Ease

by Patrick Gale

  ‘No. I’m afraid he’s out at the moment. Can I take a message?’

  ‘Yes, please. Could you tell him that Quintus Harding can’t come for lunch today after all.’

  ‘He can’t?’

  ‘No. He’s gone flying. Could you tell him that? It would be so kind.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘’Bye.’

  As she turned from the telephone, Domina saw the Chipmunk through the windows in the door. It was coasting out onto the runway. She ran out onto the terrace, to the far corner and waved frantically.

  ‘Quin! Hang on! I’m just coming.’

  Then it had stopped. One of the doors opened and he leaned out and waved to her. Even at that distance she had been able to see that he was smiling. She laughed, assuming he was going to wait for her out there, then stopped as she saw him swing the aeroplane onto the runway and accelerate it.

  Alone on the gravelled roof she leaned on the railings. The white Chipmunk climbed steeply after leaving the ground, and veered off to the left. As she watched, Domina realized that Quin was travelling in a wide circle about the airfield, a circle that spiralled upwards. He was showing off to her. She giggled aloud, wondering what his mother would think. She waved as he passed overhead. Her smile cut as she heard the sound of the engine die.

  He was not as high as they had been on Sunday. She watched as the craft glided on for perhaps ten or fifteen seconds on its course, then, after seeming to hang motionless in the air for an instant, fell in silence to the runway. It was like watching a film of his death with the soundtrack muted. The noise of the flimsy vessel plummeting nose first on to the tarmac and bursting into flames seemed to come from a distant field.

  The tail-end was already buckling down into the billowing blackness when the pocket-sized fire engine trundled out. Domina’s sense of exclusion was accentuated by the initial silence of its approach. Somewhere in the building beneath her, a huge metal door rolled back, then the vehicle appeared. Two men in black uniform were clinging to its gleaming red side and a light was spinning blue-white, blue-white on top of the cab. The bell only coughed into life moments before the men leapt down. It jangled for a few seconds, then ceased as apologetically as it had begun. As they unwound a hose and started to douse the flames, a third man, in a silvery suit with gloves and helmet to match, jumped from the cab and ran, a kitchen-foil beekeeper, into the conflagration. Frozen at her railing, Domina saw men appearing from different corners of the aerodrome. They gathered at some distance, standing with their hands at their sides. As a breeze brushed some of the smoke in their direction she made out a sound of coughing. A few handkerchiefs flapped.

  A siren wailed across the car park and a family saloon painted white, with AMBULANCE on the doors, rushed in a wide circle around the scene, coming to rest on the far side. A man and a woman climbed out. She carried a blanket over one arm and leaned against the bonnet coughing, while her colleague pulled out a stretcher. For the first time Domina noticed the quiet similarity between a Volvo and a hearse.

  There was a house to her left, a small nineteen-forties place. A boy in a red jersey and a girl in a blue had clambered onto the garden fence and were shouting incoherently, banging their sandalled feet on the wood below them. See John. See the red fire engine! See Janet climb the fence! Dog Rover hear the bells!

  The flames were dying down but the smoke, steam perhaps, had doubled in volume. A puddle was forming, incongruous, around the pyre. As the man in silver emerged, the crowd of men shifted forward slightly. One of them turned and ran back into the building beneath her feet. A woman called sharply from the door of the little house. The girl in blue slipped over the fence and ran back to join her. They vanished. The boy remained, still swinging his legs. Something had been dragged from the steaming wreckage and the woman by the bonnet was covering it with her blanket. She was not coughing now.

  As the family saloon sped, wailing, to the exit gates, Domina returned to the waiting Morris. She found she was still clutching the keys. She unlocked the driver’s door and sat in his seat, then noticed the gaping glove compartment. The address book was still by the pay-phone. She climbed back up to retrieve it before driving off.

