‘Hello, my darling,’ he said. ‘How wonderful to have you at the studio. Come into the warmth.’ And he kissed her.
‘The warmth,’ Mary said, leaning into him. ‘I am mostly ice. Feel.’ Dalbeattie took her hand in his, and shook his head gravely. He led her upstairs.
Dalbeattie’s studio in Barons Court looked out over the busy Cromwell Road. The top floor was a vast room flooded with light through a large curved and leaded window. He had had the place for years; once, long ago, he and Ned had worked there together.
It was cosy, a fire burning in the grate and the smell of his cigars hanging in the air; a draughtsman’s board by the window, and two chairs beside the fire. Dalbeattie sat her down carefully on one of them, chafing her hands all the time, and scolding her. ‘What am I to do about you if you go out without a muffler or gloves, Miss Dysart?’ He set about making her some tea; a kettle, hanging over the fire in the huge hearth, was put on at once to boil.
Her velvet cap, which had been next to a wet umbrella and thus damp when she left his house that morning, had actually frozen in the hour she had spent waiting beside the Albert Memorial and then in the subsequent walk to Barons Court. She removed it and it began to melt in the warm room, moisture dripping on to the floor.
She watched him, thawing herself, her chin in her hands, unable to stop herself smiling despite the day. The sight of him was so very comforting. His long arms reached fluidly around the room, gathering this, putting down that. He was efficient, capacious, eccentric, brilliant. He filled every room with his warmth; you were always waiting for him to come back in when he left.
I love him so much, she thought simply. That is all there is to it.
Blinking, Mary stood up, to look at the drawings on Dalbeattie’s board.
‘What are these, my darling? More sketches for the Canada competition?’
‘No . . .’ He hesitated. ‘It’s a house.’
She turned, surprised. ‘I thought there was still very little interest in houses.’
‘Well . . . you see. My lovely Mary.’ He came towards her, with a plate of sardines, and toast. ‘It is a house for us. To live in.’
Dalbeattie set down the food and, standing behind her, wrapped his arms around her. She could feel his voice reverberating against her as, with one hand, he gestured to the drawings. ‘Here’s the front door. Right in the middle. Yes, rather revolutionary of me, I know. Off to one side, that’s the drawing room. The other side, there’s the dining room and the kitchen’s behind it. Now upstairs, there are three bedrooms.’
‘Three?’
‘For whoever needs them! We shall have everyone to stay. All our friends shall come. And, look, there is a skylight here, with milky glass which lets in light all year round. And down there is a chute, so all the laundry disappears into the room at the bottom of the house and you and I will never be troubled with untidiness.’
Mary gave a great laugh, for order and precision, except on the draughtman’s board, were not Dalbeattie’s strongest suits. ‘That is a masterly idea. You are . . .’ She nestled against him, inhaling his lovely, warm, spiced smell. ‘You are very clever, Dalbeattie.’
His warm lips kissed her neck, his arms held her tight to him. ‘There’s a seat by the fireplace, next to it, for you to sit in when it’s cold as today. So you are always warm. There’s a little garden at the back and at the front, I think it’s so pleasant to have something at the front. And there will be an apple tree, for my Mary to put a swing in, and lie under its branches on hot days.’
Gently, she touched the plans. ‘When will you build it?’
‘Well, alas, not soon. My lovely girl, look at me.’ He pulled away from her, and turned her so they were facing, then he shuffled towards the fire. ‘There. I have to tell you that I found out today they have taken me on for the Canadian parliament commission.’ His face split into a smile. ‘I can’t say anything, but to you I must of course. They want me to come over as soon as I can – you will come too, of course. We will make it all right—’
‘Oh, darling. At last. I’m so very happy for you.’ She stood on tiptoe, head spinning, to kiss him, and felt the hardness of her stomach, pressing against his waistband. Soon he would notice. Wouldn’t he? Didn’t he ever wonder how she dealt with such matters?
‘The Canadian fellow who’s appointed to lead the competition is awfully nice. They all seem awfully nice. Perhaps we should – I think we could consider starting again over there. You and I – I could build that house . . .’
