‘You’re being expelled,’ he explained in his light, nasal voice. ‘If you were Russian you’d be in jail by now. They don’t want an incident any more than we do, so they’re just throwing you out. We can go and pack up your things now and you can stay with one of our people until we get you on a flight.’
‘Can I just say goodbye to my girlfriend?’
The man looked at him as if he were the living embodiment of foolishness. ‘If you must, I suppose.’
11. Britain, 1979
The sun came up eagerly over the village and Bianca was awake to see it. She stood by the bedroom window and watched the new daylight race over the rooftops in the middle distance, warming the red brick walls of the cottages. Skimming the tree-tops, the last bats to return home made for their roost in the studio roof. The church weathervane, a silver trout, glittered as if it were alive and about to shiver its tail and glide away into the sky.
The position of the house was seigneurial, next to the house of God, looking down on the humbler dwellings. No more of that, Bianca promised silently. No more performing beside her lord as the gracious chatelaine, dispensing smiles and compliments at the church fete and the Christmas bazaar to villagers who for the most part were London commuters like themselves, enjoying the feudal pantomime that was the expected perk of converting a picturesque rural slum into a complex of luxury leisure homes.
Bianca had woken before the dawn and lain awake in the bed, smoothing the pillow and the sheet, enjoying the knowledge that Lovat no longer had any place beside her. The defence and protection of her nightdress were not necessary now; she threw the horrible demure white lace thing across the room and pulled on her jeans. Freedom was effervescing in her veins.
The sun lighted her garden. The currant bushes, trained at her direction in docile espaliers, called her to pick their fruit and she ignored them. She hoped the guests invited in her name would have been embarrassed into leaving during the night; entertaining them was no longer her responsibility.
From the children’s rooms above she heard small feet on the floorboards, Orlando getting up to play. From a greater distance came the sound of coughing, a prolonged, congested, old man’s cough, Kusminsky clearing his ruined lungs. There’s no time to lose, I must escape, she whispered to herself in the mirror, chuckling as she ran downstairs. In the hall, the fifteenth-century oak dower chest, which she had recently been gratified to recognize as a mere collection of boards in a barn, called out for more beeswax in vain.
In her studio she looked around at her collages; idiotic faces rolled glass bead eyes, their gambolling limbs suddenly seeming grotesque. Once again, Bianca felt nauseous. She fetched a wheelbarrow, loaded the canvases into it and carried them at a run to the rubbish tip. One barbecue lighter and they caught fire readily, the flames invisible in the bright light. A line of foul-smelling smoke rose vertically in the still air.
‘Wow! The burning ghat of Buckinghamshire.’ Hermione appeared on the far side of the blaze, bundled into a pink towelling bathrobe. ‘What’s all that going up in smoke?’
‘Rubbish.’ A mischievous smile twitched her sister’s lips.
‘They’re your pictures! Bea! What is this – are you all right?’
‘I’m great. They aren’t pictures, they’re crap – trite, coy, nauseating, hypocritical crap. I just looked at them and wanted to throw up. I only did them because everybody expected me to create something. Now they can all just get off my back.’
‘I get it – this is death and regeneration, the eternal cycle. Like Persephone you’ve got to go down into the darkness before you are reborn …’
Beneath her diaphragm, Bianca felt the unmistakable first flutter of the child she was carrying. She had forgotten that she was pregnant; the knowledge lay like a pool of dread in her body, something that could render the fine new edifice of her life unstable, because at its foundations she was bonded to Lovat and ruled by her body. She had presented that body as the ungovernable director of her destiny for so long that she believed in it herself; now she wished violently to control it. Was it too late for a termination? Was there no excuse, no explanation she could fabricate to rescue herself? Did she really love children, or was that too something she had put on as a disguise?
The mild ecstasy of the early morning gave way to practical things. Last night she had conquered her family; now she had to consolidate the gains of the victory.
‘Are they all still here?’
