So Much Life Left Over

by Louis de Bernières

If anything should happen to Samadara, then I shall ensure that the child is looked after by someone else, whom I know extremely well, and who has light brown children of her own. I think you probably catch my drift.

  Do reply by return of post if you should receive this letter. I am certain that you would wish to take appropriate actions on your own account.

  Dear Daniel, how we miss you, and how we wish you had never left. What fun we had! I shall miss our games of gun snap, our tennis on Sundays, our snipe shoots, our swipings and airshots and slicings on the golf course, our dawn rides around the estate, and I shall always regret never having had the chance to set up our aviation business together. It would have been a hoot.

  Yours ever,

  Hugh B

  PS Your replacement is nowhere near your calibre, unfortunately. If you were a rail-mounted howitzer, he is a .177 Gem air rifle.

  Rosie read the letter several times, and a curious numbness overcame her. All men were the same, it seemed. Hugh and Daniel and her father, all the same. Still, she was not going to let some native girl queer her pitch.

  She did exactly what her own mother would have done, and burned the letter in the grate, watching with hard satisfaction as it curled and browned and crumbled to ash. She said nothing about it to anybody, not even to Ottilie, and hardly even to herself.

  27

  Geddes Axe

  Daniel had taken up his old job with Henley Motorcycles in Birmingham, despite his several years’ absence from the firm, and, as before, was having to return to Eltham on his combination every Friday evening, because, as before, Rosie was repeatedly putting off moving up there with him. The work was interesting enough; he was supervising some experiments with belt rather than chain drive, and testing some JAP engines, but he had quickly returned to the state of burning rage that he had experienced before they had left for Ceylon, and it was as if he had travelled an immense circle back into the grind from which he had escaped. He had begun to think of exercising his right as the children’s legal guardian, of removing them to Birmingham, and employing someone to care for them whilst he was at work. What held him back was the feeling that it would, somehow, simply not be right. He knew that they needed their mother as much as they needed him, and neither could he, despite his anger, bring himself to cause such a catastrophic hurt to Rosie. He was also a man of his time. Since the middle of the nineteenth century the conventional wisdom had entirely reversed, and now it was assumed unquestioningly that children belonged with their mothers. It had become as socially obvious as the flatness of the Earth had been before the Renaissance.

  His agitation had been seriously compounded upon hearing that Christabel and Gaskell had decided to move to France for six months in order to photograph and paint the old battlefields. He was dismayed, excited, guilty and perplexed. He had become more than fond of Christabel during his many trips to Hexham. Their lovemaking had been intense and poignant, and she had said things to him that took him back to Samadara, whose delicious memory was already fading into a languorous dream of a vanished Eden.

  Now he suddenly began to feel used and discarded, and had to fight to persuade himself that this was not the case, despite the many fond and newsy letters from Christabel and Gaskell that arrived at his address in Wootton Wawen. ‘I’ve been a damned fool,’ he often repeated to himself, and he wondered if Christabel would be receiving him as passionately as before, when he finally came up to Hexham to meet his ‘godchild’. Perhaps her passion would be like her sister’s, only evident when a child was in the offing. And how was he to cope with having a child at such a distance, one who was being brought up by someone else, and did not even know him for a father?

  To make matters worse, the Honourable Mary had been visibly thrilled upon his return. She had begun to go a little grey, her face was showing its first lines, but she was the same warm and comely woman, with the same poetic Irish lilt in her voice, and the same patient willingness to put up with Mrs McCosh’s erratic ways. Being a ‘lady maid’ had been a confining but safe experience, and she kept herself consoled by the thought that one day she might find the right man, as Ottilie clearly had. Daniel’s return had thrown her heart into unwelcome confusion. It seemed impossible for their eyes not to meet, and impossible for Rosie not to notice it one day.

