‘This is no place for you, Henny.’
It was said softly. Kindly, almost. It was also the first time he’d ever called me Henny. I swallowed. Nodded.
‘I know.’ Then I put my head down and hurried from the room.
Rupert was waiting for me by the front door. He let me out.
‘He was in there,’ I muttered.
He swung around. ‘Oh God. Sorry.’
I shook my head. We clattered downstairs.
‘When I heard a door close,’ I gabbled, ‘I thought it was you, putting the cat out.’
‘No, I was still trying to shove him out the kitchen window, but every time I tried, he shot back in again. Dirty little voyeur.’
‘The cat, or your father?’ I said grimly as we marched through the hall to the front door.
He grinned as we reached the street. It was raining now.
‘Forget it, Henny. God, we’re practically middle-aged – who cares what my father thinks?’
‘I know,’ I said miserably. ‘But he makes me feel about seventeen again. I always was terrified of him. Felt he didn’t think I was good enough for you.’
‘Did you?’ He turned from scanning the road for a taxi to look at me, astonished.
‘Didn’t you know that?’ I shook my head, bemused. ‘How little you know, Rupert. He knew it. I knew it. My mother knew it. Everyone knew it. And yet, just now …’
‘What?’ Rupert’s hand shot out as he spotted a cab.
‘Well, he was almost nice to me. Almost …gentle. He just said, “This is no place for you, Henny”.’ I remembered his eyes. Filling up, almost.
‘God, he can talk,’ snorted Rupert. ‘As if a bimbo’s flat is any place for him. Here we go.’
A taxi swished wetly to a halt beside us, the rain dripping from its hubcaps. Rupert turned and took me in his arms. The rain was coming down steadily now, soaking our hair, my upturned face. He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me very thoroughly on the lips. I felt my legs turn to jelly as one long kiss unfurled after another. Deep down in the engine room all mechanisms purred, well-oiled, ticking over very nicely, thank you. Lack of real opportunity in the sodden street made me braver, more brazen, and as I came up for air my hands were inside his coat, up his jumper on his warm skin. I was breathing heavily too. Practically looking for a convenient bus shelter.
‘In yer own time,’ said a bored voice.
We drew apart and I gazed at Rupert wantonly. I couldn’t believe I was being so shameless. Such a hussy. At nearly three in the morning, in the middle of Central London. But it felt so good. So right. And I was loving every minute of it. Desperate for more.
‘I’ll ring you,’ he whispered. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Right!’ I gasped, for gasp was all I could do. Aside from shoo the taxi away and kiss him again. Rupert bundled me in.
‘Twenty-four Campden Hill Grove, Kensington,’ he informed the driver, and I sank into its black depths with a sigh.
As we accelerated down towards Hyde Park Corner, I turned round to look at Rupert, standing there in that familiar lopsided stance, his hands in his pockets, head cocked to one side, the rain streaming off his blond head. I waited till he was out of sight, then twisted to the front again.
‘I love him,’ I said to myself. Then aloud, in surprise: ‘I love him.’
‘Pleased to hear it,’ grunted the driver, whose partition window, I hadn’t realized, was open. ‘I’d hate to think you’d kiss a man like that if you didn’t. Don’t look like that kind of a girl.’
‘I’m not,’ I said in surprise, blushing. ‘No, I’m not.’
Suddenly I had one of those awful moments when you want to bare your soul to a complete stranger.
‘I knew him years ago, you see. Almost married him.’
‘Ah.’
‘And now …well, now I’ve found him again after all these years – fifteen actually – it’s quite bizarre. I feel exactly the same, as if we’re just picking up from where we left off, without skipping a beat. Isn’t that extraordinary?’
‘Yeah, it is,’ he agreed, but he shot me a wary look and fiddled with his radio, trying to tune it in.
‘And although I know it can’t be right,’ I ploughed on, ‘I’m married, you see, two children, so all terribly complicated …I know it’s not entirely wrong, either, if you know what I mean. I feel so happy. So alive. Surely that can’t be wrong?’
The driver, alarmed, turned his music up.
