‘I don’t think so.’ Was that her voice, so clipped and cold?
He stared at her. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’ve brought you something.’
She saw that he had a bag slung off one shoulder.
‘What?’
‘Some books.’
‘For me?’
‘You said you liked reading.’
‘I do – but you shouldn’t have gone to the trouble.’
‘Here.’ He was feeling in the bag. ‘Grapes of Wrath. Have you read it?’
‘No.’
‘And Letters from Iceland. I think you’ll be bowled over. And also,’ he pulled out the third battered volume. ‘Homage to Catalonia. It’s about Spain.’
‘I know. Are they your books?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can’t take them.’
‘Borrow them.’
‘When will I give them back?’
‘When you’ve read them,’ he replied reasonably. ‘Why can’t I walk with you?’
‘It’s just not a good idea.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it isn’t.’
‘Are you really going to meet friends?’
‘That’s not your business.’
‘I would like to see you again.’
‘No.’
‘You don’t want to see me?’
‘No. It was very kind of you to bring me these books—’
‘Not kind. An excuse. Rather a feeble one,’ he added ruefully.
‘Exactly. That’s why I can’t see you.’
‘Is it because of Merry?’
‘I can’t see you,’ she repeated. She was walking a thin line; she knew she mustn’t deviate from it for a second.
‘Here.’ He pushed the books into her hands. ‘I’ll let you go now.’
‘That’s best.’ Disappointment tightened her throat.
‘But I’ll see you again soon.’
And there he was the following day, leaning against the same wall, wearing the same shabby suit.
‘No excuse this time,’ he said, showing his empty hands.
She walked past him.
That evening, she was especially affectionate to Gil. She told herself how glad she was to be marrying him, and she was. She pushed the three books under her bed, where she couldn’t see them. She lay awake, hour after hour, her open eyes burning with fatigue in the darkness. She was sick with longing. Her body was soft and boneless and she imagined him touching her. She imagined herself letting him.
And the next day, Friday, he was there once more. She walked by on the other side of the road. She tried not to look at him, though it took all the will she could muster not to turn to see if he was following her. At the corner she looked back and he was gone. She made herself angry with him; fury made her body springy. He had no business to be hanging around outside her school, not taking no for an answer.
One day, she told herself as she walked stiffly away, her spine rigid with determination and her heart clattering, one day very soon, she would be beyond this and the terrible desire that chewed at her stomach and turned her legs watery would have evaporated. Then she would be returned to what was real: Gil, her work, a sense of a bounded and controlled self. She just had to keep hold of herself. She mustn’t let go.
She had agreed to spend the following day with Gil, and that evening, she didn’t know what to do with herself. She washed her clothes, taking extra time over the task. She drew a bath and lay in the water until it turned tepid. She tidied her rooms, although they were already tidy. She tried to read, but found that she had taken nothing in. Once, she drew out the books from under her bed and stared at them, then pushed them roughly out of sight again. Then there was a hammering at her door and her heart jolted. She sprang to her feet, arranging her hair with fumbling hands. Surely it was him. And for an instant she allowed pleasure to run through her.
But it was Gladys, who was telling her someone was on the phone.
‘Did he give a name?’
‘Not a he. A young lady. Mary, I think?’
It was Merry. She was speaking from a neighbour’s house – they didn’t have a telephone yet – and she was planning to come to London the following day to visit Eleanor. On a whim, she said: a day out with her big sister. Would that be all right?
‘Of course,’ said Eleanor, trying for the right tone and sounding too bright and emphatic. ‘I mean, I’m seeing Gil tomorrow, but I know he’d be pleased if you were there.’
‘I don’t want to be in the way.’
‘You wouldn’t be in the way.’
‘If you’re sure.’
‘I am. Is everything all right?’
‘What do you mean? Why shouldn’t it be all right?’ Merry’s voice was sharp.
‘No reason.’
