‘Why this sudden interest in Saint Jerome?’
‘Just something I read.’ Jane could feel herself blushing as she recalled her weekend with the artist, followed almost instantly by that reckless night with Isobel’s own son. She’d made Hadley swear he wouldn’t tell a soul, but, all the same, she still felt very threatened by it, embarrassed with his mother. Thank God he was in Paris, though Isobel had mentioned him several times already, and each time had made her nervous, as if she expected the next question to be ‘How’s Hadley as a lover?’ rather than ‘D’you think he’ll get a proper Christmas dinner in that dreadful student hostel?’
‘By the way, how are you getting on with Trish?’ Isobel enquired, licking gobs of cream from her fingers and the whisk.
‘All right.’
‘She’s a nice girl, isn’t she?’
‘Mm.’
‘In fact, I was wondering if you two would like to go out for a walk – enjoy this bit of sunshine before it gets all dark and gloomy.’
‘What, now?’
‘Why not? It’s a lovely day, completely wrong for Christmas, but that’s probably global warming, or whatever it is they threaten in all those fatalistic articles which insist the planet’s heading for destruction. I expect they wrote much the same thing in the 1990s BC.’
Jane ignored BC, was more concerned with lunch. Dates and sweets were fine as just an appetiser, but her stomach was demanding a proper solid meal. ‘But aren’t we going to eat now? I mean, I thought you said we’d start with the goose and …’
‘No, better not. You know what all the aunts are like. It isn’t Christmas dinner without the blessed turkey. And anyway Byron needs a walk. He’ll be impossible this afternoon if someone doesn’t take him out. Trish came in her car, so you could drive down to the beach with her and have a really bracing jog along the sands.’
‘Okay,’ she said reluctantly. She hadn’t warmed to Trish, who was petite and cutely pretty, and had clearly been invited not just because her mother was ill in hospital, but to demonstrate the point that adopted children could be happy, normal, grateful, well-adjusted. She had talked to her for half an hour, just to be polite, but kept to safe and stilted subjects – the mildness of the weather, the intelligence of cats compared with dogs. Trish’s mother was an old schoolfriend of Isobel, and had adopted Trish as a child of three: a ‘special’ child, a ‘wanted’ child, as Isobel had pointed out in her worthy little spiel last night; one chosen by her adoptive parents, not a mere mistake. Jane had tried to close her ears to what seemed like special pleading. Isobel could never be objective. She’d had her own ‘mistake’ adopted, so she needed to believe that all adoptive parents acted from the best of motives; all adopted children could grow up fine and dandy. Oh, she’d probably meant it well, intended to be helpful, provide some reassurance, but Jane still resented the intrusion, the whole artificial set-up, the fact she was expected to communicate with a twenty-year-old stranger she didn’t even like.
‘I’ll fetch the lead,’ she muttered, stopping in the cloakroom first, to change her tampon. Her period was a heavy one, and had started late last night. She’d been exceptionally relieved, since it meant she wasn’t pregnant. In the sixteen (endless) days since that business on the sofa, she had been recalling all the horror stories about condoms leaking, condoms with small holes in, condoms slipping off. Yet she’d also felt a twinge of disappointment. Getting pregnant by the artist was a different thing entirely, and she’d been indulging in wild unlikely fantasies about saving him from sterility, proving one up on the wives. She would have also proved herself, of course, allayed her secret fears. One part of her was terrified of landing up like Amy – barren, babyless.
‘Byron!’ she called, pulling on her jacket and jingling the red lead. The boxer erupted into the hall. almost knocked her over; the whippet cringing out as well, though shrinking from her hand. She traipsed back to the sitting-room to ask if she should take him too, prised Trish from her corner, where she was providing a mute audience for Edith’s hip-replacement saga, instalments nine and ten. All the others called goodbye or started asking teasing questions – were they going carol-singing, or had they given up all hope of lunch and were headed for the chip shop; would they be back in time for Boxing Day; did they want the odd crumb saved?
It was a relief to shake them off. Strange how other people’s families, however kind and jolly, could make you feel so desolate – the private jokes or references you didn’t understand, the bonhomie you couldn’t really share. Her parents were her own family, the only one she had, and she’d missed them more today than any other time in the preceding eleven weeks. She’d often complained that their Christmases were dull, just the boring three of them most years. Now she realised she’d always been the centre and the star. She’d had no competition. The presents and the tree, the turkey and the Christmas cake, had been laid on in her honour, the whole extended holiday woven round her pleasures and her needs.
