Love in a Mist

by Sarah Harrison

  ‘Everyone who comes into a hotel room,’ she would say, ‘wants to feel that they’re the first person ever to have used it. One tiny thing that reminds them they’re not, that’s spoilt it for them.’

  She was old-school though. Queries about pillows and herbal tea were met with her most blankly benign expression as if a child had said something crude without realizing its implications. It was left to me to deal with those, and to update the Dorset Arms’ marketing. The owners were a jolly, prosperous couple who had made a lot of money in high-end boats, and for whom the hotel was really no more than a hobby. They were prepared to put money into getting it right, but then they wanted it to float, like a well-appointed yacht, without much effort from them. The arrangement worked quite well, and they recognized in me someone who might have good ideas to help them pick up a more youthful clientele.

  On the day, a Friday, that I was promoted to PR and publicity duties – an arrangement which left me and Mrs Collings still good friends – I rang home to tell my parents. I’d been given the weekend off, and wanted to go home and share my success. This, surely, would be grounds for a celebration.

  The phone rang three times before the answer phone kicked in. I’d suggested they set it to ring longer for everyone’s sake, but this was the way Zinny liked it – she wanted to vet calls before picking up.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, ‘it’s me. Are you there?’

  Apparently they weren’t. At least I hoped they weren’t, and that I hadn’t fallen foul of Zinny’s vetting.

  ‘Just to say I’ll be coming back tomorrow morning, I’ve got till Sunday evening off. And I’ve got some good news. OK?’ I paused in case they had just walked in and were rushing to the phone. ‘OK. See—’ That was it, out of time.

  That night I went down to the Jolly Sailor with Conor, one of the waiters. As we were leaving the ‘downstairs’ phone rang, and it was Zinny.

  ‘Look, we’re in Bath for the weekend but there’s every chance we’ll be back in time to see you on Sunday, so why don’t you go down anyway? There’s plenty of food about the place.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I might.’

  ‘So what’s the good news?’

  I was cast down. ‘Oh, nothing.’

  ‘All right.’ It was so like Zinny not to press me. ‘See you Sunday with a bit of luck.’

  I rang off. ‘Problem?’ asked Conor.

  ‘Not really.’

  I didn’t want to hang about in Lyme on my days off, so I allowed myself a lie-in and set off along the westward coast road to Salting at twelve in my metallic-grey Micra. The car, still on the never-never, was my pride and joy, taken through the giant rotating scrubbing brushes once a week on the basis that a clean car runs better. The radio was playing Kylie and Jason as I got into top gear and hummed along. I entertained a sudden gratifying picture of myself – the vibrant young freewheeling professional moving out and moving up …

  My euphoria was short lived. The weather was muggy and grey and the coast road on an early September Saturday was no place to be, clogged as it was with caravans and family cars with harassed drivers at the wheel. On top of which I was going to an empty house, which reminded me how limited were my social options. I didn’t have a boyfriend, ‘proper’ or otherwise (interesting that ‘proper’ in this context meant the opposite), and few friends to speak of in the area. I hadn’t bothered to keep up with people from school, and since then I’d not had those useful university years when traditionally a girl might forge relationships with like-minded fellow students. Most of the time this lack of a social circle didn’t bother me – I wasn’t interested in clubbing or pubbing; I was happiest working and when I wasn’t doing that I was generally content with my own company. But today was different: there was something to celebrate. I’d hoped to be welcomed and, well, cherished. Why I allowed myself to hope for these things was a mystery. Experience showed that my parents weren’t much interested. They (especially my father) seemed happy enough in my company when there was no alternative. But I always had the sense, which grew more distinct as the years went by, that if I had been spirited away in the night I wouldn’t have been missed. Their lives would have continued serenely enough without me.

  I suppose I just continued to think, from time to time, that they’d shape up. They weren’t bad; they weren’t cruel; they were – when it came to me, their daughter, their only child – heedless. I should have been used to it, but I wasn’t.

  I remember once reading a saying: A child may hear what you say, it may see what you do, but it always knows who you are. I knew who Zinny and Nico were. They were a couple sufficient unto themselves, to whom I was a mildly inconvenient adjunct, accepted and catered for but not celebrated.

  I turned off the radio because they were doing golden oldies and Bonnie Tyler was rasping away about her ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’.

  I turned off the main road for Salting, taking the loop by the tennis club and the (now defunct) station, and continuing out of town in the direction of our bay. I drove past the familiar landmarks – the scout hut, the common, the beech wood and the beacon path – and then left at Keeper’s Cottage and along the winding lane that led to the sea and over the cliffs. The main road didn’t come near here; it shot past Salting and this stretch of coast to the fleshpots of Deremouth with its golden sands, donkeys and funfair.

  The road trickled along by the sea for a while and then began to climb up the broad bluff which was the easterly arm of our bay. Everything about this journey was Proustian, freighted with memories and half-submerged feelings. Later, I came to see that most other people took home for granted – home was like a second womb to them, the source of life-support systems, a haven of security from which to set out and make one’s way in the world. Home for me was a restless place, not unhappy but full of uncertainty, where I was always trying, always seeking, never quite sure of where I stood.

