Facing the Light

by Adele Geras

  Thinking about Hugh now was strange. Up until the time she’d met Sean, whenever her first lover came into her mind she felt such resentment towards Leonora for destroying that relationship that there was barely any pleasure left in any of her memories. Now though, Rilla thought, it’s as though a migraine headache has lifted. She found to her surprise that she’d been talking to Leonora without feeling angry, and she could say Hugh’s name to herself and not feel overwhelmed by a rising tide of regret and fury. Rilla smiled when she thought how very little it had taken, after all, to banish Hugh, whom she’d always considered the love of her life, to the safety of the distant past.

  She stepped into the gazebo. It was quite beautiful, and the one place at Willow Court that Rilla loved without reservation because the only memories she had of it were good ones. As a child, she’d taken no notice of it. There wasn’t much point to the place, as far as she could see then. Because the walls were made of glass, it didn’t even pass muster as a good spot to make a den, and there was nothing interesting in it, only cane chairs with white cushions in the centre of the room and a white-painted bench running all around the walls. The building was a hexagon made of wrought iron and glass, too small to be used for anything other than quiet reading or thinking by no more than two people at once.

  Quiet reading and thinking was what it was originally intended for. Ethan Walsh had it built for his wife on their second wedding anniversary. So Leonora said. She also said she remembered her mother doing exactly that, sitting there for hours and hours, just staring into space. The more Rilla heard about her maternal grandmother, the more strange she seemed.

  We found different things to do here, she thought, Hugh and I. She opened the door and let herself in and knew that the velvet night was hiding her now as it had then. She sat down facing away from the lake. The moon was hidden for the moment behind thick cloud, but Rilla didn’t want to risk glancing up to see a flash of silvery water somewhere beyond the trees. She closed her eyes. Where was Sean?

  All through dinner she hadn’t worried about it for a second. She’d known he’d be coming, and could hardly go through the motions of talking, or listening, because she was so longing to leave the table and get out – out and down here where he’d be arriving, he said, as soon as he could. But where was he? Maybe he’d changed his mind. Rilla shivered and firmly pushed this thought away. The silence that surrounded her in this little glass cage was like no other; you could hear yourself breathing and even the noise of insect wings and the movements of nocturnal creatures of one kind and another were quite inaudible.

  He will come, she told herself. He must. I’m not going back to the house. Not yet. She closed her eyes, leaned her head against the back of the chair and made herself think about something else. Hugh. They’d come here once after swimming naked in the lake. It was about three in the morning and the weather was hot and airless then, too. He’d carried her up here, wrapped in nothing more than the shirt she’d been wearing. They’d barely got into the gazebo before he put her down and pulled the shirt away from her breasts and began to kiss her all over. They’d sunk into one of the chairs, oblivious to everything but the demands of skin and flesh and open, gasping mouths. Leonora herself, together with the entire household, could have been standing watching from the other side of the glass and they’d never have known it.

  Rilla smiled. God, when you were young you didn’t care about anything. Not comfort, not shame, nothing. The fire in the blood just burned through whatever was in its path and took no heed of any consequences. Hugh. She could practically taste him, even after all these years.

  July/August 1971

  I hate her. I absolutely and totally hate her. I wish I didn’t have to live in this horrible place with horrible people who don’t know anything. Nothing at all. Not about me, or what’s going on in the real world away from this ridiculous house with its endless grass and flowers and stupid lake that everyone thinks is so marvellous, and which is really so boring because all you can do with it is walk around it and once you’ve done that, well, there’s nothing else really. I hate it. I hate everything. They don’t understand anything, not any of them. Not Mummy, not Nanny Mouse, and not Gwen because she’s never bloody here anyway but in bloody Switzerland most of the time, learning how to fold napkins or something equally vital, and only coming home for a couple of weekends over the summer with James in tow because she’s two years older and she can do whatever she wants and not have anyone criticize her …

  Rilla’s thoughts went round and round in her head and she could hardly see through her tears. Nevertheless, she was marching down the avenue of scarlet oaks towards the gate and freedom. Everything would be all right once she’d got away from Willow Court. It was five o’clock on an afternoon that threatened rain and she hadn’t even bothered to pick up a jacket. I don’t care if I get soaked, she thought. She won’t care either. She thinks making a fuss about what I wear and what I do shows that she loves me, but it doesn’t. She just cares about what people will think. Rilla almost laughed, even though she felt so angry. What people? Where were they?

