She compounded that now by going not home, but to Stoneyhaye. By any reasonable standard it was not just the rash but the wrong thing to do, but then Stoneyhaye was a place where reasonable standards did not apply. That was its charm for her at the moment, the reason she went so often. She could walk in there at any time and no one she saw gave a flying fuck about her manners, or her marriage or her driving or her bloody parenting skills. Why should they? They weren’t exactly without morals, but theirs was the cobbled-together, quick-fix morality dictated by sudden silly money. If it worked, they went for it. If it sucked they threw it out. At Stoneyhaye she could enjoy the luxury of seeing herself as a woman of principle, and the even greater luxury of ditching the principles at will.
She justified her visits on the grounds she needed to work out, and today was no different – the endomorphine surge engendered by an hour in the gym would relieve her headache and ease, if not alter, her humour. These days she kept her sports bag in the boot of the Toyota, so the work-out was at least a possibility. But as the barrier rose as if in salute at her approach, she knew that as a serious likelihood it was dead in the water.
‘Hi there Daddy,’ said Lara. ‘I’m awake this time!’
To his utter shame David experienced a thud of disappointment and must have failed wholly to disguise it, because Lara continued with tinkling irony: ‘But since I’ve been a little so and so all day, maybe I’ll pop off to bye-byes any minute now.’
He peered at Freya who was propped in the corner of the sofa surrounded by the armoury of amusements – scrunched up cellophane, a bendy pink panther, bells on a stick – with which Lara had been doing her considerable best.
‘Have you been a madam?’ he asked his daughter, joining in the game. ‘Have you been giving Nanny Lara a load of gyp?’
‘Yup,’ said Lara cheerfully. ‘Damn right I have.’
‘Look,’ he said, Tm going to get a drink and then I’ll take over.’ He hesitated, then thought what the hell. ‘ Would you like one?’
‘I’d kill my granny for one, but no thanks. Not the time or place.’
He was obscurely grateful to her for this solidly correct reply.
‘By the way,’ she added. ‘Check your machine, Mrs Keating’s sister rang twice.’
He poured himself a beer and went into the study. The first of Louise’s messages was polite and straightforward. She was sorry Annet had had to rush off, Marina was having a good sleep and she and Coral were having a pow-wow; they’d welcome her opinion.
The second was a good deal less composed. ‘Annet, I thought you’d be back there by now. I hope you’re all right, you did storm out rather. Mummy’s still being completely maddening but there’s no point in rising to it, that just adds fuel to the flames, something you really ought to know by now. Do ring when you get in, I’m here for the night as you know. Love to David … Cheerio.…’
The message tailed away rather despondently. So where had Annet got to? He glanced at his watch and realised that it was only six, so there was even a possibility she’d gone back to work.
He returned to Lara. ‘ My wife’s mother had a fall, there’s a bit of a panic on.’
‘And quite right too,’ said Lara. ‘It goes with the territory.’
Annet was waved through, parked her Toyota next to Lindl’s Mercedes and went into the house. There was a pervasive and delicious smell of frying bacon. The kitchen was full of people and smoke, a litter of beer bottles. Someone raised a hand.
‘Lindl?’ she asked. ‘Or Harry?’
‘Watching telly,’ said someone.
She went through to the hall, and passed left of the stairs to the back of the house. Through a long, uncurtained window she could see the green plastic sheeting that covered the pool, it reminded her of one of those tents that the police used to screen bodies found out of doors.
In the television room, which was huge and sparsely furnished, Lindl and Jay were curled together on a beanbag sofa, tranquilly watching a barnacled alien direct a stream of sputum at a hapless American cheerleader.
‘Come and join us,’ said Lindl, waving her cigarette. ‘ It’s absolutely revolting.’
‘Apser. Fucking. Lootly,’ agreed Jay. Lindl batted his knees with her hand, but neither of them took their eyes from the screen.
‘I’ll pass thanks,’ said Annet. The cheerleader, screaming in agony, dissolved into a puddle of steaming green pus. ‘ They said Harry was here.’
Lindl shook her head. ‘Try the studio.…’
He was in there. She saw him through the glass at the top of the door, sitting at the mixing desk listening to something, arms folded, chair swivelling gently, knee just moving in time to the beat. A bottle of Jack Daniels and a paper cup stood on the edge of the desk. The studio beyond the glass was in darkness.
She pushed the door open, and a torrent of noise burst over her, a rock-god at his most stormily passionate backed by whinnying guitars, an orchestra, a bass that made her intestines vibrate.
She flinched, and he must have seen her reflection in the glass, for he dragged a switch and the noise sank to a manageable level.
‘Come on in.’ Like Lindl, like all of them, he didn’t seem in the least surprised to see her.
‘Lindl said you were here,’ she explained.
‘I tell you what,’ he said in his elliptical way, ‘I wouldn’t let him watch that.’
‘He seemed to be enjoying it.’
‘Exactly.’ He picked up the bottle. Want one of these?’
She sat down in the chair next to him. ‘Better not.’
He didn’t argue with her. ‘Going to the gym?’
