Frances laughed, noting in the same instant that he looked chilled and wet through. ‘Seeing as you’ve come so far, would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Oh no, thanks. I was just passing really, and besides, you’re obviously hard at work.’
‘I’ve barely begun. Look, three lines of a fence and some spiky grass. I thought I wanted to draw the hawthorn, but when I sat down I kept noticing a line of raindrops along the fence, the most perfect necklace of opals – except one would insist on dropping off whenever I raised my pencil she broke off, embarrassed. ‘And the light’s hopeless in any case.’
‘Thomas Hardy wrote a wonderful line about raindrops…let me see, something about meadow rivulets overflowing and then “drops on gatebars hang in a row, and rooks in families homeward go” – I think that’s it. Terribly underrated as a poet, he had such a brilliant eye for everyday things and this wickedly simple way of describing them.’
‘I thought he just wrote gloomy books about people with not enough money making a mess of their love lives.’
Daniel burst out laughing. ‘Oh yes, he did that too. Anyway,’ he added, remembering himself, ‘I’d really better be going.’
‘Have a cup of tea first to warm up,’ insisted Frances, overcome with motherly concern at the thought of him pedalling off into the dank afternoon. ‘I made a cake this morning, which I shall only regret keeping to myself.’
‘No marauding hordes at teatime then?’ he asked, drawing on vague recollections of mantelpieces of family faces in picture frames.
She smiled, folding up the easel and looping the stool over her arm. ‘I’m afraid not. My son’s at university, my daughter lives in France and my husband died last year.’
‘Oh, bloody hell. Sorry.’
He looked so awkward and crestfallen that Frances’s immediate overriding concern was to put him at his ease. ‘Please, don’t feel bad. It was very hard at first, but it’s OK now. When I tell people these days, they feel far worse on my behalf than I do myself.’
A few minutes later they were sitting at the kitchen table with steaming mugs of tea and slabs of carrot cake, topped with white icing and coconut.
‘How’s Signorelli getting along then?’
Daniel, his mouth full of cake, made a face and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. ‘Little better than the England cricket team. All out for a hundred and thirty-four,’ he explained hurriedly, seeing her blank expression. ‘But I sorted a few things out in my head on the way here – so there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I think perhaps it’s a bit like your hawthorn and raindrops – I thought I knew which angle I wanted to take, but every time I set about trying to put it in words I get distracted by other ideas and find myself going down all sorts of avenues that hadn’t occurred to me before I started.’
Frances watched him as he talked, aware that she was enjoying herself enormously and wondering if it was because of the rare phenomenon of having an entertaining conversation at the kitchen table or because of the sheer improbability of befriending someone she had almost killed. On the night of the collision he had been so monosyllabic and hostile that such an outcome would have seemed ludicrous. And when he had called round with the bill, she had been too taken aback to draw any firm impressions of his appearance or demeanour. He had an interesting face, she realised now, with intense brown eyes set between a high wide forehead and strong cheekbones. His hair, cropped very short and still stiff with damp, stuck out in different angles all over his scalp, as if he had spent all night burrowing under pillows. His manner of speaking was unhurried and assured, lingering on certain and sometimes unexpected words as if for the sheer pleasure of shaping his lips round the sound. Listening to him, it was easy to imagine a lecture hall, and an audience of eager students.
‘What was that Hardy poem called? Perhaps I should go out and get hold of a copy, try and broaden my horizons or something.’
‘I don’t know about that.’ He frowned. ‘Anyway, I can’t remember the title. I did my main degree in English, but it feels like centuries ago now. Oh, hang on,’ he slapped the table, ‘it’s come back to me – “Weathers” – that was it.’ He grinned, evidently pleased at this small feat of memory. ‘Hardly the most imaginative title, if you think about it.’
