The Last Summer

by Judith Kinghorn

  And so, eventually, I put down my cup and saucer and rose to my feet. “I must go now. But it’s been lovely. Thank you so much, Mrs. Cuthbert.”

  I didn’t look at Tom and he didn’t move, didn’t even stand up when I left the room. Mrs. Cuthbert saw me to her door.

  “Thank you, Clarissa,” she said, and I realized immediately that she’d called me Clarissa and not Miss Clarissa. I leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

  “I love him,” I whispered, tears stinging my eyes. “I need you to know, need you to understand.”

  She frowned, took hold of my hand. “Yes, I understand. I understand more than you know, dear. But you have to let him go. You have to let him move on. Otherwise . . . otherwise he’s going to waste his life waiting for something he can never have. And he deserves some happiness.”

  I nodded. “Yes, yes he does.”

  Later that evening, at dinner, he was in a peculiar mood, and barely looked at me. Instead, he focused his attention on the petite American blonde, sitting where Davina had been sitting the previous evening. He flirted with her in the most obvious way, and I suspected he simply wanted to annoy me, make me jealous.

  “You know, I think I prefer American women,” he said, leaning toward her. “I find you all . . . so much less uppity than English ladies.”

  I said nothing.

  “I don’t suppose all English ladies are uppity, Tom,” the blonde replied, glancing at me. “Clarissa’s certainly not.”

  “Ah, Clarissa . . . but you see, I know Miss Clarissa slightly better than you, and . . .” He leaned toward her and whispered something in her ear. She looked at me, raised her eyebrows and then giggled.

  “Don’t you know it’s rude to whisper, Tom,” I said without looking at him.

  “There you go! They’re all obsessed with bloody manners!”

  “Tom . . .”

  He turned to me. “Yes, my love?”

  I shook my head.

  “No? Is that a no, or a no thank you?”

  The blonde laughed again. He refilled her glass, and his own, and then turned to me, straight-backed in his chair, the bottle poised over my glass. “More wine, ma’am?”

  I didn’t speak.

  “Will that be all, ma’am?” He leaned forward, raised an eyebrow. “Or will ye be requirin’ me services later?”

  I looked across the table, tried to smile.

  There were others who’d joined us for dinner that night, neighbors I presumed, and, thankfully, with something in the region of perhaps thirty sitting down to dinner, the room was unbelievably noisy. My mother’s dinner parties had been sedate affairs by comparison, I thought, never this riotous. I could hear Hud’s booming voice somewhere further down the table, and, from time to time, Davina’s shrieks and laughter, but I couldn’t make out any conversation, other than Tom’s.

  “Miss Clarissa . . .” he began, lighting a cigarette, and pulling at his tie, “Miss Clarissa likes the old ways, don’t you, darling?”

  “Please, Tom . . .”

  He lifted his cigarette to his lips, staring down the table. “Please, Tom . . . please, Tom,” he repeated quietly, imitating my voice, my accent. “Please, Tom . . . I’ll wait for you, my darling. I’ll wait, I promise,” he went on, mimicking a young breathless girl: me.

  I leaned toward him and whispered, “You’re being unfair . . . and you’re being uncouth.”

  He didn’t look at me, but sighed, loudly. “Ah! What it is to be rich and uncouth. Of course, that’s why the English don’t particularly like Americans, you know?” he continued, turning to the blonde again. She looked nervous, and I wanted to tell him then to stop, but I knew we’d say things, I knew there’d be a scene. “Because you’re all so damned rich and uncouth!” He leaned forward, smiling at her now, and her eyes darted from him to me and back to him.

  “Oh dear, I do hope not,” she said. And as she reached for her wine, she knocked over Tom’s glass.

  I placed my linen napkin over the wet tablecloth. “Don’t worry,” I said.

  “No, don’t worry,” he repeated, refilling his glass. “It’s only ten pounds a bottle.”

  “Tom! Please . . .”

  He turned to me. “Please what?” And then he moved closer. “Can we leave now? I don’t want to be here . . . I want to be with you.”

