Читать книгу The Squire Quartet - Brian Aldiss - Страница 21

Blakeney, Norfolk, July 1978

Two women stood at a window looking out, one intently, one restlessly.

The house was low-built of red brick, with seven bays and two storeys. It dated from the Regency period. Even in the sunny days of this fitful Norfolk July, its rooms remained shady.

Pink flowers of tamarisk pressed against the window, growing in sandy soil. The house stood on a spit of land at one end of Blakeney quay, with long perspectives of sea and marshes to both the back and front. The rear of the house was sheltered against winter winds by trees and a high wall.

In the front of the house, the windows were square casements, low to the ground, with white-painted shutters on the inside. The two women stood together at the living-room window, Deirdre Kaye with her arms folded, Teresa Squire with binoculars to her eyes, searching the distance.

The linked circles of Teresa’s vision passed over the lively scene of the harbour, with its porcupine-quill quota of masts of dinghies, with near-naked children fishing for gillies at the harbour-edge. They lifted slightly and passed beyond the main channel to the distant sea, the glittering mud of low tide where terns fed, the bars of sand, the marshes and dykes, to a pale stretch of beach backed by the blue North Sea. On the stretch of beach four ponies moved.

Even from this distance, the glasses enabled Teresa to distinguish the copper heads of Deirdre’s two boys, Douglas and Tom, Deirdre’s husband, Marshall, and her own estranged husband, Tom, riding in a line by the water’s edge. She stared for a long while at Tom’s image, wavering in the heat rising from the land. He resembled a phantom progressing underwater. He had drowned in heat and absence.

‘Well, I’ll go and knit a doormat or something,’ Deirdre said.

‘They’re out on the point – coming back here, I expect,’ Teresa said, lowering the glasses and turning to her sister-in-law. ‘The boys look terribly brown. So do you, Deirdre. How long have you and Marshall been back from Greece?’

Deirdre went over to a low table and lit a cigarette from the lighter standing there. ‘A week. Sorry I didn’t send any cards. The house still smells shut up, doesn’t it? It’s almost as hot in Norfolk as it was on Milos. I can’t believe it.’

‘There was nothing but rain and cloud here all June.’

Deirdre swung round to confront Teresa.

‘Look, let’s not beat about the bush, Tess. How much longer are you going to keep the children over at Grantham with your mother? It’s bad for them and for everyone. You know Tom’s still willing to have you back. I think you should stop acting up and return to Pippet Hall at once.’

‘That’s really our private business and nobody else’s.’ The words were said defensively. Teresa clutched the binoculars and looked anxiously at Deirdre, who was a head taller than she. Deirdre promptly wreathed herself in smoke. ‘It’s not simply a question of his “having me back”, as you put it. I just can’t take his unfaithfulness any longer. Sorry, but I just can’t.’

Grace came into the room, carrying a large cat.

‘Get out, will you?’ Deirdre told her oldest child. ‘I’m having a row with your aunt.’

As Grace faded from the scene, pulling a face, Deirdre said, ‘I wanted to say this to you before they return and Tom finds you’ve arrived. I personally am baffled, completely baffled, by how you are behaving. This talk about Tom being unfaithful – I mean, you realize that’s old-fashioned for a start?’

‘You’d probably call it by a nastier name. It hurts me, as it does most women. Men think they can get away with too much.’

‘Well, Tom doesn’t think that because Tom isn’t that kind, though he may have had a bit on the side occasionally. I want to say two things to you. First of all, you ought to try and realize that he’s experienced difficulties in life – well, so have we all; but last year and this are in a way his great years. As I see it. They’ve come a bit late, but they’re wonderful for him. Last year, the excitement of conceiving the “Frankenstein” series and getting it filmed and the book written; then, this year, the tremendous success of the book and the series. The book’s reprinting and they’re now re-running the series, in case you haven’t bothered to watch the box, with all your other enterprises. It’s a triumph for Tom and for the family. You realize that he thinks he’s doing something for England, for the West – silly though you probably find that. And in the middle of it all, you – you have to muck everything up, so that he’s left Pippet Hall in despair and gone to live in his club in London. How do you think he feels? You’re his wife – haven’t you more sense of him as a person than to let him drift like that?’

‘I didn’t make him leave Pippet Hall, did I? Nor did I make him go with that woman.’

‘Laura Nye, do you mean?’

‘Oh, I expect he’s brought her here often. You probably know her well, which is why you take her side.’

‘Don’t be cheap. That’s my role. I met Laura twice last year. But that’s all past – you’ve been told it’s finished, over and over again. That was your excuse to muck about yourself, wasn’t it? My God, how you grabbed it with both hands! So what if Tom did have it off with Laura Nye? She was one of the actresses in his drama. She was literally a passing fancy. He’s got to do something while he’s travelling to all these fancy locations, Hollywood, Malaysia, and so on. If I were in Singapore now, I’d be having it off with the nearest Chinaman, I can tell you!’

Teresa put the binoculars down on the window sill, carefully, to conceal her trembling. ‘I don’t want to have this discussion, Deirdre, sorry. I came over here to see Tom, not you. How you would behave in Singapore is nothing to do with it. Tom obviously preferred the girl to me. He’s old enough to be her father. You speak as if the tragedy’s all his, but believe me it’s mine too—’

Coughing angrily into her fist, Deirdre said, ‘What thought processes do you use? Your mind is stuck on clichés. “He’s old enough to be her father”, indeed! Just try and understand what that may mean in real terms. Tom’ll be fifty next year. That’s not a very comfortable age for men. He probably saw this fling as his last chance, as something to bolster his flagging libido. I don’t know, he doesn’t confide, but I can make intelligent guesses about the situation, and you should do the same. You should ask yourself why he needed that reassurance in the first place.’

‘Oh, stop it, Deirdre! Talk about clichés, you sound like an Agony Column yourself. A successful man like Tom needing reassurance from me …’

‘Of course he does! You’re his wife. Don’t be so blind. He kicked Laura out and returned to you, didn’t he? You turned your back. Agony! – You think he’s not lacerated by your unhappiness? Why aren’t you lacerated by his? And he bailed your business out earlier this year – to the tune of several thousand pounds, I heard.’

‘He was obliged to, Deirdre …’ She put her chin up. ‘I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but Tom was legally bound to sort that out. If I hadn’t been so upset, my business would have flourished. You think I don’t suffer? I just don’t make a fuss about it. After all, I was the one left at home alone. It’s humiliating to have your husband chasing some bit of goods, humiliating, and then you watch them laughing together on TV, and know everyone else is watching, admiring, too. And you expect me to catch the repeats … Do you think I can get over that? I’m disgraced.’

Deirdre stubbed her cigarette out in a shell ashtray. ‘Of course you were hurt. Okay, then you had your consolation and got back at him. Put your claws away, stop erecting all these items into an ideology of grievance, and be a proper wife.’

‘There’s just one difficulty you prefer to ignore …’

Teresa paused. Deirdre looked at her suspiciously. ‘What’s that? You’ve got another bloke?’

‘I don’t love Tom any more.’

