by Ann Swinfen
Natasha eyed her shrewdly. 'You are looking – what was it Edmund used to say? Fine-drawn. Are you tired? Have you been working too hard?'
'Not really, no more than usual.'
But she looks exhausted, thought Natasha, with those grey shadows under her eyes. I do not like this. Always in the past she has been the resilient one, whatever life has thrown at her.
Just for a moment, Frances dropped on to the footstool beside Natasha's chair. I must leave soon, she warned herself, but it is good to slacken off for a minute. With Natasha I never need to put on an act.
Natasha poured the strong black coffee she liked for breakfast, and buttered a roll. Frances will tell me what is bothering her when she is ready. She has always resisted if you try to rush her, she thought.
'Some time today, if we get the chance, I wish to have a talk to you, Frances. About St Martins.'
Frances looked up in surprise. 'Yes, of course. We can probably find a corner of the afternoon, once everything is under way. After a certain point, parties of this size run themselves.'
'The excellent Mabel,' said Natasha, with a wicked grin, 'would not agree with you. But yes, doushenka, I think some time in the afternoon, before drinks on the terrace, perhaps. Then, we should have our talk.'
* * *
Anya Kilworth sat on the train, looking out at the familiar landscape. She had changed at Worcester, and the last part of the journey took less than an hour. She would be in Hereford before ten. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the prickly seat. Although this was supposed to be a non-smoking compartment, the upholstery reeked of stale cigarette smoke. It must be one of the many smoking carriages simply redesignated by British Rail, as fewer and fewer passengers wanted to smoke. She imagined the carriage as it had once been, with soldiers, and girls with bright crimson lipstick and hair rolled up in improbable shapes, all chain-smoking, permeating the very fabric with an odour it would never lose.
No, that was fanciful. Even on a British Rail rural line the carriage couldn't be that old, could it? What she was visualising was a scene from the forties, conjured up by all those old wartime films shown in endless repeats on television. She watched them compulsively. The world they showed was so alien that they provided a balm for the tension that had become part of her life. Despite the violence of the wartime background, they had a kind of innocence that was totally remote from her own experience. Last night she had dozed off while watching one, then was jerked awake by a raucous burst of canned laughter. It was the last episode of Dad's sitcom, Vet in Hot Water, that he was so proud of. She had opened her eyes to see him wallowing about on his back in the mire of a cow-yard. You could bet that the mire was something hygienic provided by the effects boys. Dad would never set his expensively shod foot inside a real farm. The skinny little girl who was supposed to be his assistant tried to pull him to his feet, and then she went down too, rolling him over in the mud. More canned laughter. Now she was dunking him in the horse trough to wash off the muck. Anya watched the girl thoughtfully. She's enjoying that. Getting a kick out of making the arrogant old bastard look a fool. She switched off the television.
God, men! she thought, opening her eyes now and watching the passing line of trees beside a hidden stream. She had waited till the last possible moment to get on the train at Oxford station. When the guard blew his whistle at 7.28, she had known for sure that Spiro wasn't coming. Up to that very moment she had clung to the hope that he might, that he would forgive her for the unforgivable things she had said last week. Why couldn't she have held them back? Shown some dignity? Always, in the past, she had been able to keep her feelings under control, to take them out and examine them rationally to herself, then tidy them away out of sight.
But with Spiro it was different. Probably because he himself was so different. The men she had gone out with over the years, even contemplated marrying, had all been British. And not only British but scholars, like herself. Like her they contained their feelings, put barriers round them. Were cool, rational, detached.
Right from the start, Spiro had awakened something in her that she hadn't known was there. She could not be sure whether it was because he was Greek, and so spoke easily of his feelings, without the inhibitions and embarrassments of her own set. Or whether it was because, for the first time, she was really in love. His presence disturbed her physically; no other man had affected her like that. It was not particularly pleasurable. Her feelings were so intense that she almost felt nausea. This angered her. Was, indeed, largely the source of her anger with him. Her life, for the first time, was getting out of control.
