Then she’d smiled at him, reached out and placed her hand on his. ‘And I — we — have you to thank for that, Bernard. Your generosity and thoughtfulness has brought us back to ourselves — and each other.’
Bernard had been pierced by the irony. His gallant offer to help, made rashly and only because it gave him a reason to be near Meredith, had been too effective. He had revived his rival — and returned him to his wife. The faint hope he’d harboured of proving his worth to Meredith, of making the case he should have made on that decades-ago Christmas Eve, was dashed like the infant prince from the walls of Troy. And now, he was caught. His visits to Jonty were expected, welcomed even, and he had no good reason to call a halt. Yet the pain of Meredith’s presence would be worse than ever. It was no wonder he was irritable. Disappointment, regret, humiliation, not to mention visions of a preening Elaine, plagued him hourly. It was too much, it really was!
Of all this Patricia had reminded him — and right at that moment, he could not forgive her.
‘How can you possibly know whether Meredith’s pleased or not?’ he accused her. ‘When have you ever taken more than a superficial interest in her life?’
His wife’s eyes brimmed with hurt, but Bernard’s anger extinguished the small flicker of guilt. He threw his napkin onto the breakfast table, not caring if it landed on his toast and preserves.
‘I am going out,’ he informed her. ‘I cannot say when I will be back.’
He took his car keys and jacket from the hallway, and shut the door firmly behind him. At the end of his driveway, he indicated to turn right, towards Gabriel’s Bay. Changed his mind and turned left. Towards Woodhall.
It was time to be honest with Meredith. To tell her how he felt. He knew it would change nothing — she was Jonty’s, always would be. But he could bear no longer the weight of this secret. He’d carried it for too many years.
The wash of relief that he was about to finally unburden himself doused his anger. And as that emotion subsided, conscience rose to fill the gap. Patricia. He’d treated her very badly, he knew that. There was no excuse for his outburst, and as soon as he’d talked with Meredith, he would return home to apologise. He hoped Patricia would remember that in all their years of marriage he’d never lost his temper with her to that extent. It was a one-off, the result of an unusually high level of provocation.
Yes, of course she would forgive him. She was generous and kind, and could never hold a grudge. He would stop off and buy her some flowers on his way home. Perhaps some chocolates also. He was fairly sure Patricia liked chocolate.
As he knocked on Woodhall’s front door, he braced himself to be greeted by young Macfarlane. But it was Meredith who opened up. Her brown eyes widened briefly, but she was too well-bred to show surprise.
‘Bernard,’ she said. ‘Did you arrange an earlier visit with Jonty?’
‘No,’ he replied, and girded himself. ‘It’s you I came to see.’
‘Then come into the kitchen,’ she said, ‘and I’ll make a pot of tea.’
Sitting at the table while Meredith prepared the tea, Bernard recalled how much he’d enjoyed his childhood time in Woodhall’s kitchen. Unlike his own mother, Meredith’s refused to hire a cook, and when she had people around for dinner, they more usually ate around this big rimu table than in the rarely used dining room. ‘It’s cosier,’ Meredith’s mother said, and it was. Warm, welcoming and redolent with the best smells, fresh-baked bread and biscuits, lemons, coffee and, later in the day, bubbling casseroles. The kitchen of his childhood home was a place his mother rarely frequented, but that was its only merit. The cook did not like young people — or any people for that matter. Or cooking, when it came down to it.
‘Oh, really.’
Meredith shut the refrigerator with an irritated thud.
‘I’m afraid there’s no milk,’ she said. ‘Again.’
‘I prefer my tea black,’ said Bernard.
‘And I do not,’ said Meredith. ‘But it seems I have no choice.’
‘Master Macfarlane being a little derelict in his duties?’
‘A little, yes.’
‘He’s not here?’
‘No,’ said Meredith, with a hint of heaviness. ‘I gave him time off to consult with the project’s lawyer, who could not, apparently, see him later in the day.’
