by Rosie Thomas
‘You can’t kick people who are trying to help you, either,’ Robin said between his teeth.
‘Are you?’ Linda demanded. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’
‘Robin,’ Harriet said quickly, ‘why don’t you go on home? I’ll call you tomorrow.’
Robin hesitated, unwilling to yield. He had made other plans for what was left of the night. But he saw that there was no alternative, and gave way with apparent grace. He crossed to where Harriet was standing and kissed her. Harriet made no movement.
‘I’ll see myself out,’ Robin said.
When they were alone, Linda hung her head in order not to meet Harriet’s eyes. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘Did you want to go to bed with him, and you couldn’t because I was here?’
Harriet couldn’t tell if it was a provocation or a straight question. She ignored it, and put her arm around the child’s shoulders again.
‘Linda, what do you really want?’
There was a silence. Then, in a voice that through its layers of truculence and bravado touched Harriet directly, Linda confessed, ‘Just my mom. And to go back to LA.’
‘When can you?’
‘In the summer vacation.’
‘That’s not very far off.’
‘It’s weeks.’ It was a cry of desolation. ‘And I’ll only have to come back here after it’s over. To horrible St Brigid’s, and Ronny, and Little Shelley. My Dad wants me to grow up to be English. To have an English education.’
‘Your father’s British. And he loves you, you know.’
‘Yeah. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be so heavy about where I am and what I’m like, would he? Plus it suits my mom for me to be over here. She’s busy, and all that.’
Harriet didn’t much like the sound of mom. She also thought that Linda Jensen might send letters that gave the impression she could barely read or write, but she was very far from stupid. She tilted the child’s head up now so that she could look at her. Linda’s face was white under the hedge dust and dirty tear marks.
‘Don’t you like Ronny? And Little Shelley?’
‘Ronny’s okay. You saw Little Shelley, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I saw it.’ They both laughed, then.
‘It’s time you went to bed, now, Linda.’
Harriet left her and went to fetch sheets and bedcovers. She let down the sofa-bed in the sitting room and began briskly to make it up. Linda followed her and stood watching.
‘Where’s your bedroom?’
‘Beneath this room.’
‘Can’t I sleep down there with you?’ Linda was suddenly much younger than her years.
Harriet smiled at her. ‘There’s only one bed. And I kick.’
‘I don’t suppose you kick him.’
‘That’s none of your business.’ Harriet wondered if all children could change like kaleidoscopes.
‘I know what happens, you know.’
‘I’m sure you do, Linda. But there’s a difference between knowing and understanding.’
‘And that’s the kind of crappy thing my dad says.’
‘I like your father.’ I do. Harriet remembered the orchids that had shed their petals like sloughed skins on her desk. And she reflected that liking Caspar Jensen was something close to liking the QE2. It would sail on, whatever her feeling for it.
‘Come on, Linda. I’ll find you a toothbrush, and a T-shirt to sleep in.’
In bed, between the fat cushions, Linda looked very small. ‘I won’t be able to sleep,’ she announced.
‘If you need me in the night, you can call and I’ll come up,’ said Harriet, who hated to have her sleep disturbed. She thought with new respect of Jenny and her babies.
But when Harriet looked back into the room after having made herself ready for bed, Linda was fast asleep, lying in the same position as when Harriet had left her. Harriet stood and studied the visible half of the smooth face. She might have bent down and kissed the cheek that offered itself, but she reflected that it was the waking Linda who needed affection, and to make a gesture to Linda sleeping, someone else’s child, would have been sentimental.
Harriet closed the door firmly and went to her own bed. There was no cry in the night.
In the morning, while Linda ate her breakfast and Harriet made the necessary telephone calls to rearrange her morning, they said almost nothing. Linda looked mulish, and Harriet ignored her. It was only when Harriet gathered up her jacket and handbag, and handed Linda her maroon jersey to put on, that Linda understood there was really to be no reprieve.
‘Please, Harriet,’ she begged. ‘Can’t I stay here with you? I’ll be good. I can be, you know.’
