by Karen Powell
They talked of Alexander.
‘You’ll want him to carry on at university, I presume,’ said James. ‘Angus seems set on that.’ Angus had made no mention of the matter to Venetia. Perhaps he sensed her need to keep a narrow focus—change the sheets; turn the mattress; ask the nurse for this. ‘The finances are better than they were,’ James continued. ‘We’ll manage.’
We. So, there were three of them now. Or did he mean two? She looked across the table at him. It occurred to her that she knew him barely any better now than at their first encounter among the greenery of the McAndrewses’ conservatory. Did he miss female company, she wondered, living up at the farm on his own? He’d never mentioned anyone since Cynthia and that was years ago. Before Cynthia he’d dated a small number of women from his own social set, most relationships petering out after a short while. There had been no animosity in these endings, as far as Venetia could tell—James was never, by all accounts, anything but gentlemanly—only frustration on the part of the other. Lydia Faversham, the one girlfriend who lasted almost a year, once remarked that James was ‘awfully self-contained’ and left it at that.
‘Do you ever hear from Cynthia?’ she said. She hadn’t planned on asking, but found herself curious, aggravated almost, by the mystery of his life. ‘I suppose I never quite understood what went wrong. Though you and she seemed very . . . ’ Venetia gestured with her hands apart.
‘What’s to tell?’ said James. ‘She came, she went. You know as much as me.’ He poured the last of the second bottle into their glasses, glanced towards the drinks cabinet as if already considering a third. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t her fault.’ he said. ‘I’d just got back from Africa if you remember, so perhaps I seemed an exciting prospect, even with my injury.’
‘Did you love her?’
‘I thought so, at the time. You met her, Venetia. You couldn’t help but be charmed by Cynthia if she decided . . . ’ It was astonishing, Venetia thought, how many perfectly sensible men were happy to overlook vacuity if it came in a pretty enough package.
‘It all happened so quickly. The marriage, I mean.’
‘Yes well, I couldn’t risk hanging around. Angus was home on leave.’ Seeing the look on Venetia’s face James said, ‘I am joking, you know.’ He laughed, proving it.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said, attempting archness but unable to keep the ice from her voice. She wanted to get up from the table, to leave him there. She knew it would be a ridiculously dramatic thing to do.
‘Angus has always got everything he wanted.’ James pushed back his chair abruptly, and went to the fireplace. A small fire danced and snapped, keeping the spring chill out of the air. ‘I don’t know how he manages it.’
She thought for a moment. ‘You do understand that he’s dying, don’t you?’
‘I’m not an idiot, Venetia.’
‘The Hall hasn’t always been a blessing,’ she said, unsure if James was becoming angry or maudlin. ‘You know that as well as anyone.’
‘Oh, I never wanted the Hall. Not just the responsibility, all the decisions to be made, but the whole Lord of the Manor game wouldn’t have suited me, having to be everything to all people every time you step outside your front door.’
Was it the heat of the fire or the wine causing the flush to rise on his sallow skin?
‘I ought to go and check on Angus,’ she said.
‘Do you know, he was the most popular boy in the school when we were young?’ said James. He took another bottle of wine from the drinks cabinet, opened it without bothering to look at the label. ‘I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you. Not the best at any one thing in particular, or even academic, but just one of those people . . . I remember that when I got there, I discovered I had this kind of cachet, right from the word go, just because I was his younger brother. But then what happens is that people become disappointed. You start to see it in their eyes. You’re not what they expected you to be.’ His fingers were tapping out some odd rhythm on the mantelpiece, as if trying to place a pattern over the past. ‘So, it didn’t really matter that Angus had been married to you for however many years by the time I met Cynthia. The point was that once she’d come face to face with Angus, she wouldn’t think about me in the same way again. Nobody ever does.’
‘That’s ludicrous, James. As you say, Angus and I were married by then; we had Alexander. I’m sure Cynthia barely noticed Angus. ’
‘I’m not saying that it’s intentional—this casting of spells he does with people. Taking what he wants. Only that I was wary because he already had form.’
He was staring at her so hard that it felt like an assault. Venetia looked down at the tablecloth and for a moment concentrated on the raised pattern of the embroidery.
‘He doesn’t know that about himself, I don’t think.’ She felt a need to explain herself too. ‘We don’t choose who we love.’
‘Oh, I understand that, Venetia.’ He turned away from her and stared down into the fire, the flames pulsing and stretching. ‘But you can see why I might hate him.’
CHAPTER 44
Lennie, September 1955
She ran all the way home and Alexander did not follow her. She vomited as soon as she got through the door, scrabbling on her knees to clean up after herself when it was over. Then she went upstairs and laid down on her bed, with the sour taste of vomit still in her mouth. She cried silently, tears running into her hair, soaking through to the pillow below.
The moon rose outside her window, cold and certain. She stopped crying. In the wake of tears came clarity, a new resolve. A shape was forming inside her body, like a photograph swimming into focus in a dark room, and no amount of rosemary tea or hot baths was going to change that. This was the price to pay for a night when instinct had taken over. It had come from inside of her, animal and urgent, and also from the trees, from the roar of the river. Loneliness too. Danny wanting her so badly. She was not a good girl, had turned out to be quite the opposite. She must face the consequences.
