The Courtyard

by Marcia Willett

  ‘I’m not.’ Gillian stared sulkily into her mug. ‘It’s never worked. Not from the beginning. We’re just – ’ she hesitated, casting about for a phrase, and remembered Sam’s words – ‘just like chalk and cheese. We have nothing in common. He and Gussie are better suited. It’s just so dreary and boring.’

  ‘Oh, darling.’ Lydia sat opposite, shocked and distressed. ‘I didn’t realise. But even so, you must think very carefully. It’s such an enormous step. You have to give a relationship every chance. Perhaps if you’d had a baby—’

  ‘Huh!’ Gillian snorted derisively, conveniently forgetting the pill. ‘Chance would be a fine thing. We make love about twice a year.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Lydia remembered her thoughts at the wedding. So she’d been right after all. ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘And don’t tell me that there’s more to life than sex. Or that passions fade and it’s other qualities that count.’

  ‘I shouldn’t dream of saying anything so commonplace,’ bridled Lydia, affronted. ‘Even so … I suppose you’ve met someone else?’

  ‘Yes. Actually I have. But it’s not only that. I’m not just being swept off my feet. Right from the beginning it’s been wrong.’

  ‘It’s not Simon, is it?’ Lydia was following her own train of thought.

  ‘No,’ said Gillian impatiently. ‘Of course not. His name’s Sam Whittaker. You don’t know him.’ She wondered briefly whether to suggest an introduction and rejected it. Sam wasn’t ‘meeting mothers’ material. ‘We’re going to France. He’s got a house there and a business.’

  ‘France!’ Lydia gazed at her aghast. ‘Oh, Gillian!’

  ‘Oh come on, Mum. It’s not that far. When we get settled in you must come over. You’ll like it. It’s in Provence.’

  ‘But, Gillian. France! Oh, darling, please don’t rush into this. What does Henry say?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Gillian sulkily. ‘He doesn’t know yet.’

  ‘Well, that’s something.’ Lydia was relieved. Nothing irrevocable had yet been said. ‘You must have time to think.’

  ‘I’ve had time.’ Gillian put her mug on the table. ‘We’re going on Saturday.’

  ‘Going?’

  ‘To France. Sam and me. On Saturday. It’s no good, Mum. It’s all arranged.’

  ‘On Saturday? But what about Henry?’

  ‘He thinks I’m going with Lucy.’ Gillian flushed. ‘It’s no good,’ she said again defensively, seeing Lydia’s expression, ‘I just couldn’t tell him. I shall write to him when I get there. Oh, Mum! Don’t look like that. Honestly. I feel bad enough as it is. I thought at least you’d be on my side.’

  ‘Oh, darling, of course I am. You know that. I’m just so afraid that you might make a mistake. I only want what’s best for you, Gilly. I only ever have.’

  At the use of the childhood name Gillian quite suddenly broke down. She sat in her chair and bawled like the child she still was and Lydia hurried to her, kneeling beside her, cradling the fair head to her breast.

  ‘I love him, Mum,’ sobbed Gillian. ‘I know I do. I can’t bear to be away from him. He’s everything. I never felt like this about Henry.’

  Confused and frightened Lydia held her, longing, as she had from the day of her daughter’s birth, to wave the magic wand and bring her that ever-shifting, unreachable prize that is known as happiness. Unable to bear the child’s disappointment, unhappiness, even boredom, Lydia had hurried to bring her small treats, little pleasures that were calculated to wipe away the tears and sulks and bring smiles and delight; had learned, too, to dread the loss of interest, the casting aside of book or toy, the clouding of the smooth childish brow, the small upturned face with its expression of dissatisfaction which heralded the next request. Even now, Lydia couldn’t bear to see the petulantly turned shoulder, the droop of the pretty lips, that greeted refusal or denial. Holding Gillian tight, she tried to decide what was right for her.

  ‘Oh, Mum.’ Gillian turned a tear-streaked, quivering face to Lydia. ‘Don’t be cross. It’s awful to be married to a man you don’t love. You understand. You’ve told me how it was with Dad.’

