by Rachel Hore
He bowed his head and shuffled his feet on the piano pedals, his arms folded. To give him credit, he looked chastened. ‘I don’t know. It was a sort of joke, I suppose.’ He glanced up, met my eyes. ‘I was furious about the wretched window at the time, and they looked so silly, mocking, those painted eyes, in the pile of broken glass. I just picked them up and…took them. Fran, I’m so, so sorry.’
‘Ben,’ I said, trying to find the right words, ‘you shouldn’t have taken them, not even as a joke.’
‘I know, I know. I didn’t mean to keep them, but then…well, I forgot where I had put the wretched things. I searched everywhere. Where did you find them?’
‘In the bathroom cabinet.’
‘I can’t think why I put them there,’ he said briskly. ‘Stupid, really.’
‘You should have told me you’d got them,’ I said, and I could hear the whine in my voice. ‘Oh, never mind.’ I tried to be relieved that it was a joke, rather than a deliberate felonious act. But I couldn’t be. It was so casual of him.
He got up, gently lowered the lid of the piano and came around behind me, massaging my shoulders, burying his face in my hair, whispering that he was sorry. Despite still being upset I couldn’t stop myself tilting into him.
‘It was just a silly prank, darling, really,’ he said.
It was the first time he’d ever called me darling. Come to think of it, there had been no word of endearment between the two of us before. And now ‘darling’. But perhaps it was too late.
I couldn’t stay with Ben that night; pretend that everything was normal. Walking back across the Square, I tried to work out what I’d tell Zac about the theft.
In the end I told him the truth. ‘I think it was just a silly joke,’ I said, still wanting to defend Ben.
‘Very funny,’ said Zac gravely, turning the battered fragments in his palm. He wouldn’t look at me, but moved away to lay the pieces in their rightful place. I understood that in some way he blamed me. And I accepted that blame.
It took a chance meeting with Michael two days after the dinner-party to make me finally see sense.
I had left Amber in charge of the shop and walked up to St James’s Park for a change of scene. It was one of those cold clear days when you sense autumn segueing into winter, and I pulled my coat tightly around me as I loitered watching Japanese tourists photograph ducks skid-landing on the lake.
A man was sitting on a bench nearby. Leaning forward, bent over his paper as he ate a sandwich, I didn’t recognise him immediately. As he turned a page he looked up.
‘Fran.’ He folded his paper and rose politely, brushing the crumbs from his coat.
‘Hello, Michael. No power lunch with some Ambassador today?’
He laughed. ‘You’ve a somewhat over-glamorised view of what I do all day. I assure you, I’m just a paper-pusher.’
Despite the bright sunlight, the sadness of the other night still hung about him. He looked tired and ashen-faced, and I felt sorry for him.
‘Do you have time for a coffee?’ I asked.
‘That would be nice.’ We made our way over to the park café and sat at a table by the lake, warming our hands on our mugs. I asked him about his work and he talked for a while about government briefs and possible trips abroad, but then, inevitably, we moved on to Ben.
‘I’m sorry about the other night,’ he said, dabbing his upper lip with a handkerchief as white and crisp as his shirt. ‘You might have gathered that Nina and I were having a misunderstanding.’
‘Oh?’ I said. There was something about Michael, the way he pussyfooted around emotional issues, that reminded me of Dad.
‘Yes,’ he said, looking down at his handkerchief with an expression of bemusement. Then slowly he put it in his pocket. ‘I’m very fond of Nina. I told you, I think.’
‘I can see it,’ I said softly.
‘Oh.’ He smiled sheepishly. ‘Is it that obvious?’
‘It is.’
‘I thought…that she liked me, too.’
‘But she still prefers Ben.’
‘Yes,’ he said, his face almost crumpling.
‘And he…likes me.’
‘Quite. You know, perhaps I shouldn’t be saying this to you, but he’s always had this thing with women. This knack.’ He gave a dry little laugh.
‘I think I know what you mean.’ And now I felt so cold, I couldn’t sit there any longer. ‘Shall we walk?’
