by Angela Huth
‘Do you remember?’ Gaily I said it.
‘For God’s sake don’t start remembering.’ He rubbed the towel viciously over his face, then his hair.
‘In fact, when I’ve gone, don’t remember anything except that you once met a man called Joshua Heron, and by some measure of chance you and he were happy for a while. Will you do that for me, Face?’
‘I will.’
‘Good.’ He opened the door so that the cold air from our bedroom blew upon us. He brushed his teeth, rinsed out the basin, turned out the light, got into bed and stretched out a hand for his schoolboy clock. With some difficulty, he set the alarm.
*
The next morning two members of the film crew picked him up early in a hired car. He didn’t want me to go with them to the airport. He kissed me quickly and left in a rush. When he had gone, I searched the flat. For once, it seemed, he had remembered everything.
Chapter Fourteen
First, I opened the windows. The house smelt of polished furniture that has not been aired. Unlived-in. The woman who came twice a week had covered the sofa and armchairs in the sitting-room with dust sheets. She had arranged two piles of letters, one Jonathan’s, one mine, on the desk. She had left me a note on the kitchen table. I have taken the liberty of throwing away the piece of Stilton, it had gone mouldy. Dated two months ago. It was the first time I had been in the house for three months, and that was only to collect more clothes. There was nothing in the fridge. Only two tins of soup in the larder.
Next, I had a bath. It was a pale blue bath. The wallpaper had matching pale blue roses. Jonathan liked blue. All his pyjamas were blue, with white initials on the pockets. He kept his pyjama tops on while he shaved in the mornings, while I was in the bath, but he took great care never to wet the collar. He hummed while he shaved. He was rather good at humming. Never out of tune. One Christmas I had found some blue after-shave lotion for his stocking. There was still a little at the bottom of the bottle on the shelf above the basin. I would get a new bottle, later to-day.
I dried in a huge navy towel, then walked naked into the bedroom. I sat on the kidney-shaped chintz stool in front of my dressing-table. The chintz seat felt cold for a moment. Half a dozen snapshots were stuck under the glass of the dressing-table. I studied them, tracing my finger on the cold glass round their frames: there was Jonathan with his arm round me in some Swiss mountain restaurant, a ski-ing holiday, our faces made harshly black and white by the flash bulb. We had drunk a lot of gluwein that night, and danced, and laughed. Enjoyed ourselves. There was Jonathan in his mother’s rose garden, hands on hips, face screwed up against the sun; Jonathan sailing a small boat in Devon, slightly out of focus because of the choppy sea; Jonathan aged twelve, with smarmed-down choirboy hair, receiving a huge silver cup for swimming from a distinguished old woman in a velvet hat. There was one of me alone that Jonathan had taken with his Polaroid camera, a little faded. I sat on a rug in an indeterminate garden. I wore a cotton dress with a billowing skirt, and a cardigan. My hair was short and curled, and I smiled widely. It must have been a week or so after I first met Jonathan – perhaps the first weekend at his mother’s house. I remember laughing at something he was saying while he took the photograph. He hadn’t asked me to smile.
I looked at myself in the looking-glass. My face was much thinner, now. My hair much longer, straighter, straggly. It needed new highlights. There would be time, to-morrow. To-morrow in the morning. To-day I would shop, dust, clean, arrange roses. They would be expensive at this time of the year, but still. They were Jonathan’s favourite flowers. He would hate to come back and find the house dusty, untidy and without flowers. It would have been so much easier if we could have met somewhere, caught a plane and flown away. Anywhere. Anywhere so long as it avoided all these preparations. But Jonathan expected preparations.
He would expect me to be ready for him, neat, in his favourite dress, the ice out – the ice tongs. I mustn’t forget the ice tongs. Where were they? He would expect us to welcome each other home, and to forgive one another, and to make it all up over one gin and tonic. Or, knowing him, champagne. Well, we would. We would go on from there. I would heat up the veal escalopes cooked, as he had taught me, in cream sauce with brandy and mushrooms, and we would eat in the unused dining-room. Drink special wine. Candles. I must remember to get candles. By the end of dinner we would probably find ourselves laughing. In the past, it had always been easy to laugh together, in the end. If we could start laughing, if we could find something to laugh about, it would be all right. But which was his favourite dress?
