The Beloveds

by Maureen Lindley

  Would you believe that Bert has been visiting Henry in the hospital? I’m reeling with the knowledge of it. They have kept his visits from me, sneakily accepting all my help, using and deceiving me.

  I found out when I called at the hospital the other day just to drop off some toiletries Henry had requested. I was shocked to see Bert getting out of his car, magazines and chocolates in hand. He saw me but pretended not to for a bit, fussing with his keys, debating, I think, whether he could continue with the farce of not noticing me. I could hardly believe my eyes. They all just carry on as though I don’t exist.

  After a moment’s pause, I marched straight up to him and waited for him to speak.

  “Ah, Betty,” he said.

  So I am not to be Lizzie anymore. Yet further evidence of time spent in Gloria and Henry’s company.

  He stumbled through, “I am so glad that Henry is on the mend. It must have been awful for you.”

  No apologies, no excuses for his presence. I turned on my heel and walked toward the hospital as Bert kept up alongside, an embarrassed smile on his face.

  It was easy to tell that this wasn’t the first time he had visited. He knew exactly where he was going. The complicated route to Henry’s ward, down long corridors, through three sets of doors, was familiar to him, no need for directions.

  The sister on duty greeted us with a questioning look. What were we doing here outside of visiting hours, she wanted to know.

  “I won’t stay long.” Bert gave one of his big open smiles. “But I’ve come from London specially to cheer up my friend.”

  His friend! His friend!

  “Oh well, it won’t hurt, I suppose. Just this once, though,” she relented.

  I am reminded of how easily Bert can seduce, be it man, woman, or creature. For some mysterious reason, people get pleasure out of pleasing Bert.

  Henry had the grace to be embarrassed by the joint visit, which was a cold half hour of banalities and uncomfortable silences. Bert left first. I didn’t reply to his goodbye. It is unfair that I should have to go through this, Bert insinuating himself into my family, Pipits still at terrible risk, and me being dealt a losing hand at every turn.

  “We should have told you,” Gloria says later, when I complain to her about Bert visiting. “We thought it would hurt you, but Bert is so fond of Henry that we couldn’t say no. And the truth is, Betty, they—Henry and Bert, I mean—want to continue their friendship.”

  “Oh, do they? And you think that’s fine? You think that it doesn’t matter that Bert cheated on me with Helen. You’re my sister, but you’re on his side.”

  She said all the usual mealymouthed things; it wasn’t about sides; we were all grown-ups, after all. If we respected each other’s feelings, we could make it work. Of course I was more important to them than any friendship, but they would make sure I never had to meet up with him, if that is what I wanted.

  I wished I hadn’t pressed her on it, hadn’t shown my anger. The knowledge of their betrayal is in the open now. I gave Gloria the opportunity to confess to the ongoing friendship with Bert and horrible Helen, so now they don’t even have to be careful about it. Before I know it, they will be having the Walkers and their cockapoo mutt for the weekend, while I sit alone in Alice’s house. They have put me in a box marked duty, only to be let out when it suits them, only when I can be of use. I have no tears, just an icy anger. I question whether I have the strength left in me for another battle. The answer to that question must be yes. What else?

  The truth of the situation is that I had a good plan, it didn’t work, and now I need a better one. The strategic error was that Henry’s death, although likely, was not guaranteed.

  For now, though, my head feels mushy with the clamor of half-formed thoughts. I am not ready for a new scheme; I’m still wired with the hard-knock failure of the last one.

  * * *

  I HARDLY KNOW HOW to spend my days now. I sleep a lot of them away so I can feel more alive in Pipits’ garden at night. It is my only comfort.

  The Bygones, meanwhile, are back to playing happy families. Gloria the careless housewife, and Henry, having glimpsed the white light at the end of the tunnel, the truly grateful potter. They tell me that I am welcome at Pipits. Visit anytime, they say, their voices mottled with the pride of ownership.

  Even the weather is arranging itself for them, giving Henry joy in his convalescence. Clear blue skies, crisp mornings, and the hedgerows capped with frost. There is always a bonfire going somewhere in the village; the smell of wood smoke fogs the air, its top note musky, the drydown melancholy with something of the night in it.