‘I’m sorry, I’ve offended you,’ Michael said, getting up too.
‘No, no, really, you haven’t.’ Part of me knew I shouldn’t listen to what he was going to say, that at some level I was betraying Ben. I should let him tell me about himself, not hear it from Michael. But I couldn’t stop myself.
‘He’s a golden boy, Ben is. Always has been. But you need to see, Fran, that he uses people.’
I was shocked to hear him say this. ‘I thought you were his friend,’ I said angrily.
‘I am. I’ve always been there for him, and I always will be. I’ve helped him out many times. You know, I used to lie for him at school, when he wanted to get out of Games or needed an alibi. Once, in the Sixth Form, he went to an Oxford college ball with a girl he’d met. Sneaked out of school overnight without permission. He made me cover for him. That sort of thing.’
‘Why did you do it?’
‘I was fond of him. He was a kind of wayward little brother–he’s always seemed younger than me, though actually, he’s three months older. And I was very fond of his parents and sister; they made me feel so welcome when I missed my own family so much.’
‘But surely if you felt you were an older brother you’d have acted more responsibly. Stopped him from doing these things.’ It sounded to me as if Michael, by allowing Ben to behave badly, had contributed to the problem.
Michael sighed. ‘Maybe I should. But part of me felt sorry for him. Ben was always outstanding at music, and never very interested in other subjects, especially sport. And it being a school obsessed with rugby and cricket he had a hard time of it from some of the boys. Sometimes there was violence. That’s why we became friends in the first place.’
‘You were bullied, too?’
‘Not for long–I learned how to deal with it. I was good academically, so I adopted the role of class nerd and helped other boys with their prep. We were unusually sensitive teenagers, Ben and I. But when he was upset, he came across as arrogant, which put people’s backs up.’
It still sounded such an unlikely friendship, but then Michael explained. ‘We kept getting thrown together. We were both in Magdalen House and shared a room in the Lower Fifth. Our parents met on Sports Day that year–mine were in England that summer–and I was invited over to Ben’s for the first time. It was the start of it all.’
At last I was beginning to understand this friendship. Ben hadn’t chosen it. It had happened to him. And yet they did seem close–like brothers who irritate one another but have stuck together anyway, though it was old experiences in this case, rather than shared blood, that bound them.
Then Michael said something that shook me. ‘I’m not sure he’d be happy that I told you, but sometimes I didn’t believe his stories that other boys had hurt him.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, shocked.
‘There were cuts on his thighs, Fran. You’re not telling me someone else did that?’
‘Oh,’ I said, trying to assimilate this. ‘How dreadful. Poor Ben.’ We were silent for a while.
‘What happened after you left school?’ I asked, imagining them drifting apart at university.
‘We both came to London, so we saw each other often. I went to University College to read English, and Ben won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music.’
‘Where I went,’ I told him. ‘Though I never knew him there.’ He’d have been a couple of years ahead.
‘Ben always worked damned hard at his music, but he also got discouraged easily and then we–his family and I–had to try to buck him up.�
� I nodded in recognition.
‘Ben has this fear of failure, that people will laugh at him or pity him, you see, so sometimes he gives up and finds someone else to blame,’ Michael told me. ‘It’s as though he’s protecting some unhealed wound deep inside. When things get bad he doesn’t see them through. Yet when things are going well, he’s ecstatic; it brings out the best in him.’
I thought of him conducting, his obvious drive and talent, then of the way he had spiralled down into misery after the committee meeting about the future of the choir. ‘I think I understand what you mean,’ I told Michael.
‘I suppose that’s it in a nutshell,’ he said, considering. ‘He yearns for the fruits of success, for adulation, but there’s some faltering in self-confidence that stops him going for it. And, well, he manipulates other people to get what he wants. I don’t think he means to, but he does. Then, of course, it all goes wrong. It was like that with Bea.’
‘Bea. You mentioned her the other night. Who is she?’
‘Beatrix Claybourne.’
