The Juniper Tree

by Barbara Comyns

  Mother hung about as long as she could, hoping to see how we behaved towards each other, but Mr Crimony started fretting for his supper. There were herrings waiting in the fridge at home: ‘You can’t expect me to eat them in the middle of the night. That’s asking for indigestion,’ he said petulantly. So they drove away in the red Rover; but still Bernard didn’t come.

  At about eight he phoned to say he was on his way. He had been delayed by a domestic crisis, but would be with us as quickly as possible. By this time Tommy had fallen asleep in a chair, still clutching her vulgar dog. When Bernard did arrive, he appeared very distraught and bundled us into the car, laying Tommy, who was still asleep, on the back seat. He said crossly, ‘Isabel has gone, so there won’t be a meal waiting unless Catalina has prepared something. I’ll tell you about it when we get home.’

  I said regretfully, ‘Things seemed to be working so well with the two girls,’ and we didn’t speak again until we reached Richmond. It was as if we were breathing tired air.

  When we entered the house I hurried upstairs with Marline in my arms and put her to bed without washing her and she still had some of her clothes on, but she was so deeply sleeping I didn’t want to disturb her. She was still clutching the fluffy dog. When I went downstairs Bernard was waiting for me in the hall and we walked into the drawing-room together. The room was in disorder and there was a strong smell of cigarette smoke combined with stale wine, although one of the windows was open. Then I saw the overflowing ashtrays and a half-empty bottle standing on the inlaid rosewood table and another lying empty on its side in a little pool of dark wine. Bernard said, ‘Disgusting, isn’t it? I came home early and that’s what I found. There were three men, one of them a waiter I’d seen here before, and Isabel, all of them sitting round the table playing cards and drinking my precious Château Lafite-Rothschild 1962. The waiter was fully dressed in his waiter’s clothes but the other two had their shirts and ties hanging over the back of their chairs and were wearing vests. There they were, sitting in Gertrude’s drawing-room in their revolting vests. I told them to leave the house immediately and, I must admit, they gave me no trouble, one even apologized for entering the house uninvited. It was Isabel who was really troublesome, screaming at me in Spanish, then practically having hysterics, while the two men quietly dressed, bowed politely and left the house. It was like some horrible film.’

  I interrupted, ‘But where’s Catalina? She hasn’t gone too, has she?’

  Bernard looked bewildered. ‘I suppose she’s still in her room. I sent her up there when Isabel was trying to make her leave the house with her and poor Johnny was screaming his head off and the women shouting above it. The waiter boyfriend did his best to calm them, eventually escorting Catalina and the child from the room, giving them little pats as he did so as if they were dogs. It took about an hour to get Isabel out of the house and she had to be practically carried to the boyfriend’s car, but when she was safely shut in, the man turned to me and said coolly he was sorry about the wine but he’d replace it as soon as possible, and we parted on quite good terms.’

  I went into the kitchen to prepare a simple meal of some kind and found Catalina wearing a tragic tearstained face. She ran to me like a child and sobbed in my arms, then we went to the drawing-room and opened the french windows wide to the evening air and gave the room a quick clean and mopped at the wine-stained carpet. Within an hour the three of us were eating an omelette and an appetizing salad in the kitchen. We finished off the wine too. Bernard said it was a fabulous French one that he gave to very special art dealers and was not meant to be drunk in the kitchen and he looked round with interest. I think it was the first time he had eaten in his kitchen.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  On Monday morning Bernard and I went to Mrs Vic’s domestic agency, but after waiting for a few minutes he said he was very busy at the gallery and disappeared, and I was left to face Mrs Vic alone. She was an elderly woman with piled-up white hair and a very straight back. As I was talking to her I found I was straightening mine. In time I became quite at home at Mrs Vic’s, but I found that first visit rather intimidating. She kept trying to make me accept young mothers with one or two children and I knew Bernard was very against this. He said he didn’t want the house turned into a crèche and he didn’t want any pets either.