  ‘You are not’, her mother had said, just as she was about to open the door and go out, ‘leaving this house looking like that.’

  ‘Looking like what?’ Rilla had answered. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Of course you do, darling. Don’t be silly.’ Leonora (Rilla always called her that when she felt cross) had a way of saying things that managed at the same time to convey that you were completely thick for not understanding what she was on about, and also that she was so far above you that you ought to be somehow grateful that she’d bothered to take any notice of you.

  ‘I don’t,’ Rilla persisted, although actually she had a pretty good idea of what it was that had made her mother see red.

  ‘Well, then, I shall tell you.’ Leonora looked Rilla up and down. ‘Your skirt is too short. Your blouse is too tight. You have far too much eye make-up on and high-heeled shoes like that are inappropriate for a trip to the village. Please go back to your room and put on something more suitable. You look quite ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s none of your business how I look,’ Rilla said, and strode towards the front door. Unfortunately, it was so heavy that slamming it shut was never an option, but she did her best to leave in a way that would convey how furious she was. Her mother would be silent and distant when she returned, but for the moment she didn’t care.

  As soon as she had run down the steps to the drive, the tumult in her head began. Now that she was nearly at the gate, it had subsided somewhat and she was thinking more normally.

  She slowed down a little on the road to the village and part of her had to confess that her shoes were killing her. I don’t care, she said to herself. They’re beautiful. And Hugh will love the way I look in them, I know he will. Her heart began to thump rather loudly in her chest. I shan’t think about Mummy or anyone else. I’m going to meet him. Hugh. I’m going to meet Hugh.

  Rilla was in love. She’d fallen in love at exactly eleven o’clock on a Tuesday morning, three weeks ago. She remembered this because while she was in the shop and speaking to him for the first time the church clock was chiming. He’d been behind her in the queue and as soon as she turned and saw him, her whole body leapt and trembled. She’d bumped into him as she turned to go and sort of stumbled over his feet. He’d had to grab her by the arms so that she didn’t fall over. For a second or two he held her.

  ‘Terribly sorry!’ he said, and he had a voice like someone you heard on the radio.

  ‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘It was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

  He held out his hand. ‘Hello. I’m Hugh Kenworthy. Just moved into that cottage over there. For a bit of peace and quiet.’

  ‘I’m Rilla Simmonds,’ she said. ‘I live at Willow Court.’

  ‘Then you’re very lucky indeed,’ he said. ‘All those marvellous pictures. I went round Willow Court a few years back. Those W
alshes are quite amazing.’ He smiled. ‘I didn’t see you, though. I’m sure I’d have remembered.’

  Rilla made a face. ‘I must have been at school. I go to Greenbanks. That’s a rather posh prison outside Bristol. I’m a weekly boarder, which means I only come home for weekends. But Ethan Walsh was my grandfather.’

  Hugh looked at her and his eyes widened.

  ‘How completely astonishing! Really delighted to meet you, Rilla … and what an unusual name.’

  ‘It’s short for Cyrilla,’ she said. What was she doing? She never, never told anyone that unless they asked specially. All she could think was, I wish we could stay talking like this for ever. The other people in the queue were getting restless. He took her arm, and before she knew what was happening, they were outside the shop, and walking together towards his cottage.

  He wasn’t a bit like the men she met usually, but more like someone who might be on the cover of the magazines she bought sometimes, so that she could stare at the strange creatures inhabiting a world of clothes shops and shoe shops, cinemas and theatres, restaurants and discos, and imagine herself among them.