  Domina held together the sheets she had typed and tapped them into a neat block which she then stapled together at the margin. Only a first draft, but it was all there. The ending was particularly strong: a Cowardly dénouement in which Fay Harker and Barnaby, her young priest, were confronted in flagrante delicto by draconian mother, sundry clergymen, lodgers, landlady etc. and brazened it out. There was no curtain line yet, but that she traditionally left until rehearsals were under way. She paused as she prepared to slide the work into an envelope for Des, and reached for the Tipp-Ex. She covered the old title, Taking Rides and replaced it with Maiden Voyage. She sealed the new-born play into the envelope. Then she stood looking out of the window over the rooftops to the red insanity of the Coburg Hotel roof. She ran her fingers through her hair, yawned and stretched. It was time to go home.

  24

  ‘We’ll be ever so sorry to see you leave,’ said Tilly, ‘won’t we, Tel?’

  ‘She’ll be back, Madame,’ Thierry pronounced.

  Domina was clearing her shelf in the larder. The news of Quintus’s death was still filtering through the house. Two policemen had called last night. She offered herself as a witness, and they had taken her statement. They sat on Tilly’s sofa, while the mistress retired tactfully with Grace to the bedroom, and she told them how Quintus had driven her to the aerodrome that morning. She said that she had felt sick on her first trip with him, and so had agreed to stay on the ground and watch. It was clearly an accident and she was sorry not to have contacted them at once, she said, but she had driven home in a state of understandable shock. They had seemed satisfied.

  Domina supposed that her numbness, her utter lack of emotion even now that a dreamless night had passed, was also a symptom of shock. Dispassionately, she watched Tilly, Avril and Thierry in turn edge around her impending grief, raising any topic but the one on all their minds. Dispassionately, she wondered when the calm was going to crack.

  ‘So you’ve found somewhere to live?’ Thierry asked, when Tilly had gone out.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s absolutely perfect. Only fifty minutes from Paddington, so you must come and see me one day.’

  ‘But where? Not London?’

  ‘No. A very little, rather quiet place called Clifton.’

  She left her carrier bagful of groceries with her luggage in the hall. Randy had said he’d be here by twelve-thirty. It was so like him to ask no questions. No ‘Hi, how’re you doing?’, no ‘What’s up?’, no ‘Just give me a couple of hours to finish off here’. He had simply said, ‘I’ll be with you around half of twelve. Give me the address.’

  She walked to Queensway to post the new manuscript to Des, then walked up to Kensington Gardens to wait for her man. She had told Tilly where he could find her. She couldn’t stand another minute in that house.

  The weather was kindly fickle; the day cloudy without being humid. A few tourists, sated with sights, had left their hotels for a jog under the trees. Domina struck off along the wide path that ran parallel to the Bayswater Road towards Lancaster Gate. She had not yet decided how much she would tell Randy – certainly not all. Just Gerald, perhaps, in fair return for Cary. Packing her bags had had a comforting, last day of school air. Knowing that Randy was on his way to collect her made Domina feel safe. She had been a big, brave girl quite long enough.

  The Italian Garden was close now. She could hear the splashing of water and make out the absurd stone pavilion between the trees. A large dog, like an Alsatian, only black, bounded across the path in front of her, snatched up a fat stick, then galloped back to the right, up the gentle slope. In the clearing there a little girl was trying to fly her kite. A man held it aloft while, several feet away, she grasped the string.

&n
bsp; ‘Now run. Run!’ he shouted. Whimpering, she ran away, string held up in a fist. He let go. There was a little wind and her legs were short, so the toy swung round a few times, then slammed into the turf.

  ‘Stop or you’ll break it!’ he yelled. ‘Stop!’

  Domina walked past the thigh-high wall into the water garden. Only two fountains were working properly. The others, broken or clogged with feathers and fish scales, merely seeped. Staring down at the ducks as they fought over bread or sat preening on their wooden ramps, she followed the perimeter and came to lean against the balustrade over the ‘source’ of the Serpentine. The roaring of traffic impinged on the scene. It was a lunch-break place – pretty enough, and convenient for buses, but hopelessly urban. Embarrassed by the cameras clicking around her, she returned to the path and followed the Serpentine.

  Suddenly there was barking close beside her. She turned and saw the dog again. Ham. No, Japhet. He ran up, wagging his tail, and tried to jump up.

  ‘Hello,’ she said and stooped to rub his chest. He sat, panting, staring up at her. Someone called further along the path, ‘Japh. Here boy. Come here!’ It was a man in a well-tailored black suit. He had on a black tie and had shaved his head. ‘Here! Japhet!’

