by Ann Swinfen
'I remember. I remember the first time we switched on the lights. It was very exciting, though I've always felt a bit sorry we had to say goodbye to the oil lamps. I loved their soft light.'
'Not so good to read music by, when your eyes are getting worn out,' said Peter crisply.
'And of course the electricity was a great boon for the fridge and then the freezer. And now I don't suppose we would think we could manage without washing machines and dishwashers. It was a good thing you had the generator restored, because it wasn't until – what was it? – 1984 that they brought the mains electricity up here.'
'That's right.'
'But – these repairs. A concert, you think? It would need to be in Wembley stadium for that kind of money.'
He shrugged. 'I don't know. How do people raise money these days? Sponsored marathons?'
Frances laughed. 'I don't see any of us running in a marathon.'
'Talk to Natasha,' he said.
'But you see, Peter. It isn't really my business. I don't live here any more.'
He gave her a penetrating look. 'Don't you? Well, perhaps you should.'
* * *
Giles was enjoying himself. He had been moving about amongst the crowds, bestowing his wonderful smiles about him, like coins. From a discreet distance he had watched Natasha and Nigel talking, and was reassured that they seemed to be pleased with each other's company. He had spoken to Nick and Anya, heard from Tony about Lisa's hasty departure to hospital, and managed to avoid Katya, who frankly scared him these days. He hadn't yet seen his wife, but she would be somewhere about.
St Martins was looking very beautiful in its crazy, haphazard way, the stone warmed to soft straw colour by the early summer sun and the half-timbered portions bulging pleasingly out of true. He hadn't often spent time in the garden, not being an outdoor man himself, but he saw now what presence the place had – its proportions, the spaciousness of the buildings and grounds, the sheer, majestic height of the old trees. He had forgotten the ha-ha, with its rough ground beyond, where there were sometimes sheep but which today was full of children. He wasn't sure he had even known there was a meadow. For a full five minutes he leaned on the crumbling wall that divided the garden from the meadow, gazing over it with real pleasure. Amazing. Amongst the feathery waving grasses it was full of flowers – tiny blue stars on thin stems and great vigorous heads of yellow and flat red flowers as thin and crumpled as tissue paper, which he thought might be poppies. Frances would know all their names. As, of course, would Hugh. Briefly he regretted that he had been raised in a service flat in Mayfair, his childhood visits to the country being confined to picnics around Cannes, when his parents made their regular summer visits to the Côte d'Azur.
He had begun to feel lately that there were a lot of things he had not taken proper account of in the past. Frances and her family, and all this, for a start. Perhaps he and Frances should try to spend more time down here, recharging the batteries. The discussion with Nigel over lunch, about his planned series and his view of St Martins, had started Giles thinking that he might quite fancy being a country gentleman. It would have been impossible when Frances suggested it all those years ago, of course, but now that he was established . . . He imagined himself into the role of country landowner, in plus-fours, with a gun over his arm and a pair of dogs at his heels. He didn't like dogs, of course. Strange dogs approaching him in the street had made him nervous as a child, and he had never quite shaken off the nervousness as an adult. He had absolutely banned dogs from the house in Reading. But for the image he was building up in his mind, some dogs about the place would be necessary. Not allowed into the house, of course, as Harry and Jeannie were at present.
He would stroll about, keeping an eye on things. Perhaps exchange a few comments about the crops and the weather with Alun Philips. Have his morning coffee in the sunken garden and a G. and T. on the terrace in the evening, with a few distinguished house guests invited down from London for the weekend. He had a brief, unsettling vision of a pert housemaid serving the drinks in a white frilled cap and an apron worn over an abbreviated black dress that tipped up, as she leaned forward, to reveal frilly white lace knickers. Of course, that was the farce he had been in, years ago – his first West End part. He had played the young love interest, the son of the house who was engaged to a frightfully nice girl but kept falling about in the bushes with every other female in the cast except his mother and an old dowager. It had been good fun. That was when Frances had insisted they invest the money in a house, and he had wanted to stay on in the rented London flat.
She'd probably been right, he had to concede. Life with five children would have become intolerable in that flat, and they could never have afforded to buy it. Whereas he'd made enquiries recently about the value of the Reading house, and been agreeably surprised. Sell that, invest the money for a tidy little bit of income, and move to St Martins. Natasha didn't need the main part of the house any more, it was far too much for her in her old age. They could make a little granny flat for her on the ground floor of the east wing, which wasn't much used at present. Or better still, they could find her a nice retirement home, where she could be looked after properly. As long as it wasn't too expensive.
The image was taking on a very pleasing shape. He hadn't been happy, approaching middle age, and had fought against it, in his mind, for a long time. Looking at his contemporaries in the theatre, he wondered that most of them could accept it so calmly – the men, at any rate. As for the women – well, actresses in their forties and fifties, even a few in their sixties, seemed to manage to stay so much younger and more vital looking these days. For Giles, the arrival of his fifties had seemed like a trick, a nasty, subversive attack. He couldn't stop himself fancying girls in their twenties, still thinking of himself as the same age. But many things had been nudging him lately – the sitcom role, his thinning hair, his slight deterioration in health, a kind of weariness with life which wasn't like him at all.
