Facing the Light

by Adele Geras

  She hesitated for a moment. That was another unwritten rule at Willow Court: children didn’t bother Leonora unless there was some kind of emergency. But I’m not a child, Beth thought. And maybe this is an emergency. She knocked firmly at the door and Leonora’s blessedly strong voice called out, ‘Come in.’

  Now that she’d heard her, Beth felt like running away, but of course that was quite impossible. Go on, she thought as she went in, she’s not going to eat you.

  Leonora was standing by the window. She was elegantly dressed in pale grey trousers and a hyacinth-blue cashmere jumper. Even at this hour of the morning, her make-up and pearls were immaculate. Rilla always called them Mother’s working pearls, the necklace and earrings Leonora always wore when she wasn’t making any particular effort. The bed was so neatly made that you’d swear no one had ever slept in it. Bertie, the upstairs cat, eyes closed and purring gently, was stretched out like a ginger bolster just under the slope of the pillows. He was quite devoted to Leonora and as long as she was in his territory, he always tried to position himself somewhere close to her.

  ‘Hello, Beth dear,’ Leonora said. ‘What’s the matter? You look a little worried.’

  ‘I thought, I mean, I thought there must be something the matter with you because you weren’t at breakfast.’

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ Leonora smiled, and went to sit in the armchair near her dressing-table. ‘To tell you the truth, I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone and I didn’t feel that I could ask Mary to bring me up a tray when everyone’s so busy getting the party ready.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Beth said. ‘What would you like? You should have said. I’d have brought a tray up, or Chloë would have.’

  ‘I’d starve to death if I had to rely on her for breakfast. It wouldn’t appear till teatime. You know she sleeps all day.’

  Beth sat down on the window seat. ‘I’m glad you’re okay. I thought you’d be terribly upset. Angry. I don’t know. Something.’

  ‘I’m not best pleased with Efe, to tell you the truth. That young man sometimes forgets what I’ve done for him.’ Leonora winced. ‘I hate to hear myself saying that. I hate even thinking such things. It’s exactly the sort of remark I promised myself would never pass my lips. I was never going to do that dreadful parental thing: look what I’ve sacrificed for you, and so forth.’ She shook her head.

  ‘I’m sure you don’t mean it like that,’ Beth smiled encouragingly.

  ‘You’re right, Beth. I don’t. But don’t let’s talk about this now. Let’s just go down and have some breakfast. I am rather peckish after all.’

  Beth stood up and followed Leonora out of the room. Whatever did she mean? As they went slowly downstairs Beth asked, ‘Are you going to talk to Efe?’

  ‘In my own good time,’ Leonora said. ‘He does, after all, know my response to his suggestion and I’m sure he’s informing whoever it is in America who needs to be informed.’

  In the kitchen, Beth said, ‘Sit down, Leonora, and I’ll get your tea and toast ready. I’ll carry it through to the dining room for you.’

  ‘No, I’ll have it here at the kitchen table. It’s so late.’

  Beth could feel Leonora’s eyes on her as she filled the kettle and took the cup and saucer down from the dresser.

  ‘You’re staring at me, Leonora. Have I left something undone?’

  ‘No, no, dear. It’s only that you look so young. Just like you did when you came here for the school holidays.’

  Beth laughed, ‘Don’t be fooled by jeans and a T-shirt! I’ll be thirty in a couple of years, you know. On the shelf, that’s what I am!’

  ‘What nonsense, child! Thirty’s still a girl, almost. On the shelf indeed! Though there’s a lot to be said for shelves. Things may get dusty on a shelf but they don’t get broken.’

  Beth knew from the way she said it that this particular pearl of wisdom was one Leonora was fond of and must have used a million times, probably to console her unmarried friends. On another day, she might have considered giving her an argument, but now wasn’t the time, so she put two slices of bread into the toaster and wondered what she could say to change the subject.

  *

  James stood in the middle of the marquee, aware that there was really nothing in particular for him to do. Everything was under control, but he did enjoy pretending to be something like a ringmaster. As he turned his head, he caught sight of Chloë, carrying a sketch pad.

