“Either she’s exhausted or she’s getting back at you,” said Colin cockily.
“That’s enough of your lip!” shouted Nick.
“I think you’re wrong, Dad,” said Ted. “I think it’s physical. I think she should go and see a doctor.”
“Crap!” said Nick, banging his hand on the arm of his chair. “There’s nothing wrong with your mother. She should make an effort, snap out of it. Anyway, who’s stopping her seeing a doctor?”
Nick Bellingham’s air of decisiveness was in fact often a cover for the fact that he liked to keep all his options open and tried to face all possible directions at once. Ted silently decided that it was up to him to persuade his mother to see a doctor, because no one else would.
• • •
Andy Hoddle took to teaching like a duck to water, or so he told himself. His colleagues told him he was having an easy ride: end of term was near, the general atmosphere throughout the school was relaxed, and many of the kids he was teaching were aware there was a lot of catching-up to do. Andy found a way of mixing new material with a thoroughgoing revision of older stuff that did not imply a criticism of his pregnant predecessor. Inevitably there were the usual troublesome children, the usual bored ones, but most of them he found bright and interested.
Andy thrived.
He did not see that a parents’ evening presented him with any special problems. All the visitors would know that he was new, and would not expect him to have identified their Johnny or their Katey. In fact several of the parents made a point of coming up and saying that they hoped he would stay at the school as long as possible, that their Johnny or their Katey had been enthusiastic about their Physics class for the first time, that they hoped he realised there was a lot of groundwork still to cover, and so on and so on. It was all rather flattering, and made him feel wanted, made him feel he was doing a good job. He got on well with his new colleagues, which added to his confidence. They were the sort of hard-pressed, well-meaning people he could identify with, feel kinship with. One of them was giving him a lift home, and they were meeting up with Thea in The Wheatsheaf for a pint or two after the exhaustions of the evening.
It was late in the parents’ evening when he was approached by Nick Bellingham.
“Would you be the new science teacher?”
“That’s right,” said Andy.
“Nick Bellingham’s the name,” he said, extending his hand. “I’d like to have a word about Ted and Colin.”
“Ah.”
The man sat down hard on the chair in front of Andy’s desk, legs apart, and slapped his hands down on his thighs. Thus did industrial magnates behave in plays about the nineteenth-century North. Andy registered that he was watching a performance, but was unsure whether it was being put on from guile or from uncertainty.
“I’ve been very disappointed, to be frank with you, because they were both very interested in science back in Tipton—that’s where we’ve come from—especially Ted. And, not to put too fine a point on it, it hasn’t been maintained.”
“Well,” said Andy carefully, “it’s always useful to identify someone with a special interest in the subject. Ted Bellingham, you said. He’s in 4A, isn’t he?”
Andy knew perfectly well who Ted Bellingham was, and which class he was in. He had put names and forms to Ted and Colin on his first day at North Radley High.
“That’s right. We moved here a matter of months ago. I hear you’re from Bly. Need a lift home?”
Andy involuntarily stiffened. So he was known not just to the boys but to their father. It was also known that he had no car. He tried to relax. There were several children from Bly at North Radley High. His reputation in the village was something he was going to have to live down.
“Thanks very much, but I’m fixed up for a lift. About Ted’s interest in science—”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to pretend he has any special aptitude. We’ll hope he goes in that direction, but so far it’s been mainly what you might call a practical bent. Engineer rather than scientist, if you get my meaning.”
“I do, of course.”
“They’re not great brains, my Ted and Colin, but they’re bright enough boys. Your sister-in-law has been good enough to take an interest in them this last week or so.”
“Ah.”
Andy was glad the man had brought the subject up, because if he hadn’t he had certainly intended introducing it himself. He could not stand by and see what happened to him and Thea happen to another family.
“Good of her, as I say. Because their mother—I don’t want to tell tales out of school, but it’s the truth—she seems to have given up on them entirely. Move seems to have taken it out of her . . . or something. So Mrs Perceval’s interest has made up for that. Some kind of writer, isn’t she?”
“Lydia writes rather well-thought-of biographies. She—”
“Not really my boys’ line, but her interest is much appreciated. Well, I’ll not take up your time—”
“Mr Bellingham—” Andy put a restraining hand on his arm. “Lydia is a very intelligent woman, and probably well-meaning in her way, but she is rather dominating.”
“Oh, I’ve no fear of them being dominated. My boys are just normal lads, but strong-minded in their way. If there’s anything of that sort they’ll just stop going. No, as I say, I’m grateful for the interest.”
“I think you should take this seriously, Mr Bellingham. When I say dominating I don’t mean that she would boss them around. I mean that she would dominate their lives. Lydia has no children of her own, and she does tend to take over other people’s and edge out the real parents. I think you should warn their mother.”
“Ah—if only I could! If only I could get through to her. But I’ll keep my eye on things, Mr Hoddle, don’t you fret. And keep my boys at it—hard work never killed anyone.”