‘Everything is good, thank you. I just thought it would be nice to pay you a visit. See the sights.’ She gave a tight giggle.
‘Lovely,’ said Eleanor. Her hand was clutching the telephone too tightly. ‘We’ll have fun.’
Eleanor met Merry at the station. She was wearing a pale blue suit made of cheap material, whose skirt was tight enough to make her steps small and constrained. Eleanor could see the faint line at the hem where she’d taken it down an inch or so. She had tied her hair up in a chignon bun that must have taken her ages, and put on bright red lipstick – there was a tiny fleck of it on her small white teeth – and looked absurdly young, like a child dressing up in adult’s clothing. She had a pair of new kid gloves, probably one of her birthday presents, which she kept pulling on then easing off again; the locket that Eleanor had given her hung around her neck. The day was already warm and there were slight beads of perspiration on her forehead. When they hugged, Eleanor could smell lavender and sweat. Merry was brightly nervous, obviously feeling out of place in the big city. But so pretty, thought Eleanor, looking at her as they crossed the road together: her heart-shaped face and her delicate features, her shining sweep of hair and clear blue eyes. And the way she lifted her eyes trustingly to one, the way she smiled so that a dimple appeared in her smooth cheek.
‘So how are you?’ she asked once they’d found a seat in the Lyon’s bar near the station, where Gil would meet them, and ordered a pot of tea.
‘Very well,’ said Merry promptly. ‘Don’t I look well to you?’
‘You look lovely,’ said Eleanor. ‘You always do.’
‘But you look a bit pasty and tired, Ellie, if you don’t mind me saying,’ said Merry.
‘Do I?’
‘Yes. There are shadows under your eyes.’
Eleanor put a hand to her face, as if to shield it from Merry’s scrutiny.
‘And you look a bit thin. Have you been ill?’
‘Not at all. I haven’t been sleeping well. Perhaps it’s the heat.’
‘Hmm.’ Merry put her head on one side. ‘You don’t want to get scrawny.’
Eleanor was surprised by the note of spite in Merry’s voice, but she didn’t let her face show it.
‘You’re right, I don’t,’ she said mildly.
‘Gil wouldn’t approve.’
‘I don’t think I’m trying to win Gil’s approval.’
‘Oh?’ Delicately arched eyebrows. ‘How is Gil, anyway?’
‘Fine.’
And then there he was, pushing through the door carrying a hamper, one shirtsleeve rolled up and the other not, hot and beaming. He came over and kissed Eleanor on the cheek and then held out a hand to Merry.
‘Hello,’ he said pleasantly. ‘How nice this is.’
Merry gazed up at him, that dimple in her cheek, those wide eyes, the red lips curving.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes it is nice. I am so glad I can meet you properly at last. Eleanor has told me so much about you.’
‘Really?’ said Gil, delighted.
‘No,’ said Eleanor. ‘I haven’t.’
‘Oh Ellie,’ said Merry, and she gave her rippling laugh, throwing her head back and her white throat
pulsing. ‘She was always like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘Contrary,’ said Merry.
They went to the park and Gil laid out the blanket and assembled his picnic, bashfully proud of himself. The sky was blue and the park was thronged with people. They ate Gil’s sandwiches and the hard-boiled eggs while a band played on the bandstand, and a crocodile of little children went by, led by a stern woman in a long black coat.
‘This is nice,’ said Merry, licking her fingers.
‘Not as grand as your picnic.’ Gil put a cherry into his mouth and lay back. ‘That was a happy occasion.’
‘Did you like it?’
‘Of course.’
She turned to her sister. ‘And did you, Eleanor?’
‘I did.’
‘I thought so.’
‘You were lucky with the weather.’
‘Yes. Who did you talk to?’
‘Oh. Well, Emma mostly. And Lily Glover, and Clive Baines a bit. Gil of course.’
‘And Michael.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘I can’t remember. I told him a bit about teaching, I think.’
‘Did he mention me?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
Gil tipped his hat over his eyes.