  ‘Am I seeing things?’ he laughed. ‘Surely it can’t be you, sweetheart, at this hour? I didn’t think the morning was your time of day.’

  ‘Hello, Dad. It isn’t,’ said Chloë, sounding, James was glad to note, quite amiable. ‘But I wanted to go and look at the willows.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he said, as though this were the most normal thing in the world to be doing so early in the day. He would never have admitted it to Gwen, but he knew and Chloë knew that there was a bond between the two of them. They liked one another. James made no secret of his admiration for Chloë’s work, and even had one of her less comprehensible sculptures displayed on a table in his office. He made a point of never commenting on her appearance, which was, he realized, a painless way of staying in her good books. Sometimes he could scarcely hide a smile as Gwen rose, predictably, to Chloë’s bait, unable to stifle criticism of this or that outlandish fashion. He’d never discussed it with his daughter, but had a shrewd idea that a lot of what Chloë did was designed to irritate her mother. Once, when she was about ten, she’d said out loud what James had always thought himself but felt vaguely guilty about.

  ‘Mummy’s always on Efe’s side, isn’t she?’ Chloë had asked him, and when he’d hesitated, she’d added, ‘But it doesn’t matter, does it, because you’re on mine.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ he had answered. ‘I suppose I am, but don’t go saying so to your mother.’

  ‘I’m not stupid, Dad.’ And she’d smiled the smile that melted his heart every time. His sweetheart … that was what she was and James felt proud that she never minded him calling her that. She wouldn’t have put up with it for a second from anyone else. What on earth did she want with willow trees, all of a sudden? She must have looked at them thousands of times.

  ‘I expect we’ll see you later, then,’ he said.

  ‘Suppose so,’ she said cheerfully, and waved at him as she went off towards the lake.

  *

  Alex slung his camera over his shoulder and made his way back to the house. He’d been up for hours, and had gone out at what felt like dawn, but was actually only about seven o’clock, to photograph the men moving along the shining lengths of scaffolding, carrying stage lights to fix to the steel skeleton inside the marquee, ready for the party. Then he’d wandered down to the lake for some shots of the waterlilies. The swans were right over on the far bank and he didn’t have the energy to go all the way round there without so much as a cup of coffee. I’ll get some breakfast, he thought, and then go back later. It occurred to Alex that there were probably a hundred tasks his father would want him to take on, and he got his excuses ready as he walked across the terrace. I’ll tell him I’m working on Leonora’s present, and that won’t even be an excuse but the plain truth.

  As he approached the French windows of the drawing room, he heard Efe’s voice coming from the conservatory. Tearing a strip off someone, by the sound of it. Alex stood quite still for a moment, wondering whether he should go away and leave whoever it was to their fate, or whether he should at least have a look to see what was going on. Perhaps Efe was shouting over the phone and no one was actually catching the blast full-on and in person. He looked in at the window.

  Fiona was cowering – that was the only word for it – near the door, holding Douggie close to her. Her arm was hugging the little boy into her skirt, shielding him from the full force of his father’s anger, though the poor kid was obviously terrified.

  ‘I can’t. Don’t you understand how impossible all this is for me, Fiona? You’re the first to
spend all the bloody money I bring back, on top of everything your Dad sees to it that you have, so I don’t think you’re really in a position to give me all that shit about neglect and so forth. Jesus, the house is full to the rafters with doting fucking relatives. How come it’s today I suddenly have to be the perfect new man? You know your trouble, Fiona? You’re a fool. You can’t help it. You always were and I daresay you always will be and it’s just my misfortune to be married to you, but honestly … today. How could you? When you know how much this means to me? When you know how much hinges on this and how Leonora, just by being so fucking obstinate, can wreck my career for ever?’

