Heart's Ease

by Sarah Harrison

  Charity had to remind herself that she was lunching with a man almost old enough to be her grandfather, let alone her father. And yet surprisingly, this was not an issue. It was a long time since she had sat opposite anyone, male or female, with such presence. There was a certainty in his manner and an impressive solidity to his frame. And she still found him alarmingly sexy.

  After Bruno’s rustication she had seen him only once more, when she’d been to collect her brother at the end of term. He had spotted her, sought her out in the melee of parents and leave-taking, as she’d hoped he would. There had been an exchange which had been on the face of it formal, wishing Bruno well and so on, but she had known. She had felt his interest, echoing hers.

  His invitation hadn’t beat about the bush. Not an email, or even a call, but a handwritten postcard:

  I wondered if you were going to be in London in the foreseeable future. I greatly enjoyed meeting you again and would like to renew the acquaintance under more propitious circumstances.

  Alastair Macfarlane.

  He had added his phone number. The card was a photograph of Brushwood, looking attractively sylvan in the days before it had been a school – the address was printed along the top. For some reason she had chosen to do things his way and reply in kind, on one of her business postcards.

  Good idea, I’d like that. I’ll be in town doing a couple of days’ research first week in September. My time will be my own, so can be flexible re time and place.

  At this point he’d rung, but missed her and left a message with time and venue, short and to the point. No need to ring if this all suits you.

  And here they were.

  When they came out of the restaurant Mac wanted to be sure they could separate. He didn’t want to be going the same way as her, to have to walk side by side on the crowded pavement, cross roads, make all those small on-the-hoof decisions that had to be made by a pedestrian in London.

  ‘Which way are you going?’ he asked.

  She pointed over her shoulder, in the direction of the West End and Marble Arch.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘so I’ll say au revoir.’

  They shook hands. ‘I’ve enjoyed this a lot,’ said Charity. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My absolute pleasure.’

  ‘Perhaps I could return the favour some time?’

  ‘Indeed. At any rate, let’s stay in touch.’

  They set off in their respective directions – Mac’s entirely notional, he simply wanted time to think – and each resisted the urge to glance back at the other. Fortunately the bookshop presented a perfect escape route and he marched in. Neither staff nor customers could have guessed, from this elderly gentleman’s craggy, frowning exterior, the fizzing emotional tumult within.

  Bruno returned to Hampstead out of sorts. The meeting with Camilla had not been a success, her desirability of the previous night’s party faded in the light of day and her toffish self-possession stopped him from gaining any purchase socially, let alone physically. Jesus H, she actually wanted to shop! He’d felt like some old married fart out of a TV sitcom following her around that shitty market. He’d known at once that it was so not going to happen.

  And tomorrow, Sunday, was the day set down for his removal to Sean’s place in Kilburn, an event about which he had mixed feelings, followed as it was by the start of term. He had settled in surprisingly well at Fliss’s. The living conditions were let’s face it pretty luxurious, and as long as he kept his head down no one was on his case. He’d come to acknowledge what he’d always suspected, that his eldest sister didn’t care about anyone much except herself. Robin was a top bloke, and the kids were actually OK, but she just wanted to swan around being thought wonderful by everyone in all those charities she spent her time on. He could imagine the dreaded Camilla turning out like that, she was the same type.

  He thought wistfully of Annelind, the rustle of her overall over yielding curves, the soft dark down on her upper lip, her heavy-lidded eyes, the mint on her breath … He had been overwhelmed by lust, and she’d have swallowed him up if he had lasted that long. The encounter had been brief, messy and inconclusive. There’d been no thought involved on his part. And when he was able to reflect, he never for a second imagined the whole thing would blow up in his face. But he’d been an idiot to mention the incident, that sort of thing went round like wildfire at school, and when questioned Annelind had spun it her way. And of course he just had to act cocky, calling it ‘a successful pass’ as if he’d had any say in the matter.

  What a dickhead! At least only his mother had seen him cry.

  The whole experience had left him with a determination never again to be out of control. Getting carried away was a mug’s game.