Deirdre sat down. ‘Don’t say that to Tom.’ She got up again. She moved over to one of the windows and opened it a trifle wider.

‘You’re no chicken yourself, Teresa. You’re four years older than me. “You don’t love him …” That’s a bit more ideology of grievance, if you ask me. I mean, at your age, you and Tom should steadfastly continue to love each other. By rote, as it were. You’re not in your twenties. When a man goes a bit haywire at the male menopause, okay, his wife stays by him, supporting him through a year or two of rough water, and after that they become closer than ever; his gratitude will ensure that. But if you lose that chance – which you’ve already bungled … You’ve got the wrong idea about love, deserting him when he probably needs you more than ever.’

‘Deserting … Oh, Christ, it’s like being in a trap of words …’ said Teresa, moving unhappily round the room.

‘Don’t rush about. We’ve only got words since you’ve turned down actions.’

‘Tom’s fine, just fine. It’s only his pride that’s hurt – he’s mad because I actually dared to go away with another man to Malta for Christmas, because I pleased myself for once. He’s off to Sicily in September. He’ll probably find a woman for himself there.’

‘God, you bitch, what a mad round of pleasure you make it all sound!’

‘Look, Deirdre, maybe you hate me. He doesn’t need me. He needs me at home. That’s different. He just needs me at home, keeping Pippet Hall in order. The wife in her place. You know he is proposing to open the place to visitors, now he’s such a big success?’

‘Well, the bloody estate is broke. Be reasonable. You’re so vituperative: why should he want to forgive you?’

‘You can’t see that aspect of things as clearly as I can. After all, you’re a Squire too. Tom just wants me at Pippet Hall. That satisfies his love of order. He’ll forgive anything, anything, to get me back, because the Hall is the most important thing in his life. Any messy divorce, or anything like that, and he could lose the Hall. I’ve got him by the short hairs and he knows it. I’m being kinder than you think, driving over here today to see what he has to say, especially with my health delicate.’

She stopped before the anger in Deirdre’s face.

‘Don’t dare think that way. You’d even use his love of the Hall against him? Just watch it. Marsh and I may have been away, but we also have an interest in the Hall. I have witnesses to prove that you have been back there on several occasions, and have taken that little rotter Jarvis with you. And you had him over when Tom was away filming, before you found out about Laura.’

As they stood there confronting each other, they heard footsteps and voices outside in the back yard.

‘Don’t bring Vernon Jarvis into this,’ Teresa said. Her face and lips were pale. ‘He’s not around now. He had nothing to do with this quarrel—’

‘He has fleeced you and hopped it?’

‘I said, he is not around. Tom started the quarrel and Tom has to mend it. Money doesn’t mend quarrels, if you think it does. Tom’s the one in the wrong.’

‘Well, get him out of the wrong, then. You certainly owe him that.’

The ponies were hired from Old Man Hill, who had run a stable in conjunction with his fishing boat for longer than anyone in Blakeney could remember.

After walking along in the shallows of the sleeping sea, the animals were reluctant to be turned towards the land. Douglas and young Tom rode ahead, wearing only swimming trunks and trying to steer the animals with their knees. Tom Squire and Marshall Kaye followed behind.

For two summers in succession, Kaye had been digging in Greece. He was tanned a deep brown behind his spectacles, and presented a striking appearance. His drooping moustache was yellow, his eyebrows dark brown, his hair brown fading to blond on top, where the Aegean sun had bleached it. So the years had baked him, Squire reflected, from a brash young Yale graduate to a seasoned and renowned archaeologist. His eyes, fringed by dark lashes, were light blue. Above his shorts was a worn windcheater of a similar faded hue.

He was giving Squire an account of his and Deirdre’s stay on Milos, making both it and the excavations sound rewarding. Squire envied the stability of the younger man’s life.

‘Despite everything, despite that amazing sense of being surrounded by the history of your own culture, I find Greece and the islands depressing,’ Kaye said.

‘How’s that? I thought the Greeks were getting into their stride again, now that the colonels have departed.’

Their mounts negotiated low swelling dunes through which some first spears of grass appeared.

‘They are, kind of. I suppose I mean that the denudation problem is depressing, and the way nothing’s being done about it, or is ever going to be done, as far as I can see. Not more than two per cent of the entire country retains its original topsoil …’

‘Not more than two per cent!’

‘Nope. That’s the fact at the root of all Greece’s problems. From the Peloponnesian wars onwards, the forests have been ruthlessly hacked down and the timber used for ships or fuel. Rain and wind soon does for naked topsoil. You never see a damned bird in Greece. A few mangey sparrows round the tourist spots. Ravens. Nothing else. It’s a dead place, killed by man, his lust for war, and his domestic animals – mainly goats.’

He was silent, then he said, ‘Political stability is impossible until you get your agriculture right. I’d hate to calculate how many billions of dollars the US has pumped into Greece since World War II in order to keep it safe for democracy, without once worrying whether it was safe for corn.’

They were off the beach now, moving inland, the boys still leading. They travelled in single file along the top of a dyke, water and rushes setting up their perpetual rustle on either side. Where the land rose from the marshes ahead, there stood Blakeney, distinct in a medley of whites and umbers, its church crowning the rise and dominating all other buildings.

Squire rode at the rear of the file. Addressing his brother-in-law’s back, he said, ‘Considering its significance for the West, it would be a sad day if Greece became communist.’

‘But not necessarily fatal, to my mind.’ Kaye twisted in the saddle to add, ‘I’m slowly altering my opinions. The West has been reluctant to realize how nationalism remains a safeguard against the monolithic aspects of communism. Your experiences in Yugoslavia show how nationalism triumphed over ideology there. So it will elsewhere – China for example. Maybe Eurocommunism is a genuine new direction. The Eurocommunists in Bologna make noises like decent uncorrupt capitalists.’

‘Don’t weaken, Marsh. That way the rot sets in.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. I like to talk, Tom, but I was always a dove, not a hawk. That’s why I quit the States during the sixties. More aggressive we get, the more trigger-happy the Russians become.’

‘That’s an attitude they want us to adopt, certainly.’

After a pause, Kaye added, ‘I appreciate that Britain’s position is far more vulnerable than that of the States. We’re just as open to sudden armed strikes here as Western Germany. But I discover I have ceased to believe in the concept of sudden strikes.’

They were moving among sailing craft lying on their sides on muddy banks patterned by bird feet.

‘Despite events in Czechoslovakia in ’68?’

‘Of course, there are many people in the States, mainly of the older generation, who would feel about the collapse of the UK much as you would about the collapse of Greece.’

Squire laughed. ‘Well, that’s a consolation.’

The sun enveloped Squire’s body, bathing it in summer. He felt the heat on his sparsely protected head and the occasional runnel of sweat down his chest. That suited him well. Yet he felt uneasy, he did not know why.

He was sorry to hear his brother-in-law speak as he did. The world was a dangerous place – that was the open secret a younger generation of Englishmen resolutely refused to learn; they believed that as long as everyone earned the same wages, all was well. Marshall’s generation of Americans knew better than that. But everyone, of whatever nationality, seemed to prefer to forget that certain ancient laws were not revoked simply by the setting up of trade unions and health services: predators were about. The world was a dangerous place: for the individual as well as the nation.

