‘Let’s see.’ There were two ways to go, and Hugh chose safety. ‘Good grief, it’s that chancer. Your famous admirer.’
‘Yes, but read what he says.’
Hugh dutifully turned the card over and re-read the message before handing it back. ‘He’s right, I can’t blame him for trying.’
‘He was quite persistent.’ Marguerite held the card in two hands, looking down at the picture. She glanced up. ‘I don’t think I mentioned that.’
‘Handsome bastard.’ Hugh heeled off his shoes and began unbuttoning his shirt. ‘Not used to being given the bum’s rush.’
‘No!’ Marguerite gave a short, bright laugh and put the card back in the envelope. ‘Oh well …’
‘Don’t throw it away,’ said Hugh, when it became clear she wasn’t going to. ‘It’s a useful reminder of what a glamorous wife I have.’
She dropped the envelope on the floor and lay on her side on the bed, watching him.
‘Come over here and say that again.’
Later that night, Marguerite woke up in the small hours. She wasn’t sure why – perhaps Honor had made some sound that had disturbed her subconscious and sent one of those reflexive maternal messages to her brain. Swinging her legs out of bed, her feet landed on the envelope still lying on the carpet where she’d dropped it. She picked it up and without allowing herself a second thought, tore it in two and dropped it in the wastepaper basket.
Honor was asleep, and so were the others. She came back to bed and hitched over so her length was measured against Hugh’s, her long thighs resting on the back of his, her face pressed into his shoulder. Still spark out, he gave a little grunt of contentment.
Heart’s Ease was at peace.
Though a large family hadn’t been part of the Blyths’ plan they discovered with a kind of baffled pleasure that parenthood suited them. They were naturally liberal parents with a loose, non-prescriptive approach – the term ‘parenting’, as if bringing up children were a job, was not yet in the lexicon, and definitely not what they did. It was a question of expectation – they had none, beyond the certainty that they would love their offspring. They accepted that with this would come inevitably a degree of make-do and muddle-through, a good deal of mess and untidiness, much of it emotional, and a sprinkling of non-fatal fallings-out. They never anticipated plain sailing, and that was just as well.
Just as well, too, that the house had been named Heart’s Ease before they took it over. Everyone agreed that to call a house that would be to tempt fate. On the other hand they weren’t going to change the name – Marguerite was sentimental and a touch superstitious, and Hugh reckoned it would cause confusion with the mail. So they left it as it was, in the hope that the name would prove to be not a designation but an incentive.
And so it had proved, by and large. The only aspect of family life which came as a surprise to Marguerite was how different all her children were. Not only were they unlike either parent, they were so unlike each other! If there was a common thread, some evidence of shared DNA, she was blowed if she could see it. Fliss so astonishingly lovely, and so driven, where did that come from? … Charity so cool and clever … Honor, who always put others before herself … And then Bruno, who’d burst untimely into the world and kept them guessing ever since. It was all too easy to see him, as the baby and the only boy, as exceptional. Without making excuses for some of the worst of his excesses – the incident at Brushwood being an egregious example – she felt him to be troubled. But to mention this, especially in front of his two older sisters, was to be found guilty of special pleading. What, they might well ask, did Bruno have to be troubled about?
She was very glad that they would be seeing him at Christmas, for his own sake and because his presence would provide a necessary texture, a flavour of imperfect home, to the extreme glossiness of the TS seasonal celebrations. Also, she wanted to see where he lived now, a topic on which he’d been dismissive to the point of secrecy.
‘I don’t think we should insist on seeing it,’ said Hugh.
‘I shan’t insist, but I shall show reasonable maternal interest.’
‘That might be interpreted as insistence.’
‘I’m not that delicate a flower!’ Marguerite shook her head at him. ‘I know what these places are like.’
Hugh made no comment.
She thought of that night, the night of Bruno’s birth. She remembered the birth of all her children very distinctly, the particularity of each labour, the individuality of each baby – but Bruno was the only one to have been born at home.
