by Taylor, Lulu
She hurried round the corner to the quad but when she got there, Mungo was nowhere to be seen.
‘Mungo! Where are you?’ She went after him, wondering if he had gone into the rose garden where he liked to lap at the water in the fountain, and she was just heading towards it when she saw a figure in the distance, white-haired and a little hunched. She recognised John’s father and stopped. He was shuffling along one of the garden paths, apparently on his own.
John’s father lived in the old coach house, now converted to a comfortable home, where he was cared for by a nurse. Delilah had only met him a few times, and on the last occasion, the old man hadn’t been able to grasp that she was John’s wife. In fact, he had ignored her altogether and had concentrated instead on asking John the same question about the Van Dyke in the gallery over and over, even though John kept explaining that it was on loan to an exhibition. It was obvious he was in the grip of dementia. Alzheimer’s, John said, but at a stage where he could slip in and out of awareness, sometimes appearing quite normal and others definitely confused.
Now he was coming towards her, looking thin and bent over in a shirt and baggy cardigan and loose cord trousers. She wondered, panicked, about what she should do, feeling suddenly as though she didn’t belong here at all but could be thrown off the premises at any minute by this old man who didn’t know who she was. It was his house after all. He was still the lord. John had responsibility for it all, but he didn’t own it yet.
He’s my father-in-law, she reminded herself. We’re family now. She stepped forward, smiling, and said, ‘Hello’ – then stopped short, wondering what to call him. What was his first name? Her mind was a blank. He’d taken some of the wonderful sixties photographs in the drawing room and they had his signature across the bottom but she couldn’t remember it now. Then she should call him Lord Northmoor and yet that seemed far too formal considering they were now related. She was stumped, staring mutely as he approached, before giving up and saying brightly, ‘How are you? It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?’
‘Elaine?’ he said loudly, his voice rising with a hopeful inflection at the end. ‘Elaine, is that you?’
‘No, no,’ Delilah replied, glad that he was communicating with her. ‘I’m not Elaine. I’m Delilah, John’s wife.’
‘Elaine,’ he said in a low voice, the name leaving him on a sigh. ‘Where have you been all this time?’
‘I . . . I’m sorry. You’re mistaken, I’m not Elaine. Can I help you find her? Does she live around here?’
‘Oh, Elaine – it’s so good to see you.’ His eyes, so like John’s but faded to a foggy off-white, were full of hope. He must have been handsome once, Delilah thought, but his confusion made him appear older than he probably was. He put out his arms.
She froze. She couldn’t accept the embrace when he thought she was someone else – or should she anyway? Would it be worse to refuse? The old man was obviously happy to see this Elaine person.
He was just about to wrap her in his arms when another voice floated out over the garden. ‘There you are! What are you doing, wandering off like this?’
Delilah looked over the old man’s shoulder and saw his nurse, Anna, coming towards them. She wore a matronly blue dress that buttoned up the front, and her large arms wobbled as she came along the path at a smart pace.
The man said in a quavering voice, ‘I’m looking at the garden . . . just looking.’
The nurse reached them. ‘Hello, Mrs Stirling! I hope you haven’t been startled by his lordship.’
‘No, not at all.’ Delilah smiled, relieved that a professional was here to deal with the situation. ‘I don’t think he knows me, though. He seems to think I’m someone called Elaine. Do you know who that is?’
Anna thought for a moment, then shook her head. ‘No, I’ve not heard of an Elaine before. But who knows where his mind is going these days? It could be anywhere in the past seventy years or so.’ She took the elderly man’s arm and gently turned him in the direction of the old coach house. ‘Come on now, let’s get you back.’
‘Shall I come with you?’ Delilah asked, feeling she should offer to help.
‘No, don’t worry. You get on.’
John’s father followed Anna obediently, and appeared to have forgotten about Delilah the moment she was out of sight.
Mungo came bounding up.