The patient ponies carried them to the flat ground by the harbour.

‘We’re going to grab some ice creams, Dad,’ Douglas called.

Squire and Kaye handed the ponies over to Old Man Hill’s daughter, a gnarled woman, who sat patiently by the artist’s van. The men looked in at the paintings displayed for sale inside the van, and were confronted with a conventional array of windmills, churches, cows, and willows. They strolled together towards Marsh House, which faced them from the other end of the quay. Along the quayside, they passed the hotel where Squire had dined with Tess, Grahame Ash, and the camera crew a year ago; it seemed a happier time in retrospect.

‘You gain a different perspective on the world when you’re engaged in a dig,’ Kaye said. ‘In a sense, you live in the past, the present becomes remote.’

‘Professionally, that must be a good thing … Your salary is still paid in 1978.’

Kaye laughed.

Without any change in tone, Squire said, ‘We’ll have a beer when we get in. But I see Teresa’s car parked outside your front door.’

Kaye shot him a swift glance. ‘She must have driven over from Grantham to see you. Is that a hopeful sign?’

‘It depends what you mean by hope. I want us to be together again but, as time goes by, I inevitably want it less. As you with Eurocommunism, so I with separation: resignation masquerading as wisdom sets in.’

They both laughed.

‘Deirdre and I are sorry you suffer all this trouble, Tom. I just hope you have something by way of consolation.’

‘If you mean Laura, no, I haven’t. We broke it up to satisfy Tess almost a year ago. Perhaps that was a mistake. Tess remains unsatisfied.’ Bitterness crept into his voice.

As Kaye and Squire entered the gate of Marsh House, Teresa appeared at the front door and waved to her husband. Something misplaced inflated the gesture: it was designed for someone considerably more distant than Squire. He went up to Tess, took her hand and kissed her cheek.

They regarded each other with reserve, like military commanders looking for ground cover. Teresa’s gaze held that elusive suggestion of a squint which sometimes lent even her serious moods a touch of mischief.

His nostrils received a warm perfume from her.

She wore a light dress suited to the weather, low-cut and showing the cleft between her breasts. She was tanned as far as the eye could see.

‘Tess, you’re looking well. How are Ann and Jane?’

‘That’s good, because I’m feeling rather terrible, having just been given a good going over by your sister. The girls are fine – at school today. They break up later than Doug and Tom.’

She turned to speak to Kaye, who kissed her. They all moved into the house.

‘You drove over from Grantham just to see me?’ Squire asked.

‘I happened to ring Deirdre and she said you would be here for the weekend.’

As they moved from the hall into the living room, Teresa’s mother appeared, and greeted Squire. Mrs Davies was wearing an uncharacteristic costume, a kaftan in orange and lemon, and dark glasses.

‘Tom, it’s charming to see you. So you’ve managed to tear yourself away from London? I was taking the sun in the back garden – we’ve only been here an hour, not more, have we, Teresa? And the traffic was so thick on the A17, is it?’

‘You’re looking very summery, Madge.’

‘Do you know, I’ve had this old kaftan for years, but haven’t dared to wear it. I hope I don’t look too much like chicken dressed as lamb, or whatever that phrase is. We’re driving over to Norwich to see Willie. He’s coming back with us to Grantham, to stay the weekend, as I expect Teresa told you.’

‘No, I didn’t, Mother,’ Teresa said, in some exasperation. ‘I’ve hardly said a word to Tom.’

‘Well, you mustn’t let your silly old mother interrupt you. You talk nicely to Tom and I’m sure you can get back together again. Tom, your misdeeds are in the past, or so I hope, and I want you and Teresa to kiss and make up. Remember that you’re both my children. Let’s have an end to this silly, pointless quarrel, for the sake of family harmony. Your Uncle Willie would say the same if he were here.’

Deirdre appeared in the archway of the living room. She tucked a thumb under her ample chin. Grace also materialized, still bearing the tabby.

‘This meeting does promise to be a shining example of family harmony, I must say,’ Deirdre remarked. ‘Marsh, you’d do well to get us all a drink – the sooner we’re tanked up, the better. As for you, Grace, I think you’d better make yourself scarce.’

‘Oh, Mummy …’

‘Go on, go and bully your brothers. You know too much already.’

‘You do chase the poor girl,’ Mrs Davies said to Deirdre as Grace disappeared. ‘Of course, I know I’m only an old woman and it’s none of my business.’

‘Quite so,’ agreed Deirdre, blandly. ‘All the same, Grace can look after herself. She told me yesterday that she is going to be an aircraft designer, and I believe her. She has some fantastic ideas about airliner loos and galleys which could revolutionize aviation history.’

Kaye entered through the french doors from the back garden. ‘The drink trolley’s outside. I thought you’d like to take a drink on the terrace while the sun shines.’

As they trooped out, Grace reappeared in a crimson beach robe, and curtsied to them one by one, cat under her left arm. Mrs Davies came last, taking the opportunity to grasp Squire’s wrist.

‘I just wanted to say to you – you’re at a responsible age, Tom. I think that your Tess would come back to you gladly if you gave up that younger woman. She can’t be good for you.’

‘I have given her up, long ago. I believe it if nobody else does.’

‘Don’t be cross. What I mean is, you must understand Teresa. I think it is the idea of – well, of this sex business that scares her off. Your Uncle Willie and I wouldn’t have anything like that. We have discussed the subject, oh yes. At your age, Tom, you’re nearly fifty, it is disgusting. Undignified. Ernest and I gave up all that sort of thing on my fortieth birthday, and neither of us were any the worse for it. Funnily enough, we were talking about it in the spring of last year, just before he was killed – when you were away in California, or wherever it was.’

Abandoning the cat at last, Grace sidled up to them and let out squeals of suppressed laughter. ‘Grannie, that’s awful! I’d have thought that you and Willie would be a bit more swinging. After all, what’s the point of getting married unless … Well, anyhow, I think it’s just terrific that Uncle Tom is the age he is and is still able to mate. Bully for him! It’s wonderful.’

‘But not exactly unique in the annals of medical science, Grace,’ Squire said, laughing.

Mrs Davies looked reproachfully at Grace. ‘My nerves are all to pieces. I’ve had my say, now I’m going to have a cigarette. To hear you talking so brazenly about sex, my girl … We never mentioned it, or thought about it, when I was your age. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.’

Kaye poured them all drinks. ‘Your beer at last,’ he told Squire, handing over a full tankard.

He raised his glass cheerfully. ‘Here’s to us all. Good to be back home, good to see Madge and Teresa and Tom here. Let’s hope the family will be a little more stable now.’

‘That’s a bit optimistic,’ Grace said, sotto voce.

‘Quiet, child, it’s only a toast,’ Deirdre said.

‘The country’s been going to the dogs steadily while you’ve been doing your archaeological work in Greece,’ Mrs Davies reported. ‘The unemployment figures are still rising, and the inflation rate. It’s this terrible Labour government of ours.’

