A Hopeless Romantic (55 page)

“No,” said Simon impatiently. “You don’t understand. I don’t mean all of that. Of course I would have done, I’d have got to know her better. I just mean, I
know
Jo. I know who she is, really well. And that’s not because she’s been our friend for years and years. I mean that, even if she lived on the other side of the world and all of that, it’s comfortable, she’s from our group, she does the same things we do, she thinks the same way. Jorgia and me—” He made a helpless gesture with his hands. “I don’t really know her. Does that make sense?”

Laura looked at him. After a minute, she said, “It makes a lot of sense. A lot of sense. But…”

“I know I was harsh to you, that night at supper,” Simon said. He handed her the crisps. “I’m really sorry. I’ve felt really bad about it—”

“Simon, don’t, seriously,” said Laura. “I’m the one who should feel bad about it. I was too judgmental, too hard on you. I just—I thought I knew it all. I was wrong, I’m sorry.”

“Maybe you were a bit,” said Simon. “But actually, the point you were making—you were right, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

Simon shifted in his seat so he was facing her. “You jumped down my throat, but you were right. We’re too different, me and Jorgia, and there’s no way to overcome those differences. Two different worlds.”

She said, “But you said, Simon, you said that people don’t fall in love with each other because it’s convenient. They fall in love because they fall in love, and that’s it.”

“Well, yeah. I suppose that’s still right. You don’t choose who you fall in love with. But that doesn’t mean it can work out. That doesn’t mean it can last. Seriously, Laura. You and the marquis, I mean. You knew what you were talking about. It’d never work, you’re from two completely different worlds and, like you said…” He shook his head.

“But, Simon—” Laura put her hand out and patted his arm. “Si, I think I’ve been completely wrong about it. I think you can make it work. Differences don’t matter. Honestly.”

Simon wasn’t really listening. He said glumly, “It’s like me and Jorgia, man. I’ve been so convinced that it wasn’t going to work. I really thought she was The One. I still think she is.” Simon rubbed his chest, as if he was in pain. “I got a bit scared, I think, that she might be. I think I wanted it to self-destruct, so—hey! Why are you laughing?”

Laura caught his hand. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, leaning forward and helping herself to the crisps too. “We’re each as bad as the other, you know. Terrible.”

Angela came into the kitchen. “Sorry about that, darlings,” she said, rubbing her hands. “Your aunt’s convinced herself she’s organizing a state funeral. She keeps telling me about all these wonderfully glamorous people who’ve rung and said they’re going to be there.” She picked up a lid on a pot on the stove. “I’ve no idea who any of them are, but they sound terrifying.” George appeared from the conservatory, holding a hammer. “Put that away, dear. Right. Let’s have supper.”

All four Fosters ate quietly together, with no one saying much, but nothing really needing to be said; and after Simon and George had cleared away and gone off to do some man-style thing in the conservatory, Angela and Laura were left sitting next to each other on the sofa.

Angela said, “Do you mind if Simon stays in Mum’s flat for a while? Just a while?”

“Course not,” said Laura. “What a great idea.”

“Well,” said Angela, “it needs someone there while we decide what to do with it. I was there today, and there’s such a lot of stuff. What will we do with it all?”

“I don’t know,” said Laura, tentatively patting her mother’s hand. She looked at her. Angela’s eyes were bright with unshed tears, but she was composed.

Angela took the embroidered floral cloth left from the tea tray, smoothed it out on her lap, and looked at her daughter. “I don’t know what she’d want me to do with it, either,” she said. “Whatever I do, I’m sure I’ll get it wrong, you know. Ha.” She smiled. “Which reminds me.” She reached into her handbag, which was by her feet. “I found these. In her bureau drawer.”

She handed Laura a letter in Mary’s writing, addressed to her. It was clunky, heavy.

“What is it?” said Laura.

“No idea,” said Angela. “I got one, too. So did Simon.”

“But,” said Laura, slightly alarmed, “what does it mean?”

“I think it means she knew she wanted to write to you,” said Angela.

