by Debby Holt
She was glad she’d chosen to have coffee with Jean rather than afternoon tea because now she could look forward to her twice-weekly treat, knowing she had performed her social duty. The weather, while not exactly warm, was at least dry and she enjoyed walking along Piccadilly and down Regent Street into Pall Mall. It wasn’t just the shops and the architecture, it was the people. She couldn’t understand why so many of them felt compelled to talk into their phones as they walked; it meant they missed out on so many fascinating little scenes and conversations. Only last week she had heard one snippet of dialogue that kept her happily occupied for days. A couple were walking together and, as they passed by her, the man said, ‘So we tell our spouses at six and we meet at seven. All right?’
Eliza had been enthralled. Were they going to announce their departure to their unfortunate spouses and, if so, weren’t they allowing rather too little time to break such traumatic news? And how would they broach the subject? Would they suddenly, on the hour of six, break into a robot-like delivery of execution? Fascinating, absolutely fascinating.
And now, two stunning girls in short white dresses were walking towards her in the company of a less stunning young man. ‘I hate Megan,’ one of the girls said as they walked past her. ‘She’s such a whore.’
Was Megan a whore? It was an unusually censorious term to issue from the mouth of one who didn’t look particularly virginal herself, despite the white dress. Was the word a routine insult these days and, if so, what had happened to feminine solidarity? What had happened to feminism? Eliza often wondered what had happened to feminism. Why did so many girls spend so many boring hours every day counting their calories? Why did so many women spend so much money having unnecessary, dangerous operations in order to attain a mythical approximation of contemporary beauty? In her thirties, Eliza had read books extolling the liberation of women and now, all these years later, the daughters and grand-daughters of those thoughtful writers shaved their pubic hair and called each other whores. It was a little depressing.
Her spirits lifted as she reached the National Gallery. As long as she could keep coming here, life was worth living. Eliza knew only too well that in order to sustain a heady love affair one must restrict exposure to the object of one’s passion. She never visited the gallery more than twice a week, even though she was often tempted. And with each visit she would only look at one room, or occasionally two. Sometimes she would only look at one painting. She knew what she wanted to do today. She had just finished reading Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and had been delighted by the appearance of Hans Holbein in the story. Today, she intended to look at some of his paintings and she might as well start with the biggest.
The Ambassadors dominated the room in which it was hung, taking up the whole of the end wall. Eliza sat on the bench opposite it with a little sigh of pleasure. She put her bag down beside her and adjusted her skirt.
The two diplomats in the painting were dressed sumptuously and stood on either side of a table packed with artefacts – a globe, books, scientific instruments. The man on the left was quite handsome in an arrogant sort of way. He wore a black cap, black hose and black undercoat, all of which emphasised the dazzling pinkness of his satin doublet. He stood with his coat deliberately exposed to reveal an extravagant ermine lining. He had a long gold chain round his neck that would be the envy of any of those rappers Eliza occasionally glimpsed on television. He also carried a gold dagger with a ridiculous green tassel.
His friend was not attractive. His costume, while less flashy, showed signs of opulence, since his coat was lined with fur. Both men looked out at Eliza – or rather, she supposed, they looked out at Holbein – with expressions of serene confidence in their position in the world.
But what excited Eliza was the fact that amid the conventional portrait of two powerful men there was something so surreal, so contemporary in its deliberate attempt to shock it made her want to laugh. In the foreground of the painting was a sprawling, diagonal shape. It looked like a UFO that had crash-landed onto the rich carpet. On further examination, it turned out to be a skull. Did the two men know that in front of all the pomp and wealth so lovingly reproduced by the artist, a crazy skull would intrude, a V-sign to all that they presumably held so dear?
This was why Eliza loved the National Gallery. How could one be lonely when one visited this place? At the age of eighty-one she no longer had many friends. She rarely left London now. There was only her sister-in-law in Bath who continued to invite her to stay. Yet here, across the centuries, she had made a connection. She was, she felt, talking to an artist who felt as she did about life: that it was a game in which money and position were mere diversions in the face of inevitable death. Life was fragile, death was random, and the best way to live was to regard one’s continued existence with sceptical amusement and plenty of gratitude.
