Winter Solstice

by Pilcher, Rosamunde

  Oscar thought for a moment, and then he said, “Actually, I don’t think Christ was born in wintertime. I dunk he was probably born in the spring.”

  “Really? Why do you say that?”

  “Well, the shepherds were guarding their flocks, which probably meant that it was lambing time. And they were watching out for wolves, in case they came and ate the babies. And for another, scientific evidence tells us that there was a strangely bright star at that time, two thousand years ago, and in that place.”

  “Then why don’t we have Christmas in the spring?”

  “I think the early Christians were a cunning lot. They simply adapted what was left to them by the pagan inhabitants of the countries which they converted. There had always been the celebration of the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. I suppose to cheer themselves up, those pre-Christians had something of a party, lit fires, caroused, burnt candles, plucked mistletoe, baked cakes.” Oscar smiled.

  “Got drunk; indulged in lustful practices.”

  “So the early Christians just used the same party?”

  “Something like that.”

  “But added other bits as well.”

  “Their belief in the Son of God.”

  “I see.” Considered, it seemed a very practical arrangement.

  “What about Christmas trees?”

  “They came from Germany. Brought by Albert, Victoria’s Prince Consort.”

  “And turkeys?”

  “Turkeys came from America. Before that, goose was the traditional bird.”

  “And carols?”

  “Some old, some new.”

  “And wassailing? What does wassailing mean? I’ve never known.”

  “Just boozing. A wassail was a drink of spiced ale.”

  “And stockings?”

  “I don’t think I know where stockings are from.”

  Lucy was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Do you like Christmas?”

  “Parts of it,” Oscar told her, sounding cautious.

  “I don’t really like it much. There’s such a build-up and then it’s sort of… disappointing.”

  “Which proves that we should never expect too much.” High above them, the church clock struck half past two. The chimes were distant, melodious, muffled. Oscar said, “Perhaps we have lingered long enough.”

  Lucy fell silent. The church was very quiet. From what seemed like far away, other sounds impinged. A passing car, a man’s voice calling out. The long cry of a wheeling seagull high above the clock tower. She looked upwards, and there noticed, for the first time, the discreet up lighters high above, fitted within the lip of the carved stone cornice. They were not lighted now, which was why she had not seen them before, but… She said, “It must be lovely in here when all those lights are on. Like floodlights, like sunshine, shining on the blue ceiling….”

  “I expect they turn them on on Sundays for Morning Service.”

  “I’d like to see that.”

  He said quietly, “If you want to, you can.” And then he got to his feet.

  “Come along. We’re meant to be having a walk. We have to get as far as the beach, and before very long it will be dark.”

  CARRIE

  Oscar, Lucy, and Horace were gone, off for their walk. The heavy front door of the Estate House slammed shut behind diem, and Carrie and Elfrida were left alone, still sitting at the kitchen table, with the remains of lunch, and their coffee. They smiled at each other. Two women of different generations, but old friends, who had not been together, alone, for too long, and now relished their peaceful privacy.

  Carrie said, “What a perfectly sweet man.”

  Elfrida, she thought, for all her sixty-two years, looked as vital and energetic as a young girl. Her slenderness became her, the uncompromising blaze of suspect hair, the eccentric clothes, the slash of lipstick, all declaimed a healthy denial of advancing years. Her very presence was like a shot in the arm.

  “Isn’t he?” she said, with satisfaction.

  “I’m so pleased they’ve made friends. Lucy was apprehensive. I told her, of course, about his wife and his daughter, and she was afraid that Oscar mightn’t want her about the place, reminding him of Francesca. She thought he might find her presence distressing. Even, that he might hate her.”

  Elfrida was sympathetic.

