The Very Thought of You (15 page)

After all his years in the engine room of the foreign office, Thomas found it strange to be applying himself now to Latin sentences, while so many others were gathering on the front line. Eighteen months earlier, once it was clear that Chamberlain was determined to appease Hitler, Thomas
had resigned from the Central Department – in sympathy with his chief vansittart, who had been quietly ousted as head of the foreign office because of his opposition to Chamberlain’s strategies. The atmosphere in Whitehall had grown intolerably toxic for any anti-appeasers, and Thomas had felt compelled to withdraw. at the time, he told his colleagues that he was embarking on anew translation of
The Aeneid
. what had begun as aprivate consolation had turned into a passion, and whenever he was not teaching now, he went back to his virgil.

But he knew that sometimes he retreated into his study to avoid his marriage, too. Lately, an unspoken truce had settled between Elizabeth and him, in which they lived together and yet separately. He had learnt not to ask Elizabeth what she did on her visits to London.

Thomas did not doubt that she had tried to love him. Over the years she had emerged as asocial orchid – everything about her was always perfectly presented to the world: her hair, her nails, her clothes. But Thomas sensed that it was romantic life she craved, to be swept onto a dance floor, to walk on the arm of a desirable man, needs he could never now meet.

Perhaps Thomas divined this better than she did herself. He did not blame her for it, or despise her, or even hold it against her. He, too, prized her perfection and poise – had that not been her attraction for him as well? And yet, whenever he saw her remote eyes, he felt threatened by that look of dissatisfaction in her face.

At least he had always been able to take refluge in his work, whether the legitimate crises of the foreign office or, now, his teaching and his translations. But he knew she had enough empty hours to feel the holes in her life. The war had offered her this chance to reinvent herself, yet even their school had not
satisfied her restlessness. Her discontent was too pervasive, and he had watched her drink too much – first wine, then spirits.

There were still times when Thomas regretted not being in love with his wife – not feeling that tenderness which might exalt daily life. As he raked over their marriage, he was haunted by one particular milestone in their mutually diminishing expectations: their holiday in venice in the spring of 1935.

It was Elizabeth who had planned the trip.

“venice will be easy for the chair,” she had announced with brio. “No hills. We can stroll through piazzas and visit galleries.”

Neither of them had ever been to venice before. They took the train, setting off with the light spirit of travellers, both delighted by the opulence of the orient express. Thomas was charming and attentive to Elizabeth – who was trying so hard to fre their ailing intimacy. They passed the rolling felds of France and the mountain passes of the Swiss Alps, until at last they arrived in venice, glittering in the late-August sunshine.

They tried to hide from each other their disappointment with the hotel. Their room had adark, damp air, and although the window faced out onto a canal, it was too high for Thomas to have any view. But still, they changed their clothes, and set off through the pretty streets to find a restaurant for dinner.

That first evening they saw venice at its best. The colours of the buildings glowed and blended under the mature sunshine: ochre, rose, cream, coral. The pleasure of this new place made them both light-headed. They found their way to a trattoriaoverlooking the lagoon, and ate seafood while watching the sunset fade to darkness over the sea. Later that night, they made love.

But the next day, for no perceptible reason, Elizabeth’s habitual melancholy began to seep through, and she retreated inwards. Thomas found her distant and unresponsive at breakfast. Perhaps it was the dining room, with its inadequate light fixtures, or perhaps it was the weather, for the sun was closed out by dull clouds now. Thomas did what he could to engage her, smiling at her brightly, his old familiar smile.

They set out with their guide books to explore the famous city, Elizabeth pushing Thomas through the maze of piazzas and hidden streets. But they had not reckoned on the uneven paving stones, which soon began to jar Thomas’s spine. Elizabeth, meanwhile, was quickly exhausted by pushing the wheelchair through the rutted streets.

Elizabeth grew irritable and Thomas dejected. venice was beautiful, no doubt, but they found themselves too soon estranged from its beauty. In the Basilicaof San Marco, the mosaics were dun and lifeless, because no shaft of sunlight kindled their glitter. So it was with all the sights. They visited the Accademiagallery, and Thomas viewed Bellini’s paintings with acold, dead eye: his heart had closed up against so much perfection.