  He’d run out of steam. Alex looked through the window and it took all his self-control to stop from rushing in there and hitting Efe. Fat lot of good that would do. He’d been wanting to hit Efe from time to time for more than twenty years, but whenever he’d tried it he’d come off bruised and battered for his pains. He was ashamed to recognize that part of his reaction to this latest demonstration of his brother’s occasional cruelty was surprise. Fiona was so self-effacing in everything that related to Efe, she echoed his every opinion so closely that Alex was shocked at this physical evidence of some sort of disagreement, or disharmony. His sister-in-law worked so hard to see that Efe got his way always that any bullying must have seemed doubly harsh to her.

  Poor Fiona now looked as though she was about to burst into tears and it occurred to Alex that maybe he could create a diversion. He knocked on the glass and smiled, as though he’d only just glanced in at the window at that moment.

  ‘What do you want?’ Efe mouthed at him.

  ‘Thought Douggie might like to go and look at the men putting up the lights in the marquee.’

  Fiona ran to open the door from the conservatory to the terrace.

  ‘Oh, Alex, would you? That would be super, wouldn’t it, Douggie? Go with Alex to see the men working in the big tent?’

  Douggie nodded gravely and put his hand in Alex’s.

  ‘Thanks, Alex,’ said Fiona. ‘That’s so nice of you.’

  She was wearing a long-sleeved blouse but the cuff fell back as she pushed a lock of hair away from her forehead and Alex noticed bruises on the lower part of her arm, dark, purple stains in a pattern like fingers, or was he just imagining it? Was Efe capable of that? Suddenly, Alex felt chilly, even though the sun was rising in the sky and it was going to be a hot day.

  ‘Come on, Douggie. Got to grab some food from the kitchen and then we’ll go. Bet you’d like a biscuit, right?’

  *

  Beth turned to walk up to the house. She’d left the kitchen and gone out to see whether Efe was anywhere near the marquee. She’d been hanging round it now for what seemed like ages and he hadn’t appeared. Alex and Douggie (what was Alex doing with the little boy? Where was Fiona?) arrived just as she’d decided she’d had enough of pretending to be interested in the problems of where to put the spotlights, and although she could see that Alex would have been only too glad of a bit of help with childcare, her need simply to lay eyes on Efe was too strong.

  ‘I’m off back to the house, Alex,’ she’d said as kindly as she could, and could feel his disappointed gaze on her back as she walked away. I’m getting worse, not better, she thought. I have to see him. Why aren’t I like this in London? She knew the answer. There, she had a whole life to distract her. There was work and there were other people. Other men who took her out and bought her dinner and shared her bed sometimes, too.

  She hadn’t dared to ask Alex where Efe was. She wanted to preserve her dignity and it was somehow undignified and schoolgirlish to follow someone round like this; to look for them all over Willow Court.

  As she stepped inside, the shade of the hall felt cool and silent after the light and the bustle of so many people around the marquee on the lawn. She knew, quite suddenly, where Efe might be. Whenever he wanted to work here, Gwen let him use her laptop in the conservatory, where she generally had a table set out with all her things on it. He’d be there, probably emailing Reuben Stronsky to tell him about Leonora’s reaction. Or else he’d be getting all the facts together to show her later. Beth felt rather sorry for him. He didn’t realize quite how stubborn his grandmother was, and how adamant she was about her father’s paintings.

  She could hear his voice. Was someone in the conservatory with him? There was a place in the corridor where you could stand and look into the room without whoever was in there seeing you. She and Efe had often stood in exactly this spot, listening to conversations between Gwen and James or between Leonora and Rilla; often these were quarrels or disagreements of some kind, which had made the younger Beth blush and squirm, and want to run away and hide. It was Efe who made her stay and listen. Sometimes she burst into tears and then he was cross with her for hours.

  Now, she looked to see who it was talking to Efe and saw that he was on his mobile phone. She couldn’t quite hear what he was saying but she caught the tone. It was seductive, and occasionally he’d laugh in the way you only laughed at something a lover said to you. Beth found herself unable to move, and strained to catch a word, or a name. Who was it who’d turned Efe, on this morning of all mornings, into this loving, almost purring creature? His voice was a little louder now.

