Читать книгу Meadowland - Alison Giles - Страница 8

I wondered, next day, whether Mother would ring me at work. I rather hoped she might; I’d have an excuse to keep the conversation brief. I felt uncomfortable at the prospect of speaking to her. I’d never lied to her before. Not about anything of any consequence. However, I’d decided from the beginning that there was no need for her to know about my visit to Flora. The whole matter, I’d reassured myself, was totally unimportant, and the sooner it was done, finished, forgotten, the better.

But I’d come back with that painting. I wished I’d never seen it. I wished Flora hadn’t been at home. I wished …

I struggled through the day, formulating platitudes to disgruntled customers and seeking advice on two particularly thorny problems from our legal people. I tried not to snap at the school-leaver who dropped a tray of coffee in the corridor outside, jangling my nerves. Even the physical exertion of an aerobics class after work did nothing to relieve my mood.

I slammed into the flat that night, tired and sweaty. The first thing I would do was throw out those daffodils. I marched across the room and grabbed the vase. But Flora was right: they were already beginning to open, their bright gold centres offering themselves up. So vulnerable they seemed; so fragile. I replaced the vase. For heaven’s sake, they were only flowers.

The phone shrilled. Skidding my sports holdall out of the way, I grabbed it; then wished I’d waited long enough to prepare myself.

‘Hello, dear. Is that you?’

‘Hello, Mother. How are you? Sorry I didn’t ring last night.’

As always, she was understanding. She expected I’d been late getting back. Had I had a good weekend?

‘Yes, fine. Gorgeous weather as well.’ Then hastily, as I sank down into a chair, forcing myself to relax: ‘How were Leah and Harold?’

My enquiry was genuine enough. I was fond of my mother’s sister and her husband; and knowing she was occupied entertaining them over the weekend had somehow made me feel less guilty about my own activities.

She gave me a quick run-down on Uncle Harold’s hernia operation; and amused me by lowering her voice – as though even now Mrs Potter next door might be skulking in the flower-bed, ear pressed to the curtained window pane – to confide that they were somewhat concerned about my cousin Elspeth. ‘Taken up with a very questionable type, by all accounts.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘I can’t tell you what a relief it is that you’re so sensible.’

No, I thought. I certainly didn’t give her any worries over men. Most of those I came across these days were firmly attached elsewhere, as often as not to my girlfriends.

‘What about your weekend?’ she was asking as I banished a sudden image of Andrew.

‘Oh, lovely,’ I heard myself respond. ‘Paula’s totally immersed in nappies … yes, twins, didn’t I tell you? And James …’ I garnished the tale with up-to-date information gleaned from a recent telephone conversation with my ex-university classmate. The words slipped smoothly from my tongue.

Later, lying full length in the bath, I wondered, guiltily, at the ease of the deception. But then, Mother had never had any cause to doubt my loyalty. Nor was she by nature suspicious. I wondered how long it had been before she became aware of Father’s infidelity. Now, the thought struck me, not only was I the one deceiving her – but over the very same person.

Flora. I wanted to put her out of my mind, but her image confronted me implacably. What on earth could my father have seen in her? ‘Heart of gold,’ Andrew had said. Even at her mildest, I’d seen no sign of it. On the contrary, she must have taken some sort of sadistic pleasure in stirring me first to anger and then to tears.

I lunged for the hot tap and turned it on full pressure. The water scalded my toes and I scooped it round to merge with the cooler pool at my back. I added more oil and lay back once again, surrounded by a mist of steam which settled in a film on the tiles. I watched the small rivulets of condensation as they trickled down the mirror-hard surfaces.

Three months later – three months devoted, by dint mainly of immersing myself in work, to putting the past, that is to say anything to do with my father, out of my mind – I wallowed similarly in the ‘tastefully-modernised-en-suite facilities’ of a Georgian country house which some years ago had been converted into a highly priced hotel. It lay, as the blurb had it, ‘betwixt Warminster and Bath’. Which meant it was in the back of beyond. But, given the rates we tightly renegotiated each year, it suited us as a base for day excursions or as an overnight stop on circular tours.