When they came out of the gallery, it started to rain heavily. The water fell down in sheets, sluicing down broken walls and running in dirty streams along the gutters. Thomas sat helplessly in his chair as Elizabeth wheeled him back to their room, his knees soaking, her back strained.

The next morning, Thomas woke up with a streaming cold and felt breathless. With his lungs weakened by polio, he was wary of catching pneumoniaand stayed indoors. He lay in the dark, airless hotel room and listened to the rain falling on the canal outside.

Elizabeth went for awalk on her own. She sipped coffee in Piazza San Marco, and watched romantic couples. Pigeons
focked and few away in waves. By the time she returned to the hotel, self-pity had infected her every nerve, and she did not even try to be cheerful.

Her disappointed face at least spurred Thomas to attempt a recovery, and he roused himself to go out the following morning. The colours of the buildings, which had been so charming in sunlight, now looked mouldy and dreary in an overcast sky. There was a stench from the canals, and the thickening air stuck in their throats. They ate their lunch in silence, and a wave of gloom came over them both as Elizabeth wheeled Thomas back to their hotel.

More rainstorms were forecast, so after one final desultory day they left for home, three days early.

Their marriage had reached an impasse. Thereafter they hoped without hope, and their hidden crack of estrangement began to widen. When Thomas heard the sound of Elizabeth’s step, his heart did not rise. When she saw his handsome face, she was unmoved. There were occasional false dawns of intimacy, moments when they almost reached each other, usually after an evening of wine, feeling each other in the darkness of their bedroom. But each was imagining somebody else, some other life.

Divorce, however, was still not discussed. How could Elizabeth leave her crippled husband, the Ashton heir? Thomas hinted that she was welcome to her freedom by mentioning the liaisons of other London women with as much approbation as was decent. But they both still hoped for a child who might redeem their unhappiness.

Outside, the sound of the bouncing ball stopped abruptly, and Thomas realized that the girl had run off. The sudden silence prompted his return to the words before him, and he tried to switch his mind back to Aeneas’s wanderings.

Blown far off course, we wander in the dark,
Where day and night converge, till even
Our pilot Palinurus must confess
Our way is lost in all this wilderness of water…

20

When Elizabeth returned on tuesday, Thomas was careful not to trespass on her privacy.

“How was London?”

“Dark, and empty. But no sign of an air raid yet. Just everyone waiting indoors for the worst to happen.”

“And the house?”

“As ever. Well, not quite. The park is being dug up, and the railings have been removed. In fact the entire city looks oddly dismantled—”

“I think I’d rather not see it.”

“I went to the gallery too. Not much life there at the moment.”

She slipped in this last remark casually, as if to forestall any questioning. Peter Norton’s modern art gallery was where she had worked and made her friends before the war.

“It’s very nice to have you back here, darling,” he said, and he meant it.

“Yes,” she said with feeling, and touched the back of his hand. She seemed remarkably cheerful, and refreshed.

The next morning she rose early, and watched all the evacuees having breakfast in the dining room. As they fled past her into their assembly, she felt an unexpected calm settling on her. There was a brightness in their faces, as if this place suited them, and she was suddenly proud to have
brought them all here, to have given them a home. at last she had been able to do something right.

She met the head gardener that morning, and found him buoyant: for too many years he had watched in quiet despair while his vegetables rotted away uneaten.

“Eighty-six children is good. I can feed more,” he told her.

There was plenty to be glad about, she decided, as she went through the staff rotas.

Such as her trips to London.

* * *

Her double life had begun three years ago, when she had been too much alone in their regent’s Park house, unoccupied and childless. Something in her had snapped.

Her transgression had begun in her mind only, as she sat in their London drawing room one day, wondering what to do with herself. Their housekeeper had placed acyclamen on the rosewood table, and Elizabeth felt herself mesmerized by its tranquil poise.

Cars hummed by on the street outside. Sunshine exposed the dust in the air as she sat on her sofa, barely moving, her gaze held by the cyclamen’s intense stillness. Even the serenity of aplant could rebuke her now, she realized, with Astart.

