‘Don’t say “neither”, this is the moment for strong liquor.’
‘Brandy then.’
‘Good choice.’ He poured us each a third of a glass. ‘In or out?’
‘In, it’s too cold.’
‘I’m glad you said that.’ He nodded in the direction of the darkening garden. ‘I need to do some more work out there,’ he observed. He wasn’t going to return to the subject independently, not yet. ‘Make time for it before I get into the next book. I think I could enjoy gardening given half a chance …’
‘We could …’ I began, and then told myself to spit it out. ‘So what do you think?’
‘About what, specifically?’
I took a large gulp of my drink, such that my eyes watered. ‘What should I do?’
I saw at once that was the right question. I had his attention and was assured, this time, of a reply. He spoke quickly and incisively as if he’d been longing to say something like this, and just waiting for an opportunity. But his answer still surprised me.
‘Nothing. Do nothing.’
He saw how lost and confounded I was, and leaned into me removing his glasses so that his face was bare and vulnerable, before placing a kiss on my mouth. It may sound strange, but that gesture, the removal of the specs, made my heart beat faster. It was his way of showing that he was no longer interested in what could be seen, or heard, only in what could be felt – the prelude, usually, to lovemaking. And the kiss was not brief and placatory, a sop to my anxiety, but ardent and warm.
‘Nothing, my darling Flora,’ he added. ‘Except this …’
Because so much had happened and (for me at least) changed, it felt like a long time since we had made love, though it can only have been a few days. I’d like to say that it was perfect, but it wasn’t. I was still too uncertain of myself. But being wrapped together, skin on skin, in Edwin’s room where we had watched the light change and the seasons roll round on the cathedral spire, assured me of his certainty, and that of our love. Afterwards, I fell asleep in his arms.
When I woke he was sitting in a chair by the window, the curtains still open, reading beneath a lamp. He’d pulled on his clothes but the cotton sweatshirt was inside out and his feet were bare. He didn’t realize I was awake and there was an immense sense of peace in watching him as he turned the page, absorbed in the text.
‘Hello.’
‘Oh, hello,’ he said, closing the book, smiling across at me. ‘You’re back.’
That evening we talked some more, about everything. We discussed the TV series, and his new book, and Rachel, who was seeing someone (I was genuinely pleased to hear this and not only for selfish reasons). Edwin was also keen that as soon as work allowed we should go away together.
‘Somewhere where it’s just us standing side by side looking at beautiful things,’ was how he put it, and I didn’t argue. Nor did he when I said I was going to go back to my flat that night.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You need to make it feel right again.’
Just before I left I voiced the nagging fear that was still there.
‘What if he turns up?’
‘The note-writer? He won’t.’
‘But he knows where I am. And I can’t reply, because I don’t know where he is! What if he just appears?’
We were standing on the path that ran between the garden and the close. Behind us the front door stood open, but Edwin’s face was in shadow and unreadable as he said: ‘What if you were somewhere else?’
I didn’t realize then that I’d been proposed to. He only waited for a moment before adding, ‘No-one should let the sun go down on their wrath. It’s not good for the health. Speak to Nico and Zinny, and when you’re ready, let’s go down there. You because you must, and I because I want to meet them.’
TWENTY-ONE
It was strange – more than strange, a shock – to hear their names in Edwin’s mouth. All my life I had been accustomed to the vacuum that surrounded us. No past, no extended family, few friends and no close ones – just me, Nico and Zinny in our tacit and, to me, mysterious conspiracy of secrecy. That was what I was used to, and the reason why Nico’s revelations, startling enough in themselves, had given me something like vertigo.
But now Edwin knew, and the sky had not fallen in, nor the earth opened up. When he spoke their names they became more real, more normal – two fully comprehensible people who had made the best of the hand they’d been dealt.
He had given them back to me.
That didn’t stop me feeling nervous when, a week later, Edwin drove us down. The last time I had made this journey I had been fuelled by rage and horror. I hadn’t needed to screw up my courage, I wanted only to say my piece, to throw the note in their faces and demand an explanation.
