As she pressed the bell, she understood the disappearance of her friends. The brass plate no longer declared this to be a Residence for the Daughters of Gentlefolk. It was now the Arundell House Hotel.
The door was opened by a poised receptionist. She was dressed in storm grey and wore her hair in the kind of immaculate chignon that Dinkie had never quite managed to perfect.
Following her in, Laura gaped at the transformation. The area at the bottom of the stairs, where the phone box had resided, had been enlarged to encompass a lift. All the threadbare carpets had been replaced with the sort you could happily sink into and spend the rest of your life on. The ancient peeling wallpaper had gone, making the lobby look lighter, with walls of palest pink and adorned not with Scottish stags, but peaceful vistas of the River Dee.
The huge oak sideboard, which had played host to the Arundell girls’ correspondence, had vanished, replaced by a contemporary reception desk, behind which the self assured young woman stationed herself.
‘Can I help you?’
‘I was wondering – if I could book a room.’
‘I’m sorry, madam. We’re fully booked.’
‘Oh. It’s just that I used to live here. I was looking for my friends.’
‘They’re probably up in the Ballroom, with the wedding party.’
Laura turned and saw an enchanting raven-haired little girl in a pale blue bridesmaid’s dress. She was chattering to a man kneeling in front of her. Dark blond hair. Dark blue suit. A carnation in the buttonhole.
Laura’s stomach knotted as he glanced towards her. He stood up and said something to the pretty child, who scampered off, giggling, up the stairs.
As Laura approached him, he said softly, ‘Hello, stranger.’
Her heart was jumping with such intensity she felt she could hardly breathe. How many times, how many nights had she imagined this scene? Adrian sweeping her into his arms, declaring they must always, always be together.
His left hand was resting against the hotel announcements board. Laura stared at it in horror.
BALLROOM, 2PM SOUTER-FRY WEDDING PARTY.
So Adrian had, at last, married bloody Patricia. She swallowed. She couldn’t, she just could not find it within her to congratulate him.
‘Ballroom, indeed,’ she murmured. ‘That must be the old Dorm.’
He laughed. ‘You’ll see a lot of changes here. Your old hostel is now one of Scotland’s top hotels. There’s even a French chef.’
Goodness. Silver service and Prussian helmet tureens. All a long, long way away from Miss May’s jugs of gravy, and custard.
‘Laura, can we talk? There’s things – will you come and sit down with me?’
As he opened the Drawing Room door for her, he said to the receptionist, ‘Could you get them to send some champagne.’
‘Yes, Mr Fry. Right away.’
The Drawing Room had been transformed into a grand affair of huge sofas smothered with glazed chintz. The curtains and window seat were claret-coloured velvet, the seat enlivened with grey, tasselled cushions. All that remained of the room Laura had known was the Victorian tiled fireplace, and the grand piano, which was now sporting an elaborate arrangement of flowers. Flowers! In her time here, Laura couldn’t remember seeing so much as a buttercup. And by the fireplace, arranged in an artfully casual fashion, was a heap of current glossy magazines. The only magazines Laura could remember were at least two years old, with the knitting patterns torn out.
She threw her cashmere coat over the back of a sofa, with her dressing case tucked by the side.
Laura sat down. The sofa felt like a cloud, a far cry from the lumpy thing she and Marje used to sit on, where you had to be careful of the corner where the spring had sprung.
She watched Adrian pacing up and down. Still slim, so handsome, with that rangily athletic walk. But… there was something that hadn’t been there before. What was it? Somehow – yes, she saw now. Behind his eyes, a stress, somehow. Of course, he’d got married today and if there’d been a boisterous stag party last night, naturally he’d be feeling under the weather.
The champagne arrived, and was placed on a polished side table where the jigsaw puzzles used to be. Laura continued to study her ex-lover as he busied himself with the champagne. That look, right behind his blue eyes, it wasn’t just a hangover. It was a memory of something he’d experienced, something so traumatic it would live with him forever.
And then she remembered Paradise Park, and Adrian’s dedication: ‘This novel is dedicated to the nurses and staff at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, who transformed what could have been the most frightening week of my life into something approaching paradise.’
