Bitter Orange

by Bitter Orange (retail) (epub)

  “A report?” Peter stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette on a plate left on the table and took a battered saucepan from the fridge. “Bloody hell, I was planning on jotting down a few points about the house on a scrap of paper. You’d better not show me up.” He pointed at me and filled his tin cup from the saucepan.

  “Oh dear,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to do that. I mean—” I shifted and the stiff underwear creaked, a loud awkward noise which none of us commented on.

  “Frances,” Cara said. “He’s teasing you.” She laughed, moved her legs, and I saw a flash of snowy thigh. “Peter makes fun of everything. You’ll have to get used to it.” The significance of these words wasn’t lost on me: she had already decided we would be seeing more of each other; they were already planning on inviting me to their rooms another time. Maybe we would be friends. Maybe this was how it was done.

  Peter returned to the window with the saucepan in one hand and his cup in the other.

  “Isn’t that right? Always teasing,” she said, smiling at him, tilting her chin upward. He bent from the waist with his arms out sideways like an actor taking a bow, keeping the cup and saucepan horizontal, and he kissed her long and full on the lips. I was transfixed by these two people. When they drew apart, Cara’s eyes stayed closed as though she wanted the kiss to last for longer, but Peter stood and looked at me before I glanced into my cup, surprised to see it was empty. I thought he looked at me as a man looks at a woman, not as one might look at a daughter, or a student, or a library-card holder, or a writer of obscure historical articles, and I liked it.

  “Another martini, Frances?” Peter held up the saucepan and poured some into my cup. “It won’t keep until tomorrow, martini goes off very quickly.”

  “Really?”

  Peter winked, and Cara rolled her eyes.

  He sloshed martini into her cup as well. “Seriously though, I don’t think Liebermann expects much, just a few words of what’s what. Have you managed to get to the bridge yet?”

  “I have,” I said, the disappointment coming back. “Unfortunately I don’t think it’s anything special, although it’s hard to see, there’s a great deal of vegetation.”

  “What were you hoping for? Surely not Palladian or anything like that?”

  I dipped my head, drank. “No, no,” I said. “Not that. I was only hoping for something nice.”

  “And it’s not even nice?” he said. “Oh dear.”

  “Well . . . I suppose it’s pretty, in a bucolic way.”

  “There might be something about it in the library,” Peter said. “I don’t know exactly what’s in there. I haven’t examined the books in any detail.”

  “There’s a library at Lyntons?” I said, excitedly.

  “South-west corner, ground floor. It’s had extensive water damage and no doubt any valuable books will have gone already, but you might find a mention of it in any that are left.”

  “You should take Frances on a tour of the house,” Cara said.

  “If you’d like, Frances,” Peter said over his shoulder, going back across the room with the saucepan.

  Cara was suddenly animated. “And Frances must show us the bridge. We’d love to see it. I still haven’t been to the lake. Peter could dip his toes in the water and I could make us a picnic. It’s stifling up here in the middle of the day. Why don’t we go tomorrow? What do you say?”

  Her enthusiasm was daunting; I wanted to believe in it but an old need to protect myself from rejection clutched at me. “I’m afraid I haven’t much food to contribute to a picnic,” I said. “I was planning on going into town tomorrow to pick up a few things.”

  “I’m sure we’ve plenty,” Peter said. “Cara seems to go there for something every other day. Costs me a fortune.” He swung open the fridge to show the shelves crammed with food. The sight of it reminded me that my stomach was sloshing with alcohol and there was still no sign of dinner.

  “That’s decided then,” she said. “Oh, look.” She pointed out of the window to the terrace below us. The scrawny ginger cat was lying on the stone flags. “It’s Serafina.”

  “That’s the cat which ate my fish,” I said. “It made off with a whole plaice.”

  “I don’t think Serafina would do something like that, she’s very friendly.”

  Even from a distance I could see that the back of the cat’s head was nearly bald.