  The dog bounded over to him and sat while his master fastened on a leash. When the man straightened up and began to walk towards her, Domina recognized Brother Jerome. Seb Saunders. He had taken a razor to his scalp.

  Her immediate impulse was to hurry away into the crowd; she could wait for Randy on the porch. There was no need to meet the man. Then she thought of Quintus. She thought of his disbelief when she’d told him of his mentor’s history. She was walking towards him. Trying to find the right words, she raised a half smile in readiness. She saw the blood clots on his skin where the razor had slipped. He was close now. Then she couldn’t bear it. Raising a wave and a smile to a man who wasn’t there, she started to run and called out to the middle distance.

  ‘Jamie, hi! Wait for me!’

  She was in flat shoes and managed to run a hundred yards before she lost her breath. Ashamed and awkward, she dropped into a bench beside some willows on the water’s edge. By degrees her panting slowed. She took out a handkerchief and dried her palms. Some geese were sifting the small, tame waves. She studied them hard in an effort to calm herself.

  ‘You should have been clutching a red carnation, Mrs Tey.’

  It was Randy. He sat down beside her and they fell into an ungainly side-saddle embrace.

  ‘Good to see you,’ he said over her shoulder.

  ‘God, it’s good to see you too,’ she gasped and started to cry. He didn’t notice at first, but with the first sob he straightened up slightly and tried to stroke her face.

  ‘Hey there. Steady on,’ he said with a grin. But she buried her face in his shirt, grinding her cheek on a button, needing to feel hurt. She tried to stop, but her throat constricted painfully. She had to release more wrenched sobs to relieve the burn. With Randy to hold her she was being drawn out of shock, of course. These were tears for Quintus.

  ‘I’m crying for Quin,’ she sought to tell herself, ‘I’m crying for Quin. This is right and healthy and to be expected.’

  But as the convulsions subsided and she dared to raise her eyes over Randy’s shoulder to the statue of Peter Pan behind him, she realized that she was weeping with rage because she couldn’t understand. The secular Jermyn Street suit and tie and the outraged scalp had lain beyond the compass of her ready wits. She was left frustrated, imperceptive, ugly.

  As Randy wiped her eyes, helped her blow her nose and walked her in tender silence to his car, it occurred to Domina for the first time in two days that she might be with child. Sleeping that night in his ail-American arms, she relived in merciless detail a visit to some poky rooms in Ipswich, and murdered a second baby to the wails of plummeting aircraft.

  25

  The three of them were in evening dress. Rick had flopped, spent, into an armchair. Ginny had kicked off her tight best shoes and had slung her legs up on the sofa. Only the Milanese standard lamp was on, casting a fan of bluish light up one wall. The ugly, gold-plated trophy had been placed, for the nonce, on the mantelpiece. Randy had discarded his dinner jacket and undone his black tie.

  ‘Brandy, Ginny?’ he asked, at the sideboard.

  ‘Rather.’

  ‘Night-cap, Rick?’

  ‘Please, Randy.’

  Domina appeared from the basement stairs. She was yawning.

  ‘All well?’ Ginny called from the sofa.

  ‘Ssh,’ Rick said. ‘You’ll wake little one.’

  ‘Yes. All’s fine,’ Domina sighed.

  ‘Darling?’

  ‘Bless you.’ She took the glass which Randy held out for her, and sank onto the arm of Rick’s chair, smiling down at his round, solicitous face. ‘Cary and Seamus say she’s been as good as gold. They fed her three hours ago and Cary changed her nappies and not a murmur since.’

  ‘I’ll take them a drink,’ said Randy. ‘Are they still in the kitchen?’

  ‘No.’ She stopped him. ‘They’ve gone to bed.’

  ‘Seamus is a reformed character since young McNichol moved in with him,’ said Rick.

  ‘And it must be such a help having her handy around the house,’ added his wife, looking nowhere in particular.

  ‘I’m a walking corpse,’ said Domina, ignoring her.

  ‘Yes, you must be.’ Rick made as if to rise. ‘Ginny, we mustn’t stay. Nursing mothers should be in bed.’

