Читать книгу: «Meadowland»
MEADOWLAND
Alison Giles
Copyright
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain in 1998 by Fourth Estate
Copyright © 1998 by Alison Giles
The right of Alison Giles to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN: 9781857026092
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007468898
Version: 2016-02-29
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
About the Author
About the Publisher
CHAPTER 1
I knew it was a mistake to go and see Flora; but nonetheless I went. Although it was the weekend, I dressed for the occasion in the tailored red suit with its fashionably short skirt which I normally reserved for the office. As a concession to my destination I settled on lowish heels.
The final miles of my journey, an hour and a half’s drive west of London, led me away from the drone of the motorway and into a valley. The road, a thin yellow line on my map, coiled itself loosely round the river across a series of what had once been packhorse bridges, now strengthened but rarely widened. February sunlight glinted on fallowed fields and on pastures churned up around the feeding troughs into waterlogged mires.
As I drove, I glanced at the pile of books perched sedately on the passenger seat. The bundle, secured with doubled string, had the air of some little old woman – not quite tall enough to peer through the windscreen; too polite to complain of the lack of view; occupying herself instead with scrutinising the dashboard. I half expected remonstration at my speed.
I eased off the accelerator. The whole thing was ridiculous, of course. I could have posted them back; I should have posted them. But to do so would have been to refuse my father’s last request.
He had waited until my mother left the ward to speak to the sister. Then, lacking the energy to lift his head from the starched pillow, he gestured me closer. ‘I want you to do something for me,’ he whispered. He described where to find the volumes. ‘Return them to Flora. Yourself. Please!’
My mother had tripped back before I had time to reply. But as we said our farewells that evening, his eyes pleaded with me; reluctantly, resentfully even, I nodded. He died that night at about the time my mother and I, hastily summoned, fretted at a red light at the bottom of the hill.
Now three weeks later here I was, deep into unknown countryside, propelled by a collection of dog-eared books towards the home of a woman whose existence I had for over twelve years dutifully ignored.
Rounding a corner, I found my way blocked by a tractor silhouetted against its cartload of hay. I slammed on the brakes. My God, this really was the back of beyond. I pulled over against the hedge and winced as I heard the scrape of branches along the Astra’s polished paintwork. To my right, the tractor teetered up on to the verge, avoiding tipping its trailer into the ditch by scarcely the width of a theatre ticket. The driver – round-faced under a tangle of curly hair – grinned down at me, mouthing his thanks. I nodded acknowledgement, forcing the corners of my mouth upwards against the downward thrust of lips clamped tight in irritation. The books – which had shot forward into the well – seemed to stare at me reproachfully.
Jerking at the gearstick, I revved the engine and the car leapt forward. The parcel shuddered, held its point of balance for a moment, then toppled sideways, leaving the page edges uppermost. They looked vulnerable, less powerful. That pleased me.
I relaxed a little, slowed to negotiate another narrow bend and began to ponder just what I would say to Flora when I came face to face with her. The road was beginning to climb now, up through an avenue of oaks and beeches merging on either side into gladed woodland. Through the trees to the west, a light airiness hung above the dip of the valley, the hills beyond curving the horizon. Despite all my misgivings, it was hard to resist the serenity.
Was it for such a sense of peace that my father had initially come; once in a while, and armed with fishing rods and a box of assorted flies? I remember – I must have been about ten at the time – his setting out the bright screws of fur and feather on the dining-room table and challenging me, with that great chortle of his, to recite their names. His favourite was his own design: the ‘Golden Retriever’, he called it. He swore he’d enticed more trout with that one fly than with any conventional nymph or dun.
In those days, he would return on a Sunday evening smelling of damp leaves and moss; bearing his pungent catch in an old wicker shopping basket scrounged from the cupboard under the stairs. Mother would squeal at him to ‘leave those filthy Wellingtons outside’, and wrinkle her nose as he plonked his booty on the draining board.
‘Come on, Carrie,’ he would say to me. ‘You wash and I’ll fillet.’ And so I would hold the slippery ovals under the cold tap and, with numb fingers, brush away the mud and grass; and watch as, wielding the brown-handled kitchen knife I was forbidden on pain of direst retribution to touch, he deftly cut away the fins and sliced along the belly of each scaly creature, stripping out the skeleton with practised ease.
Then my mother, having banished Father upstairs to ‘make yourself presentable for goodness sake, dear’, would arrange the speckled bodies in rows under the grill and whip up a delicate butter and herb sauce to pour over them.
