A Pure Clear Light

by Madeleine St John

  A box, in the fridge. ‘Goodness,’ said Flora. ‘Let’s go and see.’

  She opened the refrigerator and there, indeed, was a box. ‘Dear Mrs Beaufort, this box come for you today p.m. Have put it here on account perishble being flours. Yours, M. Brick.’

  Flora looked at the name on the box. ‘Ooh la la,’ she said. Nell and Thomas had by now received the vibrations of mystery and excitement and were gathered to witness the revelation. ‘Open it, Mum,’ said Thomas.

  ‘You know,’ said Flora, ‘I do believe I will.’ And she did.

  A velvet-thick fragrance rose in great white plumes, suffusing their souls with an ecstasy almost unbearable—and yet never quite sufficient: like an ambrosia the desire for which grows with the drinking thereof.

  ‘Oh!’ cried Nell.

  ‘Ah!’ cried Janey.

  ‘Oh, what is it?’ said Thomas.

  ‘I think I must be dreaming,’ said Flora.

  Gardenias; gardenias, in the plural. Several of them, nestled creamily together in a ravishing little bouquet, surrounded by their green leaves and tied with a pale green satin ribbon. ‘Oh!’ said Flora, gingerly picking up the box and smelling the flowers from close to. ‘I can hardly bear it.’

  ‘Let us smell too,’ the children cried.

  ‘But be very careful,’ said Flora; ‘you must never touch gardenias, or they go brown. Thomas, can I trust you? Very very careful, darling.’ The children very carefully smelled the flowers.

  ‘Oh, it’s blissful,’ said Nell.

  ‘It’s pukkah!’ said Thomas.

  ‘Who sent them?’ said Janey. Flora picked up the card.

  ‘I wonder,’ she said, and smiled. ‘Don’t ever leave me . . .’ it said, ‘. . . for a day longer than a month. S.’

  ‘Who sent them?’ said Nell.

  ‘Just a chap I know.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’

  ‘Not Dad,’ said Janey. ‘Not Dad. ’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Not Da-ad,’ said Nell.

  She and Janey were both giggling. ‘Not Dad,’ they cried, dancing about and shrieking.

  ‘Not Dad!’ cried Thomas, mystified altogether, but determined to join the party. ‘Not him!’

  They didn’t get over it for days; not until the gardenias had turned—as, alas, they must—quite brown, and were all (except one) thrown away. Nell got the piece of ribbon, because she asked for it first, but Thomas got the box. Janey, of course, was too old to care about that sort of thing.

  30

  It wasn’t going to be quite so easy from now on, at least for a time.

  ‘Poor darling, you look knackered.’

  ‘You know, to tell you the plain truth, I am knackered.’

  ‘This is the first time this week that you’ve come in before midnight. The children haven’t seen you to speak of for days.’

  ‘You know the form, Flora.’

  ‘Is it nearly finished?’

  ‘Yep. Nearly finished. No more late nights.’ What the hell was he going to do? There was some barbed wire across the fine straight line, to be stepped over very very carefully, leaving no telltale scratches.

  ‘Louisa wondered if we might dine next Friday, can I say yes?’

  ‘Sure. Say yes.’ Why not.

  That was the least of it. He’d been sleeping in the dressing room since Flora’s return from France—he usually did that anyway when he was working late; she was a nervy sleeper. It was time to return to the deep peace of the marriage bed: but actually it was peaceful no longer: it was the place above all others where he was bound to see (if only to glimpse) that there did exist the question of right and wrong. It might not truly be pertinent: he might inhabit a sort of paradise beyond its writ: but in that place, where Flora was so near to him—near to him spiritually even more overwhelmingly than she was physically—he couldn’t but see that there remained, theoretically, such a question. That it could, theoretically, be pondered, by another if not by him. That he could, theoretically, be convicted as a malefactor. By Flora, for example. This was a piece of barbed wire which would take a lot of stepping over.

