by Jane Green
“A little,” she lies, as he reaches over and pats her leg reassuringly, briefly turning his head to give her an indulgent smile.
“I might try to come out for the third week,” he says. “Although with work right now it’s terribly difficult. I know you don’t want to go, but your aunt needs you. This is absolutely the right thing to do.”
“I know,” says Audrey, who cannot believe she is being allowed to go back to her country, to America, for almost an entire summer, on her own, with no husband for whom she has to perform.
* * *
Five years ago Audrey left New York, as a nineteen-year-old single girl, to come to Buckinghamshire in England, to work as an au pair. Just a few miles away, in London, everything was swinging, life was being lived at a pace never seen before, none of which was apparent to Audrey, out in the suburbs of Gerrards Cross, minding children while their parents drank G&Ts and hosted dinner parties for neighbors and friends.
Audrey had always delighted in everything English, had grown up losing herself in the books of Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, had wanted nothing more than to find herself a crumbling stately pile and a dashing lord of the manor to go with it.
It wasn’t that she planned to meet the love of her life when she first signed up with the au pair agency, but she couldn’t deny that every night leading up to her departure was filled with elaborate fantasies. She stepped onto that Pan Am flight at JFK, her head positively exploding with hopes and dreams.
The Wilkinsons—Pam, Tony, and their two children, Stephen and Lizzy—were delightful; their large, detached, Edwardian house on Mill Lane equally so, it was all a little quieter than Audrey had expected.
She had a room under the eaves on the top floor, thick white carpet and a record player in the corner of the room, a window that looked out over the trees, a view that made her happy.
The children—Stephen, ten, and Lizzy, eight—were delicious, and her evenings, initially spent curled up in her bedroom reading a book, soon grew busy.
She became friends with another au pair who worked up the road; Anna from Sweden. The two of them would dress up and go into Uxbridge for a night out, or pop into town for a drink at the Packhorse Inn. Which was where, one night, Richard found her.
Despite not being lord of the manor, he was dashing, and charming, and so fantastically handsome in his slim-cut suits and narrow Italian shoes. He swept her off her feet, even without the stately pile.
He treated Audrey like a princess, clearly adoring her, affectionately teasing her about her American accent, which she tried hard to eradicate, managing to soften it to a Mid-Atlantic drawl.
Richard was an estate agent, moving into commercial property as Audrey met him, his charm and good looks bringing him more and more success. He swapped his Triumph TR7 for an E-type Jaguar and swept Audrey up to the West End for glamorous Saturday nights out.
He knew enough people to gain access to all the best places. They rubbed shoulders with everyone from Marianne Faithfull to Prince Philip, from Twiggy to Vidal Sassoon, drinking champagne at Hélène Cordet’s Saddle Room or Tramp, playing roulette at Les A.
She met his friends after these dazzling nights out, for eggs and bacon at the Golden Egg in Oxford Street, wondering if they’d spy one of the Kray brothers, feeling impossibly glamorous, eating breakfast in the early hours of the morning, at the center of the entire world.
London came alive in the sixties, and Audrey came alive on those Saturday nights, guided by Richard, stepping carefully down the iron staircase into Annabel’s, where Louis greeted Richard with a handshake, Audrey with a kiss.
Of course she fell in love with Richard. She had never met anyone like him in New York, where the men could have done with a little of his debonair grace. She had never felt so fully alive as with Richard. Her au pair job stretched to two years, after which she told Richard she had to go home.
He proposed. She said yes. Because their life was in England, because her parents died long ago, her Aunt Judith flew over for their tiny wedding at the town hall. Audrey wore a floaty Biba dress, hot-ironed curls into her long straight hair, and she was happy.
* * *
A few months later, Richard came home one evening, to their small terraced cottage near the railway station, giddy with secrets. He handed her a key, led her to the car, and drove her up the road to a large, beautiful Edwardian house on Mill Lane. It was May and the flowers were blooming, Richard refusing to tell her why they were there, walking her up the garden path, hand in hand, then gesturing for her to use the key to open the door.