  “Don’t you think it would be nice to be a cat?” Cara said. “Never having to think about cooking, or happiness, or what’s going to happen tomorrow. You can come and go as you want. You don’t have to answer to anyone.”

  I wasn’t persuaded that it was that simple—there wouldn’t usually be plaice lying around when you were hungry—but I made a quiet noise of agreement.

  “We had a ginger cat when we were in Ireland,” Cara continued. “He was Peter’s really, though, not mine.” I looked over at Peter, who was searching through packets of food in a box beside the stove. “Peter liked him to sleep in our bed, stretched out between us like a little furry man.”

  I didn’t think it sounded hygienic.

  “It used to irritate me, having the cat in the bed. Even though I loved him.”

  “Because of the fleas?” I said.

  “He didn’t have fleas. He was a good clean cat. I don’t know why I was irritated. Because I wanted to be alone in the bed with Peter, because I couldn’t love him as much as he needed to be loved, or because he was different from other cats. I would chuck him out and then he’d have this expression on his little face and I’d feel so guilty. It’s all they ever want; all any of us ever wants. Look at me, look at me, love me, love me.” She gave a small laugh. “Serafina! Serafina!” she called out of the window, but the cat didn’t look up.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Who?”

  “Your cat.”

  She paused to think about it. “One day he was there and the next he wasn’t. I think he was a stray.”

  “A feral cat? He wasn’t your pet?”

  “Pet? Yes, I suppose he was our pet, but free to go when he wanted.”

  “You must have missed him,” I said.

  She turned back towards the room and in a louder voice said, “Now Frances, I want you to tell us everything.”

  “Everything?” I turned my head too fast and the room spun. As I took another sip of the martini—which was now delicious—I thought about drinking more slowly and wondered again when they would start dinner, and then, with another swallow, it was no longer important.

  “About you,” she said. “What you like doing, who your parents are, where you live, everything.”

  “Weren’t you living in London?” Peter called from the kitchen area.

  They both looked at me, waiting for my answer. “Yes,” I said. “With my mother. She . . . she passed away last month.” I touched the locket around my neck and Mother’s brassiere dug into my skin.

  “I’m sorry,” Peter said. His hands rose and fell.

  “I’d been caring for her for some time.”

  “That must have been very difficult,” Cara said.

  “And your father?” Peter asked.

  Had anyone ever been that interested?

  “He left her . . . us. When I was ten, for someone else. We haven’t stayed in touch. In fact, I haven’t seen him since.”

  Had I ever said this much about myself?

  “Oh, Frances,” Cara said, putting her hand on my arm. “That must have been dreadful. I know what it’s like to lose both parents.”

  Whether from the alcohol or the sympathy, my vision blurred.

  “We shouldn’t have asked,” she said, although it was Peter who had done the asking. She squeezed my arm. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yours have passed away too?” I asked her.

  She shrugged and said, “Peter still has both of his, squirrelled away in Devon or Dorset.” Her voice was low, whispering a secret. “I think he’s embarrassed by them — their cheeks are too ruddy, or t
hey look too much like their dogs.”

  I stared at her, shocked, until she laughed and I realised she was joking.

  Peter, coming back to us, said, “I have to admit that when Liebermann telephoned to offer me the job and told me you would be looking over the gardens, I was expecting a man.” He held out a hand in which he’d placed a small pile of peanuts. I hadn’t been offered peanuts from someone else’s palm before, but I took one. He held out his hand again and I took a few more.

  “Frances and Francis,” I said. “E-s or i-s. It happens often. There was a big muddle when I went up to Oxford, which was nearly very awkward. Luckily I ended up in the right place.”

  “You were at Oxford?” Peter said. “I don’t suppose it was St. Hilda’s, was it? Did you know a Mallory Swift?”

  Before I had time to explain, Cara threw the last of her cigarette out of the window, moved her legs around me, and stood up in one fluid motion as Serafina might have uncurled from a sleep. “I should start dinner,” she said. “You must be starving, Frances.”

