‘Any man, Claire, who feels the cold must wish to warm himself. He may even long to do so. But think, dear, what the sun does to ice. And if he has used that ice, for so many years, as a protection … Well – in order to be warm he will have to watch his defences melt away. How that must alarm him. He may even bolt back under his glacier from time to time, don’t you think? Wouldn’t you? But perhaps he may meet a summer woman one day, with enough patience to keep on coaxing him out again. I do – hope so.’
‘Yes. That would be nice.’
‘Do have a pleasant holiday, Claire. It may help to settle your mind. And then, I have a little scheme afoot to persuade you to spend a week or two here, in your own little blue room. In May, I thought, to celebrate my birthday and Polly’s – something rather special, since she’s bound to be married next year with no time to spare for her mother.’
Nonsense, of course. And romantic, sentimental nonsense too, typical of Miriam. Yet Miriam, in fact, was shrewd, sharp as a razor, steely of purpose beneath all her frills and flounces, as Claire well knew. And there had been times – she could recall every detail in her memory – when Benedict had seemed to reach out towards her and had then retreated exactly – she could not help but see it – as if she had burned him. ‘I can do you no good,’ he had told her often enough. The danger had seemed to be wholly hers. Now the possibility of harming him simply by loving him was presented to her forcefully, getting into her dreams where, for three uneasy nights in succession, she saw him evaporate in her arms, to be, most horrifyingly, not there. An addition to her stock of nightmares which she did not welcome, the more so since it had been conjured up by Miriam, whose sole concern was to secure a more agreeable companion for her old age than Eunice and Nola.
Yet the holiday in France still waited, just visible, just a little way ahead, beckoning and dazzling her like a pole-star. She would have just that much, then perhaps only a little more or nothing more, but at least that.
They met among the indifferent, anonymous throng of Waterloo, seeing each other instantly as if by some magnetic empathy of thought and desire, which stopped Claire in her tracks and held her motionless as he came towards her. He was the tallest man in the crowd, his cashmere overcoat, woven in Faxby, tailored in London, swinging stylishly from wide shoulders, his hat tipped forward at a sporting, almost Newmarket angle, the same air about him of good quality, tip-top condition, the very best, which she had first noticed about his house at Thornwick. Had he been a complete stranger she would have been aware, at a single glance, that his shoes and gloves must be of the finest leather, his shirt and tie of silk, his cufflinks and and watch-chain of pure gold. She would have been happy to look at him – simply to look at him – all day, gloating with contented pride on his clothes, his air of authority and quiet elegance, the set of his chin, the dark hair curling very slightly into the nape of his neck, the black tilt of his eyebrows, a hundred more tiny, tremendous details which, as she stood there breathless and tremulous with a new emotion, had each one the power to turn her knees to water.
And it was a new emotion.
She loved him.
She had thought so before. But what she felt now, what seemed to have suddenly fallen full upon her, was not the same. Before – before what? – just before, love had come easily to her, a feeling which rose quite naturally and flowed quite smoothly and which she had experienced certainly once in the past. But this was serious. Terribly serious. She knew that one recovered, eventually, more or less, from that smooth, natural, free-flowing emotion which was undoubtedly a kind of love. She had no way, yet, of telling if one recovered from this.
‘Hello,’ she said and could say no more.
‘Hello.’ His eyes touched her and then his hands, drawing her towards him and holding her in what they both knew to be an act of complete possession, complete surrender. She was his now, absolutely; abandoning herself to his desire, his love, his need, without reserve or restraint on conditions. His – to have and to hold, in unstinting, unbounded bestowal. For as long as she could. For as long as it lasted. Until the week after next.
It was, from the start, a perfect experience. A life within a life, wholly apart from what – for as long as it should last – she was no longer forced to call reality. The sun shone. The sea was calm. And for two fine, dry weeks every train ran on time, every arrangement they made proceeded smoothly and without a hitch, every hotel was warm and delightful, every moment separate, distinct, acutely memorable.
