Coral Glynn

by Peter Cameron

  When she returned to Grantley Terrace on the evening of the last day of the year, and climbed the stairs to her room, she noticed that the door to Lazlo’s little bedroom was open, and the mattress lay bare upon the bed, and all of his clothes, which had been strewn about the room all week, were gone. The window was open wide, to air out the funk of his smoke. Lazlo was gone, gone back to Lowestoft, gone without a word.

  * * *

  One day, after she had been in London for over a year, Madame Paszkowska stopped Coral in the front hallway as she returned from work and told her that her room would be painted the following day, and it would be a help if she would remove everything from the walls and window ledge.

  There was only one painting in the room, which had been there when Coral arrived, left behind by some former tenant, as most of the objects in her room seemed to have been, for it was obvious there was no singular, unifying aesthetic connecting any one piece to another: they were all castoffs. People had hurriedly left this room countless times, for as many reasons, gathering up the things they could carry with them and leaving the rest behind, and it was the detritus of all these lives that furnished Coral’s room. And she did not mind it: there was something rich and welcoming about the motley collection of things; they augmented the meagreness of her own existence, for she did not have enough possessions to fill even a room.

  When she lowered the painting—two robins standing on the rim of a nest in the crotch of a tree, observing the five blue eggs that lay potently within it—she was surprised to see Mrs DeVries’s sapphire ring hanging from the picture wire. She had hidden it there when she first arrived at Grantley Terrace, keeping it safe until the time she would need to pawn it, which she was sure would be soon. But things had worked out far better and more quickly than she had expected, and the money that Major Hart had given to her had lasted until she had found her new job.

  * * *

  The woman in the pawnshop on Bethnal Green Road suffered a toothache and had a bandage tied around her head and jaw. She placed a rather grubby velvet pad on the wooden counter and motioned for Coral to deposit the ring upon it. Then she turned on a lamp and stuck a jeweller’s loupe in her eye and examined the ring.

  “It’s gold,” said Coral. “I know it is. And the stone is real. It’s a sapphire.”

  “It’s flawed,” said the woman.

  “Flawed?” asked Coral.

  “Occlusions,” said the woman. “And the gold is very worn. The shaft is weak.”

  Coral said nothing.

  The woman placed the ring back upon the velvet pad and then removed the loupe from her eye. She turned off the lamp and named a price that seemed very low to Coral.

  “I think it’s worth more than that,” said Coral. “Surely it is.”

  “Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn’t,” said the woman. “In any case, that is what I can give you for it. It’s a fair price.”

  “It isn’t enough,” said Coral. “I want more.”

  “We all want more,” said the woman, “but few of us get it.”

  Coral picked up the ring. “I shall keep it, then,” she said. “It was my grandmother’s.”

  “Yes, keep it,” said the woman. “But come back when you need to sell it.”

  Her repossession of the ring awoke in Coral a strange compulsion, and on the following Saturday she took a train from Waterloo to Guildford, where she arrived late in the morning. It was an unusually warm spring day. She removed the jacket she was wearing over a sleeveless dress and felt the sun on her arms and face. It was a new dress, her best dress, navy blue with white polka dots, and she had bought navy blue shoes to go with it. Her bag was black, but perhaps with the dress and shoes it looked navy blue.

  She walked up the street into town and had lunch at a café. She found that she was very hungry: she had eaten nothing that morning before leaving London. She had a cup of tea and egg on toast, and sat in the café, watching out the window at the people passing by along the High Street in the warm sunlight, everyone happy, for it was Saturday, and sunny, and they were shopping.

  When she was finished with her lunch she stepped into the street. She looked back through the café window at her table, which had not yet been cleared, and the remnants of her meal remained there as blatant as evidence: she was a person in the world. She existed, and she was free.

  She went into a draper’s shop and bought an Irish linen tea towel and a porcelain eggcup. She bought these things not because she needed them, or even wanted them, but because she could. She asked if they would hold her items in the store so that she could return for them later. Of course, they would be happy to.

  When she left the shop she walked purposefully along the street to the edge of the commercial district and turned onto Winchester Road. She remembered the way perfectly, even though it had been winter when she had been here before and now everything had a different feeling to it: the trees were leafy green and the gardens were full of flowers and the windows of the houses were open and the sun was hot on the street. At the end of Winchester Road she turned left onto Winslow Road. It was good that she remembered the number—41—because all the houses on the street looked the same to her. She stood for a moment across the street from number 41. The façade was covered in ivy, which she did not remember, nor did she remember that the door was painted blue. The windows were all shut and it seemed unnaturally still and quiet, even for a house. It did not appear as if anyone was home. She stood and waited, although she did not know for what. A man and young boy came out of the house she was standing in front of and stopped beside her. The man was holding the boy’s hand; the boy wore spectacles and had a patch over one eye.

  “Good afternoon,” the man said.

  “Good afternoon,” said Coral. And then she said it again, to the boy, but he did not answer her. Perhaps he was deaf; there was an odd vacancy about him.

  “Do you need help with something?” asked the man.