  Lydia was silent, knowing that, here, not all the truth had been told. It was, after all, Angus who had gone, exhausted by her demands and desires, hurt at being regarded only as a provider, his own needs and emotions ignored. Had she ever really thought about Angus, wondered about his hopes and fears, considered him as anything but a bottomless purse? Had her own relentless search for that will-o’-the-wisp, call it what you like – happiness, contentment, peace – which clothed its seductive shape in clothes, outings, holidays, finally driven him away? Had it been her own example that had set Gillian’s feet on the restless, endless road? Lydia’s mind shied away from such frightening ideas and she forced herself to smile down at her daughter.

  ‘We must do what’s best for you,’ she said. But what was best, really best, for Gillian’s well-being? Could denial, selflessness, discipline, really be the answer? If they were Lydia realised that she could never impose them on Gillian. How could she, who had been so careless of such qualities, recommend them to others?

  ‘Oh, Mum. It won’t be for long.’ Gillian was smiling through her tears. ‘We’ll have to come back to see to Sam’s development. And you must come out. It’ll be such fun. All that lovely wine and sun.’ Gillian was already miles away from Nethercombe, its beauty and peace forgotten, hands stretched for the new toy. ‘Thanks for understanding. You’re the best mum anyone could ever have.’

  But Lydia, returning her daughter’s embrace, had discovered, in that terrible flash of insight, that nothing could be further from the truth.

  PHOEBE HENDERSON LOOKED WITH pleasure at her cottage. She went from room to room, all straight at last, and sighed happily. Now she could plan her house-warming party. There were a lot of naval families living in the area and Phoebe knew a great many of them. Despite the final breakdown of her marriage she had kept even her husband’s closest friends who generally agreed that Miles Henderson had brought it on himself with his flagrant affairs and indiscretions. Nevertheless, the final separation and divorce had saddened her. Miles was an amusing companion – fun to be with, generous and kind – and he’d always been able to laugh her out of her hurt at his faithlessness. Well, nearly always.

  Phoebe sat down at the kitchen table with a pile of invitation cards and lit a cigarette. Sometimes it had hurt too much to laugh. In her heart she believed what he said: that it meant nothing, that it was a physical urge, that it was she whom he loved. She worked hard at believing it and it was true that, all the time she was on hand and available, he never turned to anyone else. In the end, however, she’d been unable to go on laughing. Phoebe shook her head, balanced her cigarette in the ashtray and opened her address book. It had definitely gone beyond being a joke. When she discovered that Miles had been unfaithful with one of her closest friends the shame and jealousy were too much to bear and, frightened by her threats of divorce, he had promised to be faithful, sworn that he’d learned his lesson and his philandering days were over. Why had she believed him? Some months afterwards, he’d come back from sea and several days later, after they’d made love many times, he suggested, shame-faced, that she should have a checkup at a VD clinic. It was the end. After that, she couldn’t bear him near her; the humiliation of that visit turned her sick to her stomach and she couldn’t forgive him for it. At about the same time AIDS was in the headlines almost daily, and she knew it was time for them to part.

  Phoebe inhaled deeply on her cigarette and started to fill in the first card, remembering how he had pleaded with her, sworn that he would never look at another woman ever again and then spoiled it all by adding that, anyway, AIDS was a homosexual disease. Now, nearly three years on, Phoebe smiled sadly. The truth was that she still loved him; for her there could never be anyone else. His whole character was larger than life, everyone loved him. How could she have hoped that she alone could satisfy him? And how terribly she missed
him.

  Phoebe swallowed hard and threw down her pen. Muttering the rudest words she could think of to herself she stood up and poured herself a large glass of wine. She simply mustn’t brood! It was all over, finished. She didn’t even have his children with which to console herself. From the very beginning he told her that he didn’t want children. Later, she understood why. She was not particularly maternal and, in those early days, had been quite content to look to him for everything, willing to agree that a vasectomy was a sensible – even unselfish – solution.

  Phoebe sat down again and shook her head at her naivete. She’d loved him so much she would have agreed to anything, had been flattered to think that he didn’t want to share her even with their own children. What a fool she’d been. And still she loved him. She took a gulp of wine and picked up her pen. The party would do her good, give her something to look forward to, help to make her feel settled. She inhaled another lungful of smoke and settled determinedly to her task.