‘Don’t despair, Madge,’ Kaye said. ‘Deirdre and I see a different aspect of things, coming from abroad. After Athens, England seems remarkably stable, sensible, and prosperous.’

‘That’s because we’re having a heat wave, Pop, you nit,’ Grace said. ‘People only go on strike in winter, when it’s cold.’

A lull fell over the conversation. Everyone became preoccupied with their drinks, or looked at the sails glittering far across the wilderness of marsh.

‘So how did you enjoy your trip to this Greek island, where exactly was it, Marshall?’ asked Mrs Davies, in a palpable attempt to blanket the difficulties in the room with words. ‘I kept meaning to look it up in my atlas and then I never did so. It seems years since Ernest and I had our Greek cruise. It is years, alas … The weather was lovely but I didn’t care for Athens at all. So noisy, even then.’

Squire and Teresa were standing awkwardly apart. ‘Grantham always reminds me of Athens,’ he said, but she did not take up the small joke.

Marshall Kaye began to deliver an archaeological lecture, ostensibly to Mrs Davies. Tom and Douglas appeared, licking ice-cream cones, took the temperature of the terrace, and slipped rapidly away.

‘The great days of Milos ended when the Athenians, who were at war with Sparta, invaded the island in 416 BC. Eventually Milos had to surrender to the Athenians, who took all the women and children into slavery, and slaughtered all the men of military age.’

‘What a terrible way to behave!’ said Mrs Davies severely, as if some of the discredit reflected on Marshall Kaye.

‘Yes, and it still happens. It happened also before the days of Athens. We could learn lessons from the Athens–Milos encounter – except that lessons of history are never learnt. The Athenians demanded that the Milians surrender, in which case they would not be destroyed. The Milians tried to get out of a difficult situation by offering friendship. That wasn’t good enough for Athens. They made a resounding speech to the Milians, which Thucydides reports, or possibly invents.

‘They said, “You’re weaker than we are, so you’d better give in. We have concluded from experience that it’s a law of nature to rule whatever one can. We didn’t make this law, nor were we the first to act on it. We found it in existence, and we shall leave it in existence for those who come after us. We are merely acting in accordance with it, and we know very well that if you had our power, then you’d act in the same way to us.”

‘And they also said that the standard of justice done depends on the equality of power to compel. “The strong act as they have the power to act, and the weak accept what they have to accept.” It is a lucid exposition of realpolitik, and often applies to situations in the world today. It’s also applicable to individuals.’

He looked round to address this final remark to Squire and Teresa.

‘And to Eurocommunists,’ Squire said. He took Teresa by the hand and led her upstairs to Deirdre and Marshall’s bedroom, where half-unpacked suitcases skirted the walls.

‘Let’s talk,’ he said. ‘Forget Marsh’s lectures. You’re looking summery.’

‘You needn’t flatter me.’ She looked as if she was going to say more, but nothing more emerged. In Squire’s eyes, she appeared smaller than before, perhaps because she was wearing flat seaside shoes. Her shoulders were vulnerable. Her face looked as if it had tanned unevenly, and her wrinkles showed. Her gaze had gone to the carpet under his anxious scrutiny; he saw the dark roots of her dyed hair.

‘At least you came alone,’ she said, almost in a whisper.

‘I’m living in London because I can’t bear to be in the Hall without you and the girls.’

She made a gesture, perhaps thinking he missed her point.

‘Matilda Rowlinson is looking in every day, to see it’s all shipshape … How’s Nellie?’

Teresa smiled. ‘A bit of a nuisance in mother’s flat. The girls love her … Oh, I’m looking after the girls properly and feeding Nellie regularly, don’t worry, while you’re playing the great successful man. I shop at the corner supermarket and talk to mother and play cards with her and her friends and all that – not at all the life you imagine I’m leading, I’m sure, while you’re being feted as Guru Number One all over London.’

‘The English critics have been a bit hard on “Frankenstein Among the Arts”. Didn’t you read the reviews?’

‘You know I don’t read reviews.’

‘Teresa, you can’t be jealous of my limited success. It’ll all be over soon, forgotten. But it is a sort of culmination of my life. I’m uncertain myself of its value but I want to share it with you. I have been able to express and demonstrate elements of popular culture in perspective, in such a way that it gives pleasure and – well, perhaps hope to a lot of people.’

‘Ha! It hasn’t affected us that way, has it?’

‘As a nation we’ve become defeatist. I hope I have somehow made us that bit stronger. Let everyone see how much we have, things precious to our day, how much we have to lose – how we should value the beauty of which technology is capable, the richness of an expendable plastic cup or a match-box, the visual delight of a traffic jam at night …’

She walked over to the door, looked out on the landing, and closed it. ‘Grace is such an eavesdropper. You don’t have to lecture me. You treat me as if I was stupid, do you realize that? Ever since we’ve been married, you’ve been telling me things, things I just don’t want to know, things about your damned family, about art, Pippet Hall …’

He broke in. ‘Tess, dearest, please do not say that. We need a grand reconciliation – talk like that will reduce me to silence, utterly.’

‘I want your silence. I’m sick of your talk.’

He stood and stared at her. ‘If I’ve talked to you … I don’t lecture you. I – of course I talk to you, I’ve always wanted to share everything. Isn’t that the purpose of marriage?’

‘All this talk about your book and your television series … It’s not my thing, any more than your farm is. You address me as if I was one of your viewers. Oh, I can see how you think the series in some way squares you in your father’s eyes, eases that chip on your shoulder, makes you famous, as you discourse so cleverly about things you imagine he would have enjoyed. Really, at your age, it’s pathetic!’

‘Why pathetic? My father remains a strong influence. Why be ashamed of that? He’d understand that there is idealism still today, waiting to be freed—’

‘I’m sorry, I think that’s all rubbish. You see yourself as some sort of knight of old, a one-man crusader—’

‘But that’s not true—’

‘Tilting against nostalgia, or received values, or – I don’t know, and I didn’t want this conversation anyway. They’re always your bloody conversations, not mine. Damn and blast the art of today. God, if your father only knew … Your mother was lucky, she died just in time to escape the mess we’re in.’ She shook her head wildly, so that her hair flew. ‘It’s too late, Tom, it’s too late. I don’t know. You’ve hurt me, I do know that much.’

He moved towards her. She moved away. A box of Silk Cut lay on Deirdre’s side of the bed. Squire slid a cigarette from the packet and lit it. He never smoked.

‘I’m trying to make amends, Tess. Just let me try. You know Laura is out of the picture.’