Now, I had the explanation, and the freedom to make of it what I would. ‘Grown-up time’, as Elsa had said to me after she’d listened.
‘So you’ve got a man there who not only adores you, but who’s wise and generous too,’ she said. ‘Please don’t tell me he can bake a pie as well, or I’ll have to divorce Brian.’
‘I do know I’m lucky,’ I confessed.
‘So go with him to Devon, and face your demons.’
‘They’re not demons.’
‘You know what I mean. You owe it to Edwin, as well as yourself, to get over it. Stiffen those sinews, girl. And now,’ she raised her glass, ‘the toast is: To you, and all who sail in you!’
We clinked, she laughed, and I prayed.
But now we were nearly there and I had butterflies. We drove down into Salting for a pub lunch and – for me anyway – some Dutch courage.
On the phone, Nico had sounded more like his old self and it was soon apparent why.
‘We’ll both be here. I picked Zinny up yesterday, time off for good behaviour.’
‘How is she?’
‘Oh …’ I could picture him taking a quick covert drag; he must be outside. ‘You know Zinny.’
For a stupid moment I wanted to say that I didn’t, and I never had, but I squashed the impulse instantly.
‘She’s very chuffed about meeting the Prof. I’m in charge of supper – does he eat fish and chips?’
‘He eats anything. And by the way, we won’t be needing a bed, we’re booked in at a B&B.’
‘You sure?’ I could tell this hadn’t crossed his mind.
‘Quite sure.’
‘OK.’ After a short pause, his tone changed. ‘We’re awfully glad you’re coming, Floss. Honestly. I thought I might have frightened you away with all – you know, all that.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You didn’t. We’ll be with you some time in the afternoon.’
As we walked up the high street from the car park to the Hat and Feathers, Edwin said, ‘I knew the name rang a bell – I’ve been here before.’
‘Really? Why?’ It would have been more normal to ask ‘When’, but his visiting Salting seemed so unlikely.
‘They started rather a nice literary festival here about ten years ago, and I came to speak at the very first one. My venue was the library … Is that still going strong?
‘The library certainly is. Zinny would know about the literary festival, she’s a fan of yours.’
‘Is that so? Excellent, it’s always good to meet a satisfied customer.’
In the pub I drank my glass of white too quickly and could only pick at my food while Edwin talked about his previous visit.
‘They were a charming and receptive audience, I remember. Average age rather older than I was then, about sixty? But all keen readers and widely read; there were plenty of questions. I was put up in considerable comfort by a couple in a lovely Georgian house just up the hill …’
He was keeping me amused, trying to divert me from my anxiety, and I was only listening with half an ear, but even so his thumbnail sketch of Salting in all its well-read, prosperous respectability served to remind me of what I was taking him to – the place of the outsiders, the non-belongers, the misf
its – and my stomach churned. I prayed he didn’t imagine that I – that we – had been part of this.
‘… a delightful town,’ he was saying, ‘typical of lots of others especially around the south coast. The best place in the world to retire to, if that’s what you’re after. But—’ he leaned forward and lowered his voice – ‘I confess it would send me round the bend in short order!’
As we walked back to the car, I reflected that while nothing he said or did seemed calculated, it was so often exactly what I needed to hear. Just as I was in danger of feeling alienated, he’d pulled me back, and aligned himself with me, reminding me that I was not alone.
I took the wheel for the last few miles, out of Salting and up on to the coast road. This afternoon – the short afternoon of the solstice – was hard, clear, perfect, the sea below like a millpond and the sky an intense blue, fading to a wintry dove grey on the horizon. The road was so high here that gulls wheeling in the sunshine at the cliff top were level with the car window so we seemed almost to be flying too.
‘It’s so beautiful here,’ said Edwin. ‘What a place to be brought up.’
I wondered if he was imagining an Enid Blyton childhood, full of madcap adventures in the great outdoors, boating and hiking and picnics with lashings of ginger beer. This made me remember something I had kept buried for years.