  Mac bought the latest, much-lauded translation of Beowulf. He didn’t go anywhere else, but returned to the station and sat happily on the train, the book open in his hand, not reading but dreaming.

  Charity settled down at her usual table in the reading room of the British Library, a place she found always particularly conducive to work, but not today. After a fruitless hour she packed up her things again and left for the UC hall where she was staying. She considered ringing Fliss, to see if she was at home for a visit, but decided against it. Today must stay a secret for now.

  Eleven

  Bruno didn’t invite his brother-in-law in. Robin thought he understood why. The disconnect between worlds was notoriously tricky and this, by the look of it, was a veritable chasm. He watched with some trepidation as Bruno hauled his massive rucksack from the back seat of the Audi TT (at one point Robin had to stifle a yelp of sympathy for the leather upholstery) and leaned in briefly.

  ‘Cheers mate, thanks for everything.’

  ‘Pleasure. You know where we are. Don’t be a stranger.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  The door swung shut with a mighty clunk and Robin started the engine at once. But as soon as he’d crept forward on to the vacant double yellow just ahead (thereby giving the impression of departure) he paused and looked back in time to see the front door close behind Bruno.

  This was a god-awful street. His own student days in Leeds had been relatively privileged, his father having invested in a small house where three of them lived pretty comfortably. These were down-at-heel houses in a rundown neighbourhood, dirty and unloved. The terrace visibly sagged in some places as if the subsiding houses were only being held up by their neighbours. Bins overflowed, walls crumbled, guttering dangled, outside paintwork was leprous and flaking, roofs were gappy with missing tiles. The pavement was littered with fast-food containers, cans and plastic bottles and bags. One of the lampposts had a kink where some careless or drunken driver had ricocheted off it. The street was stranded – at one end was a small and rather dismal industrial estate, at the other a stretch of urban freeway. Nearly all the houses were multiple occupancy, Robin could see the bell console by each door and the drift of sodden junk mail on the step that no one could be bothered to discard.

  He felt genuinely sorry to be leaving Bruno here. Was he really this desperate? Speaking for himself he’d quite liked having the lad around. Fliss seemed to regard him with suspicion, but Robin had seen no evidence to support this view. Bruno had been an easy guest, played with the kids, got on with Ellie and not been unduly messy. If it had been left up to Robin he might even have suggested a more long-term arrangement, but he knew better than to mention this to Fliss.

  As he pulled away, Robin was aware of the familiar black-bat thoughts closing in and flitting around. A casual observer would never have suspected him of such thoughts. He kept up appearances. It would anyway have been at best disloyal, at worst wicked to confess to anyone that he found it hard to understand his wife.

  He wanted to, and there had certainly been a time when he had – or at least been so romantically, blindly in love that it hadn’t mattered. But over the ten years of their marriage, nothing had changed. His love for her was still there, but it was under strain. Small, marginal res
ervations had turned into solid doubts. For one thing, he was far from sure whether she loved him. He knew he’d been the chosen one, the man who had come up to scratch. To begin with he’d found that amusing. And he had fallen for her family, especially her parents who had welcomed him so warmly and of whom he was immensely fond. The whole set up down at Heart’s Ease (the name, for goodness sake!) was beguiling, and he had bought into it. He didn’t think of himself as naive, but in this instance he had been. He had been reckless in not stopping to consider what was actually between him and Fliss. A one-sided partnership was no partnership.

  He filtered on to the dual carriageway and cruised in the slow lane. The advantage of a car like the TT was that one had nothing to prove.

  The truth was that Fliss’s energies, both physical and emotional, were directed elsewhere. She ran a tight ship, the fact was often commented upon, but her husband and family came second. With all her altruism and good works – she was undoubtedly (and probably consciously) sailing towards an OBE in ten years’ time – the rest of them were sidelined. Not neglected in any physical sense, but when he saw how some other families were he had to acknowledge something was missing. They were managed, administered, their every need attended to except a certain base level of availability and attention. Fortunately the children didn’t seem to notice this. They took for granted that they would be ferried about by Ellie on weekdays and there was nothing unusual in that, most of their peers had nannies or mother’s helps. Most mothers worked now, it was the nature of Fliss’s preoccupation which made it peculiarly ironic. She didn’t need or want paid employment, but she sought, indefatigably, the validation of her good causes. He used to be proud of her, now he was beginning to think the set-up rather strange. And this feeling extended to their sex life. She rarely said no, and she was always … co-operative, he’d put it no higher than that. Sometimes he felt that their moments together were just another of her boxes to be ticked.