  “Poor little thing. But perceptive, too. And I don’t think Oscar knows how to hate any person. And if he did, he would never say so, nor ever show it. We had a slight hiccup when we arrived here, in the shape of a rather sad old bore from whom we had to collect the key of the house. I must say, he was rather disquieting. Kept telling Oscar that he’d put him up for the Golf Club, and they would meet over a drink. Oscar was terrified. He spent the first couple of weeks cowering indoors, or scuttling across the road to the supermarket with his hat pulled over his eyes like a criminal, in mortal fear of meeting Major Billicliffe and having to ask him back for a gin. But then he discovered the old chap was actually quite ill. He found him languishing in his bed, under the doctor, as they say. And the next thing was that he’d offered to drive him over to the hospital in Inverness, because he felt so sorry for him. Major Billicliffe’s a widower, and all alone. So you see, Oscar’s not very good at hating. You could never call him one of your consistent, paid-up, professional haters.”

  “I think he’s a darling. I just hope it’s not going to be too much for you both. Having us here.”

  “It’s brilliant, just what we need.”

  “It doesn’t have to be an all-singing, all-dancing Christmas. Lucy and I both have a fairly low expectation of what is known as the Festive Season.”

  “Us, too. Though, once he knew you were coming, Oscar did, privately, order a Christmas tree.”

  “Lucy will love that. She can decorate it. Poor child, my mother was never much good at creating a magic atmosphere, and Nicola’s too idle. But I truly think Dodie’s grateful to you. Because now she can go and spend her giddy holiday in Bournemouth with a clear conscience.”

  “How is she?”

  “Just the same.” No more needed to be said.

  “And Nicola?”

  “Ditto. Unlike wine, they do not improve with age.”

  “And your father?”

  “Haven’t seen him. But we spoke on the telephone.”

  “I had such a wonderful month with them all, at Emblo, in October. And then I got home to hear this terrible thing that had happened to Oscar. It was like moving out of one world and into another. Life can change with such shocking abruptness.”

  “I know.” Carrie thought about Andreas, and then didn’t think about him. She said again, “I know.”

  A silence fell. Carrie finished her coffee and set down the little cup. She knew what was coming next, which it did.

  “And you, Carrie?”

  “Me? I’m fine.”

  “I don’t think you are. For one thing, you look tired and pale. And dreadfully thin.”

  “Look who’s talking. Admit, Elfrida, we’d neither of us have ever won a prize for the most voluptuous.”

  “Why did you suddenly come back from Austria?”

  Carrie shrugged.

  “Oh, reasons. Whims.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Sometime, I’ll tell you. I promise. But not just at this moment.”

  “You’re not ill?”

  “No. I’m fighting a cold and I am a bit tired, but I am not ill.”

  “Did you chuck up your job?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you get another?”

  “I think so. In fact, the travel company I worked for overseas telephoned the other evening, and the next day I went along and saw them. I’ve been offered a job… a good job… in the London office. I haven’t accepted yet, but I probably will when I go back after Christmas.”

  “And your house?”

  “Let till February. Until then, I can camp with friends or rent.”

  “I feel you’re
unhappy. I wish I could help.”

  “You are helping. By having us here.”

  “Not very exciting.”

  “I don’t want excitement.”

  Elfrida was silenced. She finished her coffee, and then sighed, and ran a hand through her unruly, fiery hair.

  “In that case, I will say no more. Now….” Her manner changed, she became cheerful, in charge once more.

  “What would you like to do this afternoon? Perhaps a nap. I’ll find a hot-water bottle….”

  Bed and a hot-water bottle. Carrie could not remember how long it was since some other person had cherished her. Had said, You look tired. And, How about a little rest? She had spent too many years being strong, looking after others and their problems. Cancelled reservations; faulty ski-tows; unsuitable bedrooms; trains and buses that ran, through no fault of their own, late. The lack of snow, or the fact that there was too much of it. A band playing too loudly into the early hours of the morning; lost passports, money, hair dryers…. And then returning to London to be faced with another set of family problems which needed to be surmounted.