She banged the front door shut, bewildered by her thoughts, the whole confusing mixture of resentment, guilt and gratitude; the sheer longing to be back with them, resuming her star role. She stood a moment longer on the step, though Trish was already waiting by the car, and Byron straining wildly at his leash, rebuking her as spoilsport. She needed to compose herself, struggle for control. It would be terrible to cry on Christmas Day, blubber for her Mummy like a lost and frantic two-year-old. She breathed in the fresh air – that would help to calm her – stern no-nonsense air which slapped her burning cheeks, smelt of winter cold rather than turkey grease or overheated kitchens.
‘Are you okay?’ called Trish.
‘No,’ she mumbled to herself, letting Byron tow her to the car. Even Trish’s name annoyed her, its brief and jaunty intimacy suggesting they were bosom pals already. She’d rather call her Patricia, the name that she’d been christened; keep her distance, keep things cool and formal. ‘D’you know the way?’ she asked her, once she’d settled Byron in the back. ‘Turn right at the gate, then straight on for a mile or so.’
‘It’s lovely country,’ Trish remarked, as they swung out of the drive.
‘Yes,’ said Jane. ‘It is.’ How in heaven’s name would they talk for a whole hour, how move from ‘lovely country’ to the intimate details of their adopted lives? Trish seemed quite reserved, could well be fighting misery herself. Things were pretty bad for her, in fact. She’d lost her father fourteen months ago, and now her mother was recovering from a stroke. ‘You must be worried about your mother,’ Jane forced herself to say.
‘Yes, I am a bit.’
‘Is the hospital a good one?’ She tried to sound less hostile. It was hardly Trish’s fault that she’d been invited to meet a misery, who was so concerned with her own petty little grouches she couldn’t spare a thought for anyone else.
‘Well, it’s ancient, but it’s said to be quite good. I’ll be visiting this evening. My sister’s there right now, so Mum shouldn’t feel too lonely. And the nurses always make a special effort over Christmas.’
‘Oh, you’ve got a sister?’
‘Yes. Susan. Four years older.’
Is she also adopted, Jane knew she ought to ask. Then they’d sail into The Subject, and she could report smugly back to Isobel that after a heart-to-heart with Trish, she no longer felt upset by the facts of her adoption, and had undone eighteen years’ betrayal in one walk.
‘Any brothers?’ she asked instead.
‘No, thank God,’ Trish grinned, trying to push a slobbering Byron off her neck. She was driving fast, like Christopher, and Jane was reminded of the empty roads in Lincolnshire, the December sun thawing frosty fields. She felt torn between her lover and her home; one scared and childish part of her yearning for her parents, while the adult half ached and throbbed for Christopher. And even Hadley wouldn’t stay in Paris, but kept nipping back to plague her. Yet, despite her fears and guilts about her night with him in Fulham, there was still a small vindictive voice whispering to h
er secretly that she was not entirely sorry to have paid the artist out, evened up the score a little. If he had Anne each night, shared his bed and body, then was it really so horrendous for her to have had another man for a paltry fifteen minutes?
‘Trish,’ she said suddenly, ‘I wondered if you’d mind if we took a little detour?’
‘No, of course not. Where d’ you want to go?’
‘Just to see a … house.’
‘What, one you want to buy?’
She laughed. ‘I couldn’t afford a garden shed at present. No, one I …’ She paused to shape the lie. A friend of hers had gone away for Christmas and asked her to keep an eye on the place. That sounded pretty plausible and the first half was true, at least. She had always been curious to see the artist’s home, had never had a chance before. Houses were important – extensions of their owners, statements of their values and their taste. Christopher kept his private life so private, she felt constantly intrigued by it; sometimes wildly curious, other times resentful, but always keen to gather up some clues, set him in his context, so to speak. ‘Spy!’ her conscience nagged, but she tried to drown it out, concentrated on giving Trish directions. Strange how well she knew the way, when she had only walked her fingers on a map.