Meredith assembled cups, sugar and teapot on the table, and took a seat at the head, so that Bernard was on her immediate left. He tried not to be aware of her physical presence. His hold on his nerve was shaky enough as it was.
She poured a cup for Bernard and then for herself.
‘I’m too soft, that’s my trouble,’ she said. ‘Too susceptible to enthusiasm and boyish charm.’
Bernard’s disdain for young Macfarlane became a more complicated emotion. But he mustn’t let that distract him, either. Meredith was eyeing him with calm expectancy. His moment had come.
‘Meredith,’ he began — and was immediately tongue-tied. He could feel a blush rising, too, which only compounded matters. All he needed now was for Jonty to appear and demand to talk to him about the T20 cricket tournament, which Jonty considered an abomination and Bernard quite enjoyed.
‘Bernard.’ The voice of beauty spoke softly. ‘I think I know what you wish to tell me.’
Please God let that not be true. That she’d known — and pitied him — all this time.
‘You don’t actually enjoy these visits with Jonty, do you?’
Insight of a different, and fortunately more manageable, kind.
‘What makes you think that?’ he said.
‘Because I know him,’ she replied. ‘And I know you. You are not kindred spirits.’
‘That doesn’t mean we can’t be civil to one another.’
‘Of course not. But being civil is not the same as being friendly, is it?’
Bernard was unsure what response she intended him to make. Perhaps he should simply ignore the question, seize control of the conversation and say what he came to say?
Meredith was waiting. She wore her usual white shirt and tailored navy trousers, and for the millionth time, he marvelled at how she could invest even the plainest of attire with a matchless style. Patricia did her best, he knew, and always looked tidy and appropriate, but—
Guilt. And more than that. Shame. Burning shame.
How could he have treated Patricia like that? Kind, loving, gentle Patricia who had stood by him all these years — to have raised his voice in anger to her was unpardonable. And how dare he compare her unfavourably to Meredith, when she possessed so many fine qualities? Loyalty, generosity, compassion — his wife’s character was outstanding. And here he was, about to commit the greatest act of treachery in his married life — confessing his adoration of another woman. He was a monster, a beast, an abject failure of a husband. He needed to leave here immediately, race home and beg Patricia to forgive him.
‘Yes,’ he said to Meredith. ‘You’re quite correct. I am not and never will be friendly with Jonty. I came to request that we call a halt to my visits. I trust that Jonty has other acquaintances who might be better suited to his company. Of course, I’m prepared to tell him directly—’
‘No need. I’ll inform Jonty.’
Meredith’s manner was cool, formal, as if the previous week’s growing intimacy had never happened. Bernard felt the loss of connection acutely but knew it had to be done. For the sake of his sanity — and his marriage.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
She rose. He was dismissed. He departed through the front door as swiftly as he could without actually breaking into a run. He exceeded the speed limit on the eighty-kilometres-an-hour stretch to home.
But Patricia’s car was not in the driveway when he returned. He’d missed her — she’d gone to Hampton. He rang her mobile phone but it went through to voicemail. The urge to turn his car around immediately and drive to find her almost won, but having left his tea untouched, he was now expiring from thirst. He would have a gla
ss of water, and then he would head over the hill.
On the hall table, he saw what must be the day’s post, unopened. Usually, Patricia managed their household affairs with maximum efficiency, sorting the mail and placing any letters he needed to see on his library desk, topped with an explanatory Post-It note. On the Post-It accompanying Elaine’s recent missive, Patricia had roughly drawn a poison bottle label complete with skull and crossbones, which had brought a smile to Bernard’s face.
But as he looked closer, instead of a pile of mail, he saw a single plain white envelope with only his first name on it. Inside, he found a short letter that he would, over the long coming hours, re-read many times, as if the message within might have changed since he last looked.
Patricia had left him. She apologised for not letting him know in person, but had been too afraid that she’d lose her nerve.
‘I feel cowardly enough for doing this,’ she wrote. ‘Working up to it, I changed my mind a thousand times. I interrogated and berated myself — I was overreacting, I could change how I felt if only I made more of an effort. I could change us, how we were. But this morning, I knew I had no hope of changing anything. I would forever more have to accept roses of shadow, accept that you reserved your true rose for someone else …’
Bernard had no idea his wife had such a poetic soul.
