Exposure

by Helen Dunmore

  She knows that Barnes-Wilson won’t decide to operate. He might as well die here as anywhere, that’s what she means.

  ‘That’s good,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to move.’

  She holds the cup steady so that he can drink. He can’t manage the biscuits, but it was a nice thought.

  ‘Leave the light on,’ he says, as she’s going out. They try to start the night so early in hospitals. ‘I don’t want to be lying here in the dark.’

  23

  The Owl

  A slant of winter light touches the motes drifting silkily from the pile of flour Lily has just sifted into the mixing bowl. She takes a knife and cuts shavings of butter into it, then rubs in the fat. Cold water to bind it, and on to the marble slab where it will rest until the apples are ready.

  Mr Austin keeps his Bramleys through the winter in the shed he calls the apple shed. The shelves are slatted so that air can circulate, and each apple is wrapped in newspaper. Their skins are wrinkled now, and the flesh no longer crisp and fizzing with juice, but the flavour, he says, is better than ever. They keep until April sometimes.

  All those apples, in their wrapped rows, each set a little apart from the next so that if there is rot, it won’t spread. She has peeled and cored, chopped and sweetened, added a clove and a grating of nutmeg, and the fruit is beginning to melt into a mush. Lily takes the pan from the stove and sets it on the back doorstep to cool, with the lid off. Steam rises in plumes. There is just time to make the custard before she rolls out the pastry. Mr Austin likes Bird’s custard, not the real thing, and he prefers it cold.

  ‘Leave it in the pantry with a plate over it.’

  ‘There will be skin on top.’

  ‘That’s all right, I like the skin.’

  All that trouble over growing the fruit, and he eats it with a concoction of cold factory cornflour. He also claims a strong partiality for baked beans. ‘Butter and Marmite on the toast first, then the baked beans, piping hot. Beats caviar any day.’

  The pie is finished, the edges crimped and the pastry lid glazed with beaten egg. She’ll put it into the oven now, and he will take it out. He seems to like a little system of notes with instructions. The pie will last him two or three days.

  ‘You can’t beat a wedge of cold apple pie, with Cheshire cheese. Or Lancashire.’

  Lily smiles. She knows by now that for all his words, really he is indifferent to food. He goes through the motions for her sake, out of his superlative politeness, because he knows how much trouble it all is for her. The whole kerfuffle, the business of keeping alive. He pretends to an appetite that he can’t feel, because eating alone kills the taste of everything. He’s very thin, but probably he always was. It’s that type of build: lean, almost boyish, stooping.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr Austin. The Irish stew for dinner is on the larder shelf, and I’ve left a note on the kitchen table about heating it up. You can warm up the apple pie, or have it cold. I’ve cut ham sandwiches for your lunch, and for pudding there’s the treacle sponge from yesterday, with the rest of the cream. Don’t forget the gingerbread at teatime: the tin’s on the top shelf. It’s all in the note.’

  ‘It all sounds absolutely delicious.’

  His wife was everything to him, and did everything for him. They had no children. He doesn’t play golf, or bridge, which is how she’d thought a retired country solicitor would pass his days. He reads a great deal, listens to music and takes long, solitary walks. The garden? Oh, that was all Louise. She made it out of nothing. She planned the beds, the walks, the orchard: all of it. Drew it all out on sheets of paper when most of the garden was a wilderness. It had been let go for years before the two of them came to Bourne House, thirty years ago. The place had belonged to an aunt of Louise’s, who lived to be over ninety.

  Lily has thought of suggesting that perhaps he might get a dog, but decided against it. She didn’t want to seem presumptuous. Besides, it was hard to imagine a dog bounding through this quiet house.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Mrs Callington.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be here at nine.’

  ‘Good.’

  He is very lonely. A reserved man, and dignified, with his sudden sweet smile. He keeps his routines going but hasn’t a clue about how to run the house. Louise must have done all that, too. As for cooking, he hasn’t the foggiest, he admits. That’s why Lily’s notes are so marvellously handy. If it’s not a frightful bore, he’d like her to write down a few recipes. Easy ones, of course. He can boil an egg and heat up a tin of beans, but that’s about it. Still, never say die. He’ll get the hang of this cooking business in the end, if he sticks at it. If Mr Austin had had a daughter, he would never have abandoned her. Lily thinks of her own father, in a city called Fez where she has never been.