  Sixteen

  GUSSIE WALKED ON THE terrace, her breath like smoke in the cold air. There had been a flurry of snow during the night and an east wind shivered amongst the rhododendron leaves. She could hear the water from the stream, rushing noisily along its rocky bed, quite clearly this morning and the high shoulders of the moor were sparkling white against a blue sky, although thick white clouds massed heavily in the west.

  ‘And just think, dear Lord,’ said Gussie as she paced, ‘I could have been sitting in one room in a back street in Bristol.’ How clearly she remembered those days; not enough to eat, afraid to turn the heating on, dreading the plop of the letters on the mat – oh! those frightening bills – and the landlady’s discreet tap on the door. Gratitude welled up in her and, being momentarily bereft of words of her own, she cast about for inspiration. ‘“The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places;” ’ she quoted quietly; how appropriate that verse was from the Sixteenth Psalm, ‘“yea, I have a goodly heritage.” ’

  ‘Breakfast’s in.’ Mrs Ridley stood beside her. She was unmoved by Gussie’s frequent communications with the Almighty. Mrs Ridley was Chapel but she accepted that Gussie as an Anglican had every right to plug herself in to the spiritual powerhouse and avail herself of its benefits. The fact that she did it out loud on the terrace before breakfast didn’t bother Mrs Ridley at all. Her old mum had been the same except that she preferred the graveyard where she could chat to her ancestors at the same time. In Mrs Ridley’s girlhood the usual reply to the question ‘Where’s Mother?’ was ‘Down with the daiders.’

  ‘What a morning, Mrs Ridley!’ Gussie turned back towards the house. ‘So beautiful.’

  ‘’Tis cold.’ Mrs Ridley was never openly enthusiastic, it always invited trouble. ‘More snow to come I’d say.’

  ‘You’re probably right. I’m looking forward to my breakfast.’ She smiled at Mrs Ridley and was struck by something unusual; a kind of suppressed excitement in her normally expressionless countenance. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Letter from Gillian.’ The tone was noncommittal but her eyes held Gussie’s meaningly.

  ‘From Gillian?’ Gussie was puzzled. ‘Are you sure? Gillian never writes. Not so much as a postcard. Anyway, she’s due home tomorrow. Henry was driving up to Exeter to meet her.’

  Mrs Ridley said nothing and alarmed, although she didn’t quite know why, Gussie hurried in through the French windows of the breakfast room just as Henry appeared at the door opposite.

  ‘More snow to come,’ he said, unconsciously echoing Mrs Ridley, as he pulled out Gussie’s chair. ‘Marsh tit on the bird table this morning. Have to try to think of something to keep the squirrels off.’

  For once Gussie didn’t answer. Her eyes were glued to the blue airmail envelope by Henry’s plate. Mrs Ridley fiddled watchfully at the sideboard.

  ‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Henry, examining the sender’s name on the back of the envelope, and Gussie’s hand shook as she poured his coffee. ‘There’s a letter here from Gillian. That’s odd, isn’t it? I’ve never known her write before.’

  ‘Perhaps you should open it,’ said Gussie in desperation when it seemed that Henry might spend the whole morning trying to divine the contents by simply staring at the envelope. ‘Could she be ill, d’you think? Perhaps she can’t travel.’

  Henry slit the envelope open with the butter knife and began to read. The two women held their breath. His expression, at first puzzled, became distressed; he shook his head as if he couldn’t understand the words and when he finished his face was grimmer than Gussie had ever seen it. She looked at Mrs Ridley and made an almost imperceptible sideways gesture with her head. As she slipped unobtrusively from the room Gussie put a hand on Henry’s wrist.

  ‘Is it bad news?’ she asked.

  ‘You could say that.’ He didn’t look at her. ‘She tells me that she’s not coming back. She’s staying in Provence.’

  ‘But …’ Gussie hardly dared to probe. ‘D’you mean that she’s prolonging her holiday?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t mean that.’ He folded the letter and put it aside. ‘It seems that she has no wish to return. She says that she’s never been happy here and that she’s met someone else. It was this man that she went with, not Lucy. Apparently he has a house in Provence and they intend to make their home there.’