The taste – once anticipated with so much relish – was now nothing but a soured memory.
To start with, I only noticed that Father was returning almost, and sometimes entirely, empty-handed from his increasingly frequent fishing weekends; and that my mother turned away, her expression curiously blank, when he apologised awkwardly for the poor catch. Perhaps, I thought, she had looked forward to our trout suppers more than she had ever given reason to suppose.
Then one Friday evening, as he was about to set off and I went to shut the garage doors, I realised his rods were still leaning up against the wall at the back. I ran after him down the drive and, skipping sideways parallel with the moving car, banged on the window. ‘You’ve forgotten your rods,’ I puffed. I teased him triumphantly: ‘You won’t get much fishing done without them.’
His smile, as he pulled the car to a halt, was strange; faraway. ‘Oh, of course!’ He fetched the bundle of canes and stowed them in the boot. He seemed to hesitate before going back to collect the battered red tin box in which he stored the rest of his tackle.
‘Happy now?’ he said. He patted me on the head before sliding his long legs under the steering wheel and driving off.
I knew then that something wasn’t right.
All my mother said, when she saw bewilderment written loud on my face, was, ‘Her name is Flora.’ We never spoke of her again.
There were times when I was crying out to do so, but somehow I knew that to ask for explanations would endanger some sort of balance that held my world precariously in place.
It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the meaning of Mother’s cryptic announcement; by the time of that revelationary Friday, I was already into my teens – just. In the early days, I spent long hours wondering. I found myself hoping Flora didn’t look like the bewigged and powdered Madame de Pompadour of my school history books; Nell Gwyn, I decided, presented a far more acceptable image of my father’s mistress. On the other hand, Flora must surely be some sort of witch, pointed hat and all, to have lured my father into her lair. I should have liked to speculate with my friends, but the taboo that hung over the subject at home extended to an unspoken prohibition on it being mentioned outside. My fantasies remained secret ones and, undernourished, eventually withered. And, with them, my curiosity.
About Flora herself, that is. My father’s betrayal and my mother’s acceptance of it continued to puzzle my pubescent mind. It was not the stuff of which the romantic novels, into which I escaped to revive my faith in the happy-ever-after, were made. But eventually even those queries succumbed to the practical routine of Father’s regular weekend absences.
For the benefit of the neighbours, he made a point of ostentatiously packing his fishing gear in the car each summer Friday, and on his return nodded comments over the fence about the state of the water. The close season was more problematic. But, each year, something was dreamed up. One winter, he was – Mother would explain as she nodded her way along the Avenue – ‘helping a friend do up a country cottage’; the next, he was ‘tutoring an OU course’. If the Mackenzies or our then neighbours, the Brandons or the Williamses, whispered cynicism among themselves, they were careful not to do so in my hearing.
For my part, I surmounted the difficulty by teasing my peers with the notion that his weekends were spent on top secret government assignments. ‘You mean he’s a spy,’ gasped Penny Kingsley, reliably gullible. Pouring scorn on my giggling claims distracted the others from probing the reality.
At home each Friday evening, after Mother and I had cleared away our supper for two, she would pick up her embroidery and dictate a shopping list for the following morning. Curled up in Father’s big Minty chair, I would, every now and again at Mother’s behest, disentangle my legs from its depths and scurry out to the kitchen to check the stock of some item. (As I grew older, such sorties took on a more self-consciously languid air – but the ritual was maintained right up to the time I went away to university.)
Next day in town and before embarking on the supermarket marathon – traditionally reserved for Saturdays, for unspecified reasons which it never occurred to me to query – we often treated ourselves to coffee in the department store in East Street; and afterwards, wandering back down the escalators, inevitably detoured into the Fashion section. My mother loved clothes and always dressed beautifully. But I was always more comfortable helping choose a skirt or an Hermès silk scarf for her than struggling to find a compromise between my penchant for tatty jeans and T-shirts and her desire to see me dressed in ‘something elegant for a change’.
Oddly enough, it was on these occasions, delving among the clothes rails, when the feminine alliance should have been closest, that I most missed my father’s presence. I found myself longing for his endorsement of my desire – my need, even – to make my choice independently. I could have done with his support as Mother picked out some excruciatingly dull jumper and held it up against me, murmuring how well the colour suited me. But then guilt at my ingratitude would roll in and I would squeeze her arm as she proffered a cheque at the till, thanking her profusely for the latest disappointing addition to my already overfull wardrobe.