“Who lives here?” Audrey had whispered, gazing around in awe.
“We do. Happy anniversary, darling. Welcome to our new home.”
Audrey had been breathless as she walked through the house; huge square rooms, flooded with light from the leaded-glass windows, old paneling on the walls. It was a house that begged to be filled with children, with dogs, with memories.
“Do you like it?” Richard asked finally.
“It’s the most beautiful house I’ve ever been in,” she said, thinking of the small Upper West Side apartment she had grown up in, with its herringbone parquet floors and layer upon layer of old, yellowing chipped paint.
“We’re going to fill it with children.” He pulled her close to him. “This is the house our family is going to grow up in. This is the beginning of the rest of our lives.”
Audrey allowed herself to be held, and raised her chin up to be kissed as she knew she was supposed to. The truth was, it was the most beautiful house she had ever seen, but it didn’t feel like a house she was supposed to live in; it didn’t feel like home.
She loved the railway cottage, loved how snug and cosy it was. This house felt like a mansion; she had no idea how to decorate it, what she was supposed to do.
“We’ll get someone to help you,” said Richard, who found a woman who lived in Denham, who swiftly filled the house with furnishings and accessories that Audrey thought were exquisite, even though they still never felt like hers.
“It will be a wonderful house for our family,” Richard told everyone and anyone who would listen.
“Are you pregnant?” Someone would invariably turn to Audrey, congratulations on the tip of their tongue, slight embarrassment as she shook her head. “Not to worry,” they’d say. “You’ve got plenty of time.”
Three years of marriage, and no sign of a baby. Three years of marriage, and Richard didn’t seem quite so glamorous anymore. The nights in the West End had dwindled, at least for the two of them as a couple. Richard still seemed to have meetings that went on for much of the evening, but when the two of them went out it was usually to the picturehouse to see a film, or a weekend picnic at the pond.
Their friends were having babies all around them, and each month, when it was clear no baby was on the way, Audrey told herself that next month would definitely, certainly, be the month it would happen.
God knows she needed something in her life. Now that the glamor of an English husband had worn off, Richard had revealed himself to be somewhat less charming than he first appeared. He was, in fact, controlling and rather bullying, she thought in her darker moments, wondering if it was just the culture clash, that it was because he was English and English women were, perhaps, more passive. She did not like being told what to wear, what to cook, how to act, but she was getting used to it, was trying so hard to be a good wife, to be the wife he wanted.
He did love her, of that she was certain. Or at least, he loved who he thought she was, who she had turned herself into in order to be the wife she thought he wanted. He told her how beautiful she was, how lucky he was to have her. He showed her off like an exotic trophy, knowing he had won the game of attractive wives.
But wasn’t every marriage like this? Audrey looked around her, searching for validation, searching for hope that she wasn’t alone. And she wasn’t alone. Her newfound friends rolled their eyes about their husbands during their coffee mornings, tittered a
bout their idiosyncrasies.
Audrey used to feel like one of them, until the babies started coming, and she lost her new friends to Babyville, leaving her more alone than ever before.
The letter from Aunt Judith could not have come at a more welcome time. Aunt Judith had always been more like a mother to Audrey, particularly after her own parents died, one after the other, when she was in her early teens. Aunt Judith’s children were older, had moved, one to California, one to Michigan, had families of their own that kept them busy, too busy to look after their mother, leaving Audrey as the sole responsible child.
I miss you, dear child, Aunt Judith had written. I’m thinking of selling the house in Nantucket. It has been a long, hard decision, but with all you children now gone, it seems pointless to have this big old house just for me. Abigail said she’d fly in from Michigan to help me, but of course now her children need her, and Michael’s much too busy to leave his job in California. I know how busy you are, but if you felt in need of some Massachusetts sunshine, I could use the help! I’m planning on going out right before Memorial Day, and I’ll be there, packing up, for the summer. You could come anytime, with Richard or without. Dearest girl, it would be so lovely to see you.