‘The only trouble is, I’ve never been much good with poetry,’ Frances confessed. ‘I like the idea of it, but if ever I try and read the stuff I’m usually baffled. People who boast about keeping anthologies of poems on their bedside tables make me feel sort of jealous and inadequate, like I’m missing out on something that I wouldn’t be up to anyway.’
‘You wouldn’t find Hardy baffling,’ he assured her earnestly. ‘He also wrote some brilliant ones about missing his dead wife, the irony being that he only realised the extent of his love for her after she was gone. By all accounts, when she was alive he spent much of the time being pig-headed and ignoring her…’ He stopped abruptly, horrified at his lack of tact.
‘My husband was quite nice to me,’ Frances said easily, steering the crumbs on her plate into a small pile. ‘Too nice in many ways. After he’d gone I was like a helpless child, completely unused to standing on my own two feet. The smallest things were so hard—’ She broke off and patted the lid of the cake tin with a short laugh. ‘Even something so stupid as baking a cake, it’s taken a while to learn that it’s OK to do that for myself, that I don’t need the pretext of other people for doing something that gives me pleasure.’ She stopped again, expecting him to say something to change the subject. But he had folded his arms and was studying her with what felt like a genuinely sympathetic silence. ‘Being alone has also made me look back a lot,’ she continued, haltingly, ‘I’ve found myself reassessing everything, wondering if perhaps I let Paul dictate the terms of my life too much, whether conforming to all his wishes was in fact a way of avoiding facing up to things I needed to develop in myself. I never even wanted to come and live in the country, you know, I loved London. But the children were small and full of energy and south London even in those distant days was just one long traffic jam. Though now, funnily enough, I wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else. God, sorry, I’m rambling and you’re probably desperate to get home.’
‘No I’m not. In fact,’ Daniel stretched slowly, tipping his chair so far onto its two back legs that Frances had to suppress a reflex to cry out in alarm, ‘I feel rather sleepy. Too much warmth and pampering.’ He smiled and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles till his eyelids looked raw and pink. Pink dots had emerged on his cheeks too, she noticed, contrasting curiously with the dark shadow across his jaw. He let his chair drop back onto all four legs and stood up, leaning heavily with his palms on the kitchen table.
‘I’ll run you home if you like, it must have taken hours to get here on the bike. And it’s already getting dark.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ve treated myself to brand new lights – front and back. And what with these delightful objects,’ he picked up the vest and bands which he had thrown onto the seat next to him, ‘I’m about as unmissable as a lighthouse.’
‘Goodbye then,’ she said when they’d got as far as the door, holding out her hand to cover a fleeting pulse of awkwardness. ‘It’s been such fun talking.’
‘Yes it has.’ He took her hand and shook it once, quite hard. ‘Maybe we could do it again sometime?’
‘Maybe.’ Frances laughed uncertainly.
‘A happy collision after all, eh?’ he quipped, bounding down the front step and running alongside the bike for several yards before flinging himself onto the seat.
Having closed the door, Frances leant back against it for a few seconds, luxuriating in the discovery that life could still surprise her. The sense that she had made proper amends for the awfulness of the accident was so uplifting that it remained with her long into the evening, making it hard for the first time in a while, to settle into sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
‘But this is very good,’ said Libby at once, holding the
sketch up to the light and nodding with what appeared to be heartfelt appreciation.
‘The framing is pretty basic, I’m afraid.’
‘I don’t think so at all – a simple wood is all it needs – such a delicate thing. Where is that anyway? It looks familiar.’
‘The view from the bottom of the garden, down towards the river—’
‘Of course, of course. And that roof in those trees would be the Brackman place. Which reminds me, how is the poor man?’
‘I haven’t been round lately – I wasn’t sure I was doing any good,’ Frances explained hastily, feeling a flicker of guilt at her own recent lack of solicitude with regard to her neighbour. ‘He knows he can ring my doorbell whenever he wants.’
Libby gave a shudder of distaste. ‘You are very noble. I know I should feel pity, but I’m afraid he gives me the creeps. I gather that place of his is falling down – how he continues to live there I do not know.’