About a month ago he had had an unsettling conversation with an old friend, a contemporary at Oxford who had gone on the stage at the same time as Giles. Rupert had had a highly successful career – including seventeen years in Hollywood. He had been through three divorces in fairly quick succession, but on returning to England at the age of forty had married a Kentish farmer's daughter and fathered three cheerful, uncomplicated children. His marriage was blissful, and he now took only those parts he really wanted to play – mostly on television, he said, because the working conditions were so much more civilised than the live theatre. He played middle-aged and elderly (often very elderly) parts with great charm and subtlety, and was regarded as an enormous prize by any casting director.
Giles had been invited to Sunday lunch at Rupert and Mary's small farm near Goudhurst – a proper, old-fashioned affair (roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, three veg, and a summer pudding with cream). Quite unlike the meals his set in London consumed these days. The whole family (and Giles, who was expected to help) had cleared the table and washed up in the big sunny kitchen where they had eaten. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, and yet it had been, oddly, great fun. It had reminded him of his infrequent visits to St Martins before his marriage, but in those days he had despised the big family meals round the kitchen table, the sheer casualness of it all.
When the dishes were done, Giles had been lent a pair of muddy wellingtons and been taken off by Rupert and his younger son to admire the goats, who had three new kids. Mary made goats' milk cheese and ice-cream, and to Rupert's great delight had won several prizes.
Full of excellent lunch and a sense of benevolence, Giles had told Rupert how lucky he was, how he envied him.
'I don't have anything you couldn't have yourself, old man. You have a beautiful wife and a fine family of children. Grandchildren too, you lucky sod.'
'Don't!' said Giles, as he would in London, and shuddered. 'I don't admit to being a grandfather.'
'Don't be a fool,' said Rupert, smiling at him to
lerantly. 'Best period of one's life. I envy you, as a matter of fact. Being a grandfather while you're still young enough to enjoy it. I'm a late starter, so I can't hope even to become one till I'm past sixty-five.'
Giles leaned on the gate to the goats' field and watched one of the kids feeding, with its ridiculous tail whisking round and round.
'I don't feel like that myself,' he said gloomily. 'It's death in our profession, once you reach middle age. And I don't know how all the time has slipped away. Where have they all gone, those years? I don't feel as though I've got anywhere.'
'That's how I felt when I came back from the States. Nearly twenty years of so-called success and money-making. But the films weren't of the lasting kind. My personal life was a total mess. And the money had all gone in divorce settlements. I decided to start all over again. Stop thinking about being a glamorous young star and concentrate on parts that gave me personal satisfaction – and believe me, it's the older parts that have real depth to them. Made up my mind to live quietly within my means. Then I met Mary, and everything just seemed to come together. I've never been as happy as this in my life before, never. For heaven's sake, man, stop trying to be young! Enjoy the age you are – it's the prime of life! Otherwise, you'll turn around one day and find you are old, without having had the pleasures of middle life.'
Amazed by this outburst from Rupert, who had once been so elegant and arrogant a young blood, Giles could only grunt noncommittally.
'We all envied you Frances, you know,' said Rupert, grinning. 'That beautiful, intelligent girl – can't think why she fell for you instead of me. And the astonishing thing is, she's more beautiful than ever now. Motherhood and middle age obviously suit her. Can't think why you live this life, semi-detached from her. And still chasing bits of skirt who can't hold a candle to her. Honestly, Giles – why don't you grow up?'
* * *
'Happy?' Gregor asked unexpectedly, meeting Frances by the tent, where she was herding together the children for the nature trail.
She stood quite still, for a moment, half turned towards him, her arms full of cardigans and jerseys pressed on her by children as the afternoon grew hotter.
Happy? What an odd thing for him to say to her. She had arrived this morning torn by doubts, guilty at not feeling guilty about Giles. She was worried about Katya and Anya, even a bit concerned about Tony. Dad's helplessness was so distressing she tried not to think about it. And now, this afternoon, this new worry about Lisa. The premature contractions might mean something had gone wrong with the baby. She couldn't get that out of her mind. And there was this blow about the £100,000 needed to repair St Martins, and Nick's and Peter's certainty that she would find a way to solve their problems.
How could she feel happy? Yet she realised that she was strangely light of heart, standing here in the middle of the garden party, with the children swirling around her and the parents entering a sleepy mid-afternoon phase.
Gregor was looking at her as he had done several times that day, as though he was trying to peer inside her, and read her thoughts. There had been a time when they could always read each other's thoughts, like twins. She smiled at him uncertainly.
'Happy? Yes. Yes, I'm happy. And you?'
'Oh yes.' He lifted the pile of jerseys out of her arms and set them on the grass beside the tent.
* * *
And Frances herself, thought Giles. His casual affairs had begun to pall recently. There was something tawdry about them, he had to admit. There had been a lot of truth in what Rupert had said. And through it all Frances had remained faithful to him. He didn't deserve it, he knew. But there had always been a straightness and honesty in her character. She would never have betrayed him behind his back. If she had had enough of him, she would have said so, openly and to his face.
