Facing the Light
Page 41
Alex groaned. ‘The message was from a woman, right?’
‘Right. And it wasn’t the sort of message I would have wanted her to hear.’
Alex was silent. He could guess why Efe hadn’t deleted the offending words. He said, ‘What are you going to do, then? D’you want her back? You could persuade her if you do.’
‘Dunno what I want. That’s the truth. But Fiona’s leaving isn’t exactly going to help the celebratory mood, is it?’
Alex thought of tonight’s dinner.
‘I reckon you shouldn’t tell anyone. Not tonight anyway, and by the time tomorrow comes, everything will be in full swing and no one’ll mind so much.’ He looked at Efe.
‘Did you say you went to listen to the message again?’ A thought had suddenly struck Alex.
‘Yes. Why?’
‘No special reason,’ Alex answered. How heartbroken could Efe have been if, in the midst of discovering his wife had left him, he’d wanted to listen again to what was probably an obscene message from his mistress? Not very heartbroken at all, but just annoyed because this was something he hadn’t planned and over which he had no control.
‘Right, then.’ Efe sat up suddenly and got off the bed. He ran his hands through his hair and said, ‘That’s it. I’ll tell them she’s not feeling too good. Headache or something. Tired. Don’t you breathe a word, okay?’
Alex nodded. Not breathing a word was second nature to him.
*
Rilla sat in front of the dressing-table mirror, but even though she was looking into it she saw nothing. The bath had helped a little but her mind was still crowded with images of the lake as it must have been that day, and her child calling out to a heedless Efe who could have turned, could have looked behind him, instead of plunging further and further into his game. She let out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding and thought, poor Efe! How terrible for a child to have that always in his history. Knowing this about him made certain things about her nephew much clearer. He’d coped with guilt by becoming selfish, by going full tilt for whatever he wanted without much thought for anyone else. Rilla realized now that his short temper and impatience with those who were weaker than he must have been made even worse by this suppression of guilt.
She wondered whether this confession that Leonora had dragged out of him would make him feel worse, and decided that it wouldn’t. It might even make life easier for him. But Leonora hadn’t done it for Efe but to make her, Rilla, feel better. She felt a lump forming in her throat. Oh, stop, stop, she told herself, don’t start crying now. No need to feel that sorry for her. She would feel better too, no doubt about that. One always did after a confession. It was true, though, that over the last few days her mother had been far less acerbic than she normally was. Could it be that Leonora was mellowing in her old age? Rilla tried to recall any critical remarks, snipings, backbitings or exasperated looks, and only two or three came to mind. It’s also me, she thought. I’m distracted by love.
Her mobile phone began to sing its ridiculous tune and Rilla groaned. I must change the tone, she thought. It drives me mad. As she picked it up, her heart literally sank in her breast. It could only possibly be Ivan. She’d never got round to phoning him after all. That was Sean’s fault. As soon as she’d caught sight of him, poor Ivan had disappeared out of her head. Then she’d remembered about him and knew she had to tell him about Sean and hadn’t phoned out of cowardice. She was going to have to dump him. That was what the young called it, and though inelegant as a phrase, there was a certain accuracy about it. She would try to stall him for now and arrange a meeting next week. She pressed the button and held the phone to her ear.
‘Darling Ivan! How lovely to hear from you … yes, I’m so sorry. You cannot imagine what it’s like round here. Military campaigns are sloppy in comparison with the arrangements that are going on. Tell me what you’ve been doing.’
She listened with half an ear while Ivan droned on about a party he’d attended, her mind wandering away from the words she was hearing to what she was going to wear for dinner tonight. When he got to the slushy stuff about how much he was missing her, and how he was longing to hold her, she took a deep breath.
‘Ivan, I can’t talk now, but we have to meet early next week. Could we? There are some things I really do have to talk over with you.’
‘I think’, said the disembodied voice in her ear, ‘that I hear a certain hesitation in your words, Rilla darling. Is there something you’re keeping from me?’
‘No, Ivan, of course not!’ Rilla could hear the false jollity she was exuding and hoped very much it didn’t sound so awful on the other end of the phone.
‘You are sounding happy, but you are not really happy,’ Ivan said. Shit, Rilla thought. So much for that. What now? She was considering whether she ought to tell him the truth and be done with it, when he interrupted her.
‘You are making this arrangement so that you can … how do you say … finish with me. Am I right? You have perhaps met someone else. Am I right?’
A silence developed while Rilla thought frantically of what to say next.
‘You cannot answer, because it is the truth,’ Ivan sounded triumphant.
‘Well, yes, there is someone, but I didn’t want …’
‘I know. I know. You wanted to do the proper thing. To see me. To tell me to my face. This is very good of you, but I will release you from such obligations. You are as free as a bird, Rilla. I will not tie you down.’
His voice rang with emotion. Rilla couldn’t help smiling. What an old drama queen he was! She said, ‘It’s very kind of you, Ivan. I don’t deserve it, and I didn’t – don’t – mean to hurt you, but I’ve fallen in love. Does that sound ridiculous?’