  She realised she has been standing there for quite some time and looked suspicious. “Oh, no,” she said. “Thank you, but no. I just—could you tell me, is that house—is that where the DeVrieses live?” She pointed at the house across the street.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “Not anymore. They’ve moved around the corner. Onto Lambkin Crescent. Number three, I believe.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  “It’s just up the hill on your left,” the man said. “It’s the brick house painted white.”

  “Thank you,” Coral said again.

  “Come along, Dickie,” the man said, and he and the boy continued along the street.

  Coral went the opposite way and turned onto Lambkin Crescent. Number 3 was indeed a brick house painted white. Before she could think and perhaps stop herself, she walked up the cement pathway and rang the bell.

  Nothing happened.

  She rang it again, and once again failed to elicit any response. It was quiet, and in the quiet she heard music, orchestral music, floating around the house from the back garden. She listened for a moment to make sure she had heard correctly, and as she listened a dog came around the corner of the house and sat down abruptly to scratch itself. Then it looked up at her.

  “Hello,” she said.

  The dog cocked its head and continued to regard her with an uncanine neutrality. She remembered the yellow-toothed, desperate rabbits in the hutch at the bottom of the garden and supposed the DeVrieses had moved onto dogs. There had been a cat, too, and kittens, she remembered.

  After a moment the dog got up and disappeared back around the corner of the house. Her presence at the front door obviously did not interest him one way or another. Coral followed him. There was a paved yard on the side of the house with a gate leading into both the front and back garden; both gates were open. She stood in the yard and watched the dog cross the lawn and approach a man sitting low to the ground on a canvas sling-back chair that was facing away from her, reading a book that he held upon his lap.
The music came from an old windup gramophone that sat upon a wooden chair that stood beside him. She remembered that he was keen about music. He was a music publisher, whatever that was. The dog whined and the man in the chair said, without looking up from his book, “What is it, Toby?”

  She suddenly remembered that his Christian name was Walter, although she had of course never called him by that name. The children had called him Papa and Mrs DeVries had called him Terry. He was wearing a sleeveless vest and short pants. His white legs were crossed, one knee over the other; one of his large bare feet dangled in the sunlight. He had a glass of something—whiskey, probably—from which he occasionally sipped, on the grass beside his chair. Once or twice he reached out to stroke the dog, who seemed to only tolerate this attention.

  For a moment she thought perhaps it was enough to have come this far, to have merely seen him. Because she did not know exactly why she had come, or what she exactly wanted, it was difficult to know what to do or when to leave.

  It occurred to her that if she had a gun, she could kill him. Shoot him and walk calmly back to the station and return to London and no one would ever know. While she was thinking this, the dog whined again and Mr DeVries looked up from his book and saw her. He shielded his eyes with his hand. “Hello,” he called. “Are you looking for Rosalind?”

  She did not answer him.

  “Hello,” he said again, and got up from his chair. He laid his book splayed open upon the grass and walked towards her. He was smiling. His bare legs were very white, and hairy. He wore a sort of kerchief knotted around his neck. He looked more than a little ridiculous.

  “Hello,” he said again as he approached the gate into the side yard.

  “Hello,” she said then.

  “Looking for Rosalind? I’m afraid she’s not here.” He drew closer but still did not recognise her. He was smiling. “She’s on holiday with the kiddies,” he said.

  “I’m not here to see Rosalind,” Coral said.

  “Oh. Are you collecting for something? I’m afraid I haven’t got any money on me at the moment.”

  “No,” she said, “I’m not collecting.”

  “Oh,” he said again. He sounded perplexed. “What is it, then? Can I help you with something?”

  “Perhaps,” said Coral.

  “Look, who are you? What’s this about?”

  “Do you really not recognise me?” Coral asked.

  “I don’t,” he said. “Who are you? Do I know you?”

  “You did,” said Coral.

  He stepped a bit closer to her, but there was still a hedge and the fence between them. His face had changed: all the bonhomie had left it and was replaced by tension. “Look,” he said, “what are you doing here? What do you want?”

  “So you do remember me,” said Coral.

  “You’ve changed,” he said.

  “I suppose I have,” said Coral. “A lot has happened to me.”

  He said nothing. After a moment, when she did not speak, he said, “What do you want?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing from you. I’ve come to give you something. Something I don’t want.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “This,” she said. She twisted the ring off her finger and held it out to him.

  He did not move. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “The ring,” she said. “It belongs to your wife. I don’t want it.”

  “Well, neither do I,” he said. “And neither does she. Keep it.”

  “I told you, I don’t want it. Take it.”

  “You came here to give me the ring back?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “That’s odd,” he said.

  “I don’t think it is,” said Coral.

  He walked towards her then and stood just beside the hedge, and reached out over it, over the fence, and took the ring from her. Their fingers did not touch; he was careful to touch only the ring. He held the ring in his palm and looked at it for a moment. And then he looked up at Coral. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m very sorry for what happened to you. For what I did to you.”

  Coral said nothing.