  In the afternoon four women called about the job, some overlapping. The most attractive applicant had a small son of four dressed in red. He was a lively child and ran round and round the lawn until his bright brown hair became wet with sweat, then worked the gentle swing up to such a pitch that he was in danger of going over the top. Bernard would never have stood him; but I was sorry to see them go because I knew they lived in a cramped bedsitting-room.

  There was a handsome Spanish girl, very like Isabel, but I felt we didn’t want any more señoritas for the time being. We needed someone rather stodgy.

  The last two were both experienced cook-housekeepers and they had references to prove it. They were both around forty-five and had good figures and dull faces, but there was one difference; one was a spinster and the other divorced. The spinster was free to start work immediately, so I chose her, although her round face had a slightly spiteful expression, and on the whole it wasn’t a bad choice.

  Her name was May Jones and she was always known as Miss May and, to the children, Missy May. I stayed for a week to settle her in, and she wasn’t difficult to settle, then I left her to Bernard. He had no complaints except that she wasn’t very good with Johnny, and I often had to spend my free Mondays with him when Catalina met her friends in London.

  One funny thing happened soon after Miss May arrived. Isabel’s novio the waiter called at the house one afternoon with two bottles of Château Lafite-Rothschild 1962 for Bernard. We could hardly believe it. But it was really an excuse to see Catalina again. Isabel was forgotten and they became serious novios and in her spare time Catalina embroidered initials on double sheets and flower-decorated towels of all sizes.

  Early in October I began to ponder about Johnny’s birthday on the ninth. It should be a happy day for the little boy although it was the first anniversary of his mother’s death and would be a terrible day for his father. I bought him a handmade engine of brightly decorated wood, which he would be able to pull about in a month or two’s time. He was already standing but preferred crawling to walking. Summoning my courage, I showed Bernard the toy engine, half expecting him to pounce on me for being interfering; but he was grateful to me for mentioning the subject and said he needed my help. So on the Monday before the ninth we went to Harrods’ toy department together and rather enjoyed ourselves, though I had to restrain Bernard from buying the most unsuitable presents for a boy of one year – tricycles and bicycles and construction sets, for boys of at least ten. I had to steer him towards teddy bears and musical boxes and multi-coloured balls. Bernard chose a very large teddy bear (quite a bit larger than Johnny and too big for him to play with, but I hadn’t the heart to say this), a very decorative hobby horse, a spinning top, balls of all sizes and, as we were leaving, a large jumping frog.

  From Harrods we went to Bernard’s gallery, a slightly awesome place where people spoke in soft voices. From the street one saw only one dark painting in the window, a painting of dark, sorrowing figures of long ago, but inside, in the main gallery, there were some arresting Spanish paintings by Antonio Clavé and two small Mirós and, what pleased me very much, a painting by Tapies, an artist that Bernard had taught me to love and understand. While Bernard conducted his business a good-looking assistant wearing a beautiful suit, stood talking to me. I had met him several times in the gallery and once at Richmond and he never seemed quite real to me, but I liked him in a superficial way. Bernard was in a cheerful mood and, when his business was finished, took me out to lunch. Over lunch he told me that he had decided I was to learn to speak French properly. French was one of the few things I’d learnt from my mother, but hers was much better than mine and I could only
speak in a stilted way. It was arranged that a French woman was to call at the shop two evenings a week and the course was to be very thorough, but, as a reward when it was finished, Bernard would take me to Brussels to see the gallery he was buying a partnership in. He said he wanted me to see it so that we could talk about it together and that it would mean something to me. In fact, I could go there quite often if I was interested. My chatter would keep him awake when he was driving.

  Johnny’s birthday was all I hoped it would be and Bernard was there for the cutting of the cake and main present-giving. Miss May had made the cake and, of course, came to the tea. I was pleased to see how well she fitted in – she treated Bernard in a friendly but impersonal way which suited him. The presents were unwrapped by Marline and handed to Johnny, who was delighted with everything, including the crumpled paper wrappings, although he didn’t know what they were, but the present he liked best was a small mechanical bird that fluttered its wings and pecked the ground when wound up – a present from Marline. Naturally he didn’t quite understand about blowing the candles out, so Marline helped him with that too. When the tea was over, Bernard carried him round the nursery showing him the presents and helping him stand on his strong feet. Actually I think he gave his first steps that day. It was difficult to see because it was over so quickly, but Bernard always said he did.

