The Lost Life

by Steven Carroll

  He then nods, a faint sense of recognition that says, yes, we have met before, and yes, I promised to sign your book ‘gladly’, if I recall correctly, and so I shall — but you’ll forgive me if the gladness has gone from me for the time being. Then he looks down as Miss Hale hands him the book and he stares at it with a perplexed expression, almost as if looking upon the book for the first time and wondering who on earth the person was who wrote enough poems to fill a whole volume. Could it really have been him? But of course it was (albeit a sufficiently distant him to be someone else), and he quickly signs his name on the title page and hands it back to Miss Hale, nodding briefly in Catherine’s direction before turning his gaze back upon the garden outside.

  As Miss Hale returns, her face gives nothing away to Catherine. A promise has been made, and a promise has been kept. A duty dispatched. She has looked after one of her girls, and she hands back the book with the kind of controlled poise that suggests, without it being stated, that this is a trying moment. And it is then that Miss Hale looks down and sees the letter, open on the hall-stand for all the world to see, and, as she snatches it up, she looks abruptly back at Catherine, attempting to fathom if the thing has been read, has remained unread, or was even noticed. Catherine is quick to avert her eyes, and is aware of Miss Hale’s enquiring gaze, but like the woman beside her, Catherine gives nothing away. And, from the corner of her eye, Catherine notices Miss Hale stuffing the letter into her pocket while she guides her to the door.

  Again, Catherine is wondering, as she stands on the doorstep, saying goodbye to Miss Hale, was the note left out for her to read, and was the surprise of finding the letter open to the enquiring eyes of strangers another piece of performance — or had the news the letter contained been so disturbing that it had been dropped on the table in the hall and forgotten about until Miss Hale had returned the signed copy of her friend’s poems and seen it lying there, exposed to the enquiring eyes of strangers such as Catherine.

  Catherine turns to Miss Hale as she leaves. ‘Thank you,’ and adds, falling in with Miss Hale’s coded language, ‘tell your friend he is very kind.’

  Miss Hale nods, the faintest trace of a smile. ‘You’ll forgive us if we don’t ask you to stay, but it’s been a — what shall we say? — an awkward morning.’

  ‘Of course.’ And with that she turns, following the curve of the high street down to the shops, leaving Miss Hale standing at the door, the faraway look in her eyes giving every impression that, although physically in the doorway, she is still living in another time and place, and whatever was left undone might yet be completed.

  Later that morning in her room, Catherine is staring at the tobacco tin exhumed from the rose garden on what now seems to be such a distant day. Not the beginning of this autumn, but last autumn. Or the one before. She does not open the tin, but can hear the small metal object inside shift whenever she moves it. She doesn’t open it because that would be snooping. It’s bad enough that she’s even in possession of the damned thing, but peering into the private life inside? That much she can control, and so she doesn’t snoop. Like gossip, snooping is beneath the lady.

  And while she is staring at the small tin (the name of a well-known brand of pipe tobacco printed on the lid), she is asking herself, what she can do. By which she means what can she do to help, given that she can find no way of giving back the tin, of retrieving the act of folly in the rose garden and restoring some part of Miss Hale’s happiness. What can she do, not only to help Miss Hale and her friend without revealing the cause of their troubles, but to rid herself of the nagging guilt that, while not as intense as it was, is still, nonetheless, always there. Especially on mornings such as these when she feels her guilt all over again.

  And then, as if in answer to her question, there is a knock on the door. Her mother is at the school preparing for the new term and Catherine opens the door to find a little girl from the town (whom she has seen about the place, but whose name she doesn’t know) standing in front of her, a sealed envelope in her hands. The girl peers at her quizzically. She is clearly on an errand.

  ‘Is your name Catherine?’ she asks like an adult.

  ‘Yes,’ says Catherine, as if speaking to one.

  It is then that the little girl thrusts the envelope into her hands.

  ‘The American lady in the high street asked me to give you this.’

  Catherine has no sooner taken the envelope than the girl is gone.

  ‘Thank you,’ she calls, and the girl waves without turning as she runs off, no doubt back to her friends with a small reward for her mission.

  When Catherine opens the letter, she finds the briefest of messages.

  ‘Can you please come? E.H.’

  It doesn’t say so, but the brevity of the note implies urgency, and so Catherine quickly returns to her room, puts the tin back in her drawer, and prepares herself to face the street, and Miss Hale for the second time that morning. Or should that be E.H.? There is, she notes, a certain satisfaction in the note being signed with her initials only, for the initials speak of one adult requesting the company and the help of another.

  The door is opened soon after she knocks and Miss Hale ushers her into the house. ‘Thank you for coming so quickly. Please, sit.’

  Miss Hale’s friend, Catherine notes immediately, has gone. Miss Hale is on edge. She is not herself. There is no hint of playing. She is not acting like someone on edge. She simply is. She sits opposite Catherine, her fingers tapping on the small table between them. One moment her eyes and mind are far away, the next she speaks as if inwardly having dispelled any doubts about saying what she is about to say. ‘I have a request. You may accept or decline. It is entirely up to you. I will understand if you refuse. So, do not feel you must. It is simply a request.’