A voice said, ‘Do you mind if I join you?’
Eliza looked up into possibly the ugliest face she had ever encountered. The man was like an ape. The gap between his nose and his protuberant mouth was excessive and it didn’t help that his chin had apparently collapsed into his neck. He was bald, apart from a crescent-shaped rim of grey stringy hair round the back of his head, and he wore a baggy, shabby, brown suit that would have been loose on a man twice his size. She refrained from pointing out that he had already joined her and instead said coldly, ‘This bench is public property.’
He sat down and, taking out an enormous handkerchief, blew his nose noisily. ‘I love this painting,’ he said, pointing his walking stick at Holbein’s picture. ‘Do you see the ambassador on the left has a badge on his cap? If you look at it carefully, you can see there’s the image of a skull on it.’
Eliza nodded but said nothing since she had no wish to let the little man know she hadn’t noticed the badge.
‘And if you look on the top left corner, you can see a crucifix, almost hidden in the folds of those curtains. Why is it there? The painting is full of clues and puzzles. Look at the table for a start.’ He carried on pontificating about the symbolism of each object on the table and she rather grudgingly conceded – if only to herself – that he knew far more than she did. When he eventually stood up, however, she remained stubbornly seated. He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m afraid I have to go. Do you often come here?’
‘I do,’ Eliza said. ‘It is,’ she added with some deliberation, ‘very peaceful.’
‘It is, it is,’ the man agreed, failing to notice the implied rebuke. ‘I’ll be here next Thursday. I thought I’d look at the Impressionists. Come along at midday and we’ll look at them together. I’ll wait for you by Pissarro’s The Avenue, Sydenham. Goodbye now.’
The little man nodded and walked away without giving time for her to respond, which was just as well since he’d irritated her so much she’d been tempted to forget her manners. Why would she care if he were here next Thursday? Why would he think she would want to look at paintings with him? And why would he assume, as she was sure that he did, that he knew far more than she did about art? She had no intention of waiting for him by the Pissarro next week, in fact she would go out of her way not to be waiting by the Pissarro.
She gave a slow and careful glance round the room and, having assured herself that he had well and truly gone, rose and walked up to the painting. She felt an almost reluctant surge of interest. There was the badge on the ambassador’s cap with what indeed looked like a skull engraved on it. And there was the small crucifix on the top left-hand corner. Her eyes flickered over to the face of the ambassador on the left. It seemed to her that he stared at her with a rather mocking expression. But that was just fancy.
CHAPTER SIX
Anna supposed that Patrick must be doing well. Lewisham Hill was a pleasant tree-lined road with substantial Victorian houses on either side. Genteel Blackheath was a little further up the hill and Lewisham Station was conveniently situated down at the bottom. His housing block, more or less midway between them, had a big communal lawn, and ther
e was no sign of litter anywhere.
His maisonette was on the first floor and when she spoke into the machine, his voice shot out with unabashed warmth. ‘Anna! Come on up!’ He was waiting for her on the landing. When he kissed her cheek, he smelt of basil. ‘Come in, come in,’ he said. ‘Meet Fizz and Lola.’
Fizz and Lola were not dogs. Fizz was an attractive woman in leggings and a lumberjack shirt, with a wide mouth and glossy brown hair. Lola was a grave-faced toddler with enormous blue eyes and shoulder-length blonde hair. The child stretched out her arms towards her father and he gathered her up in his arms with practised ease. ‘Take Anna through to the sitting room, Fizz. Lola can help me finish the cooking.’
The sitting room was modest in size but full of light, with green walls and a pink carpet. There was a two-seater sofa, a floor cushion and a simple wooden chair. Behind the sofa was a short table with a laptop, a tray with glasses and a bottle in an ice bucket. Underneath the table was a red plastic box stuffed with toys.