  ‘Goodbye, then. See you in the morning.’

  ‘I look forward to it,’ he says, with the old-fashioned courtesy that is part of his being. The same courtesy makes him appear to take for granted Lily’s sudden arrival in East Knigge, and the absence of her husband. But The Times is delivered every day. He will read the reports of the trial, when it begins. She wonders if she ought to say something now, before she has to. It might be better. But no, she decides for the third or fourth time as she walks away down the drive, she can’t afford to say anything about Simon. If she keeps quiet, Mr Austin may never make the connection. Callington is not such an uncommon name. He assumes that Lily is in East Knigge to stay, and has already said that next year the children must come and pick as many plums and apples as they want. ‘There’s only so much fruit that one can send to the Harvest Festival, and most of the apples aren’t keepers. Louise used to bottle the plums.’

  ‘I could make jam,’ Lily said, but Mr Austin shook his head.

  ‘Can’t have that,’ he said. ‘I ate enough plum-and-apple pozzy in France to last me a lifetime.’

  Lily smiled, to hide the fact that she had no idea what he was talking about.

  Now she walks briskly. Last night’s frost hasn’t yet melted from the hollows under the trees, where leaves lie thick and crisp. Birds scuffle in the undergrowth. This afternoon she has laundry to do, and mending, and then a letter to Simon. Her mind is so much set on all this that she isn’t pleased to see a figure standing on her doorstep. A woman, with a silly little yapping dog. Cold, alien moment of unrecognition, and then Lily realises that it’s Erica, with Coco on a lead. What is she doing here?

  ‘Erica!’ she calls, waving and hurrying forward to hide her own reaction. Erica waves too, and Coco lunges to the end of the lead in recognition. There is Erica’s thick, soft tweed coat, the scent of her skin as they embrace.

  ‘I thought you were never coming! I was going to give up and get the train back to London.’

  ‘I didn’t know – Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘How could I? You’re not on the telephone.’

  ‘You could have written.’

  ‘I could have, I suppose. But what does it matter? I’m here now.’

  Erica didn’t want me to know she was coming, in case I told her not to, Lily thinks. And she was right: I would have told her not to come.

  ‘Come in and have some coffee. I’ve just finished work.’

  ‘You’ve found a job? Trust you, Lily!’

  ‘It’s not a teaching job. I’m keeping house for an old gentleman – a widower.’

  ‘You really are extraordinary. Here you are in the back of beyond and you’ve already found a job and no doubt the widower’s fallen in love with you. And what about the children? Have they got jobs too? I’ve always thought a spot of child labour would do Thomas good.’

  In spite of herself, Lily is warmed by Erica’s flattery. ‘They’re at school. Damn, the key always sticks. Push the door, could you?’

  ‘What a ducky little cottage.’

  ‘It’s not bad, is it?’

  ‘It’s lovely. You’ve made it lovely.’

  To Lily the cottage looks cold and unprepossess
ing. She stoops to light the fire.

  ‘You are so organised. I always have to clear out the grate.’

  ‘Paul does that, and he lays the fire every morning before school.’

  ‘Oh God, you really do put me to shame. Thomas could no more lay a fire than he could fly to the moon.’

  ‘But where’s Clare, Erica?’

  ‘Tony’s looking after her. He’s to look after her, and fetch Thomas from school, and make the supper. You know what Tony’s like, he wasn’t keen—’

  ‘He didn’t want you to come here.’

  ‘Don’t be like that, Lily. He didn’t want to be landed with the children, that’s all it was. I had to say I’d bring Coco, or he’d have rebelled.’

  ‘I’m glad you did,’ says Lily, stooping to caress Coco. At the touch of the silky coat, Lily’s eyes, in spite of her, sting with tears. Why did Erica come? I can manage, I can keep going, as long as nobody comes. She daren’t look up. With her face averted, she says, ‘Have you had lunch?’