I remembered the elegant handwritten name on Ben’s sheet music, the framed poster on the landing upstairs.
‘Has he told you about her?’ Michael went on. ‘She’s a pianist too, a brilliant one. He went out with her at college; there was talk of them getting engaged. But it soon became apparent that she was outshining him. Everything went right for her–she won the awards, was sought by the best teachers. And in the end she couldn’t stand his jealous rages. They broke up.’
I stared at him, not wanting to believe him, but remembering something Ben had said about Nina’s brilliance. His eyes had shone with ambition.
‘You said he used people,’ I whispered. Ben might not admit this to himself, but it was obvious he hoped to win personal success as Nina’s musical partner.
‘Yes,’ Michael said softly.
‘You introduced Nina to him, didn’t you?’
He nodded miserably.
‘I met her at a concert a year ago and we started seeing each another. I was so happy–but then she met Ben. Her teacher’s an acquaintance of Ben’s, agreed with me that they’d be good together. Of course, professionally they are. But I should have considered the possibility of her falling in love with him. There’s something fatally attractive about him. You know that, Fran.’
We had stopped now, sat on a bench to watch a boy throw a stick for his dog.
‘But Michael,’ I said, ‘if Ben’s not interested in her that way, maybe she’ll come to accept it. Things can’t go on like this for ever. Maybe she’ll come back to you.’
The boy had thrown himself on the grass, fed up with the stick game. The dog barked for more, but he took no notice.
When he looked at me this time, Michael’s expression was bitter. ‘What is it?’ I asked, uneasily, but I read it in his face. He opened his mouth, but could say nothing.
‘Michael.’
‘I have to get back now, Fran. I have a meeting.’ He stood up, said goodbye, and started to stride off across the grass towards St James’s Palace.
I watched him go. There was no point chasing him, or begging him to tell me. I had discerned what it was he needed me to know.
‘It was sometime last week. I’ve forgotten when. I only kissed her,’ Ben said, staring at the floor. ‘Nothing more. We didn’t…go to bed or anything. I wouldn’t do that to you, Fran.’
But he’d treated Nina carelessly. He’d led her on when she was besotted with him; working with him so intimately, her desire was at fever pitch. It was wrong of him. How could he be so casual to anyone? And why had it taken me so long to realise?
I squeezed my eyes closed in an effort to clear my mind. When I opened them again, there he was, lounging sulkily, mutinous. And suddenly I couldn’t be bothered with him any more. I was free.
‘Ben,’ I said heavily. ‘You’ve simply no idea, have you?’
I opened the front door and walked out, pulling it shut behind me with what I hope sounded like a final bang.
I was miserable for days, half-hoping Ben would ring and beg me to come back, determined that I wouldn’t if he did. He didn’t ring, which cast me into deeper gloom. Working in the shop I’d find tears welling, and if I were alone I’d let them run down my cheeks unchecked. I was still angry with Ben and furious with myself for having got mixed up with someone like him again, after all my promises to myself. Yet all the time, the memories would catch me unawares. Ben conducting, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, beautiful, intense, determined. Or playing the piano, eyes closed, lost in the world of the music. I dreamed of his long, slow kisses and my body cried out for his. Although I’d known him for such a short time, I’d allowed myself to get in too deep, too quickly.
It was hard living so close. Several times I caught myself staring across the Square, searching for a glimpse of him. Once, a week after our quarrel, I saw him let himself out of his flat, the long golden scarf round his neck flapping in the wind. He glanced over in my direction, but didn’t notice me watching from behind the curtain in the living room. He walked off quickly in the direction of the church. I hadn’t been able to face going to choir. Did he miss me? Indeed, did he give me any thought at all? I dropped the curtain and turned away.
I had better things to worry about, I told Jo, when I went round to confide in her. She, nursing her own broken heart, understood more than anyone how I felt. The most important of my worries was my father.
I visited Dad several times a week now. Zac often came with me and we’d sit at either side of the bed and converse, addressing comments to Dad as though he were listening, but of this we couldn’t be at all sure.
