A Stairway to Paradise

by Madeleine St John

  ‘As long as he is alive.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Alex. ‘As long as he’s our only hope.’ He was laughing no longer; he wasn’t even smiling. ‘Sod it,’ he said. ‘Sod everything: especially God.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘All right. I take it back, just for you.’ Suddenly he was weary: ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘what would you say to some dinner?’

  They tidied themselves and went out to eat at a restaurant in Belsize Village. The hour was late; the place was almost empty. ‘We’re always the last customers,’ said Alex. ‘Have you noticed?’ They laughed together, restored by food and wine, and held hands, and Alex believed he would, in fact, wait, preposterous as it might seem; and Barbara did too.

  ‘I might just be going away quite soon,’ she told him. ‘I might go to India.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘Please don’t.’

  ‘What difference would it make?’

  ‘Something might happen to you.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Alex said nothing for some time. ‘I’ll give you my numbers,’ he said. ‘In case you ever need me, or anything. Anything at all.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t thank me; I’m doing it for me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘How could I reach you?’

  ‘You couldn’t.’

  ‘In case I need to tell you that I’ve stopped waiting.’

  ‘Oh, yes—of course. I’ll give you my sister’s address; you could always write to me care of that.’

  Not that either of them envisaged ever sending such a message: it was only that each was bound to believe it to be possible that the other might wish to.

  ‘Well,’ said Alex, putting the slip of paper which Barbara had given him into his pocket, ‘I suppose I ought to say in the circumstances that I don’t look forward to hearing from you.’

  Barbara gave him a weak smile. ‘Likewise,’ she said.

  He took her hand. Having no discernible future, they had not another word to say.

  37

  Claire was looking through her diary; Alex handed her her drink and sat down with his own. The show was on the road again.

  ‘Are you off to Scunthorpe this year?’

  Claire looked up, surprised. ‘Fancy your remembering Scunthorpe.’ She very slightly stared at him, her eyebrows raised.

  ‘Can’t think why. Must have seen something about it in one of the Sundays.’

  ‘Hmmm. The machine’s been turned on good and early, then. Yes, well, since you ask, I may well be—it isn’t firm just yet. That’s one of the things I have to sort out this week. I should call Lizzie first thing—oh, and that reminds me! You didn’t mention that Barbara turned up at that party of Louisa’s. You really might have told me. That girl’s a godsend: if I do go to Scunthorpe—if she’s free, and I hope to God she is, she’ll solve all my problems.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Blankly.

  ‘She might come and mind the kids again, obviously. It was an absolute nightmare finding someone to do it last year; if I hadn’t been able to borrow Lizzie’s au pair I would have been sunk.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s busy.’

  ‘Of course, I don’t suppose you thought of asking her what she’s up to these days, much less got her telephone number. Did you even talk to her?’

  ‘Oh, I had a word or two.’

  ‘A word or two. Honestly. You men. She’s a godsend. Well, I’ll try to get the number from Louisa: although she couldn’t seem to find it when we spoke before.’

  ‘I told Andrew you’d ask him round for a meal sometime. Show him the kids.’

  ‘Oh, did you now. Well, I suppose I’d better, then. I expect you do have his number, have you? Well, that’s a start. Poor old Andrew, eh? A bachelor again. Now, I wonder who we might know—oh! of course! Barbara! It’s perfect. I’ll ask them together. Marvellous. Now who else should I have to make up the numbers—who do we owe?’

  Alex was dumb, horrorstruck; then relief overwhelmed him. Of course Barbara would politely decline any such invitation. He was safe. They were safe. Their secret love was safe. Their secret love glowed within his heart; it illuminated the night. He finished his drink, and stared at his wife as, her blonde head bent, she continued to look at her diary, making occasional notes. His salad days. Shakespeare. But this, alas, had been no vegetable love. Marvell. With my body I thee worship. Thomas Cranmer. So one supposed.

  ‘The English Renaissance,’ he said. ‘That was the time for Eng. Lit. Do they ever discuss that up in Scunthorpe?’

