The Beloveds

by Maureen Lindley

  * * *

  IT HAS BEEN A difficult time weather-wise; we’ve hardly seen the sun, and the storms keep coming. Gloria is due to give birth any day now. Henry is clucking around her like a mother hen; he cooks for her and makes her the ginger and lemon tea that helps with her nausea, which although ongoing, has lessened a little over the past few weeks. He would have the baby for her if he could.

  Our turkey oak at Pipits, with its heavy mantle of leaves, stoically battles the unusually strong winds, but its neighbor the copper beech has lost two limbs, ripped from the trunk by a freakish storm. The wounds are deep, and I fear that the damage it has suffered will only reinforce Henry’s view that the dear old tree must come down.

  Meanwhile, his studio is finally finished. I was right about the bricks, which are the undistinguished red of all modern bricks. I knew Henry wasn’t to be trusted, even though he said he understood when I pointed out that they should match the house, should be that soft rose color that suggests warmth and has a powdery depth.

  “They are not too different,” he insists. “Besides, they’ll merge over time. The weather will do it for us.” And he calls himself an artist.

  Sometimes, when I cannot bear another day holed up in Alice’s mean little house, where I am plagued by its low ceilings and the one narrow bathroom where there isn’t even a windowsill to put a pot plant on, I take myself off to London, to the apartment that is mine alone, now that Bert, waiting for the divorce to go through, is cozied up somewhere in the city with Helen. Jack Sprat and wife licking the platter clean.

  It’s a comfortable apartment, a good-enough refuge. The rooms are spacious, the light not bad. I’m merely camping out, though, marking time. I cannot see myself wanting to leave Cold-Upton even for a day when House is mine. For all that I manage well enough in the city, I’m a country girl at heart, and long-distance relationships rarely work.

  I bring bread and butter and cheese with me from Cold- Upton’s shop and throw most of it away when I leave. My appetite is small, and I would not want to get fat like Bert’s Helen. I do not approve of fat. It gives too much of one’s character away, it highlights greed and a lack of control, not to mention self-esteem. Hard to keep your nature private when, like a penitent, you must carry your flaws around with you, in full view of the world.

  There are no practical shops near my apartment in Mayfair. You cannot buy much in the way of food or get your shoes mended or your clothes cleaned. There is nowhere to buy a bottle of gin. It is mostly restaurants and designer clothes shops now. There are the bling jewelers, of course, the kind where the diamonds in the windows are so huge, so brilliant that you have to stop and look, the kind where you ring a bell and they decide whether to let you in or not. I’ve never put their bells to the test. I won’t have some shopgirl denying me admission. In any case, if it were not for their worth, you might as well wear glass as diamonds. Give me the velvet depth of a ruby any day, the cool heart of a sapphire.

  When I first met Bert, he told me that at one time Mayfair residents spoke of their postcode as the Village. That was before the conglomerates moved in, bought out the florists and the cigar shop, swept away the family-run café and the little outlets where you could have clothes altered and watches repaired.

  The newly modernized neighborhood hardly affects me, though. I don’t go out much, preferring to stay in the flat, reading or listening to the radio. Occasionally I’ll visit a museum, the Natural History, or the V&A. I steer clear of the art galleries, unless one is showcasing an irresistible major exhibition. I don’t want to think too much about that other life, which seemed so important to me in my gallery days. I am not good at things lost.

  13

  IT’S A BOY, BORN with the light at 6 a.m.

  “Monday’s Child,” Gloria chants from the old poem.

  “Fair of face,” I finish the line for her.

  He is to be called Noah. And his parents are beside themselves with pride. Henry, fizzing with excitement, brought his precious cargo of two home from the hospital, one swaddled in a white cot sheet, the other in her frayed-at-the-sleeves winter coat. And now the house is full of visitors come to praise the infant.

  It seems that both birth and death attract spectators. There are flowers on every surface, congratulation cards illustrated with storks and cradles, and the words “It’s a Boy,” boldly printed as if to bring the fact to the parents’ attention, as though they are unaware of their newborn’s sex.

