. ‘That’s a relief.’ Then he sobered. ‘What now? Will she come round?’

  ‘Leah seems to think so.’

  ‘Your aunt?’

  ‘I went to see her afterwards. Thing is there was more to it than that.’ I recounted the accusations Mother had hurled at me. ‘But Leah says it’s not true anyway. So why,’ I pleaded across at Andrew, ‘does she want to blame me?’

  He looked sympathetic but uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know.’ He concentrated on his coffee. ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ he said at last. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t because of you your father … left – in so far as he did. On the contrary, you were the reason he stayed.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ I stared at him, startled.

  ‘He never said as much. Not in so many words.’ He lit a cigarette, passed me one. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t say any more?’

  ‘You should. Go on.’

  ‘You have to understand I’m only reading between the lines, and anyway it’s all hindsight – I hardly knew him at the time.’

  ‘Stop being so bloody cautious.’

  ‘OK, well, speaking as a lawyer, he was in a quandary if your mother wasn’t amenable to a divorce.’

  ‘Which she wouldn’t have been.’

  ‘I rather gathered. He could have tried “unreasonable behaviour” on the grounds that … that they hadn’t been … close. For a long time.’

  ‘You mean little or no sex?’

  ‘Well, yes …’

  ‘It’s all right. I’d worked that one out. So why didn’t he?’

  ‘Something about that generation maybe. Certain types of dirty linen they’re reluctant to wash in public. Or protecting you, perhaps.’

  I digested this.

  ‘But what was to stop him simply moving out?’ I remembered my discussion with Flora. So, I thought, he’d have had to go on totting up figures, but he could have done. ‘And in any case, can’t you then demand a divorce after five years even if the other one is unwilling?’

  ‘I got the impression your mother must have made it clear that if he did, she’d make it damned difficult for him to see anything of you in the meantime. That’s what I meant when I said you were the reason he stayed.’

  ‘Oh.’ I let this sink in. ‘But could she have done?’

  ‘You were living with her. He’d have had to argue it in court if she were adamant. I think he must have decided that the hassle involved … not just for him, but for you caught in the middle of it all …’

  ‘It might have been worth it.’

  Andrew gave a shrug of helplessness. How Father must have felt.

  I thought about it.

  ‘Yes, but she couldn’t have stopped me once I was eighteen …’ But would it have made any difference if he’d cut the ties completely then? By that time, mine to her were tightly knotted. It had taken a further seven years and a plea from Father, at that unrefusable moment, to persuade me to go down to Cotterly. And just look at Mother’s reaction now she knew about it. How was it that in all that time I’d never considered his point of view, never realised the struggle for him?

  I fell silent. Poor Dad – and Flora. Poor me. Mother wielding the whip hand. But not much fun for her either. What had she got out of it? I felt the answers were all there, but at this time of night my mind seemed incapable of unscrambling them.

  Andrew had seen me glance at my watch. Now he checked his own. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Bed.’

  He made no attempt to make love to me that night; but his arms around me were reassuring.

  CHAPTER 20

  Rather as it had done all those years ago when Mother acknowledged the fact – but no more than the fact – of Flora’s existence, my mind churned through the questions now raised. What I could deduce reinforced the sense I’d developed recently that so much of Mother’s behaviour had been inspired in some way by self-interest. Elspeth’s suggestion – that she’d been protecting herself – now rang horribly true.

  The various comments that had been passed, and my own thoughts over the last fe
w months, particularly the last few weeks, bubbled in my head as I tried to make sense of my parents’ marriage – and my rôle in it. One thing was certain, I wasn’t going to get any help from Mother in sorting it out. And it was too late to talk to Dad about it.

  I was moody; Andrew was patient, listening but reluctant to offer opinions. ‘How can I? I’ve never met your mother.’

  ‘What is it about her?’ I demanded. ‘It’s almost as though everyone’s scared of her.’

  He laughed then. ‘I can’t imagine Flora being afraid of anyone,’ he said. ‘Maybe you ought to talk to her some more. She of all people is the one you could check things out with.’

  But I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Not at the moment.

  Instead I rang Elspeth. ‘Your button,’ I said.

  It didn’t take much to get on to the subject of Mother. I told Elspeth about my visit to her parents too. ‘You really should come down and see them.’

  For once she sounded more mellow on the subject. ‘Maybe I will.’