They had met at the tutorial college where she taught two days a week. This, with a little teaching for her own old Oxford college – Mum's old Oxford college – was her sole means of support. Despite her First Class Honours, her D.Phil., and three papers published in leading economic history journals, she had been unable to secure a permanent university post. After gaining her doctorate she had spent a year in Newcastle, filling in for someone who was away on sabbatical. After that, nothing full-time. She had come back to Oxford because you could usually pick up bits of teaching, but she did not earn quite enough to live on.
Spiro had a degree from the University of Athens, where his father was a professor of philosophy, a doctorate from Lille, and was now spending a year in Oxford, perfecting his English. He was very different from her other students at the college, who were mostly female, under twenty-five, and northern European. They were in Oxford primarily to look for husbands. They were pleasant enough girls, but Anya had little in common with them.
She had begun to go out with Spiro after breaking up with an unsatisfactory boyfriend, and saw it as a casual relationship. But some spark of attraction had caught between them. They had spent a good deal of time during the last months travelling about the English countryside on trains and local buses, sampling little restaurants and visiting the more out-of-the-way corners of the Cotswolds and the Welsh border country. Spiro had fallen in love with Britain – surprising, Anya thought, for a Greek. While she had talked of her academic ambitions, he had talked of the countryside. He was supposed to be going back to his previous university post in Greece, but seemed less and less enthusiastic about it.
'I am beginning to feel stifled by universities,' he said as they were travelling back by bus after a warm spring day spent wandering about Northleach. 'Whenever I pick up an economics textbook, I cannot breathe. Can you understand this? I want something different.' He smiled at her ruefully. 'Until now, I think I have been following the path laid down by my father, as a dutiful son should do. But I want to stray off the path. I want something free and open, where I can be in control of my life.'
Anya, leaning her head back against the plush cushion, had smiled at him sleepily, barely listening.
Then, three weeks ago, he had exploded his bombshell. He had asked her to marry him. And he had said he wanted to open a Greek restaurant in a Welsh village. Anya had reacted with contempt. 'Just like any greasy little Soho Greek,' she had said. She could still hear the words as they had hung in the air between them.
There is no way, Anya thought grimly to herself, that I am going to allow my life to be ruined the way Mum's was ruined. I don't want to look back on my life from my fifties and know that I have been a failure. That the whole of my life has been spent as the compliant shadow of some man, bearing his children, keeping his house, tied to his second-rate career, denying all my own talents and – yes – what I have to offer to the world. Mum is a dire warning to us all, of what happens to gifted women who mess up their lives with the wrong men.
The train intercom over her head crackled and emitted heavy breathing.
'Hereford, ladies and gentlemen. We are now approaching Hereford. Will you please ensure that you take all luggage with you when you leave the train. We are approximately six minutes late. Hereford.'
Chapter 3
At the far end of the lawn, Nicholas, Tony and Paul were struggling to
put up the Scouts' big faded green tent. Tempers were growing a little short. Bob was banging tent poles together, while Sarah sat at the edge of the grass pulling up daisies and tasting them, with a thoughtful look on her face.
'Well, I don't think everything is here,' said Paul, who was in a jumpy state. 'I don't see how there can possibly be enough poles there to build the frame for all of this.'
They stood around the mass of limp canvas, which had a distinctly discouraged look about it.
Tony was being very offhand about the whole thing. 'Scrap it,' he suggested laconically. 'It's not going to rain anyway.'
Nicholas was systematically trying out different combinations of poles. 'It would help if we had some instructions,' he muttered.
'Shall I go and phone Mr Peters?' suggested Paul, who wanted to get back to Lisa. He had left her sitting quietly in the small sitting room, but he didn't trust her not to go and start helping Sally in the kitchen. He was uneasy about her. The party was sure to tire her, and she looked fagged out already.