  Flora was stitching: tapestry seat-covers for the dining-room chairs. She would tell you laughingly that she expected to complete the last one by the year 2000. No, not flowers: seashells. A different kind for each chair. The scallop, the conch, the nautilus…resting on the sand, with the wide ocean’s wild depths in the background; and sometimes a cloud or two in the sky above. ‘Flora, you are clever!’ ‘And industrious.’ ‘It’s terribly good therapy, actually.’ She stuck her needle in the side of the canvas and rolled it up. ‘Shall we go to bed?’ she said.

  ‘Let’s just have a nightcap first,’ said Simon.

  He rose from his semi-supine sprawl and fetched the bottle of Armagnac which Flora had brought back from France. ‘Just a very tiny one,’ she said. He handed it to her and she sipped carefully. ‘A thimble full of the warm south,’ she said.

  He laughed, and took a much larger mouthful. He smacked his lips. ‘These frogs are so bloody clever sometimes that they leave the rest of us standing,’ he said.

  ‘But we had the Empire,’ Flora pointed out.

  ‘They had an empire too.’

  ‘We had the Empire.’

  ‘Yes, it’s true, isn’t it? Pretty amazing, really.’

  ‘Dreadful, of course.’

  ‘Oh yes, dreadful. Never live it down.’

  ‘But pretty fabulous, all the same.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. Literally, metaphorically, fabulous. You missed some amazing cricket while you were in France, by the way.’

  ‘Not quite. William and his friends kept track on the World Service and then regaled us in some detail.’

  Simon laughed. ‘One thing the frogs didn’t think of,’ he said happily. ‘Couldn’t have thought of. Not them. Not in a zillion years.’

  ‘Not the cucumber sandwiches either,’ Flora said.

  ‘We’re all right really, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, we’re all right really. ’

  ‘Shall we go up?’

  Flora put down her glass. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  Simon climbed into bed beside her: he had showered; his hair was still damp. He put his arms around Flora. She smelt of verbena. The barbed wire was behind him. ‘I love you,’ he said. It was true.

  31

  ‘Do you love me?’

  ‘Do I what?’

  ‘Love me.’

  ‘Good God. You know how I feel about you.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘If you don’t then you haven’t been here. I’ve been fucking a ghost, all these weeks. Here, ask the cat. Ask Solomon. How do I feel about your mistress, Puss?’ The cat sat quite still, staring at them steadily. ‘You heard him,’ Simon said. He sat up and helped himself to one of her cigarettes. ‘Love,’ he said. ‘You want love, too, do you?’

  ‘I didn’t say so.’

  ‘Then why did you ask?’

  ‘Simply out of interest.’

  ‘Your interest was frivolous, then.’

  ‘Gosh, sorry. I didn’t realise that I was expected always to be serious.’

  ‘About some things, yes. As you’d expect me to be.’

  ‘You’re being very masterful this evening.’

  ‘You’ve provoked me into it. Perhaps that was your intention.’

  She thought for a while. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I really wanted to know what you think of me. As a person. Sort of thing.’

  ‘It was my understanding that you wanted to be fucked stupid, and nothing more. In fact I think you said that there can be nothing more.’

  ‘It’s true that I don’t believe that people can give each other anything more—not without setting up some sort of horrible dependency; and then goodbye autonomy. Of course. But that doesn’t mean that one has no impression of the other person, of their character, their personality, their moral worth, etcetera. I mean, you must know me quite well by now
—don’t you?’

  ‘The concept of knowing, in the sense you’ve just used it, is pretty much beyond my comprehension,’ said Simon. ‘I don’t claim to know you in the way you suggest. Our relationship is quite rigidly defined. It would otherwise be out of the question. We’re lovers, that’s all. There’s nothing more to it.’

  ‘You wouldn’t care, if anything happened to me?’

  ‘I’d regret it bitterly and even at length. You’re the fuck of a lifetime. As you very well know. As you even intended you should be—I mean, that is the game, isn’t it? Not chess, not tennis, not roses round the door and 2.4 children, but pure unadulterated sex.

  Of course I don’t want anything to happen to you.’

  ‘Until you’ve done with me.’

  ‘Or you with me.’

