Memories Of The Storm

by Willett, Marcia

  Her voice tailed off uncertainly but Hester nodded understandingly.

  'Talking about work can be a relaxation if it's what really matters to you both. You must have a very close bond.'

  'Oh, we do,' cried Clio. 'It's just difficult to explain it.'

  Hester got up from the table. 'You don't have to explain it. It's nobody's business but yours and Peter's. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to meeting him, though. It's so hard having this kind of conversation when you don't know the person involved. I'm going to feed the ducks. St Francis can come and watch. He finds them very amusing and they've long since ceased to be nervous of him.'

  'I'm not surprised. He's about as scary as Bagpuss.'

  Hester pulled her shawl around her shoulders, took up her stick and the daily ration of bread, and left the kitchen with St Francis stalking at her heels. Clio began to clear the table, still thinking about Hester's comments. She felt uncharacteristically nervous. Peter's response to her invitation coupled with Hester's reaction to her appearance had shadowed her confidence with doubt and made a tiny crack in the fragile shield with which she protected her relationship with Peter. Presently she went into the little cloakroom next to the kitchen and stared at herself in the glass over the basin. She took out the combs and shook her hair free. Then, taking the narrow silk scarf from around her neck, she twisted her hair back and looked at herself again. She tore off a piece of loo paper and blotted her lips carefully, then flung the red-stained tissue down the lavatory and flushed it away. Studying herself she suspected that she did look younger: younger and more vulnerable. Would Peter notice any difference, she wondered.

  Of course, it was just possible that he too might be feeling nervous. This thought comforted her and she was seized afresh by love for him.

  The ducks fed, Hester wandered along the river path. St Francis pottered in her wake, pouncing on a leaf that trembled in the soft air as it drifted silently to the ground, before pausing to sit and wash his face with a velvet-padded paw. Hester moved slowly between the trees, noting the evidence of the river's passing. Twigs and stones and trailing tresses of weed cast high upon the muddy path showed where it had overflowed its banks during the storm. In the lower branches of the overhanging trees the detritus of the flood still clung. Traces of the water's immense force were everywhere, yet this morning the river chuckled and murmured softly, running smooth and sinuous in its winding bed, tame and sweet-tempered in the sunlight.

  Hester had ceased to think about Clio and was wondering why she hadn't simply asked Jonah for Lucy's address – or her telephone number. What, after all, could be more natural than to speak to her? The fifty-odd years that had passed since their last contact must surely have done away with any awkwardness or pain, yet it had seemed right to allow Lucy the next move.

  She'd been such a beautiful child: fearful on her arrival at Bridge House, holding tight to her father's hand lest he too be taken away from her for ever. Hester, remembering her own desolation when her father had died, had gone down on one knee so as to be on the same level saying, 'Hello, Lucy.' She could recall how the dark brown eyes had regarded her so gravely but presently the child had loosened her grip on Michael's hand and shown Hester the grey plush rabbit she'd carried. Patricia's boys – warned that Lucy had lost her mother in a bombing raid – had been sweet with her, taking her away to meet Nanny and to show her where she would sleep.

  'I can't tell you how grateful I am,' Michael had said to Hester. 'I know she'll be safe with you . . .' And then Eleanor had come in, graceful and poised until her eyes fell upon Michael, and after a tiny, telling pause she'd said, 'Well, isn't anyone going to introduce us?'

  Is that where it had all begun, this story that she would tell to Jonah? Hester knew that each of them – Eleanor, Michael, Edward – would have told it differently, each from his or her own deeply personal perspective, and she wondered if it were possible to tell it fairly and without prejudice. It had been a mystery as to why such a worldly woman should have fallen in love first with Edward and then – so disastrously – with Michael. Edward's love for her was easier to understand. He'd been so pleased with himself, so proud to have won this beautiful woman – even though she'd admitted to never opening a book if she could help it and whose only reading was, apparently, the Tatler. He'd been passionately in love, in thrall to Eleanor's physical beauty, and, with all the romanticism inherent in his nature, had mentally endowed her with perfection of character too.