  She realized that she was tired of being strong. Tired of being the sturdy pillar against which everybody leaned. Upstairs was her bedroom. Her suitcase already in possession. She had gone there to shed her coat and comb her hair before lunch, and had seen, with some satisfaction, the enormous double bed, downy and soft, with its white cover, and great brass bedstead like the polished rails of some well-kept ship. She had longed, right then and there, to climb beneath the blankets and sleep.

  Perhaps a nap. She was filled with grateful love for Elfrida. She said, “I don’t think there’s anything I’d like more. But first, can I be shown your house? So that I know my way around. It seems so enormous, I might get lost. I’d imagined the two of you domiciled in some little cottage, and here you are in a veritable mansion.”

  “Of course.” Elfrida got to her feet.

  “What about the washing-up?”

  “I’ll do it later. We haven’t got a dishwasher, but I’ve never had one, so it doesn’t matter. And I rather like splashing around in time-honoured fashion with lots of suds. Come along….”

  She led the way out of the kitchen, and Carrie followed her down the hall to the two ground-floor rooms.

  “It all used to belong to the Corrydale Estate,” Elfrida explained, sounding a bit like a tour guide.

  “The factor and his family lived here, so that’s why it’s so huge. We inherited only the most essential bits of furniture, and there’s no point cluttering ourselves up with possessions.” She opened a door.

  “This was the estate office, and as you can see, it’s totally uninhabitable. Like a junk-shop. And this is our dining-room. Utter gloom.”

  It was indeed daunting, redolent of long, dull meals and boiled cabbage.

  “But I love the table,” said Carrie.

  “And a sideboard built for massive haunches of venison. And a piano! Shall we have concerts?”

  “I should think so. God knows when it was last tuned.”

  “But Oscar plays.”

  “Not just now. These days, he listens to music, he doesn’t make it.”

  They went upstairs.

  “Lucy’s in the attic. I did it all up for her, but I’m sure she’ll want to show you herself. And you’ve seen the sitting-room, and the bathrooms, and this”-she opened another door-“is the second spare bedroom. I could have put her in here, but it’s very small and a bit dreary. The attic seemed to me a much more attractive space for her, and I had all the fun of putting it together.”

  Carrie peered into the small and undistinguished room, almost totally taken up with another enormous bed. It was, clearly, unoccupied, and for the first time she began to feel a bit uncomfortable, not knowing, but suspecting, what was going to happen next. Her interest in seeing over the house had been just that. Interest. Not curiosity. But her innocent request felt now a bit like taking the lid off Pandora’s box.

  “Elfrida … ?” Elfrida either didn’t hear, or took no notice. Instead, she opened the final door with a flourish that had a touch of defiance about it.

  “And this,” she said, “is us.”

  It was a spacious and important room, the master bedroom of the original house, with tall windows facing out over the light of the dying afternoon, the street, and the church. In it stood a looming Victorian wardrobe, a pretty Victorian dressing-table, and a chest of drawers. And an enormously high and wide bed. Over this was spread Elfrida’s scarlet silk shawl, the embroidery faded, the fringe beginning to fray, but still marvellously opulent and recognizable from the old days and Elfrida’s house in Putney, where Carrie had stayed with her for six weeks or more, nursing Elfrida back to health after an operation.

  And other possessions. A man’s ivory brushes on the chest of drawers, a pair of brogues neatly placed beneath a chair, dark-blue pyjamas folded on a pillow. And a pleasant masculine smell, compounded of polished leather and Bay Rum.

  There fell a small silence. Then Carrie looked at Elfrida and caught on her face a faintly abashed expression, and was amused, because Elfrida had never betrayed the smallest sense of shame about her many and varied sexual encounters.

  Now, she said, “You’re not shocked?”

  “Elfrida, I’m me. I’m not Dodie.”

  “I know you’re not.”

  “You’re sleeping together?”

  Elfrida nodded.

  “You’re lovers?”

  “We are.”

  Carrie thought of that charming, distinguished man, with his thick white hair and gentle face. She said, “I’m glad.”

  “I’m glad you’re glad. But I have to tell you. Explain.”

  “You don’t have to explain to me.”