Rupert thought her even more beautiful now than when she was a girl. Such a thought had never entered Giles's head, attracted as he was by the bland, characterless faces of his usual girls. He had stopped looking at Frances a long time ago. Frances was simply there, familiar and comfortable as a favourite armchair. Something to come back to when you were tired and wanted soothing.
He caught sight of her now, over by that awful green tent someone had put up. Children were dancing about her like gnats, and she was talking to that fellow Gregor, the sculptor, who had been brought up as a sort of adopted brother to Frances and Hugh. Giles found he was seeing her properly now, quite suddenly. Her dark brown hair fell forward over her cheeks as she leaned down to speak to Chrissie. There were some grey hairs in it, he knew, but only a few. You couldn't tell that from here, and it was as thick and glossy as ever. She was wearing one of the long flared skirts she had always favoured, because, she said, they gave you freedom of movement. It was a knitted fabric of cream printed with soft blues and greens. She wore a cream blouse with a collar that turned up at the back, and she had rolled the sleeves up to the elbow. She looked serene and composed, and totally remote from him.
As he watched, she grew suddenly still. Gregor had said something that startled her. With his actor's aptitude for reading body language, Giles could see that as clearly as if he had been beside them. He saw her suddenly smile at Gregor, her whole face alive and eager. My God! thought Giles. She is beautiful. I never realised.
He saw Gregor lean across and take a pile of something – clothes it looked like – out of her arms. He placed them carefully on the ground. Then he touched Frances's bare arm. It was an oddly intimate gesture.
* * *
Nicholas had managed to escape from a couple who lived at Stanway Bridges and who were clients of the law firm in which he was the junior partner. They had cornered him half an hour before, trying to get some free advice about a dispute they were involved in with a neighbour who had built a fence encroaching on their property. He felt rather indignant about this, wanting to point out that he would not come to the husband in the middle of a party and expect him to mend his car. (The husband owned three garages in the neighbourhood.) However, he had not yet devised a way of wriggling out of such situations politely.
He wished he could ask William's advice about the best way to deal with this recurrent problem, but conversation with his grandfather was embarrassing and agonising these days, as the old man strained to form the words of simple sentences. Nicholas had noticed Mabel helping him off a little while ago for an afternoon rest, so he would be fit for the evening's events. Some of the guests were drifting away too, those who lived nearby, to put younger children down for naps while the older children were entertained on the nature trail. There would be a general lull now, until drinks were served on the terrace as they all gathered again for the play.
His mind was full of the things he had to do – take charge of the nature trail with Mum if Paul didn't turn up within the next ten minutes, help Sally and the others lay out the costumes in the small sitting room and Natasha's bedroom, which were being used as dressing rooms. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he remembered they still had to do before the play. He needed to fix that loose hinge on the step-ladder before he could tack up the drapes at the back of the terrace. Help! He looked at his watch. Only three hours before it started, and he was sure Chrissie and Samira hadn't pinned the flowers to the grassy bank. He needed to talk to Eddie Pembridge about some of the scene changes too.
Nicholas hurried across the garden towards the house. Simon Frobisher fell into step beside him.
'A splendid event, Mr Kilworth,' he said suavely. 'Allow me to congratulate you.'
Nicholas made the usual mumbling disclaimer that such a remark provokes.
'It must be difficult for you,' Simon continued smoothly, 'so much responsibility. All these old people depending on you – Mrs Devereux so frail and aged, the other ladies not getting any younger (though managing so splendidly today), Mr Kaufmann confined to a wheelchair, your grandfather so tragically struck down. It is a lot of responsibility for a young man just making his way in his profession, with a wife and
three young children too.'
Nicholas, only half attending to him, mumbled again. He hardly knew the fellow, and considered his remarks intrusive and offensive. He would not demean himself by pointing out that the older members of the community, though no longer as physically robust as they had once been, were all still mentally as keen-edged as ever. Including his grandfather, he suspected. A speech therapist had started to work with him, and Nick was confident that William's quiet, unshowy determination would win back his speech. He did not in any way feel that the leadership of St Martins fell on his shoulders. He and Sally were still very junior members of the community.
'I believe you are faced with some very serious repairs to the property,' Simon Frobisher was saying. 'Worrying, worrying, trying to keep up these old properties. Constant drain on the purse.'
Suddenly Nicholas was listening. Where had the fellow found that out? Very few of the community even knew about it – himself, Natasha, Peter, Gregor. Peter had probably told Birgit, but she wouldn't have discussed it with anyone. Of course, they had had some initial estimates done, and this Frobisher had his finger in the building trade, as well as his various other interests – so Nicholas had heard. Perhaps he had picked up some rumour from his connections amongst the local tradesmen.
Nicholas stopped and turned to the other man.
'What makes you think that?'
Simon made a deprecating gesture. 'Oh, just something I heard.' He smiled at Nicholas. He had a wide, hearty smile that did not touch his eyes, which were shrewd and fixed intently on Nicholas.