  I glanced across the table, tried to laugh, and then looked back at him. “I think you’ve had enough to drink,” I said in a whisper.

  He sat back in his chair, surveying the table, his guests; his eyes half closed. And I wondered how much he’d had to drink. It was so unlike him, I thought, to be this angry, this rude.

  “I think our host is a tad weary,” a voice on my left suddenly said, and I turned to a man I’d barely spoken to all evening, but one who Tom had introduced me to earlier. His name was Oliver Goddard and he was some sort of business adviser to Tom, though I couldn’t for the life of me work out what exactly he advised him on.

  “Yes . . . perhaps,” I replied, knowing that our host had had little to no sleep the previous night.

  At that moment Tom rose to his feet and excused himself from the table. The blonde looked relieved, and I turned my attention to Mr. Goddard.

  “Please, do call me Oliver. Mr. Goddard sometimes sounds to me like the name of an undertaker.”

  Oliver was unmarried, lived in London, but came down to Deyning quite often. He’d heard from Tom that I’d grown up there and wanted to know more. He seemed particularly impressed by the library, and so I told him of my father’s collection of books, how vast it had been, and how many volumes we’d sold at auction for pennies. And we spoke about books—poetry in particular. I failed to notice Tom’s return to the table, possibly because Oliver was in the midst of reciting “The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God” to me.

  “I love that poem,” I said, when he’d finished, “but I’m afraid I don’t have the brain to memorize verse like that.”

  “And I have the brain to memorize, but not analyze,” he replied.

  “I think women analyze more than men. We like to cogitate and ponder on all things—particularly the human condition . . . and the soul.”

  Oliver laughed, lifted a match to my cigarette. And perhaps it was that, or perhaps he thought we were flirting, but Tom suddenly interrupted our quiet, civilized conversation and said, in a voice loud enough to silence some of the table, at least, “For God’s sake, Goddard, don’t try and impress her ladyship with your fucking poetry and intellectual mutterings. If she’s out of my league, dear boy, she’s sure as hell out of yours!”

  I was mortified. And he must have seen something in my face, because all at once he adopted the demeanor of a chastened child, without any word uttered from me—or anyone else. I glanced at Charlie, who gave me a nod, as if to say, it’s all right, he’s drunk. He was drunk; he didn’t know what he was saying. And of course I was the only one there privy to his torment.

  Davina appeared at my side. She suggested we go through to the drawing room for coffee and, as I rose to my feet, Oliver stood up. I smiled at him, glanced at Tom—who stared down the table with a look of sulky defiance. I wasn’t angry for me, I was angry at the way he’d spoken to Oliver, who seemed so pleasant, so harmless.

  “I need some fresh air, Davina . . . do you mind?”

  “Shall I come with you?”

  “You are kind, but can you give me five minutes on my own?”

  “Yes . . . yes, of course,” she said. “But, Clarissa, you know you can tell me—if there’s something you need to share, if you need a confidante.”

  “Thank you, Davina. But I don’t need a confidante, just a breath of fresh air. I’ll be back in a moment,” I said, and walked off toward the front door.

  Outside, a yellow light shone out across the driveway, upon the trees and parkland, creating eerie shadows where there should have been none. Everything has changed, I thought: Deyning—all shiny and bright, with its dazzling electric lights in every room—and me and
Tom. We couldn’t turn back time; we couldn’t go back to how we’d once been. And neither could Deyning.

  As I walked down the driveway, I thought of him. I knew he’d feel wretched and my heart ached for him. And though I’d seen it all before—the mood swings, the rage—I wondered how often his anger boiled over, how often he lost control. Everything in his life appeared immaculate and ordered, even the woman he’d chosen to marry. But I’d seen the bottle of pills in his bathroom, prescribed “as and when necessary.”

  He deserves some happiness . . .