She pushed herself to her feet and walked round the room, suddenly impatient, past mirrors, atelephone, papers on her desk. Perhaps she should just pack her bags and leave Thomas – sail off and nurse the poor in India, or find some other heroic new life.

She wondered whether the telephone would ring. Whether ayoung man would call her, out of the blue – somebody who desired her but had been too afraid to tell her so.

What was it that she was hiding from herself – what was it that she wanted? Was it aperson, or ahope, or – arapture?

She sat down again on the sofaand reached up to feel the curve of her breasts.

There must be someone, somewhere, who would want to touch her. She wanted to stand in an embrace with Aman, and lay her head on his shoulder. She wanted to be held close, with arms wrapped around her.

Thomas could never be enough for her any more. He had rejected her, and so she was repelled by him. By his perfect face, by his coldness, by his distance. Resentment was silting her heart. She could walk naked through their bedroom and still he would not look up. His inadequacy had frozen him.

Barely spoken then, even in her mind, was the whisper of her empty womb. She was so stricken with afear of barrenness that she could scarcely bear to acknowledge it. Every month, she kept up a faith that perhaps achild would come to relieve the years ahead. But always she felt the sharp ache, the pang, the subtle inward wrench which preceded her menstrual fow. Then the blood oozed forth, washing away her hope.

afew days later, Thomas found her crying in their bedroom, after the arrival of her latest period. He sought out her face, her eyes.

“We could find our own child to love,” he said softly, “we could adopt achild.”

Her whole body ached for a baby; how could he understand that? She could not look at him.

“I couldn’t love a child that has not grown in me.”

“you might come to love the child, especially if it was with you from birth—”

“I could not love somebody else’s child.”

“you don’t know that,” he spoke as tenderly as he could. She was crumpling, her face staring downwards.

“I need to feel my own child kicking inside—”

He reached out very tentatively and, for once, she let him hold her. In his mind he said to her,
Find another man, have another man’s child.
for her, for him, for both of them, he just wanted her to have achild.
Please, have your child.

that night, she allowed the blood to fow over the sheets, and in the morning their bed was accusingly smeared with stiff red stains. The sheets were thrown away, but their mattress still carried the buried signs of her empty womb.

Yet Elizabeth had sensed Thomas’s unspoken pleathat night. Thereafter, every time she met Aman she felt free to check his eyes – looking for the blue gaze of the Ashtons.

Not long afterwards, she fell under the unexpected spell of arevolutionary new art show in London.
The International Surrealist Exhibition
at the New Burlington galleries was Asurprise sensation in the spring of 1936. Salvador Dalí appeared in publicity photographs wearing adiving bell, and it was this iconoclastic image which intrigued the public.

Clifford Norton’s wife Peter had loaned some of the paintings, and she insisted on guiding Elizabeth around the works of Dalí, Miró, Max ernst and Paul Nash. Dream landscapes by twilight, human bodies in strange metamorphoses, subconscious images of desire and memory. The pictures were provocatively frank in their nakedness.

Elizabeth had come to the show reluctantly, and was surprised by the way it affected her. She walked around the exhibition again by herself, and these surrealist images spoke to her at once, with their erotic secrets and carnal glimpses. The paintings broke her open in some primal way.

So much of the work was by men, and she saw in their paintings the direct gaze of male desire. Their fascination
with the female body, and the irrational joys offered by female fesh. She emerged from the show stirred by illicit impulses.

In her longing to reach out, she turned to Norton’s indefatigable wife Peter, who had always been an emancipated woman with acareer. She dared to talk to her about the eroticism of the surrealists.

“Why not come and join me at my new gallery?” suggested Peter, encouraged by Elizabeth’s appreciation. So many of Peter’s artist friends had fed from Hitler’s Germany, and she was determined to show their work in London, where very little modern art was exhibited. So she had opened the London Gallery in Cork Street – “The first avant-garde gallery in Britain,” as she proudly described it. The art critic roland Penrose had just joined her as adirector. She asked Elizabeth to help her run the exhibitions.