  Their mother, privately dismayed, hoped that Eleanor would quickly cease to flourish in the rarefied atmosphere of Edward's love. It was clear that she needed a tough, physical response to her needs, and Edward's gentle diffidence and clever mind would never be enough. How would a poet – even a soldier-poet – satisfy such an unimaginative woman as Eleanor? And Edward was determined that one day he would be a published poet.

  Sometime during his first year at Cambridge, Edward had quoted Hester some lines from one of John Clare's sonnets:

  Poets love nature and themselves are love, The scorn of fools and mock of idle pride.

  'That's me,' he'd told her. 'And Mike too. Not that I can call myself a poet. Not yet. But just you wait.'

  Their mother had encouraged them. John Clare was a link between Edward and his late father, who had been working on a biography of the poet when he died, and she strengthened the bond as much as she could. It was she who wrote to him at Cambridge, inspiring him to go on weekend pilgrimages to Helpstone to see Clare's cottage, and to seek out such places as Emmonsales Heath, where Clare had wandered as a child, hoping to find the end of the world, and the remains of the old Roman quarry at Swordy Well. Edward had infected Michael with his enthusiasm, dragging him along on these excursions, and soon they'd begun to incorporate Clare's language into their speech: 'proggling' for poking, 'soodling' for idly sauntering, 'blea' for exposed and 'haynish' for awkward.

  'Rather blea,' Edward might say on a winter's afternoon up on Dunkery Beacon. 'Shall we soodle on down to Porlock for tea?'

  Hester had picked up this language with delight and they had drawn her into their company, young though she was. She loved the bird poems – read to her by her father – and knew many of them by heart, rejoicing in the wonder, even amazement, that Clare showed over the tiny miracles of nature and his intimate manner of writing that seemed to involve her personally in his own delight.

  Well, in my many walks I rarely found

  A place less likely for a bird to form

  Its nest . . .

  . . . and you and I

  Had surely passed it in our walk today

  Had chance not led us by it . . .

  . . . Stop, here's the bird – that woodman at the gap

  Hath frit it from the hedge – 'tis olive green –

  Well, I declare, it is the pettichap!

  Not bigger than the wren and seldom seen . . .

  Edward had brought Michael home to meet them all and soon he'd become as dear to their mother as her own children and Blaise, their cousin. What plans they'd made – oh, the glories to which they'd aspired. Then the war had come – and Eleanor with it.

  A sudden scuffle of dead leaves beside the path and a robin flew up in a scatter of leaf-mould to preen himself in a holly tree where berries glowed a rich, bright crimson. Hester watched him for a moment, listening to the delicate sweetness of his song, and then turned to retrace her path through the wood.

  There was no sign of Clio – perhaps she'd already left to fetch Peter from the train – but Hester was still thinking about the past and had temporarily put them both from her mind. With the true scholar's detachment she'd decided that if she were to be able to tell Jonah the story accurately then she needed to make notes; to try for some chronological order and to see if there were any old snapshots or letters that might bear out her memories.

  She kicked off her boots in the scullery, passed through the kitchen and went into the dining-room which, since the recent building of the break
fastroom, had become a study. A specially designed table, built against one wall of the room, held a computer, a printer and a filing tray. Clio's laptop lived on a smaller desk that stood at right angles underneath the window. Each desk had its own padded swivel chair and Anglepoise lamp.

  'It's only fair,' Hester had said to Clio, 'that if you're going to be looking after me, you have the space to work.'

  Her own work – reviewing, writing articles, assisting her ex-pupils in their research – was still a very important part of her life.

  Now, as she waited for her computer to boot up, she took a notebook from a drawer and a pencil from a black ceramic jar that had once held cheese. She began to make headings, to jot down names and dates, and was absorbed with her work when the study door opened.

  'Oh, Clio.' She turned quickly, glancing at the clock. 'Are you back already?'

  Clio stood in the doorway: her lips were pressed together, her chin tilted, and Hester got up at once.

  'What is it?' she asked. 'Not an accident?'

  'No, not an accident.' Clio's voice was brittle as glass. 'I picked up a message on my mobile on the way to the station. Peter can't come. He says that something's come up and he can't get away.'

