He meandered back the way he’d come, noticing couples everywhere – intimate, companionable couples, sauntering along with their arms around each other, or sprawled on benches, kissing. Now he was parted from Penny, his thoughts kept returning to Juliet. Was she missing him, he wondered, or regretting their cancelled lunch? It would have been an entirely different experience with her – different food, different wine, different conversation. And yet he’d enjoyed the meal with Penny: her non-stop lively chatter; the way she’d tucked in with such gusto to all the most fattening items on the menu; polishing off the remnants of his pudding on top of her own gâteau and ice-cream. (Juliet would have opted for melon and grilled fish; refused even to look at the dessert trolley.)
He walked across the Moat Bridge into the first courtyard of the palace, squeezing his way past a gang of adolescent schoolgirls clustered round their teacher. He couldn’t shake them off. They were on his heels as he strolled across the next court; hemming him in under Anne Boleyn’s Gateway, where their teacher instructed them to look up at the carved stone roof and note the fine example of fan-vaulting. She pointed out the Tudor roses, and the initials H and A, intertwined on small stone squares – Henry and Anne Boleyn. He found that he was eavesdropping as she explained to the group that Henry had resolved to remove all traces of ill-fated Anne when he married his next wife, but that these monograms had somehow escaped his notice.
He peered up at the initials himself, watching them change in his imagination to D and J, entwined. He closed his eyes – to no avail. They still taunted him indelibly in stone. He tried to conjure up a chisel, hack them from his mind. He must take a leaf from Henry’s book and erase all traces of Juliet: burn her letters, give away her presents, stop carrying round the ticket-stubs from that first momentous concert. He patted his pocket instinctively (as he did twenty times a day). He had also kept the programme – all the programmes, actually, of every play and concert they’d attended, and foolish things like book-matches from their favourite bars and restaurants. His Juliet collection, which he knew he must destroy.
But why was it so difficult? Christ Almighty! Henry VIII could jettison his women without the slightest qualm, yet he himself was agonizing about disposing of a few mementoes. How could you behead two wives, divorce another two, and still carry on as normal – feasting, dancing, jousting? The mere thought of ditching Juliet, let alone his wife, brought him out in a cold sweat.
He followed the school party as they continued into Clock Court, taking advantage of a guided tour for free. The teacher was now expounding on the astronomical clock: it had been made in 1540, she said, and so showed the sun going round the earth. Some of her baffled charges started asking questions, apparently believing that they still inhabited a geocentric universe. He wished to God they were right. It would provide a stable base, more sense of man’s importance in the cosmos. Modern physics and Chaos Theory didn’t make for much security in life.
He gazed up at the elaborate painted dial, which showed the hours, the days, the months, the year and the phases of the moon. How could he survive that eternity of hours and days without Juliet to gild them? He fumbled in his pocket for his Camels, brought his hand back empty. Cigarettes were banned as well. Over lunch, he had solemnly reiterated his promise to give up. He and Penny had even drunk a toast to it – to the new healthy virtuous Daniel.
‘Alexandra!’ The teacher’s angry shout cut through his thoughts. ‘I’ve warned you twice already. If you persist in misbehaving, I’ll have to report you to Miss Jackson.’
He turned his back on the miscreant and walked off on his own. He’d become uneasy in the midst of all those girls, surrounded by their whispers, their secret jokes and giggles. They reminded him of Pippa and the private life she led at school. So much of her existence was totally shut off from him, whereas once they’d been so close. And it worried him that she was missing school at present, ill with some condition he couldn’t begin to comprehend. What ghastly hidden trauma could make a child stop speaking? Was she still a child, though? She would be thirteen in three days – the beginning of her teens. He thought back to last weekend, when she had gone to stay with Penny’s mother. He had taken her to Lewisham himself; tried throughout the journey to lighten the grim silence, but his voice had sounded intrusively fake as it met with no response. Driving away, he’d glanced back in his mirror at the small pale figure standing on Kay’s front step; her shoulders hunched, her face forlorn and closed. And yet in previous years a week with Grandma Kay had been a source of genuine pleasure; Pippa noisily regaling him with a preview of the treats in store, then waving him off with unrestrained excitement.