Audrey had handed the letter to Richard over dinner that night, her heart pounding with anticipation as he read it distractedly, then put the paper down.
“Well?” she said. “Should we go?”
“I can’t possibly go,” he said. “I’ve got that huge deal on the car factory, which is likely to keep me tied up all summer.” He looked down and took another bite of his steak Diane.
“Well, should I go?”
“Do you want to go?”
Audrey thought for a few seconds. She wanted to go more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. While her parents were alive, they always visited Aunt Judith for a couple of weeks in the summer, and after they died, Audrey would go for the entire summer. Nantucket was the place she had always felt most at peace, a place she now found herself thinking about, missing, as she went about her life in the pretty green suburbs of England.
She wanted to smell the ocean air and walk along Main Street, stopping for the papers at the Hub. She wanted to have coffee at Cy’s Green Coffee Pot and wander the aisles of the hardware store next door. She wanted to step back to a time in her life when she felt happy, joyous, and free.
“I don’t know,” she lied, nervous that obvious enthusiasm would make him suspicious, nervous he would say no. “I don’t want to leave you, but I feel like I ought to go. It’s going to be a lot of work—she’s a terrible old hoarder—but she doesn’t have anyone else, her kids are disasters, and I owe her so much. I do think it’s the right thing to do.”
“I suppose you should go,” Richard said. “I don’t really want you to, but it won’t be for long, yes?”
“I would think she’ll need me for around a week. Maybe two. The absolute most would be three.”
“Try to make it two,” he said as Audrey nodded, reaching for a glass of wine to quell the butterflies of excitement that jumped inside her stomach as soon as those words left his mouth.
* * *
The excitement never went away. From April 14, when she received her aunt’s letter, to May 31, when she flew out to New York, she found herself either itching with excitement or terrified that something would get in the way, that Richard would change his mind.
He didn’t. He was as loving and distant and busy as he always was. Their relationship was as pleasant as it always was. What did I expect, she sometimes thought, in the middle of the night when she would wake up unable to sleep, worrying about whether she made the right choice, what her future might hold, whether she should be happier. Her parents, she realized, set an example that few could match. They loved each other with a fierce, all-consuming passion, even after years of marriage, even after Audrey came along, to the exclusion of all others, including Audrey. It was no surprise her father was diagnosed with heart disease shortly after her mother died, no surprise he deteriorated so very quickly once she had passed—neither of them wanted to carry on without the other.
The surprise, perhaps, was that her own marriage wasn’t like that of her parents. She knew this, of course, before she got married, that what she and Richard had wasn’t the same, but she thought that kind of devotion might grow, becoming stronger as the years went by. She hadn’t expected this lack of conversation, the way Richard would sit at the table and read the papers while she sat there quietly chewing, wishing he would talk to her, pay her attention.
He was so animated with his friends, when they went out for dinner with other couples, the life and soul of the party, but on their own, behind closed doors, he barely seemed to notice her.
I am lonely, she would think, those nights when she would tiptoe downstairs at three in the morning and make herself a cup of tea. I never dreamed I could be lonelier in my marriage than I ever was as a single girl.
Children would change that, she knew. Children would bring them closer together, give her a purpose. Richard wouldn’t allow her to work—none of his successful friends had working wives, all of them consumed with hairdresser visits, manicures, shopping, and children—so Audrey floated around the house all day, desperate for something to do.
She got a puppy, a Maltese, that she would take to the common and walk for hours and hours, looking at her watch wondering how it was time passed so slowly.
They needed a child. She had absolutely no idea why it hadn’t happened, and no idea what to do about it. She had a suspicion, based on nothing other than instinct, that it was Richard’s fault, but she could never say that out loud. He had questioned her fertility, though, countless times, and she was doing all the things she was supposed to be doing. She had even given up smoking, after hearing of one mother who got pregnant as soon as she quit. But it wasn’t their time, not yet. At least, that’s the line she would always use when people asked.