  On the brow of the hill I pulled over. I was looking down over the left shoulder of our house; I could see the upstairs windows with the stone terrace built into the hillside, and the corner of the arched wooden verandah. From here you couldn’t make out the walkway down to the beach – the road below me that ran past the house looked as if it were on the lip of a precipice. Standing there on its own the house appeared secretive. Standoffish might be a better word. Not welcoming.

  There was a parking area on the far side of the house in front of the garage, and with my parents away I left the car there and let myself in. The place was, as usual, immaculate. I haven’t described the interior and I really should because Zinny had good taste and everything was down to her. The predominant colour in the large, light living room was a dusty pink, with soft greys and blues; a pretty, feminine room, but ample and comfortable too. There were always flowers – today there were pink and blue stocks in a tall white pottery jug on the hearth, and a little vase of smaller flowers (love-in-a mist – she grew them each year in a pot) on the table by her chair. The bookshelves on the back wall were full, but Zinny left gaps and put things in the gaps – shells and funny ornaments and vases, a framed photograph of me and my father when I was (they told me) three. There was a big Turkish rug on the wooden floor, patterned in red and grey, but so faded that it too looked pink. Over the fireplace was a watercolour seascape, not of this coast but one of long level dunes running almost to the horizon, a blurry shimmer of sea in the distance. I’d always liked the picture with its great expanse of light and air, the sense it gave of space and possibilities.

  You would never have guessed, from the slightly frowning and austere outside of our house, how pretty it was in here. This relaxed, sensuous, sweetly coloured room was, like so much of my parents’ life, a sort of secret.

  And quiet. So utterly quiet. Is there anywhere more silent than someone else’s house when they’re not there? None of one’s own atmosphere, one’s personal vibrations, the reflection of oneself sent back by one’s own belongings.

  And this was someone else’s hous
e. Theirs, my parents’. It always had been. For the first sixteen years of my life I’d resided here, but made very little impression on the place.

  I left my weekend bag on the sofa and went looking for something to eat. They’d never been rich enough to put in a modern kitchen, so apart from the cooker this was pre-war, but under Zinny’s supervision my father had scrubbed and painted it so that the old-fashioned wooden cupboards and shelves and the pulley hanging from the ceiling looked like the most chic retro accessories. They’d put in brass taps over the butler’s sink, and lifted the lino to reveal the tiled floor. So it had a certain style, but anyone over eighty would have felt right at home here.

  Not that we had many visitors. Another defining aspect of our family life was its separateness. My parents liked to go out and enjoy themselves, they had acquaintances connected with the rep and the cricket club, but they didn’t have people round – there were no dinner parties or sociable Sunday lunches. They were sufficient unto themselves.

  I discovered early on that I had no grandparents, or none that I’d met. My father’s mother was dead, and he described his father as a ‘complete wastrel’, who had taken off long since and with whom he’d lost contact. Zinny was even less forthcoming, saying only with a cool smile that she had ‘cut the traces long ago’, and had no intention of going back.

  As a child you accept how things are unquestioningly. Only gradually did it dawn on me that my home life was different, and strange. And even then I coasted on the admiration and envy that my parents attracted. I wasn’t unhappy, but over the years I began to see us through others’ eyes.

  I opened the fridge more in hope than expectation. Now that I wasn’t in residence there was no need for an array of convenience food. Four cans of lager, a bottle of sauvignon, some scarily organic yoghurt, salad and eggs. It was a waste of time looking for cake or biscuits, but I disinterred a loaf of sliced bread from the freezer, and tuna and mayonnaise from the cupboard. I’d get fish and chips in Salting this evening. I could already feel that tomorrow I’d have a lie-in and head back to Lyme.

  Being here on my own reminded me of the dog, who’d found us and loved us. Me especially. Down there near the fridge was where we’d put the picnic rug for him. A lump swam up into my throat and my eyes oozed tears. I ripped off some kitchen towel and sat down at the table so I could cry properly, and noisily. I sobbed and gulped and wailed and gasped. I rarely cried, and the relief was intense. I gave myself up to it, like an orgasm (the orgasm I imagined and looked forward to: I had never had one). The tears weren’t only for Towser, they were for me.

  Everything had gone so well with Towser to begin with. School holidays began and I was not just willing but desperate to take on dog-care duties. They were just what I needed, solitary, conscientious child that I was. My parents were impressed, especially Zinny, who I think suddenly saw both how good I was at it, and how good it was for me.

  ‘I must say, sweetie,’ she remarked in her light, laconic way one evening, ‘you’re really getting into this.’

  Sweetie! This was her only term of endearment, and reserved for the most specialized occasions. My heart leapt, my cheeks burned, I positively glowed with gratification. A ‘sweetie’, and for doing what I liked best in the world – what I felt, at the time, might be my vocation! My school friend Alice (the one with whom I’d gone to Wales) had a black Labrador and a Jack Russell at home. She had quite liked Towser, but got rather sick of the brushing, feeding, training and walks, which in her house were undertaken by others, and which she took for granted. She wanted to play upstairs and chat and do hairstyles on Girl’s World. But looking after the dog was what I liked best. He took precedence over Alice and our always-fragile friendship. When I was asked over to hers in Salting for the day I made up an excuse. My father thought this rather a poor show.