‘I feel like a new woman,’ I said in surprise, inching forward excitedly in my seat, keen to share. ‘I feel stirrings in my soul,’ I raised my voice over the music, ‘that I didn’t know were possible. And not just in my soul, either. Physically, too. Deep down.’
He reached behind him and gingerly shut the partition.
‘And d’you know, I don’t even wonder where this will go, what will become of us, what they’ll say about us – family, friends, society, the Church,’ I ranted, temporarily forgetting in my fervour that I didn’t even go to church, unless you counted carol concerts and Christingles. ‘I just feel …well.’ I sank back in the seat and smiled, a beatific smile, anointing the wet streets …those heavenly streets. And those heavenly lamp-posts, too. ‘Well, I feel blessed.’
When I got to the flat, still grinning foolishly, I rewarded my man handsomely for sharing my spiritual experience. He pocketed his tip with a weary nod as his due for having to escort yet another loved-up inebriate home in the small hours, and departed. Except, I stopped still on the path as I went to the door, I wasn’t inebriated. Not now. I had been before, at Penny’s, and possibly at Rupert’s too, but it was wearing off, and I was sure the magical glow that surrounded me, this lovely, warm aura that I felt so keenly, was not alcohol, but love. True love.
Exhilarated, I bounded up the stairs, and with joy in my heart and excitement fizzing in every vein, let myself in. The flat was dark and cold, the heating having gone off long ago, so I put a match to the gas-effect fire in the drawing room. Just for two minutes, I decided, shivering, while I made myself a hot milky drink and drank it in front of the flames, before tumbling into bed. I wouldn’t sleep immediately anyway, I reasoned, being too much on fire myself.
The flames leaped instantly to life, and as they did, I spotted another light flashing across the other side of the room. En route to the kitchen I pressed the button and, as I was waiting for the kettle to boil, listened with one ear to the messages. First to my mother telling me that Barkers were having a sale and she’d managed to secure a whole heap of towels at rock-bottom prices – very good quality and far too many for her, so would I like some for the farm (no prizes for guessing where she was pushing me and nearly dislocating her elbow in the process), and then to Benji, saying something in a rather strained voice that I almost didn’t recognize. I frowned, put the cocoa tin down and went back to the drawing room. Erasing Mum, I pressed play again and squatted down, noting that the time of the message was 1.30 a.m. Only a couple of hours or so ago.
‘Henny, it’s Benji. Um, bad news, I’m afraid. Dad’s had a minor heart attack. It’s nothing serious, they assure us, but they’ve moved him from the Nursing Home to the Royal Free for monitoring. I’m here now with Mum, but there’s no need for you to dash out. We just felt you ought to know. You can reach me here, on my mobile, or ring in the morning. They’ll probably move him back tomorrow, anyway.’
I stared at the machine. Played the message again. Felt the gaiety of two minutes ago drip off me like the rain down the darkened windows. Dad had had a heart attack. They’d said he might, a few years ago, when he’d had twinges in his upper arm, plus pins and needles. A warning, they’d called it. And he’d taken pills to thin the blood. But somehow, one had never really expected it. He was always so fighting fit in the Home – fighting being the operative word – and one always felt too that with senile dementia, he couldn’t have another illness, could he? To compound it? One was enough. It simply wasn’t fair. He had enough on his plate. Or more
to the point, Mum did.
Mum. I straightened up. Thought of her worn, brave face in the cafeteria last week, her single-minded doggedness to get through this come what may. I knew that she was by his bed right now, that same, anxious, won’t-let-go expression on her face, her hands tightly clasped, as if the tighter she clenched them, the better things would get, the rings he’d given her for marriage, for two children, for eternity, biting into her hands.
I picked up the phone and punched out Benji’s mobile number, but it was turned off. I tried Francis’s, but that was off, too. Damn.
Still in my coat, I snatched up the door keys and went across the room to shut the gas supply off from the fire. Then I let myself out of the flat and locked the door. Yes, it was nearly morning by now and yes, he’d said not to bother, but if Benji was there, I could be too. Could be there for Mum. Good heavens, the three of us had sat in enough hospital cafeterias together over the last four years – one more wouldn’t hurt. And anyway, I thought, clattering down the stairs, the coffee at the Royal Free had yet to be sampled. I couldn’t let them savour that experience on their own.