  ‘Of course not. What an idea.’

  ‘Just wondered.’

  ‘What do you know about the English Renaissance?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.’

  ‘Honestly, Alex. How’s the book?’

  ‘Oh, the book’s fine. Shooting it into Macmillan’s in a week or two.’

  ‘Oh, good.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well,’ said Claire, closing the diary, ‘I think that’s my lot for the day. Time for bed. Good night, Alex.’

  ‘Er, good night.’

  And she was gone. Alex sat, staring into the past, and into the future, for the present, he thought, did not bear examination.

  PART FOUR

  38

  ‘Truly, Louisa, I could throttle him. The jackanapes.’

  Louisa was laughing so much she had to sit down on a bench. Her brother Alfred Ainsworth (younger by a few years than she) stood moodily nearby, slashing at the occasional fallen leaf with his tightly rolled black umbrella.

  He turned to her. ‘When you’ve finished,’ he said. This only made her start again.

  ‘Oh, Alf,’ she said. ‘Where would we be without you?’ She was still giggling. Jackanapes, forsooth!

  ‘That’s just my question. Where, indeed?’

  ‘God knows. But as it is—’

  ‘You depend on me far too much. On my probity, my sobriety, my solvency and, not least, my tireless and I might even say miraculous patience.’

  ‘I? Now when did I—’

  ‘All right, perhaps not you personally. Not, anyway, in any material sense, at least not recently. But morally speaking, I sometimes have the feeling that you’re just as dependent as Gideon, damn his juvenile, irresponsible, knavish impudence.’

  ‘Now I like that! You are addressing, may I remind you, the wife of an official of the Bank of England. You are talking to the mother of a child—and no ordinary child at that, as I think you will agree.’ Louisa realised too late that this tease would be quite lost on Alfred: for Alfred’s opinion of his nephew Fergus was not altogether commendatory. The child had charm, and even intelligence, but his character seemed formed on the lines of his Uncle Gideon’s, which could in Alfred’s view be matter only for deprecation, if nothing much stronger. Thus the conference at present in session: he having summoned Louisa to the Embankment Gardens on this autumn evening for the purpose of discussing Gideon’s present situation—this venue being reasonably close both to Alfred’s own place of employment (he was at the bar) and Louisa’s (in a famous shop in Regent Street). They had met here for the same reason more than once over the past decade, when they had taken on years and family responsibilities, while Gideon, youngest of the three, had continued to nettle and astound, disconcert and appal his elders. The death of their father several years ago had left to Alfred the task of expressing—if not indeed of feeling—vexation and contempt (those pre-eminently paternal sensations) in addition.

  His umbrella stabbed at another leaf. ‘Come along, Louisa,’ he muttered. ‘That’s enough sitting about. Let’s get on.’

  Louisa rose, and continued to trip along the path beside her brother. She took his arm.

  ‘The thing is, Alf, that I don’t really see why you’re in such a stew: Gideon’s done nothing wrong.’

  ‘Wrong? You don’t think it’s wrong, to squander t
hat trust fund—or at any rate a large part thereof—on some damnfool trip to India—India!—at his age—what do you imagine the purpose of its being locked away until his thirtieth birthday was, if not to avert just such a folly? He was meant to have grown up by the time he came into it. It was intended to go towards the school fees, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the school fees.’

  ‘Well—yes—it’s all very well for you to talk like that, in that blasé je m’en fiche de vos school fees manner, I must say! Do you still mean to send Fergus to Eton? Supposing they’ll actually have him, that is.’

  ‘Come now, mon frère. Gideon, voyez-vous, has no children, after all. He isn’t even married, for goodness sake.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘You wish he were, do you?’

  She had him there. ‘I wish he were in a position even to consider it,’ said Alfred, with what seemed like genuine regret.

  Louisa looked at him. ‘Wouldn’t it be an awful bore,’ she said, ‘if we were all like us two? A family needs one non-conformist, doesn’t it?’

  ‘He doesn’t half overdo it.’

  ‘Come now.’