Having settled Anna on the sofa with a large glass of wine, Fizz took the floor cushion and said, ‘I’ve heard all about you, you know. Don’t you love being called Dr Cameron?’
It was impossible not to like her and indeed, Anna thought, why should she not? Fizz had a low husky voice and a throaty laugh. She was self-deprecatory to a fault – ‘I don’t want to talk about my job. If you want to freeze a conversation instantly, just try saying you’re an industrial land lawyer.’ She confessed she was not a natural mother – ‘I adore Lola but if I’m on my own with her for more than a few hours I start climbing up the wall.’ She admitted she’d find motherhood impossible without a partner like Patrick. ‘When I met him he was an actor and thank God he was unsuccessful because he was quite happy to give it up when Lola came along. His parents had bought larger premises in Blackheath and then they bought a house there. That’s why we came to Lewisham. Patrick’s joined the family upholstery business. He looks after Lola and takes her to work with him. He has ten times more patience with her than I do and his parents are brilliant too. I’m very lucky.’
Fizz was lucky. When Patrick called them into lunch, there was a tomato tart along with a Niçoise salad awaiting them. While Fizz helped him serve out, Anna took a seat next to Lola and gave her an uncertain smile. She had no idea how to address such a small and solemn infant.
Lola pointed to her feet. ‘I have purple shoes,’ she said.
Anna studied Lola’s purple trainers. ‘They’re very nice,’ she said.
Lola nodded and gave a little sigh. ‘Do you like purple?’ she asked.
The child was making polite conversation. Anna had no idea that small children could even begin to do that. ‘I quite like purple,’ she said, ‘though I have to say it’s not my favourite colour.’
Lola regarded Anna with a hint of disappointment in her eyes. ‘I like purple. Purple is my favourite colour. I like alpacas too.’
Anna was even more impressed. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen an alpaca.’
Lola’s face dissolved into laughter. ‘I have. I see them all the time. I love alpacas.’
Lola was lovely, if a little frustrating. Anna doubted she would ever have the patience to cope with small children. Having conversations in their presence was like driving in a traffic jam. Over lunch, Fizz told Anna that she tried to learn something new every six months which meant that on Wednesday evenings she now went straight from work to something called dynamic yoga. Dynamic yoga sounded like a contradiction in terms. How could yoga – all deep breathing and slow motion movements – ever be dynamic? Anna was intrigued but the subject was terminally derailed by Lola who wanted Anna to know that her friend Jonah liked eating buttons from his shirt. And then when Patrick mentioned that Anna’s childhood tormentor, Felicity Eggins, was already on her second marriage, Lola said she didn’t like tomatoes now and that was the end of Felicity Eggins. Fizz and Patrick were fascinated by Lola’s revelation. Anna couldn’t imagine a time when she would be more interested in a child’s dislike of tomatoes than in Felicity Eggins’ love life.
When she said goodbye, she walked down the stairs and turned when Lola called her name. There were the three of them, Fizz, and Patrick, and Lola blowing a kiss at her. She blew one back and went on her way. On the bus back to Deptford, she rang William to tell him Fizz and Lola weren’t lapdogs.
‘I like Fizz,’ she told William. ‘You would too.’
‘You sound a bit down,’ William said.
‘Oh well… You know…’ Anna’s voice tailed off. She knew William would understand.
‘Who was it who said the past is another country?’ William asked.
‘I haven’t a clue. I expect Tess would know.’
‘Well, it’s true,’ William said. ‘And if I were you I’d keep well away from it.’
Anna laughed and said goodbye. Almost immediately she had a text from Olivia. ‘I’m back!’
Anna’s spirits lifted at once. Olivia was back!
Fourteen years ago, Anna and her family moved from London to Somerset. Their mother had dropped her and Tess off on their first day at their new school. ‘You’ll be fine,’ she said brightly. ‘After all you have each other.’ Which only went to show that her mother knew nothing about anything since Tess was no help at all. Tess’s passive acquiescence towards the move had remained as incomprehensible as it was infuriating.