Harriet gestured around her. ‘Look. Don’t you see? I haven’t even got a proper spare room. There’s nothing here that doesn’t belong to a grown-up life. I don’t know anything about children.’ If I was Jenny, she thought, or even Jane. Then it might be different. Except that it wouldn’t, because you’re Caspar Jensen’s and Clare Mellen’s daughter, and not ours. ‘I’ve also got work to do, Linda. Work that’s important to me, and takes up a lot of my time.’
‘Now you sound like Clare. Only she pretends that not having time is to do with education and being for my own good. At least you’re honest.’
Harriet was rebuked. ‘I didn’t mean that I don’t have any time for you.’
‘Oh, that’s OK.’
There was silence in the car, lasting until they were almost in sight of the school.
Harriet made one or two attempts at small talk, and then gave up.
They reached the school gates, set open on a driveway lined with horse chestnut trees. Harriet read the discreet sign as they passed it: BOARDING PREPARATORY SCHOOL FOR GIRLS AGED 7–11. Seven sounded very young for both boarding and preparation for anything.
Linda hunched her shoulders. The car turned a corner and a large, grey stone house was revealed. Bicycle sheds, modern classroom buildings and tennis courts were discernible beyond it.
‘You’re just like all the others,’ Linda said hopelessly. I thought you were different.’
Harriet accepted the dismissal. ‘I know you did.’
The front doors, between stone pillars, looked imposing, but inside there was the invariable smell of polish and lunch. Sniffing it, Harriet felt her own heart sinking. She tried to take Linda’s hand, but Linda held her arm stiffly away.
The school secretary led them up some stairs and along squeaky corridors. They passed two or three groups of quiet little girls in their unflattering uniforms. They all gawked at Linda and then nudged each other.
The headmistress was at her desk behind a door labelled ‘Headmistress’. She stood up to greet them. She was wearing a panelled skirt and a bow-necked blouse, exactly as Harriet had imagined she would. There was a row of small silver cups in a glass cabinet behind her chair.
Harriet shook hands, accepting the headmistress’s thanks for taking care of Linda and her offer of a cup of coffee. Linda listened to Mrs Harper’s grave recital of the trouble and anxiety she had caused by running away. Harriet and Linda learned that Miss Page was on her way back to the school and would be here any moment, that Mr Jensen had been spoken to, and that Mrs … er, Jensen would be ringing from California that evening. Between them, they would all decide what was best for Linda.
‘Because we’re all on your side, dear. We only want you to be happy and comfortable, Linda. But you have to help us, don’t you?’
Linda nodded. There seemed nothing else to say.
The coffee and Veronica Page arrived together. There was more handshaking and thanking, and more description for Linda of how all would be made well.
The three women drank their coffee, and Linda studied the top of the bookcase.
At length, replacing her empty cup on the tray and leaning forward to examine Linda’s filthy white socks, Mrs Harper said, ‘I think you might go back to your dormitory now to change, Linda, and then I think you should rejoin morning school.’
‘Please
can Harriet come with me? Just so I can show her my dorm?’
‘I’d like to see,’ Harriet said quickly.
‘By all means.’
Closing the door behind them, Harriet felt exactly as she had done on leaving Annunziata Landwith’s drawing room on New Year’s Eve. She wanted to run down the corridor and slide down the banisters.
‘See?’ Linda demanded.
‘I thought Mrs Harper seemed kind and sensible.’ But this time Linda didn’t reject her hand.
They climbed more stairs, narrower and steeper, to the top of the house. Through open doors Harriet caught sight of neat beds and rows of washbasins. Linda pushed open another door and they came into an attic room, cream-painted, with six iron bedsteads painted the same colour, and six bedside lockers. There were teddy bears on the beds, and pink and cream curtains at the windows.
‘This is it. Isn’t it disgusting?’ Linda yanked open a drawer and took out clean, folded clothes.
‘It’s perfectly cosy.’ Harriet looked at the other five beds, wondering about their occupants. ‘How much money did you say you borrowed from Arabella Makepeace’s creepy purse?’
