by Adele Geras
‘I find her quite restful, really. Doesn’t matter what you say, she’ll have forgotten it before you’ve left the room.’
The sun shone through the leaves of the trees along the drive and made shadows flicker over Alex’s face. For a moment, Beth considered asking him again about that day by the lake, the day when Mark died, but thought better of it. He’d seemed so reluctant to talk about it and so obviously regretted bringing it up in the first place that she hadn’t the heart to remind him. He might know about Efe, though, and Fiona.
‘Alex, may I ask you something?’ she said. ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’
‘Go on, then. What is it?’
‘I caught Fiona crying in the bathroom yesterday. She showed me her arms and they were covered in bruises. She told me Efe sometimes loses his temper with her. Did you know that?’
‘I saw them too. The bruises.’ Alex said nothing for a few moments, then, ‘He’s capable of it, you know, Beth. He’s my brother and I feel disloyal saying this about him but he does get kind of out of control sometimes.’
Beth sighed. ‘I know that, really. I’ve seen him, occasionally, only I never thought …’ Her voice faded away. ‘Oh, Alex, what can we do? Shouldn’t we say something? Maybe we ought to tell your mum and dad. Or Leonora. What do you think?’
‘I could speak to him, I suppose,’ Alex said. ‘But I doubt he’d listen to me. He’d probably deny it. Fiona’s the one who has to deal with it. You could maybe talk to her.’
‘I hardly know her and …’
‘I know. You don’t think much of her, either.’
Beth looked searchingly at Alex. ‘You don’t miss much, do you? I have tried to keep my opinion of her to myself. Is it that obvious? I feel sorry for her now, though.’ She stopped walking and leaned against a tree. ‘I don’t know what I think about anything any more. I don’t feel the same today as I did yesterday about anything. What’s happening, Alex? Why is Efe so different from how he usually is?’
‘He’s not different at all,’ Alex said gently. ‘It’s just that this is the first time for ages that we’ve all been together for a few days, and so you get to see other bits of him. The bits that aren’t on display when you go round to his flat for dinner for instance. He’s always liked his own way, and has always managed to charm people when he wants something out of them. He’s been charming you for years, hasn’t he?’
‘Alex! You sound as though you’re jealous!’ Beth started to laugh, but she stopped at once when she saw Alex’s face.
‘Of course I’m not jealous,’ he said, ‘but I have begun to notice certain things. The way you look at him, for instance. I’m surprised no one else has seen it.’
‘He makes me angry, most of the time. And anyway, you’re just as bad. We’ve both of us sort of worshipped him since we were kids, haven’t we?’
Alex nodded and adopted a tactic Beth had seen him use many times. He changed the subject.
‘When we last went down to see Nanny Mouse,’ he said, as though he’d never mentioned Beth’s feelings, ‘she thought I was Efe at first. Then she got confused all over again and called me Peter. I hope we can get her to recognize us for a bit.’
‘It’ll be okay. She drifts in and out of real life, doesn’t she? In and out of what’s happening now and you have to catch those moments when she’s making sense as they go past you.’
Alex smiled at her and Beth was surprised how comforted he made her feel. He was always the same. Always there and always reliable. He hadn’t changed. Unlike Efe. For years now Efe had been the focus of all her dreams. It was only in the last few hours that she’d begun to realize that the person she’d been fantasizing about for so long was perhaps not exactly who she’d thought he was, but someone quite different. Someone who was capable of violence, and who thought nothing of being unfaithful to his wife. I still love him, Beth thought, but was immediately aware of a tiny doubt creeping over her like the thinnest of mists, dissipating almost at once but leaving behind some trace, some inkling, that she would never again feel quite the same about him.
Alex. Beth looked at him striding along beside her in silence, and found herself considering him for the very first time in her life as a man. As someone whom she might touch, might kiss, might be able to love. Greatly to her surprise, such imaginings, far from shocking her, sent a small thrill through her, as though an electric current had passed along her body. This is ridiculous, she thought. This is Alex. It’s mad to start thinking about him like this. Quite mad.
‘We’re here, Beth,’ Alex said.
‘Sorry, Alex, I was miles away.’