‘That’s it,’ she said, at last, after what had seemed a journey of several hundred miles, though it had lasted twelve brief minutes. She took a deep breath in. She was actually looking at the artist’s house, sitting right outside it; disappointed somehow that it wasn’t a palace or a castle, or some fantastic modern construction made wholly of stained glass, but just a large, though unimposing, red brick villa. Dreary laurels mobbed the wooden fence, and one unwieldy cedar was blocking half the light from all the right-hand windows. The house stood on its own, as if it had been transplanted from a village, and resited in a wilderness; its only neighbour a copse of trees and the wide sweep of a hill. It was like the barn in that respect – self-sufficient, solitary. Typical of Christopher to shrug off human contact, avoid a gossipy street or prying neighbours. Yet, in other ways, the house didn’t seem to suit him; looked too staid and sober, as if had stiffened in its joints; the house of someone prosperous but dull. A car was parked outside; a car which contradicted it: a low-slung sporty model in a zingy gleaming silver – Anne’s car, she presumed.
‘No wonder they’re scared of burglars,’ Trish observed, winding down the window. ‘I mean, the place seems so cut off. D’you want to take a look around?’
Jane shook her head. The house was not a friendly one, seemed to be staring with its heavy red-rimmed eyes, warning her to keep away, telling her it didn’t welcome strangers. And she was a stranger here, had no rights to the artist except on weekdays in the studio; banned from all his evenings, from his breakfasts, baths, and shavings, from his late-night drinks or early-morning wakenings. ‘No, it looks all right to me,’ she said, turning round to Trish with a falsely casual smile. ‘No papers on the step, or milk bottles piling up. Let’s push on to the beach.’
Her eyes sneaked back as Trish switched on the ignition, still watching the blank windows, the sombre slated roof. She wanted to remember them, store them in her head along with Christopher’s CV, and all the shreds and scraps she’d gleaned about him from Rowan, Adrian, Isobel – her Christopher compendium.
‘Hey, stop!’ she cried suddenly ducking down to make herself invisible, and praying Byron wouldn’t bark. Someone had moved into the window of the downstairs room, and was fiddling with the curtain, glancing out a moment. She knew the woman, recognised the ample breasts, the straight brown hair gleaming in the light. Anne – Anne Harville-Shaw. She stared a moment longer, to make absolutely certain, then leant across and tugged Trish’s skirt. ‘Quick!’ she begged, crouching out of sight herself. ‘Drive on!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. Just get away from here.’ She couldn’t talk. Her voice felt choked and clogged, and a whole cannonade of questions was bombarding her bruised mind. Christopher and Anne were seven hundred miles away in a villa on the Côte d’Azur, so how could Anne be standing at the window of her own house? Had they come back suddenly? Had they gone at all? Could the artist have deceived her, invented the whole story of a holiday in Nice because he didn’t want to see her over Christmas, craved a quiet two weeks at home with no company but his wife?
‘Rose, are you all right?’ Trish changed gear, slowed down to a crawl. ‘And where d’you want to go now? I’m driving round in circles.’
‘Anywhere. You choose.’
‘But can’t you tell me what …’
‘It’s nothing. I’m feeling a bit sick, that’s all. I … ate too many chocolates.’
‘Why don’t we go back then? I expect Isobel can find some Alka Seltzer.’
‘No, honestly. I’ll be better for a walk. The fresh air will do me good. And, anyway, Byron needs some exercise. Let’s drive on to the beach, if you don’t mind.’
Thank God Trish was easy-going – obliging and amenable – all the things which had annoyed her earlier on. Now she was relieved to have a chauffeur, a reason to stay out. She couldn’t return to all that jollity and babble until she’d sorted out the confusion in her mind. Christopher had phoned her from the Côte d’Azur, actually spelt out details of the villa, described the guests, the meals. He must be there, he must be. And she had even asked how Anne was; somehow couldn’t stop herself, despite her jealousy. ‘Fine,’ he’d said, straight off.
