A Winter Affair

by Minna Howard

  ‘You’re so old-fashioned.’ Evie fired up again. ‘It’s how life is today,’ she went on with a flounce. She was good at flouncing, perfected the art of it. She was pretty too, but none of that was an excuse for becoming so intimate with Nick, the bon viveur and serial seducer, suspected father of goodness knows how many other children scattered round the district.

  ‘But that doesn’t make it right, Evie, think how much its going to hurt Freya and their children. You should have thought of them before you jumped into bed with Nick. It’s not as if you’re a gauche teenager, you’re twenty-two, old enough to know better.’ It was a struggle to curb her anger, it was just as well Nick wasn’t here or she’d be put away for murder, or assault for castration at least.

  If only Julian, her beloved husband and Evie’s father, were here. The now familiar clamp of grief squeezed hard. He’d have dealt with this crisis, he wouldn’t have approved of it either, but he’d be there beside her, solid and wise. He’d been eighteen years older than her and he couldn’t help dying, he’d done everything he could to stay well, but he’d inherited his heart condition from his father and grandfather before him and even modern medicine couldn’t save him in the end. It was almost two years now since they’d lost him and she’d never stopped missing him with a pain that was sometimes physical in its intensity, though to her surprise and relief, her grief had become easier recently… until now, with the arrival of this catastrophe.

  Her grief at losing Julian clung to her, clawing at her like a monstrous insect. It seemed that in about seven months time she’d be granny to a child with multiple half-brothers and sisters. Oh Julian, she cried inwardly, however will I cope without you? She wanted a wedding with Evie beautiful in a white dress and a loving man waiting for her at the altar, was that too much to ask?

  It seemed that it was. Evie, now in a sulk, had returned to their ‘weekend’ cottage in Suffolk. Julian bought it when the girls were little and they’d spent many happy times there, and now Evie was living there on her own. She’d come to London to see her editor and drop in to the house in Fulham to see her mother to break her devastating news.

  Alice had been so proud of Evie. She’d recently got a commission from a top publisher to illustrate a series of children’s books and she’d announced a few months ago that she wanted to make her home in Suffolk, in their weekend cottage as she found the open space and peace of the countryside more inspiring to work in.

  Alice thought she’d understood her decision at the time, suspecting that Evie couldn’t handle her mother’s grief as well as her own, and in fact at first Alice found she preferred to be left alone to come to terms with Julian’s death and not have to try and ‘be happy’ for both her daughters’ sakes. Now she was beginning to enjoy having the house to herself, though she was rarely alone for long as friends and the girls often visited. But she wished now that Evie had stayed in London instead of escaping to the country and being seduced by an amorous and irresponsible Nick on the prowl.

  Evie had left her in a furious mood, some of it no doubt fears of the mess she’d got herself into. She’d flounced out before either of them could calm down and discuss the pregnancy rationally. Alice closed her mind to images of her daughter lying mangled in the wreck of a car crash on the motorway on her way back to Suffolk. Evie did what she wanted, always had. She remembered the angelic child grabbing toys from Laura, her older sister, chanting, ‘mine, mine’. Had she told Laura she was soon to be an aunt to this unexpected child? Alice hadn’t time to ring her now and anyway Laura wouldn’t want to be disturbed at work. She’d ring her this evening; better to talk than to text.

  It was a relief she was seeing Julian’s Aunt Cecily today, you could talk about anything with her, she was unshockable, and although old and infirm, her mind was as sharp as ever and the closest older person Alice had in her life now that her own parents were gone.

  Alice left her house in the early afternoon. She’d lived here, in a small street of white-painted Victorian Houses, off the New King’s Road, all her married life. The house had belonged to Julian’s mother who had given it to them – or rather swapped it with Julian’s flat – as a wedding present, as she wanted to downsize and, by selling his flat, found something that suited her better.

  Alice passed the coffee bar on the corner, waved to Gail, who was clearing the tables, and walked up past the Green. A group of small children from the local nursery were running round laughing, being chased by their carers. Baring accidents, next year there would be Evie’s child. The thought sat heavily in her, and yet, as she saw the children’s simple joy in life and their eager faces, her heart stirred. But who would have the time to give this coming child the love and care it deserved?