  ‘No, honestly.’ Domina laid a stilling hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t rush off. It’s good to unwind. I do think it was unnecessary of that newsreader cow to draw attention to my recent condition. I wasn’t feeling especially glam as it was, and having her broadcast my stretch marks to the nation like that was the end.’

  ‘She didn’t exactly …’

  ‘Oh yes. I know. But she did make it sound as if I’d literally crawled in from the labour ward.’

  ‘Well, bravo anyway,’ said Randy.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Yes, bravo that author.’

  ‘Well, bravo you too, Ginn. It was your production, after all.’

  ‘Hardly. Fi is great though. It’s the first time she’s actually deserved an award before getting it, usually it’s the other way around.’

  ‘I liked your Bays water discovery, darling. What’s her name? The floozy in the second scene.’

  ‘Penny Havers? Good, isn’t she?’

  ‘So natural,’ added Ginny, swigging the last of her drink.

  ‘What were you and Des talking about, Rick?’ asked Domina. ‘You were nose to nose.’

  ‘Oh. Dear Des. She was full of her book.’

  ‘Des writing a book at long last?’ asked Randy.

  ‘No, not hers – the one she’s handling for some old trout. Sounds fascinating. It started life as a ghosted autobiography, then Des persuaded her that the fictionalized bits were so good, she might as well fictionalize the whole thing and pass it off as her own.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘Some astonishing tale of perversion and matricide in the sixties underworld.’

  ‘You know Des is dying of something?’

  ‘Ginny, are you serious?’

  ‘Oh yes. Poor Dan Nixon says they meet regularly in the queue on chemotherapy days.’

  Domina opened her mouth to exclaim, but was distracted by a thin jerky wail from above.

  ‘I hear a little voice,’ said Rick.

  ‘Duty calls.’

  ‘No, Minnie, I’ll go,’ said Randy, rising, ‘it’s my turn.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yup. You stay put.’

  ‘Who’s sweet?’

  ‘Daddy-o.’

  Randy gave Domina’s proffered hand a squeeze and went to quiet the baby’s cries.

  ‘Does she still cry a lot?’ asked Virginia.

  ‘Not much, but she gets nightmares. She’s that age. Never a
whimper during the day. Big and brave.’

  ‘Like Daddy, eh?’

  ‘Ginny, we must be off.’ Rick stood up and held out a hand to his wife. He hauled her from the chair.

  ‘Oh, you big bully,’ she muttered. ‘All right. You get the coats while I say ‘night ‘night to our heroine.’ Rick left the room. Ginny gave Domina a wavering kiss on the cheek, then stood back holding her hands. ‘I’m so glad she turned out, well, you know … all right. We worried for you.’

  ‘The forty-year miracle, eh?’

  ‘Who is the father, darling?’

  Domina grinned and murmured, ‘She smiled her enigmatic smile and said, “M.Y.O.B”.’

  ‘Beast. I think it was Randy all along, and you’re just trying to make me jealous.’

  ‘Me? Never. Goodnight, Rick darling.’

  ‘Night.’

  ‘Goodnight, you.’ She kissed Ginny again.

  When they were gone, she turned out the lights and started up the stairs. They had made the nursery in her old study, across the landing from the bedroom, and she had moved her things up to the attics that were still in mid-conversion. She paused on the landing to take stock of herself in the wide gilt mirror. Last time it had been Best Comedy, tonight she had graduated to Best Play. A comedy with a soul, they had called it. She ran her nails through her hair. It needed a cut. This time she would leave the grey hairs untouched – Randy’s had started and looked so distinguished. Tomorrow she would start work in earnest on the revisions of She the Rover, a study of a Restoration woman playwright and her bisexual husband, loosely based on the marriage of Aphra Behn.

  She saw the reflection of Randy’s legs coming out of the nursery and standing above her on the main landing.

  ‘Quit preening, Mouse, and come up here.’

  She stayed where she was, smiling up at his warm, tanned face. North Africa had done him a power of good.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Our little Magdalen’s sleeping sound.’ He started down the stairs and sat just above her with a knee on either side of her shoulders.