It had been on our books since before I joined the company. When time for another inspection came round, I found myself volunteering. We had our regular team of appraisers of course but, having just been moved – on gratifying and, I complimented myself, well-deserved promotion – to that department, I’d persuaded the head of section, my immediate superior, that some ‘hands-on’ experience would be useful.

‘Why this hotel?’ I taunted myself, flicking foam across my stomach and watching the tendrils of froth settle over my navel. I brushed them aside to reveal again the curving indentation. Above and below it, the outline of my bikini was still faintly discernible. I considered whether, this year, I might dare to return from some hotspot with only a lower triangle of pallor. Crazy, really, that I’d never as yet summoned up the courage. My flatmates, in the days not so long ago when five of us shared two floors of a house in Maida Vale, returned each summer uniformly brown from their hip-bones upwards. ‘God, you’re so inhibited,’ one of them – Becky, no doubt – had teased me on more than one occasion, rolling her eyes in mock despair. Maybe I was. A bit, anyway. Something to do with being an only child? After all – I looked down now approvingly at my boobs – nothing to be ashamed of there.

I knew I was distracting myself from my own interrogation. Why this hotel? Why here? Why not Carlisle or Aberdeen or Norwich? Reluctantly, I confronted myself.

‘So it’s Flora country. Give or take. So what?’ I sank deeper into the water until my chin rested on its surface, the hair at the nape of my neck instantly saturated. It wasn’t as though I had any intention of going anywhere near her again. Maybe I was just taking the opportunity to prove the point – by ignoring, as I would, the turn-off to Cotterly on my return journey this afternoon. That was it.

Or was it? Just as clearly as I visualised myself driving straight back to London, I saw myself detouring at least as far as the hilltop above the village. Unable to dissolve either image, I hoisted myself impatiently up through the vapour and towelled vigorously.

It was a relief to descend to breakfast and concentrate on the details I needed to note for my report.

I attempted to write it in the garden, settled on a slatted bench with the file on my knee and the sun on my back, out of sight of the wide sweep of the tarmacked entrance. A faint burr of voices and the slam of car doors mingled with intermittent chatter of small birds and the hum of a foraging bee. I did my best to focus on the task in hand, but my mind refused to co-operate. I stared at the tip of a church spire, visible above rhododendrons which formed an effective hedge between me and the long stretches of countryside beyond.

I don’t know why I thought of Mark. Churches? Marriage? A starling flying towards its nest with a full beak? Had I missed the only boat, I wondered. Did I care?

I’d been right to finish the relationship, of course. Mother had been devastated. ‘But he’s so nice. And stockbrokers don’t come two a penny, you know. You’d have been very comfortable.’

‘He never actually asked me to marry him,’ I said.

‘He’d have got round to it … He adored you …’

I couldn’t tell her what had sparked our break-up.

We’d been lazing in bed – his bed – one Sunday morning, debating how to spend the day.

‘Let’s go and visit your parents,’ he’d suggested. ‘Wouldn’t mind doing justice to a traditional Sunday lunch.’

I hesitated. I’d taken him home several times during the fifteen months I’d known him, usually choosing a weekday evening when the Market was quiet and he could get away promptly. We’d reach the Surrey dormitory town at about a quarter to eight, earlier if the A3 traffic was light, and drive back, fortified by my mother’s cooking, in time to fall into bed at around midnight. ‘It suits my parents better,’ I’d explained. ‘They tend to be busy at weekends.’ I’d elaborated this excuse to explain my father’s absence on the one or two occasions I hadn’t been able to avoid our calling in on a Saturday or Sunday.

I stroked the soft hair on Mark’s forearm as he put it round my bare shoulders and pulled me towards him. ‘Or, of course,’ he teased my ear with a flick of his tongue, ‘we could just stay here …’

I snuggled up to him. Then I pulled away.

He reached out for me again. I resisted. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

He grinned up at me.

‘Seriously. It’s about my father,’ I said. ‘And my mother too, I suppose. And –’ I took a breath – ‘someone called Flora.’

I expanded, Mark prompting me with the occasional question; when I’d said as much as there was to say, I drew up my knees and rested my chin on them. ‘I’ve never told anyone before,’ I said.