‘Who? The guests? Yes, Charlotte’s taken over. She just told the boys that Lovat had been called back to London for business. Isn’t she incredible? Breakfast is proceeding as normal – well, actually not, she’s brewing up kasha for the Russians. She is so cool; you’d think her granddaughter threw her husband out of the house with accusations of incest every day of the week.’
‘It’s not incest and they admitted it. They all admitted it, don’t you remember? They all knew.’
‘That really blew my mind.’ Natural soft sympathy was all Bianca heard in her sister’s voice, which pleased her. A kaleidoscope of possibilities had been spinning in her mind and she had fleetingly considered that Hermione might also have been part of the conspiracy.
Tightening the belt of the robe, Hermione walked around the edge of the fire to see her sister more clearly. Bianca looked younger. There was no bitterness or anger in her face. Despite the trauma of the night, she had taken off her make-up and brushed her hair, and her eyes were clear, without any sign of weeping. In the weak light of the early morning they were dark and her gaze flickered restlessly about, as if agitated by the thoughts behind.
‘Oh Bea, you do run full tilt at life, don’t you? I just drift along, taking what comes.’
A burning section of a frame fell out of the fire and Bianca kicked it back into the blaze. ‘I don’t see any reason to hesitate if there’s something that has to be done. I was dying, Herm. Yesterday I really felt as if I was fading away, turning into a shadow. I had to be free, that’s all. You are free already, that’s the difference. Your life’s your own, what you want it to be.’
‘Except I don’t know what I want most of the time.’ They stared at the fire in silence until the paint and paper had burned away and only the largest pieces of wood remained to be pushed into a smouldering heap. ‘Do you think he’ll try to make you change your mind?’
‘Who, Lovat? No. Lovat left years ago, Herm. Me telling him to go was just a formality. Maybe he was never really here in the beginning. Here, with me, for me, on my side. We were so young, I needed so much to get out of the family – now it’s difficult to remember how things were. I know I believed he loved me, but maybe he just needed me.’ A light breeze suddenly swept the garden and blew the smoke towards them. Bianca retreated, folding her arms against the sudden chill, then turned to walk back to the house.
‘He wasn’t one of those aggressive, chippy Northerners at all.’ The memory of Lovat standing stiffly at the side of the Chelsea drawing room, his fingers twitching with nerves, softened Hermione’s feelings for a moment. ‘I used to think that the whole London scene just scared him shitless.’
‘Lovat was never frightened of anything. I used to love that about him, the way he would never let anyone put him down or push him around. I thought that was what talent did for you, took away all your doubts. I believed I loved him. So much it made me feel as if the love filled me up like a baby fills you up when you’re pregnant, no room to breathe or eat, all you are is a vessel carrying a miracle. But again … the same thing. Maybe I just needed him.’
Hermione, now filled with loyal loathing for the man, searched for something to pierce her sister’s disturbing calm. ‘Are you worried about the boys?’
‘No. They won’t miss what they never had either.’ She paused on the steep path, aware that Hermione was out of breath. ‘I think in a way he hated them. Not hated them as children, but as part of my life that he couldn’t control. Tell me something, since we’re telling the truth …’ The blue-grey eyes
under their level brows searched Hermione’s face. ‘What about our mother in all this? Do you think she did it deliberately?’
‘Seduced Lovat? I had a real intuitive flash on that. She wasn’t exactly accepting of us as sexual women, was she?’ Hermione combed her long hair off her face with her fingers and set off up the path again. ‘She’s always been so into herself, into her looks.’
‘They both swore it was before Lovat and I met, but what else could they say?’ Bianca gave a short, harsh exclamation of amusement, the first sign of tension she had displayed. ‘All those years and they all knew and nobody said a word.’