They were cosy, though, those weekends, without Father’s ambiguous presence hanging over us. Increasingly, of course, I spent time on my own pursuits: the usual teenage things – discos, parties, or simply browsing the streets and record shops. Mother insisted that it wouldn’t be fair to expect me to stay in and keep her company.
‘I’ve got more than enough to keep me busy,’ she reassured me as she set about spring-cleaning each room in turn or, tying an apron round her waist, rolled up her sleeves to batchbake for the next charity function. ‘You go out and have fun!’
So I did; although I felt obliged – embarrassing though it sometimes was – to be home at whatever time, according to my age, she considered ‘late enough for a young girl to be out, even on a Saturday’. Once, only once, she sighed: ‘It would be different if your father were here to pick you up.’ I stifled my own sigh – of exasperation – at her adamant refusal to drive after dark.
‘Maybe,’ I took the occasion to venture, ‘Clare’s father would give me a lift. They pass the end of the road anyway.’
My mother’s lips pursed. ‘No.’
She was like that; refusing to ask for or accept any sort of help from anyone. Unsanitary gurglings one Sunday morning advised that the drains were blocked.
‘Wait till Daddy gets home,’ I suggested.
Mother wouldn’t hear of it. ‘What do you expect me to do?’ she demanded. ‘Keep my legs crossed all day?’
I laughed. Then hastily straightened my face.
Unearthing some ancient sailing trousers and an anorak and reaching for the Marigold gloves, she covered herself from head to foot in waterproofing. Then, heaving aside the manhole cover outside the back door, she prodded the murky sewage with a broken branch. ‘I think there are some rods in the shed,’ she instructed.
I sought them out. Meticulously, she assembled them one by one, pushing the gradually increasing length down and along the underground pipe. I was despatched to lift off the drain cover further down the garden.
Mother raised her head. ‘Anything coming through?’
Suddenly there was a sploosh, echoing and rumbling towards me, and a welter of thick brown porridge surged across the hole at my feet.
‘You’ve done it!’ I shrieked.
‘Yes?’ For an instant, something like pleasure crossed my mother’s face as she stared enquiringly at me.
Much hosing later, with disinfected rods stacked neatly in their place again and scrubbed waterproofs hanging over the line, Mother emerged from the shower, smelling of soap and shampoo, her hair wrapped in a towel. ‘There,’ she said with a look of brave acceptance. ‘One can always manage if one has to.’
If Father felt reproached when he returned that evening, he gave no sign of it. Mildly he remarked, ‘You should have left it to me.’
I was about to say, ‘That’s what I said.’ But Mother shushed me with a look.
I shifted restlessly in my seat as she served up spaghetti Bolognese, chattering about Mrs Duckworth’s roses. Father commented on the traffic jams on the bypass. I wanted my mother to be angry, my father to acknowledge guilt. But as always, if they felt those emotions – or any others for that matter – they never showed them.
A motorbike swooped past me as I approached the brow of the hill. ‘Bloody idiot!’ I yelled, surprising myself at my vehemence. By the time I levelled off on to the narrow plateau, the bike was a blur disappearing down the other side.
I slowed. From my earlier study of the map, I guessed that the road ahead plunged straight into Cotterly; that I was less than a mile or so from my destination.
I pulled on to the entrance to a wheel-marked track into the wood and turned off the engine. I reached for my bag, found a cigarette and lit it. Stupid habit, I acknowledged, but one I’d taken up after the Mark episode. Mother didn’t approve, of course. I tried not to smoke when I visited her. In any case, I usually restricted myself to two or three, just in the evenings. But today was different.
I inhaled deeply and wound down the window to allow the smoke to escape. The air that flooded into the car had a tang to it. On impulse, I pulled the key from the ignition and climbed out. My shoes sank into the soft ground. I leaned against the warm bonnet while I finished my cigarette, savouring the freshness of the air on my face. Then I threw the stub on to the ground and watched it extinguish as I shrugged my arms into my coat and hugged it round me. A walk would help clear my mind.
By keeping to the hump in the middle of the track, I was able to circumvent the worst of the mud. Ditches on either side were filled with composting autumn leaves. On their slopes, and in among the trees too, occasional clusters of primroses winked pale yellow eyes. I picked my way across the ruts and crouching down, coat-skirt tucked carefully behind my knees to prevent it trailing on the ground, gathered a small bunch. I held them up as a nosegay, breathing in the fragrance.