Zac never said a word to me about Ben, but it must have been obvious I was no longer seeing him. He was particularly gentle, and sometimes in the shop I would glance up from whatever work I was doing to find him looking at me, a thoughtful expression on his face.
He’d been working on Raphael for weeks now, giving the window every spare moment. Amber and I helped where we could, but we didn’t have Zac’s expertise. He was at the painting stage now, which involved great delicacy, tracing the main drawing lines on the new pieces of glass and retouching some of the old in paint made with iron oxide and powdered glass.
‘The gold colour of the hair was made by painting the glass with silver nitrate and firing it,’ he told Amber one morning, making a note in The Angel Book. ‘But first you had to paint the lines of hair and feathers straight onto the glass and fire that.’ He wouldn’t be able to refire the original glass, he added, in case future generations needed to alter what he had painted.
Because the eyes were missing he had been unwilling to do much work to the face, but now he was able to work on its reconstruction, filling in the gaps with a tinted resin. On Russell’s vidimus and cartoon the features had seemed regular, but bland. There had been no life in the face. Finally Zac had the chance to make his mark.
One day near the end of October, the two of us found ourselves alone in the workshop. Zac was telling me about a customer who’d come in that morning when I was out, wanting a crystal wand. ‘You wouldn’t believe it,’ he said. ‘It was for some weird magical ritual and I didn’t feel comfortable about it, so I quoted him five thousand pounds and luckily he went away.’
I laughed at Zac’s ruse and it seemed it was the first time I’d laughed easily for ages. Perhaps at last I was starting to forget Ben. I smiled in relief at the thought and Zac looked at me intently.
‘Stay exactly as you are,’ he said. With a few quick lines he drew something on a piece of paper.
He showed me what he’d sketched. ‘That’s how you think I look?’ I asked. I wasn’t displeased, as he’d made me far prettier than the mirror ever told me, but still, I didn’t think it was me.
The next day, when Amber studied the sketch, she cried, ‘The angel looks a bit like you, Fran.’
‘No, it doesn’t. It could be anyone,’ I said, somewhat grumpily. ‘Anyway, you’re not supposed to change Philip Russ
ell’s version, Zac.’ I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be immortalised as an angel. It was too much to live up to.
‘The original sketch definitely has a look of you,’ said Zac, quite seriously. ‘It’s the fullness of the mouth Russell painted. And there’s something about the eyes, too. You to a T.’
‘Whoever heard of an angel called Fran?’ I said.
‘I read about one called Eric,’ said Amber solemnly. ‘A girl kept reading the name Eric around the place and her spiritual guide told her that must be what her angel was called.’
Even Amber joined in our laughter.
‘It’s finished,’ Zac said quietly a few days later. Amber and I rushed over to look. I couldn’t believe how beautifully he’d reconstructed the face. It had been a complicated process that involved creating a moulded clear glass backing plate to hold it, the original pieces painted and seamlessly stuck together with special glue. Then he had slotted the whole window into a bronze frame.
Now, using a board, we helped him transfer the heavy window onto the light table. Zac flicked on the switch and Raphael shone in all his golden glory.
Amber yelped with delight.
From the tips of his gold wings, folded to a point above his head, to his sandalled feet amidst grass and flowers, he was perfect; a tall, long-limbed figure clad in gold and white, flowing blond locks framing his calm, slightly smiling face. One hand was raised in blessing and, right at the bottom, the inscription God heals stood out as clearly from the window’s ruby border as it must first have done a hundred years ago. The crack was hardly noticeable.
‘Well?’
I broke from my reverie. Zac smiled at me, waiting.
‘He’s amazing. I can’t believe it’s not the original.’
‘It is, mostly. And anyone who needs to strip it down again in the future for any reason can.’
I picked up The Angel Book from a nearby worktop and flicked through the pages. Zac had meticulously noted every detail of every step of his reconstruction, including drawings and photographs, descriptions of new glass and lead, of the composition of paints and resins he’d used. The whole thing had taken him five weeks.