Alex knocked at the door of Lodge Cottage and Miss Lardner opened it at once. She must, Beth thought, have been standing just inside, waiting for them.
‘I saw you coming down the drive,’ she said. ‘How very good it is to see you both! You’re just in time for elevenses.’
Beth caught Alex’s eye and they smiled at one another. She knew that they were both thinking the same thing exactly: this was the only place in the world where everyone still believed in elevenses. She said, ‘That’ll be lovely, Miss Lardner. We’d love some elevenses, wouldn’t we, Alex?’
‘Can’t think of anything I’d like better,’ Alex answered. He sounded dangerously close to laughter. He followed Beth into the tiny drawing room where Nanny Mouse was nodding in her favourite armchair.
*
Whenever he sat in one of Nanny Mouse’s armchairs, Alex felt like Alice after she’d taken the magic potion and grown too big for the White Rabbit’s house. He remembered every detail of the illustration from the book he’d loved since he was seven; poor Alice’s arms and legs pressing against the walls, her head at a strange angle. He put his feet together and pulled them as close as he possibly could to his chair.
The cups and saucers at Lodge Cottage were probably the same size as crockery everywhere else, but because they were so dainty, and patterned with roses and edged with gold, it made him feel clumsy just to look at them, and he hurried to finish his coffee (instant and too weak) and put the saucer down on the tiny little table that Miss Lardner had placed beside him.
Beth was doing a grand job, talking to the old lady. What Alex had told Beth about how much he enjoyed visiting Nanny Mouse was true, but there were ways in which he sometimes felt uncomfortable in Nanny Mouse’s company. Or maybe uncomfortable wasn’t the right word. On edge, in case anything happened to her, perhaps, and he’d have to deal with it. That was nonsense as well. Miss Lardner was always on hand. Still, Nanny Mouse was so old that she had become almost translucent and, even at her best, there was a faint trembling about her which made him nervous. He turned his attention to the many photographs in ornate frames up on the mantelpiece.
Most of them were well known to him because he’d seen copies of them in family albums that belonged to Leonora and Gwen. All the baby pictures were there in force. Leonora herself, as a baby at her christening, swathed in cascades of lace; Rilla’s christening, wearing the same dress and carried by Leonora; Gwen and Rilla wearing smocked dresses and standing rather awkwardly against their mother’s skirt. Not a very professional shot, that one, with Leonora cut off at the waist. You could see her hand reaching out to rest on Gwen’s hair. It always surprised Alex, who spent ages working on the best shot, the right light, and some kind of interesting composition, how the old photos, with all their imperfections, turned out often to be more moving than anything he could achieve. Or maybe he was just romanticizing the past, which had a lustre of its own just because it had disappeared long ago and left behind nothing but this faint trace of itself.
Had Beth realized what he’d admitted to? He looked at her, chatting and smiling with Nanny Mouse and wondered. If she’d taken it in, she wasn’t showing what she felt. Maybe she hadn’t decided yet. I’m an idiot, Alex thought. I don’t know how to do that sort of thing. Were you actually supposed to come out and say it? I love you. Just like that? Was he some kind of a fr
eak because he’d never articulated the words before? All the women he’d known had picked up the signals without him needing to say a word. He reflected ruefully that maybe these affairs, lasting not more than a few months most of them, would have turned out more satisfactorily if he’d spoken of his feelings. You weren’t supposed to lie, though, he knew that much. It dawned on him that the reason he’d never loved another woman properly before was that he’d been preoccupied with Beth all his life, without even being conscious of it.
I mistook it for something else entirely, he thought. A mixture of friendship and admiration. It’s taken me all these years to recognize that it might be something more. To acknowledge the fact that I love her and there’s nothing to stop her from loving me. Nothing but the fact that she’s besotted with Efe. Alex sighed. Nanny Mouse was talking to him now and he made a big effort to concentrate. You had to keep your wits about you when you embarked on a conversation with someone whose focus kept shifting.
‘She was very ill, you know,’ Nanny Mouse confided. ‘She should never have run out of doors like that. It wasn’t allowed.’
