Secrets of the Heart

by Elizabeth Buchan

  They retraced the path to the north field. Thickened by spiky growth, the hedgerow was wreathed in pale pink dog rose and honeysuckle. Andrew unsheathed his knife and cut off a length of the latter. ‘Here.’ He twined it into a rough crown. ‘Come here, Agnes.’

  Drawn by the heat, the wild, fresh smells, the sound of skylarks, she moved obediently towards him.

  ‘Here.’ He placed the crown on her head, pressing it down over her forehead until she felt the sticky sap spread over her skin.

  He assessed his handiwork.

  She smiled up into the blue eyes and it must have been an invitation for he bent over and kissed her on the mouth. And she thought, Why not? Not being hampered by love had the effect of making her more curious, less flattened by emotion. Andrew smelt of fire, straw, sweat and whisky, and by inhaling these scents of earth and land and in kissing him she was taking a step to shake herself free of the ghosts.

  ‘You taste of summer.’ He kissed the hollow of her neck.

  The crown of honeysuckle seemed faintly ridiculous and she took it off. ‘You’re very unusual, Andrew.’ She coloured. ‘I mean, it’s nice.’

  ‘Kissing someone is not so odd, is it?’ His strange intense expression was now replaced by the more normal flush of an aroused male.

  ‘No.’

  He defused the awkwardness that had sprung up. ‘Come on, you can’t leave Tithings without visiting the bees. This is my party piece.’

  Agnes allowed herself to be drawn towards them through the scented air. ‘Quiet,’ he ordered.

  She strained to hear, and rising from the hives was a murmur. ‘What is it?’

  ‘They’re cooling the hives. It’s hot and they’ve been making honey.’

  Agnes was fascinated. ‘They are extraordinary insects. They seem to have worked out how to live with each other.’

  ‘At a price,’ Andrew reminded her. ‘They kill off the drones.’

  ‘Even so.’ Inside the hives, the bees stepped up the fanning. Higher and faster.

  ‘If you come closer you can smell the particular forage for the day.’

  She obeyed and caught the scent of wildness. Grasses, white clover, wild thyme. There were other possibilities, she thought. Unfolding wings that could liberate her.

  He cleared his throat and she sensed what was coming. ‘Stay here tonight, Agnes.’

  She traced the knotty joint of his broken finger with her own and experienced the panic of making a decision for which she was not ready. ‘Could you wait before I answer,’ she said.

  20

  Friday.

  ‘Do we want the electrolysis today?’

  The beautician was new to the salon in Lymouth, obviously bored and more than a little distasteful of the tasks that she was paid to perform. Kitty requested the hand mirror and scanned her top lip for any traces of unwanted hair. You could never be sure when the markers of lost youth and dwindling hormones became obvious to everyone else. Because she did not want to see, Kitty knew she must ask to be told the truth.

  Yes. There was one wispy hair and she directed the beautician to run the machine. The tiny prick hurt far more than its allocated franchise of pain. It hurt Kitty because it had been necessary.

  ‘I think,’ said the beautician, who was reduced to a huge eye looking at Kitty through the magnifying light, ‘we should zap a few veins as well. Are you happy for me to do them?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  That process was far more uncomfortable, especially in areas near the nose where Kitty was sensitive. The electric current aggravated the nerves and she ended up sneezing and weeping a stream of tears. Tomorrow, she knew from experience, would be bad and her skin would be blotchy and raised. Still, the situation was manageable for Julian had rung to say that there was an emergency board meeting, which was scheduled to continue through the weekend. ‘Sorry, darling, it can’t be helped. I’ll explain when I see you.’

  At first, Kitty had wanted to protest but then a great weariness with the condition of her life sapped her will. She made no comment, except to say that she was sorry and, of course, he must do as he wished.

  And she should do as she wished?

  Catching her at odd moments, these infant stirrings of protest were in danger of becoming the norm, and Kitty discovered that she relished them, welcomed them, even. They introduced a different note into the familiar lament in her head, of which she was growing tired. But for the irritants of the machine, the shuffle of the beautician’s clogs and the smell of burnt capillary, she was entirely at liberty to think as she wished.