* * *
From a wicker chair on the terrace, Natasha watched them. She was too far away to hear their voices, but she read their movements with amusement. It was as clear as a mime. Nicholas was slow and thorough like his grandfather, William. It was what made him a good solicitor. He would probably solve the problem while the others argued. Paul had the schoolmaster's tendency to take verbal charge, ordering the others about while doing little that was constructive himself. Just now he was suggesting something that the other two ignored. Tony was lounging back against a tree, watching his brother struggle with the poles. He would hold aloof until Nicholas failed to fit the last part together, then point out the obvious and take the credit. Poor Nicholas had always regarded his younger brother with a mixture of admiration and irritation.
It hardly seemed to justify their efforts. This tent Mabel had borrowed from the Scoutmaster was a poor thing, not at all what she had had in mind when she suggested a marquee. She had mentioned it quite idly to Irina and Mabel, remembering parties on the lawn of the British embassy in Paris in the twenties.
'Don't you remember, doushenka?' she said to Irina. 'You were only small, but you were always so thrilled with the ices, for we never had them at home.'
Irina did remember. She had worn a white dress, with a bright yellow scarf of her mother's tied round the waist as a sash, and shiny black patent leather shoes. She had been very proud of those shoes, but a horrid boy had stamped on her toes when they were waiting to be given their ices. She had almost fled back to her parents, but greed had held her. And it had been worth it. She could still see the silver dish, and the heaped spheres – cream and pink and pale yellow. She remembered rolling the ice-cream on her tongue, stunningly cold, so that you only began to taste it as it melted.
Was that one party or many, telescoped together in her memory? She couldn't be sure.
'When I was a girl in Russia,' Natasha explained to Mabel, 'there were always pavilions in the gardens, to shelter from the sun or the rain. So we had no need of such a thing as a marquee. But in your terrible English weather of June, nothing is certain.'
* * *
It is Petya's eighth birthday, and Mama and Papa have arranged a party. It is a great secret. That is, Natasha and her sisters know about it, and all the servants. But Petya does not, or at least he is not supposed to. But he must have seen the tables that have been set out in the pavilion, and the Chinese lanterns suspended from the trees. Petya, however, is pretending to notice nothing.
Natasha does not mind that Petya should have so much fuss made of his birthday. She remembers her parents' joy when at last a boy was born after five girls. Like the poor Tsarina, Mama had almost given up hope. There was a wait of eight years after Natasha, the youngest girl, and it seemed that the Greshlovs were not to be blessed. Despite the gap between them, Natasha and Petya have always been close companions. When he was a baby, the eight-year-old Natasha guarded him fiercely, driving away any nursemaids she did not like. It was she who spent hours tenderly assisting his first toddling steps, who bandaged his knees when he fell, who taught him – first his nursery rhymes and later his letters. Mama might have been jealous, but for the love glowing from Natasha like a lamp, and her pride in each of Petya's achievements.
Now Natasha is a tall girl, almost grown up, and Petya has friends outside the family, boys of his own age, but it is always to Natasha he turns when he is in trouble.
The party starts at lunchtime. The Greshlovs and their friends are to take a simple summer luncheon in the garden. The table is laid with starched linen. Columns of footmen carry out the Sèvres bleu du roi porcelain, the Venetian goblets, covered dishes, bottles of wine in ice-filled buckets. Then suddenly crowds of little boys and girls rush from the house, where they have been waiting with their nurses. Each has a party hat of satin, feathers and sequins, and each carries a balloon, which they tie to the trees. The footmen lift up the smaller ones so that they can reach.
After the meal, the children play quiet, organised games, but some of the older boys become rowdy and run off down to the lake. One of them falls in and there is great drama and excitement while he is fished out by a gardener, dripping and chastened.
