“And the train? Not too busy, I hope.”
“No, not too busy at all,” she replied.
“I imagine Linford was quite deathly . . . by comparison to London,” he added.
The market town had been quiet, very quiet. Sylvia had noticed this. Sun-bleached awnings sagged over the darkened shop windows and empty tea shops, and the wilting flags and bunting and banners proclaiming “God Save the King” still draping buildings and crisscrossing the street looked sad and incongruous; like Christmas in summer, she thought. But the coronation and its celebrations had been quickly forgotten in the stifling heat, the effort of remembrance too much.
Sylvia shook her head. “It’s the same up in town. Everything’s shut down, ground to a halt . . . the streets are quite deserted.”
This was something of an exaggeration. Though many city businesses had been closing early, the main thoroughfares quieter, the pulse of the capital continued to throb. People had adapted, altering their habits. The city’s parks were busier than ever and any pond, stream or canal, not yet dried up, filled with bathers. And though Mrs. Pankhurst and her suffragettes had called a truce to their window smashing for the coronation, and for summer, they were still out and about with their banners and placards: “Votes For Women.”
“Ah well, perhaps you won’t find it quite so quiet here after all,” he said and smiled.
Yes, she could see the resemblance, in the line of the jaw, the nose and, most particularly, the eyes. She said, “You remind me very much of your grandfather.”
He looked back at her, quizzical for a moment, then said, “Of course, I forgot . . . forgot that you knew him, that you lived in Rome as well.”
“A long, long time ago,” she replied, glancing away, removing her gloves.
“My namesake,” he said, wistfully.
She kept her eyes fixed on the ivory lace in her hands. They were talking at cross-purposes. He knows nothing, she thought.
“Come,” he said suddenly, and with an assurance that surprised her. He walked on ahead of her down the passageway, saying, “I was outside . . . it’s not too hot for you, is it? We can sit in the shade . . . I’ll organize some coffee, if you’d like . . . wait here.” He turned, walked back along the passageway, put his head round a door, and Sylvia heard him laugh and say, “Yes, please, if you don’t mind . . . on the lawn, please.”
She followed him out through a broad sunlit veranda, across a south-facing terrace to stone steps leading down to an expanse of yellowing grass. He pointed out a gate to a sunken garden and spoke of a woodland path. It was perfect, she said, all quite perfect. And she wouldn’t have expected anything less of his grandmother. They sat on cushioned wicker chairs and made polite conversation. A young maid appeared and covered the table between them in a white linen cloth. When he said he was enjoying “getting to know” his grandmother, Sylvia was reminded how little the two had seen of each other, of Cora’s absence. She was careful not to mention his mother, or his father; careful not to mention too much at all.
He said, “I’m afraid you’ll be back on the train next week,” and she immediately wondered if something else untoward had occurred, if she was to be dispatched back to London, a superfluous guest.
“She’s agreed to be a judge at some flower show or other on the coast.”
“Ah, I see,” she replied, relieved.
He was casually dressed in the way young people were now, his shirt collar unbuttoned and open, his sleeves rolled back. And his manner, too, was relaxed and informal, in that modern way. He stretched out his legs, placed his hands upon his head and looked into the distance, smiling. It was hard to imagine what he had been through. But there appeared to be no trace of any lasting trauma.
“Mm, such a perfect day,” he said, closing his eyes.
She looked away. At the edge of the lawn, under the shade of beeches, a hammock—grubby and fly-covered—hung between two trees. An overturned glass and a book lay on the ground beneath, and she supposed this was where he had been before her arrival.
“I hope you weren’t busy . . . hope that I haven’t disturbed you.”
“Busy doing nothing,” he said, and slid further down his chair.
It was strange the way young people lolled about. Particularly young men—always sprawled. It struck her in the same way a loose thread hanging from a frayed cuff would: unraveling, untidy. She had noticed it more and more of late. In the park near to her flat, on any fine spring or summer’s day, they would be there, lying about, clothing askew, sometimes without even a rug beneath them. The things she had seen in that park . . .