‘What of your wife, my love? If they were to discover that – we’d be going into it with a lie,’ she said. She wanted to sit down, suddenly. But, with ice-cold clarity, she saw now that their days together were numbered and she clung to him.
‘We’ll make it all right,’ he said, looking at her rather strangely. He moved away from her, and took a sardine, wiping his fingers carefully on a napkin. He offered her one; she shook her head, suddenly dizzy with nausea, but smiled through it. He mustn’t know now. Not now. Her plans must be in place. ‘They – I won’t mention it to them, but if you were to come with me and say you were my wife . . .’
‘But if they discovered that were not the case, which, my darling, they easily would? And her father is already angry enough with you, for staying away so long, even though it is at her bidding . . . It would come out, and we have never dealt in subterfuge. We have lived quietly, but never lied.’ She smiled, to hide the rising panic she felt. ‘My darling.’ She stared at him, their dark eyes locked into each other. ‘You must go. Do you understand?’
‘But I want you to come—’
‘Yes, and I will join you, later.’
He was silent for some time. ‘Perhaps you are right. I – I cannot betray Rose, more than she has been betrayed.’ He gave a deep, sad sigh. ‘I’ll leave you money—’
‘Thank you. I will be with you, darling. You see, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he said, nodding, and the relief on his face was palpable, and Mary understood then that he had realised she couldn’t go, but hadn’t known how to say it. She knew him: his only weakness was wanting to please all the time. He had always been so; kindness leaked out of him. ‘Now, my love. I will make you some tea, and we shall sit and be warm, and then I shall convey you back to our den of sin in fashionable Bloomsbury, will that suit you?’
‘It will.’
Having handed her a cup of tea, Dalbeattie stuck some bread on to a toasting fork and plunged it into the fire. Mary stared at it, wiggling her toes, almost warm again. The enormity of all the decisions to be made closed in on her then seemed to bounce off her, as if they were so great they couldn’t stick to her, but must move away, like clouds. She shook her head, blinking. What am I to do?
With a great start Dalbeattie dropped the fork. ‘My love, I haven’t asked you how it was today. How selfish I am!’
Mary had to drag herself back to the present moment. ‘What’s that?’
‘Did you see Liddy?’ He smote himself on the forehead. ‘Your meeting – how could I have forgotten to ask you! How was she?’
Mary wrapped her hands around the warm teacup. She smiled up at him, swiftly. ‘She didn’t come. It’s of no matter. I was certain she wouldn’t.’
‘Oh – my love. I’m sorry . . .’
‘Let’s talk of other things.’ She sipped the tea. ‘Of what you know of Canada, and your plans.’
‘In a moment. But will you write to your sister again?’ His kind, dear face stared at her. How many more hours were left to them? How many more moments like this?
And so it begins, Mary thought. Now, now I must pay for my sins, and for dreaming of happiness.
‘I miss her most dreadfully, every day,’ she said, staring at the black kettle, swinging on its hook from the heat of the fire. ‘But I don’t think we are sisters any more.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
The telegram was waiting for Liddy when she finally returned to the Galvestons’ that evening. She
had been out all day with Laura Galveston, hours of walking through Knightsbridge, looking at cloth for curtains in Harrods, stuff for the chairs, visiting a silk emporium off Piccadilly, and they had taken tea at Fortnum’s. Ned had left at lunchtime, with the picture, and as midday came and went Liddy was glad of the company of the garrulous older woman, who asked no questions of her guest and ignored Liddy’s red eyes, shaking hands and distracted manner.
Several times Liddy almost said, ‘I have remembered a prior engagement. Would you excuse me?’ She could right this wrong – as she sat there with Mrs Galveston, refusing tiny delicate pastries pressed upon her at frequent intervals, she began to see she had made a mistake. She could, still, meet Mary. They were in Piccadilly; she was so near the Albert Memorial. She could almost run there now. She could see her sister . . . hold her, kiss her . . . look into Mary’s sweet, dark eyes, hold the hand that had soothed her all those years . . .
And yet, of course, she didn’t.
The telegram lay on a bowl in the marble hallway. Liddy, divested of her cloak, caught sight of it, and found herself feeling faint. ‘Oh, dear God.’