‘It’s his home, I suppose.’
‘I want to put a price tag on this straight away,’ continued Libby, returning her attention to the picture. ‘I’m sure we could get at least thirty-five – forty maybe – goodness, I’ve no idea how one is supposed to carve up the profits in such situations.’
‘If the price is thirty-five I’d be happy with twenty,’ said Frances, who, foreseeing the embarrassment of money discussions, had given the matter some thought. ‘In the unlikely event that it sells, that is,’ she added hastily.
‘Twenty’s not nearly enough. Let’s try it at thirty-five and I’ll give you thirty. Is this the only one?’
‘I’m working on some others, but they’re not ready yet.’
‘Bring them in as soon as they are.’ She put an arm round Frances’s shoulders and squeezed hard. ‘You are doing so well, I can’t believe it. Paul would have been so proud.’
‘Thank you,’ murmured Frances, feeling a little patronised, but knowing that, as ever, Libby spoke with the kindest intentions.
That day, instead of going straight to the coffee house during her lunch hour, Frances walked to the book shop at the bottom of the high street. It took several minutes to locate the poetry section which only occupied a couple of lower shelves. There was just one book of Hardy’s entitled Chosen Poems of Thomas Hardy. She slipped it off the shelf and turned to the index. Having found the poem ‘Weathers’, she was on the point of standing up when her eye was caught by the title of a slim black book which had been left face up on top of the lowest shelf. Joseph Brackman, Selected Poems. Impressed, Frances knelt back down on the floor and picked it up for a closer look. Slipped between the first two pages was a tired looking piece of paper scrawled with the words, Local Author. The publication date was eight years previously under the name of a company of which Frances had never heard. The book was hardly bigger than an envelope, and couldn’t have contained more than ten poems. At the till Frances couldn’t resist tapping the cover and saying, ‘I know him, he lives just down the road from me.’
‘Really?’ said the girl, giving the cover a second look before slipping it into the bag. ‘That’s nice.’
Over lunch Frances studied her purchases, keeping the covers down, as if there were something improper about a lone woman reading poems in a public place. Apart from the occasional mystifying line the Hardy ones seemed, as Daniel Groves had said, mostly very straightforward, full of everyday incidents and images. Joseph’s in contrast were short, dense, impenetrable collections of words, containing no string of reason that Frances was able to identify. She was still puzzling over the first one when Libby burst into the coffee shop, coatless and flapping both arms in excitement. Filled with a sudden uncertainty about what had prompted this new interest in literature, Frances hurriedly returned both books to her bag.
She need not have worried however, as Libby had other things on her mind. She began speaking several yards short of Frances’s table, so loudly that there were looks of mild irritation from other customers and amusement from the women behind the counter, who knew her well. ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ she exclaimed, grabbing hold of the back of the spare seat opposite Frances with both hands, ‘I’ve just sold your picture. To a young couple – labrador and pushchair – seemed very nice – would have paid a lot more I’m sure. I simply had to come over and tell you. In fact it’s been a brilliant hour – thank God I don’t close for lunch any more. A whole gaggle of Spanish students came in looking for presents for relatives in Barcelona and then a dear man with no teeth – best rush of business in weeks. Could you bring a sandwich back for me, do you think? Anything will do – chicken or something – preferably with mayonnaise. And congratulations – I owe you thirty pounds.’ And with that she breezed out again, leaving the door to slam so violently that there was a ripple of rattling crockery.