Laura clutched the letter in her hand; she wanted to open it, and at the same time she didn’t want to know. “Don’t you wish you could have one conversation with her about it instead?” she asked. “With Granny, here?”

“Of course,” said Angela firmly, folding the cloth neatly into quarters. She pressed it down with her hand. “But it’s funny. It makes me realize, all these years…” She stared into space.

“What, Mum?” said Laura gently.

“Well, it makes me see. I was in the flat today, looking around, thinking, Is there anything we need to take now? and your aunt was being so dreadfully bossy, and instead of being cross and saying nothing, it made me feel”—she looked up to the ceiling—“so happy. And it’s funny. I look back, down the years. And I realize how happy I’ve been. How lucky we all are. What a lucky family we are, to have each other. To have this house. Oh, I know, it’s not an interesting life, it’s not full of glamour and drama, but it’s the life I wanted. I’ve never wanted anything more, you see.”

George was coming through from the kitchen. There was a scuffle as the tray of drinks hit something. “Oh, dear,” they heard him say, and there was a bit of muttering. Laura looked back at her mother.

“Honestly, darling. Never wanted more than your father. It’s strange, isn’t it? I thought I’d miss the life I had, the traveling, the rather posh girls and boys I met, the excitement of it. I never did, not once. Since the day I married him and we settled down—I honestly don’t think I would have changed a thing.”

A tear dropped from her cheek onto the folded cloth; Angela brushed her eyes.

“I’ve been happy. I never really thought about it like that, before Mum died. I’ve been happy.”

The door opened; George came in, carrying a whisky bottle and four glasses.

“I thought a little toast was in order, ahead of tomorrow’s events,” he said.

“Oh, George,” said Angela, putting her head on one side.

Simon followed his father in. He took the drinks off the tray George set down, and gave one each to his mother and sister, then handed one to his father.

George cleared his throat, still standing, and said, “Well. A toast. Stand please.”

Laura and Angela stood. He raised his glass, met his wife’s eyes.

“To Mary,” he said. “In loving memory.”

“To Mary,” they said in unison. Laura looked around the room at her family. She would be glad, she thought. Yes.

Simon dropped her home, and Laura climbed the stairs to the flat, tired and confused, the letter clutched in her hand. She had to remind herself it was Wednesday, and normal life was carrying on. It was strange, to have been at work this week, to speak to people on the phone, to do normal things. She wanted to say, “My grandmother died on Saturday. I’m very upset. So’s my mum. But actually we’re fine.” A grandmother dying—it wasn’t a big deal. It was sad; people were kind. Rachel had bought her some tulips, had been lovely, because she knew how close they were. But it wasn’t a life-changing thing. Yes, they said, you’ll be sad, oh, when’s the funeral, right. Oh, that’ll be nice. Lovely. It was the kind of grief people were able to talk about, console each other about. Whereas Laura knew it was something different; it was really strange. She felt like a new person, as if her life had undergone a seismic shift. She knew who she was, whether she was at home with her parents, or back at her own flat, or sitting at work. She knew who she was.

She saw herself for once without pretense, not as a girl from some book in a crinoline, dipping low in a curtsey at a ball, or as an evangelical new person who was going to sort her life out, who brooked no argument, who let no one into her life, who did not suffer weakness or fools. She was just—herself. She looked at the letter, there in her hand, and carefully tore it open. A velvet pouch slid out, and two sheets of paper.

chapter fifty-one

Darling Laura,

I am writing this letter to you in the full expectation that you may not read it for a few years, although I suspect and hope it may be sooner than that. It is a beautiful September day as I sit here at my desk. Cedric is upstairs on his balcony; he is singing something rather jolly, Puccini, I think. He is watering his plants. I can see the very tips of the trees in Hyde Park. It is sunny and dusty. The leaves are rather crispy. Summer is over; everyone is waiting for autumn. I love this time of year. The summer fatigue. I am alone in loving it, I think. But it reminds me of Cairo.