She easily re-lived the walk back to Heart’s Ease, stumbling along at Hugh’s side, her legs cold and damp, the sense of the baby hanging perilously low, no longer suspended in its protective sack of fluid, the head engaged and beginning to grind down. Every so often Hugh would put out his hand to steady her, but he didn’t overdo it, he knew her too well for that. In labour, Marguerite became ferociously independent, it was her and Mother Nature locked in this painful but productive struggle and they needed to be left well alone to get on with it.
At home she had been hit by the first contraction halfway up the stairs, so she had to clutch the banister, breathing heavily, till the moment passed. Down in the hall Hugh called the hospital but by the time he’d got through to the ward she was having another, and being an experienced hand he’d told them it wouldn’t be long and put the phone down. Mavis had been wildly excited, running up and down with her tail going round and round like a propellor, desperate to be part of the action.
Once Marguerite reached the bedroom she did allow Hugh to help her get her skirt and tights off, because bending down at this stage was almost impossible. The curtains weren’t drawn and they could see and hear the sprays and arcs of distant fireworks at the beacon and over the bay. Neither of them made the obvious joke, they were all business.
‘I’m assured someone will be here soon,’ said Hugh, pulling back the duvet, ‘though something tells me they’ll miss the main event.’
‘Something’s bloody right!’
He turned off the overhead light and switched on the lamp on the dressing table.
‘Would you like some water?’
‘Don’t care …’
He left the room as another contraction hit, the fourth in, what, a couple of minutes. She heard him in the bathroom, running the tap till it was cold, filling a glass, coming back over the landing—
‘Fuck a duck!’ Marguerite never swore except when she was in labour, and there was always something comical about it, as if a generally hidden Mrs Hyde were bursting forth.
Hugh waited, before proffering the glass. ‘Here, have a gulp.’
She grabbed it and chugged down half the water. She was still sitting on the edge of the bed but she’d reached the stage where her whole body seemed to have gone into one continuous spasm. Grimacing and cussing she’d lurched and hauled herself up and on to the mattress. Hugh propped all four pillows behind her and spread out the towel he’d brought from the bathroom.
‘Aaaah! Hell’s bells! Fuck, fuck!’
‘You’re doing well. I can see something.’
‘Bully for you!’
‘Never thought I’d actually have to do this.’ His voice was pleasantly conversational as he peered, but he was more nervous than he showed and Marguerite knew it.
‘You’re not doing it now! It’s me that’s got to fucking do it!’
And then something happened. Or at least, didn’t happen. Because everything stopped.
The baby’s dark, greasy head was already crowning, Marguerite’s body was stretched and expanded to its maximum, like a pulled-back catapult. But for a full minute the pain ebbed … the fireworks ceased … even the dog downstairs had gone quiet. There was a stillness in the room that was almost palpable, cushioning all three of them in an extended moment of stasis.
Marguerite was vaguely aware that she should have been afraid, should have been asking, frantically, What’s going on? Is everyt
hing alright? Is the baby OK? But none of those questions occurred to her, because somehow she knew it was the baby who was casting this spell. The healthy, conscious baby – who had rushed, exploded its watery sack, beaten on the door, demanded to start life NOW – had suddenly paused, unsure of what lay ahead, taking a deep, thoughtful breath before making its final entrance. And she had no choice but to allow it that breathing space. It was almost as if the baby, not enamoured by what it saw, might sink back and withdraw completely. She’d read of animals who reabsorbed their young in times of stress, could that be about to happen now …? But she was not stressed. After the powerfully surging pain of the last twenty minutes she was still, and quiet.
Hugh looked up to his wife’s face, then back to that sliver of dark head that he fancied he could almost see breathing.
Now Marguerite said, ‘What’s going on?’ but in a very different voice, soft and curious.