  She repeated his words with a deliberately inflected irony and, watching her, Hester could see that Clio was torn between an automatic desire to defend him and a very real need to submit to her disappointment. It interested her to see that, at some level, Clio clearly did not believe in Peter's reason for cancelling his visit, though it might be considered a quite reasonable one. The brittle voice, the flush on her cheekbones were the outward and visible signs of an inner resentment and humiliation. Hester wondered how best she might help her without trespassing.

  'Of course, you did say that the agency was having difficulty with a client's account.' She offered it as a kind of stepping-stone out of the shoal waters of indiscretion and back to the more solid ground of Clio's self-esteem. 'You'd know all about that.'

  'Oh, yes. I know all about that and I don't believe it.'

  Hester was silenced for a moment by this flat statement. Yet there was an air of unhappiness – even fear – beneath Clio's angry reaction that forced Hester into a more open approach.

  'You think it was for personal reasons?'

  Clio glanced at her, as if assessing Hester's motives, and looked away again. 'Yes I do. I think he's got problems at home and he chickened out.'

  'Well, asking him down here was a very significant step,' said Hester thoughtfully.

  'Was it?'

  Clio sounded so anxious that Hester was seized with compunction. 'It was a reasonable request, but think about it, Clio. You were asking him to leave the safe, neutral ground of your relationship and come to meet your family. Think how it must have seemed to him.'

  'But I didn't mean it like that. He wanted to see me and I thought, Why not here? I thought you'd get on well together. There was no way you were going to ask him his intentions or embarrass him.'

  'But did he know that?'

  Clio, remembering her conversation with Peter, bit her lip. 'I told him you weren't in the least that kind of person. I thought he'd be able to handle it. He's very good at keeping his relationships separate. Why make a big deal over a trip down here? He comes to my flat.'

  'But does he meet your friends there? Or family?'

  'I don't have any family besides you, do I? Mum and Dad can never be persuaded to leave their olive grove in Greece and I hardly know my cousins. Not much risk of running into family.'

  'So this was his first opportunity.'

  Hester hadn't meant her remark to sound so brutal but Clio flushed and turned away.

  'I'll go and organize some lunch,' she said. 'And I hope you're up for dinner at Woods tonight, Hes. I'm damned if I shall cancel the table.'

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lucy Faringdon was eating chocolate cake in St Martin's Tea Room. The atmosphere of the café, with its cheerful log fire and low-beamed ceiling and the busy traffic of people in the narrow lane beyond the window, all added to her enjoyment of the rich, sweet cake. The true, deep-down source of her happiness, however, lay in her sense of freedom. This morning a very good friend, who had worked with Jerry for the last twenty years at Chichester College, had come to see him and she'd been able to leave them contentedly together and come out into the town.

  She sipped at her latte and then sat for a moment, simply relaxing gratefully into this moment of respite. Here, sitting by the fire, she felt an irresponsible light-heartedness that she knew from experience would be very short-lived. Nevertheless, she set herself to extract every moment of present pleasure – the melting texture of the cake on her tongue, the taste of the coffee – whilst also dwelling on the future promise of some shopping: nothing necessary or dull, just a few little treats. Deliberately putting away from her all the usual anxieties relating to Jerry's deteriorating health, she continued to plan her happy morning, thinking about the walk she would have with Tess, the Sussex spaniel, who was waiting patiently in the car. Maybe they would drive down to Bosham and walk by the sea, or go inland, perhaps . . .

  'Lucy, my dear, how are you?' Someone bent over her, swinging between her and the window, and she gave a tiny cry of alarm – quickly stifled.

  'Jennifer! How nice to see you. No, of course you didn't startle me. Not really. I was miles away, that's all.'

  'You looked it. Nobody with you?' Jennifer Bryce, who had once taught Jonah at school, indicated the empty chair. 'May I join you?'