  She passed the Tube station and went on up to the Fulham Road to take the 414 bus to Marble Arch and Cecily’s flat. When the bus came she sat upstairs. She’d bought a suspense novel with her that she’d been longing to finish, but now, with her mind so agitated, she couldn’t concentrate, and instead of reading she stared out of the window at the passing streets. It was the tail end of March and her glimpse into the enclosed gardens from her high perch, showed them stirring after the long winter with splashes of golden daffodils and the intense blue, soft pink or gleaming white of hyacinths.

  Cecily still lived in the flat that once belonged to her parents. She’d never married; her two fiancés, both fighter pilots, had been killed in the war and she’d never found anyone she loved more.

  ‘Safety in numbers,’ she told Alice soon after she’d first met her as a young bride deliriously in love with Julian. ‘I have a collection of lovers in various parts of the world to choose from, so I’m never disappointed or bored.’

  Alice, much to Cecily’s delight, had struggled to hide her shock. Surely, she’d thought then, with the arrogance of youth, no one over about forty – she didn’t count Julian in this – had a sex life? But Alice had soon come to love Julian’s irrepressible aunt.

  As the bus trundled up the Fulham Road, past the cinema and the Brompton Hospital where they’d tried so hard to save Julian, she thought of him. She’d got used to the pain of missing him, it sat there like a tight garment sometimes barely felt, at others almost suffocating her. She often chatted to him in her mind, saving up things to make him laugh as she had when he was alive. If only one knew if the dead were still somewhere, hovering about between worlds, able to catch the thoughts of those they’d left behind. She wanted there to be a ‘Heaven’ to meet up again with all those she’d loved, her parents, grandparents, friends and Julian. Julian used to tease her when she said this, ‘What about the people you don’t like. How will you avoid them?’

  ‘What shall I do about Evie?’ she asked him silently now as the bus swung down Sumner Place towards South Kensington Tube station. ‘Should I confront Nick, and whatever can I say to Freya? As you know he’s years older than Evie and married, to such a special wife. What could be worse, except perhaps a serial killer? Please, darling, wherever you are, tell me what to do?’

  She scrabbled for her handkerchief and blew her nose, yearning for the solid, comforting bulk of him, the way he held her close, both arms tight round her, making her feel secure, able to face anything with him by her side. For a few months after his death she’d still felt him there, could recall every feature of him, even the scent of him, but gradually he’d slipped further and further away until even the sound of his voice no longer echoed in her mind.

  He’d been a cautious man, which sometimes irritated her. But he was a courageous man in many ways and a wonderful, amusing companion, enjoying the arts and travelling and being with friends. He was a stalwart prop in the dramas of life but had never seen the need to throw himself off a mountaintop attached to a kite, or dive deep to the bottom of the sea. Skiing on a well-kept piste, sailing in safe waters and riding a sleepy old horse was as daring as he got, but, as friends remarked, if that was his only fault she was lucky indeed.

  Alice got off the bus at Marb
le Arch and crossed the few streets to Cecily’s flat. It was in a large, solid building, close to the Edgware Road. Each room was spacious with high ceilings and deemed ‘unmodernized’ by developers who often ripped out all the good features and charged a fortune for a series of characterless boxes squeezed into elegant, old buildings. She walked up to the first floor and rang the bell. The door opened and Kalinda, an Asian woman of indeterminable age, welcomed her.

  ‘She is looking forward to seeing you,’ she said, taking Alice’s coat.

  Kalinda had been here for as long as Alice had known Cecily. She knew little about her except that Cecily rescued her from a violent marriage, finding her terrified in some refuge in the North of England. She’d given her a home and a life and, in exchange, Kalinda loved her and, now Cecily was old and frail, cared for her devotedly.

