by Sarah Long
‘This is your bedroom,’ he said sleepily into her shoulder.
‘It is for now.’
He lifted his head to kiss the side of her neck. ‘What shall we do today?’
‘How about nothing?’
‘Nothing it is.’
And so it was for the next three days. Beneath the gaze of the toile de jouy shepherdesses they explored a thousand new ways of doing nothing. They had been given the most luxurious of presents: time together, giftwrapped in sunshine and privacy. Every morning they would wake and then remember they had all day ahead to do exactly as they pleased. They were drunk on it, the freedom, the selfish oblivion to everyone and everything else. Jane could close her eyes and describe every detail of her lover’s body, their entire life was in that bedroom.
Except for every evening at six o’clock, when Jane returned to the room she had slept in with Will. She kept her phone there, and would first check her messages before ringing Liberty to hear about what fun she was having with the horses, and what she had eaten for tea. She rang Will just once. He was full of his film project, the meetings that were being set up with those he described without irony as ‘people who matter’.
‘What about you, then?’ he had added as an afterthought. ‘What are you up to?’
‘Oh, you know, this and that,’ she had said, grateful for his lack of curiosity, ‘nothing really . . .’
And then she had closed the door on the hotline to her real life, and returned to the heightened world she had created with Rupert, where each moment was savoured and prolonged. This is happiness, she thought, true happiness is here and now, allowing no intrusions from what has gone before and what may come tomorrow.
‘Shall we go out?’ Jan e asked on the fourth day. ‘There’s a garden we should look at.’
‘If you insist,’ he said, his head in her lap. ‘You’re the boss.’
They drove through the hills in search of a remote bastide garden, established in the seventeenth century. On the way, Jane talked about love.
‘I read a thing about couples,’ she said. ‘Most couples get together for prosaic and practical reasons. Like, they’re both available. But that’s not enough, each couple has to think it’s unique and predestined.’
‘Like us.’
‘And so, every couple invents its own myth, about how they got together.’
‘A contact lens.’
‘And the couple will only last as long as both parties go along with it. When one person destroys the myth, the couple is finished.’
‘So what’s your myth with Will?’ He was confident enough now to mention his name.
‘Eliza Doolittle. He was my Professor Higgins. What about you and Lydia?’
‘Brits in New York. I was the caricature of the bumbling Englishman abroad, and she was my glamorous redeemer.’
He thought about those days and it seemed a lifetime ago. ‘And what about us?’ he asked. ‘What’s our myth?’ She laughed. ‘That we’re unique, of course, and predestined for each other. Or that we’re trying to re-create the Garden of Eden. Look, we’ve arrived.’
They got out of the car and walked up through an ancient stone arch, stopping to admire some self-seeded alpines that clung to its side.
‘It’s supposed to have been designed by Le Notre,’ said Rupert, ‘but I’m not so sure. The arrangement of parterres doesn’t seem quite in keeping. I wonder if it’s moated, I’ll just go and check.’ He went off to look at the boundaries, leaving Jane to admire the herb garden.
‘It’s definitely moated,’ he called out, catching her up, then realised she was in conversation with a man in shorts and sandals with socks.
‘I was just saying to your wife, that is possibly the best display of sempervivums I have ever seen,’ he said to Rupert, turning to point them out.
‘Tell him I’m not your wife,’ Jane whispered with a giggle.
‘It’s like I said,’ Rupert told her as they moved away, ‘the only people who know about gardens round here are the English. But there are enough of them to provide my entire client base.’
On the way back to the car, Jane paused to call Liberty and listen to her account of the day’s triumphs. As she said goodbye, she remembered stories she had read about women who walk out on their families. Women who pack a suitcase and leave their sleeping children, gambling on love. Sometimes they came back, years later, for tearful reunions. Often, they lived with only the memory of their children. They made their choice and accepted the consequences.
On her final morning, Jane woke with a sick feeling in her stomach. The Monday-morning, encl-of-holiday feeling, except a hundred times worse. It was time to get real.