In the silence, I could hear two people calling to each other in the street below. Suddenly Mark flung back the sheet and leapt out of bed. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said. I turned my head; and giggled. Standing there stark naked, he looked, I decided, like some indignant Greek god straight out of a Renaissance painting.

I waited for the declamation.

It came. But not in the form I was expecting. ‘Why the hell didn’t your mother let him have a divorce?’

I sagged, staring at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘What sort of bitch is it that …’

‘You’ve got it all wrong.’

‘The hell I have.’

‘But …’ I felt my tongue on my lips. My mouth was dry as ice. I got up, enfolded myself in a dressing gown and tied the belt. In the kitchen I automatically flicked the switch on the kettle. ‘Coffee?’

‘No! Well, yes. Please.’

He followed me and put his arms round my waist as I reached up into the cupboard. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘Milk?’

He loosed his hold and fetched the bottle from the fridge.

We carried the coffee through to the sitting room. I took the big easy chair while Mark fetched a towel and wrapped it round himself, sarong-style. He perched on the edge of the sofa, leaning towards me, his broad bare feet planted squarely on the thick-pile rug.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘So that’s not how you see it?’

‘Of course not!’

He raised his arms in mock surrender. ‘All right. All right. Have it your own way.’

‘I should never have told you.’

‘Whyever not! It explains a lot. I mean, why your parents are so … polite with each other.’ He hesitated. ‘Some of your attitudes too, perhaps?’

‘My attitudes! What are you talking about?’

‘Forget it.’

But I wouldn’t. I made him spell it out. Challenged him. Provoked him. I was aware of what I was doing but unable to stop myself. It was a blazing row, with no holds barred on my part. Every last thing I could find to throw at him, real or imaginary, I flung in an oral stream of rage that seemed unstemmable.

On a tide of exultation, I stormed through to the bedroom, threw on my clothes and, gathering up what possessions of mine I could carry, swept out, crashing the door behind me.

Frigid, he’d called me. Distrustful of men. Well – I waved away a fly that had settled on my notepad – I supposed he was right. About being distrustful anyway.

Clare, good old Clare, robust as ever, had scorned the accusation of frigidity when I confided a vetted version to her. ‘That’s what all men say when they can’t have things their own way.’ It made me feel better – a bit. But there was a nasty, logical little corner of my mind whispering that if you don’t trust someone entirely, then maybe you do hold back. And that – I swiped angrily at the fly again – was no doubt what I’d been doing ever since. Attempts to patch things up with Mark hadn’t worked; nor had any relationship since then progressed beyond the first few dates.

And I’d never again risked telling anyone, not even Clare, about Flora. With a sudden start it dawned on me that it wasn’t just men I didn’t trust. I didn’t trust anyone. Not even my mother? I certainly didn’t trust her to understand about my visit to Cotterly. A wave of loneliness engulfed me.

‘Shit!’ I said it aloud, but there was no-one to hear.

I stood up and, grasping my briefcase, marched back into the hotel.

I dreaded the moment when I would be faced with the decision whether to head straight back to London or to turn off and take the valley road.

As I drove, I resorted to a game of counting red cars – why red ones? – as they passed me heading back the way I’d come, like plucking petals from a daisy: I will turn off, I won’t turn off, I will … In the event, it was a grubby blue Volkswagen trundling along at a steady thirty that fate commissioned. Several times I prepared to overtake, only to drop back hastily as a van or lorry appeared over the brow of a hill or round a corner. Distracted by the frustration, I lost track of my counting game, relaxing my consciousness of precisely where I was even. As I flicked my indicator yet again, the junction sign loomed at the roadside. I glanced in my mirror at the line of vehicles holding back behind, anticipating my pulling out. The indicator ticked remorselessly … and obediently I allowed the Astra to follow the grid markings on to the centre of the road. On the passenger side, the queue ground past as, committed, I waited to cross the oncoming traffic.

It was madness, of course. I regretted the impulse as soon as I’d acted upon it. Even now I should have been half a mile further along the main road, heading sensibly back to London. If I’d kept going, I’d have been back by late afternoon, in time to arrange to meet someone later for a Chinese or even to change and wander over to the South Bank to pick up a last-minute ‘return’ for tonight’s show.