I went to the cupboard. Everything hung limply. Thin, dim dresses they all seemed. Lifeless. They needed starch and ironing and air. They needed to be worn again. I took out a green dress covered with blue cornflowers. He liked that. I put it on. It was too long, drab. Side view, my bottom stuck out. My breasts sloped down and did something ugly to the front. I looked terrible. But perhaps with shoes, and a bra, and my hair done, to-morrow night, it wouldn’t be so bad.
I took off the dress and hung it outside the cupboard to remind myself it needed ironing. I put on a pair of jeans and a shirt, and went downstairs, barefoot. Sat at the neat desk, found a piece of paper, and began to make a shopping list. 2 grapefruit pt. double cream roses veal sugar tonic water frozen peas coffee matches – I could write with mechanical ease. I didn’t have to think. The words appeared on the paper by themselves. Hair lotion apricots soap candles I love you Jonathan Lyall I am your wife Clare Serena Lyall and this time it will be for ever more sempre toujours tomatoes salted peanuts and all the usual things like butter.
All afternoon I shopped.
By the time I arrived home again it was too late to go and see Mrs Fox. I would go on Wednesday, perhaps even take Jonathan. She would be missing Joshua, I thought.
I dumped my shopping bags on the kitchen table and began to put things away. Very slowly, very methodically. Then I re-arranged the shelf of cookery books so that they were in order of height. The kitchen seemed to be paler green.
When there was nothing left to do in the kitchen I went back to the sitting-room. There, I re-arranged two more shelves of books. Five other shelves were filled with leather-bound volumes all the same height. I began to replace them so that the titles were in alphabetical order. But halfway through it seemed pointless, and I stopped.
I lit a cigarette, sat at the desk. Pulled open one of the drawers. It was neat with bundles of letters. Jonathan’s writing, spidery and black. I pulled out one of the letters. It was written four years ago, from Manchester. He was up there seeing a man who had liked one of his plays.
My own darling, I read, It’s nice to be feeling as happy and as optimistic as I do at the moment about Screwball, but why does genius have to take one to God-forsaken places like Manchester? I miss you so much I can’t tell you. I think of you all day and wonder what you’re doing and I’m writing this because there’s still another two hours until I can decently telephone you again. If the play is put on you will come up all the time, even for rehearsals, won’t you? Just to say I love you, I love you, I love you, your silly old husband J.
In those days he rang me every few hours if ever we were forced to be apart, and wrote every day. I found the letter that told of Screwball’s fate.
After all that waiting about, wasted days away from you, the beastly Mr Lewis said I was on the right lines but he saw no hope of actually putting the thing on. I could have cried. I needed you to be there to love and comfort me. Oh my darling, do you mind my constant failures? You say you don’t, but I only half-believe you. I will stay till Monday when he says he will see me again – it just might be worthwhile. I do want to surprise you one day. Wait for me. The only thing I feel I’m good at is loving you. God knows what I’d do without you. Please don’t ever leave me, darling. All love as ever your adoring husband J. P.S. I’ve bought an electric mixer in a cut-price shop.
I wound up both clocks. Checked the telephone to see it was work
ing. Smoked several more cigarettes. Put the roses, expensive scentless buds, into a bucket of water.
Upstairs, I began to unpack my case. Slowly, again. I came to the box with the star-sapphire ring. Tried it on. Not strong enough light to force the star. I put it in a drawer under a pile of scarves. Then I found two notes from Joshua – the only notes he had ever written me.
Joshua Heron crept out because he didn’t want to wake Funny Face. He doesn’t apologise for not washing up his coffee cup and will be back at six to take various people to a theatre if they would like that.
The second one was written on the back of a restaurant bill, three months old.
Joshua Heron came back hopefully at lunchtime but found no-one. Would F.F. please ring J.H. as soon as she gets back to make up his mind about buying a corduroy jacket the colour of best quality hay?