  I took a gulp of my martini. “Well . . .” I laughed loudly, and looking down saw a green olive rocking against the enamel of my cup like a sunken eye, a tiny piece of pimento for a pupil.

  He must have understood Cara’s cue because Peter didn’t ask me any more about Oxford or Mallory Swift, but took the empty place beside me on the windowsill where Cara had been sitting and leaned in towards me. He smelled of aftershave, a clean fresh smell, and I remembered how he had inclined his head while Cara shaved him. “It sounds like you’ve had a difficult time. You should just enjoy the summer here, with Cara and me.” He reached out and touched the back of my hand with the tips of his fingers. They were on my skin for an instant, but it was as though one of the bones in my hand had been healed by Peter’s touch; a bone I hadn’t been aware was broken.

  “I’m starting below stairs and working my way up,” Peter said, turning his fork in his pasta until it caught two strands. He lifted his hand, his fork making circles in the air while he spoke, the tagliatelle remaining coiled. “It’s labyrinthine down there—storeroom after storeroom, and larders, pantries, and goodness knows what else. It’s all below ground, which means there’s no natural light. The kitchen’s there too, and acres of wine cellars.” He lifted his cup. We had moved on from martinis. “Luckily I don’t think Liebermann gives a damn about what’s there.”

  “Surely the history of Lyntons is of interest to him,” I said. “I thought all Americans liked English history.” My hands and feet buzzed with the alcohol, and my cheeks were warm. I was enjoying the feeling.

  “Only if they can make money from it.” Peter poured more wine.

  “He’s not hoping to sell Lyntons on, is he? I thought he was planning on emigrating here, renovating the house and garden,” I said.

  “Liebermann? Emigrate?” Peter’s mouth was full.

  “Isn’t that why he’s employing us? To assess what’s here and what needs doing before he moves in?”

  “Not bloody likely.” Peter waved his fork. His lips were shiny with oil. “He wants us to survey Lyntons so he can ship the interesting pieces across the Atlantic. When I say the interesting pieces, what I mean is the valuable pieces.” The fork waved, conducting his words. “The fireplaces, the grand staircase, fountain, orangery, whole rooms, all going piecemeal, sold off to American collectors.” He spun some more pasta around the tines of the fork. “I imagine Liebermann was hoping that the bridge would turn out to be Palladian. It’d be worth a fortune.” He put the tagliatelle in his mouth and touched his lip with a knuckle where a smudge of lemon sauce gleamed. “Sorry,” he said, eating. “I thought you’d realised.”

  Cara was dabbing with her fingertips at a patch of salt spilled on the table. “Oh Peter,” she said, “now you’ve upset our guest with all your talk about the house.” She turned to me. “Is the pasta all right for you, Frances?” She lifted her right hand over her left shoulder as though stretching, but a tiny sprinkle of the salt dropped behind her.

  “It’s delicious,” I said, picking up my fork again, my words running together.

  “I get the flour sent from a little Italian shop in London. It’s impossible to buy good pasta here in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Isn’t she a wonder?” Peter said, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “She taught herself how to cook from books.”

  “And Dermod,” she said. “He taught me the basics. I asked at the grocer’s in town whether they had pasta and they showed me tins of alphabet shapes in tomato sauce. In Glasgow, I could get anything and everything Italian. Oh, the ice cream. Do you remember the ice cream, Peter?” She put her elbows on the table. “I’m going to order a food parcel with olives, parmigiano, and flour, every month,” she said. She offered me the basket with the last piece of bread in it and I took it, though it might not have been polite.

  “See how much she bloody costs me,” Peter said, smiling.

  “Isn’t it worth it for the dinners, though?”

  “Is that where you were living, in Glasgow?” I said, smearing the bread in the lemon sauce left on my plate as my hosts had done.

  “For a while, and then in a castle beside a loch, and before that another country house. Goodness that castle was cold, wasn’t it, Peter, but at least it had chairs, something more than army beds, and it had a few glasses.” She held out her tin cup. “We were meant to be renting a cottage in town but—”

  “It comes down to money in the end,” Peter said.