She gazed out of the window, hardly taking in the scenery, except as it reminded her of the artist and his wife; the blighted trees like those in Christopher’s landscapes; the bare brown furrows straight-combed like Anne’s brown hair. Should they drive back to the house, she wondered, conceal the car, but hang around outside, try to see if Christopher was there as well as Anne? Maybe Trish could even knock, pretend she’d missed her turning and landed up in the wilds, and could they please direct her back to the main road. But if Christopher appeared, it would mean he was a liar, and the whole of Christmas would be punctured like a child’s balloon. He was a liar anyway. Just last night he’d told her on the phone that he’d be away two days less than he’d planned originally, and would be returning on 4 January. How could he play false like that, mystify her, baffle her – except that all grown-ups did the same: lied to you, deceived you, made things seem quite different from the facts.
‘Rose, don’t cry.’ Trish stopped the car, reached out an awkward hand. ‘Won’t you let me help? I’ve no idea what’s going on, but …’
‘They didn’t tell me,’ Jane blurted out, tears sliding down her face.
‘Who didn’t tell you what?’
‘That I … I’m adopted.’
‘Are you? So am I.’
‘I know.’
‘But I didn’t know that you were.’ Trish scrabbled for the Kleenex, passed the box across. ‘That’s really quite a coincidence.’
‘No it isn’t.’ Jane grabbed a fistful of Kleenex, so fiercely that she tore them. ‘Isobel arranged for us to meet. She couldn’t tell you because I made her promise not to, but she was hoping that I’d confide in you myself.’ She let out a sudden hoot, laughing now as well as crying, a crazy hurting laugh. ‘Oh, Trish, it’s so ridiculous. I’d vowed I’d never say a word, would keep off the whole subject, just to prove to Isobel that she shouldn’t interfere, and now I’ve fallen right into her trap.’
Jane’s feet were sore and aching, a blister on one heel. She and Trish could hardly see to walk. Dusk was falling, a clammy mist seeping all along the coast, curdling with the darkness, laying a damp pall on their skin, their hair, their clothes. Trish stopped a moment to extract a pebble from her shoe. ‘It’s terribly late,’ she flustered, peering at her watch. ‘They’ll be sending out a search-party. I simply didn’t realise what the time was.’
‘We’d better phone,’ said Jane, anxious now herself. It would seem rude and very casual to have disappeared so long.
‘I hope they haven’t finished
lunch.’
‘They probably haven’t started yet.’ Jane was still reluctant to return, to resume her public mask when she’d only just succeeded in removing it, had let Trish see her naked; even stripped the ‘Rose’ off and admitted her real name.
‘I’m glad we’ve got the dog, Jane. It’s a bit spooky out here, isn’t it?’
Jane stared up at the sky, the swollen threatening clouds, the wedge of sullen moon, grudging in its light. She had been blind to her surroundings, oblivious of the encroaching sea until it frothed around their feet, and they’d had to move up higher to the shingle. Only now was she aware of the shrill sea-birds, of Byron’s frantic barking as he challenged ghosts or gulls; of the smells of tar and salt. She had never meant to walk so far – nor talk so long and freely.
‘Trish, I … I’m sorry if I’ve bored you.’
‘Bored me? Don’t be stupid.’
‘I don’t know how it all poured out – I mean Christopher and everything. I haven’t shocked you, have I?’
‘I’ve heard worse than that, I promise you.’
‘Yes, but he’s sixty – sixty-one. My mother would be scandalised, probably want him clapped in jail, with ‘‘Dirty Old Man’’ branded on his forehead.’
Trish laughed. ‘Mothers never like their daughters’ men-friends, however old or young they are. I envy you in one way, Jane, just to have a man at all. I haven’t dared admit this to anyone before, but I’m nearly twenty-one, and I’ve never had … you know.’
Jane looked up in surprise. Trish’s face was blurring in the darkness, but it was a pretty face – too pretty, she had thought at first – the sort of pink and white complexion you rarely saw outside TV commercials, contrasting with dark eyes and hair – curly, springy, bouncy hair, which seemed alive in its own right, bobbing as she walked, a frisky fringe untidy on her forehead. She’d have imagined such a girl would have had boyfriends flocking round her, be almost spoilt for choice, mobbed by men, invaded. But then the Trish she’d met four hours ago, dismissed as prim and priggish, was nothing like the real one. It had been a great relief to talk to her, to confide in someone totally objective, someone not much older, who understood about adoption, knew it from the inside out. And yet the confusion hadn’t gone – was worse, if anything. All the things which Trish had told her had stirred her up still more, added new resentment, new guilts as well as insights.
Bird Inside Page 33