‘Harvard … golly … fantastic …’ Sophie murmured, struggling to picture the petulant baby and toddler, responsible for ruining so many of their early social gatherings, as a grown woman with an intellect.
The further they walked, the more Sophie could feel herself getting used to the heat – surrendering to it – just as she had on an exploratory stroll to the lake the afternoon before. While Andrew had slapped at insects and hopped between patches of shade as if they were stepping stones, Sophie had walked with deliberate, contrasting steadiness in as straight a line as the trees and brambles would allow, keeping her eyes half closed and moving much as she might have swum across the millpond stillness of the water ahead of them – slowly, but with strength, giving in to the element that embraced her.
‘And your daughters are well?’
‘Oh, yes … Milly, Olivia. They’re joining us in just under three weeks … I can’t wait.’ Sophie felt her throat swell. There had been a text from Olivia that morning:
Glad hse cool. All good here. 200 at concert
last night. Awesome! M sends x
A few moments later, under Geoff’s direction, the four of them were wedged into a yellow cab, trying to keep their damp, slippery limbs to themselves while warm air blasted through the windows, opened wide to compensate for the vehicle’s lack of air-conditioning. It had been decided that they would take a drive-by tour of Ground Zero and then have lunch. As the taxi lurched its way downtown – an endless stop-start straight line of cross-roads and traffic lights – Andrew, much to Sophie’s relief, seemed happy to take charge of the conversation, fielding enquiries about the girls and their music before turning to the indisputable glories of their holiday home. ‘It was a genius plan of yours, Geoff, thank you so much for suggesting it.’
‘Only too glad to oblige,’ Geoff barked, performing a mock salute. ‘But I must correct you about one thing: Darien is pronounced Dairy-Ann – unlike its namesake in Central America. It’s petty but the locals care about that stuff.’
‘Like the way you say my name – Ann,’ chirruped Ann, waving her red-taloned nails out of the window and exclaiming in the same bright tone, ‘Oh, look, here we are. This is it. Zero as in Ground.’
Sophie sensed Andrew repressing an urge to catch her eye as they both peered gingerly – dutifully – out of the cab window. Ann was terrible – they were united in that at least. Cranes, keep-out signs, men in hard hats, the hum of machinery – for a moment it seemed no more than a massive building site, like the ones that appeared to have taken up permanent residence at Scotch Corner or Waterloo Bridge. It took a few moments for the other, older, images to filter through – the Hollywood clarity of the TV coverage, the grainier shots of falling bodies.
‘I always think it’s like a tooth has been pulled out,’ exclaimed Geoff, in the same cheery tone as his wife, ‘such a clean extraction. I mean, look at all those other skyscrapers – functional, untouched. You’ve got to admire the precision of the destruction.’
The precision of the destruction … Sophie tried to hold on to the phrase. It seemed such a terrible thing to say. And yet within a moment her thoughts had slipped to the sheer, tediously self-centred business of being unhappy. She was at a place where thousands had died – thousands – and all she could manage was self-pity. It was laughable, disgusting. She glanced across the taxi at Andrew. No wonder he was visibly close to giving up on her. No bloody wonder.
‘We were so sorry, Sophie,’ Ann said softly, once they were settled in the much-praised Italian restaurant and their husbands lost to a conversation about mutual friends, ‘to hear that you have been unwell.’
‘Unwell?’ Sophie carefully returned her full spoon of fish and sauce to its bowl.
‘It’s all right. You don’t want to talk about it and I totally respect that. A friend of mine had ME …’ Ann paused to twirl a heap of pasta threads round the prongs of her fork ‘… and it lasted for years. Not enough energy even to watch telly, let alone run a house … She never did go back to work. Though she is much better now,’ she added hastily, ‘totally normal, just as I’m sure you will be after this lovely holiday Andrew has arranged for you.’ She crinkled her forehead in sympathy, misinterpreting Sophie’s lack of response as a licence to go further. ‘I just want you to know that Geoff and I are totally here for you, okay? Anything we can do – absolutely anything – you have only to ask.’