A cloud crossed the sun which, weak though it was, had been shining comfortingly on my back. I stood up, shivered, and marched on. I could see that the trees petered out a hundred yards or so further along and had an idea that maybe I would be able to look down on the village.
I was right. A huge muddied grass field fell away in front of me revealing a hotchpotch of dwellings in the distance. Which one of them, I wondered, was Wood Edge? I would have to ask directions.
I wondered suddenly if my mother was aware that the sealed envelope, inscribed so seemingly mundanely in my father’s handwriting ‘Weekend address’, had been tampered with. Two weeks ago, a few days after Father’s funeral, I had located it, discreetly tucked away at the back of the top right-hand drawer of the bureau where Father had whispered to me from his hospital bed I would find it, and steamed it open while Mother was having tea at the vicarage. I’d been invited along too but had pleaded a headache. Mother had nodded understandingly: ‘But I feel I have to go – so kind of them to invite me.’
It had been a curious feeling staring at the address – the words on the page somehow transforming the ethereal quality of Father’s ‘absence’ into the concrete reality of his presence elsewhere. Presumably Mother didn’t know the details of it, else why was the envelope there? Had she, bar in dire emergency, always preferred not to; been devoid even of curiosity?
I copied it out, re-inserted the original into the envelope and stuck it down again as neatly as possible. I could only hope Mother wouldn’t notice the hint of tell-tale wrinkling, nor indeed the lack of dust which I’d wiped away to erase the smudges I’d made in it.
She refused my suggestion, inspired at least in part by that concern, that she wait and let me help sort through Father’s things next time I could get down from London. ‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘I can manage. And anyway I’d rather get on with it.’
I wondered what progress she’d made. Staring down now on the place where Father had spent so much of his time, I wasn’t sure whether I was grateful or not to be excused the somewhat ghoulish task. Wasn’t it all part of the last rites; of saying goodbye?
A wind ruffled briefly across the ridge and for an instant a vision of my father, laughing with me, filled my mind. I sank down on a tree stump, careless this time of my clothing, and found myself rocking, head in hands. Tears welled up. For a moment I felt like a child again – confused, angry, helpless.
I pulled myself together. This was ridiculous. I was, I reminded myself, twenty-five years old, owner – courtesy of a deposit I’d only briefly hesitated, damn it why not, to accept from Father – of a flat in Fulham, and a rising executive in a West End-based travel company. I hadn’t been close to my father for years. If either of us should feel his loss at all, it was my mother.
And Flora. The thought took me by surprise. I pushed it away.
I stood up, glanced once more at the innocuous-looking buildings below, and turned. As I retraced my steps, a Land Rover lurched along the path towards me. Moving over, I waited for it to pass.
‘Is that your car back there? Had a hell of a job squeezing past it!’ Early to mid-thirties; expensive but well-worn jersey over check shirt; land-owning accent. Not aggressive; not even irritated; just mildly reproving.
He had driven on before I’d decided whether or not to apologise. I glared after him indignantly. Tough. It wasn’t my choice to be here.
Back at the car, I jettisoned the already drooping primroses, cleaned off my shoes as best I could, and renewed my make-up. The books were still lying, dishevelled, on the floor. I heaved them back on to the seat, straightened their edges, and pulled on to the road. The car purred reassuringly and the sun, already on a downward path, reinstated itself in a patch of watery blue sky. I checked my watch as I started the descent. Well gone two already. If this one-horse place did have a pub, it would probably be closed by now. And I could have done with a sandwich at least – not to mention a drink.
I passed a farmhouse, and then a pair of cottages. As the road levelled out, a T-junction loomed before me. ‘Cotterly ¼ mile’, declared the sign pointing left. So this was it. I took a deep breath and turned the wheel.
CHAPTER 2
A lemon-coloured Citroën, old and battered, was parked on the grass beyond a broken-down gate, along the top bar of which the inscription ‘Wood Edge’ was faded but legible.
I had experienced no difficulty finding Flora’s house. Despite my pessimism, the doors of the pub, easily spotted at the side of a small green, had been open; but the clamour of male voices, raised in exhortation at the flickering figures of rugby players on the television screen within, decided me to try the shop next door instead.
I waited impatiently while two small girls and a boy rummaged among the sweets on the counter, finally handing over precious ten-pence pieces. I purchased a bar of chocolate and made my enquiry.
