Falling (42 page)

‘Don’t tease him. He’s feeling a bit out of it.’

Anna helped her lay out the supper, which it was decided they would have inside. The rumbles of thunder were coming far sooner after the sheets of lightning. It was getting like the last act of
Rigoletto,
Anthony said. ‘I do hope nobody turns up with a dead soprano in a sack.’ She could see Henry smiling at this as though he knew what Anthony meant, but somehow she also
knew that he didn’t.

When they had finished with the salmon and were eating the summer pudding, Anthony whipped out a camera and started taking pictures of them, in ones and twos and finally all together.

By then they had all had a good deal to drink. Anthony had talked most; in fact he had talked nearly all the time, needing only to be prompted by herself or Anna with the simplest question.
‘What did I do
then
? I simply waited until a man who looked as rich as he was going to be kind turned up and then I practically
assaulted
him and then we went to the
Ritz.’

‘But you said you hadn’t a stitch on?’

‘Daisy, dear, blankets don’t have stitches. I was wearing a blanket – one of those little grey jobs you get on long-distance flights. I had been using it as a
shawl,
but
by then it had become something of a
sarong
. . .’

‘The lovely thing is that we don’t have to believe a word you say—’

‘My dear Anna, I should hope not. I can’t tell you how boring it would be if I told you the unvarnished truth. Don’t you find that?’ He turned suddenly to Henry.

‘Oh, well—’ He was looking at Daisy again. ‘The truth is often more strange than any invention. In my opinion.’

‘Lucky you.’ Anthony said it with careless amity, but she could see that Henry didn’t take it like that.

Anna suggested that two of them should clear up. ‘There isn’t room for all of us in the kitchen. Daisy, you cooked, so take Anthony next door. You can do it tomorrow.’

‘All right, bossy boots. Come on, darling. Yes, and I can tell you about Katya.’

Which he did. He was clearly being extremely kind to her.

‘She’s stopped crying so much. You’re not exactly a dry-eyed family, are you? So it isn’t simply her Polish blood. Anyway, we’ve talked a lot about what she might
do, and we’ve been making the flat nice for the children. She says they regard coming to London as an enormous treat, so we’ve thought of lots of
excursions
she can make with
them that won’t be too costly. She said you were giving her the flat. She was thrilled about you doing that. Anna thinks that Edwin will have to come up with a bit more than the school
fees.’

‘Yes, but I don’t think Katya will be very good at asking for it. She’s very proud – stubborn, really. And she hates him at the moment.’

‘Naturally. Well – actually, I’ve offered to go down with her and kind of be around while they talk about that sort of thing. If she leaves it to lawyers, it will take months
and bitterness will prevail.’

‘Goodness!’ She tried to imagine Edwin’s reaction to Anthony, and failed.

‘It’s just because I’m such an
unlikely
person that it will be all right. I’m frightfully good at making people think they’ ve thought of kind things to do.
I shall butter him up and be full of treacherous understanding for him and his adulterous plight. Anyway, Katya trusts me, so I do hope you will too. I don’t
think
I could make matters
worse. They must get on somehow, because of the kiddy-winks.

‘Dearest Anthony, of course I trust you. I’m so awfully grateful. He wouldn’t listen to me – I know that.’

‘Your lovely eyes are filling with tears of gratitude. It’s really not good for them. I can see you are in a very emotional state. Is that due to your friend Henry?’

She nodded. ‘Do you like him?’

He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘That is a hopeless question, darling, as you well know. Is he one of those people who has a heart of gold?’

‘You mean you find him boring?’

‘I haven’t found anything.’ He took one of her hands and gave it a squeeze. ‘But I will, if you like. And meanwhile, if he makes you happy, of course I like
him.’

‘He makes me happy.’

‘It’s so marvellous when people do that, isn’t it? And so
rare.
I’m awfully keen on it myself. Shall I show you my games I’ve brought? See what you’d
like to play with?’

By the time they all went to bed, the storm had begun. Lightning and huge grumbling claps of thunder and, eventually, rain. She could hear it tapping on the leaves in the wood. She went to sleep
to the pouring sibilant sound while the thunder lurched uncertainly back and forth above them, and with Henry’s arms round her. They whispered; it was easy to hear any sounds in the
cottage.