Sophie responded by excusing herself and sprinting to the Ladies, where she leant against the locked door breathing so fast that pins and needles pricked her fingers. That Andrew had said anything, to Ann and Geoff of all people, felt like betrayal. Even her parents, resident for many years now in southern Portugal, knew only that she was taking time off work – a well-deserved break from the labour of trying to hammer a few literary facts into students on final ultimatums from despairing parents. The ignominy of being in some sort of nameless crisis was something she had imagined only she and Andrew shared. What else had he told them? Who else?
Restored with the energy of indignation, Sophie strode back to the table only to find her anger shrivelling under the inescapable realization that the three of them had been discussing her – the sudden silence, Andrew’s sheepish avoidance of her gaze. It made her want to weep.
‘We’ve been formulating a plan,’ declared Geoff, attempting to cover the moment with a display of gallantry – leaping up to pull back her chair, topping up her glass, offering her another bread roll. ‘The pair of you are going to stay the night in town with us, so we can take in a show and then head out to Green Hills, our country club, tomorrow. It’s this side of Greenwich – a half-hour drive. We tend to go every weekend in the summer. There’s a great pool where you ladies can sun yourselves while I introduce Andrew to the golf course and – ’
‘But we do not have our things.’ Sophie spoke steadily, trying to contain her horror.
‘Hey, that’s no problem – we have spares of everything, and you girls can sort out some clothes, I’m sure. And if there are any toiletries you need, we can pick them up at the drug store. It just seems crazy posting the pair of you back on the train, with this heat and it being Saturday tomorrow and –’
‘No.’ Sophie fixed her gaze on her bowl of chowder, lumpy with uneaten seafood. ‘No …’ She could feel some of the resolve seeping back into her. She even managed a small, apologetic smile. ‘As you know, I … I tire easily at the moment. But Andrew – he would love to, wouldn’t you, darling? So, what I suggest – what I would prefer – is to make my way back to Connecticut this afternoon, after MOMA …’ she smiled again, brilliantly, at Ann ‘… to which I am so looking forward, and let Andrew stay with you tonight and do the golf tomorrow, which he would love, wouldn’t you, Andrew? That is what I would very much like to do,’ she concluded firmly, ‘if you all don’t mind.’ She placed a morsel of bread in her mouth and chewed slowly, while looks were exchanged and air inhaled.
When the protests came she was ready for them, reiterating that Andrew needed time on his own with his oldest friend and that she needed rest. ‘And, of course, there’s the cat,’ she added, with all the slow relish of a poker player turning over a winning card. ‘I would hate to think how the Stapletons would feel if we let Dido miss supper as well as breakfast.’
He really was uncannily like his father, Beth decided, admiring the rangy limbs and thick dark hair at the back of Harry’s head as he scrambled out of the taxi in front of her. But still only a boy, she reminded herself, as he immediately wandered off, lost in communication with his cell, while she took charge of payment – of what seemed an exorbitant amount, given that they had spent much of this second taxi journey sitting in traffic so motionless it had made her almost nostalgic for New York.
‘More time for seeing the sights,’ Harry had urged, by way of persuading her to choose cabs over the subway once a bus had ferried them from Barnes to Hammersmith. And yet, when it came to putting names to those sights, her stepson had proved comically ill-equ
ipped. By the time Beth had pointed out the Albert Hall as proof that what he had called St James’s was more likely to be Hyde Park, he was hunched against the window, visibly disconcerted.
He had no difficulty identifying Harrods, though, which had been their first port of call and one of the promised objectives of the day – even if his lassitude upon entering the place had quickly persuaded Beth to defer exploring its wonders properly until a second visit, either with William or on her own.
Her priority that morning was Harry, she reminded herself, hurrying to catch him up once the taxi had edged back into the traffic. ‘So here we are … the King’s Road … What exactly was it you needed to buy?’
‘Er … shoes.’