‘I might.’
‘We all might,’ he agreed. ‘ Unless we change our minds.’
She knew he wouldn’t ask what other reason she had for coming, so she told him anyway. Already she was calmer.
‘Harry … I hate my life.’
‘No you don’t,’ he said placidly.
‘I hate myself.’
‘That’s more like it.’ He poured another half cup of bourbon as if ready to listen all night. ‘Crap day?’
‘You could say that. My mother had a fall, my sister considered that I didn’t need to know, my husband agreed and when I did get to visit my mother she accused me of neglecting my baby and my marriage.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘How is your mother?’
She realised that she’d been reminded in the most laconic way of what the priorities were. In the shifting sands of Harry’s life there were odd rootless certainties, the detritus of a solid upbringing.
‘Unscathed apparently,’ she told him. ‘ But the doctors don’t seem to be able to shed any light on why she fell, so in theory it could happen again at any time.’
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. ‘Old people fall over, yeah?’
‘They do, but she’s – has been – good for her age. Not in the least doddery. I sometimes wish she had been, she sends me ape.’
‘No offence to your mother, but I saw her at your party – very pretty lady – and she enjoys a drink.’
‘She does, but she’s a social not a secret drinker.’
‘How would you know?’
‘Because my father was a serious boozer.’
‘OK.’
They sat in silence for a moment. In the background the Pavarotti of rock growled into a ballad.
‘You’ve probably gathered,’ said Annet, ‘it’s the bad feelings with the others I can’t stand.’
‘Especially your David.’
The way he said this, as if reminding her of something, brought her close to tears. ‘Yes.’
‘Everyone has rows.’ He jerked a thumb in the direction of the door. ‘ You should hear these two.’
‘Don’t make comparisons, Harry. There is no comparison. The two situations couldn’t be more different.’
‘I know that. There’s no foundations there, unless you count shagging. You guys have got something going for yo
u.’
She remembered David telling her that Tim had said much the same thing. ‘So people seem to think.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I thought we had. But since Freya was born the balance has been upset. I mean, how dare he imply that I somehow avoid my responsibilities, that I’m running away? How dare he?’
‘Perhaps he’s hurting too?’
At this the dam burst, and she cried. It wasn’t a pretty sight, she choked, sobbed and snuffled as if her heart would break, and muttered ‘Shit!’ as she rummaged in her handbag for a tissue. Harry didn’t attempt to touch or even comfort her, and had no large clean handkerchief to offer. Instead he topped up his paper cup and listened to the music until she’d finished. Then he poured her half an inch of JD and pushed it over.
‘Medicinal.’
‘Thanks.’ She gulped. ‘Sorry.’
‘Be my guest.’
She smiled angrily. ‘This isn’t something I do.’
‘You just did.’
‘It’s such a bloody cliché.’
‘Most things are. We all reckon we’re different, but in the end we all go around behaving like everyone else.’
She laughed in spite of herself. ‘That’s true.’
He raised his paper cup in her direction. ‘That’s love.’
Chapter Fifteen
David’s official return to work was qualitatively different to the day he’d simply chosen to return early. This seemed a solemn and irrevocable step, not back to normality but into uncharted territory. It was as if all the delicate membranes of his married life, already stretched to capacity, were being pulled painfully further apart.
On the face of it he and Annet were friends again but he was acutely aware, and knew she was too, that their sensitive understanding had been fractured. They were behaving well, but bleeding.
The night after she’d been to see Marina they’d made love, quietly. It was a cautious rather than a passionate reunion. After she returned Louise’s calls she’d told him about the day, and about going to Stoneyhaye again to work off her fury in the gym. The brutal truth was he didn’t believe her. His own deceptions had sensitised him to deception in her. She smelt not of the shower, nor even of the office. There was whisky on her breath and a hint of cigarette smoke in her hair. She was lying to him and he didn’t know why.
When Freya woke in the small hours Annet stirred, but David said, ‘ I’ll go.’ Freya took a couple of ounces of the bottle that had replaced the night-time feeds and fell asleep again without fussing.
He looked out of the window on the way back to bed, but was devastated to see that there was no one there.
At Border and Cheffins it was business as usual. His new fatherhood was no longer news to the rest of them, and he no longer found Doug’s management style refreshing. The thought struck David that this might well constitute two-thirds of the foreseeable future. He sat at his desk gripped by a glum panic. Redundancy had changed his life – for the worse, then for the better. He didn’t care for change, and rarely initiated it – it had to happen to him. That was with the key exception of marriage to Annet, something he could still scarcely believe he had pulled off. He felt out of control – not in the sense that he might do anything, but that he was able to do nothing. It seemed he could only react.
And Gina was no longer there. Gone. It wasn’t simply that she was not outside the window at night. He sensed that she wasn’t around. She had withdrawn from him when he most needed her, as everyone seemed to be doing. He wished now that he had not avoided her when he’d seen her at the letter box, but had stopped, got out, thanked her for her letter, perhaps invited her for a drink … In her case at least he had been looked up to and admired: he had the power to change things for her. Since that day everything seemed to have taken a turn for the worse.