The church bells began ringing for the morning service as they reached the kitchen door; with the belltower so close to the house the noise was aggressive. The kitchen and breakfast room were disarrayed, a child had left a half-eaten piece of toast on the staircase. A sudden longing for a home that was hers, and a body that was hers, possessed Bianca. At least she could free the house of strangers; at once she set off to reassure the English guests with graceful apologies; her invitation to them to stay and enjoy a lazy country Sunday contained the exact proportion of sincerity necessary to enable them to refuse without feeling that they were giving offence, and by eleven they had all thankfully driven away. Charlotte took charge of the boys, ordering them into their clothes and marching them off to church with Kusminsky and his companion, leaving Bianca to deal only with her parents.
They sat, in poses that verged on the histrionic, at opposite ends of the drawing room, the largest room in the house. Olivia had dressed as stylishly as ever, but the ruffles, buckles and fringed suede skirt of her current cowgirl ensemble had a bedraggled air and she herself, sunken-chested and haggard, looked as if she had woken from a nightmare.
‘You two look like a Hogarth cartoon.’ When Bianca greeted them her mother reacted with so little energy that compassion for the woman drained by shame and defeat almost threw her off her course.
‘After Mariage à la Mode, Divorce à la Carte, perhaps?’ Hugh, smiling briefly at his own wit, did not seem moved to defend his wife. There was a sense of estrangement between them, but not of coldness.
‘This will be a difficult time for us, all of us as a family.’ Bianca assumed a high, formal voice and instinctively moved to stand in the centre of the room with her back to the fireplace. ‘First of all, I want you both to know that I don’t blame anyone except Lovat. Naturally, I do feel …’ She paused, searching for the right word, aware that she had them both at her own advantage at last. ‘I feel hurt, not by what happened, but by your silence all these years. But the responsibility for telling me was Lovat’s from the beginning and I feel that he is the one who has betrayed me.’ Again she stopped to gather her thoughts, testing her power. If I can shoot down their protests before they open their mouths, she told herself, then I’ll have won, the air will be clear and they won’t stand in my way again. Her father, to her surprise, did not interrupt.
‘I’m sure things would have been different if we hadn’t got married so quickly, while you were away. At the time, I suppose, it was my way of rebelling, claiming my independence.’ Now her father was nodding, a degree of relief showing in his pale face. ‘Everything I said last night, I meant. I can’t live with Lovat any more and I want a divorce, as quickly as possible. I will come up to London on Monday and see a solicitor. But for the rest of today, I think I’d be more comfortable on my own with Charlotte and the boys.’
‘I think that’s – that’s a very understandable request,’ Hugh broke in quickly. ‘And I’m glad that you’ve taken the initiative in making this – this very lucid summary of your position …’ He was talking like a teacher commenting on her homework, but she forced herself not to get angry. ‘I think we all need to cool off and consider our next actions.’ Could he be ready for a change too, Bianca wondered. He had accepted his wife’s tasteless infidelity for so long, and with so much dignity in spite of his vitriolic tongue, that she had lost sight of the fact that her father had ample grounds for divorce.
Olivia cleared her throat and her hand, loaded with silver rings, moved to disguise the lined skin of her neck in a habitual gesture. ‘Bianca, darling, I do want to make one thing clear to you …’
Rage flared briefly, but she controlled it. ‘I can’t discuss anything now. I think I understand as much as I need to at the moment.’
‘Let’s make a move.’ It sounded very much like an order, and Hugh crossed the room and took his wife gently by the elbow to enforce it. She rose unsteadily and allowed him to lead her to the door.
The church party, wearied and red-faced from walking up the hill in the full heat of the summer day, returned in time to wave off the Mercedes in which Olivia sat as stiff as a doll. Hugh delayed to take leave of his mother, and to squeeze Bianca’s arm firmly, telling her, ‘You’ve behaved admirably over this, my dear. Dignified, generous, self-possessed, everything a woman should be. And for your mother’s sake I think it was wise not to indulge in recriminations. I was proud of you, I want to tell you that.’ To her own annoyance, she smiled at him in gratitude. It was the first time he had ever praised her. ‘You’re not to worry about the future, especially the next few months. Try to relax now and enjoy the new baby, I know you will do that. We’ll be on your side. Whatever’s gone on in the past, this is an opportunity to begin again.’