The note went on to tell him that she had taken her car, a minimum amount of clothing and a credit card that she trusted he would not object to her using until she got on her feet financially.
He was not to worry about her safety, or to feel that she bore him any ill will. She had been letting herself live a half-life, and now it was time for her to take control.
She would be incommunicado for three weeks, and then she would telephone, and they could discuss the future.
She signed the letter ‘Yours’.
Bernard sat up in his library until after midnight. All his life, the presence of books had given him solace, reassurance. Their stories sang through wires, hummed all around him, alive, potent, transformative.
He sat among his books and heard nothing but silence, as if they, too, had departed. He did not, as he normally would, pick one out to read, but left them be. For he could not shake the strong conviction that if he opened a book now, any book, he’d find nothing inside but white, blank pages.
Chapter 29
Sidney
Mr Phipps told Sidney that the warm spring meant the bees might start producing honey any minute, instead of around Christmas as was usual for this part of the country. The honey was what some might call a paddock blend, the main floral source for the bees being clover, thistle and blackberry. But there was also a hint of the bush in there, manuka, cabbage tree and the rewarewa from which it probably got its darker colour. Mr Phipps reckoned there was a bit of coastal kanuka, too, though Sidney could not for the life of her distinguish it in the taste.
Mr Phipps stirred honey into his mug of black tea, and added a squeeze of lemon. Sidney had tried it, but preferred to stick with a dash of milk. She was, however, entirely happy to melt a knob of butter with the honey in a saucepan and pour it liberally onto hot toasted crumpets. Terrible for her waistline, delicious beyond measure. It always amazed her how something so simple as tea, crumpets and honey could be so comforting and sustaining. You felt as if you ought to glow afterwards, like some kind of heavenly being.
‘Crumpet?’ She offered the warm stack to Mr Phipps.
He slid one onto his plate, let her pour a stream of gold on top.
Sidney sat down at Mr Phipps’s battered old Formica table, once green with white speckles, now a kind of khaki. The chairs matched in that they and the table had once been a set, but were worn to shreds now, holes covered with stitched patches (Mary, probably) or duct tape (Mr Phipps, definitely). But no matter how old everything was in his kitchen — Sidney fancied the copper and brass coffee pot had seen service at the Battle of Fort Ticonderoga — it was scrupulously clean. The wooden floor was swept daily, the old wood-burning range kept blacked and polished, the tea towels laundered and pressed. It was also the sunniest room in the house, which had been built in the late 1800s and only marginally modernised. Victorians did not like sun fading their grimly vegetative upholstery and dour family portraits, so they angled their houses to ensure the sun cooked the servants instead. Sun streamed right now through the open back door and large windows, warming Sidney’s back. She resisted the urge to lay her head on the table and snooze.
A solid morning’s work around the hives followed by tea and crumpets, or sometimes her own fresh-baked scones, was one of Sidney’s real pleasures. Beekeeping, to her, felt productive, planned and systematic — the polar opposite of mothering, with all its surprises and unplanned detours and on-the-spot problem-solving. She reminded herself that bees were creatures of habit, programmed by years of evolution to follow the same routine, whereas her sons were individuals, each one intent on forging his own path in his own way. And she did not love the bees, had no relationship with them whatsoever. If the bees saw her at all, it was as a large white shape that occasionally puffed smoke at them. Her sons she loved with a primal passion that surged up with terrifying force. She would die for them; that was beyond question. She also, at times, felt towards them a murderous rage. Being at ease with such contradictions, she decided, was the secret to good parenting. And, of course, maintaining sanity.