‘Shoes … okay …’ Beth glanced up and down what seemed to her to be the most uninspiring of streets, given all Harry’s excited chatter about celebrities. ‘What kind of shoes?’
‘Trainers?’ Harry offered, but without conviction, rechecking his phone. ‘But,’ he went on, with a charm that reminded Beth again of his father, ‘I’m sure you would like to go window shopping and stuff, so maybe we should split for a bit and meet up at Sloane Square.’
‘Sloane Square … and where would that be?’
‘That way – we came through it just now. It’s got trees in the middle, and this big shop called Peter Jones right on the corner – like Harrods but a bit smaller. I could meet you outside the main entrance in, say, an hour?’
Beth smiled, shaking her head in a manner designed to mask the faint hurt that he should prefer time alone to being with her. ‘Are you okay for money?’
Harry looked momentarily uncertain and then joyful as she produced two crisp twenty-pound notes. ‘Don’t tell your father, okay? We wouldn’t want him to think I was spoiling you, now, would we? That’s to help you buy some really cool sneakers. I’ll see you outside this Peter Jones place in one hour exactly. Is that a deal?’
‘Totally – brilliant. Thanks.’
As Harry took off into the crowds of shoppers, Beth allowed herself a moment of private congratulation. Who said bribery didn’t work? She wanted the kid to like her and she had bought some time for herself – much-needed time, given the shape the week had taken. She had yet to see a single one of the cultural sights on her hit list. This was partly because managing everyday basics in these unfamiliar surroundings – shopping, cooking, laundry – was proving alarmingly time-consuming, and partly because there had been numerous extra chores to cope with, like getting sets of house keys cut for the boys, contacting the helpline when Sky crashed, not to mention enduring a couple of practice driving sessions in the Volvo, since William insisted it was mad to be reliant on the vagaries of public transport when they had the use of a car. As a result, the first nine days of the holiday had slipped by at extraordinary speed, exposing in the process the naïvety of her original hope of remaining on the fringes of the logistics of her husband’s interaction with his sons. For the purposes of the trip at least, she was in the thick of it, whether she liked it or not.
And, to her surprise, Beth did quite like it – so far – in bursts. Knowing it was only for a few weeks helped enormously, as did the scruffy comforts of the house – the large deep-cushioned furniture, the unfussy bathrooms, which lent themselves perfectly to three lounging teenagers, content to graze for hours between the sofa and the fridge, clad only in boxers and T-shirts until commanded otherwise by their father. Beth let William do the commanding. She stuck to the role of half-involved spectator, enjoying the temporary business of playing at family life, especially under the watchful gazes of the oh-so-perfect Chapmans, whose blue eyes peered out of photographs in every niche of the house.
But keeping her own needs on hold had its limits, as Beth had realized the night before, when a pleasant – if noisy – evening of TV and take-out had been interrupted by a dictatorial phone call from Susan, announcing yet more cricket for George the following day (a twenty-twenty tournament, whatever that was) and a paint-balling party for Alfie two hours out of town. Beth had listened with mounting frustration and disbelief as William acceded, waiting in vain for him to point out that the five of them had already made plans to spend the day going down the Thames by boat, taking in both Tate galleries and Greenwich, as her guidebook recommended. The improbable notion of her and Harry spending the day as shopping companions had arisen out of the rubble of these dashed hopes, agreed to by both out of a tacit mutual desire not to upset William, who had been noticeably mute and edgy by the end of the call.
‘I thought the boys were with you now,’ Beth had ventured, once they were safely in their bedroom with the elder two sworn to quietness in front of a late movie and Alfie asleep along the corridor. ‘I mean, just to phone like that and switch everything around … I just don’t think it’s acceptable.’
William, sitting on the edge of the bed tugging off his socks, had nodded balefully, muttering, ‘That’s Susan for you’, before going on to talk with a little more of his customary exuberance about how thrilling it was to have George – at last – doing better at something than his elder brother, even if it was only cricket, and how, (relaxing now, into affectionate chuckles), no one’s life would have been worth living if Alfie had discovered he’d missed a paint-balling party.