Oh, well, instead – the thought restored me – I could call on my mother and drive up to town early the next morning. I should have thought of it anyway. After all, I hadn’t really given her as much time as I might have done these last couple of months. Not that she’d complained. That wasn’t her way. ‘You have your own life to lead,’ she’d said. ‘I can manage.’

She had certainly shown herself wonderfully resilient in the face of widowhood. ‘At least,’ she’d confided with a brave smile on the day of Father’s funeral, ‘black suits me.’

The weekend after my mission to return Flora’s books, when guilt prompted a visit home, she ran out to greet me as I pulled up in the driveway, sheltering us both from the rain under a huge golfing umbrella. She was wearing a black and silver polka dot blous.

‘New?’ I queried as we settled round the fire and Mother poured tea. Flames hissed quietly around the artificial coals.

‘Why, no. I’ve had it quite a while.’ She leaned across, proffering cake. ‘In fact I discovered I had quite a number of suitable bits and pieces tucked away at the back of the wardrobe.’ Almost – I tried to suppress the thought before it could surface – as though she’d been waiting for this day. Not that anyone, least of all me, would blame her if she had. It had hardly been – I searched for the right word – a satisfactory marriage.

Even so, it was not like my mother to let an opportunity for a new outfit pass. Surely she wasn’t needing to economise? Whatever else, Father had always provided amply. An image of Flora loomed up as an appalling possibility struck me. Casually, helping myself to a piece of Battenberg, I asked, ‘Has Father’s will been sorted out yet?’

Her answer was reassuring. It would all take time, but according to the solicitor, ‘such a nice young man … taken over from old Mr Robinson who retired last year…’, everything was very straightforward. ‘He’s left everything to me, of course.’

I breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Apart from some small bequest to – what was it now? – some wildfowl trust, I believe. Wildfowl, I ask you!’ She picked up the teapot, nodded towards it and looked questioningly at me.

‘Oh. Yes please.’ I passed my cup and saucer.

‘Eventually it will all come to you of course …’ Mother transferred her attention to the milk jug. Then she looked up brightly. ‘If you need anything at the moment …?’

‘No, no. I’m fine.’

The telephone rang – someone checking the Meals-on-Wheels rota, it became apparent. Mother could oblige on Tuesday, but Wednesday was her library run, and Friday … She certainly kept herself occupied, I reflected. What with her good works and her keep-fit classes and her keen membership of the local fuchsia society. I’d asked her once whether she’d ever considered taking a part-time job; like so many other mothers, I’d suggested. She’d stared at me in bewilderment. ‘But how would I ever find the time? And in any case there’s no need.’ There wasn’t, of course. Feminist ideas, I reflected, hadn’t percolated through to Mother – not as far as she personally was concerned anyway.

She was still chatting. I leaned back, idly surveying the room. The furniture was arranged as it had always been, each chair and table nailed by habit to its decreed position. The usual pile of magazines sat to attention on the shelf beneath the occasional table, and my parents’ wedding photograph, set at its precise angle, continued to grace the top of the bureau. It was all comfortingly familiar and reliable. In contrast, the gap where my father’s pipe-rack had always stood seemed, as soon as I identified it, as substantial as the physical object itself.

‘You’ve made a start on sorting Father’s things, then?’ I observed when my mother eventually replaced the receiver.

‘I’ve done more than that. I’ve been through the entire house. Easier done straightaway. It’s all in the garage waiting to go down to the charity shop or be collected for the Scouts’ jumble sale.’

I nodded. ‘Well done.’

She looked at me doubtfully. ‘I can’t imagine there’s anything you’d want? I told Harold to take anything he could use …’

‘Quite right.’

I took my bag upstairs and dumped it on the bed. The bedspread was the one I’d so painstakingly crocheted with oddments of wool while I was still at junior school. I’d resisted regular suggestions by my mother that it was about time to throw it out. The colours had faded and in places the wool had worn thin, springing into holes. Gingerly I fingered them. They could be darned – if I was prepared to take time and trouble.

‘I think,’ I said to my mother before I left on the Sunday, ‘I’ll take that old bedspread back with me. If that’s OK with you?’

‘I’ll be glad to see the back of it.’ She laughed. ‘You are funny. Is there anything else you want?’