  I took advantage of her weakening to press the point.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Playing happy families with me and mine isn’t going to sort out your mess.’

  Is that what I was doing? I hadn’t thought of it like that.

  ‘I might have more chance of sorting it out if I understood it,’ I said. ‘I mean, why on earth did Mother—’

  Elspeth interrupted. ‘Hang on. If this is going to be a long session, I need to get comfortable.’

  I heard sounds of her moving across a room, the scrape of furniture, a scrabbling as though she were settling into a chair. I visualised her, feet tucked up, a drink at her elbow. What sort of room was it, I wondered. Pictures and posters on the walls, ethnic drapes everywhere?

  ‘Where’s Perry?’ I asked when she came back on the line.

  ‘He’s out. Got himself a job as a barman. Great, isn’t it – anyway it’s a start.’

  Bearing in mind his predilection for alcohol, I wasn’t sure how enthusiastic to be. Luckily Elspeth didn’t seem to require a response. ‘Go on then, shoot.’

  By the time I put the phone down, some things at least seemed to have clarified. Elspeth was blunt on the subject of Mother and babies. ‘Seems perfectly obvious to me she can’t have wanted any more. For one reason or another. Maybe she pleaded health, but I’d guess she was far more concerned about her figure. And what a marvellous excuse her story gave her – if in any case she didn’t fancy sex – to avoid it.’

  ‘What makes you think …? Anyway, there was always the Pill.’

  ‘Exactly. Probably told him she couldn’t take it for some reason; persuaded him nothing else was safe.’

  ‘You’re guessing.’

  ‘Well, of course I am. But it makes sense, doesn’t it?’

  I had to admit it did.

  ‘Wonder is,’ Elspeth was saying, ‘he put up with it for as long as he did.’

  ‘We don’t know how long that was.’ I tried to remember how old I’d been when the double bed disappeared. It was a distant memory; I couldn’t be sure.

  ‘Shouldn’t be at all surprised,’ Elspeth pressed on, ‘if she wasn’t delighted when he transferred those attentions to Flora.’

  That fitted too. As long as his doing so didn’t disturb outward appearances. And, if Andrew was right, I’d been instrumental in making sure it didn’t.

  Why did I feel there was more to it than that? Something to do with me personally; something I’d seen in her eyes when she’d accused me of being responsible … I’d put a tentative name to it earlier. Now I brushed it aside; I was letting my imagination run away with me.

  Over the following weeks, Andrew and I began to develop a routine – one weekend in London, the next at Cotterly. I ignored Mother’s antagonism and, out of duty to the invalid, visited her several times, on one occasion calling in on my way back from Cotterly and, once or twice on a weekday evening, making the effort to go down specifically. We settled – as her leg, she reluctantly admitted, improved and she was able, eventually, to exchange her crutches for a stick – for cool politeness. Just as she and Father had done, it occurred to me one Saturday morning as, after spending the night at home with her, I departed and drove westwards.

  And here I was, like him too, headed for Cotterly. Though not just for a weekend. My holdall, left discreetly in the boot overnight, bulged with heavy jumpers and the sort of clothes suited to an autumn week in the country.

  It had been as much Andrew’s idea as mine. Ten days ago, a memo through the internal post had landed on my desk – the Personnel Officer reminding me I still had three weeks’ leave owing.

  So I had! I’d been so carried along on the conveyor belt of events recently that I hadn’t given it any thought. I’d commented to one of my colleagues who happened to come into the room as I was reading it. ‘You look as though you could do with a holiday,’ she’d remarked. ‘Seemed a bit stressed these last few weeks.’

  As though my body, even now, acknowledged the strain more readily than I did, I woke next morning, the Friday, with a stuffed-up nose and a grinding headache. I struggled through the bathroom routine and into my clothes, then sat on the end of my bed attempting to apply make-up. ‘Ugh,’ I grimaced, and dumped the hand mirror I’d been holding face down on the duvet.

  I rang the office. ‘I feel awful.’ Later in the day I phoned Andrew. ‘Better cancel this weekend,’ I croaked.

  But he insisted on coming anyway. ‘Can’t have you languishing all alone.’

  ‘You might catch it,’ I worried.

  ‘I’ll risk it.’

  I insisted at least he sleep on the sofa, and he accepted the sense in that.