‘Wood Edge?’ The short, middle-aged woman pushed to the drawer of the till, then, wiping her hands on her apron, ushered me to the door. She pointed along the road. ‘The lane up to the right, ‘bout a half mile along. Just past Manning’s barn.’
I had devoured the last square of chocolate as I passed the huge corrugated-iron hay store and drew the car to a halt some fifty yards further on.
Now I climbed out, flung my bag across my shoulder and hoisted the books into my arms. I crossed the lane and stood in the entrance.
The house, like most of the others in the village, was of yellowish grey stone, mellowed with age. The garden sloped up towards it, unkempt grass lush with the first thrust of spring. Purple crocuses dotted banks supporting a path beneath the windows. Here and there, clumps of tight daffodil buds promised a golden flowering.
A robin hopped across the driveway in front of me as I crunched towards the front door, then darted to the branch of a straggling buddleia where it bounced round to face me, twittering. Sparrows rustled in the bushes and overhead a pair of wood pigeons flapped lazily towards some unknown destination. There was no other sound or sight of movement. For the first time, the possibility occurred to me that Flora might not be at home.
The front door, approached by three stone steps built into the abrupt rise, was firmly shut. There was no bell; just an old and tarnished brass knocker. I lifted it and banged twice. The sound echoed. I waited, then knocked again, this time with greater force. As the reverberations faded, there was silence.
I retreated down the steps and surveyed the frontage. One of the upstairs casements was ajar. In the country that probably didn’t mean anything. What now? Presumably I could find somewhere to leave the books. A note through the door … I struggled with a sense of anticlimax.
Then: ‘Come on, Columbus. We have a visitor.’ The voice floated from somewhere along the side of the house. Footsteps sounded.
From under the ivy-clad overhang at the corner, a tallish and solidly built figure, in what I’d guess were her late fifties, appeared. She strolled towards me along the upper path, a somnolent cat, knitted into the design of her heavy jumper, undulating across her bosom as though rocked on a gently rolling sea. At her feet padded a ginger tom, tail erect, rubbing confidently against the green of her scuffed cords. This presumably was the companion I had heard her addressing; but addressing in a tone startlingly softer than the one she now directed at me.
‘Yes?’ Short; to the point; unsmiling.
The cat turned slit eyes towards me and stared. Flora’s own were wide and brown and framed by waves of greyed hair among which glints of auburn provided curious contrast. In one hand she held an ancient trug, half-filled with mud-smeared potatoes and knobbly shapes that might have been swedes; in the other a garden fork. Wooden sabots hugged her feet which she planted firmly on the top of the bank.
I looked up at her; never in all my childhood imaginings had I visualised her thus.
I resisted an instinctive step backwards. ‘You’re …’ I hesitated over the informality ‘… Flora?’
‘Yes.’ The same clipped neutrality.
I took a deep breath. ‘I’m Charissa,’ I said, glad of the extra stature I felt my full, and somewhat distinctive, name gave me. Then, as her eyes roved over me, ‘I came to return these.’ I held the bundle of books out towards her.
There was a pause, while she continued to size me up. ‘So you are. Spitting image of your father of course.’ The merest hesitation before, just a shade less abruptly: ‘You’d better come in.’
Ignoring the proffered parcel, she turned on her heel and started round the house, Columbus falling into step behind her. ‘Never use the front door,’ she announced, leaving me to catch the words as they floated back on the air. It seemed I had no alternative but to follow.
In Indian file, the three of us made our way to a paint-chipped door. It gave access to a lobby cluttered with gardening paraphernalia. Flora deposited trug and fork, kicked off her shoes and pushed the kitchen door wide. A wave of warmth billowed to greet me.
Moving straight to the Aga at the far side, she lifted one of the heavy circular lids and slid the kettle across on to the hotplate beneath. Columbus bounded on to an elderly chesterfield and took possession.
Flora turned, leaning against the rail over which teatowels were drying, and looked at me, arms folded.
‘Well, come in then.’
I took a step across the threshold. The room, unlike the exterior of the house, had a cared-for look; that is to say, not clinically scrubbed as my mother always kept her kitchen, but comfortably clean and ordered. And, yes, cheerful. A first glance took in an antique Welsh dresser hung with good quality china, a large oak kitchen table, the near end of which was home to a pile of shuffled papers, and a set of cupboards and work surfaces along the length of the window wall. Dotted here and there, but always looking as though they belonged, were the bits and pieces that gave the room its lived-in feel – table lamps, a busy Lizzie draped from the window sill, a magazine lying open.