‘Let’s walk down to the village,’ she said, ‘break me in gently to the outside world.’
As they walked down the drive. Jane slipped her hand inside the back of Rupert’s belt, wanting to feel his flesh, storing up the memory.
Rupert took her to the Bar des Sports and ordered coffee. ‘I love this place,’ he said. ‘I was thinking about it the day I met you, wishing I was here instead of in the office. And now here we are, out in public. May I say, you look quite good with your clothes on. Though better without, obviously.’
‘And you look better without the suit and braces. I should get those braces framed as a souvenir of our first meeting.’
‘You can have them,’ he said, ‘they’re no use to me.’ ‘Sentimental value only.’
‘Very sentimental.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘And now I can chuck them away, along with the Turnbull and Asser shirts. You do realise, Jane, that I’m not going back.’ They had carefully avoided talking about the future, but now there was no getting away from it. Jane shifted on the bar stool, wishing they could continue to live in the present, wishing they were back to where they were two days ago.
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘And neither are you, not permanently.’
‘Aren’t I?’
‘Aren’t you?’
She frowned, her mind crowded by complications.
‘I think perhaps . . . we shouldn’t rush things . . .’
He grew impatient now, crashing his cup onto his saucer. ‘What do you mean, shouldn’t rush things? Come on, Jane, we’re grown-ups now! I’ve found what I’ve been looking for, I thought you had too? Or is that just a nice little display you’ve been putting on for my benefit for the past few days . . . ?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Well then!’
‘It’s just . . .’
He paused. ‘I’m waiting . . .’
‘It’s just there are things I need to sort out . . .’
‘So sort them out. And quickly.’
‘It’s all right for you,’ she said, ‘you don’t have a child.’ ‘I’d like one, though,’ he said, ‘I’d like us to have a child. What do you want to do, hang around prevaricating for another ten years until it’s too late?’
‘You know I love you . . .’
Thank you for that.’
‘But it’s not very feminist, is it, me turning my life upside down to follow you? We’re not supposed to do that any more, seek fulfilment through loving a man . . .’
He threw back his head and roared with laughter. ‘So it’s sexual politics, now, is it? Why don’t we just sit down and plan a symposium. Get Germaine Greer along to show us the way.’
‘She’d tell me to get myself a lithe young boy to play with, not a man on the cusp of middle age.’
‘You say the kindest things.’
She squeezed his hand. ‘I don’t want a boy, I want you.’
‘Good. So tell me what the alternative is. binding your days alone, knowing you’ve done the right thing? What could be more wretched than that?’
‘Growing old with the wrong person,’ said Jane, thinking of Will, ‘that could he very . . . dispiriting.’
‘Quite.’
She leaned forward to kiss him. ‘I will sort it out, I promise. any baggage, it would be so much s
impler.’
‘I like your baggage, if by that you mean Liberty. I think she likes me too, so far, doesn’t she?’
‘Of course she does.’
Though even as she said the words, Jane was thinking, you will never be her father. Will was Liberty’s father, and the thought of what she was planning to do made her queasy with guilt.
After lunch they walked back up to the house.
‘I’d better get packed,’ said Jane.
‘Leave your toothbrush, that way I know you’ll be back.’ ‘Are you trying to hold me to ransom?’
‘Absolutely’
She disengaged herself and went back into her bedroom. Her clothes were still neatly folded in the wardrobe, she hadn’t had much need for them lately. She put them in her bag and collected her things from the bathroom, leaving the toothbrush as promised. It was a lucky token, a promise to herself that it would be all right, that she would come back and everything would work out. Then she checked her messages. The first one was from Will.
‘Jane, I’m at the hospital with Liberty. She’s had an accident, but don’t worry, she’s going to be all right.’
SIXTEEN
Jane plumped the pillows up behind Liberty and looked anxiously at her pale little face. She had only eaten half her toast.