  ‘Oh, Henry.’ She stared at him helplessly. ‘I’m so sorry, my dear. What a terrible shock.’ She was aware of the utter inadequacy of her words.

  ‘It must have been very difficult for her,’ he said.

  He looked quickly at her and away again and she knew in that moment that Henry loved Gillian; not perhaps with great desire, or even with a romantic passion, but simply and wholeheartedly and irrevocably. Gussie felt a great wave of shock. She’d assumed that, once Henry had seen Gillian’s faults and failings, love was out of the question and only his sense of loyalty and duty kept the marriage going. She realised now that she was wrong. Henry did indeed see Gillian for what she was but loved her anyway, in spite of it, perhaps even because of it. Love is a strange and complex emotion and one should never judge of another’s ability or capacity. Gussie swallowed. She felt, somehow, small, diminished by the greatness of Henry’s affection which could encompass so much and remain generous, and when she next looked at him there were tears in her eyes.

  ‘Does she say who he is?’ She simply had to ask the question. Henry shook his head.

  ‘The terrible thing is that I had no idea that she was so unhappy. I know that it took her a while to settle down but I thought that was only natural. She’s a town girl really but I thought that she’d come to love it here. I even hoped that she’d come to love me, too.’

  ‘Oh, Henry.’ Gussie’s cry was anguished.

  Henry smiled at her. ‘She’s a lot younger than I am, you know, and it makes a difference. I should have made more effort. I’m not surprised that she found me dull.’

  ‘Is that what she says in the letter?’ Gussie’s old resentments struggled with her shame.

  ‘It’s a kind letter.’ Henry answered the anxiety behind Gussie’s question. ‘She’s let me down lightly. It can’t have been easy to write. I wish she could have been able to tell me to my face but that’s probably my failing rather than hers.’

  ‘Oh, come now, my dear.’ This was going too far. ‘How could that possibly be?’

  ‘I’ve treated her like a child,’ he answered. ‘I wanted her to be happy, you see, and it’s easy to think that letting people off things and giving in to them will achieve it. You don’t give them the opportunity to grow. Growing can be a painful process and you try to protect them from it. It’s patronising, of course, but you don’t really see it like that. I didn’t really think about it at all. That’s what’s so unforgivable. It was such a miracle that someone so young and beautiful and alive should consider marrying me. Just having her here was enough for me. I should have seen that it wasn’t nearly enough for her.’

  He stood up and placed his chai
r neatly under the table.

  ‘Won’t you have some breakfast?’ Gussie watched him anxiously.

  ‘Not at the moment. I want to answer this straightaway. There’s a poste restante address.’

  After he’d gone Gussie sat quite still, experiencing the real depth of her love for Henry. Should anyone have asked her, she would have said that to make Nethercombe perfect it only needed Gillian to leave it for ever. Now she knew that she would move heaven and earth if she could only bring her back.

  JOHN HAD TO RESTRAIN himself physically from telephoning Sam at regular intervals. The knowledge that the new project was getting under way in Devon was the only thing that kept him going. In the end, the valuation on the property in Bournemouth had come out so low that the amount Sam required could only just be met. John had hoped it would be high enough to enable him to keep some back to pay the ever-mounting debts. As it was, his overdraft was paid off but very little else. He was afraid to tell his bank manager about all the other debts, fearing that he might not let him borrow against the house. Sam told him that once things got going there would be a loosening up financially and promised to help out if he got really stuck. John saw in Sam another Martin – calm, assured, easygoing – and once they were in the pub had poured out his troubles to him. Sam had been encouraging and optimistic. More importantly, he’d been lighthearted, laughing at problems that John thought insurmountable, and making John laugh with him, raising his confidence.

  For a few days the glow of Sam’s charisma carried him up and onwards, helping him to cope with his creditors and to hold off the demands. There were so many of them. The rent was now several months behind on both the flat and the office and the business telephone bill was well overdue. Then there was the long, long list of the usual things: car tax and insurance, Barclaycard, electricity bills, rates. Everywhere he looked he saw a hand outstretched.