by Connie Monk
‘He’s staying with the Johnsons.’
‘But why? This is his home. He must be devastated.’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘This happened yesterday,’ he muttered. To her? To himself? She neither knew nor cared about him or anyone else. She wanted him to go away and leave her sitting silently on her own. When she’d listened very hard she’d thought she had heard Ali’s laugh. Laughing, not crying. Please, God, make her happy, don’t let her feel lost and frightened. Or is there nothing? If you die, is there nothing? There must be something. People you’ve loved must be there for you. But she was just a baby, she only knew us, she’d hardly started life. Why couldn’t Leo stop talking? Something about his father … going to get him back from Eva. I can’t take care of him. I won’t!
‘Yesterday … all those hours and I didn’t know.’
‘You would have known,’ she replied, surprising herself that she could answer in a voice of such cool clarity, ‘if you’d gone to the Gibbins people. I telephoned them.’
Did she imagine it or was there a brief pause before he told her, ‘I imagine they hadn’t got home. My visit fell through. Someone backed into their car. I left them at a repair garage. Then, having said I wasn’t going to be here last night, I thought I’d take the opportunity of looking up a fellow I was in the army with. He’s a lecturer at Reading University.’
‘Don’t bother lying,’ she said, her voice expressionless. ‘I really don’t care where you were – or where Louisa was either.’ And she meant it.
‘You know very well where Louisa was.’
‘Not precisely, but I know she wasn’t with her parents. Can’t you understand? I don’t care. I’m only here because of Ali. You had to make the best of marrying me because of Ali.’
He suspected hysteria was still very near the surface. Damn her, why did she have to make a scene now of all times – now, when all he could think about was Alicia, Ali, the most precious thing ever to have come into his life, and not Bella’s own distress. Damn her, taking over Ali’s room, filled with the toys she’d played with, the books he had often read to her, just as if he hadn’t lost the dearest, most perfect thing in his world. Grown men don’t cry, he told himself, as misery seemed to flood over him. He turned away and left the room. She heard him going across the corridor and into the bedroom they shared; she heard the firm click of the latch as he closed the door behind him and then the key turning in the lock.
It was about a quarter of an hour later when she heard him go down the stairs and out of the front door, supposing he was on his way to bring his father home. But she soon realized she was wrong. He was walking down the track. Let him go to Louisa, she thought, shocked with herself that she could be so uninterested. They would soon have been married for three years – three years in which they had never quarrelled until that day. Was she in love with him? She loved him – he was the father of her child – but she wasn’t in love with him, she knew that now. It had all seemed so perfect, more than she could have hoped for – a husband, a child – but while her love for Ali had been real and overwhelming, had she ever been more than infatuated with Leo? She didn’t understand how his mind worked, but perhaps that was the same with most marriages. The way he wanted to make love – not the way she liked it, but doing things she didn’t think had anything to do with loving someone … was his way really the way it should be? Should she want those things too? Was the fact she didn’t a sign that she didn’t feel for him the way she should? She knew what he was suffering. She knew he had really loved Ali and always would. He hadn’t tried any of those things for ages; perhaps it had been just a phase he’d been going through? Or perhaps Lou liked what he did. It’s all wrong, she told herself, I can’t be normal that I can think things like that and honestly, honestly, not care that he has a lover, or that his lover is my friend. If anything it’s a relief, really, that he has one, because even when I’ve thought how special and cosy it has been when he has made love to me in our nice warm bed when we’re ready to snuggle up for sleep, I have always been worried that he will be leading towards something I think in his heart he would really like to do. Real love should be gentle and tender – well, that’s what I think anyway. None of it matters now. Ali was the most important thing in our marriage. Ali, poor darling little Ali, she’ll never have a chance to know about living. Just a baby still. And Leo was forgotten as Bella moved to the small chest of drawers and took out a pile of neatly folded clothes. Burying her face against them, she seemed to smell the sweet baby smell. Wherever she is, please, please, don’t let her be lost and sad. If only I could hear her voice, or her laugh, just once.
