Recovery and the Return of Ethan Hart (15 page)

19

The next morning there could be something for me. If a letter had arrived at the farm yesterday, Amy would have readdressed it immediately.

Nothing in the first post.

There's always the second, though.

And the final one, mid-afternoon.

But if it doesn't come by then it may not come for ages. Matt knew the date on which I'd be leaving Suffolk; he also knows how long a letter takes to get to England. Well, roughly. So if I don't hear today, it must mean he's waiting for my new address—which he won't receive till Monday at the earliest. Oh God, dear God.

So my first full day of exploration is marred by constant fretting, although it's a good day by and large and I keep having bursts of sanity when I realize how I'm getting all worked up over nothing—one tardy letter in the context of a whole life? And possibly, too, he'll turn out to be blameless: mail can get held up even in peacetime. I suppose it can get lost as well. Which would be upsetting, naturally, but hardly a tragedy. And Hampstead with its intimate, artistic atmosphere, its network of irregular back streets, its charm and history and interesting shop windows (yes, even now), not to mention those acres and acres of rolling, wooded countryside…Hampstead is enough to offer consolation.

Or, anyway, distraction.

Nevertheless, when I return to Worsley Road and find that the hall table holds nothing for me, I put in a trunk call to the farm.

And after Amy's surprised, enthusiastic greeting, I explain I thought she'd like to know I'd found a job. “And how are Fred and the children? And is everybody missing me, most dreadfully?” But what I really want to hear, of course, is something very different.
Oh, and by the bye, Matt's letter came today
.
I've sent it on
.

When it seems there's nothing left to say, I ask if there's been any mail.

Before I phoned I told myself I'd rather have certainty than suspense. Now I wish I'd stuck with the suspense.

After a supper of Welsh rabbit, a meal I generally enjoy but this evening find difficult to finish (and even getting down my sweet and sticky orange juice seems hard), I decide to make another call.

“Oh, hello, my darling.” Thank God it's usually my mother who answers. If it isn't, I instantly hang up. “I'd been hoping you might ring.”

“You'll get a letter in the morning. But having told you all my news in that” (
Dearest Mummy, your loving daughter's pregnant
…) “I suddenly thought wouldn't it be nice if we could spend the day together. I mean tomorrow, because I've found a job that starts on Monday. I've got a room near Hampstead Heath, so I can easily meet the train at Finchley Road…”

“Oh, my sweetheart, I'd love to. But this weekend…it's really such short notice…”

I suggest that, even if he can't manage for himself, she could surely leave him a sandwich, or something cold, or something he could warm up.

“No, darling, it isn't that. Truth be told, I'm feeling a little tired and you mustn't be offended, but…”

I'm not offended. Just disappointed. And sulky. (Even though it's probably better she should have time enough to assimilate my bombshell.) She asks about my job—and the room—but doesn't want me, she says, just to repeat what I've written and make the call needlessly expensive. “Anyway, the main thing is you're well. And Matthew? How are things with him?”

“God knows. I haven't heard a word. I feel cross.”

“Oh, please don't, my darling. I remember when your father and I were engaged and then he suddenly had to go away. Only for a month but I wrote him fifteen letters, would you believe! I got just four in return. There was nearly a divorce before there was a marriage.”

I laugh and find it helpful being reminded. But even so my moodiness persists. I mention very pettishly that he hasn't even thanked me for a silver hip flask which I sent. I recognize that I, too, am tired. (Besides, I'm pregnant; pregnant women are allowed to be moody.) Earlier in the day I'd been planning to spend my evening telling him about the baby. But now I think—well, no, I don't feel like it. Four letters in exchange for fifteen still seems about the going rate. So maybe two can play at that game. Yes, Mr Cassidy. Two can start to agitate and wonder.

It's a decision which I rapidly regret. Of course, it's not in any way binding and yet I discover that I'm obstinate. I make a compromise. I'll go on writing but won't actually post anything until I've received his next letter.

I write about five sides a day and my letter reaches thirty sides. Forty. Fifty. But then my average starts to fall. Dramatically. By then it's hard to retain even a semblance of good cheer.

