CHAPTER TWENTY
‘You, the man I’m thinking of,
Yes, you, my missing other half.
You, the man I long to love—
Are you there?’
—Stella Carlyle, ‘Are You There?’
Stella 1996
The curator handed the button back to Stella.
‘It’s actually Russian,’ he said. ‘But a nice little find nonetheless.’
‘Is there anything else about it?’
‘It’s from an artillery regiment. Which makes sense if your friend found it in the North Valley. Cannons to the right of them, cannons to the left of them . . . Magnificent but not war . . . Poor chaps, a fine example of the cock-up theory.’
‘It sounds like it.’ She put the button in her bag and pointed at the picture which lay on the desk between them. ‘And what about that? It’s propaganda, surely.’
‘Let’s see.’ The curator picked up the picture and held it at arm’s length. ‘Yes and no. It’s obviously titled for what we might call propaganda purposes, but . . .’ He pushed his spectacles into his hair and peered closely at the photograph. ‘It’s certainly not a set-up.’
‘No? You mean these aren’t models?’
‘Oh, good lord, no, this is the genuine article, probably taken in the Crimea. It was the first war to be widely photographed but most of what found its way back here was broadly what you’d call portraiture. Action photography wasn’t an option, and undoctored post-battle scenes weren’t good for public morale. But this one must have fallen into the photographer’s lap, so to speak. You can tell from the state of the horse that it’s the real thing. And it’s in surprisingly good nick. It may even have some value but you need a specialist for that, I wouldn’t want to stick my neck out.’ He put his glasses back on his nose and held the picture at arm’s length to survey it more generally. ‘An acquired taste, but right up the Victorians’ alley, of course – hero and horse united in death, gone to a better place . . . All that kind of thing.’
‘We don’t know that he was a hero.’
‘Indeed not, but the poor man’s entitled to his secrets, and whatever his story he was put to good use after death.’ – ‘As a matter of fact—’ Stella turned the picture slightly towards her to refresh her memory ‘—there isn’t a mark on either of them.’
‘True,’ said the curator. ‘None that we can see, anyway. I imagine that was how they came to have their picture taken.’
When she got back she rang Jamie to tell him he’d been right. Because his working day started at five a.m. he was home and often asleep in the late-afternoon, so she’d been half expecting to talk to his machine and was surprised when he answered. She could hear televised sport in the background. ‘Am I disturbing you?’
‘No – hang on.’ There was a brief pause and the rugger sound was stifled.
‘I am.’
‘You are not, we’re getting creamed anyway. What can I do for you?’
She relayed the curator’s comments. ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘Respect! It’s nice to be proved correct by the experts.’
‘He said it might even be valuable.’
‘Really? Don’t forget your friends when you’re loaded.’
‘I’m not thinking of selling it.’
‘Stella, you are such a sentimental old cow.’
‘Less of the old. Right, well, I only—’
‘How’s Robert?’
Although, or perhaps because, she had been thinking of nothing else for days she answered stupidly: ‘Who?’
‘If you don’t know I certainly bloody don’t. Robert. The man you talk about when you’re pissed.’
She noted that he had been kind enough not to say ‘when you’re shagging my friends’. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I assume he’s the one you were talking about when we had that lunch last year?’
‘That’s right. But I haven’t seen him.’
‘And that’s the problem, is it?’
‘It’s rather more complicated than that.’
‘Sure, but the longest journey starts with a single – Shit! Try! Fucking brilliant, what a screamer! Equalised, and everything to play for!’
Whatever its status in the mind of the giver, the advice was sound. She knew that, because it was the same advice she gave herself. Don’t write the whole script, don’t pre-empt the plot, take one small step. Contact him.
The trouble was that while it may have been one small step to Jamie, it was a giant leap where she was concerned: a giant leap across a howling abyss. All that stuff on both sides that had to be gone through, unravelled, relived, explained. They couldn’t just go back to where they were, too much had happened, and that scared her too. Even if she managed her side of things, how would he be? She had only ever known him as an unqualified professional success – smart, rich, confident, at the top of his form. With this hanging over him, and his marriage over, would he be a different person? The thought of a humbled Robert, chastened and self-justifying, apalled her. God knows she had slept with enough men she neither admired nor respected because they were by definition dispensable. She had fallen in love with Robert for all the things he was, and one of those was what she herself aspired to be – a class act.
She and Derek had started rehearsals for their cabaret at the Parade on the Park. It was partly a way of kick-starting her on the writing: they needed at least half a dozen new numbers. He came round to her place in the mornings, around ten-thirty, and they went through till whatever time they ran out of steam and broke off for a pub lunch. If she got an idea for a tune or a lyric they’d roll it around between them and see if it achieved any momentum of its own. Derek was a completely unselfish performer, he recognised her as the creative engine and patiently followed her whims and flights and dead-ends, never chivvying, always exuding the unspoken assumption that they’d get there in the end.