That night, the second since she had lost Ali, she slept – or more accurately for most of the time she lay awake – on the put-u-up. Leo didn’t come to say goodnight to her, but she heard him come up the stairs and go to their room, closing the door firmly behind him.
When morning came, Bella woke from a fitful sleep and thought with foreboding about the day ahead. The first day of the rest of her life, she told herself, and she had no choice but to face it. She got up and tidied her makeshift bed, bathed, dressed and met herself face-to-face in the mirror for the first time in forty-eight hours. The sight shocked her, but it restored some of her mettle. Breakfast could wait; it was more important to disguise the effect her misery had had on her face. We have to do Ali proud, she seemed to hear Ted telling her, and she certainly wasn’t going to be the one to let her down.
As she went downstairs she could smell coffee. Leo was never the first down in the morning, but perhaps he, too, was doing it for Ali.
‘The coffee smells good,’ she greeted him by way of a ‘good morning’.
‘It’s just ready. Black or white?’
‘Milk, please. Leo,’ and then she didn’t know what it was she wanted to say to him. ‘We have to talk, about everything. Ali, Dad, me and what we’re going to do.’
‘Of course we have to talk. I’ve been left out of everything. She’s my daughter too; you seem to forget. How could you have neglected to watch what he was up to? You know how it is with him. He can’t help it. How could you have left him long enough for him to get right to the edge of the wood?’
She clenched her fists and held her chin rigid; anything to keep back the tears that seemed permanently ready.
‘I supposed he’d taken her to the fields. He did that most days. When their food was ready that’s where I went to find them.’
They looked directly at each other, and in that moment they were close, drawn together by the pain of loss.
He reached out and took her hand. ‘Let’s not quarrel,’ he said. ‘Life is hell enough without our adding to it.’
She nodded. ‘Did you tell Lou?’
‘Of course. She has a right to know. She’s Ali’s godmother and almost family.’
It was those last words that brought the situation home to Bella. Did ‘almost family’ mean that he wanted his freedom to marry her? Well, of course, he must do. Apart from being in love with Louisa, he must want to be free of a marriage that had only happened because of the baby coming.
‘Are you going to give me grounds to divorce you then?’
‘What the hell are you talking about? For Christ’s sake, Bella, haven’t we got misery enough without you wanting to upset everything?’
‘That’s not fair. You can’t be happy with our marriage – not without Ali—’ How hard it was to say that, but she made herself go on, ‘Or you wouldn’t spend half your life at The Retreat.’
He weighed up her words and before he answered he poured a second cup of coffee and lit a cigarette, pushing the packet and his lighter across the table to her.
‘There must be something about these Harding women that touches a chord with us Carters.’ And then he told her about Violet and his father, even about the night Harold had let himself into the house with the key he still kept.
‘How horrible for her. Poor Lou. How did she get rid of him? She d
idn’t tell me.’
‘We were living in the flat. David brought him back here, you remember. The next day I came meaning to fetch him back, but instead I saw the light and realized the solution was for us to come and look after him here. Poor Dad. His whole world fell to pieces.’
She nodded. ‘And now, so has ours. He’s old – well, by our standards – but we have so many years to live. I can’t even imagine them. Everything was so perfect.’
‘Was it?’ And surprisingly she found there was tenderness in his tone.
‘Yes. You know me – I’ve never been ambitious for a career or anything. But I loved every day. I thought you were happy. Well, I’m sure you were; how could you not have been when Ali used to watch for you to come into the room, or run to you outside.’
‘Don’t.’ It was her turn to reach to take his hand, knowing that just as she had had to fight to hold back her tears, so he had his own battle. ‘Bella, we were talking about Louisa. At first, when she and I were drawn to each other – physically, not just as friends – she refused to sleep with me. “Bella is my friend”, she said. But I knew, positively knew that what was between Louisa and me would have no bearing on our marriage. You wouldn’t be touched by it; it couldn’t hurt you. I knew you didn’t want the things I’d have with Louisa. At last, I persuaded her and, yes, we are lovers just as her aunt and Dad were. What was between them never touched the home here, but that didn’t belittle what they felt for each other. And you say yourself, you have been completely happy and content. So, dear Bella, don’t talk of divorce. This is your home. Dad and I are your family.’