Then a group of players arrives and everyone gathers below the terrace to watch them. First they mime the story of Baba Yaga. When the black witch suddenly whirls round and rushes down amongst the children, one little girl starts to scream and scream, and has to be carried indoors to recover. Natasha becomes uneasy watching the players. There is something sinister about them, with their leering masks, through which the inscrutable eyes glitter remotely. Petya is standing beside her, and she feels his hand slip into hers for reassurance.
The performers throw aside their masks and change their costumes, and suddenly they are wearing embroidered peasants' clothes and dancing to the balalaika. Everyone laughs and claps in relief.
By evening the children are tired and fractious, and are taken away to bed. But Papa has another surprise up his sleeve. There is to be an evening party as well, with an orchestra and dancing under the stars. Everywhere there are young men wanting to dance with Natasha Ivanovna, who has grown so beautiful. Young men in dazzling uniforms, young men in cut-away coats and shirts of a dazzling white, with diamond or opal studs. And Natasha dances and dances until she is drunk with the music and the spinning.
'Beloved,' whispers a second cousin, who is rising fast in the Tsar's court, 'your hand is as white and as soft as the neck of a swan. Your hair is spun gold. Marry me, Natasha my darling, white rose, heart of my heart.'
* * *
'Natasha?' whispered Katya cautiously.
Her great-grandmother appeared to be asleep. Katya was about to back away when the heavy eyelids – softly purple where the veins showed through the papery skin – fluttered and opened. For a moment Natasha looked at her in confusion, then she smiled, blinked and shook herself a little.
'I am sorry, lyubushka. I was dozing. I am afraid I quite often slip away like that. Come and sit with me for a while.'
Katya, who would have resented being called 'little dear' by anyone else (wasn't she nearly five foot seven now?), did as she was told.
'I mustn't stop long. They want me to cycle down to the village for some things, then I'm going with Tony to the station to meet his girlfriend. We have to leave in three-quarters of an hour. Everybody's getting in a panic – they don't think we'll be ready in time for the service.' She waved a shopping list. 'I came to ask whether there was anything you'd like me to get for you.'
'No, I don't think so. Tell me how is your life.'
Katya cupped her chin in her hand and stared gloomily across the lawn, where the tent had just fallen down again. Two shapes could be seen thrashing wildly about inside. Tony watched with detached amusement from his position by the tree.
'Everything is dire, Natasha. I hate it in Reading. Dad is away more than ever with this telly thing he's in. Not that I mind, really. Mostly he's
only at home when he's out of work, and then he mopes around the house and drives Mum and me wild. Even when he is home . . .' A fragile loyalty held her back for a moment, then she went on with a rush. 'They don't exactly row. They've always done that, off and on. Now they just don't seem to have anything to say to each other. Or to me. And when it's just Mum and me, well, she seems kind of switched off, you know? As though she isn't hearing what you say. And she isn't. Because when you ask her afterwards, she doesn't remember a word. And school is foul.' Her voice shook a little. 'I've never liked that school, not from the day I started, but it just gets worse and worse.'
Natasha took her hand, but continued to look out over the lawn. 'Frances tells me that now you are always top of your class, the others have been making things difficult for you. This is true?'
Katya wriggled with embarrassment. She was conscious of the social unacceptability of academic success. 'Mum told you that? I didn't think she even noticed.'
'Oh yes, doushenka, she noticed.'
'I don't suppose,' Katya asked, her voice tense with longing, 'that I could come and live at St Martins?'
'Only if your mother says you may. Have you asked her?'
Katya shook her head numbly. A sense of responsibility, of guilt even, had held her back from saying anything to her mother. As the last child remaining at home after Tony's departure for a shared studio flat in Notting Hill, she had come to see herself as Frances's ally against an obscurely hostile world. She longed to help, but was tongue-tied when confronted by inexplicable adult emotions. Frances, who had been her rock and her refuge, seemed nowadays to be frail with fatigue, her eyes drooping with sadness. The whole house was filled with it. Once or twice Katya had even come upon her crying, and had fled in horror.