  They were silent. ‘Now that you’ve raised the matter,’ said Simon, ‘I suppose I’m bound to ask you, whether you really are quite sure that this is all you want. If not, all that there ever can be.’

  ‘It’s a question of what is really possible,’ she said, ‘within the limits of maintaining one’s autonomy.’

  ‘This autonomy,’ said Simon.

  ‘I saw what the lack of it did to my mother,’ she said.

  ‘You may find yourself having to think again,’ said Simon.

  ‘Sooner or later. Don’t you really want ever to marry? Well, if not actually marry, at any rate commit yourself to a full-time all-out relationship? To say nothing of having children.’

  ‘Not so far,’ said Gillian Selkirk. ‘Right now I’ve got other fish to fry.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Simon. He had caught a glimpse of the flaw in her perfect, impregnable notion of autonomy and of the personal frailty which it had been designed to protect: but he did not want to ponder these things now. If ever. ‘The trouble is,’ he said, ‘I just haven’t got the time, the way things are, to fuck you really stupid.

  If I had, you wouldn’t be asking all these questions.’ He put out the cigarette and turned towards her. He reached out a hand and began to caress her. ‘Why me?’ he said. ‘Considering the disadvantages.’

  ‘I just fancied you,’ she said. ‘A lot.’ So there they were.

  He was managing to see her now only two or three times a week, and then not for very long, but as he drove back to Hammersmith he thought, well at any rate there isn’t much chance as things are of our getting bored with each other. They hadn’t even arrived at the stage of getting used to each other.

  Not that he’d ever become bored—exactly—with Flora. But that was utterly different. All those years. All those children. And all the rest of it. Mother of God. As Flora would say.

  32

  ‘I’m just going for a walk.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I just want to.’

  ‘Let me come with you then.’

  ‘No, you stay with the children. That’s the whole point. See, you don’t even have to get up. You can stay here with the papers; all you have to do is listen out and make sure they don’t kill or injure each other.’

  ‘Can’t Janey do that?’

  ‘No, Janey’s one of the children.’

  ‘Oh God, all right then. Off you go. Why are you wearing that lot?’ It was her tweed suit, with the nice fitted jacket.

  ‘I just want to. See you soon. Bye-bye!’

  Why was she going for a walk, in a suit, on a Sunday morning?

  Oh—ye gods! Simon leaped out of bed and ran to the window. ‘Flora!’ he called. She was at the bottom of the path already; she turned and waved and then kept on going. ‘Come back soon!’ he cried, but it was a pretty hopeless effort. It was too late to do anything. Much too late to stop her. But he knew—oh, he knew what was afoot: he’d sussed it, just a moment too late: Flora was going to church. He should have seen it coming.

  He got back into bed with the papers, but it wasn’t the same any more, so he got up and showered and dressed. He’d glanced at the time just after his éclaircissement: 10.45: right, so now, he was thinking, she should fetch up again around 12.30: ish. And then he had a rather brilliant idea. He looked at his watch, and laid his plans.

  At midday, ‘Come on, you kids!’ he called. ‘We’re going for a walk!’

  Nell’s face appeared around the bannister at the half-landing. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘And where’s Mum?’

  ‘You’ll find out,’ said Simon, ‘if you come for a walk with me.’

  ‘I don’t want to go for walk,’ she said.

  It took some doing. Even rounding them all up took some doing: cajoling them—ordering them—enticing them—bribing them—that, basically, was what it came to—took some doing. Ye-gods, kids! They were beyond belief.

  Simon had learned one or two useful things, if not the useful thing, during his summertime walks around Hammersmith: viz, that there was a Roman Catholic church some considerable distance away, and two Anglican ditto nearer to hand, one Low, one High.

  (You could tell by reading the noticeboards, if not otherwise.) And Simon’s money was on the last of these. He’d heard about these lapsed Romans: they often—even generally—used the Anglican church as a sort of halfway house on the way back. Sometimes they stopped right there. And why not? Good enough for Dr Johnson, wasn’t it? Simon led the children forth, and bent their steps towards the High Anglican church. So what the hell, if Flora wasn’t there he could give them a brief lecture on the Gothic revival and then march them home again. They trailed along in his wake, protesting the while.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Why can’t we take the car?’

