Mummy hadn’t liked her going off just with friends, the girl said, but she had been to France to learn the language. There had been family holidays in Corsica, which she loved. They rented a villa. She had two brothers, both older than herself.
‘What are their names?’ asked Mrs Ford, still feeling her way. She didn’t know the girl’s yet.
‘Michael’s the eldest – he’s called after my grandfather,’ said the girl. ‘The other one’s William, after Daddy.’
Mrs Ford’s gently beating old heart began to thump unevenly. Should she say she had known a Michael, long ago? But the girl was going on, needing no prompting.
‘Aren’t names funny?’ she said. ‘I’m glad I wasn’t called after Mummy – her name’s Phyllis, after her mother. It would be confusing to have two Phyllis Carters, wouldn’t it?’
‘I suppose it would,’ Mrs Ford agreed, and now bells seemed to be ringing in her head, for her Michael’s surname had been Carter.
‘I’m called after someone else Grandfather knew,’ said the girl. ‘It’s quite romantic, really. There was this nurse he met in the war – the First War, you remember.’
‘Yes, my dear, I do,’ said Mrs Ford.
‘She was very young and shy and kept being ticked off by this older, bossier nurse, Grandfather said. When he went back to France he wrote her lots of letters, but she never answered. Wasn’t that sad? I’m named after her. Her name was Eleanor.’
‘Oh,’ said Mrs Ford faintly, and her head spun. Letters?
‘She must have married someone else or something,’ said the girl. ‘Or even died. All the letters were sent back to Grandfather. Mummy found them when she helped him clear up after Granny died, in her desk, locked up. She burned them without telling Grandfather. It would only have upset him.’
‘Yes, I suppose it would,’ said Mrs Ford. There was just one fact that must be confirmed. ‘Your grandmother?’ she asked.
‘Grandfather married another nurse,’ said the girl. ‘Mummy’s exactly like her, he says.’
Mrs Ford took it in. All those years ago Phyllis Burton had intercepted letters meant for her. Why? Because she wanted Michael for herself, or because she sought, as always, to despoil?
‘And have you uncles and aunts?’ she asked at last.
‘No, there was only Mummy,’ the girl replied.
So Phyllis had managed just one child, and had died before this grandchild had been born, while Mrs Ford, with two sons and two daughters, had survived into great age. And Michael had never forgotten, for this girl bore her name.
She could cope with no more today.
‘What a nice little chat we’ve had,’ she said. ‘We’ll be meeting again.’ She began to struggle up from her chair and the girl rose again to help her.
In the days that followed they talked more. Seeing them together, the mother would walk past, but if Eleanor was talking to any man among the passengers, or a ship’s officer, the mother would break in upon them at once.
In Mrs Ford’s mind the generations grew confused and there were moments when she imagined it was this confident, domineering woman who had been so perfidious all those years ago, stealing letters meant for another, not this woman’s long-dead mother. At night Mrs Ford shed tears for the young girl who had been herself, waiting for letters that never came and in the end giving up.
But she’d had a long, full, and happy life afterwards. And Michael hadn’t persevered – hadn’t tried to find her after the war. Perhaps Phyllis had already made sure of him; she’d borne him just one child.
On deck, Mrs Ford heard Eleanor being admonished.
‘A ship’s doctor won’t do,’ came the dominant tone. ‘I’ve plans for you, and they don’t include this sort of thing at all. It stops the instant you leave the ship, do you hear?’
Eleanor told Mrs Ford about it later.
‘He’s a widower. His wife died in a car crash when she was pregnant,’ she said. ‘But it isn’t just that. Mummy wants me to marry an earl, if she can find one, or at least some sort of tycoon, like Daddy.’
‘It’s early days. You don’t really know each other,’ said Mrs Ford.
‘I know, but he’s only doing a short spell in the ship, then he’s going into general practice. We could get better acquainted then, couldn’t we?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Mrs Ford.
‘And as for earls and tycoons—’ Eleanor put scorn in her voice.