  ‘Come on, Floss, you should go.’

  ‘I don’t particularly want to.’

  ‘But she’s a friend of yours, she wants you. She’s asked you.’

  ‘I know but I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘You like old Alice, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought you and she were thick as thieves.’

  I shrugged and mumbled. He sighed.

  ‘It seems a pity not to go for no reason.’

  No reason. No reason? I closed the door behind me and led Towser across the road in the direction of the cliff walkway. I know what it is, I thought complacently. They want me to see Alice so they won’t be embarrassed by me. So that I’m out of the house. They want me to have friends because they don’t have any.

  There was some justification for my childish arrogance. My father in particular did want me to have friends, but for my own sake – he was always more intuitive than Zinny (though not necessarily any better at showing it) and with hindsight I can see that he didn’t want me to be isolated. And he liked Alice, who was a bouncy, uncomplicated girl. But hey, it made me feel good to look down on them for a change, just a little. I was being more grown-up than they’d expected. I hadn’t begged for the dog, he’d arrived out of nowhere and I’d had no part in his semi-adoption, but I was still taking responsibility.

  Again, looking back I can see their dilemma. There were no messages from the vets or the post office, and no posters up anywhere about a lost dog. There was a Blue Cross place but it was twenty miles away, and the nearest animal shelter was even further. Also, there was my involvement which reflected well on them: their ten-year-old daughter actually looking after an animal, when you were always hearing about children begging for a pet and then leaving all the work to someone else.

  More food was bought, rubber-soled dishes that wouldn’t clank and slip, a collar and lead (though my father balked at an identity tag), and a plastic dog bed.

  ‘They can all be sold later,’ said Zinny airily, but nothing could conceal the fact that things were drifting my way. And I kept them on course by not making too much of it, not asking questions, fulfilling my self-appointed role as inconspicuously as possible and with iron reliability. Even when supplies of food needed replenishing I would try to catch a moment when one of them was going into Salting and ask if I could come along and make the purchase. The only thing I didn’t have was the cash, and that wasn’t a problem.

  What I didn’t do was look too far ahead. My plan, insofar as I had one, was to keep things running so smoothly that when term started nothing would change except the timing of our walks.

  Happily, Towser was a model pet. Content in his adopted home, his natural bounciness calmed down and he was affable but not intrusively so. He seemed instinctively to know that when it came to tolerance I was top of the list, Zinny at the bottom. He gave her a wide berth, confining his attentions to a shuffle of the shoulders and a thump of the tail. My father he approached more directly, inviting some patting and ear-ruffling. I, as wielder of the tin opener, brandisher of the lead, and owner of the ever-open bedroom door, got the full five-star treatment. But I worked on training him; I didn’t want to be seen as spoiling Towser for selfish reasons, to ingratiate myself but make life worse for everyone else. I wanted everyone to love him. We went into the front garden every day for fifteen minutes, armed with a bag of treats, and did sitting, lying down, staying, and walking to heel. He thought it was a game, beaming throughout, though the walking to heel tended to go by the board when we were through the gate – he knew that the cliff top or the beach meant freedom, and pulled like a train against the moment of release. He always came when called, hurtling at full pelt, though that might have been the treats.

  Still, there was no doubt he was a smart dog. You could see it in his bright eyes and the way he cocked his head sagaciously, ears pricked, as he listened. The way he had our respective numbers and understood how far he could go with each of us, how clever was that? He was brilliant, adorable – a canine paragon. And I was pretty sure he was working (I won’t say worming) his way into Zinny’s and Dad’s good books. Their attitude was shif
ting daily from mere tolerance to something very like a baffled affection, especially in my father’s case.

  The end of the holidays was two weeks away, and I knew that was going to be a turning point. Arrangements would have to be made, and I didn’t believe they had – presumably my parents thought that to do so would be to accept Towser as a fixture. They were going to see what happened, but I was less inclined to leave things to chance. Mrs March had taken to him, so I picked my moment and asked her if she would be able to keep an eye on him and let him out when she was here in the morning.

  ‘Of course, bless him,’ she said, adding, ‘if he’s still here.’

  I ignored the second element and thanked her profusely.

  ‘You could put his food down before you go?’

  ‘I should think I can manage that.’

  This was all very satisfactory, but I didn’t tell my parents. The situation had to progress smoothly, without too much discussion.

  The day in question was a Friday. Term was due to start on the following Monday. In spite of my arrangement with Mrs March I was dreading going back. My life had taken a different turn. Home life was happy; not that it had exactly been unhappy before, but everything and everyone seemed more relaxed. Towser had sorted us out by sheer force of personality.

  I had been at Alice’s, for form’s sake. My father picked me up on his way back from a sales trip to Bristol. When we got home he went into the bedroom to change into ‘mufti’, as he called it, while I put down Towser’s food, watched as he ate, and went to get his lead.

  ‘Where are you taking him?’

  ‘On the beach.’

  ‘I’ll come.’

  ‘OK.’

  He smiled. ‘That’s all right, is it?’