Authors: Angela Huth
‘I can’t sleep, Papa,’ she said … and ran towards us.
I can’t think why I felt so tired. Usually I’m full of energy. Suppose I’ve been working very hard, trying to complete that large order for the opera. And now there’s this order from New York: a dozen masks for Saks Christmas window. But I can’t face beginning until I’ve had a few days’ rest.
So here I am in what I still think of as home: house of my childhood. It’s a little odd, being here without Ma and Pa. God knows why they’d rather be in Madrid than Dorset at this time of year, but in their retirement they’ve gone a bit travel mad. Rio, next, apparently. Strange I haven’t inherited their love of seeing the world. Britain holds quite enough for me.
It’s all as it always was: the grandfather clock in the hall still half an hour slow, its loud tick providing a reminder of rhythm as you flit across the hall – persistent, its mellow voice, but not intrusive. There’s a smell of dog – Chancer, my mother said, would prefer to be with me than be sent away – and everything sags and bulges in the sitting room: flowered chair and sofa covers are so blurred that there’s no distinction between flowers and leaves. The arms of Pa’s usual armchair are threadbare. As for the curtains: fifty summers have left their linings in rags. However gently you pull them small pieces of blanched cotton flutter down. Their edges long ago relinquished their pattern, and now match the bleached patches of carpet near the windows, which was not the idea when Ma chose everything so carefully from Peter Jones half a century ago. There’s no point, as she keeps saying, in re-doing it all now. ‘We’re used to it, we don’t notice the wear and tear,’ she says. ‘We’ll leave it to you and Dan to do what you like – if you keep the house, that is, when we’re moved into some Home, or we die.’
‘Of course we’ll keep it. I love it, I love it.’
I went for a short walk: examined the garden – more ardently cared for than the house – and went on up the hill so that I could look down on the hamlet, the church spire, the roof of the house, the fields that swirl down into the valley – a place I’ve been to a thousand times to listen to the silence. A place so minutely recorded in my mind that to return is merely to confirm: the transparent mental picture is simply coloured in by reality. I took deep breaths, expiring London from my lungs, my heart, my whole being. Then I walked quickly back down the cart track of reddish earth, a path that can’t have changed since it was walked by Hardy.
Ma, as always, had left me well provided for. In the dusky kitchen – stuff on the shelves, a muddle of things that could have been thrown out years ago, shopping lists of yesteryear, their ink now brown and making me smile – I grill lamb cutlets, and tomatoes from the garden. There’s a silver-framed photograph by the stove, placed between bottles of oil and vinegar so that Ma can see it while she’s stirring: it’s Dan, Sylvie and me some years ago, Sylvie still at the gap-toothed stage. We’re here in the garden, lupins behind us – I can’t remember which summer, exactly. They roll so quickly into each other, melting into a whole ribbon of summers knotted with similar memories later only recognised by Sylvie’s height, or Dan’s greying hair.
I think of them, now, without me. Dan will have read to Sylvie for a long time, as he always does when I’m away. Sylvie will set her alarm: she’s always afraid Dan won’t wake her in time for school. Dan might remember to heat up the fish pie, then he’ll be off up to his study.
Rejection
, I understand from the few hints he has dropped, is going rather well. He’s still trying to think of a good title. I must try to think for him on my walk tomorrow. Sometimes, titles just come to me: he’s used several of mine. When I rang him at nine thirty he said he was only just going up to work. He must have read to Sylvie for ages, and then been very inefficient about heating up the oven and the pie. But he sounded fine – he’s always fine when I’m away so I don’t know why I’m so often pricked by a nameless anxiety. In what is now Dan’s and my room when we’re here I get into the double bed and pick up my book, but I’m too sleepy to read. My head is cleared of masks. Through the open window I stare back at a full moon. Dan and Sylvie are safely there, is all I think, and I’m here. We’re all fine. Perhaps I’m the last one to fall asleep.
I couldn’t go to sleep … because. Well, just because. I haven’t a clue why. Some nights it’s just like that. Probably because I spent too long on my maths homework and then got spooked by Mrs. Rochester.
My mother used to say she was a woman of nervous disposition. She said this with such pride it sounded like a boast. For years I’d no idea what she meant, but I would nod in agreement as my mother was someone who didn’t like to be contradicted. Now I know what it means, I’m afraid I might have inherited that same nervous disposition.