A child would stop the loneliness, she knew. Imagine her days being filled with waking the baby, warming a bottle, spoon-feeding the baby rice and wiping up around a high chair. Imagine pushing the baby in a pram up the High Street, stopping to peer in the windows of all the shops as she had seen other mothers do, chatting with other mothers as they pass, inviting them over to drink tea as their babies crawl around the living room.
Imagine Daddy coming home from work, his face lighting up as a toddler toddles to the front door to greet him. Imagine her own face, beaming with love as she watches Richard throw his daughter up in the air as she squeals in delight, catching her and swinging her round with joy, holding out an arm to embrace his wife, his eyes filled with love and pride.
Imagine a second child, a third. Imagine this house buzzing with children running up and down the stairs, children’s parties with entertainers, paper bowls of Twiglets and Smarties down the center of a trestle table set up in the garden, the grown-ups standing at one end with their gin and tonics and their devils on horseback, smiling indulgently as the magician arrives to delight their children by pulling rabbits out of hats.
The days ticked by to her trip to New York, and again her period came. I need this break, she told herself. Maybe I’ll even see a doctor in New York. She trusted them, had heard there were doctors over there who knew the secrets to getting pregnant.
This trip will change my life, she decided, will change my future going forward. The butterflies came back, on the flight, at the airport, in the car Aunt Judith had sent to drive her to Hyannis to catch the ferry, and then finally, as the boat plowed along the water, she glimpsed Nantucket Harbor, whereupon her heart caught in her throat with nostalgia and joy.
Four
Nantucket, the little island off the coast of Massachusetts, made famous by whaling in the mid-nineteenth century, had been discovered in the 1950s by developers who encouraged wealthy vacationers to visit the island with its cobbled streets and pretty grey-shingled houses, trellises weighed down with roses and hydrangeas.<
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People came here to get away from the noise of Boston and New York, to enjoy the beauty of the pretty village, the beaches, the harbor, in a place the locals referred to as Fantasy Island.
Aunt Judith had bought her own house, a Federal off the top of Main Street, in the late 1950s, just as they were starting to build on the island, just as the island was starting to become popular. Her house had been inhabited by an elderly couple and hadn’t been touched for years. She was one of the first to see the beauty in the place, a house that shocked her children, who swiftly forgot their reservations over the dark, peeling wallpaper when they were brought in to help, given sledgehammers to knock down walls between the parlor and the kitchen, opening up the house, choosing their own paint colors for their rooms.
Aunt Judith planted hydrangeas along the front of the house, and replaced the rotting shingles on the front with new white cedar ones. She built vegetable beds in the tiny yard and filled them with tomatoes and lettuce.
In Nantucket, Aunt Judith found out how to be happy. Divorce was frowned upon in the New York suburb of Rye, where she had been living with her husband, until she discovered he was having a long-term affair with his secretary. It all ended very quickly after that. She wanted a fresh start, and had spent a handful of happy vacations on Nantucket; it seemed like a place where you could reinvent yourself, cast aside the dull suburban detritus of your housewife life in Rye. Nantucket was a place where Aunt Judith could discover the inner bohemian she hadn’t realized was lurking until she shed her staid uniform of neat skirts and pumps, embracing loose-fitting clothes and sandals that made navigating the cobblestones, if not entirely pleasurable, at least manageable.
The house wasn’t big—four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, all under the eaves—but as she always said to Audrey, it was big enough.
* * *
The house looked the same. Of course, thought Audrey, as the car pulled to a halt outside. It’s only been five years since I was last here, why would it have changed? The gravel was thin, a few weeds pushing through, the paint on the windows peeling again, but the house was still pretty, with its classic lines and peaked roof, the window boxes still filled with geraniums.