The morning after her conversation with Jamie, the process was temporarily stalled and they were having an early beer to buy time. Derek was sitting on the piano stool at right angles to the keyboard, his hands on his knees, bottle in one hand, cigarette in the other.
‘Jackman,’ she said, ‘why couldn’t I have fallen in love with you?’
‘Because you’re an honourable lady and I’m a happily married man.’
‘Leaving that aside.’
‘Which I have been known to do myself from time to time . . . No, so what brought this on?’
‘We’re such a terrific team.’
‘Because we’re not having a thing, that’s why.’
There was a silence while she acknowledged the truth of this, before saying: ‘This man – this man I used to care about—’ Derek pulled a wry face at her through his smoke ‘—anyway, this man. He’s in trouble and I’d like to see him. But for one thing that’s breaking all the rules, and for another it could be a total disaster, and for another – forget it, the nightmare continues.’
‘Pick up the phone, girl.’
‘I don’t know where he is.’
‘He works, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes, but he may not be there . . .’ Some foolish, protective instinct prevented her from saying why.
‘But they’ll know where he is. Do it now, while I’m here.’
‘No.’
‘But do it, yeah? For me.’ He leaned forward. ‘I want to have a show to go to.’
‘Okay, okay!’
It was another three days before she called the hospital main switchboard and asked to be put through to the ophthalmology department.
‘May I ask what it’s in relation to?’
‘I’m trying to get hold of someone.’
‘Is it with regard to an appointment?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Do you need advice?’
She considered this was broadly true. ‘Yes.’
‘What is your patient number?’
Shit. ‘I don’t have it with me.’
‘Name?’
> ‘Stella Carlyle.’
‘Postcode?’
She realised she was being looked up on a computer, and rang off.
The following afternoon she drove to the hospital, presented herself at reception and asked for the eye clinic.
‘It’s Clinic C, along here up the stairs or lift to Level One, turn left and through the double doors.’
‘Thanks.
‘But there’s no clinic this afternoon.’
‘Right – so will there be no one there?’
‘No,’ said the woman patiently. ‘Can I help at all?’
Stella, sorely tried, bit back a smart answer.‘I’m trying to contact Dr Vitelio.’
‘Mr Vitelio’s not here at present, he’s taking some time off.’
‘I see. Will he be in tomorrow?’
‘No, he may take a few weeks.’
‘Is this to do with the enquiry?’
The receptionist’s voice took on a hint of frost. ‘Pending the outcome of an enquiry, that’s right.’
‘Does he come in at all? I mean, if I were to leave a message—’
‘Are you the press?’
‘Certainly not. I’m an acquaintance.’
The receptionist put a notepad and biro on the desk in front of her. ‘If you want to leave your name, I’ll give it to him if he should come in.’ As Stella turned to leave, she added: ‘But I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.’
The weird thing was, she felt as though she was holding her breath. Every day was a long winching up of tension and expectation through which she struggled, only to collapse with a great exhalation into bed, and sleep, sometimes weeping with frustration but hanging on to the hope that tomorrow might be the day . . .
She had almost forgotten what it was like, the open-ended waiting. The feeling that every empty post and un-rung minute, every junk-fax and fatuous e-mail was an affront, and more than an affront: a blow, a cut. A slamming of the door.
The rehearsals helped, but she wasn’t writing. Neither she nor Derek raised the subject of Robert again.
The weekend after her fruitless visit to the hospital she went to visit her parents. When she called her mother, Mary was touchingly delighted.
‘Of course! You must! George has been telling me all about the wonderful time they had in Italy, we were so sorry we couldn’t . . . Will you be able to spend the night?’
‘Are you sure that won’t be too much?’
‘Darling – not enough, if anything.’
‘How’s Dad?’
‘Doolally a lot of the time now. Be prepared.’
She thought she was, but it was still a shock. In some ways it was easier now that he had crossed the invisible line between everyone else’s world and his own unique, out-of-sync one. There were no longer those agonised reachings-out, the mental fumblings, the half-understood exchanges. No twilight. Where Andrew was now was bright as day to him, and there was no point in trying to reclaim him. Like a sleepwalker you could only bear him company and direct his footsteps.
When she arrived on Friday night he was already in bed and Mary explained that this was the usual pattern.
‘He gets sleepy in the evening and he’s usually up there between seven and eight, but the small hours tend to be eventful.’
‘Can’t you keep him up so that he sleeps when you do?’
‘I’ve thought of it, but how? We don’t have conversations any more, I can’t engage his mind or his attention, so short of poking him with a stick . . . And anyway, this is my quiet time. It means you and I can have supper together in peace. It cuts both ways.’
This was another difference, thought Stella: her mother, too, had crossed the line. She was as loving and attentive to Andrew as she’d always been, but between her and Stella there was no longer any pretence that the matter couldn’t be discussed frankly. There had come a point where Mary had been left behind in the world her husband no longer inhabited. It was horribly sad, but it meant that for almost the first time in her adult life Stella found that she and her mother were talking to one another as friends and equals, without the invisible barrier of the perfectly happy marriage. Mary’s strength as a mother was that she had always been primarily a wife. But now the emphasis had shifted.