‘You’ll get cancer, smoking. Where did you catch that habit? I’ve warned Deirdre but she takes no notice of me. No, as a matter of fact it’s not Laura, it’s you. The way you are. Only three years ago, you were having a mad love affair with that dreadful art-historian woman, Sheila Lippard-Milne. I never told anyone about that, not even mother and father. That hurt me bitterly, but you didn’t care. How could I escape what I felt? How could I escape? And what am I supposed to do this time? If it’s not Sheila or Laura, it’ll be someone else. Am I supposed to be sorry for you because you won’t grow up? What’s the matter with you? No, don’t tell me, I know you’ll tell me. All I really want’s your silence from now on …’

‘You know that Sheila—’

‘Let’s not hear her name.’ Teresa raised a hand in caution. ‘I don’t intend to go into all that again. Your bloody sister downstairs and your uncle think that you’re at the male menopause. Did you ever hear anything so silly? I defy you to find that malady in a medical dictionary! They don’t know about Sheila Lippard-Milne. I never told anyone about you and precious Sheila Lippard-Milne. How long’s this male menopause supposed to go on for, eh, how many years? As long as it suits you? Till we’re all in our graves? My nerves are ruined, do you wonder I sought refuge with the first likely man who came along? I had to build up my dented self-esteem. No, don’t say it – I know he turned out a rascal, but you can laugh, my moral judgement was at zero, I paid in blood for every drop of pleasure I had.’

‘Yes, people do, you know.’

Sighing, she went over to the window which opened on the front of the house. The lower part of the sash window had been pushed up to let in sea breezes, presumably in Deirdre’s desire to clear the house of its closed-up smell. Teresa leaned out with her forearms on the sill, as if she could not bear her husband’s proximity, and gazed towards the boat-filled harbour.

She was wearing a flimsy summer dress, low-cut round the shoulders. Squire had a good view of her shoulder-blades. From behind, she looked slender and youthful, almost thin, for her cramped attitude made the shoulder-blades project. His fancy saw her as a member of a mutated species, developing wings and about to fly away from him.

The tender bones, so functionally shaped, protruding under the flesh. The skin itself, clear and fair, roseate with a touch of the summer sun. The bumpy little tract of her backbone, leading down under the material of the dress, and there glimpsed in outline. The downy line of hairs following the track. The curve of her neck up into her dyed bright hair. At all these things Squire gazed during the silence, heavy with their frustration.

And said to himself, ‘Whatever arguments I put up, however I attempt to reason, however unreasonable she is, she will win. Because she has that beautiful body.’ Biology was always going to win in the end.

He walked round the room, and stubbed his cigarette out in Deirdre’s ashtray, hardly aware of what he was doing. Stuck into the side of Deirdre’s mirror, beside other treasures, was a card he had sent her from Tinjar Park in Sarawak, showing ancient supplicatory hands painted on a cave wall. He felt gratitude to his sister for caring enough to keep it.

‘Tess, I know how you must be distressed,’ he said to her back, moving unhappily behind her.

She brought her torso in from the window and slowly drew the sash down.

‘Depressed! You’re joking.’

‘I said distressed. I’m trying to tell you that I understand. I won’t say what I think about Jarvis, but I have bought him off and paid the debt to your Italian packaging firm. I’ve settled all the financial side of things. Now I want to look after you and see you happy again. We are too old for this sort of emotional jag.’

‘Oh, Tom,’ she said wearily, brushing a curl of hair from her eyes. ‘You’re being superior again.’ She sat down on the foot of the bed; her back to him.

‘Well, I’m trying not to be superior. I’m trying to keep my temper. Perhaps you think I’m complacent – that’s simply because mainly I’m happy, most of the time. Despite the male menopause … Or perhaps I’m not …’

‘You’re only interested in yourself,’ she said feelingly. ‘That’s more to the point.’

‘Did you drive over from Grantham just to insult me? If you won’t make our quarrel up, then what more do you want from me?’

She regarded the carpet, inspecting the grains of sand on it. ‘I want nothing more. Mother persuaded me we should look in here. I hoped … Oh, hell. I know I sponged off you, and that kept me quiet. I hate myself, it’s not just you. Life’s so bloody difficult. Everything’s gone wrong. Besides – you turned me out at New Year. A fine start to the year that was. Don’t deny it.’

‘You were with Jarvis, Tess. Don’t forget that. You were with Jarvis.’

‘That dreadful row. In front of the Broadwells … Now my business ruined on top of everything.’ She produced a handkerchief and wiped her nose. ‘You’ve paid up generously. I know. I’m supposed to be grateful and come creeping home. But you’re not really sorry. The truth is, you bought me. I’m another Squire acquisition, like the furniture. You just want me standing around while your life goes on.’

He stood looking helplessly down at her, wondering what to do. ‘You needn’t stand around. Come back and start up your business again at the Hall.’

She stole a glance at him. ‘Those dreams I used to have. A dark figure trying to break into the Hall … It was you all the time breaking into my life.’

‘Or Jarvis, disrupting our lives?’

‘You would think that …’

‘Actually, I don’t think it. It’s too glib. If you remember, I used the dark figure in the TV series …’ But it was no good trying to talk to her about that, no good trying to cool the temperature. Like God, the dark figure was a part of the lives of all men and women; sometimes it merely waited in the wings, idly; sometimes it came marching in boldly through the french windows. Like God, it lurked in the attic at the back of the skull, the space created by generations of blood and perception; the trick was to acknowledge its existence and yet manage to live sanely. At the moment, Teresa could not bear to live sanely; and that was still his responsibility, whether he wanted it or not.

She stood up, confronting him with slightly downcast face, regarding him through her eyelashes, one hand resting pensively on the brass bed-end.

‘You know I’m sorry, Tommy.’

Unwished, the memory came back to him of their first encounter outside his tutor’s rooms in Cambridge, when he and Teresa were both undergraduates. Later, he had said to his friend Rotheray, reporting the meeting, ‘Either she was giving me the old come-on, or she has a slight squint.’ There the fugitive thing was again – rarely seen, the slight strabismus lent her helplessness in his eyes. He reached for her bare arm. Her hair had been dark in Cambridge days; she had been the first girl he knew to wear a sweater under a shirt.

‘Well, you’ll have to help me, Tess, or I can’t help you.’

‘That’s what you said three years ago.’ She shook her head.

‘It’s as true now as it was then. You bring up the name of Sheila Lippard-Milne. I admit I loved her, though amazingly I didn’t realize it at the time, but I gave her up, as I have Laura. I chose you. I’ve not seen Sheila since, or written to her. I felt at the time I was making a considerable gesture, proving my love for you. Yet it honestly seemed as if you never noticed.’

‘Oh, I remember how miserable you were. You made it pretty obvious.’ She was silent, and went to stare out of the window at the sunshine, resting her finger-tips on the glass. ‘Perhaps marriage is always a cage … What do you want me to do?’

He stood up. ‘Let’s have a grand reconciliation. All back to the Hall, you, the girls, the dog, try and get John to come back, at least for a day or two. Celebrate, throw a party. Make love to each other. Both say we’re sorry – all that kind of thing. Start again, see if it’s possible, make it possible.’

Still looking out of the window, she said, ‘The horoscope in the paper this morning said I should look out for a betrayal by someone close to me.’

‘Did you hear what I said?’ Angrily.

‘Oh, I know you think they’re rubbish. Anything I believe in is rubbish. But they were right about Sheila. “A disruptive influence”, they said, and I remember it was that very day I discovered that letter she wrote you from New York. Don’t tell me there isn’t something in it. I date the start of my cancer from then, you’ll be interested to know.’

‘Perhaps tomorrow the horoscope will mention a grand reconciliation, then you’ll be convinced.’