  ‘My dear, how good to see you.’ Cecily greeted her as she went into the living room. Alice bent over to kiss her soft, powdered cheek. ‘I hope you’ve some amusing gossip to tell me, I’m so bored of myself.’ She laughed, she was never one to be gloomy and Alice felt guilty that she had nothing amusing to say, only to tell her of Evie’s dreadful dilemma.

  ‘Not really.’ Alice sat down on the sofa beside her. The room was crammed with pictures and antique furniture that was once in a beautiful Queen Anne house in the country where Cecily had been brought up, but had long since been sold. There were phalanxes of photographs on almost every surface, men in uniform with the glamour of film stars, some of Cecily, as a young woman getting out of a spitfire and one of a huge bomber with Cecily, having just landed it, laughing beside it, pictures of people and places long gone. It was difficult to imagine those times now, to imagine that this old, still elegant lady, her hands clawed by arthritis, her hair pure white, was once that bright young woman who’d ferried spitfires and bombers across Britain, often without instruments, in fog and sometimes under fire, with the ease of driving a bus.

  ‘There must be something, how are the girls?’ Cecily examined Alice gravely with her faded eyes.

  Alice felt the tremble of tears. She swallowed; Cecily did not care for weakness in herself or anyone else. ‘I saw Evie today, she…’ she paused.

  ‘She’s either pregnant or run off or about to with some man you don’t like, and probably belonging to someone else,’ Cecily filled in the gap.

  Despite her concern, Alice laughed. ‘You’re right, how did you know?’ Had Evie already told her? Both her daughters loved visiting Cecily and listening to her war memories, and indeed stories of her romances.

  ‘I guessed, she’s such a pretty girl and a little reckless, just like you might have been if you hadn’t married dear, dependable Julian.’ Cecily smiled. ‘I loved my nephew very much and am still annoyed that he died so young, though at least he had a life, not like my two loves.’ Her eyes glazed over a moment as she remembered her young pilots who would be forever young while she had grown so old. ‘So,’ she shook off the memories, ‘what has she done?’

  ‘There’s a man in Suffolk, I don’t think you met him when you used to come and stay, but you know the sort who never grow up and possess more charm and sexual allure than they deserve. He’s got a lovely wife, she’s a potter and turns a blind eye to his sexual shenanigans, he’s a joke really, but Evie’s fallen for him and now she’s having his baby, to add to the others strewn around the district.’

  ‘Oh dear, and she is having it?’ Cecily looked concerned.

  ‘Yes, she’s vague about dates. The affair’s been going on for some time, since she moved in there, and well, termination doesn’t seem right somehow.’

  ‘No, not if the child’s wanted and will be loved, for you will love it, you know you will, Alice. And it is a life…’ She glanced again at her photographs of people whose lives had been cut short. ‘But I’m sorry for his wife having a sexually incontinent husband, but it sounds like she puts up with it. Sometimes it’s better to ignore it if the rest of the marriage is workable than go through an expensive divorce and family break-up.’

  ‘So far, Freya’s put up with it. She’s chucked him out a few times but she always takes him back. They have children together and amazingly they’re a close family. But I feel so bad that my daughter has got involved with him and is having his child.’

  ‘Very careless of her, but you know, my dear, she’s probably missing her father, and if this man is older, kinder than some of the young men she’s met, she may have been attracted to him, though foolish to end up with a baby, but there it is. Perhaps she should come back to London, bring the child up away from the gossip and his wife and children’s feelings.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do about it. Julian would have been such a support over this, though he wouldn’t approve of Nick as the father of his grandchild.’ It was hard enough to accept that they were going to be grandparents let alone that she was left to shoulder the burden alone.

  Alice went on. ‘Nick runs a garden centre and Julian used to say all those budding, shooting plants must have turned up the switch to his fertility. He’s a joke, people tease him about which plant food he’s on to make him so randy.’

  ‘No,’ Cecily said, ‘Julian would not be happy about a man like this Nick fathering his beloved daughter’s child.’ She sighed, took a sip of tea, before saying, ‘so just as Evie got this wonderful commission for her drawing, she gets pregnant. She’ll be alone with this child and maybe expect too much from you, so don’t fall for that, Alice.’ She wagged one of her knotted fingers at her. ‘Don’t allow yourself to be locked away in the nursery again. It may be tempting, but you have your own life to lead and I sense there’s a lot of things you want to do while you still can.’