‘I can’t spend my days looking after him, watching his every movement. He’s your father, not mine.’ She was shocked by her own words, and yet she had no power to hold them back.
‘I’ll talk to David and Lily. I’ll ask them if, after Ali’s service’ – he couldn’t bring himself to say the word ‘funeral’ – ‘they could take him back with them for a few days. I don’t think he ought to be here until he gets used to what has happened. The service will drive it home to him. He loved her; she was a huge part of his life now that he is losing his grasp. A week or so with them will put other things into his mind. I don’t want him ever to realize that she was with him when it happened. Poor old Dad – I never knew anyone could be so changed in such a short time.’
While he’d been speaking Bella had opened her mouth to interrupt but couldn’t find the words. In the silence that followed what Leo had been saying she physically felt the anger and misery rising up in her. Poor old Dad, he had said. Bring him here, let the waters close over what has happened and go on jollying him along to make his life as free of care as they could.
‘No!’ Her voice was harsh and unnatural. ‘If you bring him here – and I can’t stop you – but I tell you I cannot and will not spend my time taking care of him. Don’t you understand? It’s his fault we lost Ali, his, his, his.’
‘Bella, oh, Bella, this isn’t like you. We both know Ali adored him. Grandpa can we this, Grandpa shall we that. If she were here and able to tell us, do you honestly think she would want him banished from everything that’s familiar to him? She didn’t see him as losing his memory, unable to think straight. Look at me, Bella, and tell me: isn’t what I say the truth?’
He willed her to hold his gaze and after a second or two she nodded, frightened to trust her voice to speak. Only as her tears overspilled and rolled down her cheeks did she manage to say, ‘I shouldn’t have let them out of my sight.’
He didn’t contradict her. As the silence grew between them she found herself looking back into the past and forward into the future he was proposing, living here where she had been happier than ever in her life. But nothing could be like that any more. There would be no Ali, and Leo was in love with Louisa. It didn’t even surprise her that Fate had played her hand that way. Her first clear memories were of when she was an evacuee in a house where, although she was given her fair share of rations, kept clean, sent to Sunday school come rain or shine, she had never known any affection. With her parents killed during the war, when other evacuees had returned home she had been sent to the orphanage until she had been old enough to be found a junior job in an office and a place to live in a youth hostel. Trapped by low wages and no training, she had been unable to move anywhere else, but rather than kick against her lot she had accepted it as the way life was. And then she had met Leo and naively fallen in love as only an innocent teenager could.
She wiped away her stray tears with the back of her hand, glad that Leo gave no sign of having noticed. Part of her wanted to shout, to scream at Leo that surely she deserved better than him? Why should she be denied finding the love he had with Louisa? Sitting smoking her cigarette and letting her thoughts carry her where they would, even now, after almost three years of marriage, she still saw herself as someone who had to be grateful for any kindness shown, and she hated herself for it.
‘I’ll talk to David,’ he repeated. ‘As far as he is concerned, you and I have a perfectly full and happy marriage.’
‘That was when we had Ali. It can never be like that again. We don’t share anything.’
He looked genuinely surprised. ‘That’s not true. You are interested in the farm here – you get on well with the men and with Eva Johnson. This house is your home,’ and he gave her the smile that never failed to turn things the way he wanted, ‘and very well you look after it, too.’
‘So would Louisa. She’s much more efficient than I am.’
‘I am truly sorry, Bella, but I am as I am. I wonder if my parents ever had a conversation like this. This was a happy home; I never heard them quarrel. Yet I know – and I understand completely – that what was between Dad and Violet Harding wasn’t negotiable.’
Bella didn’t answer. Feeling wretched, and drawing hard on her cigarette, she fought to keep her control. Her help came when there was an unexpected knock on the back door and she automatically got up from the table to answer it.
‘Bella, oh Bella, Leo told me.’ And Louisa’s strong arms were holding her tight. At the sound of her voice Leo had come to the door too.
‘Lou …’ he began.
‘Go away. I’ve come to see Bella.’