  ‘Not long, my darling …’ she heard. ‘… together … Me too …’ Then a long silence, then, ‘Not now, for God’s sake, Melanie. I can’t bear it. Stop. Please stop.’

  Beth thought she could guess what Melanie was saying to him. The only Melanie Beth knew was a friend of Gwen’s, who kept an antique shop in the next village. Melanie Havering, she was called. Efe couldn’t possibly be talking to her.

  She found herself as jealous of this Melanie person as she was of Fiona. And more surprisingly, she was sorry for Fiona and she didn’t understand that at all. The most surprising feeling, though, the one that lay over all the others, was disappointment. She’d never thought Efe was particularly moral or well behaved, but something about this whispered conversation going on in a place where his wife and child might walk in at any moment struck her as tawdry.

  Beth waited till he’d put the mobile phone back into his briefcase and then she went into the conservatory.

  ‘Hello, Beth,’ he said. ‘You’re up early.’

  ‘It’s ten o’clock, Efe. I’ve been up for hours. What have you been doing? I’d have thought you’d be in there ordering the workmen around.’

  ‘Other fish to fry, haven’t I? I spoke to Reuben last night and he’s getting on a plane.’

  ‘On a plane?’

  ‘For God’s sake, stop repeating everything I say, Beth. Fiona does that and it drives me up the wall. Yes, he’s coming over here to talk some sense into Leonora. Don’t say a word to anyone. Not a single word. I don’t want to spoil the party or anything.’

  Beth sat down in a cane armchair.

  ‘Did I hear right? You don’t want to spoil the party but you’re not taking no for an answer and getting this Stronsky chap to come and put pressure on Leonora? Don’t you think that’s taking things to extremes a bit?’

  ‘Reuben Stronsky isn’t the sort of man to put any pressure on anyone. Not in the way you mean. He’s quite charming and quietly spoken and Leonora will love him. In any case, I thought you’d be on my side,’ Efe said, frowning, and looking so much like he did as a boy that Beth almost laughed.

  ‘Well, I’m not. I think the paintings look very nice here. They’re part of the landscape, aren’t they?’

  ‘You hardly ever look at them. And Leonora for all her talk about opening the house to the public doesn’t exploit them nearly as well as they could be exploited. People are desperate to see them. Ethan Walsh is one of the most talked-about artists of the last century.’

  ‘You sound just like a brochure. Haven’t you thought that maybe it’s the very fact that one has to make a bit of an effort to get here that adds to their desirability? Makes them fashionable?’

  Efe said, ‘I can’t stay here chatting to y
ou, Beth, if you’re going to be as obstinate as Leonora! I thought I could rely on you, so I’m a bit disappointed, if you must know.’

  Part of her longed to say yes, Efe, please smile again and I’ll agree with anything you want me to agree with, always. But she remembered the conversation with Melanie and suddenly didn’t feel so inclined to smooth things over.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she said, still smiling. ‘I’m so sorry, Efe. To disappoint you. I expect you’ll get over it.’

  He swept out of the room scowling and Beth blinked back tears. She’d always hated crossing Efe and being nearly thirty made no difference to that at all. I must find something to do, she thought. I must stop being so obsessive about him.

  Beth sighed and left the comfort of the armchair. I’ll go and find Rilla, she thought. See what she thinks about this plan of Efe’s. And when Alex has finished being a nursemaid to Douggie, I’ll ask him as well. Chloë’s probably still asleep.

  *

  Alex wondered why he was finding it so difficult to concentrate. He was crouched down in the shrubbery, taking close-up shots of the parasol mushrooms growing around the roots of the rhododendrons. Mary used to fry them for breakfast when he lived at home, and Alex wondered whether he ought to pick these. In the end, he decided to let them grow, quietly where no one ever thought of looking for them. When he’d taken enough shots of the parasols, he moved to the roots of the shrubs themselves, and the leaves that had fallen during the summer. If you only looked carefully enough, there were entire worlds in nature that simply existed without anyone paying them any attention.