  ‘You’re right. I’m sure I’ll love the child when it’s born, but it’s Evie’s child and she must bear the brunt of it.’ Alice felt a dart of sympathy for Evie who, no doubt imagined this baby would lie happily in the sun while she illustrated her books and be no trouble at all. She’d probable felt the same when she was expecting Laura. She was twenty-one then, a year younger than Evie was now. But not until someone had their first child did they know how much they dominated their lives and how much commitment was needed. That was why two loving parents were better than one, but it was no good telling Evie that. Perhaps she hoped Nick would play a part in the child’s upbringing, even leave Freya and move into the cottage with her. If she thought that, she’d be disappointed.

  ‘So what is Laura’s reaction to this?’ Cecily asked her. ‘What does she think of being propelled into being an aunt?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t discussed it with her yet. I’m going to ring her tonight when she’s home. I don’t know if Evie has told her. They are fond of each other but they can grate on each other too, having such different temperaments. Laura is more like Julian, sensible and solid.’ Alice smiled, ‘That makes her sound dull and I don’t mean to because she’s not, but you can rely on her, and that’s not because she’s two years older than Evie, you always could rely on her like you could on Julian.’

  Cecily smiled, patted her hand, ‘Yes, you could rely on him and I’ve always thought Laura took after him. But even though your girls are in their early twenties, they are still quite young and have lost their beloved father so it’s bound to have an effect on them, though perhaps Evie’s reaction is a bit extreme. It will work out somehow, you’ll see.’

  Alice left Cecily feeling happier, more positive. She had that effect on her, her love of life still burning bright. She’d lived through a war, with many of her young friends and the two men she’d loved killed or severely injured and yet she’d gone on and lived a good, an exciting life, as a photographer. She’d travelled the world until now, in her nineties, her body was slowing down, though she kept her mind active playing bridge, reading and listening to intelligent programmes.

  Alice scolded herself, she was only in her mid-forties, and hopefully had plenty of life left in her yet, but it was high time that instead of thinking about everyo
ne else, she got on with some of the things she wanted to do that Julian disapproved of, or perhaps disapproved was the wrong word, rather not encouraged her to do.

  ‘I wish you were here, darling, but as you’re not, you’re not to mind if I do some exciting things – paragliding, overnight skiing experiences, sleeping in the mountains – be more like Cecily really, though I’ll never be as brave as she was.’

  She walked down Park Lane; a haze of late sun lingered in the air. She loved the elegant houses there and wondered how many were still lived in in their entirety and had not been turned into offices or flats. Perhaps, because she and Cecily had talked about Julian she felt him close to her now as if he’d be at home with her this evening, and she’d cook dinner and he’d open a bottle of wine, and they’d laugh together about Cecily’s stories of her life and her lovers.

  She passed the war memorial to the animals that had given their lives in the war, and on down Park Lane still holding Julian’s memory to her. She reached a car showroom, the cars gleaming like huge beasts behind the glass. She stopped and stared at them, feeling Julian slipping away from her, but instead of the familiar, bleak emptiness, she had a sudden memory of being in such a glamorous car as that dark blue sport’s car, speeding down the road, the wind whipping back her hair and a feeling of exhilaration surging through her. Who had she been with? Julian would never have driven so fast!

  Then she remembered it was Frank. Frank Trevelyan.

  Though a few years younger than Julian, he was one of his closest friends and what her mother called ‘wild’. Always off somewhere, skiing the valleys, sailing in round-the-world boat races, piloting a plane to obscure islands. Soon after her marriage he’d gone to live in France and she didn’t see much of him, though he kept in touch with Julian and was Laura’s godfather. He hadn’t come to the funeral, being the other side of the world and unable to get back in time, but he’d written her a wonderful letter that made her cry just thinking of it.