  Daniel became increasingly annoyed with himself for being attracted to her. ‘My life is too damn painful and complicated already,’ he would mutter to himself, as he motorcycled grimly back to The Grampians on Friday evenings. He was surprised by himself, and increasingly contemptuous. When he was young he had never contemplated the possibility of becoming a rake. He would get married, he would be faithful. What could have been simpler? But he had had two lovers already in the first years of being married, and the strange thing was that he had no feeling whatsoever of having done anything wrong. It had all seemed perfectly natural, and even meritorious. And now, here was Mary, with her big sorrowful eyes, clearly offering her unsatisfied heart to him, and here he was, tempted, even though his wife was in the house, and his wife’s sister was in France, expecting his child. He did not know who to blame – himself, or these women with their complicated desires and adaptable sense of morality. He told himself that life had turned out to be far more complex than he ever could have imagined, and that no value did not have a countervalue. He missed his old certainties, when fornication was a shocking sin only committed by others, and adultery was the sport of the degenerate.

  One Friday evening he returned home with presents for the children in his sidecar, to find Mary bent over a figure that was lying across the steps to the front porch. He killed the engine, lifted his goggles and dismounted. He knelt down on the steps next to her.

  ‘Archie!’ he said.

  His brother was in a state of extreme dereliction, stinking of gin, in ragged and filthy clothing. The soles flapped off his shoes, and saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Archie, what on earth are you doing here?’

  Archie looked at him dazedly, without raising his head. ‘Bloody Geddes Axe,’ he said. ‘Too many majors in the regiment. No damn promotions to colonel. The buggers have pensioned me off. Got to live off a pittance.’

  ‘You’ve come home?’

  ‘No, that’s Peshawar. This is bloody England. What the hell am I to do here?’

  ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘Walked. Only took a few days.’

  ‘You walked from Southampton?’

  ‘Haven’t eaten for days. Slept in barns, mostly. Damned hungry.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go to maman at Partridge Green?’

  ‘Too ashamed, old boy. Knew I had to find you first.’

  ‘And where’s your luggage?’

  ‘Had to leave it in a hedge. Ovington. Couldn’t carry it any further. Sent a trunk up by train. Should be at Mottingham by now. Couldn’t afford the fare.’

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you stay in India? Find something else to do?’

  ‘Didn’t occur to me, old boy. Should have thought of that. Too upset. A bit confused by the whole thing, really.’

  Daniel looked sideways at the Honourable Mary, saw that she was crying, and was moved by her compassion.

  ‘Let’s get him inside,’ he said. ‘You run the bath and I’ll get him undressed. I really don’t want the children to see him like this.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, wiping her eyes, and standing up, ‘let’s get him inside. Then I’ll find Mrs Pitt and tell her what’s happened. She’ll certainly know what to do.’

  ‘I think we should telephone Dr Scott,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Who’s going to keep an eye on the bloody Afghans now?’ said Archie.

  ‘I have done the state some service,’ quoted Daniel. ‘Damn this country. He’s been a Frontier Scout for years. He’s got half a dozen decorations. He’s got three bullets in him and a knife sc
ar ten inches long. He’s risked getting his balls cut off every time he went out. He got an MC in France. Damn this bloody country to hell.’

  Mary put her hand on his arm and stroked it lightly, looking up at his face. ‘Come on, my dear,’ she said. ‘Calm down. We’ve got some lifting to do. I think I’d better go and fetch Wragge. He’s probably asleep in the wheelbarrow.’

  28

  A Bombshell in The Times

  On 30 June 1930, ladies in immodest and brightly coloured swimsuits leapt into the newly opened Lido in Hyde Park, in London, for the inauguration of mixed bathing.

  The Times reported on the withdrawal of French troops from the Rhineland, five years ahead of schedule, because the German Foreign Minister had successfully persuaded France that the years of German militarism had finally gone. A peaceful future for Europe was assured, and optimism was in the air.

  Great Britain set the course for peace in the Middle East by recognising the independence of Iraq.

  The paper was still reporting comment on the Simon Commission’s recommendation of a federal India, and there continued to be much of a buzz about Neville Chamberlain becoming the chairman of the Conservative Party.

