One Day in May

by Catherine Alliott

  Hal raised his eyebrows. I coloured. ‘Which is rich coming from me, I know,’ I tumbled on quickly. ‘But being honest renders one so vulnerable, Hal, that’s the trouble. And I had so much to lose.’

  ‘You’ve gained a lot,’ he observed, narrowing his eyes into the distance to where Seffy and Cassie were playing doubles against Biba and Daisy: we listened to the thwack of balls. The shouts of laughter.

  ‘Seffy’s gained her. I can’t lay claim to Cassie in any way – it would be disingenuous. I feel I’ve knowingly disowned her all these years. I can’t suddenly turn round and say – hey, great, you’re my son’s sister, welcome!’

  ‘No, but you’d be amazed how flexible and forgiving young people can be.’

  This I knew to be true, my own family being the most recent, potent example, and they weren’t all young. One by one they’d sought me out over the last few days, to say how pleased they were about Seffy, how happy. Not how duped or misled they felt they’d been all these years. Laura and I had talked for hours in her room, thrashing it out moment by moment, going back years, to when we’d shared the flat in Pimlico. To Dom. The girls, who’d been told, tiptoed in towards the end, sitting on the bed hugging their knees, wanting the whole story again, from the beginning, please, Hattie, their mother protesting, saying it was not for their ears. But I felt it most definitely was: that I owed them all, and I’d begin again, telling my sorry tale from the beginning. And to my surprise, it became a little easier each time. Marginally less shameful. Mum and I walked to the village one sunny afternoon on some spurious errand to buy cheese, sat on a bench by the pond, and found we weren’t back until dark, minus the cheese. My family’s acceptance and understanding was a huge comfort to me. And, I’m ashamed to say, a huge surprise. Dad, though, aside from a squeeze of my shoulders when I went to bed one night, and a gruff assurance that he was beyond thrilled, didn’t say much. It worried me initially, even though I knew it wasn’t his way to roar in and ask questions. When he casually mentioned, though, that he might take me on a jaunt to Venice next month, for a long weekend, as he’d taken Hugh and Laura the previous year, I knew that would be our moment.

  With Cassie, however, I’d felt indescribably awkward. Had almost avoided her. But she’d tracked me down, and to my shame had told me how pleased she was, this bright-eyed, eager girl with flushed cheeks, to find Seffy, and to find me, she’d added generously. I’d caught my breath, mortified. After all, I’d slept with her father. Why should she be generous?

  ‘Oh, Cassie, I’m totally undeserving of that.’ I’d been peeling potatoes at the time, and the sink had been a good place to hide my face: I hadn’t broken off, so in effect had my back to her as I peeled faster. But she’d leaned on the draining board beside me, picked up a knife to help, and said she didn’t altogether blame her father. Yes, it was terrible to cheat on Mummy, but her mother was… fragile. Could be tricky. Volatile. Everyone thought her parents had the perfect marriage – all the obituaries said what a loving, close couple they were – and that, understandably, Letty had been driven to drink through her grief. But… was that entirely true? Perhaps she’d drunk before? Cassie looked at me closely. I put my knife down; wiped my hands carefully. ‘Perhaps Daddy had been unhappy, or they’d been unhappy together?’ she asked.

  I remembered him gently remonstrating with Letty when she was pregnant: knocking back the Chablis in the garden, eyes overbright.

  ‘I think if Hal wasn’t so loyal he might confirm my suspicions,’ she told me now, eyeing me closely.

  ‘But he never has?’

  ‘No. I did once ask if Mum drank before I was born, but he just said something noncommittal, like – everyone likes a drink occasionally.’

  Yes, he would be loyal to Letty. Of course. His sister-in-law, the widow, the wronged wife. And maybe that was all it had been back then. Liking the occasional drink. I’d only met her once – who was I to judge? I asked Cassie where she was now.

  ‘In the Priory. Oh, she’s there a lot,’ she said, seeing my shocked face. ‘Books herself in. Or Hal and I do it for her.’

  I realized then what Cassie had had to deal with. On her own. All this time. Why she could badly do with Seffy and me. Hal, of course had always been there for her, but now… well, now there would definitely be something more supportive and homogenous about the grouping. Seffy and Cassie, and me and Hal. Lovely for her, I hoped. Lovely for Seffy, too.