And he was gone with a raised hand. The man thinks in clichés, thought Andy bitterly. Well, if I can’t warn the father, what can I do? Warn the boys? That would really lead to a bust-up with Lydia! And would the boys take notice of an elderly teacher with a drink problem, in preference to a sophisticated writer with a world reputation? They would smile and nod and do exactly as they felt like doing.
Later, in The Wheatsheaf with Thea and his colleague Angela Broadbent, he said:
“I tried to warn the father of the Bellingham boys about Lydia, but he didn’t want to know.”
“Is that Lydia Perceval?” asked Angela Broadbent, who taught history. “She’s your sister-in-law, isn’t she? Why should she be warned against?”
“She has no children of her own and she tends to take over other people’s. Gradually she attaches them to herself, so that in the end there’s nothing left for anybody else, not even the parents.”
“But she’s a good writer,” protested Angela. “Absolutely reliable on facts. She must be an intelligent woman.” She turned to Thea.
“Isn’t Andy exaggerating a bit?”
“No,” said Thea.
• • •
That evening it was three days since Lydia had seen the boys. Too long, she felt! Not that she had any intention of exacting from them constant and unremitting attendance on her: that would have seemed to the outside world, and to Lydia herself, unmanly and unnatural. Still, she liked the sight of them, the reassurance that they were still around.
When she was washing up, after the elegant little dinner she had cooked for herself, she heard through the open window shouts from the road: the boys on their bicycles, going to the wood to train. Were the shouts some kind of signal to her, even an invitation? She smiled indulgently: she was willing to be invited. She pulled the plug from the sink and went to fetch a cardigan.
At the door she paused, unusually uncertain. Was it really an invitation? More likely it was just one of them happening to shout at the other. She went to fetch a basket, to gather wild flowers in as an excuse, then she changed her mind. She wasn’t really a wild flower sort of person, and she couldn’t imperso
nate one convincingly. She was, in flowers as in everything else, on the side of cultivation. And writers didn’t need an excuse for walking. Writers need to think.
It was a ten minute walk to the wood, and as she approached she heard the occasional shout from the boys, and they lifted her spirit. She knew where they would be. She took a little path through the edge of the wood, and came out on to the flat, sandy patch of open land, with the gravel pit to one side of it, and the wood to the other. The boys had worn a circle as they raced around it, and they were on their circuit now. Their heads were down, but Lydia was sure that Colin registered her as she emerged from the trees. They were in shorts and bright T-shirts, and they seemed to go faster and faster, spurred on by her presence. Each time they skirted the gravel pit they appeared to go closer, and her heart stopped, then beat faster in love and admiration: she admired people who took risks, scorned those who played safe. These were brave boys, she told herself contentedly: ones who would carve their own ways in life, not tread tamely in the ways of other people. Suddenly Colin waved to her, slowed down, and then jerked the front wheels of his cycle into the air and began a series of tricks, while Ted joined him and started doing the same. It was a weird sort of mating ritual, a peacock dance, and Lydia was enchanted: she smiled delightedly at their youthful high spirits.
Finally they stopped and wheeled their bikes over to her, sweaty, breathless, but still full of energy.
“Do you come here often?” Colin asked, in a parody of a music-hall comedian’s voice. They all laughed.
“No, not often. But sometimes I like to walk and think in the evenings. About what I’ve written in the course of the day. About the next day’s writing.”
“Have you got a knotty problem?” asked Ted.
“Something like that. My man has just become king. I don’t write the sort of biography where you imagine the subject’s thoughts, but since there’s no documentary evidence of how he felt on the occasion’ the temptation is there. I might succumb to a ‘Perhaps he thought, perhaps he felt’ paragraph, but I rather despise that kind of shift. Enough of my problems. What are you doing up here so late?”
“There’s a parents’ evening at school. Dad’s gone. Mum’s just mooning around. There’s nothing much on the telly—not that I watch much anyway. So we came up here for a practice.”
Lydia looked at Colin approvingly.
“Good idea. To my unpractised eye you both certainly seemed to be going well—really fast. Are there other sorts of training you have to do?”
“Oh, there are various sorts of weight-training,” said Ted, shrugging. “Raising weights with the legs, to strengthen calf and thigh muscles. There’s a gym in Halifax we go to now and then, when we’ve got the money.”
“But we’re not that serious,” said Colin. “It’s not our life’s work, or anything.”
“You’re probably wise,” said Lydia. “Sportsmen get burnt out so early, don’t they? And then they have nothing left to do.” She looked at them both, smiling encouragingly. “And what is to be your life’s work?”
They grinned back.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” said Colin. “The world’s our oyster. Fame and fortune await us. That’s what people always say to kids, but it rather ducks the main question: what are we going to get fame and fortune in?”
“The Air Force?” suggested Ted. “I rather fancy it.”
“Engineering?” said Colin. “Some big project in the Third World?”
“You’d never find the Third World,” said Ted. “Your geography’s lousy. What about inventing something fantastic but simple, that will revolutionise everyone’s daily life?”
“Most modern inventions have impaired the quality of life,” said Lydia. “Made people lazier and more dependent.”
“I bet you don’t use a word-processor,” said Ted, grinning.
“I do not!”
“Most people our age are thinking about going into computers,” Colin pointed out, “You’re sure of a job for life in the computer industry.”