Bianca watched him walk to the car and drive away, reluctantly feeling a twinge of sympathy.
‘Well, dear, you’re clearing the house out with a vengeance. Who’s next? Do you want to get us out of your hair as well?’ In the hall, cool and dim after the sun outside, her grandmother looked brightly up at her from the low window seat where she sat to change her shoes. For church she wore a dress, a slightly bizarre assembly of brown silk ruffles with a peplum which only emphasized her gamine angularity. ‘I mean it, I’ll take the boys off your hands for the afternoon if you want to be alone. Kolya needs a nap after lunch so you won’t be disturbed.’ She had left the two Russians sitting outside in the shade of the young wisteria leaves, cautiously sipping tall glasses of Pimm’s.
‘I want the boys around.’ There was not a shadow of remorse in her grandmother’s manner and Bianca, still hungry for revenge, searched the bland face for signs of emotion.
‘Don’t look at me like that – I tried to tell you but you flew into a temper.’ She stood up and twitched the unaccustomed dress at the back of her neck, hoping that the unruly frills of fabric would arrange themselves properly. ‘Don’t you remember?’
‘No.’ How annoying to have her thoughts read and refuted immediately. ‘You can’t have tried very hard.’
‘There was no point, you wouldn’t listen. You were madly in love with him, anyone could see that.’
Bianca was suddenly so interested in an eyewitness account of the condition in which she had given herself to Lovat that her annoyance seemed to evaporate. ‘Was I really, Charlotte? I can’t remember.’
‘You used to light up and glow even when you talked about him, and when he was there in the room with you well, it was difficult to be in a small space with the two of you, I certainly remember that.’ Her papery complexion suddenly showed blotches of red. All her life when she had seen people ruin themselves for passion she had been grateful for her own cool temperament; it disturbed her even to talk of violent feelings. ‘It was like something magnetic between you, just drawing you together.’
‘I can’t imagine it.’ What she felt now was a powerful force repelling her from Lovat.
‘You’re in love with him now, if only you knew it. It’s just that there’s too much going on in your lives.’ Before she could contradict her grandmother, Benedict ran into the hall with a football rattle, and in the effort of swinging it tripped over a rug, fell, picked himself up, yelled ‘Lunch is ready!’ and then, finding that he had banged his elbow painfully, began to bawl. The thread of conversation was lost in the confusion of comforting him.
At lunch three adults, three c
hildren and two elderly people sat down with appetites honed by events to a meal planned for twice their number and consumed a remarkable quantity of it. Bianca had intended to dispatch Kusminsky and his companion next, but time had raced away and Charlotte so obviously enjoyed their company that she relented. The Russians retreated tactfully behind their bad English.
Afterwards the company dispersed; it always gratified Bianca to see people lured by the mystery of her garden to wander from one enclave to the next and finally settle wherever matched their mood. Kolya and his young man strolled away to the orchard, the boys and Hermione drifted towards the swimming pool and Bianca joined her grandmother on the sun-loungers by the water garden, where the large dragonflies darting under the giant leaves of the gunnera made the whole world seem momentarily over-sized.
The breeze had died away and the heat, trapped by the close-clipped yews behind them, was so intense that after a few minutes they moved to the shade.
‘I do wish I could doze off.’ Charlotte, who hated to have idle hands, emptied a tangle of petit point wools from a basket and began to pick it apart. ‘At my age I really ought to be able to go off for a little sleep in the afternoon like everyone else, but here I am, wide awake. It’s not fair, is it?’
‘When Hugh and Olivia were married …’ Bianca was still anxious to drain her grandmother’s memory. ‘Were they like Lovat and me?’
‘Oh no. Hugh’s like his father, not a cold man, exactly, because he feels deeply, he really does, but reserved. That’s the word. And terribly proud, terribly. It’s the death of him, that pride. And of course, Olivia was very beautiful when she was young. Oh! The delusion that beauty is goodness – men do suffer for it, your father certainly did.’
‘You never liked her, did you?’
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