  Henry has presented Gloria with a string of creamy pearls.

  “For giving him Noah,” Gloria told me, as though it had been an immaculate conception. I pictured her delight as she fingered the rope of them, the kiss that followed, and the two of them, arms around each other, gazing in awe at their tiny creation.

  I have Mother’s pearls; now Gloria has Henry’s. My brother-in-law’s Beloved must not be allowed to miss out on anything. I suspect she will get more pleasure out of hers than I do mine.

  It is hard to know how to behave around babies. They are held out to you as though you will instantly see, and imitate, what mummy and daddy do, as though the squashed-up little package is the very essence of wonderment. You are expected to coo over the infant with love-light in your eyes. But I have to say that Noah came out looking smooth and angelic, not at all like the more usual gargoyle-type creature, and prettier than those solemn-faced Botticelli cherubs Bert gets all mawkish about.

  I like it that Noah sleeps a lot during the day, and that Gloria and Henry are tired out because their nights are so fractured with his demands. Noah is on my side, no doubt: we already have an understanding of how things should be. He’s a proper little Napoleon, determined to have his own way.

  I walk to Pipits every afternoon on the pretext of visiting him. I am only ever at peace these days when I’m in the presence of House, even though I have to drool over Noah and agree with Gloria that he smells divine.

  “Oh, that baby smell,” she sighs, sniffing his head as though it is a drug she can’t get enough of. “Better than honeysuckle, better than any perfume you could name.”

  In truth, Noah smells of sour milk and a sweet sort of urine. A primitive scent, hardly a perfumer’s brew.

  I always go to my bedroom on the pretense of needing to collect something I’ve left there. It annoys Henry. Mainly, I think, because it reminds him that I haven’t completely moved out. I talk about my departure as a temporary thing. He can hardly say outright that it is for good, that they want Pipits just for themselves. That wouldn’t be nice, would it? He knows, too, that facing me down would upset Gloria. And she is so hormonal that she weeps at the slightest thing. He won’t want to risk a meltdown on her part. Well, all the better for me.

  Work in the house came to a standstill when Gloria went into labor. She was planning to have the landing bookcases taken out to make space for a sofa.

  “It gets the sun there,” she said. “It would be the perfect place to sit and feed baby. Unlikely that we’ll ever read any of those dusty old books, anyway.”

  Now, though, she says she hasn’t the energy to think about anything but Noah. Small mercies.

  “Once we are in a routine with baby,” she promises, “we’ll forge ahead with our plans.”

  She doesn’t say it, but I’m pretty sure that my bedroom is included in the plans for “forging ahead.”

  As I predicted, the baby has a big footfall. It is extraordinary how many things one tiny infant needs. There are nappies and bottles, and rubber nipples and bibs, and things that Gloria calls onesies that Noah spits up on so that they must be changed a dozen times a day. His clothes must be laundered with a special washing powder so that his skin won’t be irritated. There are pots of Vaseline and a particularly off-putting thick grayish cream for the rash he gets from not being changed often enough. Despite its promises and much to Gloria’s distress, Noah’s little bottom is often red no matter how much of the stuff she slathers on.

  Ugly bits of plastic equipment sit beside t
he sink now: a sterilizer to banish bugs from anything that goes into Noah’s mouth and a tortuous-looking instrument that apparently pumps milk from my sister’s bounteous breasts.

  “So that I can feed him and bond,” Henry says brightly.

  “Oh, bond,” I quip. “So that he knows that you are his father.”

  “Well, not so much that. More . . .” Henry begins, but I have tuned out.

  A baby carriage they call a buggy is parked in the hall, its handle draped with the pashmina that Bert gave Alice for Christmas. Gloria often swaths Noah in it.

  “Alice would have loved to see him all wrapped up so cozy,” she says with a soft intake of breath. Her voice still shakes a little when she speaks of Alice.

  “But it’s pink,” I say. “Pink for a girl.”

  “Yes, I know, but nothing to be done about that. Noah doesn’t mind, do you, my darling?”

  “Oh, well, if Noah doesn’t mind.”