  “No, but I want to.”

  “We drove together from Dibton to Scotland. I drove most of the way, and the conditions were horrible and the Al heavy with traffic. It had been a traumatic few days before we left, saying goodbyes and making arrangements, and I think we were both exhausted. Oscar scarcely spoke at all. By the time it was dark we’d had enough of the motorway and we got off it at some junction and drove down into Northumberland. Oscar said there was some little town he remembered with an old hotel in the main street, and by some miracle we found the town and the hotel was still there. So I sat in the car with Horace, and Oscar went in to see if they had rooms for us, and if they minded the dog as well.

  “After a bit, he came out and said that they didn’t mind about the dog, but they only had one room with a double bed. By then I was so tired, I’d have slept in a cupboard, so I told Oscar to go in and book it, and we wrote Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Blundell in the register, and I felt like a giddy girl sneaking off for the weekend with her boyfriend.

  “We had baths, and a drink, and dinner; then, because we had an early start the next morning, we went upstairs. There then took place a ridiculous conversation, with Oscar saying he would curl up on the sofa, and me saying I would sleep on the floor with Horace. And then, suddenly, we were too tired to argue, and we just got into bed together and fell fast asleep.

  “But what I didn’t know was that Oscar was having these terrible nightmares. He told me later that he’d been having them ever since the crash, that he put off going to bed at night because he was so filled with dread, so afraid. That night, he woke me with his screams, and for a moment I was terrified, and then I knew I had to wake him. So I did, and he was weeping … it was so awful for him … and I gave him a drink of water and calmed him down, and I put my arms around him and held him close and after a bit he went back to sleep again. After that, I would never let him be alone during the night. When we came here, he was a bit worried at first about what people would think, what they would say. We have a sweet woman who comes and cleans for us, Mrs. Snead…. He was afraid she would gossip, and there would be disapproval and bad feeling. And I said I didn’t care if there was, I wasn’t going to leave him.

  “I think, Carrie darling
, that all this might sound a little suspect. Opportunist. As though, the moment Gloria was dead, I crashed into Oscar’s life and leaped into bed with him. But truly, it wasn’t like that. I’d always liked him immensely, but he was Gloria’s husband, and I liked her, too, though perhaps not quite as much as I liked Oscar. It’s rather difficult to explain. But everything I have done, every choice I have made was only with the best of intentions in mind. He asked me to come to Scotland with him, and because he was a man on the verge of’ desperation I agreed.

  “It could have been a disaster, but instead we have a relationship which I think is a comfort to both of us. We first made love about a week after we got here. It was, of course, inevitable. He is a very attractive man, and for some reason he seems to find battered old me attractive, too. Since then, the terrible dreams have begun to fade, and sometimes he sleeps through till morning. There are still nightmares, but not nearly so frequent. And if you do hear shouts in the middle of the night, don’t be alarmed, because I am with Oscar.

  “I’ve kept nothing secret, told no lies. I confided in Mrs. Snead, privately, at the first opportunity, the circumstances of our design for living. Mrs. Snead is a Londoner and quite unshockable, as well as being a good friend and a mine of useful information. When I had finished explaining, all she said was “I think, Mrs. Phipps, it would be a cruel thing to let that man suffer, if you can give ‘im a spot of comfort in ‘is hour of need.” So that was that. And now you know.”

  For a moment neither of them said anything. Then Carrie sighed.

  “Poor Oscar. But how much poorer he would be without you.”

  “And Lucy? What shall we do about Lucy? She doesn’t look a stupid child. Ought you to tell her?”

  “Let’s not make an issue. If she asks questions, I shall tell her the truth.”

  “We’re so old, she’ll be astonished.”

  “I don’t think so. Her own grandfather has a very young wife and a couple of little children. Nothing new to Lucy. She’s clearly taken a shine to Oscar and she’ll be thrilled, as I am.” Carrie put her arms around Elfrida’s skinny shoulders and hugged.

  “It’s all so sweet. Needing each other and finding each other.”