It seemed to take for ever to reach the house, the old tramp lurching and muttering at my side, but at last we were there and unlocking the front door I stood back to let my guest inside. Just then Janet appeared, coming downstairs with the vacuum cleaner in her hand.
‘What on earth!’ She put the Hoover down on the parquet floor, careful even in a time of stress not to mark the delicate veneer. ‘Out with you, dirty old thing. Harassing a young girl like this; shame on you.’ As she spoke, Janet came towards us, shooing the old man out as if he were a stray mongrel and I her pet pooch.
‘Janet, this gentleman is my guest and we don’t treat guests like that in this house, do we?’
Janet paused and looked hard at me for a moment. ‘Oh, yes we do, young lady, if they’re drunken old tramps. Shoo!’
‘My parents will not be pleased…’
‘They certainly will not,’ Janet snapped. In the doorway the old man was grumbling to himself.
‘They will not be pleased to hear how you treated this gentleman.’ I lowered my voice and it became eager and pleading. ‘Come on, Janet. This is humiliating. I asked him to come with me. I said he’d get a hot meal. And you know how Mum and Dad are always going on about the selfish society and how we should be looking after the weakest and those less fortunate than ourselves.’
‘And you, young lady, know very well that that’s all talk and has nothing to do with real life. Real life being that your mother would have a fit if she found one of those less fortunate than herself putting their big dirty footprints all over her cream stair carpet and sitting on her pretty chairs. Now you.’ She glared at the tramp. ‘Out before I call the police.’
‘I don’t believe you did that,’ I said after she had slammed the door behind him. I followed her down to the kitchen. ‘That poor old thing could have been me or you.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Janet said, putting the kettle on.
‘I seem to have spawned a future chairman of the WI,’ Audrey said. ‘And she’s always so disapproving. I’ll turn round and find her looking at me with those great big blue eyes brimful of reproach. It’s very wearisome.’ My mother was in the drawing-room, complaining about me to her friend. Olivia was over for her spring visit. ‘And it was definitely a mistake teaching her German. She uses it to hiss at me in shops. I tell you, everything sounds even more censorious in that language. She’s changed her mind about becoming a psychiatrist too, which is a real nuisance. There I was, telling poor Caroline whose son’s gone completely demented, LSD apparently, that at least she wouldn’t have to worry about the future as I was sure Esther would look after him free of charge. He’ll need care for the rest of his life, they think, and Julian and Caroline are not well off. And now what do I tell them? And now it’s the law. Why? I ask her. She says she likes rules.’ Audrey gave a little laugh. ‘I suppose she can always sentence him to something. I tell you, I sometimes wonder if she is my daughter.’
I leant against the doorpost, reflecting on my mother’s uncanny ability to place herself at the centre of any situation. No wonder she was permanently exhausted. Even my career choice was seen as a calculated attempt to show her up.
‘I tell you, in an earlier age she would have been one of these religious zealots, ever ready with a hair shirt and a burning stake.’
‘Linus is completely set on architecture, but he seems to be going out of his way to do it as differently as possible from his father,’ Olivia said. ‘Bertil went to Chalmers, Linus wants to go to school in Copenhagen. He’s refusing even to contemplate joining the family firm. I tell you, I love the boy, but he does drive me absolutely demented sometimes. When he doesn’t like something he just withdraws, spending hours doing those cartoons of his – “My Life as It Ought to Be”, he calls them. Or he just wanders off, for whole days sometimes. “Just looking,” he says. “At what?” I say. “Stuff,” he says.’
I stepped into the room. My mother looked faintly startled to see me, then again she often did, as if she needed a moment or two to place me. ‘Have you got a photo of him. Of Linus?’ I asked Olivia.
‘Not with me, no. I never seem to carry photos. Don’t you remember, years ago you did a drawing for me, of Bertil and Linus, because you felt sorry for me not having a photo.’ Olivia smiled expansively at me. Not for the first time, I felt something had gone slightly wrong; surely Olivia was meant to have been my mother. By the sound of it, Audrey could easily have been the cause of Linus, the strange boy dreaming away at his desk or drifting through the streets of his home town.