His concentration was shot to pieces, but fortunately there were some positive developments at work which gave the illusion that his time there was being spent productively. Alasdair put together the specification for Orchard End, the board went up, and Harry Bailey called on behalf of his employer.
‘He’s in the studio till next week, but he’s definitely interested. Any chance I could take a preliminary look round? I’ve got the minimum requirements off pat.’
‘I’m certain it would meet those,’ said David a touch frostily. Since his visit to Stoneyhaye he was even less comfortable with Bailey, for reasons he didn’t care to rehearse.
‘Course it would – but he wants to get on the case right away.’
‘The specification’s only been circulated today, and he’s top of the list. But if you want to make an appointment.…’
‘Tomorrow?’
David decided he could depute Alasdair to take him round, on the basis that one second in command deserved another. Chris Harper, on the other hand, would receive his personal attention.
The other good news was that Aston Lane Farm had gone for the asking price. Hilary Bryce dropped in to say goodbye and he got Jackie to make some tea for them.
‘This is nice,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect hospitality.’
He didn’t tell her that any diversion was welcome. ‘You must be looking forward to your new life.’
‘Yes—’ she hesitated. ‘We are indeed. George isn’t well, and we need to be away from the pressures. I’m enormously fond of Paul – we both are – but he’s a driven man. I suppose one doesn’t get to be a millionaire without also being a taskmaster, both to oneself and others … At any rate, off with the old.’ She gave a strained smile.
‘I’m sorry George is ill.’ David was aware, not for the first time recently, of the barbed complexities of even the most apparently straightforward lives. ‘Do pass on my best wishes.’
‘I shall certainly do that,’ her tone was bright, daring him to be too sympathetic. ‘ He’s developing Alzheimer’s, which is awfully sad, but he’s aware of it, and we can laugh about it, so we’re prepared. If you’re ever in Yorkshire you must come and see us before too long – before we’re both going about with our clothes back to front!’
Her gallant attempt at humour moved him more than he could say, so he let it pass. ‘We shall certainly do that. But bear in mind we have Freya.’
‘What could be nicer?’ She rummaged in her bag for a second and produced a bunch of postcards held by an elastic band. ‘There you are, our change of address. Keep in touch.’
At the door she said: ‘It’s not often one makes new friends through a chance meeting, but so nice when it happens.’
‘I agree.’
He saw her downstairs. When he returned he caught Jackie’s eye and unusually she offered a comment:
‘What a nice lady.’
Because of her dependable discretion he was able to say, ‘And a brave one,’ confident that she wouldn’t press him: nor did she.
David was shocked, though. He didn’t know George Bryce’s exact age, but even allowing for him looking a little older than he was, he couldn’t have been more than sixty. At their first meeting, he had inevitably suffered somewhat by comparison with the bullish, virile energy of Paul Hubbard; but at their party he had been voluble and amusing. David remembered that it was George who had pointed out Robert Townsend’s connection with the village. He could only suppose that such a condition did not proceed at a steady pace, but in fits and starts, like one of the terrible wasting diseases one read about. He tried to imagine the sort of difficulties Hilary had had to contend with, and those that faced her in the months and years ahead. And thinking back to his first impression of her he was sure she was making a bigger sacrifice than her husband could ever know in order to tend him, and grow a new garden, in Yorkshire.
At the weekend he and Annet were measured and polite with one another. It was a pact, but not their usual secret and intimate collusion: this was a truce based on damage avoidance, in which both of them knew there were unused weapons lying in the corner.
As always, they tried to do the we
ekend things they used to do, but more slowly and with greater difficulty because of Freya. They went to a farm auction in the morning and Annet bought a bike with a child seat on the back, but with Freya in the car the seat couldn’t be lowered to accommodate it and they had to leave it for collection another day. Lunch at an old and well-appointed pub on the way home had to be curtailed because Freya’s post-prandial battle with indigestion went beyond what could reasonably be tolerated by even a self-proclaimed ‘ child-friendly’ management.
In the afternoon Annet and Freya slept on the double bed and David did some clearance at the far end of the garden, tearing at weeds, ripping out great spiralling ropes of ivy and hacking off suckers with a billhook. As a horticultural exercise it was a triumph: the effect was so startling, revealing all manner of stunted, light-deprived plants from the fleshy spears of autumn-flowering bulbs to the faded brown tangles of honeysuckle, that he wondered why he hadn’t embarked on the project before. As sublimation, it was only partly successful.
On Saturday night they were invited to supper (‘definitely not a dinner party’, Della told them) at the rectory. Neither of them wanted to go, but in the end they did, because both recognised that it was preferable to sustaining an evening on their own without the presence of Freya as a lightning conductor.
So they could both have a drink they walked the short distance to the rectory, carrying Freya between them in the Moses basket. She wasn’t asleep, and seemed to be staring up at the stars as she bounced along.
‘Mind if we’re not too late leaving?’ said Annet.
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Who’s going to make the first move?’
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