‘What did you think of him?’
‘He seemed nice,’ said Eleanor coolly.
‘Nice. Is that all?’
‘It was a brief conversation.’
‘Have you seen him since?’
‘What!’
‘He said he was going to London. I thought you might have seen him.’
Eleanor couldn’t bring herself to tell an outright lie. ‘Why on earth would you think that?’ she asked instead.
‘Just a thought.’
‘London’s a big city, Merry. You don’t simply bump into people.’
‘I know that.’
‘I don’t even know his last name. I know nothing about him.’
‘Do you remember what I said to you the night before the picnic?’
‘Which bit?’
‘I said that I usually get what I want.’ She smiled at her sister and for a moment Eleanor felt almost frightened at the harsh expression on her delicate little face. ‘I won’t let anything stand in my way.’
‘Yes, I remember you saying that.’ She hesitated, glancing over at Gil’s motionless form, and then added, ‘It made me anxious for you.’
‘Why?’ Her high trickle of laughter.
‘Because no one can always have what they want. Life isn’t like that.’
‘My life is. It always has been.’
‘I don’t want you to get hurt.’
Merry gave her a thin twisting of the lips.
‘If he doesn’t feel the same way …’ suggested Eleanor. She remembered his face, his piercing gaze, the way he looked at her, and her throat thickened.
‘Why would you even say that?’
‘I’m just saying if.’
Gil stirred and lifted this hat off his face. His hair was damp with sweat. He sat up and started putting the picnic things back in the hamper.
‘It’s time to get moving,’ he said. ‘I’ve a busy schedule planned for you, Merry, before you get on your train home!’
After Merry had left, Eleanor and Gil went to a show with Emma and her new boyfriend, Anthony, who was trying to make his way as a painter and who had a deliberately louche air about him. On the Sunday, they had dinner with Gil’s mother, who was making an effort to be civil. Gil took Eleanor home and at the door he put his arms around her and kissed her and told her that he was the luckiest man in the world. She stood in the safe circle of his embrace and tried not to think of Merry’s vivacious, wretched face.
16
On Monday afternoon, Eleanor came out of school and looked across the road. For a moment she felt that someone was squeezing her guts. There was no one there. So he had given up, finally taken her at her word. She should be relieved. It was over.
‘It’s over,’ she whispered to herself softly, testing out the words. But of course, it had never begun. Merry had no need to fear any more; she herself had no need. Nothing had happened, and nobody would ever know what she had felt, what cracks had opened beneath her feet. She stood quite still, her face blank, and she didn’t know what to do with herself. It seemed impossible simply to walk back to her rooms and begin the dreary round of her evening again. Work, wash her stockings and undergarments, prepare a simple supper, sit by the window. Gil would call and she would tell him about her day and he would call her ‘darling’ and ‘my love’. She would hear Terence’s cough in the room beneath.
A hand touched her on the shoulder from behind and she swung round.
‘Michael!’ she said, and they both heard the rush of happiness in her voice.
‘Hello.’ He smiled at her with great sweetness. She felt she had never been smiled at like that before – as if he were looking through all the layers of her, all her crossness and stubbornness and fear.
‘You shouldn’t be here.’ It was her final effort. Her voice came out cracked, as though she had been running. ‘You have to leave now. I’m going to marry Gil.’
Michael looked at her for a few seconds without speaking. His brow was creased in thought. If he had pretended not to know why she spoke with such vehemence or announced her engagement so abruptly, like her last defence against him, he would have put her out of danger. She could have turned on her heel and left him there. But he didn’t. He just stared at her and then said, ‘Shall we walk a bit, then?’