  I recall the last time that I saw Alice wearing that pashmina. It was the night of her death. I remember the pitiful way it fell on her shoulders, as if it might slip from the wasted peg of her and crumple onto the sheets. I thought the soft flush of rose against the white pillow rather striking. I miss Alice myself . . . sometimes. I can’t imagine why, though, unless it is because she was so easy to impress, unless because if she were still here, I would not have to live in her house.

  In these all-about-baby days, there is dirty laundry parked on every available surface, bottles bobbing about in a sterilizer, places around the house that Gloria and Henry refer to as “changing stations,” piled high with assorted potions and wipes and baby powder. Noah lies on the floor on a brightly colored padded thing with an arch of mobiles over it. An audience of soft toys he is far too young to appreciate tumble around him. There is always music in the background to soothe him, something Gloria calls “baby Mozart.” Honestly!

  “He’s aware of everything,” Gloria says. “Quite the cleverest little boy, aren’t you, Noah?”

  * * *

  TIME SEEMS TO HAVE stilled. Waiting is never easy. It is getting harder to keep my cool with Henry and Gloria. Their noisy, messy lives drain the true life out of Pipits.

  Like a sick patient hoping for recovery, the house has gone into hushed mode. I have to listen hard to hear its voice these days. Mostly it is a low, ongoing grumble, a muted complaint that nicks at my nerves. Just wait, I say when I know no one is around. Be patient. I am finding it hard to be patient myself, though.

  And then, suddenly, as though I haven’t been watching, haven’t been ticking the days off on my mental calendar, Noah is three months old, and summer is in full swing. Fly away, honeybee; fly away, summer.

  I have taken over Mother’s place in Pipits’ garden. Gloria is fully engaged in the happy land of motherhood, and horticulture has never been Henry’s thing. Time in the garden helps to keep my spirits up.

  The Albertine roses are the stars of the show at the moment, quite spectacular, the best I have ever seen them. Their flowers scent the air as they trail over the arch that leads into the walled garden. There is little in my nature I believe I have inherited from Mother, except perhaps for her green thumb. Under my care everything is lush and flourishing.

  Blue ceanothus spill down the steps to the summerhouse, contrasting so beautifully with the white buddleia, an elegant coupling that didn’t happen by chance. Nature will have its way, but a good gardener leaves little to chance when planting out.

  I am particularly fond of blue in the garden, iris and agapanthus, and those wonderful geraniums with their open cuplike flowers that are nothing like the pot-bound ones. Occasionally, a Holly Blue butterfly alights on them, fluttering its papery wings, blue on blue, a sight to sting the heart.

  I sit on the old bench near to the hawthorn, which is in flower, and think about where I am in my life. Bert is gone; I have been exiled by my own family to Alice’s wretched house, maddened by the slow burn of injustice that licks at me and the ever-widening hole somewhere in the region of my stomach where Pipits is missing. I can think of little else but filling it.

  Not surprising, then, that I have to drug myself to sleep these days, two Temazepam along with increasing amounts of gin. I am at a simmer, waiting to come to the boil, waiting to be rid of Henry. My fingers itch to be picking fungi.

  Sometimes at night, when I can’t resist, I visit Pipits’ garden. In the velvet dark, it’s completely different than in daylight. Nicotiana overwhelms the senses with the soft mysterious aura of clove. It grows tall through the cracks of the summerhouse terrace, each flower head a small white light. I sit breathing in its scent, listening to the rustling nocturnal sounds, on duty while Pipits sleeps.

  I listen for Henry to lock up. Returned from the pottery, he turns the big key in the front door and kills the lights. He locks his little family in, and me out. I picture him, keys in hand, all puffed up with being the man of the house.

  Henry says it’s wonderful to work with things that do what they should. The kiln in his new studio is practically trouble free, the painting table the perfect size, the stacking shelves stable. Bert’s present to him of the Nespresso coffee maker is a treat that never fails to please.