I tore them up, into very small pieces, and threw them away. After that, I couldn’t unpack any more. I left the rest of my clothes half in the case, half strewn about the floor. Then I went to bed. I had forgotten what a comfortable bed it was. At eight-thirty I turned out the light.
*
Four drum-majorettes skated across a huge rink towards me, holding up a striped canopy. Under the canopy, dressed in a dinner jacket, Jonathan skated in time with them. They stopped at the edge of the rink, in front of my seat. I rose, and moved the few paces towards them. As I did so, the huge audience, massed round the rink, began to applaud. Under the canopy I smiled at Jonathan and he gave me his hand. His fingers crackled and stung with ice. We began to skate away, looking for the exit to the wings. But it had disappeared. We skated round and round and the applause became louder. We kept passing Richard Storm, Mrs Fox and Joshua, sitting together in the front row. They had their arms intertwined, like people about to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’. They were laughing and laughing.
*
I woke at nine-thirty. I drew back the curtains and a cold grey light revealed the extent of the confusion on the floor: books, clothes, a pair of gum-boots still muddy from Norfolk. I would clear it all up, slowly, later. There were nine and a half hours to go.
I lay in the bath for a long time. After a while I thought I heard the creak of footsteps on the stairs. I listened again. Silence. Then a soft knock on the half-open door.
‘May I come in?’
Ridiculously, I answered: ‘Yes – who is it?’
Jonathan opened the door.
I stood up so fast the water swayed over the edge of the bath and onto the floor. It streamed down my stomach and thighs, and I felt myself crossing my arms over my breasts.
‘Darling! Wait a minute. Here’s a towel.’ He held it in front of himself like a shield, and came towards me. We kissed, lightly, the towel still between us. Then I put my wet arms round his neck.
‘Jonathan,’ I said.
‘Hurry up and get dry.’ He seemed to stiffen a little, and moved away from me. I took the towel from him and stretched up to flip it over my shoulders. In the few seconds that I was naked to him his eyes flashed up and down my body. ‘Heaven’s, you’re thin,’ he said.
‘So are you.’ His hair, as well as his face, seemed thinner. I climbed out of the bath, sat on the edge, and began to dry. ‘I thought you weren’t coming till to-night,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid nothing’s ready. It would have been, by to-night.’
‘Well, there didn’t seem much point in hanging around for another day, doing nothing, knowing you were back.’ He sat on the lavatory, hitching up both legs of his trousers as he did so. It was a new suit, trim grey flannel. He fiddled with his navy silk tie. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Of course not. I’m just sorry I haven’t got the house organised.’
‘That doesn’t seem very important.’
I raised my eyebrows.
‘You look very brown,’ I said, ‘very well.’
‘I am. I’ve had so much sun that I actually turned from lobster to brown. I bet you never imagined the day when that would happen.’ He laughed and I smiled. He had a nice face.
‘No,’ I said. He folded his arms, leant back against the cistern and looked at me.
‘How are you, darling?’
‘I’m all right, too.’
‘It’s been a funny old six months.’
‘Yes.’ I was dry. ‘I’m just going to put on some clothes. I won’t be a moment.’ He followed me into the bedroom.
‘I’ll go down and put on some coffee.’
‘That’s a good idea.’ When he had gone I quickly made the bed. He might not want to wait until to-night.
By the time I went downstairs Jonathan was in the sitting-room, a tray of coffee set on the low table in front of the sofa. He had found the best cups, the ones I used when his mother came to tea. Suddenly I realised I was hungry and thirsty.
‘How lovely,’ I said. I sat beside him on the sofa. The chintz cushion crackled beneath me. ‘Where’s your luggage?’
‘Still in the car.’ He smelt of unfamiliar after-shave. Too sweet. He poured the coffee and hot milk, put in the sugar and stirred mine as well as his own.
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Six months to the day. I heard from David you were well and happy.’
‘I heard the same about you.’