  Cara put down her fork and wiped at her mouth with a tea towel that had been shoved along the table with the rest of the things to clear space for us to eat. She stood and stacked our plates.

  “All the houses we’ve lived in have been pretty ruinous,” Peter said. “Or if they were watertight and upright, they were scheduled for bulldozing anyway. It makes me want to weep when I think of what we’ve lost.”

  In their bathroom, after more wine and my first taste of grappa, which Peter had pressed upon me, I stood with my forehead against the cool wall, filling my lungs with air. Beneath my feet the floor lurched. I moved sideways from door to basin, keeping my palms in contact with the wall, knowing that if I were to let go, the ground would rise up again. I bent over the basin and turned on the cold tap, which spluttered and spat until a steady flow came out, then I cupped my hands under it and sank my head into the pool. Feeling a little better, I lowered myself to the floor and rested the back of my head against the wall, hoping I would be able to make it through Cara and Peter’s sitting room and up the stairs to my own bed without making a fool of myself. And at the thought of my own rooms, I looked up. The bathroom ceiling was scooped out and the inside of the dome was painted with dark clouds, menacing and beautiful. A stormy sky scudding inside a giant teacup. Grey plumes puffed outwards in concentric circles from a black centre; something had exploded, the detonation point a central glass eye looking down on the room, on me, curving at the perimeters and staring back.

  It was Cara who came to find me with my head over their toilet bowl, undigested pasta and a foul red liquid retching out of me, too sick to be embarrassed. She gathered my hair together and held it away from my face as I vomited, rubbing my back, and handed me a cold damp cloth and a glass of water when I was able to sit up. It was Cara who helped me stand and led me through their empty room—Peter must have gone to bed—back along the hallway and through the baize door, while I apologised and she told me I mustn’t worry, that next time she would make me eat more, she would cook earlier. She sat me on my bed, took off my shoes, and tried to undo the dress but I flapped her away, thanked her, and told her I could manage. I wasn’t so drunk that I had forgotten I was wearing Mother’s underwear.

  In the morning, my tongue was dry and there was a pain behind my eyes when I moved my head. Later, a noise from outside the attic door woke me, and when I was well enough to rouse myself to open it I found an envelope with Frances written on it in ink, the handwriting elaborate and scrolled. I kept
the note that was inside, tucking it into the pocket of one of my suitcases. If someone had asked me why, I might have said that it was the first letter I’d received from a friend, but what I would have meant was that it was a letter from my first real friend.

  Dear Frances,

  Peter sends up his apologies, and hopes you won’t hold yesterday evening against him. Please for goodness’ sake, don’t do anything hastily, I can imagine how much you must be hurting, just stay in bed for a while.

  Yours,

  Cara

  I looked again in the envelope. At the bottom were two white tablets and, printed on each, the word Aspirin.

  SIX

  I swallowed the pills Cara had given me with some water and, for the first time since I was a child and ill with tonsillitis, went back to bed.

  I must have slept because someone was calling me in a dream that slipped away, and when I opened my eyes the voice continued: Cara singing my name. I got out of bed and below my window her head peeped out, her smiling face looking up. She was sitting sideways on the window seat again, her feet once more pressing against the woodwork. The angle of her body and the drop below her made my insides flip over.

  “Are you feeling better?” she said, cocking her head and raising her eyebrows. She had wrapped her hair in a deep-blue cloth, a high, flat turban that emphasised her cheekbones. I thought she was enchanting. A sparrow or a dove, and me a guinea fowl. “Would you like some lunch? I’ve made a picnic. We were hoping you’d show us the bridge.”

  My thick head was taking too long to respond. “The bridge?” I said, looking down. “What time is it?”

  “About two o’clock, or three. Although, I have to say, you don’t look too good, Frances. We could go on our own.”

  “Give me ten minutes.” I moved back into my room thinking about what I should put on, thinking about Mother’s underwear, which could give even a game bird a waist.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” Cara called.