France. The country where she had grown, by force, to womanhood, where she had first loved and suffered and where Paul was still lying in a neat grave set among tidy rows of others which she had no wish to visit, content to leave this ritual to his wife and mother. She had accepted, at once, for a hundred brutal reasons, the decay of his body, knowing too well how soon and how irrevocably death had eaten it away. But his spirit had remained for a long time at the edge of her vision, unreach-able of course but there, if only just, if beginning to fade mercifully from an almost visible presence to a memory. She had begun to release him, to allow him – and herself – to rest. Yet he entered her deeply dreaming mind that first night in Paris, gently and kindly, so that she knew he pitied her. Human emotion no longer touched him. Desire was over, and longing, all the frantic needs of one human body, one human heart, for another, the joy of a lover’s caress, the warm handclasp of a friend in the dark.
For him all that was ended. Yet for her the rejoicing and the suffering was to do all over again. Here, in this land of France where she had learned to live only for the moment, to absorb the measure of happiness it gave with the gratitude and despair of a desert traveller tasting a raindrop, knowing there may never be another.
Live now, the dream told her, there’s no time to spare. There never has been.
‘I love you, Benedict.’ Had she really spoken? Or was it simply her arms, on waking, which had conveyed the words to him as they reached out to find him? And found him. Not only that morning but the next one and the one after, the sheer delight of such a little thing – such a miracle – colouring the day with gold and scarlet excitements, deep blues and lilacs of profound content.
She had everything she wanted. The whole of life’s bounty. In one man. How perilous. But the peril was for tomorrow. Today was the leafy enchantment of the grand boulevards where she walked with him in a haze, a trance made up of the blissfully replete love of the body and the rich, deep-flowing love of the heart. It was the cafés where they sat under striped awnings, letting the world go gladly by, watching only one another. It was the smile always there to meet her smile, the hand always ready to clasp her own so that she could reach out blindly, eyes closed, confident of his touch. It was the constancy, the trust, so that she could have leapt out into space, knowing he would catch her.
That was today.
She knew tomorrow would come.
They took another train and travelled southwards to a gentle green velvet landscape threaded by the broad, pale ribbon of the Loire. A land mysterious with deep woods, generous with vines and vivid with flowers, set here and there, at sudden turnings, with gingerbread houses of story-book illustrations, Cinderella’s palace glimpsed, delicate and magical, through a pattern of rich foliage, Beauty slumbering for a hundred fragrant years in every tall, enchanted tower.
And here she dreamed no dreams of any kind.
They visited the castles of France’s kings at Chenonceaux and Chambord and Amboise, and strolled in the soft air through royal forests. They stood for the whole of one afternoon beside a cháteau the colour and texture of white smoke, rising spire upon fairy tale spire from a lake of pale green water. They climbed the steep medieval streets of Chinon, topped by its battlements, once the court of England’s Henry Plantagenet, where his lion-hearted son Richard had made himself a lair in which to die after his last crusade. They followed the course of the river, finding it placid, at this season, its surface the texture of silk scarcely ruffled by an almost amorous, lemon
-scented breeze. They inspected the vines at Vouvray and the caves, cut into the earth beneath the vineyards, an ice-cold, rough-hewn womb where the wine lay maturing in giant casks and miles of dusty bottles. And, emerging from the chill dark of the cellars into the trumpet blare of light and heat, they sat in the sunshine tasting a wine that placed all the flowers and spices of the region, all the green enchantment, the silken beauty of the river and the fine fragile romance of those enchanted castles, on Claire’s tongue.