‘Now, are you sure I can’t get you anything else?’ she said. She wanted to feed her up until she got the roses back in her cheeks.
Liberty shook her head. ‘Not hungry.’
It was two weeks since Jane had arrived to find her daughter stretched out on a hospital bed, her leg already set in the preliminary plaster. It was a bad break, in two places, but the advantage of young bones, the doctor had explained, was that they mended so much better than old ones. Jane had been overcome by gratitude and wanted to kiss his coal. She rarely had dealings with people who did important jobs, and it made her wonder why she worried about the things she did. Watching the nurses bustling around, doing what needed to be done, she was ashamed of the narrow self-absorption that had recently consumed her. She had sat there, through the night, holding Liberty’s hand and thanking the God she didn’t believe in that nothing worse had happened to her.
Now, at home in her own bed, Liberty made a miaowing noise and stretched out her arms.
‘Do you prefer me as a eat or a human?’
Jane smiled, relieved to see her back on form. ‘A human, definitely.’
Liberty grinned, enjoying the undivided attention of her mother. She had grown attached to the purple plaster on her leg, it made her feel special, in spite of its limitations.
‘Mum, I will be able to go on a horse again, won’t 1?’ she asked.
‘Of course you will.’ Though even as Jane said it, she was thinking of other, more terrible possibilities. Broken spine, coma, a lifetime of communicating through a flickering eyelid. She kept remembering the scene from Gone with the Wind where Scarlett’s daughter lies in a still heap of crinolines and curls after being thrown from her pony.
‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when it happened,’ she said. ‘I just felt so awful when I got Daddy’s message . . . you poor, brave little creature.’
Liberty looked pleased. ‘It wasn’t too bad,’ she said. ‘Daddy came quite quickly to the hospital and sat with me for a bit. But then he had to go outside to make a phone call and he fell; it was a shame he was wearing those shiny shoes.’
Will was calling to her now from the galleria, his voice was rising up the stairs. ‘Jane! Jane!’
She picked up Liberty’s breakfast tray. ‘See you in a bit, just call if you need anything.’
Liberty picked up her book and waved goodbye to Jane as she went down into the galleria where Will was sitting at his desk. His bandaged left foot was resting on a cushion.
‘I’m sorry to be a bore,’ he said, putting down his book, ‘but is there any chance of a cup of camomile?’
She flinched at his self-pitying tone. Liberty was her concern, not him. What did he expect anyway, wearing brand-new leather soles on the rainy steps of the hospital; it was obviously asking for trouble. He’d been in such a hurry to phone his agent that he’d missed his grip and gone crashing down, ripping his new Vivienne Westwood trousers while he was about it. And while he was bundled off in a wheelchair to get his foot X-rayed, Liberty had been left alone with only Cosima’s mother for company. Poor woman, she’d done her best, but it was more than she had bargained for when she’d invited her daughter’s friend to stay, playing next-of-kin in Accident and Emergency.
‘Sure,’ said Jane, trying to be gracious, ‘do you want anything to eat?’
Will frowned, thinking about what might tempt his jaded appetite. ‘Perhaps a little grapefruit, properly pared, would go down well.’ He sighed and looked down at his foot. ‘What a damn nuisance this is, of all the inconvenient times for it to happen . . .’
‘It’s those killer shoes. You and Lydia are both paying the price for your fancy footwear . . .’
He looked cross. ‘Thanks for the sympathy. And may I remind you that if you’d been there for Liberty my metatarsal would still be intact . . .’
‘I know, and I feel terrible. Not, it must be said, about your metatarsal, but about poor Liberty. It won’t happen again, I assure you. She is my number-one priority from now on.’
Jane went down to the kitchen and picked a grapefruit from the fruit bowl. She took a sharp knife from the drawer and began the fiddly process of removing not only the skin and pith but also the membranes that separated the segments. Then she had a better idea: there was a tin of grapefruit in the cupboard. She shook the canned fruit into a bowl and placed it on a tray, together with a teapot, into which she measured three teaspoons of camomile, just the way he liked it.