Linda laughed. ‘You’ve got a brilliant memory. Ten pounds.’
‘I’m good at some things, actually. Here.’ Harriet gave her the money. Linda banged open another locker, took out a little leather bag and stuffed the notes into it.
‘Probably she’ll never notice. Thanks, Harriet.’
While Linda wriggled out of her dress Harriet wandered around the room. On Linda’s locker, as on the others, there were family photographs. Harriet picked one of them up and studied it. She saw Caspar’s big, handsome head and Clare’s milky blondeness. They looked as if they were on the way to some Hollywood party. Clare was wearing a dress of pale, shiny material with a wide, low neckline. There was a limousine in the background, and the suggestion of popping flashbulbs.
Harriet put the photograph back in its place. She didn’t look at those displayed by the other girls but she could imagine the Pony Club portraits, the sensible mothers and dogs and Army or City fathers, and the brothers at Fourth of June picnics. She had such a strong sense of Linda’s oddness amongst these people that sympathy overcame her determination to be rational. She turned round abruptly and said, ‘You think I’ve let you down, don’t you?’
Linda only shrugged.
Harriet went on, ‘I don’t want to let you down. I can’t take you away from here, or do anything like that, because your mother and father and Ronny make those decisions. But I can do some things. I can take you out for the day, can’t I? You can come and stay with me in London at the weekends, whenever you like, whenever they let you. We can call each other and talk, you can tell me about Arabella Makepeace and Mrs Harper and I’ll tell you what I’m doing. It’s easier, in a way. It’s easier to be friends if you don’t have duties to each other. Like providing an English education, and making the best of it.’
Linda’s smile was the answer to Harriet’s fear that she might have over-committed herself and her reward. It spread over the child’s face, changing its shape, making her pretty.
‘Really?’ Linda asked. ‘Will you really?’
‘Yes, I will. For as long as you want.’
The smile was followed by a bear hug. Harriet staggered under the fervour of it.
‘Really? Weekends?’
‘Whenever you want.’ Harriet thought of Robin, and the just faintly staid routine that they had established. For some reason the idea of its disruption by Linda Jensen made her smile. ‘You’ll have to ask your father and Ronny, and get permission here first.’
‘They’ll let me. Harriet, I didn’t mean what I said before. You are different. You’re better than different, even. You’re … like me.’
‘Well thanks,’ Harriet said, smiling at her.
It was time for Harriet to go. Satisfied with her promise, Linda let her leave without protest. She waved goodbye, and then went back to her class with apparent resignation. Ronny Page walked with Harriet to her car. She cleared her throat before she spoke, making Harriet think that she was uncomfortable about what she wanted to say.
‘I’m sorry you’ve been troubled with all this.’
Harriet glanced at her. Ronny was neat and correct, but somehow bloodless. She would be efficient at her job, but not very imaginative. Not much of a companion for Linda, in her parents’ absences. Harriet felt the wash of sympathy again.
‘I think perhaps I should apologise too. I’ve made a promise to Linda,’ she explained. Ronny nodded as she listened, with only a touch of colour showing in her cheeks.
‘I don’t have any objections personally, of course. But Mr Jensen would have to be consulted.’
‘Yes. How can I get in touch with him?’
Ronny’s manner changed. ‘That may be a little difficult, just at the moment, because of his commitments.’ She was the efficient PA, protecting her famous employer from the intrusive hordes. Harriet smiled faintly and remembered how the great man had deposited his pudding plate in her lap. ‘I’ll tell him everything that has happened, of course. I know he’ll be very grateful for everything you are doing for Linda.’
‘Thank you,’ Harriet said. She drove her car back down to the gates, relieved that she was not obliged to stay behind at St Brigid’s herself. The realisation made her more determined to do, or to be, whatever Linda Jensen needed.
Harriet went back to the Peacocks’ offices. It seemed much longer ago than last night that they had been celebrating the successful launch, although there were still champagne bottles and overlooked glasses in corners to remind her.