A life within a life. A green glade in the dust-bowl that was often reality. From the moment of setting foot in France they had not spoken one word of Faxby or anyone connected with it. It had seemed unnecessary. Nor did the necessity arise on their return to Paris. Not immediately. But on the last morning but one she went alone to the Galeries Lafayette to buy presents for Dorothy and Edward to ease her conscience, thereby creating the necessity of taking something for Miriam, something for Polly, something for Eunice who could hardly be left out. And, since she was buying for everybody else, could she forget Nola? Or Kit? Or Mrs Tarrant, the housekeeper at the Crown, who had always been so kind to her. Or Adela Adair, the restaurant pianist, who always hung around, sad-eyed and dejected like a hungry dog at a banquet, when other people were unwrapping presents? And if she included Adela Adair and Mrs Tarrant, then what about MacAllister who was a rogue, of course, but would usually change shifts with her when she wanted to get away early? And Mr Clarence?
It took longer than she had expected and hurrying down the rue de la Paix and across the Place Vendome to the hotel she saw Benedict walking towards her. Nothing more extraordinary than that. Yet it stopped her in her tracks, her heart and her pulses leaping from sheer delight in him, and a great and wonderful surge of pride and pleasure.
She loved him.
She told him so.
‘Thank you,’ he said. An odd reply. And then ‘So you’ll do something for me, will you?’ That was better.
‘Yes.’ Whatever he wanted, no matter how immense, her answer, at that moment, would be yes.
‘Well – since you’re in a shopping mood – I want to buy you something. Something expensive and very extravagant. Will you accept it?’
‘Oh no,’ she said, ridiculously disappointed. ‘Why should you want to?’
‘Because it would please me. Don’t you want to please me?’
How could she deny that?
‘Then listen. A woman can express her feelings by giving her body. It’s what the world sees as her greatest asset, after all. A predatory male can hardly do that. So, when he wants to make a gesture of affection, he can only give his greatest asset. Money, if he has any. Preferably money he’s worked for. Earned with the sweat of his brow if possible. That makes the gesture particularly tender. And I’m not twenty-five any more, you know, and short of cash.’
Her throat, for just a moment, was too tight to speak and then, sounding gruff and uncertain, she said, ‘What do you want to buy?’
‘Anything you like. With the rue de la Paix just there, behind us, it shouldn’t be difficult.’
They took a great deal of time in the choosing, for she knew it was something she would treasure for the rest of her life and he stipulated only that she must be able to wear it openly and often; something, in fact – although he did not say this – which she could explain to her mother and to Miriam. A ring, therefore, of the value he insisted upon, would have caused too much comment. Several of the necklaces and bracelets which pleased her were, on reflection, too elaborate for Faxby. Earrings she already had. In the end, without daring to convert the francs into pounds, she chose an oval ruby, her birthstone, on a gold chain sprinkled with diamonds like tiny stars.
A lovely thing.
‘It suits you,’ he said, fastening it around her neck that night as she was dressing for dinner. ‘I’m just sorry I couldn’t bring it to you in some spectacular manner – like walking through the snow. As you did.’
She felt his hands tighten on her shoulders, sensed a corresponding tautness in his chest as he suddenly pulled her hard against him, holding her from behind so that she could not see his face.
‘I can’t forget that night, Claire. Have you any idea how terrible it was for me?’
‘Darling –?’
‘I was forty and falling in love –. It was like the onset of a disease I’d believed myself immune to. I didn’t want it. God help me, I want it now.’
‘You have it. I love you, Benedict.’
‘Hush,’ he said, ‘In my better moments I know. In my better moments it’s not what I want for you.’
They had dinner in a silence which became tender and afterwards, walking through the evening stillness of the Tuileries Gardens to the Place de la Concorde and the leafy beginnings of the Champs Elysées, she became aware of a feeling of shared sadness, a regret so gentle as to seem sweet and which settled around them like mist. It entered their bedroom that night, hovering over the luggage already packed and labelled ‘Mannheim Crescent’, ‘High Meadows’. It sat, visible as a heavily-veiled mourner, between them as they took that last, painfully cheerful breakfast before hurrying to the train. It seeped into the empty compartment and sat down before them, easily distinguishable from all the other mournful steams and vapours of the Gare du Nord. It accompanied them on board the channel steamer, wrapping itself around them like a sorrowful caress as they stood on deck, close together, in the sharp wind. It grew heavy, and thick, the mist becoming a fog through which they smiled at one another. And as the coast of France melted into the haze and the chalk cliffs of Dover gracefully emerged from a separate haze of their own, he took her hand and pressed his mouth very briefly against it.