  She flexed her finger, and felt the slick of moisture from the cream that had been applied. What was she doing engaged in pushing back time? Perhaps… here Kitty strained for the right words… perhaps, in itself, that was a waste of time. Perhaps she was wasting time in tackling it.

  ‘Dear me,’ said the beautician. ‘These are toughies. Have you been sitting in the sun?’

  The needle dug into the flesh of Kitty’s cheek. After all, she could choose not to engage in such a difficult – no, impossible – battle. Beauty, Kitty had learned in the hard school of survival, was in the eye of the beholder and mattered. Forget the nonsense about inner beauty, a thesis peddled only, she noticed, by those who had no pretensions to looks. Certainly, in the past, Kitty had ignored it in favour of the philosophy that worked. And yet, now that she was growing older, it was going to fail her.

  Under the pink blanket, Kitty sighed and entertained the radical vision of life uncluttered by considerations of her beauty. No Friday preparations. No covert glances in the mirror. A mind washed clean and free of the tyranny of scrutiny.

  Yes, she was free to be free, if she wished.

  The beautician embarked on the final challenge of Kitty’s left cheek. But it was not as simple as that. Kitty loved Julian and, to be free, it would be necessary not to love him.

  ‘Leg wax?’ intoned the beautician.

  Kitty stretched out a slim leg in the manner of the sacrificial victim.

  After the session was over, she went home to hide her blotched skin. At one o’clock she switched on the radio in her kitchen and listened to the news as she spooned up very clear, ultra-slimming consomme. But it was not filling and she was still ravenous. Normally she ignored growls in her stomach – the serpent that signalled her emptiness and her struggle for mastery -but today her hand crept towards the cupboard where she kept a tin of rice pudding as an emergency for Theo. At first it felt cold and smooth in her hand but, under her prolonged handling, this way and that – shall I, shall I not? - the metal warmed up.

  Flinging open the kitchen drawer, Kitty scrabbled for the tin-opener.

  The rice was delicious, a taste she had forgotten. Once eaten, it sat in a nourishing heap in her body, as heavy as if she were carrying a child. When she threw away the tin the serrations on the lid caught the flesh on one of her fingers. The taste of blood as she licked it mingled with the honeyed pleasure of the rice.

  When Theo arrived, he peered at Kitty, who was wrapping her finger with Elastoplast. ‘You look awful. Tell a fella.’

  But she could see from the unfocused cast of Theo’s expression that he was slipping into one of his phases and, if she required his comfort (as she so often did), she must catch him quickly.

  It was too late. Theo had ‘vanished’. Kitty was concerned that the warden in charge had not spotted what was happening before sending him out but at least she knew what to do. Talking softly, she prised the bag from his hands and sat him down at the table.

  ‘Tablets, Theo. Where are they?’ She searched in the bag and extracted a couple of bottles, read the labels, shook out the correct one and gave it to him with a glass of water. Then she stood, massaging his terrifyingly tense shoulders, muttering words of comfort, until the drug kicked in and his shoulders relaxed a fraction. On previous occasions, Theo would get up, rummage in his bag, extract the weapons – the cleaning materials – with which he managed his illness, and proceed to bat
ter the house with dusters.

  ‘Battering the bastards,’ he explained. ‘The ones that live uninvited in my head.’

  Kitty was proud of the way she managed Theo and, in a curious way, grateful to him for his permission to do so. It implied trust and affection. It showed her that there were possibilities in strange places. ‘Don’t let them get you, Theo,’ she cried now, her fingers kneading and soothing. She added feebly, ‘I need you.’

  ‘I’ll try, darl…’ Theo muttered, through the muddle in his head. For Kitty, as he had once confided, was the only person in the world he loved without reservation. By taking him on, she had rescued him at a time when he was plunging lower and lower. Kitty was the one person for whom he would make the effort to be normal.

  Thank God, she had thought when, blinking hard with the effort, Theo told her how he felt. Thank God I won’t go to my grave completely untouched by unselfish love.

  Still rubbing away at the tortured back muscles, she bent over Theo and smiled at him, and Theo felt cool, soft rain fall on his parched interior.