‘He’s off to the States once he’s done his military service,’ Olivia said. ‘Just for a few months doing work experience at a firm of architects there. I suppose it will do him good to get away. And then on to Copenhagen.’
‘Audrey is trying to make me go to France for the summer,’ I said. ‘She says it will do me good. Sometimes I think that’s just a parental euphemism for something that does them good.’
‘Don’t be precocious, dear.’ My mother sighed. ‘It’s very unbecoming.’
It was my turn to sigh. ‘I think it’s called growing up.’ I left, taking refuge in my room, although I didn’t like it very much any more. Audrey had had it redone as a surprise while I was staying with Arabella Felix and her family in Cornwall over Easter. It had been bad enough finding that Posy McKenzie had been invited to the Felixes’ without having to come home to a bedroom that had turned into some yucky House & Garden teenager’s dream, co-ordinated to within an inch of its life. Audrey was working part-time at her friend Trish’s interior decorating business and anything that stood still for more than five minutes was in mortal danger of ending up swagged, or dragged, or at the very least with a tasteful bow.
‘It’s so… green,’ I mumbled. ‘And new.’
‘It’s not new, darling. Your bedside table is Victorian, early Victorian as it happens, and the dressing-table is Art Nouveau. I thought I had taught you these things.’
‘I didn’t mean new like that. And it’s lovely,’ I lied. ‘Really. I love it. It’s just new to me, that’s all. My history is gone.’ I pointed at the corner by the window. ‘There was a marmalade stain there, just for example, from my Paddington Bear stage. And that old rug, I used to sit on it and pretend it flew.’ Then I saw how disappointed Audrey looked. ‘But this is much nicer,’ I said. ‘Thank you so very much.’ Audrey, whose happiness depended on her uncanny ability to believe only what she wished to believe, had gone away convinced that I was thrilled with the transformation. She still was.
I threw myself down on the bed with its green-and-blue patchwork quilt and picked up the library book from the bedside table. I was reading according to my reading list, alphabetically according to author. Right now I was on G, G for Goethe.
Linus could feel it. Lotten was expecting him to do something. It was obvious from the way she leant back against the sofa cushions, her hands clasped behind her neck, her breasts jutting; from the way she was looking at him through half-closed eyes. He tried to buy time, getting up and changing the record, taking off the Stones and putting on his old Bob Dylan album. Lotten jiggled about on the sofa, sighing loudly, a frown across her clear high forehead. Taking a deep breath, Linus sat back down and slipped his arm round her shoulders.
‘What’s wrong?’ Lotten asked.
‘Nothing’s wrong. Everything is great.’
‘Something’s wrong?’
‘No, no, nothing is wrong. Really.’
‘There’s no need to get cross.’
‘I’m not cross.’
‘Well, you sound cross to me.’ Lotten shrugged off his arm and sat up straight.
Closing his eyes, Linus gave her a gentle shove against the cushions, lowering himself down on top of her. In his mind he had always remained a fat boy and he was terrified of hurting her, of crushing her under his weight. Supporting himself on his knees and one elbow he fumbled with the small buttons of her shirt until she pushed him off, undoing them herself with a haste born mor
e from impatience with his clumsiness than passion. Once all the buttons were undone she pulled him back on top of her – she was stronger than she looked – and her hand reached down to his belly and to the buckle of his belt. He kissed her with increasing desperation as he felt her hand undo first the belt, then his trousers. His penis, that instrument of spite, remained resolutely limp and useless, but it sprang up, hard and insistent when he least of all wanted it, like the other day when he was dancing with Beatrice Nilsson.
‘Get up, you bastard,’ he mumbled between clenched teeth. ‘Move!’
‘What was that?’ Lotten’s voice was thick.
‘Nothing, nothing.’