‘I had a dog,’ I said. ‘Towser. He was a runaway who adopted us and I pressured them into keeping him.’
‘Your very own dog, lucky girl. I wasn’t allowed. My parents weren’t in favour of pets, they reckoned they’d wind up looking after whatever it was and I bet they were right: I was an idle so-and-so. Did you look after Towser?’
‘Yes. But when he got run over by a car they were secretly relieved. I heard them talking.’
He said matter–of-factly, ‘How awful that you heard them. But good that they let him stay.’
We came to the fork in the road where we turned down towards the bay, and in a moment there was our roof, like an upturned boat below the swell of the hill. I pulled over and put the car in neutral.
‘That’s us.’ I realized what I had said, the odd turn of phrase, but Edwin was gazing down.
‘I’d say it’s idyllic but in stormy weather it must be fearsome.’
‘Edwin …’
‘Come on, driver.’
‘I’m not sure …’
‘It’ll be dark if you hang about much longer. And anyway, how do you think I feel, the man in your life about to meet your parents for the first time?’
‘They’re not my parents.’
‘Whoah.’ He put his hand, dry and warm, on the back of my neck. ‘Don’t say that. Never let me hear you say that.’
‘But it’s true.’
‘They are the people who brought you up, and cared for you and loved you, and made sacrifices for you – yes, they did that. I’d call that being parents, good ones. All that’s happened is that you’ve found out something new about them, and yourself. You’ve found exactly how much they did love you. Especially Nico.’ He pushed his fingers up into my hair. ‘Flora? Yes?’
‘I suppose.’
He removed his hand. ‘Come on then, or I’ll walk and be there before you.’
We pulled in behind a car I hadn’t seen before – a gleaming silver convertible with a sleek, almost sinuous appearance as if made not from metal but some more pliable substance. Edwin’s eyes widened in admiration as he got out.
‘By George, a classic Lotus Elan!’ He breathed reverently. ‘You never said they had a car like this.’
‘They didn’t. It must be span new.’
He was walking round it. ‘Not span new, no. But a lovely, lovely thing.’
The car was spectacular, but too sudden, too much. For some reason it bothered me. I heard a tapping and looked up: Nico was on the verandah. He sent me a wave and beckoned, stepping away to meet us at the door.
A moment later I thanked God for the car because it made the meeting between Nico and Edwin almost normal. Once they had shaken hands it acted as a lightning conductor, and they went outside to admire it, though I was sure Edwin was no connoisseur. Just as well there was this distraction, because seeing the two of them together was overwhelming. They were so different in appearance, and I’d calculated that Edwin was at least ten years older, but the vital spark seemed far more evident in him. Nico looked tired and puffy, his boyish handsomeness tarnished. Zinny’s illness (and other things, I imagined) had taken its toll.
The moment he was outside the door he lit a cigarette, and broke off from car talk (‘1969 model …’) to say over his shoulder: ‘Go on in, Floss, she’s expecting you.’
As soon as I saw Zinny, I could tell how things were. And how much it meant to me, because my heart plummeted. She was sitting on one of the basket chairs, with her feet on a small footstool, and made no move to get up, though she did extend a hand, which I took briefly.
‘Hello, stranger.’ The voice was firm, but the hand in mine was insubstantial, silky and loose-skinned.
‘Hello Zinny. How are you?’
‘Faded,’ she said caustically. ‘No point in pretending, you can see for yourself. What have you done with the Prof?’
‘He’ll be in shortly. Nico’s telling him about the car.’
She murmured without rancour, ‘Stupid thing, complete madness,’ and craned her neck a little to see out into the garden. She was almost transparently thin, and her hair had lost its lustre. Perhaps most shockingly she was wearing a pale blue tracksuit – Zinny, in a tracksuit! But elegance is not all to do with presentation; it’s innate, a gift, and Zinny still had it. She was still looking out of the window when she added in the flat voice she reserved for the expression of extreme emotion, ‘I can’t tell you how glad we both are that you’re here.’