‘She knows, she phoned your parents—’
‘Go away,’ Louisa repeated, not even looking at him. ‘Come home with me, Bella, let’s have the morning together. Leo can take his father out somewhere for lunch.’
Bella surprised herself by nodding in agreement. She felt crushed and utterly despairing, but to her the suggestion spelt escape.
‘Get your coat, it’s a miserable morning,’ Louisa told her. And like an obedient child, she fetched her coat from the row of pegs in the lobby. Then, as if Leo didn’t exist, Louisa helped her into it and they walked away. Watching from the window, he was at a loss to understand. Knowing that Louisa was his mistress, how could Bella go with her so trustingly, holding her hand as if it were a lifeline?
They walked in silence, for what was there to say? Bella didn’t need to be told of Louisa’s sadness about Ali; it was there in the grip of her hand. But Louisa’s emotion was more complicated. It was as if Ali’s death had exposed what had lain hidden in her subconscious. More than half the night she had been awake, making herself recognize what she had done to Bella’s marriage. The day of their first meeting had haunted her, when all the girl could talk about was the wonders of her so-perfect husband. Then – for in the silence of night there had been no hiding place – she had recalled her own unfulfilled hunger for sexual satisfaction, not just as she had known it in the isolation of her lonely bed, but something greater, something complete that she had been sure was always just beyond her reach. She had recalled the first time Leo had made love to her – the first time and every time, it had been an out-of-this-world experience, more perfect, more wonderful, more complete than she had ever imagined possible. ‘It won’t hurt Bella … it will make no difference to my marriage …’ and she believed that would
have been the truth, if only Ali hadn’t been taken. Now that Bella had found out, she knew she had been wicked in stealing from her friend – her dear friend – the happiness that had never existed for her. She had come to know and understand Bella so well and she had no doubt that living at Ridgeway, looking after the house, adoring Alicia and having such joy in watching her progress, loving Leo in the loyal, gentle way that was part of her nature – all those things added up to complete happiness for her.
Those had been her thoughts last night. Leo had said that Bella knew about them. What she didn’t know and probably didn’t even consider was the shame and self-loathing Louisa felt that she could have found her own happiness and gratification with no thought for anyone else.
Reaching The Retreat, as they closed the front door behind them, Bella looked around, almost as if she were seeing the familiar hallway for the first time.
‘I’m glad I’m here. He wants to bring Dad home. A few days with David and then back to the farm, that’s what he wants.’
Louisa studied her friend. ‘Take one thing at a time, Bella. Why? Why? Why? Nothing will be the same without her. She was born in this house. Remember?’
‘If he had to have a lover, I suppose it’s silly of me, but I’m glad it’s you.’
‘Bella, oh Bella, I feel so ashamed. You are my friend, such a dear friend. What have I done?’
‘I offered to give him his freedom, but he says that you and him being together doesn’t make any difference to our marriage. I don’t know. I don’t really care. Just care about Ali.’ And dropping to sit on the bottom stair, again the tears came.
As Louisa sat at her side and held her close, it struck her what an odd situation it was. And then, forcing itself into her mind and taking her by surprise, she knew something else, knew it clearly and positively.
Nine
Alicia’s death was the talk of the village. In a small community where very little happens and most deaths, although reported with regret, occur when the deceased has reached years of maturity, there wasn’t a person hearing the news who wasn’t saddened. On the day of her funeral the church was packed; the more sensitive even shed a few tears as the tiny white coffin was carried out to the churchyard at the end of the service. Side by side Bella and Leo followed it, looking neither to the right nor the left. They must have been aware of the number of people there, but only later, perhaps much later, would they consciously think of it and be glad. Ali had had a smile for everyone right from when the local shoppers had leant over her pram and ‘coo-cooed’ before she’d been old enough to sit up, and by the time she had reached her second birthday she would hold court from her push chair while her admiring ‘friends’ gathered round. That the affection they showed her was partly aimed at her sweet, pretty mother was lost on Bella. One day in the future, when the pain of memory wasn’t too raw, Bella would remember the sea of familiar faces and be glad that so many people had come because they had loved Ali.