I lied. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ For some reason I didn’t feel inclined to own to having already stashed three fishing rods and a red tin box in the boot of the car.

They were still there, wedged against the slope of the back seat; offering, in some way, an excuse for the route I was now taking. All I needed – I grinned wryly – was a pair of green wellies and a Barbour. I indulged the entertaining image of myself so dressed; standing by the open boot, rods in hand – smiling for a cameraman from one of the up-market glossies. I laughed aloud. My mother would love that. Her daughter: ‘… relaxing at the weekend on Lord Whatsit’s estate,’ she’d read out delightedly from the blurb alongside.

‘And you could have had it all,’ I mentally parodied her, ‘if you’d married Mark.’ Yes, well, I didn’t.

There was a sweep of bare earth to the side of the road where it curved to approach a bridge. I pulled on to it and wound down the window. The silence flowed in, cocooning me more effectively than pressed metal and reinforced glass ever could. Two children, glancing sideways in momentary curiosity, rattled past on bicycles. They paused on the hump of the bridge and, standing astride their crossbars, peered over its low parapet. Their voices piped towards me, then wafted away into the stillness. When I glanced again, they were weaving their way up the hill beyond. And were gone. The occasional car swooped or, according to its driver’s temperament, drawled past – like flies across the pages of a book. I lit a cigarette and leaned back. There was no hurry.

No hurry for what exactly? What was I planning; what did I expect to happen? It was as though the valley were a stage and I a member of the audience – the sole member of the audience – waiting for the curtain to rise. Had I come to observe, or – as at the pantomime so many years ago – to take part?

I jerked round in my seat, for a split second experiencing the almost physical presence of my father beside me – his smiling warmth, his bulk. The vision melted and I shivered, turning back and trying to ignore the sense of Mother behind me frowning disapproval.

Abruptly I switched on the ignition and, pausing only to grind out my cigarette, pulled the wheel sharply over as the car moved forward. I was going home; the time for fantasy was long gone.

The screech of brakes as I nosed at right angles on to the road was real enough though. I slammed on my own and watched helplessly as the other car veered towards the hedge opposite and buried its bonnet in the branches ten yards or so further along.

Somehow it didn’t surprise me at all that it was a familiar figure who clambered out across the passenger seat of the Volvo. Father, I reflected later, could be said to have had his way this time too. There was no opting out of this scene.

Still clutching the wheel, engine running, I watched as Andrew peered across the bonnet of his car at the offside wing. I wondered, guiltily, how much damage had been done.

He shrugged, then turned and walked unhurriedly towards me. ‘Could be worse,’ he announced. He bent to peer in. ‘Good God, it’s you.’ His eyebrows lifted, and he laughed. ‘You’re an absolute menace with this thing, aren’t you?’ He patted the roof just above my head.

I shifted in my seat. ‘I’m terribly sorry …’

The grin was still there. ‘Don’t worry. I doubt there’s anything a bit of touch-up can’t put right. In any case, I was probably driving too fast.’

‘Even so …’ I reached for my bag, intent on producing insurance documents.

He cut across. ‘Been to see Flora, have you?’

‘No.’ I kept my tone carefully neutral. I produced my wallet, opened it and took out the certificate. ‘You’ll want to make a note of this.’

‘I doubt it. Here, let me get the thing off the road-’ he straightened up – ‘and then we can consider.’

He bounded across to his car, climbed in and reversed. Branches sprang back into place; uprooted strands of grass clung to his front wheels. He steered the car efficiently on to the rough beside the Astra and crunched up the handbrake.

I got out and went to meet him. Together we surveyed scratches to the paintwork and an ugly three-inch-long dent just behind the headlight. I ran my hand over it. ‘Soon knock that out,’ said Andrew.

‘Are you sure?’ I looked at him uncertainly. He stood there, as relaxed in a suit by the side of the road as in a pullover lounging in Flora’s kitchen.

‘It’s honestly not worth making a thing about. Can we drop it?’

I gave in – gracefully, I hoped. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘But I owe you.’

‘Good. Then come back and have a cup of tea.’ He waved his arm towards a boxful of files on the back seat of the car. ‘Help me put off the evil moment when I have to start wading through all those.’