When they awoke the next morning, it was still raining. Henry seemed so fast asleep that even when she got up and dressed, he did not stir.

Downstairs she found Anna making tea.

‘I always get up early,’ she said.

When she had cut some bread and put it into the toaster, she wandered to the front door and opened it. The air was marvellously fresh, but the path was a chain of puddles, and the lawn –
now miraculously a brilliant green – was studded with birds prising worms out of the damp earth.

‘Oh, dear. What shall we do with Anthony in this dreadful weather? It will simply confirm his worst views of the country.’

‘I shouldn’t worry,’ Anna said comfortably. ‘He prefers being indoors anyway, and he’s brought an enormous jigsaw he’s dying to do.’

‘Did you read the letters?’ Daisy asked, when they had begun their breakfast.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘What did you think of them?’

‘You’re certainly right about his writing good letters.’ She waited. ‘And then he seems to have had more than his share of misfortune,’ she paused, ‘and he
does seem to be far more intelligent on paper than he does when one meets him.’

‘Well, he doesn’t know you, and he’s shy. He’s afraid you won’t like him. I think he’s one of those people who are only themselves when you’re alone
with them.’ Then they heard sounds from above and stopped talking about him.

Later in the morning, she drove with Anna to the village because they hadn’t enough lemons for the smoked salmon, and Anna suddenly asked, ‘Have you met any of his
friends?’

‘Henry’s? No – no, I haven’t. You see, when he left his wife he left where he was living. He doesn’t know people round here.’

‘Where was he living?’

‘Northampton, I think. He never talks about it. I think he does feel bad about the last wife: he really doesn’t like her.’

‘And she’s still there?’

‘Yes. She’s kept their house, and she has some kind of job at the hospital.’ After a moment, she added, ‘I don’t ask him about these things because I think he finds
them very painful. Katya liked him, you know. She wasn’t at all sure of him at first, but she told me on the telephone that she thought he was really a very nice and unusual man.
She
could see the point of him.’

‘Daisy, I’m not against him, truly—’

‘You sound it!’

‘I’m really sorry if I do. I’m so used to finding the flies in ointment – you know how I nitpick over contracts, and I’ve seen you made so very unhappy.
That’s it, really.’

‘You’re not fussing about his being working class, or anything like that?’

‘Nothing like that. Nothing at all like that.’

When they got back, they found that Anthony had cleared the middle of the sitting-room floor and emptied the pieces of his jigsaw puzzle on to a white tablecloth. He was busily engaged in
putting all the pieces the right way up. He was wearing white trousers and a bitter chocolate-coloured shirt, and his feet were bare.

‘You must look – it’s the most wonderful piece of Victorian sentiment.
The Soldier’s Return.
He’s got his arm in a sling, and a bandage round his head, and
she’s dressed in a sort of
Wuthering Heights
costume standing outside a thatched ruin with ever such a bonny baby in her arms. And there’s a huge faithful dog of uncertain
origin. Heaven, don’t you think? Fifteen hundred pieces. What about a little drinky-winky as my mother used to say before her infinitesimal glass of disgusting sherry? Henry kindly put
some more fizz in the fridge for us. We were simply waiting for you.’

‘Where’s Henry?’

‘Darling,
I
don’t know. I offered him work on this jigsaw but he didn’t seem interested.’

Anna, who was in the kitchen, called, ‘He’s outside, Daisy. Coming round from the back of the garage.’

She went out to meet him.

‘How I first saw you,’ he said, ‘in that large black hat and your long mac. I’ve been cleaning up Mrs Patel’s mower for her. It was in a rather dilapidated
state.’

She put her arm in his and he gave it a squeeze.

‘Is it going to stop raining?’

‘Some time in the afternoon by the look of it. Mind you, I don’t think it will last.’

He was right about that. At lunch she announced that she was going to take them on a small excursion.

‘Where, darling? There isn’t a fair anywhere about, is there? I simply adore them.’