‘Push Columbus over,’ Flora instructed, noting my hesitation. ‘Oh, and …’ she nodded towards the bundle I was still carrying ‘… put those down somewhere. By the bookcase will do.’
It stood against the wall immediately to the right of the doorway, out of vision until I entered and moved towards the sofa.
On its top shelf, and flanked by a rosebowl on one side and a pair of silver candlesticks on the other, stood a large framed photograph of my father. It brought me up short.
‘Tea or coffee?’
I looked across at Flora. Her face was expressionless. ‘Coffee, please. Black.’
Turning back, I stared at the picture again. It had been taken in the garden, presumably at the rear of the house; and, as was clear from the fit of my father’s familiar brown tweed jacket, long before his illness began to take hold. He was standing beneath the branches of an apple tree in full fruit, laughing. That sparkle in his eyes … I hadn’t seen it since …
I bit my lip. Flora – I glanced in her direction – was spooning coffee. I placed the books on the floor as directed and squeezed a place for myself beside the already slumbering ball of ginger fur.
The photograph drew my gaze inexorably. I forced myself to lower it and study instead the contents of the shelves. They held an eclectic collection, bundled in together with the familiarity of use.
Books of poetry rubbed shoulders with a Dickens or two, some Nevil Shute, tomes on subjects ranging from philosophy to the peoples of the Pacific, the odd cookery book, one on pruning roses. All interspersed with a range of current paperbacks. The equally varied selection I’d returned would slip back in comfortably.
I raised my eyes to my father’s picture again. What was it, I wondered – at that moment more perplexed than resentful – that had not only drawn him here, but brought such a look of relaxed contentment to his face?
‘It’s a good likeness.’ Flora had glided across the room in her stockinged feet and was standing over me, a mug in each hand. She passed me one, then swivelled a dining chair and sat down.
I nodded agreement, and waited for her to initiate further conversation. She didn’t.
‘Nice part of the country, here,’ I offered eventually. ‘Very peaceful.’ I forced a light laugh. ‘Makes a pleasant change to get away from London traffic.’
She inclined her head.
‘Had quite a good run down,’ I suggested. I prattled on about the time it had taken me, the weather …
I tried a different tack. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘About my father’s death, I mean.’
This time she did comment. ‘So I should imagine.’
I stared at her. ‘What I meant was …’
‘Yes?’
Confusion stoked animosity. ‘I meant you must miss him.’ It came out angrily, attempts at civility swept aside.
There was a flicker of something indefinable at the corners of her mouth. Eventually she said, as though having considered the matter, ‘Yes, I miss him.’
‘I suppose –’ I managed to soften again as the thought struck me – ‘I suppose we might have invited you to the funeral.’
‘I came anyway.’
I felt my eyebrows shoot up. But then I hadn’t really been aware of anyone but family among the congregation, and I wouldn’t have known who half of them were anyway. I could hardly have been expected to notice a stranger – Flora – in their midst. And maybe, in any case, she’d slipped out before we turned to leave. Must have done, or surely she’d have recognised me more quickly when I arrived.
‘Tell me –’ Flora changed the subject abruptly – ‘why have you come?’
It wasn’t a question I was expecting. I twisted my mind back. ‘My father asked me to.’ I nodded towards the books. Then defensively, pushed into elaboration by a lack of response, ‘One doesn’t refuse a dying wish.’
‘Oh, no. One doesn’t, does one.’ Flora’s tone was bland. She leaned back, that considering look on her face again. Then: ‘Was that the only reason?’ The question, though mildly put, felt nonetheless to prise into me.
The hurt of years surged suddenly in a wave of hatred. How dare she interrogate me! With great control, I rose from my seat, placed the coffee cup carefully beside the photograph of my father and looked her squarely in the eye. ‘Of course. What other reason could there be? Thank you for the coffee. I must be on my way.’ It was, I prided myself, a dignified little speech. I reached for my bag.
‘Sit down.’ Again quietly said; but, given the discomposing effect she was having on me, she might as well have delivered a karate chop to the back of my knees.
I sank back on to the cushions.
Taking her time, she asked casually, ‘Do you always run away from the truth?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
She repeated the query.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Then maybe –’ there was the faintest lift of an eyebrow – ‘you have a thing or two to learn.’
‘But not from you!’ The retort, satisfyingly, seemed to fire itself without any conscious effort on my part.
Flora’s expression didn’t change, and my momentary sense of triumph evaporated as I felt caught up in a childhood game of ‘stare as stare can’. I yielded and looked away.