  The glow emanating from the house faded, ahead of me blackness; so I stopped and stood for a while, next to the fence where Tom had first told me he was going to leave England. I thought back to that night, remembering my dance with Julian Carter: how I’d grabbed his head in my hands and kissed him. Oh, stupid, stupid girl . . . The following year, shortly after Christmas, in his room at a home for disabled servicemen and war veterans, Julian had placed a gun against his temple and put a bullet in his brain. Now I wondered if with that kiss I’d inadvertently reminded him of something; something he’d never again know.

  I walked on a little further, distancing myself from that thought with small steps into the darkness, and then I stopped again, and stared up at the heavens, trying to see the stars. But even the night sky appeared peculiarly illuminated. It was not quite a full moon, and high above me silver-edged clouds moved quickly across her misshapen face, for I’d never seen the man in the moon, only ever She: an infinitely patient, nurturing and maternal force. And with such power too: the power to control tides and seasons, fertility and farming, and, perhaps, even sanity. “Oh!” She seemed to be saying to me now, openmouthed, aghast.

  Slowly, stars began to appear, and if I kept my eyes fixed, concentrated, more and more became visible, until the sky was literally filled with them. And then I heard a boyish voice say, “They’re all there, you know, if you look hard enough.”

  “But what shall I do, Georgie? What do I do?”

  Let him go . . . let him move on . . .

  I heard an owl call out from the top of a tree beside me, and I turned and looked back at Deyning, shining into the darkness like a rampant beacon. Yes, everything has changed, I thought; and I began to walk back toward the house.

  Inside, as I crossed the hallway, I could hear the men in the dining room, and Tom’s voice: light, back in control, charming. But I didn’t want to go and join the women for coffee. I was embarrassed by Tom’s outburst, unsure who had heard, and I had no wish to hear about weddings and babies, or flowers and gowns. So I went up to my room, undressed, and lay down upon the bed.

  It’s impossible, impossible. Soon he’ll be married; have a family of his own . . . he deserves some happiness.

  I could hear someone clapping; voices and laughter downstairs. My mother had always said that the marble floors—“those blasted floors”—made the house too noisy, and she was right, everything echoed. There would be no rendezvous that night: we’d had our night together. And I reached over and turned off the lamp.

  I don’t think we exchanged any words the following morning, and his mood was noticeably somber.

  “Thank you so much, Tom,” I said, shaking his hand as we stood outside the house on the driveway. “It’s been splendid . . . really quite splendid.”

  He stood with Nancy and watched us go, but I didn’t wave, and as our car pulled away I didn’t look back.

  As we headed down the driveway, Charlie said, “Queer sort of outburst last night. What do you suppose brought that on?”

  “I’ve no idea,” I replied, turning away, staring out of the car window.

  “Hmm. Well, just so you know, he apologized to me after breakfast this morning. Said he hoped he hadn’t offended you.” And as we pulled out of the driveway, on to the road, he must have seen my face, because he added, “Oh dear, he did upset you.”

  He reached over and patted my hand. “He’d had a lot to drink, dear . . . and you know, he’s a decent enough chap. He’d be mortified if he thought he’d upset you, or any of his guests.”

  I pulled a handkerchief out from my bag. “He didn’t upset me, Charlie, really,” I said. “I’m simply sad to be leaving Deyning, again . . . that’s all.”

  —

  I read of his marriage in The Times two months later. Charlie had been surprised, even a little piqued that we hadn’t been invited. “It wasn’t a big affair,” I said. “Davina told me that they were only having about a hundred.”

  “Still, seems jolly rude to have had a wedding there, at Deyning, and not to have invited you.”

  “I wouldn’t have gone anyway.”

  “Really? Why ever not? You love weddings.”

  “Sometimes,” I replied.

  There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu,

  There’s a little marble cross below the town;

  There a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,

  And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

  PART FOUR

  Chapter Thirty-three

  . . . I never said I “would not,” I simply said I wasn’t sure, but it really was the most extraordinary and uplifting experience, not at all as I’d imagined, & a tremendous (and unexpected) comfort to me—just to know that they are at peace on the other side, & together. Did I tell you that she was v emphatic that H is alive & well? Across the water, she said, but she couldn’t say which water. And I’m still mystified about “the child” . . .