  Cold-Upton looks at its best in this weather. The church sits dreamily on its mossy plot, and the houses appear washed clean in the blanched winter sunlight. Better for me if the days were gray; this beauty is heartbreaking.

  I’m distracted by the wound that Henry’s survival has inflicted on me. How to finish him off is constantly on my mind. People speak to me, and my thoughts wander off, so that I hardly make sense of what they are saying. The other evening, with my head wrestling with how to dispose of Henry, I had driven halfway to my favorite spot beside the river, when I almost hit a cyclist. He wobbled a bit before falling onto the roadside bank. I watched in my rearview mirror as he stood, shaking his fist idiotically at me, mouthing some obscenity. I realized I had been driving the route without seeing it. It shook me up. I’d had a fair amount of gin that day and a handful of the painkillers that I find such a comfort. That may have had something to do with it. Still, I must cut down. And I will. I will think of a way forward. I will not be beaten.

  “Am I boring you?” the postman joked this morning as he waited for me to sign for a delivery of narcissi bulbs I’d forgotten I had ordered months earlier.

  Narcissus papyraceus, known as the paperwhite, delicately scented and more refined than the common daffodil. I remember thinking, as I wrote out the order for the bulbs in summer, that by the time they arrived I would be in possession of Pipits. In my mind’s eye I saw them dancing like Wordsworth’s golden hosts over the happy years ahead.

  I had sent for them in a flush of optimism, but that optimism, due to the recent run of events, has proved unfounded. But despite the autumn not delivering what I thought it would, I will plant them out between the apple trees in Pipits’ orchard. I’ll keep to the rhythm of the seasons.

  Henry’s business is flourishing. I can’t work out how it has happened, but suddenly orders are flooding in. He claims that the poisoning he endured, and the liver transplant, dreadful as it was, brought death so close that the beauty of the world came to life with a depth unknown to him before. No more of the potter’s pervasive browns and grays; he uses color now: blushing reds and bright blues, saffron yellow and splashes of gold everywhere.

  It is hard to believe, but he has an order for his new range of pots from Barneys department store, in New York. Gloria says Bert showed the buyer his work, and she thought it heavenly. Of course Bert did. Damn him.

  In a flush of success, Henry has taken on Fi, the mural girl, to help him fulfill the order. He gets tired these days if he does too much, and the order is a sizable one, so he needs an assistant. It is not her field, but she is eager to learn, loves the painting, and the colors, which she says are life-enhancing. Clichés firing off everywhere.

  Henry, as venal as most artists, knows what to charge his clients.

  “I think they value it more, the more they pay,” he says.

  With cash rolling in, they’ll be back to cracking the bones of Pipits again before you know it.

  And I was right about Bert and Helen. They have been to visit at Pipits. Even if Gloria hadn’t warned me they were coming, I would have known as soon as I glimpsed the out-of-season peonies and white roses scenting the air, displayed on the hall table: a definite Bert choice.

  Feeling guilty, I suppose, Gloria repeats that it was only for lunch, as though that is some consolation.

  The days are short, dark be
fore teatime, and I am waiting still for inspiration, for the idea that will finally allow me to take my rightful place as mistress of Pipits. I cannot risk another failure. This time, no matter what it takes, I must win.

  Another Christmas will be with us soon.

  17

  THE SOIL BETWEEN THE apple trees is firm from the morning frost. It takes a bit of effort to break through the crust into the ground, but I’m soon into the rhythm of it, breaking up the shell with the blade of the shovel, then, with all my weight behind it, pushing down hard.

  The air is cold, the wind brisk, and there is a buttery light that comes and goes as if someone is flicking a switch on and off. One minute the sun is there, the next the clouds have obscured it for a moment, then . . . click . . . it is back again. It will rain later, which is good for the bulbs; they need to drink deep when they are first planted.