The Infirmary. He’d been ill. Adrian, who she’d never known to suffer even a cold. He put her glass of champagne on the table beside her and took his to the mantelpiece.
Laura finally broke the silence. ‘I thought we were supposed to be talking?’
‘I know. It’s just, you look, well you’ve always been fantastic looking, but there’s something so much more –‘
‘It’s called French polish,’ Laura said smoothly. It was nice to be complimented, of course, but did men really think it all just happened? Didn’t they realise you might have spent a mint on your outfit and that you had, actually, looked at yourself in the mirror this morning.
‘Adrian tell me. Did you ever finish your degree?’
‘Oh that. No. Other things got in the way.’
Laura accepted that churning out essays on Thomas Hardy was hardly what you wanted to do when you were being lionised by literary London. He was still regarding her as a man mesmerised. Well it’s not at all easy for me, Laura told him silently. Sitting here, all civilised and dignified and fully aware that I’m the woman you didn’t want.
Suddenly, Adrian blurted, ‘Laura, that little girl you saw. The bridesmaid.’
‘She’s very pretty.’
‘Thankyou. She’s my daughter.’
Trembling, playing for time, Laura took out the gold cigarette case Hugo had given her. She offered a cigarette to Adrian. He shook his head.
‘But – the little girl doesn’t look a bit like you. Or Patricia.’
There, she’d got it out. Uttered the name of the reddish-haired bitch who’d won Adrian.
He uttered a sound between a laugh and a grimace. ‘It was nothing to do with Patricia. She hates babies. No, it was someone from Livingstone Hall.’
‘Adrian, there weren’t any women at Livingstone Hall.’
‘Yes there were. The maids…’
Of course. Neat black uniforms, white frilly aprons and black stockings.
‘Logan – my room-mate – you see, he liked to go down for a very early breakfast. So Jeannie, this maid –‘
‘Used to give you a wake-up call.’ Laura felt a vicious stab of pleasure that he’d been two-timing Patricia.
‘Then Jeannie just disappeared. No warning. Just gone. The housekeeper said she’d gone back to her people. I thought it sounded very Biblical. You know, Let My People Go. Anyway, I concluded that Jeannie was giving me a message. I mean, I never took her out, didn’t talk to her much, really.’
‘Yes,’ Laura said dryly. ‘I think I’ve got the relationship.’
He topped up their glasses. ‘And then, months later, I get a call from the Glasgow Infirmary. Would I go and ask for the Lady Almoner as a matter of urgency.’
Laura kicked off her shoes. ‘Oh my good God. The Almoner told you, you were a father.’
‘She told me the story. When Jeannie was admitted, she tried to give a false name. But they soon rumbled that. Insisted on my name and address. Frightened the life out of her, probably. Anyway,’ at last, Adrian sat down on the sofa, next to Laura. ‘She – she had a hard time. Didn’t pull through.’
Laura passed him a cigarette. Lit his, and one for herself. It was like an intermission at the pictures, when you wound down a bit, knowing there was still a lot of action ahead.
‘I – they
asked me if I’d like to see Jeannie. But you know, Laura, I’ve never been in the same room with a dead person. Was that cowardly?’
‘I don’t think so. I’ve never seen a dead person, either.’
‘Well I couldn’t face it. I just couldn’t. It’s not as if I ever loved her. She was the one who came on to me. Just got into bed with me one morning.’
The image of this turned Laura brutal: ‘How do you know that it’s your child?’
‘Okay. Fair question. But certain things I do know. I know that when Jeannie slid into my bed she was a virgin. I mean, it was obvious. I realised I had to be gentle. And then, if she had been messing with any of the other guys at Livingstone, I’d have known that too. Men talk. But what completely flooded me with certainty was when the Lady Almoner took me to see my daughter. She was the sweetest little thing. Black hair, blue eyes – all right, all babies have blue eyes. But Laura, I took her tiny hand and she looked at me and I swear, I swear, she knew me. There was no fear in those blue eyes. Just trust. That I’d always look after her.’
Plenty of good families queueing up to adopt a pretty little girl. The Lady Almoner would have advised him of that. But Adrian wasn’t going to let go of this one. His girl.