She’d learned typing and done a Cordon Bleu cooking course, Eleanor said. She’d wanted to be a nurse, but Mummy hadn’t approved. The girl seemed docile and subdued – too much so, Mrs Ford thought.
Michael Carter, she remembered, had seemed to have plenty of money, though neither had thought about things like that, when during that long-ago war they took their quiet walks and had tea in a cafe. Phyllis Burton might have destroyed the innocent budding romance simply because that was her way, but she wouldn’t have married Michael unless he had been what was called, in those days, ‘a catch’. She’d have made sure of the same for her daughter – and the daughter was repeating the pattern now.
‘You’re of age,’ Mrs Ford said. ‘Make your own decisions.’
Later the mother spoke to her. It was eerie, hearing that voice from the past urging her, since she had become friendly with Eleanor, to warn her against the doctor.
‘But why?’ Mrs Ford asked. ‘He seems such a nice young man.’
‘Think of her future,’ the girl’s mother said. ‘She can do better than that.’
‘He’d look after her,’ Mrs Ford said, and she knew that he would. The girl was timid and lacking in confidence; the doctor, experienced and quite a lot older, would make her feel safe, as she had felt with Roger. ‘It depends on what you think is important,’ she said, rather bravely for her, and Eleanor’s mother soon left, quite annoyed.
Mrs Ford smiled to herself and stitched on at her gros point. She’d help the young pair if she could. Nowadays, as she knew from her own family, people tried things out before making a proper commitment, and though such a system had, in her view, disadvantages, there were also points in its favour.
Mrs Ford did not go to Cairo. The drive was a long one from Alexandria, and she’d been before – stayed with Roger at Mena House, in fact, years ago. She spent the day quietly in Alexandria. The doctor, she knew, had gone on the trip in case a passenger fell ill, as might easily happen. That evening he said that someone had fainted, but nothing more serious had occurred.
The next day was spent at sea, giving people a chance to recover from the most tiring expedition of the voyage. Among those sleeping on chairs on deck, Mrs Ford saw Eleanor’s mother. Her mouth was a little agape and her spectacles were still on her nose. In her hand she held an open book. Perhaps she was not as robust as she seemed, Mrs Ford mused – her own mother, after all, the Phyllis of Mrs Ford’s youth, had not survived late middle age.
On the upper deck, Eleanor and the doctor were playing deck tennis. Mrs Ford, seeing them, smiled to herself as she walked away. Youth was resilient.
Several days later the Sphinx anchored off Nauplia. The weather was fine, though a haze hung over the distant mountains and there was snow on the highest peak, rare for this area. Mrs Ford stood in line to disembark by the ship’s launches with the other passengers going ashore. Stalwart ship’s officers would easily help her aboard and she liked feeling a firm grasp on her arm as she stepped over the gunwale into the boat.
A row of coaches waited on the quay. Mrs Ford allowed herself to be directed into one. She would enjoy today, for while Mycenae, their first stop, was a dramatic, brooding place, holding an atmosphere redolent of tragedy, Epidaurus, in its perfect setting, was a total contrast. They drove past groves of orange trees laden with fruit. The almond trees were in bloom and the grass, which later in the year would be bleached by the heat of the sun, was a brilliant green.
The haze had lifted when the coach stopped at Epidaurus. Mrs Ford debated whether to go straight to the stadium, whic
h so few tours allowed time to visit and where it would be peaceful and cool; in the end, walking among the pines and inhaling their scent, she decided to visit it again.
She walked past the group from her coach as, like docile children, they clustered around their guide and, sauntering on, using her stick, she turned up the track to the left of the theatre where the ascent was easier than up the steep steps.
At the top she turned to the right and entered the vast semicircle of stone. She moved inwards a little and sat down, gazing about her, sighing with pleasure. Below stood her group; she had plenty of time to rest and enjoy her surroundings.