‘There you are! Come on then, boy, let’s get inside.’ Delilah patted her thigh to bring him to heel, looked over her shoulder one last time at the old man being led away, and continued back to the house.
Chapter Seven
1965
Alexandra stood in front of the mirror in the hall of the tiny flat she and Laurence shared in the married quarters and ran her fingertips over her hair. It felt unfamiliar and shell-like, beads of lacquer clinging to it like tiny hard raindrops. At Chez Joel they’d made it shorter, with a jaunty curl and a lift at the roots from the giant black hairdryer that she’d sat under for a hot half hour. The new style made her look older, and so did the make-up. Sophie Tortworth had showed her how to apply panstick, rubbing it in until her face became a solid tan blankness. She’d learned how to rim her lids with the kohl and to spit onto the cake of hard black mascara and then comb it onto her lashes with the little brush until they stuck out spikily around her eyes like fat spiders’ legs. The first time he’d seen her efforts, Laurence had laughed, but Sophie told her she looked very glamorous and grown-up, much better than the dowdy girl who’d arrived in married quarters a few months before.
I look like a wife now, she thought. I look like one of them.
That was what she hoped. She wanted to belong, if only to stop them questioning her about how she was enjoying married life. It was bewildering to be surrounded by people after her quiet existence, and there was so much entertaining and so many functions to go to. Almost every week there was a dinner in the mess, the men in their bright dress uniforms and the women in stiff silks and glittering with jewellery. Alexandra could sense the competition going on between the wives, as they admired in honeyed tones one another’s dresses and shoes, the little evening bags rough with beaded embroidery, the silken ribbons holding back hair in the styles from that month’s magazines, and the glimmer of a new rope of pearls or bracelet. So far, though, they’d been nice to her, telling her how young and pretty she was, as though comforting her for her lack of style and the fact she only had one evening dress. At the dinners and lunches and coffee mornings she was expected to attend, she could tell she was being assessed even while they were cooing over her.
Alexandra was glad of Sophie, the wife of a lieutenant colonel, who’d taken a shine to her and decided to polish her up with a little London glamour.
‘It’s obvious you don’t have the first idea!’ she’d exclaimed but not in an unfriendly way. Sophie had made the most of unfortunate teeth and a big nose by emphasising her eyes with blue shadow and getting her hair set into a style like a movie star’s. ‘And it’s a shame because you really are very pretty! Such big blue eyes, and that little pixie nose. Darling, I’d have given anything for a nose like that – you’re so lucky. But you don’t do anything with yourself. Didn’t your mother teach you how to put on lipstick?’
‘My mother’s dead,’ Alexandra had remarked flatly, and then felt guilty seeing Sophie flush and her eyelids flutter with embarrassment. ‘But don’t worry, it was ages ago.’
Sophie looked relieved. ‘Well, then, I’ll take you to Boots. It’s the only thing for it.’
They bought panstick, eye pencil and mascara, powder and a slippery lipstick of frosted pink grease, and then Sophie had insisted on a haircut.
Now Alexandra looked quite different from the day she and Laurence had arrived, pale and exhausted after their honeymoon. The whole experience in Eastbourne had been traumatic for both of them. They had attempted several times to manage whatever it was they were supposed to do in bed and it always ended in mortifying failure. Laurence started lingering in the bar after dinne
r while she went up to the room alone. She’d only been able to sleep after he’d come in at last as she lay stock still and hardly breathing, listening to him stumble about the room, swearing gently as he undressed, before falling into bed and a loud, drunken sleep. She was torn between bitter disappointment that she was failing him somehow, and deep relief that they were not going to go through the humiliation of trying again.
In their new flat, they shared a bed but they barely touched. When Laurence came home sober and in good time, they went through the same little bedtime ritual. She turned onto her right shoulder, he onto his left; they murmured a polite goodnight and stayed back to back until morning. But that was happening less and less. He ate in the mess so regularly that she hardly bothered preparing supper now in the tiny galley kitchen, as more often than not she sat waiting as it turned leathery and unappetising in the oven. She’d know then that he’d come back drunk.