‘I really must go.’ But the words sounded petulant.
Flora, unperturbed, got up. ‘I expect you’d like something to eat first. I take it you’re going back to London? How about some soup?’ Her tone was matter of fact.
A sick feeling in my stomach identified itself at least partly as hunger. To my astonishment, I found myself accepting.
Unhurriedly, Flora set about the preparations. ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘if you want to wash your hands there’s one the other side of the lobby, or the bathroom’s upstairs.’
I opted for the lobby. On my return, I wandered over to the window and stared out. Beyond the bushes and bare-branched trees bounding the garden, the top of the haybarn I’d passed earlier was outlined against the pink-tinged clouds of early evening. ‘Shepherd’s delight,’ I murmured automatically.
‘We’ll have a beautiful sunset.’ The observation floated from behind me.
I turned. Flora was stirring a pan.
Grabbing for the relief of small talk, I said, ‘I was admiring your crocuses.’
‘None of my doing.’ Abruptness had returned to her voice. She poured the soup into a bowl and transferred it to the table, indicating to me to seat myself.
This time, I decided, I would be the one to ignore a comment. I picked up the spoon. The soup smelled good. I tasted it. It was thick with fresh vegetables, just peppery enough to bring out their flavour. Flora placed a farmhouse loaf and the butter dish before me. ‘Help yourself.’ She took the chair opposite. Columbus, wakened by the activity, descended from his bed and sauntered, yawning and stretching, towards the table. He raised his front paws on to Flora’s knee and leapt up. She fondled his ears.
I saw an opportunity for conversation again. Nodding towards the cat, I asked, ‘How did he get his name?’
‘Your father gave it to him. We found him down by the river, soaking wet. He said he looked as though he’d swum the Atlantic.’
‘So he was a stray?’
‘Yes.’
Her monosyllabic response left me scant scope.
‘Was my father fond of cats?’ I regretted the question as soon as it was uttered.
‘He loved animals. Didn’t you know?’
I took a mouthful of soup to delay replying. Columbus purred complacently.
I decided to go on the offensive. ‘The fact that I didn’t know him as well as I should,’ I said carefully, ‘is hardly my fault.’ I stressed the ‘my’.
‘Does anyone say it is?’
She had missed the point. Or had she? Flora didn’t strike me as unintelligent. Far from it. All right, then; if she wanted me to spell it out …
‘Don’t bother,’ she forestalled me. Her eyes were glinting with something. Not anger – I could have coped with that; more an amused, or perhaps merely patient, tolerance.
I put my spoon down. ‘Look,’ I tried. ‘I’ve come all this way …’
‘And I’m supposed to be correspondingly grateful?’ She paused. ‘I can’t think why. You could have consigned the delivery to the Post Office.’ Again, that indecipherable expression. I heaved a sigh; this was getting us nowhere.
‘I take it,’ Flora continued consideringly, ‘that I’m not reacting in whatever way you’ve decided would be appropriate to the … er … circumstances. Which, I would remind you –’ she fixed me with one of her unwavering looks – ‘you have created.’
‘I have created?’
‘You chose to come.’
Her calm only fuelled my indignation.
‘And what about the circumstances you’ve created!’ I thumped the table and the tingle ran up my arm and into my shoulder. ‘Don’t you have any feelings about what you’ve done to us? Don’t you realise how our lives have been devastated by your relationship with my father?’
A level glance met my furious one. ‘I realise it’s affected yours.’
So she acknowledged it. Something snapped inside me. ‘Then what,’ I heard myself explode, ‘do you intend doing about it?’
Throughout the exchange, Flora had scarcely moved a muscle. Now she slowly lifted Columbus from her lap and deposited him on the floor. Then she leaned forward, forearms on the table. The knitted cat nestled into the dip between her breasts.
‘So is that why you came?’
Taken aback, I glared at her. ‘How do you mean? No, of course not. It was just –’ I shrugged – ‘a figure of speech.’
‘Was it?’ She sat back again, fixing me with eyes that seemed to bore deep inside me.
‘If anything –’ I cast around for a more acceptable explanation – ‘it was curiosity.’
She nodded. ‘That, too, I can well believe.’
The conversation was again becoming intolerable. I swallowed the last of the soup, stood up and moved over to the window. The sky had darkened and a deep crimson, interlaced with streaks of purple, had replaced the earlier, lighter colouring. There were no shadows; just shades of grey.