  When Charlie told me about the invitation to a drinks reception at the new Cuthbert-Deyning offices in Park Lane, I told him immediately that I didn’t wish to go. The thought of seeing Tom again, and with Nancy, was too much.

  Tom had recently appointed Charlie’s firm as his corporate lawyers, and though Charlie saw him occasionally, in business meetings or at his club, I had not seen him since our weekend at Deyning. Almost another year had passed. During that time there had been a number of events, dinners and the like, occasions where I could have seen him, but I’d managed to wriggle out of them and sent Charlie on his own.

  “I don’t know for the life of me why you’re so reluctant,” Charlie said. “He’s really a jolly nice chap. Very down-to-earth and quite unlike a lot of these new-moneyed sorts.”

  “Yes, yes, I know he’s very nice. It’s not so much him . . . it’s his wife,” I said, clutching at straws, desperate to find a reason why I might not wish to go.

  “Ah yes, the American,” he said. “Well, she may not be there. She wasn’t with him at the Blanches’ last time, and she certainly wasn’t with him at the Hyde Park Hotel last week.”

  “But it’s a business thing, Charlie,” I said. “Is it really so important that I go along with you?”

  “He’s invited us both. Look at the invitation,” he replied, pointing to our mantelshelf.

  “Oh, he’d have had his secretary write that for him,” I said, knowing full well it was Tom’s handwriting.

  “No, darling, that’s his hand. I know it.”

  On the day, Charlie said he’d meet me there; come straight from his office in the city. And all day I felt sick. I toyed with the idea of telephoning Charlie to tell him I was ill, and I tortured myself with the possibilities, how the evening could unfold. Would Nancy be there? I wondered. Would they be holding hands as they circumnavigated the room, nodding and smiling at all of Tom’s minions and business associates? Would I be standing in line waiting to shake his hand too?

  And yet, I wanted to see him; longed to see him again.

  I ran a bath, and took a drink with me, even though it wasn’t yet six. And as I lay in the bath, looking down at my body, I realized that physically, at least, I hadn’t changed much over the preceding decade. My body had produced only one child, when my shape was still young enough to recover quickly. Like Mama, and blessed with her looks, I was naturally slim, and her insistence on good posture and lessons in deportment had paid off. I held myself tall, carried an invisible book
upon my head. But I’d recently celebrated my thirtieth birthday and become acutely aware of my age, and of the passing of time. Perhaps that had something to do with Tom. Being displaced, estranged from one’s heart served only to make the years more desolate. And I had nothing, nothing at all to show for my life: no children I could talk about; no work or vocation I could speak of.

  Clarissa: beautiful, unfulfilled, useless, and childless.

  It was a glorious spring evening, and I walked for quite a way before hailing a taxicab. I was no longer nervous. In fact, I felt rather calm and mellow as the cab headed toward Park Lane. I thought of the gardens at Deyning; the rhododendrons would be coming into bloom, the old wisteria too. And then I thought of him. Every unguarded thought led me back to him.

  When I arrived at the building, I took the elevator to the top floor, as Charlie had instructed me. It was eight o’clock, half an hour later than the time on the invitation. Charlie was bound to be there, I thought. He would be looking out for me, see me emerge from the elevator.

  The room was full of men in suits and, I noticed, a few very glamorous women. I took a glass of champagne from the waiter who greeted me, and then walked on into the crowd, looking for Charlie.

  “Clarissa! Over here!”

  It was Davina, in crimson satin with matching lips (and teeth).

  “But, darling, I’m rather surprised to see you here,” she said. “You normally avoid these sorts of things.”

  “Yes, well . . . normally I let Charlie attend these affairs on his own. He receives so many invitations. And you know what he’s like. Can’t say no.”

  “But I’m sure Tom’ll be pleased you’re here,” she said, looking at me with a curious smile.