She said, turning to confront him, ‘Supposing I want to go off and get screwed by any man who happens to come along. How will you like that?’

‘Would you like it? Is that what you want? You could have been more enthusiastic with me.’

‘You were bound to throw that in my face sooner or later! I suppose you’ve forgotten that the doctor said after John was born that I was to take things easy and avoid exertion?’

He began pacing about the room. ‘You went off with that sneak Jarvis, you brought him into my house when I wasn’t there, more than once. You’ve more than evened things up, Teresa. You’ve treated me like shit. There are historical and biological reasons why men are less likely to be faithful than women, less able to endure monogamy … I’ve done my best in that respect, so you can keep quiet and do your best. Otherwise we’ll get nowhere.’

‘Is that what you call a grand reconciliation?’

‘I hoped for something better.’ He regarded her narrowly, his expression closed. ‘When two countries are hostile, they make what peace they can. So with us. Do you wish to come back? Are you prepared to make a go of it? It’s now or never.’

‘Don’t start laying down conditions. Maybe it’s too late. My heart isn’t as soft as it once was. Things will never be what they were.’

‘How I wish it was possible to turn the clock back …’

She asked, ‘What is this grand reconciliation you talk about, anyway?’

He attempted lightness. ‘As I say, maybe a housewarming at the Hall, friends round, celebrations, flowers, champagne, Nellie going mad, the girls back in their own beds, you and I in ours, kisses, violins, apologies, forgiveness. You name it.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Tom, you’re being unreal. If you think that after what’s happened we can just fling ourselves into each other’s arms, you’re mistaken. It may appeal to your sense of drama but not to mine. I’m not one of your actresses, however much you may regret the fact.’

That evening, Teresa and her mother were waved goodbye as they continued on their way to Norwich. Squire, restless after the fruitless encounter, decided to drive himself over to Pippet Hall. The Society for Popular Aesthetics was expanding rapidly; the secretary was even able to take on a secretary; and Squire needed documents relating to its foundation for an article he was writing. The Hall was only six miles from Blakeney.

He had been staying permanently in London, either with friends or at his club, since the New Year, when the shock of seeing Teresa in the company of Jarvis had discouraged him from returning to Norfolk. London was more convenient, and provided more than enough work for him. So the Hall was closed down, and Matilda Rowlinson and the farm manager looked after it. He had been back only twice – once for a day, once for a solitary weekend – in the last half-year.

The grass on the lawn looked rather long. The downstairs windows of the house were shuttered; that would be careful Matilda’s work. Caught by the peace of the evening and the surroundings, Squire strolled across the side lawn before entering the house, to gaze at butterflies circling round Teresa’s buddleia. Here The Who had once played to delighted crowds, and local rock’n’roll groups like The Bang-Bang. Pop was truly an international language.

Teresa and he had had a language in common in those happier days. But now. Your silence is all I need from you.

He tried not to resent the cruel things she had said that afternoon. She was, in her own way, uttering a cry for help.

His shoes were damp from an early dew as he unlocked the front door and entered the hall. He stood, closing the solid oak behind him. No children called except spectrally. No Dalmatian came up at a run, scattering mats. Only a cat appeared, yawning and stretching, to dissolve into the shadows.

Light filtering through the tall windows on the staircase filled the hall with a dim beauty. He stretched his arms and walked about with pleasure. The portraits of Matthew and Charlotte looked benevolently down. His footsteps echoed.

‘All I need from you is your silence.’

In his study, the darkness was so intense that he opened one of the shutters. Outside lay the meadows where once had nested the pipits who gave their name to the place; now only a few blackbirds hopped amid the grass, mechanically perky.

When he had finished at his desk, and collected the papers he needed, he went over to his refrigerator, which stood on a filing cabinet under Calvert’s painting, and poured himself a vodka-on-the-rocks.

Her anger, her vindictiveness, had seemed so personal. He could not tell how much of it was impersonal – directed at some mysterious target before which he happened to be standing – yet what he hoped was reason told him that she nursed some grievance beyond any folly he had committed.

His behaviour to her was, in a sense, the opposite of hers. He tried always to respond to her as a person, personally. Yet he was aware of the impersonality of his and of all experience. That was where mysticism crept in: he saw how he was not only living but being lived. Well, that was not necessarily a mystical perception so much as a biological one. He was not only an individual but a link in the totally impersonal chain of life, a torch-bearer for the selfish gene.

Which did not by any means absolve the individual from morality. It made the individual important beyond any influences in his own brief lifetime, for by his behaviour for good or ill he helped shape (yes, in a small way) the needful moral improvement of the human race in time to come. Improvement of the whole damned species could only come through the striving of each individual; at that point moralities and biologies met.

He could not seem to explain to Teresa – though he had tried in happier days – that his appreciation of her as an individual was enhanced by his awareness of the impersonal forces in her, that his life experience was most directly read through her being, that it was precisely their sexual and mental closeness that enabled them to explore the richness of being alive. However mistakenly, he had concentrated his life increasingly on that exploration in recent years; both ‘Frankenstein’ and his fatal love affair sprang from it. It was a quest for that richness of experience, an intensification of it before it died from beyond his clutches, which turned him to Laura: and Tess’s subsequent rejection of him that had left him isolated.

The vodka was cool in his throat. He was not acutely unhappy. Isolation was nothing new to him. Perhaps he could soon face the fact that reconciliation was not possible between him and his wife.

In which case – he would have to sell up Pippet Hall.

He closed the shutter and walked from the room, taking the papers he needed with him.

‘All I really want now is your silence.’

Silence had a sinister quality. He equated it with death, and only rarely with spirituality. The silence Teresa demanded from him was death, not spirit. And silence was unique in this respect; it was something one could demand and unfailingly receive. Ultimately, inevitably, he would become silent under her indifference.

If he dreaded silence, there was something he dreaded more: forms of language which masked silence, the absence of feeling. Teresa still felt intensely; he could still hurt her. So there was hope. But all around him he encountered defensive lack of feeling. Official language, the language of the military or of bureaucracy, Marxist jargon – all these were enemies of simple human experience. Instead of conjuring experience, they annihilated it in their repressive structuring.

At least Teresa had spoken to him directly. The worst thing was a woman talking Marxism or one of those other desiccated male languages. One good reason for continuing to love women, even when the going was rough, was that, on the whole, they stayed too human to go for ideological language.

He climbed the stairs, hesitated before their bedroom, and went instead down the passage to the old nursery. He opened the door, half-expecting to find the interior a glowing brown, as he remembered it from childhood, with the warmth of the stained floor and walls enhanced by a coal fire. Instead, he was greeted by Dulux high gloss white paint.

John’s old red wooden fire-engine stood on top of the cupboards. The dolls’ house stood on the table by the window, where he and Adrian had played for long hours with their Meccano.

He gazed blankly out of the window. A rabbit had joined the starlings on the lawn. What would become of the old place if he gave up? Fall into ruin? Wrenched from its purposes and turned into an institution?