  ‘I had sandwiches on the train. Coffee would be wonderful. Lily—’

  ‘I shan’t be a minute.’

  But Erica catches sight of her face, and follows her into the kitchen. ‘Don’t bother with that now. Let’s sit down. You don’t want me to see that you’re upset but how could you not be? It’s awful. The whole thing. Let’s not pretend—’

  ‘I’m not pretending. I’m trying to make some kind of a life for the children.’

  ‘I know that. Don’t be cross with me, Lily. I’m your friend. That’s why I came.’

  Lily leans against the sink and rubs her eyes hard. They are sore. She must look awful. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m tired, that’s all.’

  ‘Every time I see the people who are living in your house, I want to spit at them.’

  ‘What are they like?’

  ‘I don’t know really. She hasn’t been here that long. They’ve got three boys.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘None of them is in Thomas’s class. I hope they’re paying the rent on time.’

  ‘Yes, they are. It was good that you heard about them, Erica.’

  ‘So what’s going to happen?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come on, darling. What’s going to happen. Are you coming back to London? Are Simon’s parents going to cough up some cash so that you can go back to the house, or don’t they care? What’s going to happen at the trial? I’m assuming he’s got a good solicitor. Do you think he’ll get off?’

  ‘Erica, please …’

  ‘No, Lily. There’s been enough of this. You not saying things and me not daring to ask. Your vanishing act. That bloody Mrs Wilson had the nerve to say to me in the playground: “Such a pity about the Callington children,” as if the children had some contagious disease that couldn’t be discussed.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said: “Why is it a pity?” The silly cow shouldn’t teach children if she can’t face reality. She said, “Oh, well, you know, everything that has happened.” I wasn’t going to let her get away with that. I said, “No, I don’t know. What, exactly, has happened? What have those children done?” And so she had to say that of course the children had done nothing.’

  ‘But what difference does it make, in the end, what Mrs Wilson thinks?’

  ‘You’re doing what they want, Lily. Letting people brush you under the carpet – as if you’re a bad smell—’

  ‘A bad smell under the carpet?’

  ‘You have every right to come back to your house and the children have every right to come back to the school. The Mrs Wilsons may not like it but they’ll get used to it.’

  ‘I haven’t got the money to pay the mortgage unless I let the house.’

  ‘But you could get it. You could frighten those Callingtons – they need it. Make them say out loud: We refuse to keep a roof over our own grandchildren’s heads. Make them afraid that everybody in their neighbourhood is going to know just how vile they’ve been. Those kinds of people care about what the neighbours think.’

  ‘Everyone does.’

  ‘Not everyone, Lily.’

  ‘I didn’t mean you.’

  ‘I should hope not.’

  ‘I don’t want to ask anything of Simon’s family.’

  ‘Don’t you see, that’s exactly what they want? You hiding yourself down here, slaving away cleaning houses? No embarrassment for the Callingtons. No need for them to think about how it is for you and the children, because you’re conveniently out of sight. Look at your hands, Lily! What future is there for the children here?’

  ‘Don’t, Erica.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Look, I brought you some flowers, darling.’

  Erica delves into her bag and gives Lily a beautifully wrapped tricorn, with ‘Broadway Florist’ scrolled across it.

  How many times has Lily been in that shop? Zinc buckets crammed with narcissi or roses or chrysanthemums … The chill, and the green smell of pollen, leaves and crushed stems. Flowers for Erica when she had Clare; flowers for her own mother before those punishing trips to Brighton; flowers for the house at Christmas. She sees herself, Sally on one side, Paul on the other, Bridget in the pram outside. The assistant gives her the bunch of hyacinths and white narcissi that Lily has chosen. They are wrapped in green and white paper with the name of the shop on it. Outside, red buses push their way through the grey afternoon. Their headlights are on, although it’s only half past three. The shop-bell rings as Lily opens the door to leave. There’s Bridget, bouncing against her pram harness, glad to see them. Lily pushes up the brake with her foot and off they go. They pass the greengrocer’s and the children want to touch the leaves poking out of the boxes of tangerines. People hurry past, other mothers, also holding the hands of children. Lily knows most of them.