She snatched it up, fingers trembling, scanning the spidery pencilmarks. Not ‘Regret to inform you’. Please, please, anything but –
‘What does it say, my dear?’ Mrs Galveston whispered.
John here unexpectedly home on leave stop must return Friday stop come back as soon as you can Horner
Galveston had taken their new motor car to visit a client. Laura Galveston said, vaguely, that she was sure she could try and find someone who could drive Liddy back . . . ‘But, dear, it’s rather late, they’ll think it all rather . . . odd. Oh, this is the end, we must have a telephone installed, I swear we’re the last people to have one. My dear, I’m so sorry, what else can I do to help?’
She wouldn’t help her, Liddy knew it. These people weren’t her friends, they had profited from Ned his entire life, but now, when help was needed, did nothing.
There were no more trains that night, so she caught the first one the following morning, not reaching home until well after lunchtime. Old Darling picked her up in the car from the station. She had not slept, nor eaten, and as Liddy slammed the car door shut, fingers frantically fussing with her bun, she said urgently:
‘How is he, Darling? How does he seem? Oh, do hurry, please do.’
‘He’s different, ma’am,’ is all Darling would say.
The torture of the slow lanes, of the car stalling and having to be restarted, of Darling jumping on to the running board, of the freezing ice that meant they had to travel slowly – all her life, all of it, Liddy would remember the agony of the journey, of being utterly powerless.
At last, just after two, they turned into the driveway. A Daimler, with chauffeur, stood in front of the house. Liddy leaped out, barely noticing it as she rushed to the front door.
‘Where is he?’ she called, wildly, hammering to be let in. ‘Where’s John? Darling – John boy, where are you?’
The front door opened. John stood there, smiling at her. She flung herself into his arms. He hugged her, stiffly.
He was very thin, and smelled of tobacco, and strong disinfectant soap, and something else – a metallic smell, earthy, outdoors. The shoulder straps and hard brass buttons of his uniform chafed her cheek and shoulder as she held him tight, muttering his name.
‘John, John. My darling boy . . . John . . . darling . . . I’m so sorry – Why on earth didn’t you tell us? But you didn’t have any notice, I expect? When did you get here?’
‘Two days ago, but I needed to sleep. I wasn’t – I couldn’t – I needed to sleep.’ He gripped her shoulders and she looked at him again, properly. His eyes seemed to stare past her, not at her.
Liddy caught his hands, panicking at the blankness in his eyes.
‘You’re thin, and you’ve grown a moustache – it’s very handsome, Johnny. But why—’ She fingered the brass buttons on his army coat. ‘Why are you dressed like that?’
‘I’ve to leave, now,’ he said. ‘There’s a mistake.’ He gestured at the waiting car. ‘Major Coote very kindly agreed to take me back with him. We ship out again tomorrow.’
She had the feeling she had dreamed this but now it was like a nightmare, playing out in real time. She turned, an ache in her neck, and saw a figure inside: little Alfred Coote, Alfred Coote who had played with John, tormented him rather, when they were boys. He was a man now, wearing a captain’s peaked hat, winged stripes on his shoulders, moustache covering his lip. He touched his brim, formally.
‘Good afternoon, Lady Horner,’ he said, over the juddering engine’s noise.
‘But can’t you go back tomorrow . . .?’ she asked, and as she did the words died on her lips. There was no point.
‘Come inside with me,’ she said, tugging on his arm. ‘Just for a moment.’
He nodded at the car, and turned back, inside the house.
‘Where’s Dad?’ she said, as she led him into the sitting room. A roaring fire leaped in the grate; the old sofas, worn and comfortable, the books so dear. She felt she had been away for months, not days, that she was seeing the old house through John’s eyes. The agony of his departure hit her again.
‘We have said our goodbyes. He’s working.’
He was shivering. She looked at him, not knowing where to start. ‘John, darling, are you well? Do you have enough – enough to eat?’
Again, the thousand-yard stare, behind her, into nothing. She pulled him down, on to the sofa. He rested his head on her breast, and inhaled deeply; she stroked the scratchy wool of his uniform, then his hair. It was shorter than it had ever been, and uneven; shorn by some unknown hand. His hands were different too: the fingers bursting over the nails, tiny rectangles bitten to the quick. Two of them were missing. She stroked one finger; he pulled the hand away.