‘Can’t you get an erection?’
Linus rolled off her, throwing himself back against the sofa with a groan. Lotten’s voice grew warm with concern. ‘It’s OK, you know. It happens to most guys at some stage. It’s really nothing to worry about.’
She made him tea. She even brought it to him where he sat, slumped on the sofa. His humiliation was complete when she knelt down in front of him and zipped up his trousers and buckled his belt. ‘There,’ she said, giving him a little pat.
He stayed up late that night, drawing. The old cinema down at the bottom of the Avenue was being redeveloped and Linus had some ideas. It happened to be one of his favourite buildings in the town, a near perfect example of Art Nouveau. On his walks Linus had come across a small workshop specialising in fireplaces and mouldings. There was a man there who would be ideal for the intricate work needed to restore the façade.
The next morning he showed Bertil his plans. ‘It’s good,’ his father said. ‘But I’m afraid you’re too late. Even if you had been able to back up the drawings with the proper costings and a structural survey.’ He allowed himself a small smile at the absurdity of the thought.
‘What do you mean, too late?’
‘I meant to tell you because I knew you were interested, Stendal & Berglund have got the commission for the new building.’
Linus stared at him. ‘New building? Are you saying that they’re tearing the old cinema down?’
Bertil sighed and sat down on the kitchen chair. ‘I know it’s a pity and I have been a strong voice against this course of action, but the decision has been made and that part is out of our hands. When we were asked to take on the design of the new building I didn’t hesitate to accept. It seemed to me the ideal opportunity to influence matters in a positive way. It’s called pragmatism, my boy, and good sense.’
‘It’s also called betrayal of ideals,’ Linus said in a quiet voice. He looked straight into his father’s eyes. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this. I’m ashamed.’ He turned on his heel and walked off before Bertil got over his surprise at his son’s open contempt. Linus shut the front door behind him with deliberate care. He ran down the five flights of stairs and out on to the street into the pale March sunshine. There was snow still on the ground and overnight the brown slush had frozen in the gutters. He walked on through town, for once not looking up at the buildings, but down at his feet and the frozen ground. He walked faster than usual, he was almost running as if that way he could escape from his anger and disappointment. He had trusted Bertil, looked up to him, held him up as an example to his friends, dreamt of being like him. Now he felt as much contempt for himself and his bad judgement as he did for his father.
When next he looked around him he had reached the main city bus terminal. There were two buses standing there, waiting to go. One, engine already running, was going out to the island. Without thinking further Linus jumped on board. He slouched in his window seat but as the journey progressed, out of the city and on to the open road, he straightened up. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been to the island in winter. It was a summer place and it might as well have existed only for those brief months for all he and the other summer residents knew. And yet, there it was, less than a two-hour bus ride away.
He stood on the small ferry, its only passenger, looking across the short stretch of water that separated the island from the peninsula. It was the same and yet different, like the face of an old friend after years of separation. The softness of summer vegetation was gone, leaving the craggy rocks exposed, its every crevice bare. The bright colours were gone too, the blues and greens replaced by grey and straw-yellow, but it was the same old friend and Linus felt his spirits lift.
Up at the house he got the keys from the large flowerpot by the back door. But before letting himself in he walked around the garden slumbering under its winter cover of snow and ice. He stared at the naked branches of the rose bushes his mother had planted all those years ago. It was silly, but somehow he had imagined them still in bloom.
He didn’t stay long in the house. In the sitting-room the furniture was covered with white sheets and the wicker chairs on the veranda were lined up away from the large windows. He played a game with himself, closing his eyes and imagining the sounds and senses of summer, then abruptly opening them again to find the dead of winter in their place. He knew that his mother had died out here one winter day all those years ago.
‘She was ill,’ Bertil had said.
‘How, ill?’ Linus had wanted to know.
‘Sick. We couldn’t help her so she died.’
‘Couldn’t the doctors help?’