  Lily opens the flowers Erica has brought her. They are anemones, still in bud, and limp with cold. She must put them in warm water to revive them.

  ‘Thank you, Erica.’

  ‘I brought a box of Maltesers for the children as well.’

  ‘They’ll love that.’ Lily pauses. She touches the crumpled petals of a dark crimson anemone. It looks almost dead, but she knows it isn’t. ‘I do want to come back.’

  ‘I know you do.’

  ‘Everyone thinks Simon will go to prison.’

  ‘How long for?’

  ‘I don’t know. Years.’

  ‘You can’t stay here for years!’

  ‘Simon has done nothing wrong, and they’re going to lock him up for years. Being down here is nothing compared to that.’

  Lily thinks, suddenly, of the file. Her stomach clenches. She can’t stop seeing that page with the initials on it. Not Giles’s initials, and certainly not Simon’s. Julian Clowde saw those documents and signed the page to say he’d done so. His was the last set of initials.

  She remembers the party where she first met Julian Clowde. It was full of theatre people; Giles took them along, not long after Simon began working at the Admiralty. Noise surged around them, and when she was introduced to Clowde he heard her name wrong. He bent over her, charmed, charming, as if there were no one else in the room. He told her how delighted he was to meet her. Smiling boyishly at his own enthusiasm, he told her that he was the most tremendous fan. She began to have her doubts then, to protest, and when he swept on into a discussion of Lucia di Lammermoor and what a voice such as hers, a lyric coloratura, might bring to the role, she put her hand on his arm to interrupt him.

  ‘I’m not a singer,’ she said. His face was extraordinary. Its surface shivered, and he was a different man. Sharp with suspicion, almost angry. He drew his arm away as she added, ‘I think you’re confusing me with someone else.’

  ‘You’re not Lily Stanton?’

  She shook her head. At the time she had no idea who Lily Stanton was, but afterwards she found a photograph of the singer and saw that there was a resemblance. Julian Clowde raised his eyebrows at her, as if she’d t
ried to trick him, and then turned away.

  Erica takes Lily’s wrist and shakes it gently, as if waking her up. ‘Don’t, darling. I hate it when you look like that. There hasn’t even been a trial yet. We don’t know what’s going to happen. They might find him not guilty.’

  ‘He isn’t guilty. You believe that, don’t you, Erica?’

  Erica holds her gaze. ‘Yes, of course I do. You would know.’

  ‘But that means you believe he’s innocent because I do, not because you do.’

  Erica’s eyes have filled with tears. ‘It’s so horrible, Lily, that all this is happening. I still can’t believe it’s real.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did Simon say that you should leave London?’

  ‘We had to leave. We couldn’t pay the mortgage unless we let the house. You know that.’

  ‘But it was all so quick, Lily.’

  ‘It had to be.’

  ‘I’m worried about you, all on your own down here.’

  ‘We’ve got somewhere to live, and I’ve got a job. Here it’s easier than London, for now anyway.’

  Erica thinks that she has never heard Lily sound less English. Without meaning to, she lowers her voice. There’s been so much in the papers about the Portland spy arrests. ‘No one said you’d better take the children out of London?’

  Lily glances at the window. ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘You just went.’

  ‘You knew I was going.’

  ‘Yes, I knew … I can’t believe how quiet it is here.’

  ‘That’s why I like it.’ Lily knows what Erica thinks: How can you stand it, alone here with the children? There’s not another house in sight. The thought curls into her own mind. The cottage is so remote. If anything happened, no one would hear. No, she tells herself, you are not going to think like that. ‘It’s peaceful,’ she says. ‘No one bothers us. I’m all right here, Erica, really.’

  Could she say to Erica: I’m in a dark room. I’m feeling my way around the walls. Every time I find a door and open it, there’s only more darkness. No, she couldn’t say that.

  ‘I wish you’d come back, Lily. I miss you.’

  Imagine having the confidence to say such a thing, thinks Lily. Has she ever told anyone that she misses them? No, not even Simon. But then they are never apart – never have been apart – only now …