They found themselves in a class united by old allegiances and shared primary-school experiences. There was only one pupil there who interested Anna and by the end of the day she knew why. She and Olivia were both exiles who were consumed with rage.
Olivia, half Ghanaian and half Italian, had spent all her life in Shoreditch where she had a tight-knit group of friends. Now her parents – just like Anna’s – had made an arbitrary decision to move their family away from all that was familiar. Olivia found herself in a class where she was the only black pupil in a room of white teenagers who had never even heard of Shoreditch.
Meanwhile Anna had been forcibly uprooted from Wimbledon, her friends, and Patrick. Her new home was a rural cottage that was nearly half a mile from anywhere of interest. Not that Darrowbridge was interesting but at least it offered more than fields and trees and the faint smells of the pig farm down the road.
By the end of that first week, Anna and Olivia were best friends and had remained so ever since. These days the two of them shared a small flat in Deptford. For the last two weeks Olivia had been away in Manchester, working on a programme about a family called the Balderstones whose domestic life was impeded by a ghost in their sitting room. Thus far, the ghost had failed to materialise and the team was forced to rely on ever more lurid accounts from Mrs Balderstone, who relished her moment in the spotlight. The only breath of sanity came from a local builder called Jim who assured Olivia that the entire story was a load of old rubbish. Such lucid common sense meant that Jim had to be discounted as a witness, which was a pity since Olivia said he was extremely easy on the eye which was more than could be said for Mrs Balderstone.
Olivia’s job often took her away from home. Each time she went away, Anna expected to enjoy the chance to tidy the flat and have the place to herself and each time she soon remembered that she hated being alone. Anna’s sister had once voiced the hope of, some day, buying a small cottage of her own in the country. Tess’s dream was Anna’s nightmare. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than living on her own.
In the flat there were the welcome signs of Olivia’s return: the open rucksack on the sofa, the carrier bags on the rug and the signs of culinary debris on the kitchen bar. Anna could hear her on the phone in her bedroom, having what sounded like a heated discussion.
Anna filled the kettle with water and had just located the box of teabags when Olivia came in, looking effortlessly cool in a sludge-green boiler suit that on anyone else would look horrendous.
‘Welcome home,’ Anna said. ‘We can share the last teabag.’
‘Just what I need,’ Ol
ivia breathed. ‘I am so pissed off. My brother and his wife have invited us all to Cambridge for Christmas.’
‘It’s the middle of June. They’re making plans for Christmas?’
‘I know. That’s what they do. I can’t believe Mum’s even considering it. I’ve just reminded her, “Do you remember what we said last time? Never again!”’
‘I thought you adored your nephews.’
‘I do. I adore them all through the day but there should be a cast-iron rule that children under six should be in bed by six. And meanwhile we have to eat my sister-in-law’s disgusting veggie food and, if we don’t praise it to the skies, my brother looks anxiously at her and then gazes desperately at us and I am not going there and… Oh, let’s not talk about it. It only makes me cross. Shall I tell you the latest about the Balderstones’ ghost?’
‘You didn’t see it?’
‘Oh, we saw it all right. We saw it yesterday. We’d packed everything away so we could make an early start this morning. We were about to go to the pub when Mrs Balderstone rang and told us to come over at once. We dashed over, she let us in and we tiptoed towards the sitting room. We all heard the noises. Steve and Tom set up the equipment in the hall. I opened the door and felt something furry brush past my leg and I screamed. And then we saw him leap up the stairs. It was a squirrel. I nearly had a heart attack over a frigging squirrel.’
‘I can’t believe you screamed. How can you make a documentary about a ghost that turned out to be a squirrel?’
‘Easy. It will become a witty exposé of human gullibility. I suspect Mrs Balderstone will not be amused. Anyway, I’m already thinking about the next project.’
‘Do you have any ideas?’ A silly question. Olivia always had ideas.
‘I bought a stack of magazines the other day and I’ve identified two possible subjects. One is a woman whose husband walked out on her and their three children. He went on to marry again and had another child. His new wife died and now the first one’s taken him back and is bringing up the new baby.’