‘No one could. In the end she had an accident. You mustn’t dwell on it, Linus. Life is for the living. Leave the dead alone.’
He couldn’t remember if his mother had looked ill the last time he saw her. He couldn’t remember what she had looked like at all. His image of her face was formed entirely from photographs and from a hazy memory of fair hair and a fur coat. Once, out here on the island, when he had been left crying from the effort of retrieving his mother’s features from the dim depths of his memory, Aunt Ulla had taken him by the shoulders and swung him round to face the mirror in the hallway. ‘Look in there,’ she had said, her voice harsh. ‘Look in there and you’ll see your mother.’ Terrified, he had begun to scream, his eyes clamped shut, his fists hammering at Ulla’s side to make her let go. Afterwards, when he had calmed down enough to speak, he had told his father that he thought he was going to see his mother’s ghost in the mirror. Only later had he realised his aunt had meant that he was growing up into the image of his mother.
He walked round the island tripping once on the slippery rocks as they froze over, abandoned by the dying rays of the sun.
He did not return to town until well after midnight, exhausted and freezing cold.
Four
I came to Simon and Garfunkel late. I was seventeen, still only five foot five. Still dark-haired and blue-eyed in spite of a brief flirtation with peroxide and a vague plan to try those coloured lenses and make my eyes bright green and far more interesting.
‘Do you like Simon and Garfunkel?’ this guy asked. It was a Saturday night and a group of us were at Arabella Felix’s house. Mr and Mrs Felix were away.
Did I like Simon and Garfunkel? ‘I haven’t given it that much thought,’ I answered.
This guy put out his hand and said, ‘I’m Donald. I’m a friend of Arabella’s brother. We’re both doing law at UCL.’
‘Law’s always appealed to me.’ I drained my glass of rosé wine and held it out for more.
‘What aspect in particular?’ Donald reached for an opened bottle on the coffee table.
‘All of them. Its humanity, mostly.’
‘Humanity? That’s not what most people think of when they think of the law.’
‘I can’t help that.’ I could see he was waiting for an explanation, so I tried one. ‘To me, the law in a free society shows humans at their best. It’s not nature’s law, or the law of the jungle, but a law that as often as not goes against those things. A law which is there, set up and adhered to, made to protect the individual and society from abuse. The way a court gives everyone a voice. The way self-interest and revenge are rendered powerless.’
Donald looked at me with wide brown
eyes and smiled with firm lips, showing large white teeth. ‘You make it sound quite sexy. Although I’m not so sure that’s how it actually works. In fact, it seems to me that it’s often misused.’
‘But it mustn’t be,’ I insisted. ‘If it is, anything can happen and normally that anything happens to the weakest.’ I was getting agitated and I could hear it in my voice too. So could Donald because he gave me a quizzical look from where he stood by the stereo. ‘Then we’re nothing but animals and then what’s the point?’
Donald put on a tape of Simon and Garfunkel, ignoring the groans of the others and pulling me down next to him on the sofa. ‘So what are you going to do after your A levels?’ he asked, making it sound as if he wanted to know whether I was going home that night.
‘Would it surprise you if I told you that I was thinking of doing law?’ I said. ‘The only problem is, believing in the law doesn’t mean I’m sure I want to spend my life practising it. I think I might want to, but I don’t feel it. Not here.’ I put my hand on the place where I supposed my heart was.
I saw Donald a lot after that evening. I kept waiting for the day when I would fall in love with him the way I kept waiting to fall in love with the idea of becoming a lawyer. Both were so right. Maybe it was me who was wrong? There was no point trying to speak to Audrey about it all. I had tried, once.
‘But of course you can’t be in love with Donald,’ she had said, her little laugh indicating how ridiculous was the very thought. ‘He votes Conservative.’
‘But you voted Conservative in the last election,’ I said.
Audrey took on a look of infinite patience. ‘I know I did, Esther, but I’m not a young man. I always think there’s something rather peculiar about young men who vote Tory.’
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