While she waited for the kettle to boil, she thought about what she had to do. She’d realised she had no choice the moment she’d got Will’s message. On the way to the airport she had run through it all so many times in her head. While she had been enjoying a self-indulgent lunch with her lover, her daughter had been in desperate need of her. It was all very well to rationalise, to say it was just a simple mistake, that she had forgotten to take her phone. That accidents happened and no-one could be there 24/7 for their child. That wasn’t the point. The point was that she had been placing her own happiness above that of her child’s, and Liberty’s accident had come just in time to remind her that she was not a free agent. She was not the heroine of a romantic drama, able to follow her heart. She had responsibilities.
She carried the tray upstairs, past the front door where two pairs of crutches, little and large, were propped side by side. Her two invalids. For the sake of one, she’d put up with the other. She reminded herself that before she’d met Rupert she had been quite happy with Will. She could get that feeling back if she tried, the feeling that she was lucky to have him, the feeling that they were a happy family, the three of them.
‘Here we are,’ she said cheerfully, ‘tea and segments.’
Will looked up from his screen. ‘That sounds ominous,’ he said, peering into the bowl.
‘We’re out of fresh,’ Jane lied. ‘I’ll be downstairs working if you need anything.’
In the kitchen, she switched on her computer and checked her emails. Nothing from Rupert, why should there be, he didn’t even know her address. They had always said it was too risky, many people found out about their partners’ infidelity through raiding their inbox. Infidelity. The word used not to apply to them, but they could no longer claim they were just friends. Jane opened the file of the comedy she was translating and set to work. It was so familiar, the old routine, sitting at the kitchen table with the washing machine humming. The pile of bills stacked up beside the toaster. The floor littered with crumbs and toys, quietly demanding her attention. She’d see to it once she’d finished this scene, when she had her mid-morning coffee. The framework of her old life, she’d get used to it again. It wouldn’t feel like this forever, the raw sense of loss would soften an
d fade.
She must tell Rupert now, it wasn’t fair to keep putting it off, hoping something would happen. She listened up the stairs, making sure that Will or Liberty weren’t calling her, then took her phone out into the garden. The wisteria was in bud now, against the back wall. Another month and it would be hung in extravagant mauve swathes all the way up, setting off the small primrose-yellow blooms of the rosa banksia that matched its height. Jane called Rupert’s number. She had only spoken to him once since her return, a brief call to say she had arrived at the hospital, that everything was all right. She had told him then not to call her, she would call him. She wandered down to the end of the garden, to the hot yellow summerbed, where the African marigolds and nasturtiums and geum borisi were gathering force, preparing for their June explosion.
He answered at once. ‘There you are . . . how are you my darling?’
The sound of his voice made a nonsense of her cool resolve.
Through her tears, she told him. ‘I’m sorry, Rupert, I really am so very sorry . . .’
It was remarkable, thought Lydia, how much she could get done with Rupert out of the way. Even with her sore foot, she’d managed to clear out an entire wardrobe in his bedroom, bundling up the clothes for charity, filling two carrier bags with shoes alone. He was terrible about throwing things away, but she knew he’d be grateful when he returned from France. He never wore the stuff anyway, or at least not in her presence. She knew she wasn’t marrying a clothes horse, but there were limits. You couldn’t expect her to be seen in public with someone wearing a three-piece suit, and as for those tank tops . . .
She flung herself back on the bed and admired her handiwork. A whole empty cupboard, with enough hanging space to accommodate her shoulder-season wardrobe. The winter and summer things could go in the spare bedroom, there was plenty of room, far more than she had been used to in her own flat. She stretched out her legs and lifted them slowly, one at a time, tightening her stomach muscles. The wedding dress was closely fitted, with a row of tiny buttons running down the back. She couldn’t afford to put on any weight and risk them pinging off as she went up the aisle.