Her father would be devastated and there was no avoiding it. She was supposed to be the easy child, the one he need never worry about. She would tell him everything, not lie to save herself, or push the blame on Danny. She would have to go away soon. Her father would arrange it in some way that would shield her from the worst of the village gossip. He would do this even though she had let him down so terribly, because he loved her. She couldn’t bring herself to think about Tom. She was just thankful that he was in London—at some sort of rally against the new government, though their father said Eden was doing a splendid job.
You’re my girl, Alexander had said. Words meant nothing. Only actions mattered and look where they had got her. She must go as far away from Alexander as possible, even though it felt like it would kill her to leave him, but staying here was worse, if she was no longer his girl, his nymph of the woods, just the daughter of a servant who meant nothing to him, a girl he couldn’t even bring himself to touch.
Tired to the bone. She pulled the covers over her without bothering to undress. Tomorrow was Saturday, in the evening her father would be home. This was the one thing left in the world of which she could be certain. She would go to Helmsley to buy something nice for his dinner and then she would tell him.
CHAPTER 45
Venetia, September 1955
Fairweather came to her at a quarter past seven.
‘I’ve instructed the kitchens to delay dinner, ma’am.’
His voice was full of some meaning she did not yet understand. Venetia sipped on her gin and tonic, which was already taking the edge off the day, and waited.
‘Master Alexander is still in his room,’ said Fairweather.
‘Would you mind running up to him? He must have forgotten our arrangement. Then you really must go home. Lennie will be wondering where you are.’
‘He’s not answering his door, ma’am, I’m afraid. And he�
��s taken it upon himself to lock it.’
‘You’re quite sure he’s in there?’
‘Hattie Merriot says he sent her away after she’d lit a fire for him yesterday and hasn’t come out since. She knows he’s in the room because she’s heard him moving around.’
‘I’m surprised no-one mentioned this to me until now?’
‘That’s exactly what I told Hattie. And nobody needs a fire in this weather. I’ve already spoken to Mrs. Abbot on the subject and you can rest assured that it won’t happen again.’
How delighted he was, standing beside her fireplace, to have uncovered such a transgression amongst his colleagues. How had Angus put up with him for all those years? He had been different once, she remembered, picturing the young man with thick blond hair she’d met when she first came to Richmond Hall. Fairweather had always been conscientious, but this had seemed to spring from an eagerness to please rather than an obsession with rules, correctness. Venetia stopped herself from reaching for the gin bottle again, unable to bear the pantomime of dismay that would follow if she managed to serve herself before Fairweather could step in.
‘Do go home now, Peter.’
‘But what about the dinner arrangements, ma’am?’
‘It really doesn’t matter. It was only a quiet supper. There was no need for you to stay in the . . . ’
‘Good evening, mother!’ Alexander reached for the back of an armchair to steady himself as he entered the room, squinting against the light.
Reluctantly, Fairweather withdrew, one eye on Alexander as he closed the door behind him.
‘Poking his nose into everything.’ Alexander found his way to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a generous whisky. ‘Why don’t you get rid of him?’
‘Your father relied on him.’ Venetia said. ‘I would have thought you might find a way to be civil, given that he’s Lennie’s father.’
Alexander dropped down into an armchair, slumping into its depths with the whisky glass resting on his chest.
‘I’ll have them send up supper,’ she said. ‘You’ve been drinking. You ought to eat something.’
‘I’m not staying.’
‘You’ve been hidden away in your room since yesterday. What about going to see the Markham boys tomorrow? You’ve barely seen them all summer.’
Alexander shook his head. His face was reddened as if he had spent too much time in the sun, or else in front of the fire. The alcohol caused his handsome features to slide towards silliness. ‘What, so they can report back to you?’
‘I don’t see why you’d think I’d want to spy on you,’ she said.
‘Anyway, there’s nothing to know. I just didn’t want to talk to anyone. I don’t see the problem. Helena’s better off without me too. I’ve told her. At least, I will.’
He slumped still deeper into the chair. Venetia felt irritation rising in her. How childish he was, locking himself away and indulging in self-pity. She thought of her brothers, bounding off to war at the first opportunity, of Angus and James too, who had done the same, if more soberly, but with the same unflinching intent.
‘What can you mean, Alexander?’
‘Oh, we get on well enough, I suppose.’ Alexander sat up abruptly, taking holding of himself. ‘I did think of taking her to a play next week in town. Do you think she’d like that?’
‘Perhaps.’ She spoke evenly, sensing that she was being led down a set path. ‘As long her father’s happy for her to go.’
‘Yes, yes, naturally.’ He waved the idea away. ‘It’s Tis Pity She’s a Whore. Do you think she’d get the message?’
‘What on earth is the matter, Alexander?’