When the maid returned with the tray, he sat up, and Sylvia saw them exchange smiles. He was a handsome boy, of course, but the maid perhaps a little too forward in her demeanor, and her uniform much too tight.
Eventually, she said, “And so, where is she, where is Cora?”
“She took a stroll, to the temple I suspect. I’m sure she won’t be long.”
“The temple?”
He raised a hand and gestured behind him. “In the woods . . . a tiny replica of ancient Rome. She likes to sit there.”
“I see.”
Gestures to ancient Rome were scattered all about the place: the sculptures and bronzes within the house, the urns and more sculptures outside in the garden. Sylvia had seen some but not all of them before, and at that moment she noticed and recognized the marble figure next to the gateway in her line of vision.
“She was always a connoisseur, you know? Not just of painting and sculpture, but so very well-informed and knowledgeable about architecture as well. Far, far more than I,” she added and laughed.
At one time in her life it had seemed unfair. Cora’s blessings—her beauty, aptitude and style, her ability with people—had inspired resentment, left Sylvia feeling impoverished, lesser. But then fate had intervened, the way it did with the appearance of good fortune. Cora, she had come to realize, and many years ago, was not to be envied. She was to be loved, cherished and, above all, protected.
He moved forward in his chair. “I understand you’re penning my grandmother’s memoirs,” he said, without looking at her, lifting his cup and saucer.
“Yes, that’s right, I am.”
“Well, I shall be the first, the very first to read it. But I rather think it’ll be an interesting exercise for you. She seems somewhat reticent to talk about the past . . . to me, at any rate.”
Sylvia did not say anything, not immediately. She was a little irked to be classified as the memoirist. It made her feel like a hired amanuensis. After all, she and Cora were dear friends, close friends; they had known each other for over half a century, been through so much, confided in each other. Added to which, she was doing this as a favor. Memoirs were not her expertise. She was a novelist. Some would say romantic novelist. She preferred the term literary.
She said, “Sometimes it’s not easy to revisit the past. It involves confronting everything we’ve done and said, all our actions, mistakes, and regrets.”
The memoirs had always been Sylvia’s idea, always. Though it had, admittedly, been many years since it was first mooted, and then later begun. At that time Cora had been angry about the innuendo and gossip surrounding her marriage to her late husband and Sylvia had suggested to her that if she were prepared to write about her life, the truth, it would at the very least silence her critics. “After all,” Sylvia had said, “in the absence of fact people do rather like to invent things.” Cora had agreed, then, and they had made some headway, mainly via their letters to each other. But later Cora appeared to change her mind, writing cryptically to Sylvia that she felt the enterprise to be somewhat foolhardy and possibly dangerous. Over the intervening years it had become something of an issue between the two women, with Sylvia often writing to Cora, when we finish your memoirs . . .
However, when Cora stayed for a few nights wi
th Sylvia prior to coming down to the country, she had been surprisingly enthusiastic, appeared newly committed to the plan. Yes, she wanted to put the record straight, she said, not least for Jack’s sake, and added, “The truth needs to be told. Indeed, the truth must be told.” To that end, Sylvia had been invited to stay for an indeterminate time at Temple Hill. When Sylvia mentioned that she would have to return to London—once a week, perhaps—to check on the flat, collect post and so on, Cora had clapped her hands: “Barely an hour by train!”
“Of course,” Sylvia began again, “your grandmother and I have known each other for a very long time. We have few secrets from each other . . . and writing one’s memoirs is a . . . an intimate process. I don’t suppose she would wish just anyone to record her memories.”
“Of course,” he replied, smiling. “I understand you met when you were both quite young.”
“Yes, at Rome, when Cora first arrived there. Though my parents and I had lived there for a good few years by then . . . My father managed the English bank there.”