“All the more reason to avoid it! Go for something where you carve out your path, where you make people want to employ you—if you must be employed.”
“Carving a path,” said Colin. “What about the SAS?”
“Politics?”
“The diplomatic service?”
“Television?”
“Not television,” said Lydia. They all laughed. Her heart was gladdened that they had not chosen, that neither of them at this early stage had his future mapped out. The world was all before them. She would be with them as their plans matured. She would help them map those futures out. She would not guide them, of course, but she would stimulate them.
Ted raised his hand.
“Must go. I’m trying to persuade Mum to go to the doctor’s tomorrow.”
“You haven’t a hope,” said Colin. “Irresistible force and immovable object. It will take days and days.”
“So you really think your mother’s . . . problem is medical, do you?” Lydia asked Ted.
“It must be. I don’t see what else it could be.”
“She wasn’t . . . like this before?”
“No, she wasn’t, was she, Colin?”
“Not so much so.”
Lydia registered this further piece of disloyalty. It seemed that Ted did too. He turned his bike towards the road.
“Must go. See you soon.”
“I hope so. Come and see me whenever you feel like it.”
She watched them as they cycled erratically down the bumpy track. Then she set off after them. It was twilight now, and there was only the odd bird singing, but she felt very happy. When she got to the road she saw them already at the bottom of the hill, turning off to the village and home. She walked on in the cool of the evening, and barely a car passed her. When she got within sight of her cottage, however, she saw a car parked on the road outside, and as she approached it she saw it was a beetle. What an amusing little car that had been! You didn’t see many of them about these days. She certainly didn’t know anyone who still drove one.
A man was at her front door, just turning away, but stopping as he heard the click of the gate. He had a bushy black beard, and was dressed in check shirt and jeans. As Lydia approached she put on her best social smile and said:
“Yes?”
He looked down at her, a tiny smile playing around the corners of his lips. Lydia frowned, feeling she ought to know him. The man took pity on her embarrassment.
“Don’t you recognise your husband, Lydia?”
CHAPTER 5
“FORMER husband,” said Lydia briskly.
“Former husband,” agreed the man.
“Well . . . You’d better come in, Jamie,” said Lydia, and turned to open the door, glad for the chance to hide her face. Once inside she led the way through to the sitting room, went round turning on lights to gain time in her uncertainty, then asked, without welcome in her voice:
“Something to drink? It used to be beer, didn’t it? But I suppose nowadays it’s white wine, like everybody else.”
He was standing there quietly, watching her, with a gentle, rather attractive smile on his face.
“If you could manage whisky with water that would be fine. Otherwise white wine, or whatever you’ve got.”
Lydia could find nothing disparaging to imply about whisky and water, so she mixed one, glad of the opportunity to disappear into the kitchen. She got herself a gin and tonic at the same time, then handed Jamie his drink, gestured him to one of her capacious armchairs, and sat down herself.
“Well!” she said, looking at him.
“Have I changed so much since we were married,” he asked, smiling, “that you didn’t recognise me?”
Lydia had to bite back the reply that she hadn’t recognised him not because he had changed but because he had made so little impression on her at the time. It would not have been true, but it would have been a very satisfying put-down.
“Th
e beard,” she said, waving a hand. “It certainly makes you look more . . . gives you a certain air.”
“Makes me look more decisive,” said Jamie, a smile playing round his barely visible lips. “Beards cover a multitude of weak chins—the comment has been made. No need to be tactful with me, Lydia. Though by the by I wonder how strength of character came to be seen to reside in a particular type of chin. It’s rather unlikely, isn’t it?”
“Rather,” agreed Lydia. “Though these popular ideas usually have something in them.” She was unwilling lightly to relinquish the correspondence between his chin and his nature. She now left a silence which said, as clearly as words would have: “To what do I owe the honour?”
“You’ll be wondering why I came,” said Jamie obediently.
“Yes.”
“Well . . . I thought it was only fair to let you know that I’m back in the district.”
“Oh.”
“Yes.” He shifted easily in his chair, his eye on her. It flashed through Lydia’s brain that Jamie knew her as few other people did. “I’ve taken a lease on a small farm over Kedgely way. Organic vegetables, free-range hens, that sort of thing.”
Kedgely was five miles or so away from Bly, by a winding hill road. The prospect of having her former husband so close was not pleasant to Lydia.
“Oh, it’s farming now, is it?”
He smiled, untouched by her scorn.
“Yes, it’s farming now. After the civil service, the City, local government, second-hand books, commercial travelling—”
“I haven’t followed your . . . career,” said Lydia, with another wave of her hand.
“My long succession of failures, you mean.”
“You really don’t have to apologise for them,” said Lydia. “You are nothing to me . . . as I’m sure I am nothing to you.”
The words seemed to be belied by the force with which she said them.
“I wasn’t apologising,” said Jamie, still genial and apparently imperturbable. “I was just getting in first, and trying to emphasize how right you were to leave me. Or to persuade me to leave you. It would never have worked out. I realized in the first week that you’d married me because you couldn’t marry Robert.”
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