  ‘Look at the score. Sacked from school for smoking pot—’

  ‘Don’t call it pot, darling. Only hopelessly square people would call it that.’

  ‘Pot. Next: left Oxford without taking his degree—a wicked waste of time, that, to say nothing of taxpayers’ money. Then what—oh, yes. We pull every string in the book to shoehorn him into that berth at Lloyd’s: and the rest I think you recall. Royal College of Music, or was it the Royal Academy—it makes no odds—Morocco, Greece—then this flight into Somerset, or whatever the county’s called these days—look, I know that the country’s been going to the dogs, I grant you that, these past umpteen years or so—’

  ‘More torn apart by jackals, don’t you mean?’

  ‘—but that’s no excuse for becoming an absolute wastrel. Why doesn’t he try to do something constructive?’

  ‘Well, he has been. Do be fair, Alf. All that gardening! If that isn’t constructive—’

  ‘Gardening, hah! And now this. Squandering his patrimony.

  Well, just let him try to come prodigal son-ing back to me, in a year or so. He may be surprised at the reception he gets.’

  ‘You’ll put a ring on his finger.’

  ‘What? ’

  ‘Have you forgotten? That was one of the things the father did, when the prodigal returned.’

  ‘Oh, did he. Well, you won’t catch me putting a ring on Gideon’s finger, I’ll tell you that.’

  ‘Actually I think he probably will settle down after this India business,’ said Louisa, looking reflectively ahead.

  Alfred sighed. ‘One can but hope so,’ he said wearily. ‘And that’s another thing. Who are these people he’s going with?’

  ‘Oh, some chums from Bath, and so on. I think he mentioned a girl called Barbara. I really know nothing about them. They’ll be five altogether, I understand. Safety in numbers!’

  ‘We had really better know who they are, and where they come from.’

  ‘Send them each a form to fill in,’ said Louisa mischievously. ‘In triplicate, of course.’

  ‘Very funny. It is as I said: morally, you are just as feckless as Gideon. Surely—as the wife and mother you are, as you earlier reminded me—you can see that we ought to know with whom Gideon is crossing half the planet.’

  ‘Well, so we shall in the fullness of time,’ said Louisa comfortably. ‘He’s coming up to London at the weekend to stay for a few days or so, or even until he leaves—I’m not quite sure what his plans are. Anyway, I’ll have plenty of time to interrogate him then.’

  ‘Well, you might have said so sooner, and saved my grey hairs.’

  ‘In fact, as soon as I do know what his plans are, I’ll arrange a lunch, or a dinner, or something, and you can interrogate him yourself.’

  ‘Yes, that would be best.’

  Louisa could see that Alfred was quite serious. Well, so be it, she thought. Feckless, was she? Feckless. It sounded something like carefree. Oh, how she wished she were.

  39

  The intercom buzzer sounded; Andrew picked up the receiver.

  ‘I say, Andrew? Alex here. Shall I come up? Are you busy?’

  ‘No, not at all; ascend!’ He released the lock, the street door slammed shut and Alex was almost immediately at his front door. Andrew ushered him into the still-new, still-bare sitting-room.

  ‘I was in the neighbourhood and had some time to kill, so I thought I’d call in.’

  ‘Ah; flattered, I’m sure. Kill away.’

  ‘Do you want to try this grass? It’s meant to be Colombian.’

  ‘Let’s see, then.’

  Alex made a spliff and lit it. ‘How are things?’ he said. ‘Keeping busy?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘Been anywhere? Done anything?’

  ‘Here and there. Round and about. Took a girl to the cinema the other night.’

  ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘Actually, yes. Barbara, actually.’

  ‘I see. Nice work.’

  There was a silence. Andrew in an instant saw, and Alex saw that he saw, but neither showed this seeing by even the slightest flicker of an eyelid.

  The silence for a moment continued, and then Andrew spoke. ‘Claire telephoned—I suppose you know. I’m bidden to dine on Thursday.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I had been told. Yes.’