He nodded, and they moved on. She asked him if he had met any other young people in the village, and he mentioned some names, including two girls: a Sonia and a Cecily. She smiled. “Nice girls?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders, glancing away.
A few minutes later, Cora appeared. She emerged from what Sylvia already knew to be the gateway to the sunken garden. She raised a hand and then moved toward them, slowly, looking downwards and pausing to tap at the dried lawn with her cane. Sylvia and Jack rose to their feet. “Dandelions!” she called out. “Coming up everywhere.” She did not smile, did not ask Sylvia about her journey or how long she had been there. But later, when Sylvia finally said, “I do like your little cottage, my dear, but think it rather cramped by comparison to Bayswater,” Cora had laughed. And the joy Sylvia felt at hearing her laugh was incomparable.
Weeks earlier, when Cora had arrived at Temple Hill, the yellow gorse was still in bloom and tiny pink flowers covered the branches of crab apple trees. Trees she could not recall having seen before. But it had been over twenty years since she had visited the place; it was quite different to how she remembered. The house itself was smaller, its interior—the layout and dimensions of rooms—not at all as she pictured, and the landscape surrounding the place more wild and rugged.
She had acclimatized quickly to the unseasonable warmth and to her new surroundings. After all, it was home. She had come home. And though she was privately anxious—and by this thought more than anything else—she considered the place an oasis of calm in a troubled and turbulent world; a world she no longer fully understood.
Before Jack arrived, before Sylvia came, she had spent a great deal of her time in the garden, wandering the overgrown pathways with Mr. Cordery, her gardener, explaining her vision, how it had looked in her mind’s eye: remembering, or trying to. And as the heat grew increasingly intolerable, building up day by day, and the house, despite every sash being pulled open, so claustrophobic, she sought refuge in the temple.
The temple—a small, circular structure, comprising seven ivy-clad Doric columns and a cupola atop—had been erected some years after the house was built, the limestone shipped from Tivoli. But inclement weather, damp and spores from the trees had aged it prematurely, bestowing it with the look Cora intended: a well-preserved ruin. Open to the elements, it had once been open to the views also, north, south, east and west: across the valley to uninterrupted pastures and meadows; across the village with its clusters of smoking chimneys, picture-postcard green and church steeple; and westwards, to glorious sunsets. These vistas were now obscured by woodland but light continued to filter down through beeches and birches, bouncing off stone encrusted with tiny particles of glass and silver and sand. It was a quiet, private place, a place of meditation and remembrance.
And yet it appeared to commemorate nothing. There were no carved initials or dates, no inscriptions in Latin or lichen-covered busts, no statues here. But for Cora it was a small piece of Italy, a reminder of a time and a man. Here, there was stillness and peace; here, she liked to ponder what had been . . . and what might have been, had her life been different.
But facts were inescapable now she had come to a halt. And reflection, the inevitable backward glance, the search for a perfect moment in which to luxuriate and wallow and take comfort, offered up other moments too. Reminding her of how and where her journey had started. Reminding her of who she had been, and what she had done. An involuntary remembrance that caught in her throat and sucked out her breath. A memory she had spent a lifetime trying to forget.
And yet, and yet, surely the only fact that mattered was her love: her love and devotion to a man, one man. And it was at this place, the temple—her temple—that she often saw him, spoke with him. That he had been dead almost two decades mattered not. When he came to her there he was young and beautiful, exactly as he had been when they first met, and exactly as he had been at Lucca . . .
She stands before him, aware only of his gaze, his concentration upon each curve, each undulation, each and every part of her being. And in the silence, in the dusty ether that lies between them, the possibilities are endless and eternal, beyond a here and now. And when he finally meets her eyes, when he looks at her and says her name—as though it’s the very first word he has ever spoken, the first word to ever escape his lips—there is a frisson, a frisson that will sustain her and fire the years to come.