Across the table from her, Mr Phipps consumed his late-morning snack using the same method he’d employed since Sidney had first met him — one bite of crumpet followed by a mouthful of tea, until both were finished. Sidney never failed to marvel at the way he managed to make them come out even. It took foresight, patience and restraint, three traits she’d dearly love to possess in greater quantities. Seemed to Sidney that all she did these days was react, and not in a calm, controlled way. Her reactions were invariably accompanied by the words ‘Oh, for God’s sake’, either spoken aloud or communicated via her expression. No wonder she was having trouble with Aidan. No wonder she and Kerry were making heavy weather of their — whatever it was. Felt too premature to call it a relationship. Correction, she was too wary to call it a relationship. That word implied a commitment to permanence she wasn’t sure either of them had — she because of the aforementioned wariness, and Kerry because he’d never once brought up the subject of their future, unless you counted checking the calendar to see when they could next get together for sex.
And it was good sex, she had to admit, though a voice that sounded like her mother’s piped up to suggest that any sex would feel magnificent after such a long period of drought. Plus, that initial thrill of lust would soon fade, the helpful voice reminded, and, stripped of that padding, the framework of the relationship would be laid bare. Sidney would see what it was made of — something solid and enduring? Or something that faded into the air like a smiling Cheshire cat?
‘Have you heard of this new flow hive?’ she said.
Sidney knew Mr Phipps to be an excellent listener, and a source of sensible, if pithy, advice. But you had to prepare the ground before seeding your questions. Bee talk, in her experience, was the most effective conversational hoe.
‘Its frame comes partly constructed like honeycomb,’ she explained. ‘The bees complete the comb and cap it with beeswax, like they would normally. But it has this mechanism, like a spigot, that splits the comb when you turn it on and allows honey to flow down a tube and out the hive’s base into sterile jars. When you turn it off, it sets the comb back into position. The bees are barely disturbed, and you get easy access to honey. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?’
‘How much?’ Mr Phipps said.
‘Not sure,’ said Sidney. ‘They were looking for investment last time I heard, to put the prototypes into production. Do you want me to find out?’
Mr Phipps shrugged. That meant: Yes, he would, because he was quite excited by what she’d told him. Despite all clues given by his appearances and surroundings, Mr Phipps was no
t against progress. It just had to be progress whose benefits were not offset by damage to people or the environment. If its manufacture required slave labour or the pillaging of natural resources and its use added to the world’s waste and discontent, he wasn’t interested. Hence why his house was powered by solar panels, his water supply came from filtered rainwater tanks and his outhouse was a composting toilet. Sidney had been sceptical of the latter, but it was surprisingly un-whiffy. The reason she held on until she got home was the spiders in the corners, huge ones the size of mice, though that might be her amygdala exaggerating.
Her source of primal fear wasn’t too fond of the weta in the woodpile, either, but Mr Phipps kindly did all the gathering. Sidney’s own house had a fireplace, but the chimney was a wreck and she didn’t know anyone who’d be willing to repair it in exchange for goods and not cash. Owing to being caught in the poor person’s double-bind that put truly efficient heating out of her price range, she and the boys had no choice but to put up with ugly column-heaters that used too much electricity. The only upside was not having a woodpile full of weta, an insect that, when he first spied one, had shocked Kerry into atypical silence. He’d contemplated its spiny legs, pointed mandibles and spiked rear for a solid minute before speaking.
‘It’s a grasshopper designed by Satan.’
‘And yet entirely benign,’ said Sidney. ‘Though it can give you a good hard nip if you startle it. My advice is to check your shoes every morning before putting them on.’
‘I haven’t been doing that,’ Kerry said, his face a little ashen.
‘Trust me,’ Sidney said, ‘if you had a weta in your shoe, you’d know all about it.’
‘I thought New Zealand was free of creatures that bit and stung?’
‘It’s free of creatures that bite and sting fatally,’ Sidney said. ‘Well, mostly. Wild pigs can gore you to death. Cattle can trample you, horses kick you in the head, and I guess a charging stag might wreak some havoc with its antlers. Kea — one of our native parrots — have been known to eat sheep alive. And our magpies! Those buggers divebomb you and draw blood! Oh, and we have sharks. But you’re more likely to die playing rugby than in a shark attack.’
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