  What caught Rosie’s attention in The Times was none of these things, however. There was a report on the Lambeth Conference, and nothing could have interested her more. Under the chairmanship of Archbishop Cosmo Gordon Lang, racism was now expressly outlawed in the Anglican Church.

  But there was also a new resolution about contraception, and she was dismayed by what she read. The conference had declared that, whilst abstinence was the obvious and primary method, it was lawful to use ordinary means of contraception, provided that it was done in the light of Christian principles. The measure had been carried by a majority of 126.

  Rosie bridled. Although she could not quite articulate why, it was obvious to her that this was completely wrong,

  It had taken her a great deal of effort to persuade Daniel that her attitudes were determined by her religious faith and not by any aversion to him, and now there was this.

  Rosie read the rest of the newspaper, and then took it outside and consigned it to the incinerator, in case Daniel should see it when he returned.

  29

  Agatha

  I was a little girl when I first went to see my father’s grave. Although my mother had died and I was sent to live with an aunt, my father always remembered me, and sent me birthday and Christmas presents, and would call in whenever he could. He would throw me in the air and hold me upside down, until I became too big, and then he would sit down on me and say, ‘My my, what a wriggly cushion this is. Whoever heard of wriggly cushions?’ and I would be giggling and stifling underneath, and when he stood up I’d say, ‘Daddy, Daddy, do it again! Do it again!’ Sometimes he’d clamp my legs under one arm and tickle my feet until I almost burst.

  He’d bought us a house in Notwithstanding, which is where I still live. It’s a medium-sized village on the border of Surrey and Sussex, and back then it was still very rustic. There was a local accent, rather like the one in Dorset, which eventually disappeared completely.

  I was living in the house with my aunt, who was a charmingly dotty spinster with no children of her own, and you could say that my mother’s early death was the making of her. She had a nice big house, and an income, like a retired mistress, and no one ever knew that I was illegitimate. I’ve never thought of myself that way, in any case. I was an orphan, that’s all, an orphan who was luckier than most.

  My aunt had a Swift Convertible, which I am still using to this day. I’ve left it to the brothers at the garage, on condition that they service it for nothing, just as I’ve given this house to the vet in return for an annual income, as one sometimes does in France, I’m told.

  One day when I suppose I was about eight, my aunt said, ‘Let’s go and visit your father’s grave, my dear.’ I think she must have been very bored to want to drive so far just to visit the grave of someone she barely knew, but she did love driving. She was the kind of person who adored going to fancy-dress parties, enjoyed swing dancing, and she loved driving dangerously. Eventually she taught me, and sometimes I can’t help being a little bit naughty on the road, as she was. When the police stop me I just pretend to be a bit silly and confused. Recently I went over the double white line on the way to Guildford because I was overtaking a tractor, and the policeman who stopped me just wanted to see under the bonnet of the car, because it’s such an antique. He let me off with a gentle remonstrance.

  In those days it was an awful long drive from Notwithstanding to Eltham. It took absolutely hours, going through Dorking and over Box Hill and everything, but it was a nice day and we had the canopy down. My aunt said, ‘Don’t worry, my dear, I’m sure we’ll find a hotel somewhere,’ and she waved her chequebook and crammed a large hat on her head, which she secured by means of a length of tulle tied under the chin.

  We found my father’s grave right up against the wall at St John’s, and it had fresh flowers on it. I stood there feeling very quiet and sad, looking down at the turf, and reading the inscription over and over again, and my aunt took my hand and squeezed it, without saying anything. We’d brought daffodils all the way from Surrey, and we laid them down, and my aunt said, ‘Well, there he is, the old rascal.’

  * * *

  —

  I became aware of a woman sitting quietly on the bench up against the church wall, observing us. She had chestnut hair and very blue eyes, accentuated by her blue dress, and I suppose she was about thirty years old. It was one of those spring days when it’s very warm for about a week, and then it becomes chilly again, and she had bare arms, with a very pretty silver bangle in the form of a serpent around her upper arm. She was looking at us so hard that I began to feel uneasy. Then she got to her feet and approached us. She stood beside my aunt and said, ‘This is the grave of my father.’

