by Adele Geras
‘I wish you could stay,’ she said, and then, ‘Please kiss me, Peter. Please.’
His eyes widened. His face was so close to hers that she could almost count his eyelashes. He kissed her, and she breathed in his smell, and tasted his mouth on hers and felt the hardness of his arms on her back, pulling her into the heat of his body. More. She wanted more. She wanted it never to stop, this kiss, but it did and she found she was crying. Peter suddenly pulled away from her, and sprang to his feet and moved towards the door.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and pushed his hair away from his forehead. ‘So sorry. You’re just a child, Leonora. I had no right. Please forgive me. I don’t know what came over me. I’ll say goodbye now. So sorry.’
He’d gone before she could answer and she rushed after him.
‘Peter! Please, Peter, stop. Where are you going?’
They were in the hall. At any moment, someone – another patient, Sister, even Daddy himself – might interrupt them. She took his hand. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to the gazebo.’
She almost pulled him out of the front door and they walked slowly over the lawn together.
‘We might be seen, you know,’ Peter said, out of breath and leaning against the glass wall.
‘I don’t care,’ Leonora answered. ‘You’re going away and I may never see you again. I couldn’t just let you go like that. Come inside.’
The moment they were safely in the gazebo, she flung her arms round Peter’s neck and burst into tears.
‘Oh, Peter, don’t go. What will I do? I’ll die. Can I come with you? Oh, please say you won’t go. Please …’
She felt him breathing; felt his arms encircling her and they stood clinging to one another until her crying subsided a little.
‘I’m sorry,’ Leonora whispered at last. ‘I expect you think I’m a dreadful baby. I know you have to go back to your regiment. Only it’s awful because I love you so much. I’ll never, ever love anyone ever again, so I can’t bear it if you never come back.’
She stopped speaking and looked down at the floor. ‘I shouldn’t have said that, I expect. You’ll think I’m very forward.’
‘Oh, Leonora, if only you knew!’ He turned her face up to his. ‘If you knew how much I loved you. How hard it’s been not to tell you, all this time.’
‘You should have told me. Why didn’t you? Oh, Peter!’ She nearly started crying all over again.
‘I thought that if I told you, it would be, well, like lighting a fuse. I don’t know whether I’d have been able to keep myself under control. You’re so young, Leonora. Not even fifteen, and I’m seven years older.’ He laughed ruefully. ‘I had to behave myself, don’t you see? You’re nothing but a child.’
‘I’m not. I’m not a child and even if I am, I shan’t always be one. I’ll grow up soon. I’ll wait for you, Peter. And I want to write to you. May I write to you?’
‘Will you? Really? And wait for me, too? Oh, my darling, I’ll come through anything this bloody war can throw at me if I can believe that. I’ll write to you every day. I’ll write from home and from wherever they’re going to send me when I’m a hundred per cent fit. Oh, Leonora, kiss me again.’
They stayed in the gazebo until it was time for Peter to collect his bags and wait for the car. Leonora’s mouth was swollen from their kissing and she went straight from the gazebo to her bedroom. When Nanny Mouse came to call her for dinner, she said she didn’t feel well, and stayed in bed until she was sure Peter had gone. She jumped out of bed every time she heard a car, and she watched him leave. She only half heard the song that someone was playing downstairs, but she registered the fact that it was Duke Ellington’s ‘Mood Indigo’, and the tears she’d been holding back started to fall at last. She buried her face in her pillow and wept and wept. How would she ever be able to listen to those swooping sounds again without remembering? When at last she ventured downstairs, Georgie gave her a letter Peter had left for her. That was the first letter she learned by heart, and it was the first she’d hidden in the dolls’ house. No one knows what will happen, Leonora my darling. If I survive this war, I’ll come back and we will love one another for ever and ever. I promise.