I wake up, nights, in such a sweat, fretting away. Nothing to do with the menopause – that was over long ago, thank the Lord. Sometimes I think I hear someone in the kitchen, though I know I’m imagining things, but I daren’t get out of bed and go and look. But mostly I wake with such a spinning head I can’t stop it. What is Gary up to? Is he trying to scare me? Is that his plan? And if so, why? What have I done to deserve such menace?
He’s a lonely man, of course: not much to do. I don’t recall he had any friends. Not that he talked about himself much. Didn’t let on about whatever was going on in his mind – not that I asked. ‘There’s a fine line to be drawn between interest and prying,’ was another of my mother’s sayings. She warned me to keep questions to myself in case I should be thought nosey. She herself went overboard in this respect. She never asked me anything: whether I’d fancy another cup of tea, or a new pair of shoes, or how I was getting on at school – nothing. All this not-being-nosey seemed to me like a great lack of interest. My mother had her mind on quite a few things, but they didn’t include me. I remember yards and yards of silence as a child.
One of the nights I woke up alarmed, thinking of Gary, something occurred to me: I thought perhaps it was
revenge
he was after … simple as that. Revenge for his own inadequacies. He had a good many of those, but I daresay the one that disturbed him most was the one I was privy to discovering. Yes, the truth of the matter was he was no good in a certain area. Rotten – I would go so far as to say he was on the road to total impotence. Without spelling it out, I did try to make it clear to him I didn’t mind about all that. The physical side of things has never been that important to me, I said – though not in so many words – and after one particularly embarrassing afternoon between the sheets, our so-called ‘sex life’ fizzled out. But perhaps what got him was the fact that I was a witness to his failing, and he wanted to punish me for that. Yes, I thought, that must be it: Gary’s after revenge.
But having worked this out, I didn’t feel much easier. I was only able to put it all aside when I was at number 18, knowing I was safe there. Knowing he couldn’t get me. I’m damned if I’m going to let this silly fear, this nervous disposition, get me down. But it is hard, knowing someone’s out to get you. Stupidest thing I ever did in my life, befriending Gary. But there’s not much to be done about regret. Regret is a canker in the soul. But at least I’ve got my mobile now. That was a good decision … makes me feel a little bit safer.
Did Sylvie see us?
The question will haunt me until there’s some proof that she didn’t. Her furious eyes were concentrated on Carlotta, who said something about it being late and dashed from the room. I said to Sylvie I’d take her back to bed. I was smoothing my hair, conscious of a red face. I got her a glass of milk which is what she usually has when she comes down at night. She took the milk but said don’t bother to come up. ‘I’m fine,’ she said looking at me hard. ‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ she said and stomped off with hunched shoulders: a sure sign she’s put out.
I spent a wakeful night, cursing myself, cursing Carlotta, trying to work out what had happened. Drink, I assumed. We’d drunk quite a bit during the course of the evening. But I knew that wasn’t the answer. I wasn’t drunk. I’d simply been overcome by a moment of pernicious lust for someone I didn’t even much like. I haven’t been so blindingly struck since I was in my twenties. Protected by my profound love for my wife, fancying other women – however delightful – has never been something I’ve contemplated. Carlotta isn’t even a delightful woman, despite being able to switch on the charm. And I certainly didn’t
contemplate
anything. I just found myself leaping upon her, almost out of control – boyish. The extraordinary and surprising thing was her response. Had she indicated an iota of distaste at my boorish behaviour, I would have stopped at once. But perhaps
she
had been contemplating, and things were turning out just as she envisaged they could. God knows what might have happened had Sylvie not appeared. I like to think we’d have come to our senses. I like to think we’d have defied weakness of the flesh. But perhaps that wouldn’t have been the case. Even now, as I think of Carlotta, breast malleable in my hand, hips writhing …
The thought also sickens. I feel the profound chill of shame, regret. I loathe the knowledge that for ever more the familiar trio of Isabel, Carlotta and I will never be the same. Carlotta and I are now bound by a secret that Isabel must never discover, though the idea of my wife being the ignorant party is too appalling to think about. For my unforgivable betrayal I’ll be punished for years to come.
Dazed, shaken, I got up very early, tidied up the things from last night. I didn’t want Gwen to think I’d been entertaining while Isabel was away. Sylvie came down at her usual time. Intent on finding some lost book, she pointed out that it was odd to find her father putting a bowl of cornflakes on the table for her – not a normal practice. I managed a laugh, relieved to see she appeared her normal self. All the huffiness of last night seemed to have disappeared.