‘No,’ said Ivan. ‘I fell in love with you the very first time I ever saw you. Who is this man?’
Rilla couldn’t help feeling that his so-called love wasn’t what might be called the real thing. He didn’t exactly sound as though he was suffering. She ignored the first part of what Ivan had said and concentrated on answering his question.
‘He’s the director of the TV programme that’s being made about Ethan Walsh. His name is Sean Everard. In any case, I’ve got to go now, Ivan. You cannot imagine how busy it is around here. We’ll talk properly when I get back to London, okay? We’ll have lunch as soon as possible.’
There were a few more seconds of Ivan from the silver rectangle of the phone. It crossed Rilla’s mind that he wasn’t sounding exactly heartbroken, which was a good thing, even if not very complimentary to her. It made her life much easier.
‘Goodbye, Ivan,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll be in touch next week, I promise. Take care.’
One tiny click and he was gone. Rilla put the phone back on the bedside table and felt suddenly light-headed with happiness. It was going to be all right. The field was clear. Ivan had made it plain from his manner that he would recover, rather more quickly than she ever thought he would. He’d been much more understanding than she’d had any right to hope for. Some femme fatale you are, she told herself, and went to the wardrobe to consider her options for this evening. Black satin trousers again, and perhaps by the more forgiving light of the dining room she could get away with the pink silk top. The weather was still sultry and a scarf around her neck might be unbearably hot, but it was so beautiful that Rilla thought she would wear it anyway. She could slip it over the back of her chair if it became too much.
A gentle knock at the bedroom door surprised her in the midst of these pleasant thoughts. Who can that be, she wondered, hoping that it wasn’t anyone wanting her actually to do anything. She said, ‘Come in’, and Leonora said, ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, darling …’ before her voice faded away.
‘Mother!’ Rilla didn’t know whether this visitation was good news or not. She was almost sure that it was only Leonora checking up that she was okay after the revelations about Efe. She said, ‘Sit down here, Mother. Are you all right? You look rather tired.’
‘I’m fine, darling,’ said Leonora, her voice exactly as it always was, strong, vibrant, ready to offer opinions and take no nonsense from anyone. Rilla smiled ruefully. So much for consigning Mother to the category of the aged and infirm.
‘I came in because there was still something I wanted to say to you,’ Leonora went on. ‘First, though, I have to ask you a question. Do you mind?’
Was saying, ‘Yes, I do mind’ an option? Of course it wasn’t. Rilla said, ‘Not at all. Fire away.’
‘Do you ever think of Hugh Kenworthy?’ Leonora turned her head towards the window as she spoke, allowing Rilla to collect her thoughts. What kind of a question was that supposed to be? Imagine Mother remembering his name! Rilla would have bet good money that the whole episode had faded from Leonora’s mind years ago. And how was she supposed to answer? In the end she said, ‘Yes, of course. From time to time.’
I will not, Rilla thought, remind you how much I hated you for what you did, and how I still resented it bitterly, right up until a couple of days ago. I certainly shan’t say a word about never forgiving you. And most of all, I won’t utter a squeak about not giving a damn about the whole thing now that I’ve met Sean. I shan’t say a word about that.
‘I hesitated about coming to see you, Rilla, but I thought about it and decided that in the end, it was better that you should know everything.’
‘About Hugh?’
‘About why I sent him away.’
‘I remember it all perfectly, Mother. He was married. He was unreliable in every way. He wasn’t a bit suitable. I know all this. I was very young then – now I understand that you had to do what you did. I expect I’d have done the same thing if Beth had been in such a situation.’
Leonora said, ‘There was something else, though, that I didn’t tell you at the time. It would have hurt you too much, and I was deeply ashamed of myself as well.’
She’s blushing, Rilla thought. How astonishing! What is all this?
‘Hugh made a pass at me,’ Leonora said. ‘Up in the Studio one afternoon while I was showing him round. I was sitting on the chaise-longue and we’d been chatting. He was such a good talker that I’d let myself get far friendlier than I should have, I suppose. He was terribly charming, and very handsome, wasn’t he?’
Rilla nodded. There was nothing to say. Leonora was already going on with her confession as though she had to get to the end of it, otherwise she might lose her nerve.
‘He came to sit beside me. I don’t know when I noticed that his arm was around my shoulders, but there it was and then somehow I had turned to him and he was kissing me and touching me and it was minutes … whole minutes … before I came to my senses and pushed him away and told him to leave.’ Leonora stared down at her hands and her voice was so small that Rilla had to lean towards her to hear what she was saying. ‘The worst thing was, I wanted him, Rilla. My love for your father was not like other kinds of love, you know. I’ve never, ever loved another man, and I would no sooner have married again than gone to the moon, and yet Hugh managed to get under my skin a little. I confess that.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not something a child wants to hear about her mother, is it? I’m so sorry to have spoken of it, but I did think you should know. That all the anger you felt towards me was … how shall I put it? A little justified. Yes, that’s it. A little justified. I was jealous of you, Rilla. Of what you and Hugh had together. That’s a dreadful thing for a mother to feel. I’m so, so sorry, darling. Can you forgive me?’