Naturally there wasn’t a taxi to be seen in residential Kensington at that time in the morning, so I had to walk, or rather trot, through the gridwork of streets. The grand white townhouses towered over me and the rarefied pavements practically squeaked with indignation as I jogged all the way down Church Street to the main road. A fair dollop of my adrenaline, I knew, came courtesy of my evening with Rupert, and I was shocked to realize I was relieved to have a channel for it; an excuse not to go to bed. I was quite sure I wouldn’t have slept. Would have lain there, wide-eyed, my heart racing all night.
I jogged on past Barkers, scene of my mother’s triumph this morning: piles of discounted linen sat in darkened windows now, their slashed prices less urgent in the gloom. I thought of Mum, happily battling away in there today, an experienced sale-goer, a bargain-hunter par excellence, unaware, as she muscled professionally through the scrum, intent on her battle to secure at least 50 per cent off the recommended retail price, where she would end her day.
A lone taxi cruised up a side street towards me minus its yellow light, but I flagged it down anyway. It purred to a halt beside me. A tired, elderly face peered out.
‘I was goin’ home, but if it’s on the way to Kilburn?’
‘The Royal Free?’
‘Yer in luck.’
Off we trundled. I perched on the edge of the seat and gripped the handrail hard. I hoped Dad wasn’t being too beastly to Mum. Wasn’t telling her in a loud, carrying voice not to darken his sickbed door since he didn’t even know who she was, for crying out loud, and that even if he did, he certainly wouldn’t have married her. Let alone pro created with her. I saw her lips, compressed and brave, her chin raised as he flirted with the nurses, enquiring, with a louche wink, if he’d be lucky enough to have the pleasure of that particular little blonde’s company tonight, fiddling with his tubes? Monitoring his heartbeat, giving him a bedbath, perhaps …? Finally I imagined him dropping off to sleep; a drug-induced sleep probably, and Mum still not stirring. Looking down on his sleeping form; his face, softened by slumber to resemble the husband she’d once known, the more kindly, gentle one. I imagined her face softening too, as she reached out and took his hand, without his knowledge, without fear of reproach.
As the taxi pulled up in Pond Street, I jumped out and paid the fare. The Royal Free was a huge place, and one I was unfamiliar with, which was a rarity. Benji had once considered writing a Good Hospital Guide, with entries such as: Chelsea and Westminster: lovely minimalist décor, but disappointing public conveniences, and at all costs avoid the boot-faced Sister on the fifth floor. Charing Cross: heavenly nurses, good shop in foyer that sells Walnut Whips and Curly Wurlies, but has a lunatic doctor in the psychiatric ward who should probably be sectioned himself, etc. This one, though, we didn’t know.
As ever, I found the main reception with difficulty – another topic to be tackled in Benji’s book – but happily there was a girl on the desk. I was about to ask her for the cardiac ward when I spotted a familiar figure sitting by the coffee-machine. His head was bowed and his elbows rested on his knees. His clasped hands drooped between them.
‘Francis?’
He looked up. Saw me. And in that instant, as our eyes met, I knew. I stopped in my tracks.
Francis got up and came towards me, his face grey. He lifted his arms up from his sides, then dropped them again in a helpless gesture. It was all there. All of it. But still I wanted to hear the words.
‘He’s dead?’ I whispered, almost gagging on the words.
He nodded. His eyes were full of love and sorrow.
‘Yes. I’m so sorry, Henny. He’s dead.’
Chapter Nineteen
Francis held me for a long time. I didn’t cry, didn’t sob, just stayed frozen and mute in his arms, my head on his chest. My eyes were wide and disbelieving as I gazed at the small checked pattern on his shirt. He smelled of soap powder, clean skin, a hot iron. In my peripheral vision, I could see the girl on reception, head down, studiously ignoring us, finding some paperwork to do. How many grieving families must she have seen, I wondered. How many times had she had to turn delicately away? Go home to her husband and say, ‘Oh God, another one today, Ted. Another poor family in floods.’ And Ted, from his slumped position in front of the television would grunt, ‘Well, if you will work in the same building as the Grim Reaper. Cup of tea?’ ‘Please.’ And she’d take off her shoes and rub her sore toes, and that would be it. As much as it would impinge on her consciousness. And why should it? And why should I be thinking of her, of her life, I thought, shocked. When my father …
‘Where’s Mum?’ I raised my head.