  As Hal and I walked on in the autumn sunshine that afternoon, it struck me we were strolling by a river much as we would in France one day. Maybe next summer, in his garden, with Seffy and Cassie perhaps playing backgammon up on the terrace under that pagoda dripping with bougainvillaea, their laughter filtering down to us. Later we’d all have supper outside, candles flickering in the dusk, cicadas chattering in the long grass, a huge bowl of pasta, or perhaps a fragrant bouillabaisse. The four of us talking and laughing into the night, and if my fantasies seemed to encompass the bigger picture, rather than the minutiae of a heartbeat, well, look where heartbeats had got me before: entangled with men who were careless of my emotions, who made free with my spirit. No, an equable life with Hal, free from the vagaries of passion and despair was my focus, and for once I wasn’t getting ahead of myself. I knew, you see, Hal’s plans for me were long term. Knew there was nothing flighty or ephemeral about this man, knew his love was constant, and I felt so safe. So comforted and wrapped, as if I’d finally landed somewhere soft, after all those years of being Out There.

  As we strolled and chatted now by this very English river, the water rushing clear and bright over the pebbles, shivering around the tall bulrushes at the edge, as we strolled on in the fading light, we came to the little stone bridge. That’s where we paused, and where I turned to face him: and that’s where he took me in his arms, and a million miles from that snatched kiss on the landing, kissed me properly, for the first time.

  30

  The house I was looking at was capacious by most people’s standards, but by mine, it was downright huge. It was in Notting Hill, an area I wasn’t overly familiar with, but could quickly get used to, I decided, as I leaned over the black wrought-iron first-floor balcony, peering down to the garden square below. A cool enclosure full of gently yellowing plane trees and rich autumnal vegetation winked back at me: a tasteful oasis from the buzzing bars and shops I knew lay only a convenient stroll away. I inhaled the air, savouring its gentrification, narrowing my eyes at the terrace of identical creamy stucco houses opposite. Four storeys, with a flight of steps up to a pillared front door, complete with shiny brass knocker: three tall windows on the first floor giving onto a filigreed balcony like the one I was leaning on now. Similar, but look closer, and they were all different, in terribly refined and subtle ways, to do with the planting of the box hedge in the front garden, the window boxes full of expensive tumbling plants, the colour of the front door. Different room configurations within, no doubt too. Behind me, Torquil the estate agent was eulogizing about this particular one’s hidden depths.

  ‘Working fireplaces in the dining room and also in here, in the drawing room, of course, and French windows in all south-facing rooms. This room is 480 square foot, if you’re interested. And upstairs, five bedrooms, which, with the kitchen and breakfast room below, totals 3,400 square feet. A staggering footprint, I’m sure you’ll agree.’

  Indeed it was. Staggering. Certainly compared to my own humble little footprint in Fulham. And so much square air space too, I thought, coming back inside and craning my neck up at the ornate plaster rose in the centre of the ceiling, miles away in the stratosphere. I considered my own cringing little eaves. But then, Hal had said look for something with generous proportions. So I had.

  Hal was in Zurich, or – no, Geneva, I think. On the last leg of a legal tour, finalizing a deal worth zillions, whilst I, the expensively dressed girlfriend, was putting a toe in the property market. Seeing what was out there, as they say. All of which was really quite precipitous considering he
’d only kissed me properly – what, ten days ago? Obviously there’d been a great deal more than just kissing since then, but still: to be standing here in the new Marc Jacobs coat he’d bought me and my spiky black patent boots, viewing sod-off London houses was undoubtedly fast work. Not mine, I hasten to add. It was all down to Hal, who didn’t hang about. Had bags of get up and go, as opposed to my own habitual sit down and stop.

  Still, I felt a bit of a fraud dressed up like a trophy wife, viewing houses my wildest dreams wouldn’t stretch to: there was something not quite real about it, as if I were looking through a wall of glass.