Was it so unusual to be like this? She had the vague idea that her parents had been the same: together and yet apart. Real married life wasn’t like the stories of romance; it was about existing in a civil and separate manner, keeping up appearances at parties and fulfilling obligation in private. That was why she kept the little flat so tidy: she didn’t want Laurence to think she had failed him in all areas. She wanted to be a good wife, even if she wasn’t yet able to do that thing with him.
But she knew that they would have to succeed at some point, or what would happen about children?
Alexandra pulled on a cardigan over her summer dress and went out, nodding a hello to the sentries as she left the barracks. She liked seeing them there: it made her feel safe and protected in the middle of this big, strange city. At first London had seemed so vast, she’d been utterly overwhelmed and very homesick. But gradually she was getting to know it, and to conjure up the courage to venture out little distances away from the safety of home. It helped having Hyde Park so close. She crossed the road and went through the iron gate into the park, relishing the sense of freedom. She didn’t mind this kind of loneliness, when she could wander and explore in peace. Laurence was out most of the time on his mysterious army duties, and housework seemed to take very little time out of the great stretching days. Despite the social round, there were still these afternoons with nothing to do, when only Alexandra was without children to care for, or shopping to do, or any of the many activities the other wives were so frantic with. That was when she’d started wandering in the park, which she’d begun to love. It was so huge, a vast expanse of green that stretched away into wooded copses with the glitter of water and the golden arch of a bridge beyond. It was busy with people, strolling in the sunshine, children running or roller skating or riding bicycles – it was the holidays now, of course – and tourists with maps probably looking for the Albert Memorial. On the sandy track that ran along the inner circle of the tarmacked road horses came trotting past ridden by smart young ladies in velvet hats, their bottoms rising and falling in the saddle with steady little bumps.
Alexandra crossed the road, getting grit in her sandals from the bridle path, and started ambling across the cool grass, not sure of where she was heading. There was a limit to how far she could go, after all, no matter how much she might want to wander on forever. Her duty would call her back, the inexorable move of the clock hands towards six o’clock when she should be at home, ready in case Laurence returned and expected a drink and dinner on the table by seven.
She walked on, thinking about home and wondering if her father had read the long chatty letters she sent once a week. She had only received two postcards in return, both terse and concerned with things like the planning committee on the parish council. Perhaps her father might visit her one day. Laurence would probably be riding in a parade soon, attending at some royal event, and perhaps she might be able to ask her father along to see it. Surely he would like that. She wanted him to come and see the life he had chosen for her and to make it worthwhile by giving her his approval.
Just ahead of her, a girl in a short dress, sunglasses and a large hat was lying on a wrought-iron bench, twisted in an odd way with her chin lifted and one arm thrown up. A man was standing nearby, similarly outlandish in tight white trousers and a bright pink jacket. His dark hair looked shaggy and long after the short army cuts she was now used to, and he was bent over, with a large black camera pressed to his eye, taking pictures of the girl.
Alexandra stopped nearby, watching as the man squinted through the camera and called instructions to the girl. She obediently bent herself into poses as he clicked away, turning her head and holding it for an instant so that he could capture it, before striking another attitude. The model was pretty but unsmiling, which seemed to Alexandra to be the wrong kind of behaviour when one’s picture was being taken. She loitered silently, watching with interest.
‘Hey, do you mind? I can do without a lot of gawping if it’s all the same!’ The man had turned around to face her. He lowered his camera, frowning. ‘I’m trying to take some pictures here. It’s not a tourist attraction, you know. This is a serious business – for a fashion magazine.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think I was disturbing you,’ Alexandra said, flushing. He was rude but perhaps her staring had been ruder. ‘I’ll go now.’
She turned and began to walk swiftly away.