‘He’s thinking about it,’ replied Hugh. He’d said ‘he’ and they both knew that’s who it was.
They heard the girls’ voices out on the church path, the click of the garden gate. And then the baby made his entrance on a crescendo of effortful pain and glorious relief. Seconds later he was wrapped in his shawl and in his mother’s arms. No beady sagacious stare such as she remembered from her newborn daughters, his eyes were closed and his head slightly averted.
Hugh kissed his son’s brow briefly, and the top of his wife’s head, lingeringly.
‘The troops are back. I’ll go and deliver the glad tidings.’
She gazed down. The room was very quiet. ‘No crying he made’ went the carol, but that referred to someone who was goodness made flesh. In her son’s case his silence could have meant … well, anything.
Because of the general assumption that Bruno was indulged, Marguerite when she looked back feared she had been guilty of benign neglect. Their whole largely successful approach to child rearing had been characterized by a certain laissez-faire – all would be well if the basics were in place – but maybe Bruno had needed closer attention. Either she or Hugh really should have gone to the school that time … There had been reasons, and Charity had managed perfectly well (in fact had been well suited to the task) but it was their place to go. It was pretty bad, what Bruno had done, they should have been a great deal more focused, more on the case.
She was winding herself up, as she always did at this time of year. She loved Christmas and New Year but they were a barometer of change, this one especially. And always, relentlessly, it was getting later, and harder, to put things right.
She had a bit of a weep and immediately chastised herself for being a silly, sentimental cow. No point in wringing her hands, the children were adults now and she and Hugh must put their best foot forward and not turn into neurotic old fusspots.
Sixteen
The TS’s party was important to Felicity, and not just because she loved the house to be beautiful and filled with beautiful people. She was a gifted hostess, entertaining was her stage – the milieu in which she was most comfortable and could shine effortlessly.
The party was also important because it marked the seasonal shift from social and work preoccupations to family. It took the form of an extended ‘drinks’ from six to nine so the children were allowed to stay up – Ellie would be there to keep an eye and would scoop up Cissy halfway through and take her to bed. Noah and Rollo helped with coats and passing round (a trio of fourteen-year-old St Paul’s girls, the daughters of friends, were front of house and the boys were surprisingly amenable to their instructions).
After the party, there was the endless list with all the bread-and-butter tasks of the season. But that was a while yet. First was the hospice carol concert. The choral group were going to sing their seasonal medley, finishing with ‘Jesus Christ the Apple Tree’. She hadn’t known the piece before, but she had fallen in love with both the beautiful Elizabeth Poston melody and the much older words, possibly American. There were lines that touched some chord in her so deeply she could barely sing them:
For happiness I long have sought
And pleasure dearly I have bought
She didn’t know why they got to her so much. After all, she had always been happy, hadn’t she? And could scarcely have been said to have paid dearly for her pleasures – Robin might have done, but he could well afford it, and dear man that he was he always said that it was his pleasure to provide hers.
But there was something about the simplicity of those lines that created a wincing pain in her heart. The pleasure referred to was worldly, unworthy, and the happiness elusive. It was a chimera, if you went after it you were going to be disappointed. Felicity wasn’t disappointed, not that she knew of. She knew how fortunate she was. But increasingly she recognized that something wasn’t quite right.
There was a last rehearsal scheduled for the afternoon. The six of them met in the Gerald Hayworth Suite, named after the hospice’s founder. The suite was used for training workshops and the like so the acoustic wasn’t brilliant, but it was quiet and well away from the wards. As Felicity came through the reception area she saw someone she recognized. David Thorpe’s son, a shy, studious-looking man of about her age with none of his father’s chutzpah.
‘Chris? It is Chris, isn’t it, Chris Thorpe? Hello.’
His stare was distant, baffled. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t …?’
‘No reason why you should. Felicity.’
‘Ah.’
‘Just leaving?’ She hadn’t been to the ward today and they were trained not to ask relatives how a patient was.