‘Are you saying goodbye to me, Benedict?’
‘It would be sensible.’
‘Yes. Wouldn’t it.’
It seemed pointless to say more than that.
She was to go directly to Faxby. He was to stay the night in London. She thought it likely that he would then go down to Eastbourne to see Nola. She had no reason and no right to object. But when they reached the impersonal bustle of the city their plan to separate at once no longer suited him.
‘I shall take you to King’s Cross.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘I didn’t say that. I said I’d come with you and put you on the train.’
‘Benedict – the Faxby train. With the Leeds train on the next platform, I shouldn’t wonder. Dozens of people could recognize you.’
‘Yes. They’ll see me putting my sister-in-law on the train. What of it?’
‘Just take me to the station then. Don’t come on the platform.’
But at King’s Cross, having commandeered a porter and selected the first-class compartment into which he wished her luggage to be placed, they remained together, not saying a word, waiting with the dense melancholy of partings which may or may not be final, for the train to pull away, so that the slamming of the doors, the shrilling of the whistle, was both a relief and an agony. She had parted in this way from Paul. Only two years ago this station platform and every other had been taut with partings such as this, hands clasped tight through the carriage window, the silence vibrating and choking with the things one had left unsaid and which could hardly be called out now above the racket of the engine, the callous conversations of passers-by. Things which would sound small and foolish anyway to young men and women facing death.
It was not death this time. Unless it was the death of a future which had been forced as stillborn into the world as Nola’s child.
‘Are you going to Eastbourne now?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
It was as if she had asked him if he was on his way to Passchendaele.
‘I thought you would.’
‘Yes. She is my responsibility.’
‘And you’re also quite fond of her. So am I.’
He smiled and lifting her hand pressed it again to his cheek. ‘She would give up nothing for either one of us you know.’
/> ‘I know.’
‘So – it seems we have turned out to be rather nicer than we thought.’
The journey was over-familiar, very long, not particularly cold although, having begun to shiver, she found she could not stop; no more tedious than usual except that she came to believe it would never end. The last time she had travelled alone to Faxby on this train Edward had been there to meet her, peevish, unwilling, self-obsessed. Now there would be no one. Never mind. She would be better, tonight, on her own. Far better. And tomorrow she would go and make her peace at Upper Heaton, bearing gifts, telling lies, being pleasant to Edward for her mother’s sake. She took a cab from the station, knowing she was lucky to get it, and let herself into the empty flat. Home, How ridiculous. She had better unpack, light the fire, read some of the letters which had been pushed under her door. All that seemed ridiculous too. Perhaps she should go over to the hotel and get drunk, which seemed marginally more appealing. But, instead, she lay down, not even taking off her shoes, and smoked a cigarette, utterly disconsolate, watching the evening draw in.
There was no need to be alone. But, nevertheless, she lay there for a long time accustoming herself to the fact that ‘alone’now meant to her the condition of being, not without company, but without Benedict. Once it had meant being without Paul. But Benedict was alive. Not far away. She had wanted to make him happy. She understood that she had not, could not. Of what use was it? None whatsoever.
She dreamed for three nights of his face as it had been at the station, taut, grim, grey as dark skin can appear under stress; just his face, disembodied at the train window, the train hurtling through blank darkness at perilous speed. Her own fear, for herself speeding down that aimless track and for him, outside in the cold. And then the fourth night she dined at High Meadows, finding him there brisk and cool and sardonic as she had always known him, back from his unexplained journey about which no one had thought to question him.
‘Shall I take you home, Claire?’
‘Yes please.’
A Winter's Child Page 40