  Eventually, he pulled himself upright and looked up at Kitty with reddened eyes. ‘Pass my bag, darl…’

  He got up and began to attack the kitchen windows. Soon, they were glittering and shining like the most innocent of lives.

  Saturday.

  Kitty’s skin throbbed and smarted, but Theo rang to say he felt better, and to thank her, and he would see her later at the Huntingdons. Today was a flower day and Kitty, whose skill at flower arrangement was legendary, had been invited – well, commanded – by Vita Huntingdon to arrange the flowers for the fashionable evening wedding of her daughter. And, of course, ever anxious to keep what social foothold she had gained, she had meekly agreed.

  ‘You will understand,’ Vita had explained, ‘that we can’t invite you to the actual do. Numbers, you know. But, please, feel free to take a peek at the buffet and presents while we’re in church.’

  ‘Shall we peek?’ Kitty asked Theo.

  ‘Will we hell,’ said Theo.

  Vita had requested pink and white flowers to match the striped marquee lining and the gilt chairs. Her daughter had demanded something more exciting and original. ‘You know,’ she suggested vaguely, ‘some of those South African numbers.’ Theo and Kitty had conferred and, disgracefully, she took a small and delightful revenge by creating an undisputedly stunning but, nevertheless, predominantly yellow and white display.

  ‘Like the Aussie sun,’ Theo pronounced, heaving the last vase into place. ‘You can’t miss it.’

  ‘Have we peeked enough, Theo?’

  ‘Are you ever afraid,’ asked Theo, as Kitty drove him back to the hostel, ‘that one of these days I might grow violent and do you in?’

  The notion had crossed Kitty’s mind more than once. ‘Not really. Provided you did it quickly enough, I wouldn’t have time to object.’ She turned into the high street. ‘Promise me, Theo, that if you do it, it will be quick.’

  ‘I promise.’ Shoulders hunched up to his ears, Theo stared straight ahead. ‘Fish and chips, darl?’

  That night when she was half asleep, Kitty experienced what she later referred to as a vision. In it, she was floating high in the sky and looking down at a very blue, very calm sea and herself on what she presumed was a life-raft. She expected to be out of control but, strangely, she was very much in charge and heading out towards the open sea and stagey setting sun, hair streaming out behind her in the wind. Hair that – perhaps in the most telling detail of all – had reverted to its natural colour of mouse brown.

  Sunday.

  Kitty got up and had breakfast of muesli and coffee then went upstairs to change into her raspberry linen suit. She brushed her hair at the dressing-table, this way and that – one Kitty, two Kitty, three Kitty, four – and anchored it with a pair of combs.

  She glanced at the bed. Julian did not sleep here often because he found the house too constricting. Instead, he slept in his own bed at Cliff House whenever possible, arranged on his right side, the pillow bunched to support his cheek. Sometimes his neck was dark with sweat, sometimes his pyjamas fell open, like those of a little boy. Sometimes, he hunched his shoulders and muttered. She had grown used to studying the language of his sleep. He muttered when he was bothered. The deep sleep of renewal came after a hard week. Or there was the heavy unconsciousness after sex.

  She did not look at the bed again but concentrated on producing the Kitty she knew and trusted. At last she was done, and pleased with the results. Before she left the room, she fastened the window tight and locked it.

  Kitty sat in the car and stared ahead. She placed her hands on the wheel, then removed them. She rubbed them together. She opened her handbag and reapplied her lipstick. Again she rubbed her hands. Then stretching out the right, she turned the key in the ignition.

  Half an hour later, she nosed her car up the drive of Flagge House and, at the first sight of the pink brick and elegant windows, perceived at once that it was an ageing prima donna of a house demanding love and attention. It was beautiful, old and sure in itself, but in need of maintenance and a face-lift.

  She lifted her foot off the accelerator. The words that had seemed so urgent and rapier sharp when she had rehearsed them were vanishing. She had been so sure when she embarked on her ‘raft’, so energized, but now she suspected she had been guilty of a terrible misjudgement and if Julian ever discovered…

  Impatient with herself, she stopped the car in the drive and rested her head on the steering-wheel. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the deep blood-red of summer poppies blooming in the field up on the ridge. It was not a colour she liked – the blood-red of childbirth and of her own cycles, which were… coming to their end.