‘Yes. Not good news, I’m afraid. Dad died this morning.’
She rode out the inner bump of shock that always, still, accompanied news of a death. ‘I’m so very sorry to hear that, Chris.’ She didn’t reach out – that wasn’t her style or, she sensed, his. ‘He was such a lovely man.’
‘I suppose so …’
His brow was furrowed with the effort of trying to see his father as others saw him.
Trying to help, she added, ‘He really was someone who put on a brave face – until very recently he could make us helpers laugh, even when he was so ill. A real charmer.’
Chris, hands in pockets, looked down at his shoes, then up, looking very directly at Felicity as though a decision had been made.
‘Plenty of people thought so, certainly.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Many women.’
She didn’t reply – what could she have said? She had been passed something – if not the black spot then at least some unwelcome information. She’d never believed you couldn’t speak ill of the dead – death didn’t confer sainthood – but they were in a hospice after all. For all she knew, Dave’s body was still lying tranquilly in the departure room, awaiting removal to the funeral director.
‘Anyway, there’s a lot to do,’ said Thorpe, moving away. ‘I’m going to see my mother, who will be extremely upset.’
‘Of course,’ murmured Felicity. He strode away, pushing the glass door open with his shoulder. So there was ill-feeling. David Thorpe’s offspring may have loved their father, but they hadn’t forgiven him.
Dorothy on reception, who had been very busy till that moment, glanced up.
‘Oh dear. Sounds as if there’s a lot still unresolved there.’
‘Yes.’
‘Families are so complicated, aren’t they?’
Felicity considered this as she headed towards the Hayworth Suite.
Yes, they were.
Honor hadn’t planned to invite anyone else on Christmas Day. It was just going to be her and Mr Dawson, cosy and relaxed. But something about the rhythm of the conversation, the scarlet grin of the electric fire and the winking coloured lights on the all-in-one tree, meant that the question just slipped out naturally.
‘Avis, would you like to come for Christmas lunch?’
‘Is that an invitation?’
‘Yes it is.’
‘I don’t get so many of those
as I used to. Lovely! Rather! I can wear my leopard tippet!’
No beating about the bush. Deal! Done and dusted in three seconds. Honor was a touch taken aback. Was this an awful mistake? Would poor Mr Dawson think she was trying to set him up with animal-print Avis? What if they hated each other on sight, which was not beyond the realms of possibility? They were chalk and cheese, Avis with her brassy bonhomie and Mr Dawson with his gentlemanly reticence. She owed it to him to tell him someone else would be coming, but that it was important not to make the festive occasion sound like nothing more than an extension of her job. Next day she broached the subject, choosing her words carefully.
‘We’ve known each other for quite a while, she’s great fun.’
‘I shall look forward to meeting her.’ Honor detected a hint of apprehension. Perhaps ‘fun’ had been the wrong word.
‘And she’s such an easy person. It will all be very relaxed.’
She hoped it would be. She had never ‘done’ Christmas before and just hoped she’d be able to manage the lifts, the mise en scene, the cooking, not to mention the general required jollity which her parents had always generated with such apparent ease.
From the moment she’d been invited, Avis had never failed to mention the occasion with lively enthusiasm. Mr Dawson on the other hand went quiet on the subject. Honor could have kicked herself. Avis, astute as ever, cocked her head, fixed Honor with her sagacious birdlike eye and said, ‘Don’t worry, pet, I’ll be good as gold. I promise not to frighten the horses.’ She’d never heard the expression, but she got the gist.
Not wanting her guests to feel obligated, she’d suggested that the three of them not bother with presents.
‘Too late, I’m afraid,’ said Mr Dawson. ‘I already have a little something for my hostess, and shall bring it along on the day.’
Avis’s objection was predictably more extravagant.
‘No presents? You’re joking! If you’re going to give us a lovely Christmas dinner the least I can do is show a little appreciation!’
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