  After the birthday party he drove us home and, when I’d put my sleepy daughter to bed, he asked if he could stay for the evening and settled down in his chair in the odd little room behind the shop while I prepared a simple meal of mushrooms on toast and cheese and fruit. The few bottles of wine in the cottage were provided by Bernard so I told him to choose his own bottle and open it before I made the toast so that we could drink and talk a little before eating.

  At first we talked of Brussels and the new gallery partnership. Then, while we were eating, we talked of Johnny and what a splendid child he was and how Gertrude would have loved him, and it was as if she had crept into the room. He talked about her great beauty and intelligence and how everyone had loved her, how extraordinarily graceful, and all her movements so perfect. ‘Do you remember the way she used to slowly turn her head and look at you with her great heavy-lidded eyes? Sometimes she was laughing – she loved to laugh, didn’t she?’

  By this time we were sitting very close and he was ruffling my hair with his long fingers and I pondered on something to say to change the conversation, if you could call it a conversation. Eventually I said: ‘Bernard, did you really mean I chatter?’

  His mood changed and he laughed and stopped ruffling my hair. ‘No, of course I didn’t, you are the mistress of Bel-Gazou, my dear.’

  I asked, ‘But what does Bel-Gazou mean?’ and he said I’d know when I’d studied my French. Then we stood up and we kissed for the first time and went upstairs and, for the first time, lay on the bed together. Bernard was in my arms but I wasn’t in his and we stayed like that until my arms grew stiff. The street lamps dimly lit the room and I could look at his beautiful, haughty profile for as long as I wanted and it was heaven to be touching him, but I wished Gertrude wasn’t there. In real life she had never been in my bedroom.

  At about six-thirty there was a great rumbling and hissing and the room was filled with flashing lights. Bernard, all startled, asked what was happening, so I told him it was only Flash Harry, a street-cleaning engine that passed every morning. He said, ‘We don’t have things like that in Richmond as far as I know, but of course we sleep at the back.’ He kissed me on the forehead and said, ‘Goodbye, little Bel-Gazou,” and in moments of tenderness he continued to use that name.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  At the end of October, when there was no warmth left in the sun, I heard that Miss Murray had suddenly died of peritonitis. It was Mary who told me and we were both shocked because it was she who had introduced us to each other. She had been so kind in her reserved way, bringing me china when stocks were low and the helpful advice she had sometimes given me. Although I didn’t see her often she had become part of my life, and then I’d met her on the same snowy day that I’d met Gertrude.

  A few days after I’d heard of her death I received a letter from her lawyers saying that under the will of the late Edith Murray she had bequeathed to me the entire contents of her shop with the exception of three objects which were to go to her brother. It was just a matter of waiting for probate, it seemed. I couldn’t believe the letter was true at first and re-read it before I telephoned Mary.

  Mary was almost as pleased as I was and we made plans for collecting and storing the contents of the shop, but, to my surprise, Bernard was against me accepting the legacy; he thought everything should go to the brother. So I rather bravely telephoned the lawyers and said I was prepared to give up my claim to the contents of the shop if Miss Murray’s brother felt bitter about it. The lawyer assured me that Mr Murray had no interest in the shop whatever and had already taken away the three quite valuable pieces of furniture that had been specially willed to him, and now all he was waiting for was for the shop to be emptied so that he could hand over the lease. When I told Bernard this he seemed a little annoyed at first, but eventually he laughed and said that, if the brother didn’t care about his sister’s shop, it was perfectly right for me to accept it. Then he admitted that he’d felt a little jealous. He wanted any good fortune that came my way to have come from him. He appeared quite ashamed about this and turned his face away, so I said, ‘All I want is for us both to help each other as much as we possibly can,’ and for a moment our hands touched.