  He is experiencing a measure of success, particularly with his mugs. Nest, the design shop in town that he had high hopes for, closed down, but with his usual luck, Roses, the small, independently owned department store where Mother often shopped, took over the order, and according to Henry they cannot get enough of them. The catalog shoot went well, and sales, if not overwhelming, are regular at least.

  I’ve rifled through his desk, seen the invoices he sends out, and it seems likely now that he could make a living of sorts with the pottery. Although unless he digs deep, ups his game, he is never going to make his fortune.

  Gloria hasn’t returned to work yet. She’s debating with herself whether she ever will.

  “Noah needs me,” she says. “I can’t bear the thought of not being with him all the time. Neither of us really wants to hand him over to a nanny. In any case, the wages for that would eat up what I could make, so it seems a bit pointless.”

  I must say her attitude about nannies suits me. A stranger at Pipits, living in the house, would interfere with my plans. And things are testing enough without having to cope with that.

  With no challenges from either side, the divorce has been completed at a dizzying speed. The decree nisi came in weeks and was granted in under three minutes, and the marriage was officially dissolved six weeks later. No more Mrs. Walker, no more Lizzie.

  Bert, in a similarly hasty vein, wasted no time at all in getting remarried. He and Helen did the legal bit at the Chelsea registry office, and the fun bit after, at the Arts Club. I know because although it is hard to believe, they sent an invitation to Gloria and Henry, which I came across when I was going through Gloria’s desk.

  The desk rightly belongs in the little dressing room off Mother’s bedroom, but it has been moved to the dining room to be more convenient for Gloria. It is pathetic that she thinks she needs one. She is meant to be helping Henry out with the office side of things, but she is constantly losing paperwork, mixing up delivery dates and the like. If I were Henry, it would drive me mad. He just laughs at it, though. Gloria has never been well organized, but motherhood has made her even vaguer than usual.

  She was out on a stroll with Noah at the time, which gave me an opportunity that for obvious reasons is not always available to me. It didn’t take me long to spot the invitation. Its vulgar color drew my eye. Red! Helen’s idea, I imagine. One can only shudder at the thought of what her choice of a bridal gown might have been. There was a note from Bert attached to the card.

  I know it is unlikely that you will come. Your loyalties naturally lay elsewhere. But after all the wonderfully warm hospitality you have shown me in the past, I wanted to let you know, dear friends, that you would be welcome on what will be for me a very special day.

  Neither Henry nor Glor
ia mentioned anything about receiving the invitation. Well, they wouldn’t, would they? Apart from the fact that they think it would wound me, I don’t believe they are on my side anyway. They love Bert, have loved him from the moment they first met him. And they wouldn’t want to join in any criticism of him. Whatever Gloria pretends to think, hiding the invitation just proves it is make-believe that we are a close family. Henry knows we are not. Gloria is my sister, so he cannot own up to his dislike of me. His body speaks for the words he swallows: a stiffening of the spine in my presence, thin smiles, a tightened jaw.

  I am at the mercy of his resentment; he is after all the keeper of Pipits, at least for the moment. But his dislike of me is not his worst crime. His very existence is his worst crime.

  I am, though, almost ready to turn that page and be done with him.

  I still have my keys to Pipits, and sometimes I let myself in through the kitchen door when both Gloria and Henry have retired for the night. I know to duck beneath the alarm sensor in the hall before I get to the number pad to tap in the magic numerals. It is not a very original code, ten sixty-six, which every school child knows is the date of the Battle of Hastings. Bert used the same for all of his credit card pin numbers, such lazy thinking. Only four of us know the combination, Henry and Gloria, and me, of course, and for convenience’s sake, Mrs. Lemmon.

  I sit in the dark hall as Henry and Gloria and baby-makes-three sleep upstairs. Secret visits to sit and listen, to console the house. I will not allow them to dictate when I can come, when I must go. I will not be driven from Pipits as though we mean nothing to each other.

  What I once saw in Henry, I see now was an illusion. I remember the pain he put me through by choosing Gloria. And the time after, when I was expected to accept their engagement with a smile on my face. I still have a scar on my hand from punching it through a mirror when they made the announcement. I hardly knew how to contain my rage.