I turned back, my hands grasping the edge of the sink behind me for support. Flora was still seated, immobile. In the subdued light, she no longer looked quite so formidable.
‘Have some more coffee.’ She rose to fetch it.
I sat down at the table again, aware of fiddling with my bracelet. It was the gold one my parents had given me on my twelfth birthday.
‘Your father chose it,’ my mother had said. ‘I’m not sure it’s really suitable for someone your age.’
Father had winked at me over her shoulder.
‘I’ll look after it,’ I’d promised.
I had. Most of the time it sat in the brocade box I’d rather grandly, when I was younger, called my jewel case. It contained only a couple of other items of value. I seldom wore any of them. My decision today, to clasp Father’s gift – I always thought of it as his – around my wrist, had been an impulsive one.
‘Yes, I suppose possibly I was curious,’ I admitted.
Flora had, I was sure, heard me, but she said nothing, merely returning with freshly filled mugs. Her chair scraped lightly on the tiled floor as she resumed her place. Then there was silence. As my ears accustomed themselves to it, I became aware of a clock ticking. I wasn’t sure whether the sound came from within the room or somewhere outside it. I didn’t care to raise my head to discover which.
I ran my fingers over the hard circle on my arm – and began to remember.
I remembered the taste of trout.
I remembered the time, long before Father’s fishing days, when he used to joggle me around the garden piggyback style. I remembered visits to the zoo and clutching his hand as a lion raised its head and yawned, baring ferocious fangs; I saw him down on his hands and knees on wet sand enthusiastically constructing forts which he then pretended to defend from the incoming tide with Canute-like imperatives; I heard again his ostentatious applause when, having ignored my mother’s remonstrations, he’d urged me up on to the pantomime stage and I returned to my seat beside him, flushed with pleasure. I recalled … oh, I recalled so many little incidents – delicious moments of companionship and laughter when I revelled in the certainty that my father found me the most wonderful little girl in the world.
‘He did love me,’ I murmured.
And he’d loved my mother, too. Or I’d thought he did. They used to sit side by side watching television, he with his arm draped over her shoulders as she knitted, or crocheted, or sewed. Sometimes I would try to squeeze in between them; then my father would lift me on to his lap and, as I snuggled against the warmth of his vast chest, his spare arm would slip back to rest around my mother.
He was, altogether, a big man, my mother slim and neat. They made a handsome pair. And I was their princess.
‘But then everything changed.’ I realised I’d spoken aloud.
Slowly, carefully, hesitating over my words, I began to slot the jigsaw pieces of my experience together.
‘It wasn’t as if he just upped and left us. I could have understood that. Not why, but at least the fact of it. But he hadn’t gone. Not physically anyway. Even when he was … away, his coat still hung in the hall; his razor stared at me from the bathroom shelf; his favourite biscuits were always there in the tin; Saturday’s post stood propped on the bureau all weekend.
‘But he had gone. Once he knew that I knew – what little I did know – he never quite seemed to meet my eye again. Oh, he tried to behave normally during those weekday evenings. Sometimes he helped me with my homework, occasionally we even played a game of chess or draughts. But he never … we were never … close again; never did things together any more, not in the way we used to. It was as though he’d handed me over to my mother.
‘She was marvellous, so brave about it all. She never complained. Just got on with the business of running the house and looking after me.’
I paused. Columbus materialised as if from nowhere, and sprang on to my knee. I stroked his fur and he snuggled down.
‘It was as though my father had died, yet I couldn’t tell anyone, talk to anyone about it; I had to go on pretending he was still there. But he wasn’t. Not my real father. The man who called himself my father was a weekday lodger, a stranger.’
Columbus was kneading my thigh with his paws in a slow, steady rhythm. I sat there, allowing my thoughts to tumble over one another.
‘And now he really is gone.’ The words seemed to float towards me across the table. They were spoken so quietly that if there had been any other sound I might not have heard them.
My control shattered. Great sobs, starting way down in the pit of my stomach, forced their way up through my chest, constricted as though by a steel band, and exploded outwards. My elbows involuntarily moved forward on to the table to support my head as it fell forward into my hands. I was vaguely aware of a scrabbling in my lap as Columbus, alarmed, leapt down.
‘There, there. It’s all right.’ I neither knew nor cared whether it was me or the cat Flora was reassuring.
Eventually as the racking subsided, I raised my head. The room was in virtual darkness. Flora’s shape loomed upwards. ‘You need a brandy,’ she said.
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