Laura had visited Pippet Hall only twice. Once with the film team, before there was anything between them, to play the Sex Symbol in the Georgian House episode. Once last autumn for a weekend, just before they separated for good, following the party at Claridge’s.

As Teresa complained, he had managed to defer that inevitable parting for a month or two, but only because work on ‘Frankenstein’ had continued for longer than anticipated. The break had been final. He could not bear to see her again, to speak impersonally to her. He had dived back to work, she had gone on to play a more interesting role; he had watched her on television recently, as an injured wife in a Play of the Week. Damned good she was.

And when they had parted, nine months ago, she’d been damned good then. Nothing to complain about.

Delays and hesitations inseparable from creativity occurred. Some incidents had to be re-shot. Some of the scenes involving the CSO process had not worked as well as expected. A model had to be re-made. ‘World Dream Design Centre’, the episode they filmed in Hollywood and Los Angeles, had its troubles. Ash fell ill. August turned into September. Definite boundaries became blurred. An electricians’ strike further delayed progress.

But by the first week of October, all thirteen episodes of ‘Frankenstein Among the Arts’ were completed to the satisfaction not only of the British but of the German, American, and Australian interests involved in the production. Everywhere, quiet and sometimes noisy confidence grew that something special had been created.

After a grand farewell party at Claridge’s, attended by all the crowned heads of television, and some from the arts world, Squire drove with Laura in her car, back to her flat.

‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘I realize for the first time that we’re all a stunning success.’

‘Wait till you read the reviews …’

The flat was tiny without being cosy. It occupied part of a house on the run-down fringes of Canonbury. Laura’s husband, Peter, was away on a photographic assignment, she knew not where. He had left a scrawled note without saying.

They bought pitas on the way to the flat, stopping at a kebab house in Essex Road. They ate standing in her narrow kitchen as they said goodbye.

Both of them trembled. Laura leaned against the breakfast bar, unable to touch him. Both of them dropped pieces of lettuce, tomato, and meat, in their anguish at facing this final moment.

The mansion, once moderately grand, designed for a prosperous middle class with servants, had been divided into several flats. It was always full of mysterious young people, designated of course as ‘students’, whenever Squire was there. Bicycles blocked the hall passage. Laura’s flat was decorated with her husband’s photographs, framed in metal. Generally shots of streets, taken from ingenious angles no one else would have thought of. Never a shot of Laura in the nude, or even dressed. Silly bugger.

The furniture looked cheap but was expensive, Laura said; it was too low to get out of easily. Laura and Peter quarrelled all the while, she said, excusing a general neglect.

When he went to pee in the toilet, his eyes came level with a packet of sanitary towels lying on the window sill. The sight of them moved and obscurely hurt him: though on this evening of parting everything brought him close to tears. He thought of her vulnerability. Didn’t vulnerable and vulva derive from the same Latin root? She would have taken care to keep her Tampax out of sight a few months earlier. They were both of them going down the drain – like the Tampaxes, eventually – and he had to remember that she, at twenty-six, felt acutely that youth was passing.

He returned to the kitchen and his half-eaten pita.

‘I’ve really fucked things up for you, my love. It’s as well I’m disappearing at last.’

‘You haven’t fucked anything up. I was just a mess till you came along. Your dear steadiness – you have been that way all your life, I can tell. I didn’t need an older man, I needed you.’

‘It goes too deep for me to say. I was muffled for so long. With you – no guard possible, no guard needed …’

‘We’ve had something so worthwhile together. In that sense, I don’t mind parting, though I’ll hate myself for saying it when you’ve gone … I’ll never forget you, Tom. You’ve changed me, given me so much, so many things …’

‘Nothing – nothing compared with what you’ve given me. With you I’ve been aware of the whole world again. You’ve made me whole again …’ A piece of mutton fell to the floor. He kicked it in the direction of the sink.

‘You’re such a dear, dear person.’ She reached out and touched his neck. He clutched her wrist, still brown from the summer they had had.

‘Don’t be hurt. Grow. Continue. My love and gratitude will always be with you, for whatever that’s worth. Laura, dear Laura …’ He spoke indistinctly, munching the bread.

‘We’ve had such travels together, gone so far.’

‘I’ll never forget what a weight you were when you fell asleep on me on the plane back from LA.’

‘And try not to forget how many miles it is to the River Bug.’ Her lip trembled as she said it.

‘Perhaps one day we’ll meet in that little romantic Polish village whose name we remember so well.’

‘You mean Molly Naggy?’

‘I think it was Lolowsky Molehold.’

‘Anyhow, we’ll recognize it by all the dead horses.’ She started to laugh and cry a little.

He put an arm round her waist. ‘You’re rotten at geography, incredible at everything else.’

‘You’ll always be my lovely man.’ She rubbed her face against his jacket. ‘My standard. Let me give you a last cup of coffee. Instant. And there will always be “Frankenstein”… Something worthwhile we did together.’

‘And your lovely photograph in the book. I’ll send you a copy before it’s published. Lasciviously inscribed.’

‘To hell with Peter. Bring it round in person.’

‘I’ll see about that. No, no coffee – I’d better go, my love.’

‘My love.’ Her beautiful gaze engaging his.

‘Oh, dearest Laura …’ They clung tightly to each other for the last time.

It was autumn. He felt the chill as he blundered down the garden path, the chill a younger man would not have noticed. He thought, as he went blindly into the street, ‘From now on, there’s only autumn. Then winter. Fifty next birthday. Old age. I was lucky to have a Laura in my life, bloody lucky. Just that short while – not so short, either …

‘Well, somehow I’ve done what I said I would, at last. Now I must go back and make amends. The great renunciation … I hope it counts for something …

‘Oh, Laura …’

He unlocked the secret compartment in the nursery cupboard. Only a few treasures there these days. A little framed pencil sketch his father had made of him when he was a child of four, just after Adrian was born. Not very good, when considered dispassionately. A school magazine dating from only a few years back, in which was his son John’s article, then considered both daring and amusing, on why the monarchy should be abolished. A couple of letters from Laura – notes, really. He smelt the envelopes, but enclosure in the cupboard had made them fusty. Two letters dating from last winter from Tess, and a rough copy of his response.

Grantham

6th Nov.

Dear Tom,

Thanks for your letter. There’s a reason why I have not returned to Pippet Hall as you request.

I do not have to do as you say. Honestly, what you think or say is not so important to me as it was once. You know that even a worm will turn. You did not keep your promise about leaving that girl at the end of August, did you? Have you really left her as you say, or do you still pine for all the things she gave you …

I am doing well here. I have my own flat and workplace and my company is now exporting to the USA. You don’t have to feel sorry for me, and the girls are fine. So is Nellie.

They send love.

Teresa

Travellers’ Club

Pall Mall

15 November

My dear Tess,

Matilda forwarded your letter to me. I’m in London, being unable to tolerate the Hall on my own. I am not, as you may imagine, ‘having fun’ here, although there are one or two old male friends to support me, so I am not utterly desolate. I’ve also seen John on two occasions; he’s much as always.