Sylvia made it her business to find her bearings, to learn her way about the place and be at mealtimes promptly. She wished to be an inconspicuous houseguest: a pleasure to have. Thus, each morning, whilst Cora—never an early riser—remained upstairs in her suite of rooms, Sylvia quietly worked on her new novel. She had been instructed on the morning room. The light was better there, Cora told her, and there was a desk in front of the window. Perfect, said Sylvia.
Jack, too, it seemed, was not a morning person, which perhaps explained why that particular room, with its lack of curtains, crates and boxes, had had so little use. When eventually he rose—an hour or so before his grandmother, who made her entrance on the day at around eleven—he appeared to Sylvia to float about the place aimlessly. She sat listening to the sound of him moving through rooms, opening and closing doors, as though unsure of what to do, where to be, or perhaps looking for something: a clue. She watched him through the window, wandering, lost in thought. Understandable, she supposed, that he’d need time to himself. Time to take in the events of the preceding months, his circumstances and new situation. Time to ponder the woman who had broken her vow and quietly slipped back into England, his only living relation. Understandable.
And it was understandable, too, that Cora had a lot on her mind. Understandable she appeared so distracted. How could she not be? Sylvia thought, trying to imagine, trying to imagine what it must be like to be Cora.
During those first few days Sylvia watched Cora closely. She tried to access that troubled mind, watching and waiting for signs. She noted and logged each nuance in manner, each and every hesitation or tremor. She smiled a great deal, asked few questions, and sometimes hummed through a silence.
It was plain to see that Jack knew nothing and it was certainly not her place to tell him. If truth were told, he made her nervous, though she would, she thought, be the first to admit that all men, young and old, remained an enigma. There were, had always been to her, things off-putting—in their countenance, shape and smell. And it was the way they breathed. It must have started, she presumed, with her father, who, banker or not, had always been a heavy breather . . . and with some decidedly queer habits, too. And it was, she imagined—whenever she looked up and saw Jack at the table—in no small part due to the way they chewed and swallowed their food, as though they had not eaten for weeks, as though no one was watching, as though they were not human, but animal. But Cora seemed not to notice, and who was she to cast aspersions
?
Seven days after her arrival, Sylvia did indeed find herself “back on the train.” It was in fact her fourth train journey that week. The day-return to London had been arduous enough, the tube like a furnace, and now, less than twenty-four hours later, she was on board another, this time heading south. Of course it was an altogether different experience traveling with Cora. There were no filthy children or bare-bosomed women in first class. And the upholstered velvet seats, gilt-framed mirrors, oil paintings, polished brass, and mahogany paneling made it an altogether more enjoyable and aesthetically pleasing experience. But still, so much to-ing and fro-ing had left her feeling quite lackluster.
And she had had to tread carefully with Cora, for there seemed to be issues, new issues. Whether to do with Jack or something else Sylvia was not yet sure. But today her friend appeared more distracted than ever, and Sylvia could not help but wonder if it was related to a letter she had received in the morning post.
In anticipation of their day Cora had risen early, been at the breakfast table—in navy blue silk and smelling sweet with the fragrance of violets—by nine. She had pronounced it a “glorious” day, telling Sylvia that she was in fact an early riser at heart, and that the lack of a siesta was the root cause of many of the problems in England. “Tiredness! Fatigue!” she declared, raising her hands in that way she did. “It so interferes with one’s judgment . . . one’s ability to enjoy life . . . its simple pleasures.”
Sylvia watched her pick up the envelope, slice the pale yellow paper with a silver knife, pull out and open a single sheet—typewritten, it appeared from the reverse. She saw her wince, heard her gasp. And as Cora put the page back inside the envelope and the envelope inside her pocket, Sylvia tentatively inquired, “Is everything quite all right?”
At first Cora offered no reply. She stared straight ahead at the open window, and with such intensity that Sylvia, too, turned and looked in that direction. Then Cora rose up from the table and said, “We must make haste, Sylvia. Cotton will be here in a few minutes.”
The Memory of Lost Senses Page 2