And every morning, yes, the closing of my door, the running downstairs, the sifting through the pile on the hall table, the philosophic shrug. Continual disappointment; continual slowing of that optimistic heartbeat. The same thing every evening, basically in reverse. Over the weeks, disappointment turning to deep anger. To disbelief. To desperation.

My attitude at work begins to change. At first my job enabled me to think of other things, to chat with colleagues, learn about the stock, try to be of service to my customers. But the women who are buying perfume—and, even more, the men who are buying it for them—are usually in a carefree mood. They haven't heard about austerity. You see a lot of adoration.

One morning I set out as normal, having largely given up on hope, when suddenly I spot an envelope exactly like those which Matt used to send. I give an excited exclamation, rush forward—and find it's from Australia. A convulsive sob bursts out of me just as Jane, in dressing gown and carrying Rex, emerges from her bedroom.

“Oh, Rosalind, my dear, whatever's the matter?”

“Nothing. Late. Must dash. Goodbye.”

“Look in again one evening and have a little drink. I'd enjoy that.”

“Yes, all right.” I only want escape.

What follows is a time of nightmare. It's the day I finally face up to things. It's the day I finally say to myself: He isn't going to write again. He's going to marry Marjorie.

He isn't going to write again, he's going to marry Marjorie. (I'm on the tube.) He isn't going to write again, he's going to marry Marjorie.

But hasn't got the guts to tell me.

Or maybe not the callousness. The cruelty. He's aware I'll get the message. It could be less upsetting for me, if this process can be gradual. Perhaps that's the way he figures it.

In any case it's over. I shall never see him again.

The whole day has a weird feeling of unbalance. Nothing seems quite real. I observe things at a distance, hear even my own voice as though it comes from someone else's mouth. (You'd think that this might dull the pain.) Reality is only restored, briefly, when the afternoon culminates in a dropped bottle of scent, glass shattering as it hits the floor. After that I faint.

Well, anyway—thank God!—at least I don't throw up.

“Four ounces of My Sin. I felt it slip, it happened in slow motion. We'll reek of it for weeks.”

“But did they make you pay?”

“No, they're good about those things.”

“Well, you've been there two months. More. They must know by now you're not cack-handed.” The inevitable fumbling for a fresh cigarette. “Why were you crying that morning when you left?”

“I wasn't crying. I was only—”

“And you don't look half so bonny. I know I'm being inquisitive but has something happened? Between you and Matt?”

I hesitate—and shrug—and force a smile.

“I suppose you could say so. Something? Nothing? Either would be accurate.”

“And?”

“And it's over.”

She pauses. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I'm sure.”

“Then he's a fool. Here—let me fill your glass. And you'll be better off without him.” I've never asked about her ex-; wonder suddenly if she's going to speak about him now. “But does the bastard know you're pregnant?”

However, she soon realizes she's on the wrong tack. I refuse to become one of those women a man feels it's his duty to reclaim. Make an honest woman of.

So she contents herself with remarking on the fact I now wear a wedding ring.

“Oh, well,” I say. “Needs must, I suppose. Life is full of compromise.”

My tone encourages her. “Anyhow, who wants a man, when they can have a dear sweet precious pussycat? Isn't that right, my pretty darling?” She sees me smile at both her own soppiness and that of her purring Siamese. “So what went wrong?” she asks quietly, after a pause.

I sigh. “Jane, it's the usual story. Some very clichéd holiday romance. I'd fooled myself that it was more.”

“
More
? My perfect dream: one holiday romance per year. From which you'd run like mad the moment it threatened to get serious.”

“Well, anyway—as I think I told you last time—I realized from the start he was engaged. So by disappointing me, at least he hasn't disappointed the girl who had the prior claim. You have to give him that.”

“No, not at all! I have to give him nothing. You mustn't be a nauseating saint.”

“Oh, I didn't say I don't resent her. And I resent the fact it was Matt's brother whom she loved; I mean if she loved anyone. Her transfer to Matt seemed wholly a matter of convenience. That's what really gets me. I promise you I'm not a saint.”

“Still, love, it isn't only her, is it? It's—”

“Anyway, we'll leave it there, shall we? I swear to you I'm over him.”