  “It was awful what I did to you,” he said. “I’m sorry. Rosalind was in a depression because of the kids, and—” he paused. “No,” he said. “There’s no excuse. I’m sorry.”

  “There was a child,” she said, “but it is gone. I had an abortion.”

  He winced then, and raised his hand with the ring up to cover his eyes and the ring fell in the grass at his feet.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked. “Do you need money?”

  “No,” she said. “You can do nothing for me.” She looked at him again for a moment and then, surprising herself, said, “Good-bye.”

  She turned and walked back around to the front of the house and then down the pathway and onto the street. Quickly she walked up to the corner and turned onto Winslow Road. The little boy with the glasses and the eye patch stood on the sidewalk in front of the house opposite number 41, as if he were waiting for her. He had a little stuffed monkey on a leash that he could somehow make jump up and down and clash little tin cymbals, and for his sake she pretended to be frightened and shrieked and jumped back, and the boy laughed, and she continued walking back to the High Street and she passed the café where she had eaten her lunch and then the shop were she had made her purchases—where the tea towel and eggcup waited behind the counter for her to collect—but she realised she did not want them anymore; perhaps she had not wanted them to begin with. Who knew what one wanted and what one didn’t want?

  PART FOUR

  The Loftings had separate bedrooms, and each was a kingdom unto itself. Dolly’s boudoir has been described, but Robin’s has not. It was a large, spare room, located at the far end of the hall from Dolly’s, with windows on three sides, which made it the brightest room in the house as well as the coldest. The bare walls were painted a tea-stained cream, and the few pieces of furniture stood at a distance from one another, like unsociable guests at a cocktail party. Only a few personal effects were visible: a stuffed bear sat atop the bureau and a model plane hung by a nylon thread from the ceiling; a second thread had been severed, causing the plane to seem to be in a perpetual crashing nosedive towards the linoleum floor. Anyone seeing this room would assume it belonged to a boy—perhaps a dead boy, and that it had been left untouched in memory.

  Every now and then Dolly would visit Robin’s room while he was away and carefully search it, looking for she knew not what. She had no moral qualms about this inspection, for she reasoned that if they shared a bedroom, as so many married couples did, she would be privy to everything it contained, and therefore she had license to examine the contents of her husband’s private chamber.

  And though she often searched his spartan room, she never found anything that was hidden, nothing secret or thrilling. And this made her sad, for she would have liked to know that Robin had some sort of a secret life, for it is a burden to complement one’s partner’s life completely.

  And then one day in the late spring, she found the letters, hidden between Stalky & Co. and The Light That Failed, two of the uniform editions of Kipling that Robin kept on his little bookshelf. The envelopes were plain and addressed simply to C. Hart c/o Lofting, Eustacia Villa, Harrington, Leicestershire. All three envelopes remained sealed. She immediately opened and read them.

  Dear Clement,

  I am here in London and have found a place to stay, a hotel with weekly rates. The address to write to me is The Pavilion Hotel, 24 Chiswick Street, London. I hope you are well and that I hear from you soon. I am so sorry about the trouble I have caused you by being foolish about the girl in the woods. You have been so kind to me and I miss your kindness. So please write to me here as soon as you are able.

  Truly yours,

  Coral

  Dear Clement,

  I have moved from the Pavilion Hotel into a room in a house on Grantley Terrace owned by a Polish woman. She is v
ery nice and the room is fine and I have a job now with the National Health. So all is well with me. I’ve returned several times to the Pavilion but there is no letter from you. I suppose this means you have changed your feelings about me and do not care to be in touch with me any longer. But perhaps you did not receive my first letter? If that is the case the address you can write to me now is Coral Glynn, c/o Madame Wiola Paszkowska, 16 Grantley Terrace, London, or you can write to the Pavilion Hotel, I will still check there for mail, and they know me there and will keep it for me (if you send something). I hope you are well and nothing unfortunate has happened. Please write to me I miss you and often think of you.

  Coral

  Dear Clement,

  It has been more than two months and I have not heard from you so I will not write to you again. I understand now why you sent me away and agree that is better this way, I am sorry I did not understand it then and bothered you with my letters. It was all a mistake and I am very sorry for whatever I have done but I know it is for the best. If you feel differently at some future time, please write to me, c/o Madame Wiola Paszkowska, 16 Grantley Terrace, London. (I no longer go to the Pavilion Hotel.) But I will not write to you again, ever again.

  Coral Glynn

  * * *

  Dolly was silent that night at dinner. Robin was aware that she often looked up from her plate and gazed at him across the table, but said nothing. “What’s wrong?” he finally asked. “You seem preoccupied.”

  “Perhaps I am,” said Dolly. “I was thinking about Coral. And how odd it is that she has never written to Clement.”

  “Odd?” asked Robin.

  “Yes. Remember how she told us she would write to him, and send the letter here?”

  “Of course,” said Robin.

  “And she has never written.”

  “No,” said Robin. “Unless she sent the letter directly to Clement.”

  “But he told us, only last week, that he had heard nothing. And every time he sees me, he asks if a letter has arrived.”