‘Upstairs.’
‘With Benji?’
‘Yes.’
‘So when …?’
‘About half an hour ago.’
I inhaled sharply. Gritted my teeth. ‘Francis, he shouldn’t have died.’ My voice, when it came, was low and shaky. ‘It was only a minor heart attack, Benji said –’
‘I know.’ He squeezed my rigid, wooden shoulder. ‘I know what he said. This shouldn’t have happened. It wasn’t in the script.’
After a while, I stepped back from him. ‘I’ll go up,’ I told him.
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’
Together we found the lifts and made our way up to the cardiac wards. As Francis led me down one bleak grey corridor after another, the lino floor squeaky underfoot, I felt numb, unreal, as if I was walking through this hospital in someone else’s body. We passed a couple of open wards, then Francis stopped at a little side room and opened the door. Mum and Benji were sitting on the far side of the room, Benji holding Mum’s clenched fist in his lap. Two untouched cups of tea were cooling in front of them. I instantly recognized the venue from all my hours of hospital drama viewing as The Room Where They Tell The Relatives. Mum’s face was grey, the colour of the ashtray in front of her which had been emptied but not washed. I swooped to hug her. She didn’t hug me back, but remained impassive, leaden. Benji got up and held out his arms. I walked into them. He held me close. I could tell he’d been crying.
‘Benj.’
‘Henny Penny,’ he whispered, using my childhood name.
‘Daddy!’ I sobbed suddenly, tears scuttling up my throat like a high-speed lift.
‘I know.’
And I knew he knew. As I broke down and wept, great shoulder-shaking sobs that racked my body, making me hiccup and shudder and catch my breath in pain, I knew he knew. I wasn’t crying for the Dad we’d known for the last few years, who we’d only seen in Homes and hospitals, sliding further and further into dementia, into someone we didn’t recognize, but for the Daddy we’d had when we were little. The kind, reflective, calming influence that our family had relied on. The Daddy who’d taken us to the Baths at Swiss Cottage on a Sunday morning and taught us to swim, then on to the library to choose books, or
up to the Heath to fly kites. The Daddy who would settle us outside the Smugglers Inn with a bottle of Coke and a packet of crisps while he calmly smoked his pipe and read the Observer and Mum flapped around at home in her Marigolds, engulfed in steam as she got the Sunday lunch. Daddy the peacemaker, the diplomat, the voice of reason when my mother’s voice grew shriller and shriller. The one we’d go to in a crisis, shutting the study door softly behind us, creeping in. ‘Um, Daddy, you know Mum says I can’t go to Lizzie’s party because we have to see Gran …’ That Daddy. The one who found a way round Mum for us. The one who’d gripped my hand so tightly on the way back from that church in Hanover Square. The one who’d said he’d rather stick needles in his eyes than have a son who was a queer – his words – and then, the following year, had included Francis in the family holiday. And driven miles in the searing Provençal heat to find a doctor when Francis reacted badly to mosquito bites. That Daddy.
Benji held me close as I sobbed on and on. I never knew I had so many tears. At length though, the deluge subsided and I grew calmer. I drew away from him: blew my nose, exhausted. I looked down at Mum, still inert in her chair. Silent.
‘She’s in shock,’ said Benji softly.
‘I’m not in shock, actually,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m thinking very clearly.’
Benji and I waited. I wiped my eyes with the heels of my hands. They were shaking, I noticed. Mum sat there, hands clasped, not looking at us but staring straight ahead, her eyes over-bright. She was wearing a houndstooth jacket and skirt and black patent shoes, and her honey-blonde hair was swept back from her face and around her ears, immaculate as ever. Benji sat beside her.
‘What are you thinking, Mum?’
Not That Kind of Girl Page 26