‘Wasn’t it?’ Alex said, and Beth smiled at him and came to his rescue.
‘Who was ill, Nanny? Do you mean Leonora?’
‘Yes, of course. She caught a dreadful chill which turned to pneumonia. I nursed her through it. Oh, she was burning up with the fever! She missed her birthday, you know. We had to give her all her presents later. There was a little boy who drowned too. Did you know that?’
Beth nodded. Alex could see her calculating whether it was worth explaining about Mark, and her relationship to him. She changed the subject instead.
‘What lovely flowers, Nanny! You like roses best, don’t you?’
‘If you keep them for a very long time, they turn into beautiful dried roses. Did you know that? I used to do it. I used to make pot-pourri, which smelled better than the ones you get nowadays. All chemicals they are. Not real dried flowers.’
Alex raised his eyebrows. Life was definitely too short to discuss pot-pourri, chemical or otherwise. Beth winked at him and said, ‘We must go now, Nanny. It’ll be lunchtime soon. We’ll come again.’ She stood up and kissed the old lady, who suddenly turned and clung to her hand.
‘She was wearing her best dress,’ she said, near to tears, her voice wobbling. ‘Lilac lace, it was. She looked beautiful. But it was ruined of course. Soaked and torn and quite, quite spoiled. I gave it to Tyler to burn with the garden rubbish. The master wasn’t in a state to do anything.’
‘Goodbye, Nanny,’ Alex said, leading Beth over to the door. ‘Thanks for elevenses.’
*
As Alex and Beth left Lodge Cottage, a car came to a screeching halt on the drive beside them. It was Efe’s Audi, with Fiona and Douggie in it, too, and although Alex knew for a fact that they’d gone into the village on some errand for Gwen, they looked as though they’d all been out for a delightful jaunt. Douggie waved at them from his child seat. Fiona seemed prettier and more relaxed than she had for days, and after she’d wound down the window on her side, Efe leaned right over her to speak to them.
‘Bloody hell, you two, you’re a bit early with the duty visits, aren’t you?’
‘Not duty at all. We’ve had elevenses,’ Beth said. Alex noticed that she was smiling. ‘Remember those? We used to have them when we were kids.’
‘Rich Tea biscuits and milky cocoa,’ Efe said. ‘Want a lift up to the house?’
‘Love one, thanks,’ Beth said and turned to Alex. ‘Coming, Alex?’
Alex shook his head. ‘No, that’s okay. I’m going into the village myself now, I think.’ He didn’t really need to go there, but nothing would have made him get into the same car with Beth and Efe. A shadow had fallen over the day, and he realized as he saw her stepping into the car exactly how much he’d been wanting to talk to her again once they’d left Nanny Mouse. Now he had no idea when he’d be able to get her alone. Up at Willow Court there was so much going on and so many people coming and going that it would be almost impossible. Shit. Bloody Efe sailing in there at exactly the wrong time and snatching things away. It had always been the same. Throughout their lives, it seemed to Alex, Efe had been the one to push himself forward, but perhaps it wasn’t like that at all. It’s probably me, he thought. I hang back too much. It isn’t Efe’s fault. I don’t speak when I should. I don’t volunteer. I’d never have had the nerve, if it is nerve, to put an arm round Beth just now and say, no, Beth’s coming with me, I’m afraid. Sorry, Efe! What would she have done? She may have gone with them anyway. Alex stood by the gate wondering whether he had the energy to walk into the village. Perhaps he was imagining it, but Beth seemed relieved to be getting into Efe’s car. Relieved to be getting away from me, Alex thought. A picture of her stepping eagerly into the car and leaning over to kiss Douggie filled his mind so that he walked down the road in a daze of jealousy. She hadn’t even waved at him as they left, much less actually said goodbye. You’ve got no chance, Alex, he said to himself, and set off down the road, staring at the tarmac, seeing nothing.
*
Oh God, Beth thought, staring at the back of Efe’s head. For a wild moment, she wondered what would happen if she stroked his hair. She had both hands firmly in her lap and was happy to submit to Douggie hitting her playfully over and over again with his cloth rabbit.