The first thing that occurred to Rilla was that this was the first time in her whole life that she’d heard Leonora allude to her own sexual feelings. She was right. That side of her mother’s life was not something Rilla ever thought about. Quite the reverse, in fact. The very idea of Leonora in bed with anyone at any time in her life made Rilla feel queasy. She remembered vividly how beautiful her mother had been when she herself was seventeen. Leonora was younger when I was going out with Hugh than I am now, she thought. This was a sobering notion, for what had Rilla been thinking about, to the exclusion of almost everything else since she’d met Sean, but sex? Oh, God, how complicated people were. How impossible it was ever to know anyone, especially your parents. She said, ‘Mother, there’s nothing at all to forgive. Hugh was very handsome and charming. Only a log would have been immune to that. You were a very beautiful woman, you know. And you were younger than I am now.’
Leonora smiled. ‘Thank you, Rilla darling. I couldn’t have done things differently but I am sorry that you were hurt. And I regret not talking to you about it before. I do regret that, very much.’ She sighed. ‘I haven’t ever talked to you properly, I don’t think. It had never occurred to me before and I’m ashamed to have to admit it, but I think the fact that your father died while I was expecting you coloured everything. It’s a very shaming thing to confess and even after all these years I blush when I think of how terribly unfair it was. But I was, how do they put it, distracted with grief. Half mad, really. More than half. And I blamed you, my poor little baby. Blamed you for his death, although of course you had nothing to do with it.’
Tears stood in Leonora’s eyes. ‘I’ve never said anything like this to anyone before, but I was too much in love with Peter. And it’s made me unfair to you, all your life, really. But you do know that I love you, Rilla, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Mother, of course I do.’ She thought she could see the physical signs of relief in Leonora: her shoulders straighter, her head held higher, her eyes brighter.
‘I’m glad. You’re being very generous, darling. It’s such a relief, because you’ve been on my conscience so much lately, and I find it hard to apologize for anything, as you know.’
She smiled to show that this last remark was not meant entirely seriously. Rilla smiled back. ‘But,’ she continued, ‘I am sorry. Really sorry, darling. That’s the main thing I wanted to say. I hope you can forgive me.’
Rilla bit her lip to stop herself from crying. Her mother had unexpectedly shown her a wound, and she wanted, illogically, both to comfort Leonora as though she were a child, and also to cry out and say stop, you’re my mother. You’re not supposed to be the one who’s in pain. You’re meant to look after me. She answered somewhat shakily.
‘Of course, Mother darling. But there’s nothing to forgive, honestly. It must have been so ghastly to lose a husband you loved so much. I can’t even begin to imagine it. Please don’t feel bad about it any more. Promise me?’
‘You’re being kind to me, darling, and I’m so grateful. I’m not very good at being looked after, am I? But I’m feeling better now. I’ll go, and let you get dressed for dinner. But I did just want to warn you about something. You won’t think I’m an interfering old busybody, will you?’
Rilla laughed. It was a relief to hear Leonora sounding like herself again; a relief to take on again the part she’d grown so used to, that of the less well-behaved of two daughters. ‘Go on, Mother,’ she said. ‘What have I done wrong now?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all, Rilla. It’s just that I couldn’t help noticing that you and Sean were … how shall I put it … getting a little close. Don’t you think you’re rushing things a bit? You’ve only just met him after all.’
This is not the time, Rilla thought, to tell her roughly to butt out and mind her own business.
‘Now, Mother,’ she said as mildly as she could, ‘what have you always told me about meeting Daddy and knowing within a few seconds that he was the one you would always love? Love at first sight, remember? And you were only a child. I’m nearly fifty. I do know my own mind, you know, and actually, I agree with you. It is quick, and at first I worried about that but now I’ve decided I don’t care. I don’t want to waste any more time. That’s the truth, Mother, and I hope you don’t mind me speaking so frankly.’
Leonora laughed. ‘You’re quite right. Of course you are, and none of this is my business at all. But I don’t want you to be hurt, darling.’
‘I’m sure I won’t be,’ Rilla said. ‘But you couldn’t prevent it, I’m afraid, whatever you do.’
‘I know. I know that, Rilla, but I’ve learned some things about my own mother today which have made me reconsider everything.’ She smiled. ‘I’m being enigmatic, I know, and I will tell you everything at dinner, but I just wanted to say it. I worry about you, and I haven’t always been the best of mothers.’
Leonora walked over to the dressing-table, and before Rilla could say anything she felt her mother’s hands on her shoulders and a kiss on the crown of her head. She hasn’t kissed me like that, Rilla thought, since I was about five.
‘I’m a silly old woman,’ Leonora murmured. ‘Bless you, darling.’
Rilla blinked back tears. ‘You too, Mummy,’ she managed to say, before Leonora turned and went to the door. As soon as she’d gone, Rilla thought, I called her ‘Mummy’. I haven’t done that for years and years. Had she noticed? Rilla looked in the mirror and considered the repairs she needed to make to her face. She smiled. All this emotion was hard on the complexion.