  'Of course.' Lucy's smile hid her sense of disappointment: her lovely moment of peace was shattered. Now she must be polite, answer Jennifer's questions. Quite incapable of snubbing her or simply making some excuse to hurry away, she sat quite still as the older woman ordered coffee, refused cake, and then turned her large, pale, inquisitive eyes on Lucy. It seemed to her as if Jennifer was reading her expression eagerly, checking it out for weakness or despair. Deliberately Lucy schooled her face into a mask of polite nothingness, remembering how patiently and unwaveringly Jonah had disliked Jennifer Bryce through five long years of geography classes.

  'And how is poor Jerry?' Her voice was thick with a treacly sympathy: a special hushed voice. 'The last time I saw you – goodness, it must be months ago – he'd fractured his back again and had been re-admitted to hospital.'

  'It's all to do with this ghastly lupus. Poor Jerry. He's been on so much medication – steroids, warfarin, morphine, you name it – and he reacts so badly to some of them. Then, when he has to come off them, he has terrible withdrawal symptoms.'

  Lucy tried to speak lightly, unable to bring herself to describe to this inquisitive woman the real humiliation and anguish of Jerry's ongoing pain – the swelling joints, constant fatigue, ulcers and the terrible breathlessness – nor the agony of watching someone she loved suffering so bravely.

  'However do you manage, Lucy?'

  Before she could answer, the waitress arrived and Jennifer leaned back in her chair to allow her coffee to be placed in front of her. Her square ugly hands opened her bag and reached for her tube of sweeteners. She dripped one into the liquid and began to stir the coffee whilst Lucy watched her.

  However do I manage? she asked herself silently. How do I manage when I lie beside Jerry at night and I wake with a shock because quite suddenly he stops breathing and begins to gasp wildly for air? And each time I think, Is this it? Sleep apnoea, they call it. It's frightening and exhausting. His lungs are shrinking. We hold on tightly to each other and make silly jokes. 'You're through, Commander Air.' However do I manage? How does he?

  'I'm not sure, to tell you the truth,' she said aloud. 'How does anyone?' She suddenly saw Jennifer as a gaping, ghoulish tourist, visiting her life with Jerry, staring in at it with avid interest but no true wish to understand. This image gave Lucy the courage to resist her. 'Look, Tess is in the car and I've already been far too long. It's lovely to see you but I must dash.'

  'Oh, well, if you must . . .'r />
  Lucy willed down guilt – her natural response to someone's disappointment or reproach – and smiled firmly.

  'I really must. Poor old Tess will be crossing her legs.'

  And now, she told herself as she went out into St Martin's Street and headed for the car park, I shan't be able to have a lovely browse in Between the Lines, just in case she comes out and sees me. And I wanted to get some cards and some candles. Damn, damn, damn.

  Tess was waiting, nose against the glass, her tail wagging, and Lucy couldn't resist opening the hatch for a moment and burying her face against the soft warm dome of her head.

  'What should I do without you, Tesskins?' she murmured. 'Where shall we go?'

  Briefly she felt that she was in flight: from Jennifer, from her own responsibilities, from herself even. Where could she go to recapture that brief sense of freedom that she'd experienced earlier?

  Suddenly she knew the place: a bridle path where Tess could run between pale, chalky fields, following the scent of a fox or putting up a pheasant with a whirr of its indignant incandescent wings. Tess's bright, rust-gold coat would be a clear note of colour amongst the dun-coloured countryside: bright as the honeysuckle's berries and the bloodred rosehips.

  * * *

  The damp air was cool and soft. Behind smoke-grey cloud the pale gold disc of the sun showed faintly, hard-edged as a metal coin. Cobwebs as big as tea plates, slung between twigs and branches in the straggling hedge, caught and reflected back the luminous shimmering light. Their hump-backed occupants crouched watchfully, racing out at the lightest vibration of a silvery filament to capture their unwary prey. Hands in pockets, Lucy followed in Tess's excited wake, looking for treasures that she might take back for Jerry. His painful joints, coupled with a severe reaction to insect bites, had begun to make country walks an anxiety rather than a pleasure but he liked to enjoy them second-hand, and she was learning to make a little excitement out of them for him rather than feeling guilty that she was still fit and free.