Laura was close to tears. She gave you a daughter. I wanted, so much, to give you a son.
‘I had to register the birth. The Lady Almoner came with me. And of course, the registrar wanted to know my daughter’s name.’ Adrian was standing up, pacing round the grand piano. ‘Strange job, being a registrar. He had an assortment of jackets on the back of his door. You realise, one minute he’s in the black jacket, registering a death, then next in is a birth person like me, and later on he’ll wear the one with a flower in the buttonhole, to do a wedding.’
Laura said, ‘What’s her name? Your daughter.’
‘I – at the Infirmary, she was just Baby Fry. And sitting there, with the registrar, I realised I hadn’t given it a thought. The name. So I asked the Lady Almoner what her own name was. She said, Rosalie. So the registrar wrote down Rosalie.’
Laura steeled herself. She wished she hadn’t come. She wished it was all back the way it had been with Adrian. Just her and him. That was how she’d always imagined it.
Even so, she had to know, ‘Any second name?’ Patricia, Jean, what?
‘No, I was wrung out. I went every day for a week. The nurses were sweet. Rosalie, she didn’t have anything. Baby clothes, nappies, anything. Those nurses, every day, they brought me something. Mittens, bootees, little hand-knitted jackets. Sterilised milk. I learned how to do her bottle with Cow and Gate.’
He sounded so proud. Laura’s heart went out to him. Oh, Adrian. If only you could have told me. But, she admitted, I was somewhat involved at the time.
‘They were so kind,’ Adrian’s voice was breaking. ‘I can’t tell you how kind.’
Very Glasgow, that warmth. Laura remembered the camaderie she’d known in this room, the genuine way the girls had made her feel a welcome member of the gang.
Once again, Adrian refilled their glasses. It was as if he’d got nothing else to do that afternoon, but talk to her. No new wife about to send out a search party, no tribes of relatives exchanging anxious glances. She thought of what he’d said on the way to the party after the tennis, ‘Tonight is all about us.’
Adrian took a deep breath. ‘And then one day, I came in and found all her things packed in carrier bags. She was in a blanket, lying in a basket. She had on a primrose yellow bonnet and matching jacket.
‘The nurses carried everything, and her, and on the way downstairs I said, Where are we going, and one of them, the Sister, said, You can take your daughter home now, Mr Fry.
‘They wanted to put Rosalie on the back seat of the car, but I knew she’d want to be in the front, so she could look at me and I could talk to her. The nurses all waved goodbye. And I drove off, very, very slowly, thinking, Take her home, they said. But home where? I could hardly turn up with her at Livingstone Hall.’
Laura knew that Adrian had never had a settled home. He had roosted wherever his Army parents were posted to.
‘Adrian, you’d had a good week to think about this.’
‘I know. It’s just that in the Infirmary, it was such a safe, enclosed world. Any problems, and a cheerful nurse would solve them.’ He smiled. ‘I know what you’re thinking. They didn’t just baby Rosalie, they babied me as well.’
She thought fondly of the iced bun she’d hand-fed him, that memorable Christmas in Room Nine.
‘Well you needed it. You must have been numb with shock. Anyway, what on earth did you do about Rosalie?’
‘I took her to my grandmother, in Fife. Rosalie’s okay there. Goes to the village school. She can play in the street –‘
‘Does she – I mean does everyone there know you’re her father?’
‘Yeah. I got a cottage nearby. I can take her to school. She’s such a bright little thing. Only four, but she can read. I taught her.’
The pride in his face wrung Laura’s heart.
‘But you’re famous, Adrian. You won the Lutterworth prize. The Press –‘
‘Oh no. The only time the Press are remotely interested in me is when I have a new book out. The rest of the time I’m a boring recluse living in a part of Scotland they all affect to find difficult to get to. And if any journalists did come sniffing round, they’d be walking into a very self contained society. The villagers would clam up. Not acknowledge them in the street, not say a word in the pub. And my grandmother would see them off. Nobody gets past her.’
‘Who else knows about this?’