‘But now you’re going to spend the whole day in Hambringham!’ Beth had exclaimed, the injustice bursting out of her.
‘Hambledon.’
‘Whatever …’
‘Look, Beth, I’m sorry it’s like this – all a bit chaotic. Things will quieten, I promise – especially during our spell up north. We’ll have loads of time to ourselves then.’
‘It’s just that I’m starting to feel kind of deprived of you,’ Beth had confessed, pressing her anger away. ‘Cricket, parties … they are kind of demanding, you’ve got to admit …’ She stepped over the discarded socks and knelt in front of him. ‘Alfie in your lap all evening – that’s my place, baby …’ she added softly, feeling with her fingers for the buckle on his belt.
William released exactly the sort of sigh she had been hoping for and bent to kiss her hair, tucked in its usual silky-smooth neatness behind her ears. ‘Silly,’ he growled, sighing again, more heavily this time, as the belt slid free and dropped to the floor.
‘Dad …’
They were on their feet in an instant, William so hastily that his elbow caught Beth in the ribs, knocking her sideways. ‘Hey, big man, what’s up?’
Alfie rubbed his eyes, which looked wider and paler without the habitual protection of his glasses. ‘I was in bed but in my clothes …?’
‘Yeah, because you fell asleep on the sofa and I didn’t want to wake you … In fact, I think you still are asleep. Come on, mate.’
William had shot Beth a rueful look as he steered his son back out into the hallway and she had done her very best to look rueful back – as opposed to pissed, which was how she felt, in spite of knowing that such a reaction was graceless and altogether beneath her. She was thirty-eight, for God’s sake, married to a man who not only loved her but who, according to his own selection of heartbreakingly moving marital vows, worshipped her, body and soul. She had saved him, William had said then and on a few precious occasions since. She had given him his life back. So to feel even partially sidelined by his thirteen-year-old son was plainly dumb, especially since the kid was so pitifully clinging and babyish, with a voice still several pitches higher than her own, and a need to clamber onto his father’s lap and be tucked up like a toddler. When she was thirteen, Beth had reflected bitterly, she couldn’t wait for the night-time seclusion of her bedroom, the safety of being in her nightgown without scrutiny, away from the tipsy lovingness that came when that evening’s bottle of bourbon was almost gone.
Annoyed with herself, anxious as always not to dwell on any aspect of her unsatisfactory upbringing, Beth had settled into bed to wait for William, quelling her bad mood by examining a dusty stack of books parked behind her bedside table. Mozart, Man or Genius?, G
raham Greene, A Life in Letters, The Beauties of the Baroque, A History of King’s College, Cambridge. So she slept on the husband’s side, she had mused, experiencing a trace of unease at the weird intimacy of two couples occupying each other’s beds and then being diverted by the thought of the musical Andrew Chapman possibly tinkling some life into her piano in Connecticut – an unused millstone of an heirloom that had received more attention from removals men over the years than it ever had from her. He would have some proper elbow room there too, Beth speculated smugly, unlike the cramped study-cum-music room off the hall downstairs, so stacked with boxes and music stands that she didn’t know how he even picked his way through to the stool.
It was only later, after making love, that Beth realized the day’s rearranged plans might well involve meeting Susan, who had said she would field Alfie and leave William to deal with George. Susan Stapleton, the ex, in the flesh at last. A restless night had followed, in spite of William’s baffled, sleepy attempts at reassurance.
Beth paused in front of a window display, studying an attractive pyramid of strappy summer shoes. When did one really grow up? she wondered. When did all the childish stuff finally drop away? She had endured a lousy night, fighting ancient insecurities, and all for a blowsy, overweight woman with brittle over-bleached hair and a strident voice. With William upstairs and Alfie still half asleep over a bowl of cereal, Beth had been the one to open the door. I can never like you, had been her first and then recurring thought through the mutually polite, stiff greetings, the offers and rejections of refreshment, followed by a joint drawn-out quest to locate Alfie’s sneakers.
Before I Knew You Page 5