  Catherine nods, puzzled, intrigued, even excited, but says nothing.

  ‘Well.’ Miss Hale nods in return, placing both hands on her knees, as if to say that she will come directly to the business at hand. ‘As you know — as I have mentioned — my friend, my dear, dear friend, in his youth made a bad marriage. No one is to blame,’ Miss Hale says, lifting her palms and her gaze to the heavens, ‘but it was a marriage made in hell, all the same. And now my friend wishes to leave the marriage, only she won’t let him. She is, as I have said, the type who clings long after she has any right to.’ There is a brief pause as she looks down to the floor, slowly shaking her head from side to side. ‘How, how indeed, do you leave someone who refuses to be left?’

  Miss Hale lifts her head and eyes Catherine, gauging if the full import of what she is saying is being taken in, and, if so, what the girl is thinking.

  ‘She follows him to his work. To official functions. She has even tried to post an advertisement in The Times, telling him to come home. Home?’ Miss Hale raises her eyebrows as she says the word.

  Catherine nods, knowing straight away that Miss Hale is referring to the letter left out on the hall-stand.

  ‘She might even hire a detective. Who knows? The woman is obsessed.’

  Catherine notes that the emphasis on that last word is not acted, but carries with it a whole summer, perhaps even years, of frustration.

  ‘It must stop,’ Miss Hale continues wearily, then looks down at a sealed envelope on the table, bites her lip, and stares directly back at Catherine.

  ‘Will you take this to her?’ she asks, indicating the envelope.

  ‘Personally?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The eyes of Miss Hale give nothing away. She remains impassive. But, in spite of the steadiness of her gaze, in the silence that follows there is urgency in the air, the faintest hint of desperation of someone at the end of her tether, driven to such measures. A stranger in town, turning to the only person she can think of who might help her through this difficult time. And there is part of Catherine that feels that she herself has conjured up this request from Miss Hale, for in quietly asking herself the question ‘What can I do?’ just that morning, d
id she not call, and was her call not answered? And while others might reasonably reply that as much as they sympathise, it is, really, none of their business, Catherine cannot. For Catherine knows it is her business. And without even taking time to weigh it all up, she knows what must be done, and nods again, a second time. Yes, she will. Yes, she is, after all, one of Miss Hale’s girls, and would never dream of letting her down any more than she would betray her trust. You need only, the nod says, you need only ask.

  There is the most minute of sighs from Miss Hale before she continues. ‘You may wonder why you have to. Why I simply cannot post the letter in question myself. But I do not want my friend to know and you must never breathe a word of it. It must be as though the letter never existed.’ Here she fixes Catherine with an uncompromising stare to which Catherine nods twice this time. Taking the nods to be a pledge, Miss Hale goes on. ‘He would be aghast if, even by the wildest of chances, anything ever got back to him. Perhaps humiliated. And that would be the end of the friendship. Do you understand the importance of this?’

  ‘Yes.’ Catherine cannot conceive of how anything could get back to her friend, but she can also see that Miss Hale is in no condition to receive such assurances, and so lets it pass. She is thinking and talking the way people do when they’ve got themselves in a state. And so, while one part of Catherine is nodding and saying yes, another part recognises that Miss Hale is in a state and that what seems perfectly reasonable to her (this insistence that the letter be hand-delivered) isn’t quite adding up. And although this sceptical side of Catherine will surface with greater clarity later on, at this particular moment it is Miss Hale’s state of mind that preoccupies her. The distinct possibility that Miss Hale has got herself worked up and is not thinking things through clearly is pushed aside for now. For Catherine is one of Miss Hale’s girls, and this is no time for quibbles or lessons in logic. Like the age itself, it is a time for taking sides.

  ‘Yes,’ Miss Hale hums, as if to say she chooses her girls well. ‘I believe you do,’ she continues. ‘Besides, they would stamp the letter at the post office, and this woman will then know where it came from, and then where she may possibly find her husband. And he, of course, poor man, does not want to be found. That is the last thing he wants, and if I were to bring it upon him I would never forgive myself — whatever words of forgiveness he may offer.’ She stops abruptly, as if the last words have been wrung from her. ‘So you see it must be delivered by hand. She may have her suspicions as to where he may be found — and in whose company — in among the many towns in this popular spot, but suspicions and knowledge are two separate things.’ Miss Hale stares out the window a moment. ‘You may also be wondering why I don’t go myself. That, however, would be to reveal myself,’ and there is, to Catherine, more than a hint of someone tired of being in the shadows because she can’t reveal herself, tired of being the woman no one speaks of because she’s not here, tired of the game. ‘Besides,’ she goes on, ‘sometimes things are best said in letters. People can get in the way.’ She looks down at the letter in her hands. ‘You will knock on the door. If she is not in, speak with Janes.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘He’s the servant. Have you got that?’

  ‘And if she is in?’