The sun was quite strong now and she sat thinking of very little except her present contentment. A guide below began the acoustic demonstration, scrabbling his feet in the dust, jingling keys, lighting a match. Mrs Ford had seen it all before. Then her eye caught a flash of bright blue lower down – young Eleanor’s sweater. She was almost at the bottom of the auditorium and with her was a tall young man easily discerned by Mrs Ford’s far-sighted eyes to be the ship’s doctor. They were absorbed as much with each other as with the scenery, Mrs Ford thought as she watched them together.
Then a voice behind her called loudly.
‘Eleanor!’ she heard. ‘Eleanor! Come here at once!’
Mrs Ford reacted instinctively to the sound of her name and she turned. Her pulse was beating fast and she felt her nerves tighten with fear. Since her youth, no one had talked to her in such a tone.
Down the steep steps of the aisle between the seats, Phyllis’s daughter, whose name was also Phyllis, came boldly towards her, striding with purpose, Phyllis the malevolent, Phyllis the destroyer. Mrs Ford’s grip on her stick, which was resting across her knees, tightened as the lumbering figure in its sensible skirt and expensive jacket approached. Her pace did not slacken as she drew near. Mrs Ford knew with a part of her mind that it was not she but her young namesake below who was the target of the imperious summons.
She acted spontaneously. She slid her walking stick out across the aisle, handle foremost, as Phyllis drew level, and by chance, not deliberate design, the hooked end caught round the woman’s leg. Mrs Ford tightened her grasp with both hands and hung on, but the stick was pulled from her grip as the hurrying woman stumbled and fell.
She didn’t fall far – she was too bulky and the stairway too narrow – but she came to rest some little way below Mrs Ford and lay quite still. No one noticed at first, for there were shouts and cries filling the air from tourists testing the amplification of the theatre and attention was focused below.
Mrs Ford’s pulse had begun to steady by the time people began to gather around the body. Her stick lay at the side of the aisle. She retrieved it quite easily. She returned to her coach by the same way she had come, away from all the commotion, and was driven back to Nauplia where the ship waited at anchor.
There was talk in the coach.
‘Some woman tripped and fell.’
‘It’s dangerous. You’d think there’d be a rope.’
‘People should look where they’re going.’
‘She must have been wearing unsuitable shoes.’
The doctor was not at the table for dinner that night, and over the loudspeaker the Captain announced that though sailing had been delayed this would not interfere with the rest of the timetable – the next port would be reached as planned.
Mrs Ford’s table companions related various versions of what had happened ashore to cause the delay. The woman, Eleanor’s mother, had stumbled in the theatre at Epidaurus and in falling had hit her head against a projecting stone, dying at once. Someone else thought she’d had a stroke or a heart attack and that this had caused her to fall, for she was a big woman and florid of face. The Greeks had taken over, since the accident had happened ashore, and the formalities were therefore their concern.
‘Terrible for the daughter,’ someone remarked. ‘Such a shock.’
‘The father’s flying out,’ someone else said.
Mrs Ford ate her sole meunière. She had only wanted to stop Phyllis from interfering. Hadn’t she?
Her son, meeting her at the airport some days later, found his mother looking well and rested. He knew about the accident – it had been reported in the newspapers.
‘What a terrible thing to happen,’ he said. ‘It must have been most distressing. Poor woman.’
‘Well, she saw the Pyramids,’ Mrs Ford replied.
What a heartless response, thought her son in surprise, and looked at his gentle mother, astonished.
The Fig Tree
The fig trees were bare when, fugitives from the winter, we arrived two weeks ago, but now the first leaves are showing glossy green against the silvery branches. In the woods, the spring air is fragrant from the pines, and the ground is dotted with flowers – cistus, wild lupin, lavender – tall, purple spikes unlike our native blue – even asphodels, and here and there the brilliant blue of tiny gentians.
I know the names of most of them, for Bernard brings back samples from his walks, enthusing over them, putting them in pots on window-sills. I prefer cultivated flowers, myself, planted in orderly fashion, not rampant, wild, undisciplined. Here, everything grows too large, too fast, for the sun is warm. Against the blue sky, in the clear light, the cliffs are sharply etched in burnt sienna in the highest parts, silver-grey elsewhere, above the pale, deserted beach.