I am delighted to hear that your company is flourishing. I’ve encouraged the idea from the start, you may recall. When I asked you to return to Pippet Hall, it was not an order, but a simple hope that you would come back to me. I still have that hope. Do so, and we can convert the barn into a studio for you.

As I told you in my last letter, I have renounced Laura Nye. That I did as soon as ‘Frankenstein’ was completed, as promised. In fact, on the very day of the farewell party at Claridge’s. I admit to feeling lonely; I need your dear love and comfort. There are two schools of thought about how a wife behaves towards an erring husband, but you must let yourself be guided by your feelings, rather than fashion or friends. May I suggest you don’t treat me according to my deserts but according to your capacity for sweetness.

Thanks largely to Grahame Ash, the series looks extremely handsome – I think you’ll approve, especially the design side. It is to be shown at 8.10, prime viewing time, every Friday evening, starting on February 23rd next. Ron Broadwell will publish the book as his great New Year title, and is planning a signing tour, round the country, on which I hope you’ll be able to accompany me; it should be fun and easy to do. VIP treatment guaranteed.

Christmas is approaching, as the meretricious glitter of the shops in the West End painfully reminds me. I hope that this angst can be quelled soon, and that we can all spend Christmas happily together at the Hall as usual. It’s almost a year since mother died – how fast this hectic year has gone. I hope you and your mother have fully recovered from the shock of your father’s death.

Your loving

Tom

Grantham

2nd December

Dear Tom,

In your latest piece of optimism you outdo yourself. What makes you think I wish to tramp round England as part of your menagerie, promoting your book? What makes you think I want even to hear about it, or the series, knowing your fancy woman is in them both?

Can’t you realize how you hurt me? I’ve got feelings too you know.

As for Christmas, I’m sorry but I’m making my own arrangements. I’m going somewhere where I can find some sun and peace. Worry is making me ill. Once I thought I could trust you, but disillusion has crept in. Burst in.

I’m writing this in bed. Unwell.

Teresa

Under the letters lay a little red book bearing the impressive word ‘Memoranda’. In it, in his eight-year-old hand, he had inscribed the bare fact of his father’s death. He did not open the book.

There was also an official letter in an envelope with a Belgrade postmark, congratulating him on his services to Anglo–Yugoslav understanding. Enclosed with it was a message scrawled in pencil from a man called Slobodan. He did not open the envelope.

Under the envelope and red book lay a little folder with covers made from wallpaper. Inside were three stories, each under a page long, written in a childish hand and illustrated with pictures done in crayon. They were by Rachel Normbaum, and had been presented to him almost forty years ago. He did not open the folder.

He cleared the secret compartment of all but the pencil sketch, and stood with its contents in his hand. Time went by.

Outside it was growing dull.

He locked the cupboard and went downstairs to the kitchen.

There, an unpleasant smell distracted him from his purpose. He set the documents of his past down on the table and went over to the tall windows, opening a shutter to let in a ray of evening light. For a while he stood peering out.

The room appeared sombre and dead. It smelt as if it had been closed for a long while. The large red enamel Aga, which he had had installed in place of the old range when he and Teresa were married, was cold for the first time since its installation. He walked round the room, familiar since childhood, today chill, unfriendly. In one corner were mouse droppings, in another by the scullery door, a damp patch along the floor, where the wallpaper was peeling; the damp had always been there, and looked no worse than before. In the scullery, a tap dripped intermittently. Squire went through to turn it off.

Back in the kitchen, he prepared a small fire in the Aga. He stuffed some old newspaper and cardboard into the grate and set light to them. He piled the letters and ‘Memoranda’ book on top of the flames. The past no longer meant anything. It had died. He was free, whether he desired to be, or not. ‘I’ll be happier, once this is over,’ he promised himself.

‘All I really want is your silence now.’

As he waited there dumbly, gazing at the blue flames, a key grated in the scullery door. He stood alert, with the door of the Aga open and smoke escaping into the room. Matilda Rowlinson entered the kitchen. She smiled, more composed than he. Squire felt guilty without knowing why.

‘Hello, Tom. Lovely to see you. I saw your car in the drive.’ She came and shook hands.

‘You’re keeping everything in good order. I’m burning some old stuff.’ He heard the guilt in his voice. ‘Old papers, actually.’

‘It’s a pleasure. I love coming over to the Hall. I come every day without fail – generally about this time of day. I like it when evening’s setting in, not being the kind who’s afraid of ghosts.’

‘I’ve never seen a ghost.’

As she went over and closed the door of the Aga, she said, ‘I’m only sorry that you and Teresa aren’t still here together.’

She had turned from the cooker. They were close. Squire looked with pleasure at Matilda’s pale, honest face. It was slightly spotty about the mouth. Her hair was more attractive, richer, than he recalled. He sensed the warmth of her spirit as she regarded him with shining eyes. Something in her bodily gesture, an eagerness, appraised him of her mood; the knowledge must have shown in his eyes, for she suddenly became embarrassed and dropped her gaze, moving away defensively.

‘I thought perhaps you’d like a cup of tea. That was why I came over.’ She started to busy herself with preparations, filling the kettle, switching it on, getting out cups and saucers.

‘It’s been a gorgeous day …’

‘I remember you when you were a baby, Matilda.’

She put the milk bottle down and regarded him seriously.

‘I’m a grown woman now, Tom, as you are probably aware.’

He smiled. ‘Yes, I am aware.’

‘What are you burning?’

‘Just a few old documents. Records of my past. I suppose I have their contents by heart well enough.’ He stirred the pages with a poker. The school magazine was slow to burn. He watched it blacken.

There was a long silence, in which she stared at the Aga with him.

‘Your heart can’t be very easy at present.’ Another silence. ‘I wish there was something I could do.’

She took her coat off and laid it over the back of a chair. Her neat and modest figure was shown at its best by her green cotton dress.

‘I am very grateful for what you are doing.’

‘I suppose I meant more personally.’

As the kettle boiled and switched itself off, he said, ‘You could pray for me.’

Matilda frowned. ‘There’s no need for you to be ironical.’

‘I wasn’t.’

Filling the teapot, she said with a sigh, ‘I suppose it’s my sheltered upbringing, what else, but human relationships – I do find them difficult to handle.’

He laughed dryly. ‘We all do. It’s believed that the human race was once endogamous. Ever since exogamy set in, everyone’s found relationships a bit sort of difficult. Fascinating, of course, but difficult to handle, as you say.’

Accepting the cup she offered, he walked round the other side of the table and took a chair. They sat facing each other. As they sipped, the paper in the stove turned to ashes.

‘Would you care for a biscuit?’

‘No thanks.’

‘You’re not – are you going to sleep here alone this weekend, Tom?’

‘I must get back to Blakeney before dark.’

‘There’s a whole hour and more of this lovely twilight before it’s dark. And it was Full Moon last night.’

The kitchen was filling with dusk already, making of her face a pale blur. He felt her personality, tender and sensible, radiating across the scrubbed table towards him.

‘I’m glad of the tea,’ he said. ‘And I’m glad you came. But I’ve got to be going.’

‘Let me know the next time you’re coming up. I’m always at home.’

She drew the one open shutter into place, and the kitchen faded into darkness.