  Personally I would have thought his Holland Park house, which I was now very familiar with, having spent quite a few nights there, would have fitted the bill. These past few mornings I’d woken up flushed and incredulous in his sexy wooden sleigh bed, marvelled at the huge modern canvas on the opposite wall and thought it entirely sumptuous and spacious. But as Hal said, it had history. I must admit, I did feel faintly guilty as I padded around the interior-designed drawing room – the work of one Helmut Bing, a towering German decorator – in Hal’s white towelling robe, wondering what on earth Céline would think as I tried to get to grips with the terrifying gadgets in her double-O-seven kitchen. Cappuccino makers that took off like rockets, toasters that took your eye out, but could I locate a humble kettle? Then there was the shower, so forceful I buckled at the knees and was nearly beaten to the granite floor, accustomed as I was to squeezing a few parched drops from my own eccentric plumbing. So yes, Hal was right. History dictated we move on. But also, he’d pointed out, it was a question of layout. We were looking for a family house now, not only for Hal, me and Seffy, but for Cassie and Letty too.

  ‘And of course you’ve got the separate basement flat, which Mr Forbes stipulated,’ Torquil was saying. ‘Another eight hundred square feet.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, that’s perfect.’

  Or would be if Letty agreed, which Hal sincerely hoped she would, so that Cassie could spend more time with us, absorb family life. Letty too, if she wanted. All of which would be lovely for the children.

  Was I nervous about that? About Letty being amongst us? I crossed to the marble fireplace. Ran a finger over its smooth creamy surround. No, not now, strangely enough. I had been, hugely. But now I knew Cassie had been to see her mother at the Priory, had told her about Seffy’s parentage. To which the response had been weary indifference.

  ‘Oh yes, I always suspected he was Dom’s.’

  ‘You did?’ Cassie had said, astonished.

  ‘Yes. I saw them kissing in your father’s office, darling. Seffy would be exactly the right age to be conceived around then. She said she’d adopted him in Croatia and that was very good of her. I’ve always liked her for that. She could have blown my world apart, but she didn’t. I thought she might later, when Dom died, but she kept her counsel. It’s right that Seffy knows now. A few years too late, if you ask me, but she probably lost her nerve. We all do that. God knows, I’ve lost more than nerve. And she’s had a tough time, Hattie. Give her my love.’

  I’d listened to this with eyes and mouth open as Cassie repeated it verbatim. She knew? Or – at least had always suspected? I remembered how sweet and eager she’d been when Maggie and I had first encountered her in the village. Appreciative, perhaps? One person – the only person – who understood what I’d done? I felt relief. And something unclench and lay down within me. One by one the scrunched-up bits of history were unfurling and smoothing out: there… and there…

  It occurred to me Hal had never suspected, and he too knew about the kiss. But men were less imaginative in so many ways. No doubt he couldn’t believe I’d be so devious. But Letty could. Only she wouldn’t call it devious. She’d call it resourceful. No, I had no qualms about Letty living below us. But she, apparently, did.

  ‘I like my house,’ she’d said stubbornly to Cassie.

  ‘I know, Mum, and this way we wouldn’t have to sell it. Hal’s offering us the flat in London rent free. We could still keep The Pink House and go there at weekends.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Letty had waved a weary hand. ‘We’ll see. I have to go to my therapy class soon, darling, spill my tortured beans. No doubt make some hideous raffia mats, too. And I’m awfully tired. Might need forty winks first.’

  Cassie had crept out.

  ‘And then through here,’ Torquil was saying, ‘we have double doors into the study, as Mr Forbes requested…’

  He led me through into a wood-panelled room, one wall entirely lined with books, overlooking the back garden. I gazed out. Another refined, walled enclosure, old-fashioned white roses still flowering against ivy and a gnarled miniature apple tree.

  ‘Yes, he’ll love this,’ I agreed.

  Perfect for Hal to hole up in, I thought, working late into the night, as I knew he did, being brilliant and scholarly, and making his company, probably the biggest and most highly regarded commercial set of solicitors in the City, a great deal of money. Earning every penny of his seven-figure, equity partner salary. Which was a long way from human rights, I’d teased him the other night, reminding him how he’d once wanted to save the world.

  He’d laughed. ‘Full of high ideals and principles back then. But you’ve got to live in the real world, Hattie. And anyway, I still do pro bono work.’ He’d tossed me a brief tied up in pink ribbon: an immigrant family, over here from Zimbabwe, minus the mother of the three small children. He was trying to get asylum for her, remove her from the hostile regime. I closed it quietly, retied the ribbon and shut up. Right. No flies on him. Got every angle covered, hadn’t he?