  He turned off at the slip road and stopped as the light before the roundabout turned red. Next to him was a Volvo with a young woman at the wheel, and a baby and a toddler in the back. The woman was undoing a wrapped biscuit with one hand and her teeth, against the clock. As the light went amber she passed the biscuit over her shoulder to the toddler with seconds to spare, catching Robin’s eye as she did so. Slightly embarrassed she pulled a comical smile as if asking, What can you do? He smiled back. There was something engaging in her harrassed, hard-pressed competence.

  ‘So how was he?’ asked Fliss, stirring at the stove. Cissy sat at the island with play dough. Ellie was in the utility room, loading washing. ‘Did it look alright?’

  ‘Honestly? It looked horrible. Not that I went inside.’

  ‘Horrible enough to warn the parents?’

  ‘Good lord no, he’s young, he’ll be alright.’

  That was it, there would be no further interrogation. Robin wasn’t sure if he was glad or disappointed. He would have liked to express some anxiety without it being pounced on or dismissed. Considering this was Felicity’s young brother they were talking about, she was oddly uncurious. The sound of a computer game buzzed and blipped from the other room.

  He took a beer from the fridge and sat down by Cissy, commandeering a lump of dough and rolling it into a snake.

  He said, ‘I imagine Hugh and Marguerite will want to come up and see him some time anyway. Then they can see for themselves.’

  ‘They might.’ Felicity took off her apron. ‘Or they might just think that squalor goes with the territory.’

  Cissy rolled and rolled a ball of dough. ‘Where’s Bruno?’

  ‘He’s gone to live somewhere else,’ said Robin.

  ‘Will he come back?’

  ‘No,’ said Felicity firmly. ‘He’s got his own place now.’

  ‘I want to see him.’

  ‘He’ll come and visit us, don’t you worry,’ said Robin.

  ‘Why don’t you go and tell the boys that lunch is ready?’

  Ellie breezed through. ‘I’ll tell them – I’m off now if that’s OK.’

  ‘Thanks Ellie.’ Robin smiled at her departing backview. Something went missing when Ellie wasn’t around.

  The family sat round the kitchen table for Felicity’s Greek lamb stew. It contained olives which Cissy and Rollo laboriously removed. The plan for that Sunday afternoon was their default one for the rare occasions when nothing was planned. Robin would take the children for a long walk over the heath while Felicity did ‘admin’. This was not, as it might have been with a different sort of parent, code for putting her feet up with a book, or the television. She would be at her desk, laptop open, sending emails about fundraising events, organising agendas and actions, researching venues and contacting potential helpers. When it came to her charity work her energy and eye for detail (not to mention her barefaced cheek, Robin considered) knew no bounds. She didn’t mind being thought cheeky, in fact she took pride in it, and in the fact she had enough charm and clout to be effective.

  Robin put Cissy in the pushchair – she was old enough to walk a reasonable distance, but if the boys were to be kept amused for two or three hours, the buggy was a necessity – and set off down the hill towards the bathing ponds and the path through to the heath. On the path that skirted Parliament Hill he spotted friends, the Lachelles, also taking a constitutional mob-handed. They were going in the same direction but currently paused by a bench as Lilian struggled with the toddler’s welly. Their eight-year-old daughter Sasha clambered on to a nearby bench and jumped off. Anton, in a cap, scarf and norfolk jacket only a Parisian could get away with, stood in attendance with his usual dégagé air. The family’s springer spaniel orbited round the group, tail waving joyously, and it was the dog the boys spotted first.

  ‘There’s Hector! Hector, hey Hector …!’ And they were off.

  ‘I want to go!’ Cissy strained at her straps. Pleased to see the Lachelles Robin released her and followed his children.