  ‘What if Mum comes back before we do?’

  ‘What if she doesn’t have her key?’

  ‘What if I don’t take you to Alton Towers at half-term?’ said Simon. That shut them up.

  You could hear the organ thundering, and the congregation singing, as they approached the church. Stirring stuff, these C of E hymns. What would Flora be making of that lot? It would probably tip the balance. Oh, God.

  This at any rate must be the last piece of the business within.

  Simon and the children were standing around under a yew tree, and the children were asking him what they were going to do now.

  ‘Wait,’ said Simon, ‘just a minute.’ The organ delivered one last rodomontade and a silence fell which lasted for several minutes.

  Then suddenly the organ began again, more exuberantly still. Ah: the procession. Not long now.

  And, sure enough, here came the priest, divested of his major finery, in an alb. ‘Look,’ said Thomas. ‘That man is wearing a dress!’

  The priest stood at the doorway, greeting his exiting congregation. How sweet it all was, honestly. Simon really had to agree. Yes, it was harmless after all—the barmy old C of E—and it was sweet. Part of the heritage, wasn’t it? Should get a grant from the DoE, or the English Tourist Board, or someone. Or hand it all over to the National Trust to look after. Whatever. Good God, there was Flora.

  33

  Simon, the only one of them all who was not entirely astonished at the encounter, stood aside from their squeals and exclamations, grinning happily. Flora, the younger children’s curiosity satisfied (Janey’s could not be articulated, at least for the time being), at last met his eye. ‘Funny we should run into you like this,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Of all the gin-joints, in all the towns, in all the world—’ ‘I thought we might all go out to lunch. Ages since we’ve done that.’

  ‘Where can we go?’

  ‘There’s that new place down by the river. All you can eat, and a jazz band.’

  ‘Oh! are you sure? That would be smashing.

  ’

  ‘Come on then. Come on, kids, we’re on the move again.’

  ‘Oh dear, look at them. Do you think they’re fit to be seen in a place like that? Nell, your hair.’ Flora began trying to tidy Nell’s hair. ‘And Thomas, do pull your socks up.’

  ‘They’ll do, don’t fuss, they’ll do. This isn
’t France.’

  ‘No,’ said Flora, looking around. ‘You can tell at a glance.’

  She felt so happy, so unutterably happy, sitting at a big table in the restaurant with Simon and the children, drinking Chablis, eating chicken pilaff, and salad, and toffee pudding, and everyone else having just what they fancied, having helped themselves from the buffet (Thomas had sausages, and sausages: ‘You said I could have what I liked! I don’t like salad and vegetables!’). She felt, sitting there with the family all around her—all out together for the first time for several months, wasn’t it?—so unutterably happy that she couldn’t imagine whence came that dark shadow that fell on her sometimes, filling her with an awful, aching dread; she could hardly remember how it felt, that awful dread. It was just something silly. It was just, she supposed, that she loved them so very much. Love was something which grew with time. The more you did it the deeper it became. It was natural, she supposed, to fear for the people one loved, and for whom one was responsible. That was all. Here she was, as lucky as a woman could be—oh, how lucky. She mustn’t be afraid. ‘Perfect love casteth out fear.’ Oh, how beautiful, how very beautiful. Now to see if it were true. Now to see if she couldn’t make it true. Perfect love. Not another kind. She caught Janey’s eye.

  ‘How’s my Janey?’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘Have you had enough to eat?’

  ‘Yes thank you.’

  ‘Simon, you couldn’t get me some coffee, could you?’

  ‘Dad, can we go and see the boats?’

  ‘I’ll take them. I’ll just get your mother some coffee first. You both wait there. Does Janey want coffee?’

  So she was left alone with Janey.

  ‘Are you all right, darling?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Mummy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why did you go to church today?’

  ‘I just wanted to see what it was like.’

  ‘But why today?’

  ‘I dunno. One just has these impulses, you know.’

  Janey accepted this. ‘What was it like?’ she said.