After supper they sat with the last of the New Zealand Sauvignon in the conservatory. Mary had invested in an intercom, and they could hear Andrew’s breathing. Occasionally the pace and volume of the breathing altered, as if he were dreaming.
‘Do you have any help?’ asked Stella.
‘Yes, I have big strong girls from Social Services who come and give him a bath once a week. And there’s a nice woman, I forget her official title, who calls me every morning to check that I’m still holding up. I can unburden myself to her, which is useful.’
Stella said humbly: ‘You could unburden yourself to me.’
‘Darling, I know I could, but neither of us would be any further forward. I’d feel I was being a bore, and you’d be upset not knowing what to do—’
Stella put her head in her hands.‘I should do more. I feel terrible.’
‘Don’t! Don’t, or I shall feel I can’t tell you anything. If there was something that only you could do, believe me I’d ask for it. Other than that, the best thing you can do is to be the star that we’re both so proud of.’
‘Scarcely a star. I can’t even write at the moment.’
‘How many times have I heard that before? You will.’
‘I wish I had your confidence.’
‘Come on.’ Mary upended the last of the bottle into Stella’s glass. ‘It’s not exactly confidence, but remember I’ve been watching you for a long time. Your songs are you, aren’t they? You sing your life, or your feelings about life. And I suppose the feelings have to cook for a bit before you can turn them into songs.’
‘You’re absolutely right.’ Stella didn’t know why she should be surprised at the accuracy of this assessment. ‘But it doesn’t make the waiting any easier.’ She looked directly at her mother. ‘Did I ever tell you you’re my hero?’
‘No, thank heavens.’
‘Well, tough, because I am now. You and Dad. I thrash about and pretend to be modern, but I envy what you have. What you’ve made.’
‘You mean, our marriage?’
‘Sort of.’ With difficulty she made herself say the big words she could so easily have sung: ‘More, your love. It’s how love ought to be. In an ideal world.’
Mary turned aside so that her face was in profile to Stella’s, vulnerable to inspection, displaying the softening tissues and creased skin of old age. ‘Put Andrew on a pedestal if you must, but be so kind as to leave me my feet of clay.’
Stella said teasingly: ‘Don’t tell me you’re about to confess to something shocking?’
‘No – but Andrew’s not the only man I’ve loved. Nor the man I’ve loved the most.’
Stella caught her breath. ‘You think that’s not shocking?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No – no – Mum, I’m not being critical, Jesus Christ would I . . .? I’m just saying that at this moment I’m your selfish little girl and I’m shocked.’
‘It was an awfully long time ago. In another lifetime.’ Mary looked back at her and smiled. ‘History, as they say.’
‘Well, good for you. But let me put it on record that I’m awfully glad you picked Dad to have babies with.’
Mary didn’t reply, but Stella thought she detected a sheen of tears on her smile. The air ached with things waiting to be said. There was a sudden flurry of sound over the intercom, and Mary got up and went through to the bedroom.
Stella sat, still, absorbing the blow as she listened to the intimate sounds of soothing, pillow-plumping, tucking-in, the soft ‘tick’ of a kiss: the sounds of childhood.
Her mother returned, brisk and practical. ‘False alarm. It’s not waking up time yet.’
Stella fell in step with her. ‘Seriously, Mum, would you like me to come and stay for a b
it? Share the burden?’
‘Not to share the burden, no. You know that if you ever want to come for all the usual reasons, there’s nothing I’d like more.’ Stella noticed she did not say ‘we’. ‘But we have a system and a routine, and there is more professional help I can call on if I really need to. For goodness’ sake, Andrew’s not an invalid, he can still do all the basic things for himself, it’s just a case of getting him to do them at the right time and place!’
At half-past ten they went to bed. Stella wondered what it must be like to share a double bed with a man whom one loved but who had become a stranger. She’d heard people say that when a marriage went wrong it was like that. But at least the other person would still speak the same language, have the same frame of reference and the recollection of a shared history. From her parents’ room, with the intercom now switched off, there was silence.
It didn’t last for long. After half an hour, it began – the mutterings and creakings, the click of light switches and running of taps, the perambulations, her mother’s muted voice and her father’s, alternately querulous and strident. Concerned that her mother might think she was asleep and be trying not to disturb her, Stella got out of bed and opened the door.
Her parents were standing in the passage, hand in hand, Andrew in his paisley pyjamas, Mary in her oversized pale blue t-shirt, both barefoot. They looked like a couple of children about to leave on some quixotic fairytale quest.
‘There’s no need to be quiet,’ Stella said, ‘I wasn’t asleep.’ She walked over and kissed her father. ‘Hallo, Dad.’
‘Can you tell me what time it is?’
She glanced at her watch. ‘Five-past eleven?’
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