‘I think he quite enjoyed his self-appointed role of keeping us in touch. He doesn’t change, David.’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘He doesn’t change.’ He sat hunched up on the edge of the sofa, his knees wide apart, his hands clasped between them. ‘Well, it’s strange to be back.’ He looked down at my hands. ‘Where did you get that ring?’
‘It belonged to Mrs Fox.’
‘Who’s she?’
I paused for a moment.
‘Mrs Fox is an old woman I met. A friend. You must meet her.’ I fingered the ring, imitating her gestures, the gestures I knew so well. Then: ‘It’s nice to have you back,’ I said.
He turned to me, smiling.
‘Look darling, you don’t have to pretend. After these six months, we might as well be honest with one another.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know perfectly well what I mean.’ He put a soft hand on my knee. ‘Let me tell you something, Soo. Let me try to tell you something. That is: it’s all right. You needn’t worry any more. You needn’t feel guilty any more, you know. I know what your decision is, and I want you to understand and believe me. I don’t mind. I really don’t, this time. No pretending. So long as you are happy, I’m happy for you. I mean that.’
‘But darling, you’ve got it all wrong.’ I put my hand on his. ‘About my decision, I mean. What on earth made you think I wouldn’t want you back? Why did you think I wouldn’t want to come back to you?’
‘I just assumed, from your behaviour before we parted. I hoped for a while you might change your mind. Then I heard you were happy with Joshua Heron. So I gave up hoping.’ A long silence. Then:
‘In that case, I’ve got a surprise for you,’ I said.
‘Oh?’
‘It’s all over with Joshua. There wasn’t really any question of – anything permanent. He’s gone to Mexico. I told him I was going back to you, and he was pleased.’
‘You mean? – You want us to stay married? Is that what you mean?’
‘Of course.’ A look of something like fear crossed his face. He patted at his soft, sandy hair with a hand that shook a little, then bent his head and pressed his eyes into his palms.
‘Oh Christ, my love,’ he said quietly. ‘Oh Christ, what a mess. What a bloody awful mess.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Because it was true what I said earlier. Absolutely true. About my not minding about your not wanting me any more. You see, the thing is, I’m fixed up elsewhere, as it were.’
‘You mean–?’
‘I’ve found somebody else.’ He sat up then and took both my hands. Lowered his eyes. His eyelashes had gone very blond in the sun. ‘I’m sorry, Soo.’
‘Somebody else?’ I
said.
‘Somebody else.’
‘I see.’ I tried to draw my hands away but he held them firmly.
‘Don’t run away from me.’ I flopped back in the sofa. He let go of one hand to stroke my hair. ‘I thought you’d be so pleased. I thought you’d be delighted when I told you I had booked an appointment with my solicitor this afternoon, and we would get divorced as soon as possible, and you could go back to Joshua. But what an irony of timing. What a cruel irony.’
‘You want to marry her, then?’ I asked.
‘That’s the plan.’
‘Is she Italian?’
‘No. She just lives in Rome. I think you met her once, actually. She says she remembers you, at a party you apparently went to with David. She’s called Rose Maclaine.’
‘The American? But I thought she and David–?’
‘They did. A rather one-sided little affair. David was dotty about her. But she never pretended the feeling was mutual.’
‘Then he introduced her to you?’
‘Then he introduced her to me. And that was that. Very awkward for David and me, being such old friends, as you can imagine.’
‘I imagine.’
‘Still, it seems to be all right now. He’s forgiven me. I took him out to dinner last night and he drank our health and said he hoped we would be happy.’
I smiled.
‘Last week he rang me to say he hoped we would be happy.’
‘He changes.’ Pause. ‘Oh Christ, Soo. What a mess. What are we going to do?’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘Don’t sound like that. Here, let me kiss you. You’re shaking.’
I let him kiss me. He kissed me on the eyes and the cheeks. Then he ran the hard point of his tongue round my closed lips, trying to make me smile. A trick he hadn’t practised since before we married. But I didn’t smile and he soon gave up.
‘I can’t very well fall out of love with Rosie and come back to you just because – ’
‘Of course not.’
‘So what shall we do?’
‘You had better go ahead with your plans.’