I switched on the radio, so there was no need to talk. When I dropped her at school she gave me a particularly firm kiss on the cheek. What, if anything, was going through her mind?
Home, I took a couple of aspirin before going to the office, and remembered that today I was to have lunch with Bert. Should I, in the most oblique way, tell him about the disaster last night?
‘Of course not, you fool,’ I told myself. Men don’t have those kinds of conversation. Bert wouldn’t want to hear of my idiocy any more than, in truth, I would want to confess. And besides, confession is an unreliable way of easing guilt. No: we’d talk about his life, his plans, laugh about some of our misdemeanours in the past – funny how, recalled, elaborated, they still amuse us. Part of the pleasure, of course, is recognising each other’s embroidery.
Lunch with Bert would be the one cheering thing in the day. What a bugger is remorse.
I’d forgotten the kitchen clock was permanently ten minutes slow, and mistimed my call. Dan was leaving the house. Sylvie was already in the car. So only a brief word, but he was fine. No news. We’d speak this evening.
The long day rolled emptily ahead. Being a creature of habitual discipline, I find a curious kind of alarm underlines the pleasure of such days. Mornings are the problem. Mornings, in my scheme of things, are for work. I like the routine of early rising, getting down to my masks as soon as Dan and Sylvie have gone. I like keeping at it – the four hours pass so fast – till lunchtime, when I feel I’ve earned the slacking off in the afternoon and the change of occupation. What a ridiculous, puritanical concept, I tell myself so often. Were I not bound by it, I would enjoy holidays much more. As it is, during the obligatory holiday in France … or Italy – or wherever – in a rented house or hotel, mornings confound me. What can I do with that stretch of time if I can’t work? I join in with whatever the plan for the day is, of course, but it never feels right. And the afternoon, unearned, is less rewarding. But obviously I can’t take all my mask-making stuff with me, or even bring it here for a few days. So I’m left with the problem of unstructured hours till lunch. Alone in my parents’ house, there’s no need to shop. On my own, I scarcely eat. The relief of not having to think about food is immense. I promised I’d take Chancer for a walk twice a day, and deadhead the roses if I felt like it. When I came down for breakfast she was asleep under the kitchen table. No need to disturb her just yet. I went to the drawer in the hall chest where the secateurs were kept. In it I found a couple of metallic marbles, a single gardening glove in a state of such
rigor mortis
it could never be worn again, various lengths of string and a pre-historic torch. They were all there when I was a child. My mother never throws anything away. But she would scoff at the obvious idea that things past their prime might come in useful one day. Her reasons for her serious hoarding are far more inventive, convincing, funny. And somewhere within me, too, lurks her disposition for hanging onto useless things. I understand the feeling. It’s a sort of security: material links with the past. Reminders. My mother’s habit encourages friendly scoffing from those who love her. Sometimes I even join in the laughter myself, but really I’m on her side.
I took the secateurs and went into the garden. It was a fine morning, sun not yet warm, traces of dew still silvering the lawn. To reach the roses I had to go through a small garden enclosed by beech hedges. Here an intricate pattern of box hedges divided beds of white flowers, my father’s proud achievement. In its centre was a small but clever fountain of his own invention: a stone bowl, punctured with random holes, which produced feathery arcs of water. Designing this fountain had afforded him hours of entertainment. It was several years in the making, and by the time it was finished he’d become not only a skilled stone-cutter, but an expert on complicated drainage systems. The day it was finished, I remember, we drank glasses of pink champagne to match the pink evening: the bottle in its cooler stood in a bed of white pansies, squashing some of them flat. There was always an element of carelessness in whatever my father did which counteracted the enthusiastic energy he put into his projects. Praise for his fountain meant far more to him than did the medals he received after the war, or the praise accorded to him when he retired from his job as chairman of a company that made farm machinery. And, heavens, did my mother smother him in admiration that evening. There was no inch of the fountain that escaped her marvelling. I can see her now, in her old garden hat (still, thank God, hanging in the cloakroom), head thrown back, pretty eyes screwed up in laughter after her third glass of champagne, moved beyond words at my father’s achievement. In return he muttered about it all being ‘nothing much’. But I guessed he sensed that once something is finished the effort it has taken turns to dust. It’s hard to remember all the hours of striving. ‘Achievement,’ he once said, ‘is not half so sweet as trying to achieve.’ For all the laughter and the drink, there was a sense of anti-climax that evening. There were unspoken questions: what next? What now?