She could bear time passing. She could face every day because of the letters. Then, three years ago, they had stopped arriving. Leonora refused to think of why he might not have been able to write, and went through the motions of her life. She met other young men, but they all seemed dull and uninteresting by comparison with Peter. She went to dances, and tennis parties in the summer and found herself dreaming of Peter even while she was talking to other people. It was no good at all. There would never be another man ever again whom she could love, and she even said so once to Bunny, in an unguarded moment. Bunny was having none of it.
‘Nonsense,’ she told Leonora. ‘Someone will catch your eye one day. It’s ages and ages since you heard from Peter, and you ought to face up to it, you know. He may never come back. I expect it might take longer for you to find someone, because you’re more particular than the rest of us, but I’m sure you will in the end.’
Leonora hadn’t said a word, but she knew that Bunny was wrong. If Peter never came back, she would grow into a wrinkled old maid, never having known what it was like to make love to a man, to have children, to share a life with someone else.
She was so absorbed in her memories that she jumped when she heard Ethan speaking just behind her.
‘What’s that you’re doing?’ he said.
‘It’s dreadfully hard, Daddy,’ she answered. ‘I was just trying to make everything solid and rounded. I can’t seem to make things look real. Maybe if you showed me …’
He turned away.
‘There’s no point, Leonora,’ he shrugged his shoulders. ‘You don’t have the talent and that’s all there is to it. The world is full, bloody overflowing actually, with amateurs. No point adding to them with your nonsense. You’d be better off learning how to cook and mend socks. Perhaps I ought to write to that young man of yours and tell him to come and take you off my hands. If he’s still keen, that is.’
‘What young man?’ Leonora asked. Surely he couldn’t mean Peter? He never knew, did he, how she felt about him?
‘Peter Simmonds. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, Leonora. I wrote to him. I told him he was to have nothing to do with you till you were of age.’
Leonora felt heat filling her, in spite of the cold. She had to understand this, these words her father was saying.
‘When did you write to him, Daddy?’
‘More than three years ago, it must be.’
‘Why did you feel you had to do that?’
‘Why? Oh, don’t pretend innocence, Leonora. I intercepted one of his letters. Nanny Mouse left it lying about. It wasn’t the sort of letter a chap should have been writing to a young girl who wasn’t of age and so I forbade any further communication. Any good father would have done the same thing.’
‘You didn’t say a word to me!’ Leonora shouted. ‘How could you do such a dreadful cruel thing! Oh, you’re a monster. A tyrant. How dare you? If you read one of his letters, you must have known how much we loved one another.’
‘You were too young to know about love,’ Ethan said, dismissing her with another shrug of his shoulders.
‘I hate you!’ Leonora screamed at him. ‘I’ll never forgive you. Never. Peter may be dead. He may have died. How could you have done such a thing to your own daughter?’
‘You’re being silly, Leonora. I was looking after your interests. Just as I’m looking after your interests when I discourage you from a life devoted to art.’
‘It’s nothing to do with you. You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do.’
She turned and looked at the page on which she’d been drawing. Maybe he was right about that. She was a fool, setting herself up as some kind of artist when her father was Ethan Walsh, whose paintings were so beautiful that everyone who saw them stood in front of them a
mazed, and wondering how they’d never noticed the world looked quite like that. She picked the picture up and tore it across once, and then again.
‘There,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re satisfied. Now that you’ve ruined my life in every possible way, like a Victorian tyrant. It’s all in pieces.’
The tearing sound of the paper went through her, her eyes misted over with tears and she went on and on tearing and tearing till her picture was reduced to a kind of confetti. She wanted to grind the white flakes she’d made under her feet, stamp on them, obliterate them, but gestures like that didn’t go down well with Daddy. He’s the only person in Willow Court, Leonora thought, who’s allowed to behave like a spoiled child. She went over to the waste basket and let the paper drop into it like so many flower petals.
‘I’m going out. I have to be by myself to think.’
‘In this weather? You’ll freeze to death. There’s nothing to do out there.’