‘Flung about a bit during a shell.’
She pressed his head tightly to her, hearing his breathing. ‘Oh, my dear. Is it – is it very bad? Please tell me. Tell me the truth, dearest.’
John leaned back, his kind eyes searching her face. ‘I won’t, Mama, if you don’t mind, very much.’ He buried his head against her shoulder again, as the fire crackled. ‘I can’t really bear to talk about it. I don’t want you to know how awful it is, to have it in your mind, too. Honestly. Some chaps rather like it. I’m afraid I’m not one of them. Let me just enjoy this, this last moment, will you? Talk to me about something. About something lovely.’
‘Something lovely.’
‘Yes, Mama. When we were happy, here. Tell me something.’
A silence fell in the room, apart from the fire, and the sound of the engine outside, throbbing ominously. Liddy swallowed, and then told him again, for the final time, the story of the The Garden of Lost and Found, and how they were painted by Ned that summer’s day.
And what did Eliza do?
She tore off the wings and threw them away.
And what did I do?
You were so hungry you ate leaves and were sick. And in the end I had to tell your father you were both rebelling. And you were allowed to pick what you wanted, and you both had Welsh rarebit for tea. And honey in your milk.
When she looked up she could see the garden out of the large old windows, the sloping land, the bare branches of the Wilderness hung with the first frost and the fading autumn light, deep gold and silver. After a while she finished the story, and was silent, and nothing else was said. They clung to each other and Liddy knew then. There was a sense of calm acceptance and of destiny, and perfect understanding between her and her son. There always had been.
John stood up. ‘This is bloody,’ he said, and he picked up his kit bag and coat, and slung it over his shoulder. ‘Goodbye, darling.’ He paused in the doorway, beside the coat hooks, and put one hand on the front door. She watched him, for the final time; his handsome kind face – he was still a boy. He should not be going.
‘My lovely one.’ Liddy got to her feet.
‘Please – please take care of yourself. Come back to me.’
He winced, and shook his head.
‘I have already gone, Mama,’ he said, in a toneless voice. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
And he closed the door behind him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Here are a few first aid remedies for one’s children, Juliet. These herbs all grow in the little kitchen garden.
Mint leaves can be rubbed on the tongue for an ulcer and to heal aches and pains and bruises.
Dock leaves can be picked and applied to nettle stings, they grow nearby, their roots are red. You know this! The roots, when boiled in vinegar, help rashes and itches from coming.
Use thyme in hot water for an upset stomach.
March 2015
What things you must see as the barista on the night shift at the Costa Coffee shop in Walbrook district hospital. Juliet watched the woman taking her order. She herself couldn’t stop shivering, she was filthy, bedraggled. Her trousers had caught on a twig on the fig tree as she’d run up to the house and were torn up to the knee, and she had tripped over into the mud, scraping her arm, tattooing it with little dots of embedded gravel that would not come out. She thought the woman must surely comment, make polite conversation. ‘I hope you’re OK.’ But she barely made eye contact, just took the order with a nod then turned to make the coffee.
It was 5 a.m. Juliet wished she’d found the coffee shop earlier. It hadn’t occurred to her that they’d have them in hospitals. How lucky she had been, all these years, to avoid hospitals, apart from the in-and-out births of her children and the occasional trip to A&E because of a viral infection or a cut: all seemed so silly, such overreactions now. How damn lucky she had been all her life. She saw it now. But here were all these people, with stories like hers, some disaster befalling them. Broken-down old women, bent backs, collapsed faces, heavily lined and blank. Normal-looking men: were they husbands? Sons? Fiddling on their phones as they waited. And the doctors and nurses, trying to pretend this was any other coffee queue in any normal coffee shop, like the Pret on Piccadilly where Juliet used to get her morning coffee, where the Italian barista sang to you and the whole place was thrumming, a stage, alive with the beginning of another London day. Here, you were queuing because something catastrophic had happened. An illness, growing, spreading inside you, whatever form. Or a swift brushstroke, a moment, one that could so easily have been avoided.
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