‘And we’re glad to be here, Zinny.’
Not much of an exchange you might think but one which established, simply and irrefutably, the truth: that there wasn’t much time.
The men stepped down on to the drive to take a closer look at the car. I guessed they were being tactful, allowing us this moment. Zinny turned back, spreading her fingers on her knees and looking down as she twiddled her loose ring, the plain gold band Nico had given her.
‘I understand you heard from Billy.’
‘Yes.’
‘I used to think him a ghastly man, and a coward.’ She tilted her head slightly both reflecting and, I thought, taking a deep breath. ‘But now I’m not so sure. He had much to contend with, and he stuck it out till the last.’ Her pale hazel eyes lifted to mine. ‘Almost the last.’
I wasn’t going to lie. The injury was still raw.
‘You mean till I arrived.’
‘No, not that. You weren’t you then, you were something that happened to him, and he couldn’t cope any more. He knew you’d be cared for.’
‘All right,’ I said neutrally. I wasn’t going to argue. There was strength in her frailty, and we both knew it. There was only so much energy she could give to this.
‘You weren’t happy to get his note.’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t blame you. But don’t feel too badly about him, or your mother. I’ve been pretty uncharitable about her, too, in the past. Certainly nothing was her fault, she was appallingly ill. He wrote to you for the right reasons. Have you replied?’
‘There was no address, but I wouldn’t anyway.’
Again, Zinny’s little gesture with her ring. ‘She was here once.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I guessed.’
She went on as though I hadn’t spoken. ‘Nico always felt terrible about her being in hospital and then in that place, so we had her to stay for a while when you were away. And then you came back early.’ She gave me a cold, sad smile. ‘You must have been terrified.’
‘I was.’
‘You poor thing. We took her back that night.’
I wanted to ask Did she know it was me? But it was all so long, long ago.
Edwin and
Nico were visible again now, looking out over the bay, Nico pointing. Zinny said very quietly: ‘I understand, Flora. But really we should be grateful. He’s done us all a favour.’
The men turned towards the house, hunched with the cold. Edwin was smiling at something Nico had said. I felt a tiny beat of something unexpected but irrepressible, like hope.
‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘Maybe.’
We stayed for not much more than an hour; it was clear Zinny couldn’t have managed much longer. With Edwin in the room she bloomed and sparkled, and I could see he was enchanted. Watching them I reflected that maybe that accounted for her reserve, amounting almost to chilliness, much of the time: before Nico she had needed all her vivacity and charm for those other men, the clients. She had formed a habit of dignified control in the rest of her life, a protective coloration.
I don’t know to this day whether she knew Nico had told me about all of that. If she did, she had the wisdom not to mention it. The four of us talked about the future – about Edwin’s books and our plans to go away together, this house (they feared they’d have to sell it) and the beauty of the surroundings, Salting (Zinny had been to Edwin’s talk) … And the symbolism of that car.
‘I was telling Edwin,’ said Nico. ‘A flash motor’s always been a dream of ours, and I woke up one morning thinking “Now’s the moment”, and why not?’
Of course we knew what he meant, though Edwin and I could never have guessed at the full implications.
Edwin said, ‘Well, perhaps now is my moment to confess I want to marry your daughter.’
Zinny let out a little cry, which I shall never forget – a sound of pure happiness – and Nico’s eyes shone bright.
‘Blow me, that’s great – does she know? Floss?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know.’
So it was that we said goodbye on this joyful note. It was clear they didn’t want to discuss Zinny’s illness, or how the treatment was going, preferring to let Edwin and me take centre stage. I found the swirl of emotion quite overpowering, and I was sure Nico and Zinny did too, but the habit of covering up and carrying on was ingrained. When, on the doorstep, we assured them that we would be back very soon, they didn’t react. It was as if they were too pleased with our other news to hear – something I was to remember later.
Love in a Mist Page 24