‘Just the Infirmary, and my village and the family of course, now. I had to tell Patricia, and she laughed. Not a very kind laugh, actually, but she did ask Rosalie to be a bridesmaid. But apart from that, you’re the first person I’ve told.’ He was back beside her, on the sofa.
‘Didn’t Lol know?’
‘No. But she gave me some pretty dark looks.’
Ah, Lol, with her mystic Arran intuition. Lol, who had divined, that day on Menton beach, that Cressida was doing herself serious harm.
Adrian reached for her. ‘Oh, Laura. I’m so glad I told you. I’ve missed you so much.’
‘You could have found me.’
‘I didn’t know how you’d feel about Rosalie. How you’d take it?’
Laura didn’t know herself how she was taking it. No, wrong. In her heart she did know. She was pleased, proud that Adrian was taking proper responsibility. He’d tended, in his life, to vacillate. First he wanted a career as an accountant, then that was thrown up so he could go to university and read English. His mother had felt obliged to fly in and supervise his exam revision. Why? Because, obviously, she knew her boy. And then, he’d seemed to want her, Laura, but along came Patricia and he couldn’t decide between them. But now, with his daughter, he was doing it all right. At last.
Adrian took a gulp of his champagne and went back to why he hadn’t contacted her. ‘From what I read in the papers you seemed, well, otherwise engaged.’
Pointless to say, you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers, because in Laura’s case, the photographic evidence looked damning. And no need to say anything at all because, all in a rush, on the plush sofa, she and Adrian were also seriously engaged. Kissing with the feverish intensity of that very first kiss, in the porch at Roadnights.
The thought of her home, of all she had lost, sobered Laura. She grabbed hold of Adrian, and threw him onto the carpet. The carnation had gone askew in his suit lapel. Laura snatched the flower and hurled it into the grate. She remembered Dinkie kneeling there when it was too cold on the steps, dragging on a Carreras and blowing the smoke up the chimney while one of the other girls kept cavee at the door in case of Miss Speddie.
‘Laura, I wish you’d stop doing this! Last time you chucked me on the floor, I nearly knocked myself out on the steps.’
She felt his hand inching, in that old, dearly familiar way
, up her leg. Laura slapped it away.
‘We can’t do this, Adrian. We just can’t.’
‘Laura don’t. Please don’t. When I saw you coming along today –‘
‘You didn’t see me. You were in the lobby. You had your back to me.’
‘No, I saw you a bit earlier. The girls told me they were expecting you, so I was waiting in here, by the window. I saw you walk into Arundell Terrace and I thought I’d pass out. That’s the woman, I thought. The one I love. The one I want to spend the rest of my life with. I was stupid to let you go, Laura. Stupid. And the way you looked. Chic. That short skirt…’
At one time Laura had had difficulty fathoming Adrian’s thought processes. It was like solving a complex crossword. Now, with the added experience of years, she knew. He’d been thinking of sex.
She forced herself to say, coldly, ‘The one you want to spend the rest of your life with? What an inconvenient emotion, considering you’ve just got married.’
He stared up at her from the floor. ‘Married? That I have not.’
‘Listen, you creep! I can read. On that board in the lobby it says, Wedding Party. Souter-Fry!’
Adrian, ignoring her hysteria, said steadily, ‘Patricia didn’t marry me this morning. She married my brother.’
Laura gulped. ‘I – I’d forgotten you had a brother.’
‘No, you never met him. He’s in the Navy. Came home on leave, dashing in his uniform and Patricia, well, I think she was fed up with hanging around for me.’
He was back on the sofa, his arms around her.
‘Where are you staying tonight, Laura?’
‘I don’t know. I mean, all of today has come as such a shock.’
‘I’ve booked the entire hotel. I asked for Room Nine.’
Laura smiled. That famous Christmas. Had they ever stopped making love?
‘I have to tell you, it’s now called the Balmoral Suite. Look, come up to the party. Dinkie, Lol and Marje are there. When I saw them on the steps, I invited them. And you can meet Patricia.’
Meet Patricia. Oh, thanks. Laura had reached the stage where she relished hating bloody Patricia. Smiling at the gloating bride was the last thing she wanted to do.
Strangers in a Garden Page 23