I want to tell you something, Laura. I have always tried to hold back from telling you what to do, because I have always felt you had enough people around you, directing you, and perhaps you needed someone with whom you could just talk. But now I think it may be time, time for me to be honest with you. As honest as I can be. I do this because I want you to be happy. More than anything, I want you to be happy, for you have great happiness and love within you, Laura darling.

You will find enclosed the necklace I lent you, which you have always loved. I would like you to have it, please. It gives me great pleasure to know that after I am gone, you will be the one to wear it. It is valuable; more valuable than you realize, for Xan gave it to me, bought it for me in Cairo, when we first met.

We were both married to other people, you knew that. I was still married when we met. When we fell in love. You did not know that. My first husband, James Dearden, was the man I married when I was eighteen, and it is because of him that I moved out there. I was so young; I had never left England before. To be in Cairo—oh, Laura, the heat, dusty, pervasive heat, when you have lived through endless British winters with no such thing as central heating, no money for fires, the constant heat was like a drug to me. I was so happy. At first.

But James was not a good husband. I tried, Laura, but I was too young, too selfish. He and I—we should never have married. He was not a bad man, but I believe he became one. He could be vicious. Boorish, unpleasant, dull—and stupid. I could forgive him most things, but not that. Hated Egypt, the people, the life. He only liked the club. And drinking. I look back and try to remember, and I don’t know that we were ever happy. When I had your mother, it got worse. He didn’t care, wasn’t interested. He wanted a son. Your mother was a beautiful baby, so good, contented. She was perfect, and he didn’t care. He couldn’t see it, and I hated him for that.

When the war came, people were evacuated, mostly to South Africa. But we stayed there. I was still only twenty-four when I met Xan. He had just arrived in Cairo; I felt as if I had been there for decades, in a living tomb. James and I were barely speaking. There was danger everywhere, nothing was certain. Xan knew no one. He was entirely alone; he was working for the army as a translator, a sort of traveler, someone to smooth relations out with the Egyptians. He had been everywhere, traveled to so many places already. He made me laugh. I understood him, even though we were very different. He was my age. James was forty, darling, to me he was an old man; he was drinking more and more. He beat me. The first time he beat me, I ran to the club, and Xan was there. We began an affair, I suppose you would call it, but that sounds so tawdry, so implicitly temporary. This—it was true love, I knew it from the start. Do you remember that story I used to tell you, about the trip to the desert, to the pyramids, to see the sun rise? Darling, it was true, I promise; but that was when it all began, when I was still married. But I simply knew, so well that I did not stop to analyze it. He was the love of my life. Still is.

Xan had been married, darling. Lucy, his wife, had died in England, and they had had a little girl. That was Annabel. And after the war was over, she came out to join him. I always remember the first time I saw her, at a party at the club. In the garden, it was, shaded and green. One of the few green places there. I remember how I smiled and said hello to her. She was a pretty little thing. I watched Xan with her, this funny little toddler clutching his leg, and I hated myself with all my heart and soul, every part of me, because I was glad his wife was dead, glad I had never known her, and I wished my husband were dead, wished we could be together. Yes, I did. I remember going to the English church, and taking Communion that next day. I remember how I felt, how much pleasure it gave me to kneel at the altar with a heart full of black things, full of adultery and jealousy and murderous rage, and spite. Daring God to throw at me anything more that he could. Knowing I was untouchable, that nothing could hurt me anymore. I remember the feeling; I remember so much of it all.

Not to be with the one you love, Laura, the one person you should be spending your life with—it’s like a kind of living death. To wake up every morning and know you are still here. To have that brief, sweet moment of blankness, before your mind reminds you who you are, and why you are unhappy. It was like hell. A living hell of the heart’s own making.

You know that James died. He had a heart attack, brought on by years of drinking, years of unhappiness. Almost six months later, I could barely believe it. And I hated myself for it, too. Xan and I were married a year later; everyone said how lucky we were to have found each other, and no one ever knew, no one knew I had lied, that I had prayed for this to happen, not even Xan. We had forty-five years together, Laura. We brought the girls up together, we traveled the world. We were never apart. And no one could have been happier than us, except for one small thing: We lied. And, oh, it doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter!