by Caro Fraser
Leo walked back down along the pavement to Number 55 and went in and up the four flights of stairs to Frank’s chambers. The stairwell was musty, the silence in the building deep and old. Leo rang the bell and a few seconds later, to his surprise, he heard slow footsteps, and then Frank, tall and stooping, and wearing carpet slippers and a baggy cardigan, opened the door. A smell like the smell of school dinners wafted down the dim hallway, and from a room somewhere came the sound of a television.
‘Good God!’ said Frank. ‘Leo!’
‘I was taking a stroll through the Inn, so I thought I’d stop by on the off chance,’ said Leo, smiling at Frank’s astonishment.
‘Come in, come in …’ Frank shuffled back and ushered Leo in. ‘Go on down to the sitting room,’ he said, adding as he followed Leo down the hallway, ‘I had Tom Lyle and his wife over for lunch, you know. They left just half an hour ago, had to go over to her sister’s in Putney. Extraordinary, you dropping by like this. But very welcome. Always welcome. Go right in. Here, give me your coat. Drink?’
‘Whisky, please,’ said Leo, handing Frank his overcoat. He sank into one of Frank’s battered leather armchairs with a sense of utter gratefulness. Here, for an hour or two at least, he could enjoy some whisky and some safe, masculine conversation, escape from the realities and problems of his own life.
‘So …’ Frank handed Leo a crystal tumbler filled with two generous measures of Scotch, then went over to switch off the television, on which he had apparently been watching the Christmas special edition of Coronation Street. ‘What brings you round here on such a day, eh?’ He settled himself into another armchair and rested his own glass of Scotch precariously on the broad leather arm as he adjusted the cushions behind him. Then he sipped his drink and eyed Leo with clever, watery old eyes.
‘I needed company,’ replied Leo. ‘Rachel’s gone to her mother’s with the baby.’
‘Ah.’ Frank nodded and drank again, smacking his thin, dry lips. ‘Tom gave me this,’ he remarked. ‘Jura Malt. Very good, I think. Mince pie? Mince pie to go with it?’
Leo could not help smiling. ‘Yes. Yes, that would be very nice.’
‘Shan’t be a tick.’ Frank went out, presumably to the kitchen. Leo sat nursing his Scotch and looking around him. The furniture was solid and unremarkable, like that of a headmaster’s study, the carpets faded, the bookcases dusty. The sweetish pungency of nicotine hung over everything, even though it was three years since Frank had managed to give up his thirty-a-day habit. Leo listened to the heavy tick of the clock on the mantel and knew suddenly that Frank was not going to ask him about Rachel, or probe him further about his unexpected presence here. The subject would only be broached again if Leo himself initiated it. Did he want to talk about it? Leo wondered. Frank might understand. Frank, after all, had been the person who had once suggested to Leo that he should marry, that a wife might be a useful means of scotching dangerous rumours. But Frank would have no answers, Leo knew. No, he decided, as Frank reappeared with a plate of mince pies, he would not touch upon his own life. They would talk of other things and people. Otherwise, thought Leo, as he glanced out of the windows at the darkening afternoon sky, he might be tempted to weep over the awfulness of it all.
The call came from the police station at four o’clock. In a way, as she stood in the living room doorway listening to Brian take the call, Alison Carstairs was not in the least surprised. Paul had gone out straight after breakfast, too wrapped up in some surly, awful world of his own to pay any attention to stupid things like Christmas presents or his family. The hours had passed – not too badly; the girls had liked their presents even though she and Brian hadn’t been able to afford much – and everyone had eaten the Christmas lunch which Alison had cooked. Everyone except Paul. They would all have been quite cheerful – well, better than usual – if it hadn’t been for the fact of Paul’s absence. Alison had kept everything waiting for an extra half-hour in the hope that he might come, but she knew in her heart of hearts that he would be out all day. Doing what, she could only conjecture. He told her nothing these days. When she had found out towards the end of term that he had been truanting from school, she and Brian had tried to talk to him about it, but had met with only a dogged refusal to discuss anything.
Now, as she watched her husband’s anxious, weary face, Alison told herself that it had been only a matter of time. She felt oddly calm, resigned to whatever awful thing he had done. She had gathered from the nature of Brian’s terse remarks into the telephone that the police were involved, but that there had been no accident, that Paul was perfectly well. After a fashion.
‘Well?’ she asked, as Brian put the phone down.
‘Joyriding,’ replied Brian tonelessly. ‘He and two other lads from school stole a car. The police caught them just outside Foxedge. I have to go down to the police station.’
The girls had come up behind Alison, listening, their faces childishly aghast at the realisation that their brother was in trouble. And on Christmas Day.
‘What’s Paul done?’ asked Sophie, staring from her father to her mother.
‘Nothing,’ said Alison, turning and herding them back into the living room to their half-finished game of Monopoly. ‘It’s just something Daddy has to go and sort out.’
She watched from behind the net curtains as Brian walked down the short pathway through the shabby little front garden to where the car stood by the pavement. She had a sudden memory of the courtyard behind the old house, the space between the house and the converted stable block where the cars were always parked. His sleek yellow E-Type, her gleaming Land Rover, the pretence of practicality over sheer ostentation. Look at us, we have money. She thought of Paul sitting in the police station. Was this how it was to be from now on? Was this really what a sudden fall from wealth and comfort did to a family? She would never have thought that material things could matter so much. All she could hope was that this incident, the shock of getting into such trouble, would have reduced Paul to a condition where she and Brian could reach him, so that at least they might talk and try to mend things. They had to hold on to each other now, since there was nothing else to put their faith in.
Charles and Rachel had sat for a long time over lunch, finishing their wine, Charles talking reflectively about his past marriage in the hope of eliciting more from Rachel regarding her own.
‘Of course, Hetty and I were just children when we got married. You think you’re grown up at twenty-two, but you don’t realise how much there is still to learn. You only discover that later.’
Rachel leant back in her chair, running her hands through her hair. Outside the dusk was gathering, and the shapes of bushes and trees in Charles’s garden were blurring into darkness. Charles had switched on two lamps, one on the dresser, the other near the window, and the kitchen where they had eaten was filled with a low, warm light. ‘I’m only twenty-eight,’ she said, ‘yet sometimes I feel that I’ve learnt everything there is to learn. Except how to make life work.’
‘How old is your husband?’ asked Charles, chin on hand.
‘Forty-four – no, five,’ replied Rachel. She tilted her chair forward again and stared into the remains of her wine, wondering what Leo was doing right now.
Charles was faintly surprised at this. He had imagined her husband as being roughly her own age, the kind of person who was young and confused enough to be bisexual. Not that he had much idea what that entailed. He simply marvelled that anyone married to someone as lovely and desirable as Rachel should want to go around—well, the thought of doing that with other men was pretty disgusting. Charles had always played the strictly liberal line, all in favour of equal rights for homosexuals, lovely chaps – and girls, of course; lesbians, too, absolutely – but when it came to the nitty-gritty, what actually went on … He decided not to think about this, but to concentrate on the practicalities of Rachel’s dilemma.
‘If it’s not an impertinent question,’ hazarded Charles, ‘how did the two of you c
ome to be married? I mean, if he’s …’
Rachel smiled sadly. ‘I’m not entirely sure any more. I was in love with him, of course. He must have loved me, needed me, something like that. And I suppose I had the idea – well, it’s that old cliché, women thinking they can change men. I thought that if—’ She almost said Leo’s name, but checked herself in time. ‘That if he had me, he might not need anyone else. He had already told me that there would be no more affairs with other men. I believed him. I wanted to, God knows. And,’ she sighed, ‘there was Oliver. All in all, given the combination of ingredients, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s all gone wrong.’
Charles rose and went over to a cupboard, from which he took a bottle of Chartreuse and two small glasses. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s have a glass of this and enjoy the fire in the drawing room. If it hasn’t gone out.’
They left the kitchen and went back to the drawing room, where the fire was low but still flickering, casting shadows against the walls. Charles switched on a small lamp and chucked two more logs on the fire, while Rachel sat down on the hearthrug, slipping off her shoes and drawing her knees up as she leant back against the log basket. Charles poured her a glass of the liqueur and handed it to her, then sat down in the armchair opposite her. The light from the fire cast a sheen on her black hair as she stared at the tongues of flame around the logs, which had begun to crack and sputter.
‘So,’ said Charles, resuming the conversation where they had left off, ‘what about his suggestion – what your husband said about leading separate lives but staying together?’
Rachel did not look at him. She continued to stare at the fire, and was silent for a long moment. Then she said softly, ‘I don’t know. I suppose it’s a possibility, but I don’t think I could stand it for long.’ She grimaced and sipped her liqueur, found herself about to say ‘Leo’s different’, and paused. ‘My husband is different. He’s really a very detached person. I’m not. I couldn’t live like that. God knows, we have, effectively, for the past two months, and it hasn’t exactly been pleasant. I think he’s met someone, you see – some man – and he wants to start an affair with him. That’s my guess. He just wants – well, sort of permission, I suppose. To do as he pleases. But still have us. Me and Oliver.’ She sipped again. ‘Oliver, mostly. If I go, Oliver goes. He doesn’t want that.’
Charles ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Then why doesn’t he just accept the way things are? Get on with life, give up having other men, women, whatever. If he wants to preserve the status quo that badly, I would have thought he could.’
‘Ah, but you don’t know my husband. He’s a most persuasive negotiator, and totally self-interested. If there’s a way of having it all without losing anything, then he’ll find it. Anyway, he’s already acknowledged to me that the sex thing is a weakness, something he either can’t or doesn’t intend to control. So.’ She shrugged.
He gazed at her as she brooded by the firelight. So beautiful. A perfect Madonna. One was simply grateful that the divine infant was sleeping upstairs. He voiced his thoughts. ‘I don’t understand how he can be such a fool, married to someone as truly lovely as you are.’ His voice was soft, reflective. Rachel glanced up at him, and Charles held her gaze for a long moment. He wondered vaguely, mellowed by the wine and the general ambience, whether now would be a good moment, whether he should just join her on the hearthrug, take her in his arms, hope for the best.
Rachel, her dark eyes fastened on his, divined something of this, and realised that she had been attracted to Charles ever since she had first met him. A faint thrill of nervousness passed through her. Until she had met Leo, she could not bear to be touched by any man, had been unable to allow anyone close enough to make love to her. The psychological scars left by her father and by later traumas had been too deep. It was partly why she felt so utterly emotionally dependent upon Leo. She wondered now if perhaps Leo had in some way healed her, had helped her to trust … That seemed absurd, given the way he had betrayed her. But she was able, she realised, to look at Charles now, to know his thoughts, and feel entirely unafraid. Perhaps it was not so much to do with Leo, as with Charles himself, his kindness, his easy good humour which made the mildly sensual gleam in his eye quite unthreatening. Even so … even so, she hoped he would not do anything to spoil the perfect peace of the moment. At this point in her life, with all its confusions and uncertainties, she had no wish for anything beyond this pleasant, platonic friendship.
It’s all too ungainly, thought Charles. I’ll just creak when I get up, and crack when I bend down. Or in my state I might fall over altogether. Then I’d have to lie there on the carpet pretending I’d fainted, or had a seizure, or something. Anyway, the setting might be perfect, but the timing’s not.
Charles let his lustful thoughts subside, took another sip of his drink and added, ‘Actually, your gorgeous young presence in the house is going to earn me a lot of kudos in the eyes of my children tomorrow. I do hope you’re going to let them labour under salacious misapprehensions.’