Harriet closed the door of her office on Karen and the banks of flowers in reception. Sara had put a list of calls and messages on her desk, and Harriet saw Robin’s name among them. Sara had also been through the mountain of post and arranged it neatly, and had marked the first reports of the Peacocks flotation in the business press for Harriet’s attention. Harriet sat and looked at all the work spread in front of her, and at the names of people who were waiting for her decision, or her commitments, or her acknowledgement.
Surveying it all, Harriet felt disturbingly flat. It was a feeling that stayed with her all through the days that followed.
Six months had been spent preparing for the stockmarket flotation. Harriet had been busy for every hour of every day, and whenever she had had time to think beyond the immediate demands on her, there had always been her goal to look forward to – Peacocks’ launch as a publicly-quoted company. The work had been a pleasure and it had been powerfully stimulating.
The demands of it had also meant that Harriet had been forced to neglect other things, some of them the day-to-day decisions that had accumulated to await her now. She had to turn her attention to new game proposals, to the decision whether or not to invest in her own manufacturing concern, to the expansion of her team, and dozens of smaller, related questions.
Harriet tackled the work diligently. But she felt the lack of the excitement that had given her her edge in the past. She watched Peacocks’ share price creep satisfying upwards, and read the favourable Press comments. Yet she and her company were no longer, as they had been for six months, the focus of minute and flattering attention from lawyers and bankers and brokers. Once again they had become just another young outfit with a position to hold in a difficult sector of the market, and others took their place as the hot issue of the day.
Harriet continued to grit her teeth and wade through what needed to be done. Karen and Graham Chandler and the others trod carefully around her.
She cancelled an evening at the theatre with Robin, even though it was a play she had been looking forward to, claiming that she had far too much work to do. She did spend the evening in her office, but her old ability to concentrate evaded her. She wasted more than an hour in sitting with one of the old Shamshuipo Meizu boards on her desk, watching the coloured balls rolling inexorably to their rendezvous with the counters in the slots. Harriet coul
d play the game now. She knew all the routes, circuitous and direct. The only thought that came to her was that it had been a long time since she had seen Simon Archer.
During this time she spoke twice to Linda on the telephone. Linda didn’t complain when they talked. Surprisingly, it was as if simply knowing that Harriet was there had given her the security or the reassurance that she needed. In one of their conversations Linda told her that she was in her house rounders team (‘It’s a dumb sort of game, not like Americans play it, but I’m pretty good at it’), and in another she described an essential skirt that all the big girls were wearing, and which Ronny claimed was no different from the summer skirt Linda already possessed. Harriet listened carefully to Linda’s description, then went to Top Shop at lunch time and bought the closest thing in the smallest size. She packed it up and sent it off, and earned a rapturous thank-you note from Linda (‘Harriet you are BRILLUNT’).
The last days of June went by. Harriet told herself that she must see more of Jane and Jenny, now that the drama of the launch was passing into history, but that she must solve her manufacturing problems before giving her attention to her social life. For the same reason she refused Robin’s invitation to Glyndebourne, and as far as she was aware he took Annunziata in her place.
At the beginning of July, when the trees in Hyde Park had already lost the sappy freshness of early summer and Oxford Street and Piccadilly were noticeably more crowded with brigades of tourists, Harriet’s sense of anticlimax grew deeper instead of diminishing. The days were sunny but cool. It was energising weather that worried her because she couldn’t respond to it.
One morning she found herself listening to Karen’s plans for a holiday on Kos with her boyfriend. Harriet reflected that she probably needed a holiday herself. Should she go on her own, she wondered, to stroll around the Uffizi or to be on the sand beside the Adriatic? (You could go anywhere, she heard Jenny say. You’re rich. As if it was, infectious.) She could go to Crete, and stay in one of the luxurious resort hotels that had been new, and way beyond their means, that first visit. She wondered if she could, perhaps, persuade Jane to accompany her. She knew that she didn’t want to go on holiday with Robin. Their time together, she realised, had been so industrious. It was hard to imagine how they would handle the diffuse constraints of a holiday.