  His hair was long, falling almost to his shoulders. It was the colour of a lion’s mane, a yellowy-brown, and his eyes were such a pale blue that they looked almost silver. He had long fingers, and wore a denim shirt and jeans. On his feet he had leather cowboy boots and round his neck he’d wound a silky scarf made up of thousands of differently coloured stripes. Rilla had no idea how old he was, but one thing was certain: he was not a boy.

  She knew all about boys. In fact, at school, she was a bit of an expert on the subject. She’d kissed more of them than most people in her class had done, and more than once she’d nearly gone all the way … that was how she and her friends put it … but something had prevented this happening. Now, walking beside Hugh, she was glad she’d waited. His skin would feel rougher. His hands looked almost weather-beaten. His body would be hard. Rilla breathed in and out slowly, so that he shouldn’t see what she was feeling.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said, opening the front door of a cottage at the end of the village street, just up the road from the shop. ‘Convenient, right? For the shops, I mean. The commercial centre of the village. Where all the action is. Come in for a moment, and have a cup of coffee. Or are you expected at home? Maybe you’d better phone your mum or something.’

  ‘No, that’s okay,’ she said, angry with him for a second, before gratitude for his invitation flooded through her. ‘I’m seventeen. Old enough to be out on my own.’

  She said it flirtatiously. Rilla was good at flirting. She knew exactly what she had to do with her eyes and her head to make boys think that … well, that she was interested. He pointed to the sofa and smiled.

  ‘Right. Fine. Sit down, then, and I’ll see if I can find a couple of mugs that aren’t dirty.’

  Rilla had never seen a living room that was at the same time such a mess and so enchanting. It was crammed full of more things than she had ever seen together in one room, and they were strewn all over the place. Books were stacked on the floor, clothes heaped on chairs, records on the table next to an open jar of strawberry jam and, in the sink, used plates and cups and saucers in tottering piles that overflowed out on to the draining-board. On the mantelpiece there were invitations, postcards, a clock, and a vase containing an arrangement of honesty and peacock feathers. In the fireplace, instead of logs, the grate was heaped with stones of all sizes and colours. What were they supposed to be for? Rilla wondered. There was a huge mirror on one wall, its gilt frame decorated with fat cherubs and garlands of roses.

  ‘I like that!’ she said.

  ‘My grandmother’s,’ said Hugh. ‘D’you take sugar? In your coffee, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, please. Two.’

  He stirred the drink and handed it to her, then sat down on a chair opposite the sofa. Rilla took a sip and said, ‘I like your cottage. It’s quite unusual, isn’t it?’

  ‘A mess, you mean. I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was going to be entertaining. I’d have made more effort, truly.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Rilla. ‘I like it.’

  And it was true. You couldn’t have found a greater contrast to Willow Court in the whole of the county, and that was what she liked about it. She would have liked it whoever had been living here, but of course it was Hugh’s house and that made it extra special.

  ‘Are you an actor?’ she asked him and he shook his head.

  ‘No, I’m a potter. I’ve got a kiln in a shed out in the garden. I used to work full-time in an advertising agency in London, but it all got too much, d’you know what I mean? The rat race, and so on. So I’ve gone part-time, and this cottage, well, it’s a sort of bolt-hole. Somewhere to escape to, where I can really be myself. And see whether I can make a go of the pots.’

  ‘I’d love to live in London,’ Rilla said. ‘I think I’d enjoy the rat race. After the holidays, all I have is weeks and weeks of school to look forward to. But I’m leaving next year and then I’m going to drama school. My mother didn’t want me to at first, but now she’s given in. Well, Gwen, that’s my sister, she’s doing a Domestic Science course in Switzerland, so Mummy couldn’t really say no, could she? I’m just dying to get there. It’s so dead round here. There’s absolutely nothing to do and no one to talk to.’