  ‘She said she’d been in touch with Barbara; that she’d thought of asking her along too—she knew we’d met at the party, of course. But Barbara’ll be up in Yorkshire at that juncture.’

  ‘Oh, will she.’

  ‘She’s selling her set of chairs in the style of Thomas Chippendale, etcetera. They’ve been in her sister’s attic up there.’

  ‘Short of cash, is she?’

  ‘She’s realising some assets, so as to go to India.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Leaving pretty soon, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Should be fun.’

  ‘The really funny part is, the chap who’s organised the whole thing—he’s bought an Espace, a bunch of them is doing the overland trip—this chap, one Gideon Ainsworth, turns out to be Louisa Carrington’s younger brother.’

  ‘You don’t say so.’

  ‘Yes. Fact. Pure coincidence; Barbara got to know him when she was living in Bath, last year. Never made the connection, of course, never having known Louisa’s maiden name—and even then—anyway, all was revealed after he came up to London the other day, and gave her his London number, which she called all unaware, only to find young Fergus answering the telephone— awfully disconcerting.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Small world, eh?’

  ‘Come to think of it—we know Louisa’s other brother: you mightn’t remember him, if you ever met him—Alfred: wasn’t at the party; I suppose he and Lizzie were still on holiday. Yes. This Gideon must be the wanton younger brother of whom one’s heard now and then. And so—he’s going off to India, with Barbara—’

  ‘And some other people. Five of them all told.’

  ‘I see. Five Go Overland to India.’

  So Barbara’s gardening friend was Alfred and Louisa’s brother. The shock—the dismay—of learning that she was indeed going away—and soon—was wonderfully mitigated by this fact: he would have a link to her: he knew someone with whom she was almost intimately connected. It was nothing much, but it was infinitely better than nothing at all. She was going away, but she was not going right away—not absolutely and altogether beyond his knowledge. It seemed almost miraculous. But—oh God—would she not let him have a word, just one word, of farewell?

  Andrew was laughing. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘this party of five consists of three chaps and two chapesses: no dog, you see. What a joke. Hope they’ve all read the books.’

  Alex dimly perceived that Andrew, too, might be feeling pain, might be conce
aling the pain of loss: of an additional pain, an additional loss, at that. What a life it was, indeed: what a world. He was still feeling almost stunned. ‘Crazy’ he said. ‘It’s a crazy world, mon capitaine.’

  Andrew had stopped laughing. He flicked some ash off the end of the spliff. ‘Yep,’ he said decisively. ‘It is that. Crazy, but crazy. I say—good word, that. Onomatopoeic.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s quite the term you want.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Crazy.’

  She did give him a few words, to fill the miles, and the months, even the years—even the eternity: who knew?—which separated them. He received the telephone call late one afternoon, on his private line at the office.

  ‘Please don’t say anything, Alex—I just wanted to tell you—I’m going to India. Quite soon, actually. I just wanted to say—well— you know.’ She sounded quite calm and quite rational.

  So did he. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Me too.’

  ‘I’ll tell you if ever I stop.’ Still calm; still rational.

  So was he. ‘All right.’

  ‘And—please tell me if ever you stop.’

  ‘All right. I’ll tell you if I ever stop.’

  ‘I must go now, Alex. Goodbye.’

  ‘Yes—my—’

  She rang off before he could find another word to say: she was gone again—perhaps for good—just like that. Alex sat, stunned, dazed with longing and loss and dreadful misery: until some demon in his heart raised its head and made him look—for just a moment—objectively at himself. How can this thing be happening to me, he thought: to me! Perhaps I’ve lost my mind: perhaps I’m mad.

  He sat on, accustoming himself to this new state, this madness which he both felt and, by observing it, repudiated.

  From then on, for a very long time, Alex mad and Alex sane continued to live together. Sometimes the one stared the other down, but they managed to coexist well enough. There was no serious conflict. But he began to see life in its entirety as an irredeemably irrational construct, and he wondered how this knowledge was to be endured for all the time that remained to him. Then he gritted his teeth, and went on playing the game, and nobody could have imagined what was in his heart.