  ‘Then, if you can, bring her reply back with you. Though I don’t hold out much hope. Still, it must be tried. Heaven only knows, we must try.’

  There is a long pause and Miss Hale, whose carriage is always upright, especially when seated, slumps a little in her chair, as if to say that this whole wretched business is completely beneath her, beneath Catherine, beneath anybody with any sense of dignity, which, it is implied, the woman for whom the letter is intended clearly lacks.

  ‘You may accept or decline, the choice is yours.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Catherine says, in a manner that suggests she thought it was already decided and was never in doubt.

  ‘You don’t need to think it over?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  The relief is immediately evident on Miss Hale’s face. ‘Thank you, Catherine. Thank you. You have my gratitude.’ And, just in case Catherine does not understand the significance of this, she adds: ‘And, Catherine, I do not give my gratitude lightly.’ She nods firmly, as if to say that with her gratitude comes her word, and with her word … everything. She then passes the letter to Catherine who notices immediately that the address on the envelope is the same she noticed in the letter this morning — the address to which T.S. Eliot should return, which is his home, and which he abandoned.

  ‘You will need to go to London,’ Miss Hale informs her, her voice matter-of-fact. ‘Can you leave first thing in the morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve no appointments?’

  ‘Appointments? Of course not.’

  ‘You’ll be gone the whole day.’

  Catherine nods.

  ‘What will you tell your mother?’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’

  ‘Remember, not a word of this.’

  ‘Not a word.’

  Miss Hale then hands Catherine a second sheet of paper. It contains, Catherine sees immediately, a map and instructions. She will, Miss Hale informs her, need to travel to Paddington Station (adding that Catherine has more than likely made the trip before and probably doesn’t need to be told). ‘At Paddington you take the Underground. If you get confused, ask someone. You must take the Inner Circle, Catherine. The Inner Circle. And you get off at Baker Street. The map will guide you from there. It is walking distance. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you need me to explain it again?’

  ‘No, it is perfectly clear.’

  Miss Hale gazes at her steadily for a moment, then nods. A nod that once more suggests that she, Miss Hale, chooses her girls well. And it is then that Miss Hale’s tone changes completely, almost as though a thought has just occurred to her. ‘Your young man leaves soon, does he not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Miss Hale smiles faintly. ‘When the days are few, the days are important.’ She glances quickly in Catherine’s direction. ‘Perhaps we can find a way to make up for the lost time.’

  Catherine can’t imagine what she means, but replies, ‘That’s not necessary.’

  ‘Naturally, I will pay for your tickets and any expenses.’ She then hands over what Catherine knows is more than enough money. And there is also an unstated recognition, that, with money passing from one hand to another, with the exchange of notes, a contract has been sealed, and Catherine has the distinct sensation of becoming — what do they call it? — a hired hand. For the money brings with it a certain grubbiness. And, as Catherine registers this sensation herself, she sees in the eyes of Miss Hale the same thought, and with it the sentiment that the whole grubby business is beneath them both.

  What Catherine didn’t tell Miss Hale was that she had, in fact, never been to London. In their travels together, from city to town, in the different places her mother had taught and to which she had been taken, she had never been to London. In accepting the responsibility of delivering the letter, she had no intention of saddling Miss Hale with the concern, and possibly guilt, of knowing that her messenger had never been to the place to which she was required to go. It was also a matter of pride. For Catherine had long prided herself on being an independent spirit, and to decline Miss Hale’s request out of sheer faint-heartedness went completely against the grain. Besides, she had the instructions and a map. The getting there would not be difficult. The difficulties, she feared, would begin when she got there.

  She told her mother that evening that she would be gone the whole of the next day. Her mother asked where and Catherine told her.

  ‘London? But, you’ve never been there.’

  ‘Well then, it’s time I went.’

  When her mother asked why, Catherine lied (one of the few times she had ever lied to her
mother) with a clear conscience. She mumbled something about books. Books she had to have, but which, unfortunately, could not be obtained locally. And so she had to go. ‘Besides,’ and here she managed a smile, ‘it really is time I saw Foyles.’

  But Catherine was a bad liar (for which she had always inwardly complimented herself) and her mother wasn’t smiling back. Catherine may have lied with a clear conscience, but she had lied badly and her mother saw it was a lie straight away, and Catherine saw that she saw. She also saw her mother giving her the quick once-over, belly, face and eyes, and Catherine knew what her mother was thinking, or at least the possibility that she was entertaining. Her mother, she felt sure, was remembering the grass stain on her dress the week before and wondering just how long this sort of behaviour had been going on, and equating grass stains with sudden trips to London (for the flimsiest of reasons) and coming up with the inevitable conclusion. Just to set the record straight, for the sake of her own reputation and to sooth her mother’s anxieties, she was about to correct what, she felt sure, was the conclusion her mother had reached. But then she stopped herself, for she also realised that to do so would necessitate a conversation that would inevitably lead right back to the very question she wished to avoid: namely, why she was going to London. So she let it be.