  Anton relinquished cool for a broad smile.

  ‘Rob, my dear old fellow, how nice!’

  They exchanged a handshake and a shoulder-clasp. Lilian touched her cheek to both of his. ‘Hi darling. Exercising the troops?’

  ‘Absolutely. Would you by any chance be going our way?’

  ‘Well, we were somewhat unadventurously heading for the swings and slides.’

  ‘Suits me.’

  Normally Noah would have balked at the playground – too many little kids – but now they were hooked up with the Lachelles it was different. He’d be able to pull rank – swing higher, spin faster, show off on the zip wire – so everyone was happy. The baby Joel, welly replaced, had dropped off in his buggy.

  ‘What have you done with Felicity?’ asked Lilian. ‘Time off for good behaviour?’

  They knew, and he knew they knew, that ‘time off’ didn’t compute where Fliss was concerned, but they were dear souls who were fond of them both, and playing along.

  ‘She’s taking the opportunity to catch up on a few things.’

  Lilian peered round at her husband. ‘Hear that my little cabbage?’

  ‘You can catch up on as many things as you wish,’ said Anton. ‘Be my guest. Why not start with that pesky curtain rail?’

  ‘See what I have to put up with?’ said Lilian comfortably. She tucked her arm through Robin’s. Her physique was the opposite of Felicity’s. He adored his wife’s figure – tall, slender and long-limbed was his preferred shape in a woman – but right now there was something comforting in the feel of Lilian’s solid, sweater-clad curves against him, warmly companionable and easy.

  They proceeded slowly at the pace of the two smallest children who were diverted and delayed by everything from the first conkers to stray sweet papers. Sasha and Rollo jogged ahead and had to be reminded not to go too far. Noah looked after Hector, throwing his ball and making him sit, stay and come. Robin knew he would have loved a dog, but it was hard to imagine one in their house. Marguerite and Hugh still h
ad a dog at Heart’s Ease, a whiskery rescue mutt who took liberties and got away with it. Fliss took a dim view.

  ‘They went ages without one, I can’t think what possessed them to get one at this stage.’

  Robin had shrugged. ‘They’re just used to having a dog.’

  ‘What’s wrong with a cat? Much cleaner, they can be more easily left, and they don’t need walking. In fact a cat isn’t needy at all.’

  Just as well, thought Robin, that he and the children had learned to be cats.

  Cissy had to go back in her buggy for the last quarter of a mile, or they’d never have reached the playground. When they got there Lilian sat on the bench with Hector on his lead while Robin and Anton supervised the little ones and the other three charged about with Noah telling them what to do and how to do it. There were plenty of people there on a Sunday afternoon, but the atmosphere was restful. This was a nice part of town. Robin felt soothed. Everything was alright, and would be. He was a fortunate man, they were a fortunate family. At this distance he thought fondly of Fliss sitting at her laptop, her hair in its casual Sunday topknot, doing her good works. Good God, what did he have to complain about, he was married to the most beautiful woman anyone knew, and who was actually making a difference.

  After an hour or so, Lilian asked whether he and the children would like to come back for tea.

  ‘I want to show off – believe it or not I actually have a homemade cake in the tin.’

  Anton confirmed that this was so. ‘And I’ve tried it.’

  The Lachelles’ house was only a few hundred yards from the TS’s, but this being London and a different postcode the area was pleasantly bourgeois rather than smart. Here there was no landscaping, no security gates, and no view to speak of. The house was one of those once-Pooterish Victorian semis which had come up in the world, no longer pretentious but welcoming and comfortable. Lilian worked as a producer for a London radio station specialising in local news and indy music, Anton ran the food and wine department of a high-end supermarket – that was how he’d met Robin. They weren’t rich, but hard-working and reasonably prosperous. The front garden had been converted to parking, the back was a long narrow space with tussocky grass, a couple of apple trees at the end, a slightly skew-whiff Wendy house (homemade by Anton) and a scattering of children’s toys. Near the house was a patio, with a wooden table and chairs and groups of tubs and amphora still overflowing with plants.