‘Well, I don’t love her. At least I don’t think I do. I don’t like women at all.’ He looked at her and then gave a bark of laughter. ‘Oh it’s not that, mother. My inclinations are entirely straightforward, if that’s what you want to call it. Helena’s probably the best of the lot of you—she’s an angel really—but you’re all whores in the end.’
Venetia set down her glass. ‘Just because your father isn’t here to—’ She hesitated, enraged to find that there were tears in her eyes. ‘I won’t tolerate that kind of talk.’ She turned to the Grinling Gibbons carving above the fireplace for a moment, as if in need of something unchanging. She gathered herself, looked back to see that Alexander was trembling. To her great discomfort, he too began to cry, proper crying, shoulders heaving and his mouth in a grimace, unconstrained as a child. As a drunk. ‘—Terrible person,’ she thought he said but his voice was thick with tears, it was hard to understand. She moved across the sitting room with the intention of comforting him, to place a hand upon his shoulder perhaps. He reached out a hand to her as she approached, then, with a sudden and surprising force, he dragged her down beside him and rested his head against her body. She knew she ought to respond, but something in her could not bear to do it. She found herself repelled by this unexpected physicality of her son. She freed herself, collected her glass, and went to the drinks table.
‘What kind of mother are you?’ said Alexander.
‘Alexander, that really is enough now. You’ve been drinking and I’m too tired for puzzles. Go and sleep it off. We’ll talk again tomorrow.’
‘Perhaps we should have invited Uncle James to join us tonight. A little family gathering.’
She had known this moment would come. She might as well face it now. ‘I’m sorry, Alexander . . . ’ She faltered, loath to speak of something so intimate to anyone, let alone to her son. She pushed her chin down into her chest. ’James has always cared me. Before your father even.’
‘So he has some kind of prior claim, you mean?’ Alexander was on his feet now, staggering towards her. He moved quickly, despite his drunken state. Venetia took an involuntary step backwards. She should have waited until he was sober. It was too late now.
‘What I mean,’ she said, ‘is that I have watched too many people die: my parents, my brothers, your father. There is nothing we can do once they are gone except to go on living.’
Alexander at the drinks table, refilling his glass with a slop of rusty-coloured whisky. He lurched towards her, nearly losing the contents of the glass in the process.
’You must find yourself disgusting though, mother. When you look in the mirror, I mean, or go to his graveside. I have bad dreams about him all the time, about all manner of things, but, Christ, they must be nothing compared to yours!’ His face was right up close to hers. She was aware that it must look like a kind of distorted reflection of her own: the angles of cheekbone, the straight brow. She could feel the heat of his breath on her skin, the sharp smell of whisky and the contempt. ‘It seems like you must have hated him in some way. Or maybe it’s just that you’re all whores in the end. You,’ Alexander mummed an awful, simpering tone: ‘little Lennie Fairweather. You might have waited till he was fucking cold in his grave. ’
The door opened with a crash. Peter Fairweather had hold of Alexander’s arm.
‘What the hell are you doing, you stupid fool? Let go of me.’ Alexander turned white in the face. The contents of his glass were now a dark stain across his chest. The shock of Fairweather’s entrance appeared to have sobered him up. ‘You were listening at the door, I suppose,’ he said clearly.
‘Peter, leave us alone, please.’ Venetia tried to come between the two men. ‘I’m perfectly fine.’
Alexander laughed. ‘It’s his daughter he’s worried about, not you.’ His voice wavered and for all his bravado Venetia could see that he was close to tears again. ‘Helena’s the only truly good thing in my life but you want to keep her all for yourself. A lovely thing like that.’ He spun away, tried to extricate himself from Fairweather’s grip. ‘I won’t have people interfering and spoiling everything that’s precious to me.’ Venetia placed a hand on his arm, partly a gesture of comfort, partly one of restraint. Alexander wasn’t f
inished. ‘You should be careful, Fairweather,’ he said, shrugging both of them off. ‘Keeping her all to yourself like that. People will start to get the wrong idea.’
‘Alexander,’ she said.
‘You mustn’t stop me.’ He swung round to face her, pain not anger in his eyes now. ‘Jealousy makes people do terrible things, mother. They can’t help it.’
Fairweather looked as though he was about to lunge at Alexander, but instead a fit of wheezing stopped him.
Venetia went to fetch him some water from the drinks table, hoping that at the same time she could also usher him out of the door. Alexander stood with his arms folded in an apparent show of patience. The wheezing became almost theatrical and then Fairweather doubled over. Dropping to his knees, a constricted noise was the only sound he seemed capable of making.
‘Help him!’ Venetia cried, as Fairweather fell forward.
CHAPTER 46
Venetia, September 1955
The over-lit corridor gave everything an air of heightened reality, like a film set. Trolleys rattled by transporting patients from ward to ward, from ward to theatre and back again, the strip-lights blanking out their differences so that everyone appeared grey-faced and hollow-cheeked, tired amalgams of flesh that might or might not be revived. The last time she had been in this hospital had been for what turned out to be Angus’s final consultation. Venetia had a sudden image of Fairweather lying on the stretcher as they lifted him into the ambulance, skin like old paper. A man whose worries had worn him down.