‘There is. The lake is frozen. I’m taking Mummy’s skates out of the trunk and going skating.’
Mentally, she added and just you try and stop me, and see what you get! Almost, she was longing for him to try and prevent her so that she could scream at him again; tell him that she was nearly of age and it was absolutely none of his business what she did and if he didn’t treat her better she’d leave Willow Court and see how well he managed without her. He didn’t say a word. Leonora sometimes thought that she could disappear from the face of the earth and he wouldn’t even notice.
‘He’s not properly got over your mother’s death,’ Nanny Mouse used to say, whenever she needed an excuse for his bad behaviour and Leonora would answer, ‘Well, he should have, surely. That all happened years and years ago. I’ve got over it, and it was worse for me. Don’t you think it’s worse, Nanny? Losing a mother?’
Every time she asked the question, she knew that it couldn’t really be worse in her case, because her mother had hardly looked after her at all. Nanny Mouse had brought her up. Leonora could barely remember the person called Maude Walsh. They’d played with the dolls’ house, and those times together were the only memories she had left. All through her childhood, she’d had to keep asking Nanny Mouse to remind her of things her mother used to do or say and she’d come to the conclusion that Maude Walsh had been a distant, rather quiet person. Leonora couldn’t in all honesty say that she missed her. Her father, in spite of his infuriating ways, filled the whole landscape of her childhood and left hardly any room in her head for memories of her mother. When I have children, she thought, I’ll look after them myself and we’ll play together and talk to one another all the time. I shall love them more than anything. And I shall never, never, interfere with them when they’re in love. I shall never meddle in their lives the way that Daddy has meddled in mine. Tears of rage sprang to her eyes once more as she walked into the hall.
She put on her coat, a pair of wellington boots, her gloves, a knitted hat and a scarf and, holding her mother’s ice-skates, she made her way out of the front door. The cold was like another element, so sharp that breathing hurt her chest. Whenever she thought of what Ethan had done, fury boiled up in her. Then she grew a little calmer and wondered whether it would now be possible for her to find out where Peter was. She could write to the colonel of the regiment and find out if he was alive. The pale sun was sinking towards the horizon. Every blade of grass under her feet as she walked was iced white and the sky above the black branches of the trees was like a lid squashed down over everything. She could see the lake now, silver in the remaining daylight, with the swans huddled together on the far bank. The gardener’s lads had to break up the ice near their nest each day so that the birds had a little open water to swim on. I must be the only person in the world who loves the lake all frozen, when it isn’t like itself at all, Leonora reflected. She hardly ever came down to walk around it in the summer, and she couldn’t really think why that was. Now that the water had gone to ice, though, it was transformed into a landscape that wouldn’t have seemed out of place on the moon.
Leonora sat down on a tree stump to put on her skates. This took much longer than it should have done because she didn’t dare remove her gloves. At last, though, she managed to do up the laces and went out on to the ice, sliding and skimming across the surface. She looked down, and saw that the lake water had turned into a mass of blueish-white bubbles, impenetrable and smooth. The only sound in the whole world was the ssshing noise of steel blades on ice, and the occasional cry of a bird.
I won’t think about Daddy, she thought, and the cold was so intense that it was easy to put all other thoughts out of your mind except, keep moving. Keep your circulation going. If she went round and round on the ice long enough, her anger and disappointment would dissolve. That was her hope.
She wondered about her father and thought that even if his writing to Peter was inexcusable, perhaps he really did think he was acting to protect her. I don’t care, Leonora thought. I’ll never forgive him for it, no matter what his motives were. And he’s trampled on all my dreams. Did he realize, she wondered, how much he would hurt her, and do it anyway, or did he truly not know what effect his words had on her? And what was she supposed to do with her life? She’d never wanted to be an artist, not exactly, but now that she knew it was out of the question, she felt a sort of emptiness she couldn’t quite explain.