The season has not yet begun, and there are few people about, so that those one sees are noticed and remembered. I recognised Teresa the moment I saw her come out of a villa at the edge of the tourist complex along the road. She got into a shabby rented Mini, and drove off.
This area is not what it was. We came here first some years ago, lent the same villa, Casa Bianca, by our friends who own it. Then, there were only a few other private villas in the quiet road, but now this tourist estate has been built and is to be extended: there are builders working, concrete mixers churning, bulldozers to be heard.
It is more than twenty years since I last saw Teresa – nearer thirty. She has put on weight. Long ago, we worked together in the typing-pool, but I rose through the layers of the organisation, becoming a permanent member of the staff in the publicity department, while Teresa soldiered on among ledgers and invoices.
Bernard was in the accounts department then. He became acquainted with Teresa, and joined us when, on fine days, we ate our sandwiches in the park. At that time, he was a tall, good-looking young man, with thick sandy hair and a broad frame. He’s balding now, and I keep him on a strict diet because of his blood pressure.
He played tennis well, and so did Teresa. I, because I had no natural ability for the game and have always hated to perform badly, did not play. After a set or two in the evenings at the club, Teresa would be red-faced and perspiring when I sauntered along, cool in a linen dress, in time for a drink.
I had no trouble taking Bernard away from Teresa, though events played into my hands. He had drifted towards her, I knew, through circumstances rather than inclination, for he was always weak, but I saw his potential. He was quick and astute, with flair; all he needed was impetus, which, in time, I supplied.
When a post in the publicity department fell vacant, I casually suggested he might be the man for it; my judgement was already of value to the firm, as it is still, and he was appointed.
In those days he wanted to give up commerce and become a botanist, but I ask you, what future is there in flowers? Their use is for adornment. Teresa encouraged this folly, suggesting he might, at least, pursue horticulture.
After our marriage I permitted him to indulge his interest as a hobby; it was a healthy one, involving scrambling about into inaccessible spots after rare blooms, although I think golf might have done as well and led to useful contacts.
Our home near Dorking has a lovely garden. I see that the gardener plants, in rotation, wallflowers, tulips, salvias, dahlias; and at intervals the rosebeds are renewed with the latest varieties. Bernard has his corner where
the gardener does not go; he cultivates wild sweet peas, untidy briars, sprawling shrubs, and some flower seeds higgledy-piggledy, anywhere. Near the house, however, all is tidy; the hedges are well-trimmed, the lawns closely pared.
In his own interests, I had to save Bernard from Teresa, all those years ago. He had begun taking her to the cinema, to dances, and their names were linked, but when he moved to my department, it became easy to distract him during our lunch breaks by talking shop, which Teresa, still buried in her invoices, did not always understand and which I would never let Bernard explain.
In the end, fate intervened. Bernard was to take Teresa to the works dance, and I had invited a contemporary of my father’s to be my partner, a bachelor who was almost my uncle, and who was always willing to oblige me. I certainly wouldn’t go without an escort, but I planned to detach Bernard from Teresa during the evening, and effect an exchange.
However, on the day of the dance, Teresa slipped and fell as she got off the bus going home from work. She banged her head and broke her arm. It was a nasty tumble. I went with her, of course, to the hospital, where, as she was concussed, she had to remain for observation.
I promised to tell Bernard that she wouldn’t be able to come to the dance, and to explain. Instead, I telephoned her parents, who came the next day and took her home to convalesce. It turned out that Bernard did not know where her digs were; they always met at the cinema or some other place for their evenings out. He didn’t know her home address, either, and I pretended ignorance too.
By then, I’d replaced her at the dance, putting off my father’s friend by saying I had a headache and wouldn’t be going. Bernard had expected to meet her at the hall where the dance was held; instead, he found me, apparently ‘stood-up’, as he seemed to be himself.
She wrote to him. The letter came to the office, for their acquaintance was so slight and new that she had no other address for him. I had anticipated this, and was watching out for her round, childish handwriting. She’d printed PERSONAL in the corner of the envelope.
Pieces of Justice Page 9