  I’d placed it humbly on the floor beside me. I was lying on the sofa in his house at the time, behind him as he worked at his desk, just as, it struck me, I used to lie on his bed in halls of residence, throwing a tennis ball at the ceiling. I smiled. Glanced at the sofa table beside me. A huge bowl of smooth sandstone balls – objets d’art no doubt, Helmut’s style but not mine – presided. I picked one up consideringly. Hal got up from the desk, came round and kneeled beside me.

  ‘Not thinking of tossing it at the ceiling, are you?’

  I stared. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘There’s nothing I don’t know about you, Hattie Carrington.’ He stopped my protesting mouth with a kiss and removed the ball from my hand. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

  The kiss developed, and the sofa was abandoned in favour of the bed. I’d suggested we stay put, or utilize the rather enticing Aubusson rug in front of the fire, but Hal wasn’t having any of it. He was very much a bedroom man. Didn’t linger there much, either. Liked to get up and go. Back to work, mostly. I was pretty sure I could lead him astray later, though, when his case had finished. Instigate a few entire days horizontal. I smiled, then realized I was smiling rather wantonly at Torquil.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry?’ I came to.

  ‘I said would you like to see the bedroom?’

  ‘Oh – yes, I would! Very much.’ And I trooped out after him, only slightly pink.

  Walking back through Portobello Market half an hour later, which I found in full swing, I thought how extraordinary it was that not so long ago, and for many years, my life had had more than a hint of make-do-and-mend about it. I did what I could. Now, strolling down this bustling street, fresh from viewing 26 Maidwell Avenue, I had to quell the idea that I’d somehow got too lucky. Up until now I’d never quite got the man, never quite got the family life that, say, Laura had – never quite got the breaks. Life had been, not a disappointment, but a compromise. I was used to working my socks off on a date, battling with the bank manager, with Seffy’s schools, or at auctions when I knew I’d be outbid on a piece I badly wanted – never quite making it in so many ways. Now, it seemed, I’d simply been plucked and carefully placed on the other side of the winning post without even breaking sweat: I’d arrived. So this was what it felt like: odd that the euphoria wasn’t more overwhelming, but then one could hardly go about with a permanent rictus grin on
one’s face; that wouldn’t be realistic.

  I smiled down at my patent boots as I threaded through the crowds. The cries of the traders echoed around me, and my practised eye caught the stalls of bric-a-brac I’d once sold: pseudo antiques. We’d talked, Hal and I, about me going it alone in a bigger shop, with his backing – really making a name for myself – but I hadn’t wanted to. The fun, I’d told him, the whole raison d’être, was working with Maggie. The shop was our baby, our thing, and all right, we weren’t up there with the Helmut Bings of this world, but we did OK, and I didn’t want to change that. He’d smiled, and I think been pleased. (In fact I had to dispel the feeling I’d somehow ticked a box, shown myself to be a Good Person.) However, it has to be said, a fleeting glimpse of myself in swanky Holland Park premises – or Chelsea Green perhaps – tucked snugly between other expensive dealers, ‘Harriet Carrington’ in swirly gold lettering on the shop front, had flitted briefly to mind. But it was gone in a moment. What, no Maggie? No cradling coffee cups behind the counter on Munster Road, flicking through Heat and gossiping for hours?

  ‘No reason why you can’t still do it with Maggie? Still be partners?’ Hal had said later, and this had bought my eye. Maggie and I together, in tasteful grey cashmere, as opposed to our high-street takes, in terribly chic premises betwixt Theo Fennel and David Linley: nipping to Bibendum for lunch, instead of to the sandwich bar. Now you’re talking. I’d said I’d think about it. See what Maggie thought about Hal injecting shedloads of cash into our business, see if she’d mind. I could already hear her, though. ‘Mind?’ she’d squawk. ‘Mind? Of course I don’t bloody mind! How flipping marvellous, all our dreams come true! Don’t be a fool, Hattie, say yes instantly. Now. Chelsea Green or Pimlico?’

  I smiled. No, Maggie was very tired of The Struggle. She wouldn’t say no to a leg-up. Something made me hesitate, though. We’ll see, I thought, walking on. I did need to contact her, though. I was feeling faintly guilty that recently, she was doing more than her fair share at the shop. I’d worked three days this week, but she’d done five the previous one, and the weekend. As I headed towards the tube I texted her: ‘Let’s work together tomorrow.’ Two minutes later she texted back: ‘Good idea, been missing your ugly mug.’