I shouldn’t have just left Alex, she thought. I should have gone with him and let him say whatever it was that he wanted to say. I should have been braver. She knew that one of the reasons she’d seized the chance to drive up to the house with Efe and Fiona was to avoid confronting Alex and the declaration that she knew he was preparing to make. I’m cruel, she thought. He must have been struggling for ages to say as much as he did say, and now he’ll have to start from scratch. She almost asked Efe to stop the car, but they were already at the door of Willow Court.
I’m not completely cured of Efe yet, she thought miserably, listening as they got out of the car to Fiona telling her about the way they’d had to go down to the shop and get Douggie some fish fingers, without which he apparently couldn’t survive.
‘Nearly panic stations, I can tell you,’ she breathed.
Beth said, ‘I can imagine.’
Efe had clearly made it up with Fiona. He’d been stroking her thigh as Beth was getting into the car, and now the two of them were going up the front steps together with their arms around one another, leaving her to take charge of Douggie. They were smiling, too, in an embarrassingly coy and revolting way. It was quite clear to Beth that they’d been making love earlier. When on earth had he found the time? He must have gone to find her straight after their conversation about Melanie Havering. Just talking about it to me, Beth thought, probably made him feel horny. You could practically smell it on them. How had they managed it with Douggie around all the time? Maybe Gwen had taken him off for a bit to play in the garden or something. Beth had a sudden vision of Efe and Fiona falling into one another’s arms, unable to stop themselves, carried away, barely able to breathe for the passion that overtook them. By the time she’d followed them inside, she felt bruised and sore and breathless, as though someone had hit her hard. She peered down the drive to see whether perhaps Alex had followed the car, but he was nowhere to be seen and she was surprised at how disappointed she was.
‘Come on, Douggie,’ she said, trying to sound cheerful. ‘Let’s go and see where Rilla is.’
*
Rilla lay in bed and wished fervently that she hadn’t drunk quite so much the night before. I’m getting too old for it, she thought, and debated the wisdom of opening her eyes. When she’d first told her mother that she wanted to be an actress, Leonora had remarked rather acidly, ‘Well, dear, theatre work will be most suitable for you, won’t it? You are an owl rather than a lark.’
That was one way of putting it. Rilla just thought of herself as not terribly good in the mornings. No one knew that every day since Mark’s death she’d woken up with a new shoc
k of pain that seemed to catch her just below the heart. She generally managed to push it down or put it away, or at least reduce it to manageable proportions before she got out of bed. Today was different. The weight on her heart was lighter and that was Sean’s doing. She hadn’t been so drunk last night that she had forgotten what had happened. It was coming back to her in every delicious detail and she stretched out under the duvet, wondering why it was that she wasn’t completely, totally happy. I’ve been dreaming of something like this, she said to herself, longing for it, so now what’s the matter?
A dream. She’d had a dream, and in the way that dreams have of floating in wisps across your mind, fragments of it came drifting back now to trouble her. Fuck, she thought. I can’t even be properly happy for a few uninterrupted hours without some horrible nightmare coming and spoiling it all. What was this one about? Mark was somewhere in it, as he always was. Running out of the gazebo with his hands outstretched and there was a mirror behind him. How could that be? There wasn’t any logic to dreams, Rilla knew, and she should put this one out of her mind on a day like today, that promised to be so happy.
There were things she should be doing. She ought to go and tell Mary about the strawberry shortcake. She ought to make a huge effort to look really beautiful for Sean. She ought to check that Gwen didn’t need any help with the last-minute arrangements, even at the risk of being rebuffed. She ought to phone Ivan. He must think she’d vanished off the face of the earth. What she certainly ought not to do was lie in bed and cry and that was what she was doing. She could feel unwanted, uncalled-for tears trickling down her cheeks and gathering in the crease of her neck. I did it, she thought miserably. That’s why I can never, never be happy, whatever good things happen. However well everything is going it comes down to this: Mark’s death was my fault. I never should have left him and I’ll never forgive myself.
March 1982
Rilla tucked the phone under her chin, held her lighter as far as she possibly could from the mouthpiece, and clicked it into flame as quietly as she knew how to light the cigarette that was already in her mouth.