Rachel laughed. ‘If you like. But I think the sight of Oliver is going to alarm them, unless you explain things.’
Charles rubbed his chin. ‘True. They’ll start to worry about their inheritance. Not that they’ve got one, given the rate that Lloyd’s is swallowing up my money.’
The thinnest of wails sounded from upstairs. ‘Oliver,’ said Rachel, putting down her glass and getting to her feet. Graceful as a gazelle, thought Charles, suddenly realising that Rachel’s very youthfulness made him feel incipiently aged. Was this a good thing? He liked to think of himself as still possessing a certain youthful charm. ‘Bring him down here,’ he said, ‘and we’ll teach him how to play backgammon and gin rummy.’
In London, Leo was watching a film which he had videoed months ago but had never had time to watch before, and wishing that he could expect at any moment to hear the sound of Oliver crying upstairs, so that he could go up to him. He was horribly conscious of the silence, and wondering when on earth Rachel was coming back. He had drunk too much Scotch at Frank’s, and after the initial spurious warmth and sense of well-being, it had merely left him with a headache and an even deeper sense of depression. For the first time that he could remember in years, he realised that he felt lonely.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Late in the afternoon on Boxing Day, Rachel decided that she had to go back to London. Not that she particularly wished to. Every single moment of time spent in Charles’s house had been a pleasant release from tensions in her own. Even his children, of whom she’d been faintly apprehensive, were as easy and pleasant as he was. Nicholas was a younger version of his father, but with darker hair, and Chloe was pretty and intense, faintly suspicious of Rachel at first, until she perceived that there was no romantic relationship between Rachel and Charles.
She had sat with them all at lunch, listening to their conversation, their jokes, and realising wistfully that this was something that she and Leo would probably never create. There was a closeness, a genuine affection, which had taken years to achieve. At least it was pleasant to be a part of it. It lifted her spirits, made her feel human, included, and she saw that the past few months of her life had been cold and devoid of real happiness. How strange it was, she thought, watching Chloe playing on the carpet with a chortling Oliver, that one’s mind and life could gradually become numbed by a flat sense of unhappiness, so that one was left feeling that this was the only way to be. It was not the only way to be. But, for the moment, that was the way her real life was, and she had to go back to it and sort it out as best she could.
‘Stay another day,’ said Charles. But even as he said it, he was aware that it might spoil the stolen pleasure of these last two days to try to prolong it. Charles, with all the experience of middle age and countless love affairs, knew, too, that there was a certain progression in matters of the heart, and with a sensitive creature like Rachel, things must be managed carefully. Stage one had been very nicely acco
mplished. The marvel of it was that he had established an affectionate intimacy without so much as laying a finger on her. Yes, the groundwork had been nicely laid. She could not now refuse to see him in London. They were friends, after all.
‘I can’t,’ said Rachel, but smiling, pleased that he had asked. ‘I get the feeling I haven’t been very fair. I didn’t even leave my husband a note. I assumed that he would know where I’d gone, but if he rings my mother and finds I’m not there …’ Then it occurred to Rachel, if he had rung her mother’s and found she wasn’t there, where would she tell him she had spent Christmas? Well, she would simply have to worry about that when the time came. A dragging reluctance to go filled her, but she fought it. ‘Anyway, we have had the most wonderful time. I’m very glad I bumped into you in Bath.’
‘So am I,’ said Charles. ‘Otherwise you might still be at your mother’s having a nervous breakdown.’
An hour later Nicholas brought Rachel’s bags and Oliver’s travel cot downstairs and loaded them into the boot. He and Chloe said goodbye to Rachel and kissed Oliver, and then went back into the house, leaving Charles and Rachel together by the car. Charles watched as Rachel strapped Oliver into his seat, Oliver sucking one of the passengers from his bus.
‘God!’ said Charles. ‘The bus!’ He ran back into the house and reappeared a few moments later with the red bus. Rachel put it on the back seat with the rest of his things.