  He arrived that evening armed with brandy, and fresh lemons, and a jar of local honey; and brewed up his cure-all potion in the kitchen while I snuggled, red-nosed, under the covers. He raided the fridge and produced rice-and-something: ‘Call it risotto.’

  I protested I wasn’t hungry.

  ‘Nonsense.’ He sat on the edge of my bed and wielded the fork. ‘Come on. Open up.’ Obediently I accepted a mouthful.

  ‘OK, OK.’ I pulled myself up and took the plate from him. I laughed. ‘You’re just like my father,’ I said. ‘I remember when I had chicken pox …’

  By next day I was over the worst of it. I sat on the sofa, wrapped in the crocheted blanket. Andrew lounged opposite me. ‘You need a break,’ he said.

  ‘Funny you should say that.’ I told him of the reminder I’d received. ‘Trouble is, I’m not sure where appeals at this time of year, and anyway …’

  Andrew stood up and came to sit on the arm of the sofa, behind my head. He put a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Thinking ahead,’ he said, ‘how about planning to go skiing together over New Year?’

  ‘I’ve never skied.’

  ‘First time for everything.’

  I hesitated. Then laughed. ‘Oh well, as long as you promise to carry me home if I break a leg or two.’ I tilted my head upwards, expecting to encounter the usual tolerant amusement.

  Instead he had an eyebrow raised. ‘And what if I’m the one in a heap in the snow?’

  ‘You won’t be.’

  He smiled, but somehow I had the feeling my response hadn’t been the one he was looking for. But he made no further comment. Maybe I’d imagined it.

  Later, realising such plans still left me a week to spare, we discussed a more immediate break from work. ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ I said, ‘just coming down to Cotterly. Spend some time with Flora …’

  ‘Good idea.’ He thought about it. ‘If you make it the week after next, Ginny and the boys will probably be up in Leamington with her in-laws. Half-term. We’d have the Dower House to ourselves.’ He parodied a leer. ‘With a bit of luck they’ll stay up there the whole time.’

  Now, as I drove westwards a week later, I eased my foot on the accelerator, allowing myself time to look around, to take in the scenery. The trees, massed hues of late October golds and browns, ed
ged the road, their leaves, defying autumn’s rustle, deceptively secure.

  It was about this time last year, I recalled, that Father had been taken ill. We – or anyway I – had assumed, if I’d really noticed, that his weight loss was just a mark of summer fitness. The doctor had sent him to the hospital for tests; they’d be keeping him in for a few days while they did them. I hadn’t known then that he’d never come out. I’d gone with Mother to visit him each weekend; towards the end, additionally gone down mid-week. She’d always been there. Except once; and then I’d sat by his bedside not knowing what to say – saying nothing of importance.

  I brushed the memory aside and concentrated instead on anticipating the week ahead. Andrew had confirmed that Ginny would be away until at least the following Thursday. My mind flashed back to the previous time I’d stayed at the Dower House …

  I went there first but finding no sign of Andrew drove on round to Wood Edge. His car wasn’t there either.

  Columbus, busy with his ablutions by the back door, broke off as I drew up, watched me alight and waited as I approached. He stood up, arched his back and jutted his head to greet me. I bent down and stroked his chin. The door was unlocked. I knocked as I entered, Columbus following me in.

  ‘Hell-o,’ I called from the empty kitchen, wondering for a moment whether Flora, too, was out.

  Then I heard the pad of her footsteps on the stairs. She appeared with a cloth and a tin of wax in her hands. ‘Been giving that old chest a bit of a polish,’ she explained.

  ‘I’ve been round to the Dower House,’ I said. ‘I thought maybe Andrew was here.’

  ‘He’s had to go in to the office. Some crisis or other. Called round on his way to ask me to tell you.’

  I stifled disappointment. ‘Oh, fine.’

  ‘Tried to ring you last night, I gather, but you weren’t in.’

  ‘I was at my mother’s.’

  ‘How is she?’ Flora had only heard, from me, the basic facts of Mother’s accident. Whether Andrew had told her more, I had no idea. I’d avoided doing so on my previous visits. Or hadn’t found the opportunity. I wasn’t sure which.

  Suddenly I was angry about all the subterfuge. Well, not subterfuge exactly; more a pandering to Mother and her precious feelings. Why hadn’t I given Andrew the phone number there? It was no good: Andrew existed; Flora existed; in my life anyway; and at some point Mother was going to have to accept it.