‘Afraid not. An amazing garden Henry and I found, and if you can face a little walk, there’s a pets’ cemetery on the estate.’

‘Only if it stops raining. Do you want to go, Anna?’

‘I’d like some fresh air – yes, I do want to.’

‘You can get plenty of fresh air indoors. It’s called draughts. I’m far from sure that I shall enjoy myself,’ Anthony grumbled.

The rain did stop, and the sun came out and the sky was blue between the small white clouds. They had to go in two cars, as neither was built for more than one passenger.

They had not gone to the garden before; had tried once on a weekday in spring and it had been closed.

She had hoped that going round a large and beautiful garden would show Henry off to the others to his best advantage, but here she was wrong. He wandered round with them, displaying very little
interest, although he answered any question she or Anna put to him. There were two walled gardens, one with old-fashioned roses now well past their best, and one with large herbaceous borders that
had clearly suffered from the drought, and an elaborate parterre in its centre filled with pinks, whose scent after the rain was striking. There was a lime avenue that led to a water garden
surrounded by a tapestry hedge with niches for statues. Anthony liked those, and took pictures of them.

‘But I do want to see the animals’ cemetery.’ She felt bossy saying it, but she also felt anxious about straight society in the cottage. And tomorrow it might be raining
again.

So they took the cars, and parked by the river, just as she and Henry had, and followed the track until they reached the small domed building. Fortunately, Anthony was enchanted by it.
‘What
a find!’ He examined the graves most thoroughly, and photographed them as well as the building. ‘Now I’ll take a picture of you sitting on the steps outside
it,’ he said, and obediently, they sat in a row, with her in the middle and Anna and Henry each side of her. Henry gently squeezed her arm and when she looked at him, she could see he was
reminding her of the last time that they had been there. They smiled at each other and she felt much better. It was all right: it was simply that he did not have much – if any – general
conversation.

She drove back with Henry in her car. He was curious about Anna, asked whether she had anyone in her life, asked whether she was a lesbian, and she answered that Anna did not talk much if at all
about her past, and that now she devoted herself to her work. And no, she wasn’t a lesbian; she was a very good godmother to the daughter of one of her writers, and she had many friends among
them, but tended to keep them apart.

‘She looks after everything for me – makes the hard decisions for me, helps me about my money – I’m not very good at that and writers’ money is always rather a
dicey business.’

‘You don’t live as though it is.’

‘Don’t I? Well, Anna would probably agree with you.’

He was silent for a while, and then he said, ‘Your friend, Anthony, I can’t make him out at all. Is he acting or is he always like that?’

‘He’s always extreme. No, he doesn’t exactly
act,
but he likes to entertain people.’

‘I’m afraid he doesn’t find me very entertaining. I can’t talk about the sort of things your friends talk about. I don’t move in those circles.’

‘I know you don’t. But people don’t have to be the same for one to like them.’

‘I see that.’

‘They loved the garden. And you were awfully good at knowing the names of everything.’

‘Well, they would expect that, wouldn’t they, from a gardener?’

She could not get the chip off his shoulder, and gave
^u
p.

‘Are they following us?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘What it is,’ he said, moments later, ‘is that I’m suffering from withdrawal symptoms. I want you to myself. I want to undress you very slowly and put you on the bed and
do all the things I know you like.’

‘Oh, darling! They’re going tomorrow.’

‘Are they?’

‘After lunch.’

This seemed to cheer him considerably.

As they got out of the car, he said, ‘I will try. I will try not to be such a bore.’

At dinner, Anna tried as well. She asked him more about the garden they had seen; wanted to know how long it would have taken to make, and whether it had been designed by one person, or
was the consequence of generations of gardeners.

‘Oh, I should think that originally a good deal of it was laid out by one person. But the second walled garden – the one with the roses – came later. You could tell that by the
different brick.’

‘Would you like to design something of that size?’

‘It would be a challenge. But I’ve mostly done quite small places, where the scope is limited. You can’t plant trees with any grand design in a small place.’

‘Is that what your book was about?’

‘What book?’ Daisy looked from Anna, who had asked the question, to Henry, who did not immediately answer it.