  I coat them with the dug-up earth and think of Mother’s ashes in the ground under the buddleia, which was festooned on that burial day with cabbage whites. I think of Henry’s big hands covering her remains with this same rich Somerset soil. I must prune the buddleia. It’s a spring job, really, but no harm to do it early. It is hard to kill off buddleia no matter how roughly you treat it. Ours is old and so tough that I’ll have to take a saw to it.

  Mother used to hack at it furiously. Her obliging nature was never at the fore where gardening was concerned. Certain flowers would be held back with iced water if a neighboring specimen that would show them to their best advantage was slower to open. Plants that grew too big for their allotted space would be cut to the quick or pulled up and burned. The garden was her passion, and she spared nothing that got in the way of her plans for it. People thought my mother a gentle soul, but I knew different. I was too often the target for her poison darts to be taken in by her soft voice and sweet smiles. I saw her flaws, knew where her fault lines lay.

  The mournful song of a bullfinch is in the air, although I can’t see any of the creatures about. Their woeful song belies their natty appearance: little housewives off to the shops in their ruddy pink coats and perky black caps. Mother was always irritated with them for eating the new buds on her fruit trees. Personally, I don’t begrudge them; they are merely part of the cycle of things.

  It takes me some hours to get the bulbs safely tucked up in their earth beds. My back hurts, and there is a welt across my palm in the shape of the shovel handle. I take a couple of aspirins with a glug of gin from my flask and sit on the ground for a bit. I’m feeling low, so low that I could stay here for hours and howl. I won’t allow it, though. Misery is clever; it will disarm you if you let it. I must be careful not to indulge these feelings, not to give in to the forces against me.

  I decide to make a bonfire. The winter winds have ransacked the orchard, so that the ground is littered with the severed boughs of the fruit trees and with a scattering of rubbish blown in or dropped by trespassers. Everything is braided up with bits of broken bramble. There are rotting piles of leaves and the boxes the narcissi came in. I’ve put a hundred in the ground and am expecting a good show.

  All of Pipits’ land needs attention. There are branches down in the woods, too, and ragwort at the margin of the meadow that will smother the summer poppies if it is not dealt with; the little wings of self-set sycamore should be sprayed with weed killer, and the stream needs dredging. You’d think Henry would take some responsibility for the land, but no; he is content to leave it all to me.

  I gather up the debris and pile it, wigwam style, at the bottom of the bank, below the trees. The fire takes a while to catch, but I persevere until the brightest little flare appears and takes hold. The flames crackle, spit out morsels of the damp wood, and rise higher than I imagined they would. Bits of burning box float away from the fire and catch in the trees like bunting, where they morph into ash. A caul of smoke, as gray as Miss Havisham’s wedding veil, is taken on the wind and floats away toward the church spire.

  I stand by the blaze breathing in the singeing smell until, with nothing left to feed it, the fire dies down to a circle of cinders. My eyes are prickling, my throat raw from the smoke, but I feel better, more settled somehow.

  I am taken by how powerful flames are, how cleanly they transform their feed to ashes. I had a dream once, a fine dream, about a bonfire, about the most wonderful show of fireworks. I was standing between my mother and father. Father held one hand, my mother the other. The three of us linked together, laughing and watching the fireworks light up the sky. Gloria wasn’t there; she wasn’t even in my mind. It was a dream of how things should be, how they would have been if the world were fair. Now I dread my dreams, which have become nightmares: beasts pursuing me, witchy women, and monstrous men, and always the hopeless sense that no matter how fast I run, I will never reach safety.

  I pass Henry’s studio on the way to Pipits’ kitchen and look through the window. He is standing behind the chair that Fi is sitting in with her shoulders hunched in concentration while he explains something to her. Since the operation, Henry never stands quite as straight as he used to. His hand often strays to touch the place where a dead person’s liver lives on. He does it now as I slow my pace to watch.

  Master and pupil are absorbed, heads down, concentrating. Fi glides her brush across the rim of a bowl, which, under the sweep of bristle, turns into a ring of gold.

  “Yes, yes, exactly that. Well done,” Henry applauds.

  Fi makes a whooping sound and preens, puts the bowl down carefully, then claps her hands, all fluttery like a child receiving a treat.