He traipsed into the next court, still preoccupied with the distressing change in his daughter and baffled by the reasons for it. He stopped short in astonishment at the sight of a mysterious figure dressed in a full-length velvet gown, with her hair in a jewelled snood – a lady from some bygone age, looking utterly incongruous amidst the tee-shirts and blue jeans. He felt the blood drain from his face as he recalled the disturbing rumours about the palace being haunted by the ghost of Catherine Howard. But he didn’t believe in ghosts. He blinked to disperse the mirage, but, far from disappearing, the figure continued to glide hypnotically towards him. He must be hallucinating – his mind so beset with problems, so fraught from lack of sleep, he was in danger of losing his wits. He stood his ground, determined to dispel his fear at the soft-footed but inexorable approach. Yet his heart was beating uncomfortably fast as the woman drew level with him, raised her hand in greeting. Now that she was closer, he saw she looked too sensuous for a ghost: the square-necked bodice of her dress cut provocatively low; more teasing flesh revealed through the slashings in her sleeves. Their eyes met for a moment, unnerving him completely. Those were Juliet’s eyes – the same amused expression, the same shade of bluish-grey. Could this be some symbolic ghost, warning him that there was no escape from Juliet, that she would haunt him all his life?
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ the woman smiled.
‘Er … good afternoon.’ His voice felt strained and rusty. He was still unsure whether this was delirium or dream. Impossible to converse with spectres in normal waking life.
‘Are you enjoying your visit?’
‘Yes … yes, thanks.’ He was foundering in her smile – a Mona Lisa smile, unsettling, irresistible. Her intense grey gaze seemed to pierce right through his skull.
‘Look, who the devil are you?’ he asked suddenly, aware that he was flushing – and not only from the heat. Of course she wasn’t a ghost. The tiny details proved it: the mascara on her lashes, the twentieth-century hairgrip escaping from her snood. He felt well and truly duped, yet still bewitched, in a different sense.
She laughed at his discomfiture. ‘I’m a lutenist,’ she explained. ‘We play music of the Tudor period to entertain the visitors. Why don’t you come and hear us? The next performance’s just about to start.’
‘I’m afraid I …’ The sentence petered out. Juliet had a passion for Elizabethan music. And Juliet was tall like that – enigmatic, maddeningly seductive. He could almost smell her perfume: that heady musk he’d had to beg her not to wear, for fear he’d carry it home with him in the crannies of his skin. He’d been congratulating himself at lunch on having expelled her from his mind, but now he’d met her shadow and was thrown into confusion again. He could even visualize her body beneath that voluminous dress – cool, despite the heavy velvet; open to him, naked …
‘Well, goodbye then,’ she was saying, gathering up her skirts. ‘I must away to the Great Hall, or I’ll be late for the performance. I’m sorry you can’t make it, but we’re playing again at five, so perhaps you can come then.’
‘Er, yes,’ he murmured, ‘I’ll do my best.’ He was due back in the café in ten minutes, to rejoin his lawful wedded wife, yet he realized he was being drawn into a further round of danger and delusion.
He set off in the opposite direction, to avoid any more temptation; escap
ed into the Fountain Garden, screwing up his eyes against the glare. The sun was so strong it had enamelled all the colours in the flowerbeds; hung deep dramatic shadows from the trees. The yews were clipped remorselessly: not a hair out of place; not the smallest sprig or shoot breaking their crisp lines. He must prune himself like that: strip off all desire, cut down any rising curves of lust. And to prove his new resolve, he would go instantly and claim his wife. He knew that he belonged with her – the rest was chimera.
He skirted round a family party: a babe in arms, a toddler in a pushchair and several older offspring whining at their parents. The heat was fraying tempers, melting ice-cream cornets. One bedraggled infant sat howling on the ground, refusing to budge an inch. Daniel gave the father a sympathetic smile. Since his marriage, he felt a natural bond with parents; they were no longer an alien species, but valiant fellow-sufferers.