And she nodded and they started down the road together, in no particular direction, not touching or looking at each other, but Eleanor could feel his body close to hers. It was as though electric currents were crackling down her arms. She looked straight ahead of her, at the blur of the ordinary street, but knew whenever he turned his eyes on her as surely as if he had touched her. She thought her legs might not be firm enough to carry the weight of her. She tried to remember the resolution she had made, sitting over her mug of tea and bun, but it seemed too long ago and the woman she’d been then felt far off and unreal. She attempted to focus on the route they were walking, seeing its poverty through Michael’s eyes. They went past Cable Street and the scene of the great confrontation, when the marchers had been turned back. She thought of saying something about it to Michael, how she’d been there, on the edge of history, but her throat felt thick and the foolish words stuck like bones. A man pushing his bike went past in the other direction and Eleanor recognized him as the father of one of her pupils. He lifted his hat and she nodded at him, tried to smile.
She thought: something is going to happen to me now. But she had a choice. She could turn aside from this and if she did not, then she would be responsible. She imagined herself stopping and telling Michael that she was going to go home this minute and that she didn’t want to see him again. She could use a firm, cool voice to repel him; she heard it in her head, imagined the polite and stony expression she would have. Leave me, if you please. This time he would listen. It would be irrevocable. Yet still they walked on against the flow of the crowd, under a silver sky. Goosebumps pricked her arms.
‘Here,’ he said, and they turned off the road and into the grounds of a handsome white church that Eleanor had often passed by but never before entered. The noise of the world receded. The graveyard was large and laid out like a public park. There were rows of gravestones, some mossy and tipping in all directions, and others more recent, with fresh flowers in sunken vases at their base. An old woman was laying a bunch of violets wrapped in a large green leaf on a plot that was tiny. It must be a child, thought Eleanor. Perhaps a child who had died decades ago and this old woman was the mother who still came, year after year, to remember long after everyone else had forgotten. Her heart seemed too large in her chest. She felt elated, very scared. She could run away, she thought. She must. Before it was too late. Before she
did something that she knew she would live to regret. One day, she would hate herself. Her body was sluggish and her skin felt too tender, as it had done last year when she had lain in bed for weeks with influenza.
Michael stopped at last by an ancient, knobbly quince tree with droopy leaves and the last of its floppy pink blossoms. She saw in the distance the old woman leave the churchyard, walking slowly with her shoulders stooped as if she were carrying a burden on her back.
‘Eleanor,’ he began.
‘I shouldn’t be here.’ She forced herself to speak, not looking at him but away, towards the massive walls of the church and its narrow windows. ‘I told you. I’m going to marry Gil.’
‘Please look at me.’
‘And there’s Merry.’
‘Please look at me.’ She lifted her eyes and met his; he stared at her, into her. ‘If you tell me to go, I will.’
‘Then go.’ The words came low and guttural. She took a step towards him as she spoke and he didn’t move. ‘Go. Please go. Or there is no way back.’ She stood before him and lifted a hand as if to touch him, or strike him, but then dropped it. ‘Oh God,’ she said in a whisper. ‘Why did you come?’
‘I had to.’ She saw him swallow. ‘Please.’
Who moved first; who kissed whom? Whose cry of pleasure is that? How can we ever let go? Now that we’ve started, how will we stop? What have we done?
‘Are you all right?’ asked Peter, concerned. Eleanor had suddenly stopped talking, breaking off in the middle of a sentence and putting her hand against her neck, holding the tiny sliver of gold. Her face was pale and her breath shallow.
‘Yes,’ she managed. ‘But perhaps I have stayed up beyond my strength. Can you can help me upstairs?’
‘Of course. Take my arm. Here.’
She tottered on her feet, and hung off him, meagre as a bag of twigs and her legs sliding under her. They made it to the stairs and he half-carried her to her bedroom, letting her gently down on to the bed where she sat curved over herself. He could see the ridge of her spine.
‘Are you ill? Shall I call the emergency services?’
‘Certainly not. I’m simply tired.’
‘What can I do?’
‘Well, I’m not going to let you undress me,’ she replied, trying to make light of it. ‘Perhaps you could get Rose.’
The Twilight Hour Page 16