  There’s a vile taste in my mouth, a gagging, a something-dead taste. I failed at killing you, Henry, but my hatred for you thrives.

  I leave them to it and make my way to the kitchen. Gloria is at the sink rinsing out Noah’s bottles, ready to fill with milk for the night feeds, which Noah still cries for.

  “Coffee?” she offers.

  I accept and settle myself into a chair. I am disappointed that she is here at all. Quite often at this time of day she is out pushing Noah through the village in his buggy. She says it is the only way, sometimes, to get him to sleep.

  “I cobble him,” she laughs, referring to her habit of bumping the wheels of the buggy over the cobbles on Church Street. “Never fails.”

  Apparently, he went off easily today, giving her time to catch up with things.

  She is bustling about the kitchen chattering away so that I cannot hear the house. The truth is, though, these days, House seems to have lost its voice. Even when I’m there alone, I can’t make out what it’s trying to tell me. I feel, though, that it is disappointed in me, maybe even thinking of changing sides.

  Don’t, Pipits, don’t. Gloria and Henry will betray you. You will become a tarted-up, plastic version of yourself, your beauty and sweetness lost forever.

  “Wonderful work you’re doing in the garden,” Gloria says. “It’s like having Mother back. Such a comfort.”

  * * *

  TWO WEEKS TO GO until Christmas. Things in Bath are crazy. The shops are crowded, people knocking into each other, long lines to pay for purchases, and a frantic must-buy feel in the air.

  I am not in the mood for shopping. Nothing catches my eye, nor do I feel particularly generous. I only came to get out of Alice’s house. You can be in low spirits in a crowd, it’s true, but somehow I find it is less painful than being captive in dead Alice’s quarters. The rooms there get smaller by the day. I’ve never liked her doleful little house, but now I loathe it.

  There is the usual Christmas market in Bath, set out in the central square in front of the St. Peter and Paul Abbey. The air, smeared with the smell of hot dogs and mince pies, stirs nausea in me. Jingly music bells out from shop doors to tell us we must be jolly; it is the season of goodwill, after all. Be jolly, and spend, spend, spend.

  Outside my bank on Milsom Street there is a man pretending to be a statue. He has painted himself silver and has a basket at his feet with some pound coins in it. His eyes are b
lank, his mouth a closed chrome gash. I wonder if his teeth are silver, too. And his body, so still as to be ready for the coffin, not the slightest tremble. He has retreated inside himself. It is one way of hiding, I suppose. I don’t like the look of him.

  I am a regular now at the pub opposite the marketplace. They say “hello, love” and “your usual, is it?” when I order my gin. They sound sorry for me, as if they know something about me that instills pity. I wonder if they talk about me when I leave. No doubt they think me an alcoholic, a lonely unmarried middle-aged woman. I don’t care to have judgments made about me, people thinking they know me. I might start wearing my wedding ring again, just to confuse them.

  It is hard to believe a whole year has passed since the Christmas lunch that Gloria imposed on Pipits: Alice so ill, Bert still my husband, bouncy Fi, and the other waifs and strays summoned to feed Gloria’s ego, to fuel her desire to be the star of the show.

  And here we are again, except that now there is Noah crawling around, hauling himself up on the furniture, and Bert has a new wife, and Fi a new boyfriend.

  “Ah,” he said, when we were introduced. “So you’re the big sister of the lovely Gloria.”

  His name is Barry, whatever that is short for. Fi is an inch or two shorter than him but twice his width at the hips. He is quite good-looking in a milky sort of way: pale skin, pale eyes, a whack of brown hair. He teaches sociology at the sixth-form college in Bath and wears the teacher’s uniform: fawn cord jacket, liver-colored shoes. Henry and Gloria are already fond of him.

  I am asked to Christmas lunch, of course, but I shan’t go. I’ll have one of my headaches at the last minute. The very last minute so that it will keep them from asking Bert and Helen.

  I won’t be buying presents this year, not even for Noah. He will be getting plenty and will have no idea of who gave him what. I’ve told them I think gifts are a waste of money. You never get what you want, so what is the point.