‘Wait a moment, no need to run off – wait, will you?’ His voice came after her and she stopped, not turning around, blinking at the grass that was almost acid-green in the bright sunshine. She heard him say, ‘Turn around – don’t I know you?’
Know me? she thought, astonished. Who would know me? Who do I know? I don’t know anyone . . .
She turned slowly back to face the man by the bench. He was looking at her in a curious way and as she stared at him, his features seemed to transform, rearranging themselves into something familiar.
‘Alexandra?’ he said in a tone of surprise. ‘You’re Alexandra Crewe, aren’t you?’
She nodded, confused. Then, just as he said his name, it came rushing back with a force that almost knocked her over. How could she not have recognised him at once?
He said, ‘Don’t you remember me? I’m Nicky Stirling. How incredible!’
And then he was walking towards her, a smile across his face, and she knew him at once, even though she hadn’t seen him since he was twelve years old and her mother had not yet died.
‘I think this is just the craziest coincidence!’ Nicky said, beaming. He seemed so happy to see her, she could scarcely understand why. The model had been sent away and they were in a coffee bar, staring at one another across a Formica table and each taking in how the other had changed from childhood.
‘It is,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It’s very strange.’ She had an odd dizzy sensation being near him. It was like stepping back into her own past, a place that often seemed obscure and veiled, even to her. But she remembered that she had been happy once, and he had been there then.
‘I haven’t seen you for years,’ he went on, shaking his head. ‘But we used to play together, didn’t we, when we were kids? Remember?’
Images flashed in her mind – children playing in woods and by streams – and she heard the echo of shouts and laughter over the distance of years. They had been those scrambling, eager children with dirty faces and scuffed boots, climbing and jumping and playing their games of pretend. ‘Pretend you’re the enemy and you want to get me, and this is my castle and you’re trying to get in!’ There had been many long summer days in the woods, and in the gardens of Fort Stirling, when cowboys and Indians pursued each other through trees and behind box hedges. There was a little temple in the rose garden that had become their headquarters. She could see Nicky now, tousle-haired, with grubby knees below his shorts, as he issued orders or doled out rations of the food and drink they had stolen from the kitchen. He’d always been the leader. His cousins had played with them – what were their names? – and some village boys and the children of whoever was visiting the big h
ouse. Nicky had always been her hero, though, the one she hoped would pick her for his team when they divided up into sides. She was just a child to him, though he never let the girls feel second best. After all, his cousin – the girl; her name was something short – was much tougher and faster than her fat little brother.
Then, during one awful summer, everything had changed. Her mother died, and she’d been forbidden from seeing any of her old friends. Their favourite place, the old folly, had been put out of bounds forever, even though they’d never really been allowed to play there in the first place – it was too dangerous. Then Nicky had gone back to school and after that, they’d never played together again.
The memory of the sudden fissure seemed to strike Nicky at the same time. He began to look awkward and said quickly, ‘But that was all ages ago now. We were just silly kids, weren’t we? So – how are you? What have you been doing?’ His glance fell on the glinting stone in the ring on her left hand. ‘I see you’re married.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Oh. Congratulations and everything. What’s he like?’
She blinked at him. He had lost all the soft pink and white boyishness of his youth; his face was smooth and tanned but tougher, his grey eyes brighter under thick brows, his hair darker. But he still had that energy around him, the mysterious force that drew people to him and made them do as he said. He emanated a vigour that she didn’t think she’d ever seen in anyone else. She felt suddenly that everyone she’d met since Nicky had been pale and lifeless in comparison; he was so alive, from his hands with their long, graceful fingers that were constantly moving, to his mobile mouth. The air around him almost seemed to vibrate with energy.
‘What’s he like?’ repeated Nicky.
‘Who?’ she asked.
‘Who?’ He stared and then laughed. ‘Your husband! What’s he like? Who is he? Do I know him?’
‘His name is Laurence Sykes. He’s in the Royal Horse Guards.’