Her look is plainly sceptical but at any rate she doesn't challenge me. “You may not believe this,” she says, “yet in the end you'll find it's better to be self-reliant.”

A little to her surprise I acquiesce. “Yes. Looking back I hate the way that everything depended so entirely on the smile or frown of just one person.” (And I even tell myself that I
shall
come to believe it, in time—for I can certainly sympathize with such a point of view.)

“Let's drink a toast, then.” She considers. “Confusion to the fellow! He had no right to make you look so peaky.”

I also raise my glass. “And may he think about me now and then and know an instant of regret! The occasional, unexpected pang!”

But Jane gives a gasp of annoyance.

“Sweet Lord. Let me interpret. What was his second name?”

“Cassidy.”

She lifts her glass again; pauses, to indicate that here is the really serious toast, the truly definitive version.

“Sod Matthew Cassidy!” she says.

20

That's all very well, but as I stand looking from the window of my room, I think: Sod you? No, not quite. And is it really true I'm over you?

But all the same. I'm certainly not going to mourn you, not any longer. We'll make out, Thomas and I. And in a way it'll be a comfort just to know that somewhere over there you're still around, it isn't quite as though you're dead. (One day, even, when he's old enough, Thomas may begin to feel curious, curious enough to want to come in search, and then the two of you could possibly become close…well, anyway, let's hope!) But I only wish I had a photograph. I'm so afraid I'll start to forget what you look like. And a faceless blur, I feel, wouldn't be of great comfort.

Oh, what the hell…who needs comfort? We'll be okay. We'll be okay, won't we, Tom? The human race hasn't survived this long by whining and feeling sorry for itself. Agreed, my love?

I often talk to him like this. I don't mean to Matt, I mean to the baby inside me: the baby who sometimes kicks quite hard now and who is very much a presence; at five months I have grown large—gratifyingly so. I'm aware that perhaps it's not too different to Jane and her Siamese but already I see him as a confidant, a boon companion.

The following Sunday, for instance, I'm on Hampstead Heath, sitting on a bench watching a young woman go by with a pram. An older woman who is almost certainly her mum is walking alongside. I fold my hands complacently across my stomach.

“This time next year, my darling, that could be us: you and me and your gran. Your gran is going to be so proud. She's already knitted you some blankets. So from the start, my lad, only the very best. And definitely no stigma. People will say, ‘There goes that smashing boy Tom Cassidy, pity he never knew his dad—who died in the Pacific.'” (At work I've now told my colleagues it was because I couldn't bear to talk about Matt's death that I'd gone back to using my maiden name. Luckily, even during my earliest days at the store—and despite the poetic licence of my letters—I had continuously hugged him to myself and done whatever I could to hide my exuberance. These days, I wear my wedding ring and let them call me Cassidy. But obviously—as soon as I judge our son sufficiently grownup to know about such things—I'll search for the gentlest and wisest possible means of telling him.) “It's a shame, Tom, but it isn't the end of the world. Especially not when you remember this. A boy's best friend is always his mother.”

The two women with the pram pass my bench on their way back. The older woman smiles at me.

“Just like a girl's is.”

A girl's best friend is her mother.

When I was a child, the churchyard in Chesham was always one of my favourite haunts. Not only was it pretty—and peaceful—and private; I liked the old man who tended the graves, and the flowers that people left on them, and above all the names and the dates and the inscriptions. It was a place where I used to read my Violet Needhams and my Daphne du Mauriers, find sunshine and security, set off on wild adventures—from the age of eight, say, until the time my father died (when, following his funeral, I never wanted to return, not even, as so often happens on the screen, to linger at his graveside and talk to him of day-to-day events or matters of the heart). But now, on this cold and grey November afternoon, scarcely thirteen years later, it isn't my father who is chiefly in my thoughts—although he is certainly there and at one point I remember him, on the evenings when I met him from the train, hurrying forward with his warm and eager smile, dropping his briefcase on the platform and lifting me high and then tossing me yet higher. When we got home, his greeting to his wife was invariably more sedate but just as loving. “Hello, my Sylvia…” I can still catch that precise inflection. “Hello, my Duncan,” she would say.