When Frances got home that evening, she looked at her other recent drawings with new eyes, suddenly eager for her two days out of the shop when she would be free to finish them properly. Seeing the Hoover and bucket of cleaning equipment on the landing she decided to finish the top of the house there and then, so she would not be tempted to waste precious hours doing so on Thursday and Friday. She worked quickly, swabbing at stains on the walls and aiming the snout of the Hoover attachment into all the corners and crevices she usually ignored. The top spare room took a little longer, since she had to negotiate Paul’s wine racks, still there from the flood, as well as a spider metropolis which had been spun along the top of the curtain pelmet and across half the ceiling. The windows were dirty too, smeared with greasy finger marks which she had not noticed before. She was half-way through erasing them, her duster squeaking feverishly across the panes, when it suddenly occurred to her that the fingermarks were hers, left on the afternoon of the funeral, when she had stood looking down at the mourners, pressing her palms against the glass with Libby at her side. The flashback was so vivid that for a moment Frances had to steady herself against the window sill. She could almost taste the tea Libby had brought her, its sickly sweetness, how it had compounded the nausea pushing up inside. It was weeks since she had experienced anything so acute. Nor did it derive purely from a sense of loss, but from something now more complicated. Something to do with realising that she would never again miss Paul as she had, that after barely half a year she had moved on and become someone else. Someone who did not mind eating alone, someone who worked an enjoyable three-day week, who spent her spare time drawing and buying poetry books.
Several minutes passed before Frances felt sufficiently recovered to confront Paul’s study, looking now so dusty and neglected that the residue of her sadness was at once superseded by a twist of guilt. What would Paul have made of this new version of his wife? she wondered, frowning to herself as she set about stacking away his old magazines and periodicals into an empty cardboard box. Glimpsing a curl of white hanging out of the back of the fax machine and remembering James Harcourt, her heart missed a beat, but it was only a few blank torn inches of paper. When her duster reached the desk and filing cabinet she had a final, desultory look in the pigeon holes and folders for the missing share certificate. But it was hard to muster any enthusiasm for the task. It did not seem to matter as it once had. Frances closed the study door behind her with a new sense of calm. There would always be loose ends, she mused, slowly making her way back downstairs, for that was the nature of things, all part of the mystery and mess that made human life so endearing.
Reading Hardy’s poems later on in bed that night only reinforced such convictions. Some of the illuminating detail of the unruliness of everyday life was so good that Frances caught herself exclaiming out loud. After half an hour however, this happy communion was brought to an abrupt halt by the remorseful loving outpourings dedicated to the dead wife. Anybody could love a dead person, Frances reflected crossly, pulling the duvet round her ears and congratulating herself on having managed twenty years of solid affection for a husband while he had been alive.
Chapter Twenty
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Daniel told himself, sliding the stick of French bread into his rucksack along with a wrapped wedge of Ardennes pâté and several other pots of delicacies from the deli section of his local supermarket. At the last minute, he remembered a knife and a corkscrew, slipping both into the side pocket where a bottle of French country red was already stowed, protected from accidents by several layers of old newspaper. It was Friday and he needed a break from his desk, the previous weekend’s conclusion of the test match having driven him from the sitting room to the second bedroom which doubled as a study. His neck ached from four days of virtually uninterrupted work, a spell which had resulted not so much in written achievement as a keener awareness of the yawning gaps in his scholarship. Acquiring knowledge was like falling into a dark, widening pit, he reflected gloomily, packing his rucksack into the boot of his car and slamming the lid shut. The more one found out, the more one realised how much still needed to be known.
After days of interminable drizzle, to wake to a morning of blue skies and sunshine had felt like a gift. A single band of silky cloud was the only break in colour, reaching from one end of the horizon to the other like a ribbon round a wrapped present. To begin with Daniel drove fast, beating one hand on his thigh in time to a new tape, one of several to which he had treated himself the week before. Having chosen it because of a recent hit single, he wasn’t yet sure how much he liked the other songs. It took time, Daniel found, before he was sure whether the familiarity of a tune made it irresistible or merely irksome. Only during the last couple of miles did he slow down to the prescribed speed limit, at the same time switching off the tape to aid his concentration. He took deep breaths too, his mounting nervousness alerting him to the fact that no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise, the step he was about to take felt significant. Huge, in fact.
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