  Kitty forced herself to look up at the house. Moss and lichen had built pathways across the flagstones and, above the front door, open windows glinted in the sunshine. There was one way out of the struggle, a way that would bring her peace. All she had to do was walk inside, up the stairs… and jump. So easy. And the grey-green of the moss would deceive her on the way down that she would land on a soft, springy bed and sleep.

  The first wife offering her blood for the second – for she knew, oh, she knew, that Agnes was no ordinary threat. She wasn’t We Will Go Our Own Way For A Time. She was the darkness that Kitty must face.

  Wasn’t that the way it went? First wives were supposed to go quietly, weren’t they? But she wasn’t a wife. She had been the mistress of Robin and Harry and Charles, those very married men who had kept her in the style she had demanded.

  Would she look as good in death as in life? For the stones out there were hard, unforgiving and, besides, it took years of practice to be a martyr.

  A car manoeuvred alongside Kitty and stopped. The driver wound down his window and asked, ‘Can I help you?’

  It was Freddie who, at some cost to his Sunday beauty sleep, had come to keep his dear ladies company at lunch. He parked and introduced himself.

  ‘I’m not expected,’ Kitty said, as he helped her negotiate the gravel in her high heels.

  ‘All the better.’ Freddie rang the bell. ‘That’s what makes life interesting.’

  ‘I’m not quite sure Agnes will see it that way,’ said Kitty drily and looked up to the exquisite fan-light above the door.

  21

  Agnes stifled a yawn and glanced up from the Sunday papers at the mantelpiece on which she had arranged family photographs. There weren’t many left in their thinning family. She yawned a second time and frowned. Feeling bushed in the aftermath of a big shoot was normal but this was different. An anchor had attached itself to her body, a great hobbling fatigue. This is what ill people must feel, she thought, with a quiver of unease. Since her return from Devon her body seemed to be changing, urging itself into a different way of behaving. Even her hair felt different.

  Andrew had not been too disappointed when she answered, ‘No,’ to his request to stay, but she sensed that he flinched inwardly and was sorr
y. As best she could, she explained it was impossible to do anything but go slowly. She had learned that a little at a time had a better chance of succeeding. Andrew had been understanding and sensible, but when she got into the car, he grabbed her hand.

  ‘You won’t let me down over the film. Promise?

  The women were sitting in the big drawing room, which Agnes insisted they use. It was too beautiful to leave empty, she had argued. ‘We live in this house. We are not lodgers or squatters.’ Maud and she had quarrelled about it, and Maud had eventually declared that Agnes must do as she liked, as she held all the purse strings, but she would not raise one finger to help. Agnes had had the curtains cleaned, the cornices brushed, and had polished the furniture with a mixture of turpentine and wax.

  ‘Time for the apéritif?’ Accompanied by the paraphernalia of the invalid, which included a walking-stick – of which she made cunning use – plus an electric alarm, Maud had progressed from the bedroom to the blue brocade sofa. There she sat, enthroned but still bad-tempered and weak, the velocity of her knitting increasing to a ferocious speed.

  Agnes cupped her chin in her hand. Maud had been a bad patient and a worse convalescent, and Agnes and Bea had been run ragged by her demands. But Agnes had felt sorry for her aunt. Maud had been terrified by her experience, and the equation had been made that once you were dead you had gone. ‘Before you are cold, you are forgotten,’ she said, ‘the waters close over,’ and she wasn’t ready for that by a long chalk.

  Sunday lunch was cooking. The shutters in the drawing room at the big window were folded back and the sun streamed in. Well away from her sister, Bea sat by the window, hands folded in her lap. She seemed peaceful enough, and yet, as she squinted in Bea’s direction, it struck Agnes that she was waiting for something.

  On a previous visit, Freddie gently suggested that Maud should try another musical, just for fun. What Freddie said usually resulted in magic and, for a time, the strains of Les Misérables replaced Julie Andrews in Flagge House. But the status quo soon reverted and once again raindrops and kittens filled the drawing room.