Something caught her eye, a figure coming towards her over the lawn, through the wild garden. Who was it? She didn’t recognize the person at first glance but whoever it was was bundled up in a heavy coat and scarf and wore a hat. A man, that was certain, but no one from the house. Perhaps it was Daddy, coming to apologize. She dismissed that idea at once. Nothing would get him to stir from the fire. As far as she knew, he hadn’t left the house for weeks, and she’d never heard him say he was sorry for anything.
‘Leonora!’ The figure was calling to her. ‘Leonora … it’s me!’
She slid to the nearest tree and stopped moving. There was a time between hearing the voice and knowing, feeling, who it was, that seemed to go on and on for so long that she had the sensation of falling into somewhere white and quiet and empty where an echo lived that came from years ago. A sound that had been here at the lake perhaps, trapped between the willow branches, trying to reach her, came to her now, flying through the cold, waking memories, filling her with hope and love and warmth: Peter’s voice. She looked intently and recognized the set of the shoulders, the way Peter walked, his head held high always. It was him. He’s come back, he’s not dead, he’s come back. Every other thought in her head disappeared, and she skated over to where he was now standing, beside another tree almost on the very edge of the ice, certain it was him yet hardly daring to hope.
‘Peter? Is it you? Really?’ Her breath as she spoke rose up in front of her face and she moved her hands to brush it away, so that she could see more clearly. Yes, it was Peter, older, his skin paler now in winter and the freckles more visible, his long straight nose, above lips a little chapped from the cold now. Otherwise, he was just as she’d remembered him all these years – that tawny gaze, something of the wild about him.
‘I said I’d come, didn’t I?’ Now that he was there, in front of her, Leonora didn’t know what to do, what to say, where to go, and she pushed off again on to the ice, faster and faster so that she could think, so that she could collect her emotions. His voice followed her:
‘Leonora! Don’t go. Come back to me. Please come back to me. Leonora!’
She came, sliding to a halt right in front of him. He had to catch hold of her to prevent her from stumbling.
‘It’s you. It’s really you, Peter,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t believe it. I’ve dreamed about you coming back so often that I expect this might be a dream as well. Are you real?’
Peter said nothing, but put out his gloved hand and Leonora took it.
‘Come here,’ he said. ‘We can talk later. I can’t believe that after everything I’m with you again. And you’re so beaut
iful, my darling.’
‘Oh, Peter,’ Leonora wanted to say so many things, but all she could manage was his name over and over again. ‘Peter … Peter … I thought you were dead.’
‘No, I wouldn’t have, couldn’t have, died without seeing you again. I’ve been waiting, that’s all. Waiting for you to be nearly of age. Your father wrote to me and told me to keep away till then. Not to write. I expect he told you all about it.’
‘No. I’ve only just found out. I came out here because I was so angry that I couldn’t even look at him. I couldn’t abide him sitting there so smugly when he’d done that. Prevented you from writing to me. And I went on and on sending letters off, as I thought, for months. I expect he found those, too, and destroyed them. Oh, it’s too horrible to think about! You must have thought I’d stopped thinking of you. But I haven’t. I think about you all the time.’
‘Oh, my poor darling. That’s terrible, it’s too ghastly for words.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now you’re here.’
He hugged her to him. ‘Kiss me, Leonora. Kiss me.’
‘I’m a bit wobbly on my skates.’
‘I’ll hold you steady,’ Peter said, and put his arms around her. ‘I won’t let you fall.’
They kissed for a long moment and then Peter stepped away from her.
‘It doesn’t matter any longer about the letters. You waited for me. And you’re grown-up now, aren’t you?’
Leonora nodded. ‘Quite grown-up. I’ve been dreaming about you coming back for five years. I’m so happy.’
‘You ought to take your skates off, Leonora. We should go back to the house or we’ll freeze to death.’
He gave her his hand, and as she sat on the tree stump, he helped her to undo the laces on her skates, and put on her wellington boots again. He was kneeling in front of her, so that all she could see was the top of his hat.