He strode along the Broad Walk, through the wooden gate and along the path which led back to the café. He scanned the tables set outside – no carrot-head, no sailor-top. He was about to go and look inside when he spotted the two girls lying on the grass together, their bodies almost touching.
‘Penny!’ he called, running over to join them. She scrambled to her feet, her whole face lighting up. He held her close and kissed her, a long proprietorial kiss.
‘Wow!’ said Alison, raising a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Is this your second honeymoon or something?’
‘Yes,’ said Daniel. ‘It is.’
‘Well, perhaps I’d better scat then, and leave you lovebirds on your own.’
‘Don’t be silly. Daniel’s only joking.’ Penny sounded anxious, well aware of the unspoken animosity between her husband and her old art-school friend. She picked up their empty tea-cups, placed them on a bench. ‘Alison’s got to do some drawings of the maze, and she suggested we come too.’
‘Okay.’ He wasn’t particularly keen about having to play gooseberry to Penny and her bosom friend, but it wasn’t often he had a chance to please his wife – not these days, anyway. She complained that he was always out, and often strangely moody. Well, that was going to stop. He offered an arm to each of the girls, steered them towards the maze.
‘Hey, let’s split up,’ said Penny, as they filed in through the narrow gate. ‘And there’ll be a prize for the one who gets to the centre first.’
‘What’s the prize?’ asked Daniel.
‘A kiss!’
‘Well, I’d better not win that!’ Alison said caustically.
No, you hadn’t, Daniel cautioned under his breath.
‘Okay, I’m off!’ said Penny, overtaking a group of Japanese.
Daniel took his time, struggling to recall something he’d read about the maze; some trick or secret which led you to the centre. Didn’t you take the left-hand path each time? Yes, that was it – he remembered now – it was called the hand-on-hedge method. You kept your left hand on the left hedge, following all the twists and turns (including the dead ends), but always bearing left at any junction.
He watched Alison take the right-hand fork; set off himself the other way with just a hint of smugness in his step. He couldn’t actually keep his hand on the hedge with so many people crowding the paths, but so long as he didn’t get disoriented, he should be at the centre well before the other two. He felt a childish glee as he negotiated the first dead end, accepting it as a step on the way rather than a time-wasting frustration. If mazes symbolized the Path of Life, then for once he was on the right path, and going in the right direction.
Snatches of conversation, some in unknown languages, rose above the hedges from invisible fellow-travellers; the occasional raucous laugh or wail of bemused defeat. A small boy in a baseball cap barged rudely past, followed by an elderly man with a bald and sunburned head. All ages on the Path of Life, all races, classes, types, and many of them destined to go wrong. He forged ahead himself, again compelled to double back, but aware that he was making progress, despite the constant zigzags.
He passed a huddle of French children, arguing vociferously about which fork they should take. He didn’t offer to enlighten them – nor Alison for that matter. She had just swept by, flinging him a supercilious smirk. The design of the maze was ingenious. Several times the paths skirted tantalizingly near the centre, giving the impression that the goal was almost in reach, only to meander away from it again.
He could hear the tramp of confident feet echoing behind him, then the sound of muttered curses as the footsteps shuffled to a halt. He, too, was forced to stop. A rumbustious family group was bearing down towards him from the opposite direction, threatening to engulf him in their sticky-fingered tide. He let them pass, then set off once again, feeling momentarily nonplussed as he realized he was weaving back the way he’d come already. This particular path was empty, so he placed his left hand on the hedge, niggled by the suspicion that perhaps he’d made a fundamental error and it was the right-hand fork he should have taken all along. That would mean going back to the beginning and starting from square one. No – he’d better trust to his left-hand method for just a little longer, and keep his hand on the hedge this time, however difficult it was.