  My aunt thought quickly, and said, ‘It’s a lovely grave. We were just admiring the flowers.’

  ‘Do you have a loved one buried here?’ said the woman.

  ‘No,’ said my aunt, ‘I just love graveyards. I so enjoy their melancholy.’

  ‘I miss my father terribly,’ said the woman. ‘I came back from Ceylon to be with him when he died, and then it happened very suddenly when I wasn’t there. I come here every day. My mother does too.’

  ‘Oh, how awful for you,’ said my aunt. ‘I am so sorry.’

  ‘You can’t replace a father like that,’ said the woman, and we could see that she had tears welling up in her eyes.

  My aunt held out her hand and said, ‘I’m Virginia Clydesdale. And this is Agatha, my niece.’

  The woman took her hand and said, ‘I’m Rosie Pitt, one of his daughters.’

  ‘How many daughters and sons are there?’ I asked.

  ‘I have three sisters, and I have about ten half-brothers and -sisters. I’ve never met those ones.’

  ‘Gracious me!’ said my aunt. ‘I had no idea!’

  ‘No idea? Well, why should you? What do you mean?’

  ‘I had no idea that one might have such a large family these days,’ said my aunt lamely.

  ‘I’m going now,’ said the woman, adding rather drily, ‘Thank you for putting flowers on my father’s grave, even though you didn’t know him.’

  She leaned down and kissed me on the cheek, and said, ‘Goodbye, little Agatha. It was very good fun to meet you. I do hope you have a long and happy life.’ I’ve never forgotten how gentle and sad that woman was.

  That evening at the hotel I asked my aunt why she had lied about her name being Clydesdale, rather than Feakes.

  ‘Because it’s my favourite kind of horse. They’re lovely, don’t you think?’

  ‘Why have I got about fifteen brothers and sisters and I don’t know any of them?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s life,’ she
said, ‘and why worry if you’ve got a nice aunt?’

  All my life I’ve wondered about my long-lost mysterious siblings. Having met only one of them, I always meant to try and find the rest, but I never did get round to it. In the final analysis it’s too expensive to hire a private detective, and I don’t suppose I wanted to have to share the old man, even in retrospect.

  I’ve still got a set of his clubs in the cupboard under the stairs, and a box of Hesketh golf balls, and his old brogues with hobnails hammered into the soles.

  30

  Daniel at Hexham

  Daniel looks down at the tiny baby in its cot, wrapped in woollen shawls, its mouth working rhythmically on its own thumb as it suckles in its sleep. Its thin dark hair is plastered against its pink skull. The sweet warm smell of infancy rises up, reminding him of Esther and Bertie when they were tiny.

  Gaskell is holding Daniel’s left hand in her right, and Christabel is holding his right hand in her left.

  ‘So this is Felix,’ he says.

  ‘Do you like it? The name, I mean. Is it all right with you?’ asks Christabel.

  ‘It’s a perfect name,’ says Daniel, and suddenly his face crumples.

  Gaskell puts her arm around his shoulder and squeezes him.

  Daniel says falteringly, ‘I had no idea that this would be so hard to take.’ He pauses, and then asks, ‘I really can never tell anyone he’s mine?’

  ‘Think of Rosie, and Bertie and Esther,’ says Christabel. ‘And I absolutely couldn’t face Rosie.’

  ‘What we’ve done is really very shocking,’ reflects Gaskell, ‘but strangely enough we don’t care at all.’

  ‘We wouldn’t feel guilty unless we were found out. We’re such scallywags,’ says Christabel brightly. ‘C’est la vie.’

  ‘I don’t know how I will be able to be apart from him,’ says Daniel. ‘It’s bad enough not being with the other two. What are you going to tell him when he’s older? Have you thought of a story?’