  Hugh made a sad face, and Rilla laughed. ‘I mean, till I met you there was no one.’

  ‘I hope you feel you can talk to me,’ he said. ‘Or I shall be as lonely as you are, and I’d hate that. Will you come and visit me sometimes?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rilla. ‘Of course I will. I’d love to.’ She put her cup down in the tiny space left between a pot plant and three or four notebooks, which took up most of the occasional table next to the sofa. She’d hardly drunk any of it after all. Then she stood up.

  ‘I ought to get home now,’ she said. ‘My mother will wonder where I am if I stay any longer. I’m sorry I haven’t finished my coffee. It was lovely, really.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ said Hugh. ‘Do come again soon.’

  He’d stood in the doorway and waved at her as she walked to the gate. Mrs Pritchard, who lived next to the pub and who was one of her mother’s bridge ladies, was passing by on the other side of the road as she left. She can stare all she likes, Rilla thought. I don’t care if it’s not the done thing to go drinking cups of coffee with men who live on their own. I don’t care if Mrs P tells Mummy. I don’t care about anything. For two pins, she’d have turned round and hammered on his door again and cried, Let me in! I want to stay with you. No one else, not ever.

  That was how it began. Now, everything had changed, utterly. Now she was a totally different being and walked through her life in a kind of daze, her whole body throbbing and singing and longing for Hugh every second that they were apart.

  She’d fallen into the habit of going to see him in the afternoons when he wasn’t in London. To her mother she said she was visiting this or that friend from her primary school days … there were still a few of them living near the village. On her third visit, they went upstairs to the bedroom, which was surprisingly tidy, with lovely pale pink sheets and curtains printed with a pattern of ivy and white flowers, and Rilla lost her virginity willingly, happily and with considerably less pain than she’d been expecting.

  *

  ‘I’ve never spoken to anyone like this before,’ Rilla said, turning to look at Hugh’s profile on the pillow next to her. ‘I didn’t realize you could. I love you. I love this; just lying here like this with the sun coming in and everything.’ She closed her eyes. The smoke from Hugh’s roll-up had a wonderful smell. He gave her puffs from it sometimes and it made her feel swimmy and delicious, as though her body might melt into the bed. She giggled. What would Mummy say, or Gwen, if they knew that she was here, smoking pot? Would it be more shocking than the fact that she was in bed with a man? Or less shocking? The two things together would, she was sure, be the height of wickedness in Leonora’s op
inion. Rilla couldn’t help smiling at the hypocrisy. She’s fond of a gin and tonic, isn’t she? Practically hooked on it, was the woozy thought that went through her head. She’s got no right to tell me what to do. No right at all. She opened her eyes, and there he was, still looking at her and smiling.

  ‘I think,’ Rilla said, ‘I must have been born into the wrong family. D’you know what I mean?’

  He traced a line with his finger from where her hair ended, down her forehead and her nose till he reached her mouth. When she felt him touching her lips, she kissed him, and put out her tongue and licked the finger, tasting his skin.

  ‘Little kids think they’re in the wrong family, don’t they?’ he said. ‘They’ve been kidnapped away from a king’s house, or something like that. Is that what you mean?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. It’s just that in my family everyone’s so, I don’t know what to call it, stiff? Formal, maybe. My mother is always properly dressed. I’ve never seen her in a dressing-gown, for instance. She gets dressed as soon as she gets up. No chatting over cups of tea at the kitchen table for her. And my sister’s nearly as bad.’

  ‘She’s older, right?’

  ‘Yes. She’ll be coming back to London soon, when her course in Switzerland finishes, and then she’ll do even more cookery and stuff, which sounds just so boring. And she’s got a proper fiancé and everything. When they’re together, they do all the prim and proper engaged-couple things together, even though they’re not going to get married for ages and ages. You know, choosing equipment for married people. Knives and forks.’ This suddenly struck both of them as tremendously funny and they rolled around in the tangled sheets together, laughing.