He strode doggedly along, turned a blind corner, then stood staring in surprise at the two tall chestnut trees which marked the centre of the maze – right there in front of him. He walked over to one tree and touched its slender trunk, to confirm he’d reached the finishing-post. He’d made it, won the prize – which meant more than just a kiss. The fact that he had solved the puzzle was important on another level: it seemed a propitious sign; a prediction that he would unravel his own problems and put his life to rights. He already felt much lighter, as if he had dumped his guilt and conflict in the dead ends of the maze; shaken off the spirit of that taunting lutenist. He wasn’t one for superstition, but he had a strong instinctive feeling that if Penny reached the centre before Alison, then everything would turn out doubly well.
He felt he deserved a cigarette, but resisted the temptation; kept his hands occupied by picking up a spray of leaves and using it as a fan. Actually, there was plenty to distract him. He’d pictured the centre of the maze as a sort of sacred empty space, but there was barely room to move. It was very small, in any case, and a tribe of oversized Americans had already planted the flag, and were complaining to the world at large about the heat, the crowds, the midges, while their enterprising children were busy carving graffiti on the tree-trunks, adding their crude hieroglyphics to the hundreds defacing the bark. He flattened himself against the hedge, as far away from their barbarity as possible, keeping an anxious look-out for Penny’s beacon-head. Strange he hadn’t passed her once in his progress through the maze, when he’d seen Alison three times. He suspected Alison had abandoned the whole venture and started on her sketches. After all, she’d come here to work, not to compete for the dubious prize of a kiss from one of the Hughsons.
There was a sudden yelp of laughter from the bench beneath the left-hand tree. A group of young Italian lads were jumping up on it, striking affected poses, then pushing each other off. One had removed his tee-shirt, exposing a tanned and hairy chest. Daniel’s eyes were immediately drawn to that expanse of naked flesh. Penny liked hirsute men. Only last month she had been admiring a photo in a woman’s magazine of some film star dressed in nothing but his chest-hair and his swimming trunks, and her exaggerated praises had made him absurdly jealous. He imagined her now, crushed against a macho young Italian; huge hairy hands fondling her bare breasts, the brute’s iron-stiff erection never going down. He ripped a leaf to pieces. His wife could actually be deceiving him and he wouldn’t even know. After all, he was always telling lies himself, to excuse his absences; saying he’d been kept at work when he was really meeting Juliet. So when Penny told him airily she was going to a yoga class, or off to see a friend, that too might be a cover-up. The trouble with lying was that it made you, in turn, start suspecting other people; deception breeding mistrust. But then Penny had slept with him on the very first
day they met, so might she not repeat the performance with another willing bachelor?
He dropped his shreds of leaf. It was hardly fair to blame her when he had seduced her, more or less, then betrayed her nine years later. He wasn’t just a hypocrite – he was also deceiving himself: full of good intentions, but never taking any action.
He groped in his back pocket for the grubby, precious ticket-stubs which had become his talisman. He glanced down at their numbers: H9 and 10. Nine was a magical number, but magic didn’t last, and though H might stand for heaven, it could swiftly change to hell. He took a last regretful look at them, then crumpled them to nothing and stuffed them into the thickest part of the yew-hedge. When he withdrew his hand, he noticed it was scratched; tiny beads of blood gleaming on the back like out-of-season yew berries. He wiped it roughly on his handkerchief. No sacrifice without some pain. He unbuttoned his other pocket, removed his packet of Camels and rammed them into the hedge as well. They were further proof of his hypocrisy. You didn’t carry cigarettes when you had vowed to give up smoking.
He sank down on the bench, which he now had to himself. The Italians had trooped off; in fact everyone had vanished, leaving him alone. He had wanted peace and quiet, but instead of revelling in his solitude, he found it strangely threatening. He could see the clock dial in his mind, the little golden orb of the sun travelling steadfastly round the earth. Those Tudor astronomers had got it totally wrong, and perhaps their twentieth-century counterparts were equally wide of the mark. Man knew next to nothing; simply needed to persuade himself that he was making sense of a senseless universe. He stared down at his hand: a tracery of fine pink scratches, encrusted with congealing blood. He thrust both hands in his pockets, started pacing round and round the cramped deserted space. He almost wished those schoolgirls had caught up with him; rebellious Alexandra answering her teacher back. Anything to connect him to humanity.
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