  I was working hard at my French. My teacher was quite a young girl and not at all severe. Her English was good so she had no difficulty in explaining things to me and I enjoyed our French conversations. Lucie came twice a week and after the lesson she often stayed for a meal and we talked about our lives and loves and ambitions, sometimes in English and sometimes in French, and I could feel my French improving when I was talking naturally and it wasn’t a lesson. Bernard came round one evening to see how I was progressing, but Lucie and I became self-conscious and the lesson wasn’t a success. I wondered how good I’d have to be before Bernard took me to Brussels. I tried not to look forward to it too much but it was always there at the back of my mind, this magical journey with Bernard to a place where Gertrude had never been as far as I knew. Sometimes we would be travelling in the car and other times flying first class and drinking champagne and in my dreams we’d even be travelling by sledge, surrounded by snowy forests. Very occasionally we’d be voyaging by night in a small cargo boat and we’d walk on the empty dark decks with our arms round each other and, when we kissed, our lips would taste of sea spray. Actually, when we did go to Brussels, we made the short journey by air.

  We really went earlier than we intended because of a looming domestic crisis. Catalina wanted to marry her waiter, so we had to go away together while we still had her to look after the children. We couldn’t leave them in the charge of Miss May who made it quite clear that she was there to cook and housekeep and not to look after young children. She did occasionally take Johnny for a short walk in his pram and was known to babysit when he was deeply asleep, but she was really a little scared of children.

  It was a Sunday morning when Catalina dropped her bombshell about getting married. In spite of all the sewing that had been going on we hadn’t expected her to marry for a year at least and now she was hoping to have a Christmas wedding. She had offered to stay on after her marriage if Bernard didn’t mind her husband living in the house. ‘He’d help at your dinner parties, Mister Bernard, and he’s very good with electrical apparatus.’

  For a moment Bernard was speechless, then he said, ‘Yes, er – yes, I’m sure he would be most helpful; but I don’t think it would quite work out, although I’ll keep it in mind.’

  Catalina smiled. ‘Okay, Mister Bernard, you think about it. Not to worry,’ and she skipped from the room.

  Bernard sank on to a sofa and said: ‘Where does she get h
er English? Not from this house, I hope.’ He pulled me down beside him and smoothed my bare arm with the tip of one finger and I felt as if I’d been touched by a rainbow, but it meant nothing to him, he only wanted my attention and advice. ‘Bella, you don’t think I ought to have that man living in the house for Johnny’s sake, do you? He’d be all over the place, in here, everywhere. He’s so pushing, like a badly-trained dog. If he had a tail he’d be wagging it all the time. You’ve hardly seen him, Bella. But off duty he usually wears a brown plastic imitation-leather outfit, and his hair has been curled in some horrible way.’ He turned away and his fine nostrils appeared to quiver, though it may have been my imagination.

  I said, ‘Bernard, don’t torture yourself. Of course you needn’t have that man living in the house. Why, he might even borrow your suits!’

  ‘Fortunately they wouldn’t fit,’ he said in a more relaxed way. ‘After all, there are about six weeks before Catalina leaves. Let’s see what Mrs Vic has to offer.’

  A day or two later Bernard came to the shop on his way home. I was standing on a stool reaching for something hanging high in the window and he stood outside watching me. When I’d finished he came in and lifted me off the stool, held me to him, then kissed me on the lips in a really loving way although the shop lights were shining brightly. We went into the back room where Tommy was sitting at the table eating her supper of apple pie and drinking milk through a whirly glass tube – this evening the milk was tinted pink.

  Bernard kissed her on the top of her curly head and said, ‘If mummy has a little holiday with me, will you come to Richmond and help Catalina look after Johnny?’

  Tommy blew the milk in reverse and said, ‘Of course, I always do.’

  That was the first I’d heard about going to Brussels so soon. Apparently Bernard had to meet several important people there the following week and had suddenly decided we should leave immediately. ‘And as for your French, your accent may be individual, but you’re amazingly fluent.’ He then insisted on giving me a cheque for a hundred pounds to buy anything I needed, a dress perhaps. ‘These people in Brussels are really rather formal and will expect you as my protégée to be well dressed. I hope they won’t bore you.’