‘Oh, you know. Usual. I get my licence back soon, so that’ll help.’
‘Good.’ I was astonished. This was verging on a normal conversation. ‘It’ll be a relief to get out and about a bit more, won’t it?’ I said, encouraged.
‘What, like some day-release patient?’
Ah. Bullseye. But perhaps I had sounded patronizing. I hadn’t meant to. Nerves again.
‘Sorry,’ he said quietly, knowing me very well. ‘You didn’t mean that any more than I did. And I’m sorry to always snap at you. You bring out the worst in me.’
I glanced up at him. He’d said it sadly. And I knew it was true.
‘And we used to bring out the best.’ It was the first heartfelt thing I’d said to him in a long time and his eyes told me he knew that to be true too. Our gazes fell to the grass.
‘Ella, I’ve taken a job in Oxford.’
I looked up, astonished. ‘A job!’
‘Yes, they’ve asked me to be artist in residence at the university.’
My mouth fell open. ‘Oh! Well, gosh, what an honour!’
‘Yes, I suppose.’
His face hardened a bit. Perhaps I should have said: ‘Lucky them to have you.’ But artist in residence … heavens. Of course he was a famous name and his reputation went before him, still did, clearly; and of course what they didn’t see was the alcoholic wreck shuffling from his lair at midday, throwing unfortunate canvases around, staggering drunkenly back from the pub at midnight, making the dogs bark, the cockerel crow, slamming doors. They – the powers at the university – saw only the work: and the early work in particular, one of which hung in the Ashmolean and which he refused to sell, despite our financial problems. Presumably he’d been for some sort of interview; but … perhaps not. If he had, they’d have seen this sober and attractive man in his crumpled linen jacket, faded shirt, jeans, which, I had to admit, we’d seen a bit more of recently. When he’d taken the children out to supper the other night, he’d looked like this as he’d called for them and they’d walked to the pub. I’d felt almost jealous as I watched them go from my bedroom window. But one clean shirt didn’t make a pillar of the establishment, and it was a prestigious appointment, whatever he said.
‘Well, it certainly will help having your licence back, then. To go back and forth.’ And he’ll have to stay sober, I thought with a stab of pleasure. To do that.
‘No, they’ve given me a place in town. It’s Christchurch. They’re rolling in money. I’ve got somewhere in college.’
I stared in horror. ‘You’re moving out!’
‘Well, I’ve moved out anyway, Ella. Let’s not be stupid.’
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t say: Yes, but only into the garden, where I can see you. Where the children can see you. Where I had – not control, of course not – but where there was a semblance of normality, however unusual it was. And how would he cope? Manage – I don’t know – sheets, food? I bought his groceries, put them in his fridge, and he mostly had supper at the pub. Well, of course, he’d probably have a scout, I thought with a jolt. Someone who did all that for him, as they did at these grand Oxford colleges; he’d dine in hall, like the other professors, at the top table. They were all so clever that they weren’t expected to get their own meals. Protected, venerated: an endangered species to be nurtured, set apart from the rest of mankind, by their talent.
‘What about the children?’ I gabbled, afraid. We’d come to a halt by an empty netball court. I gripped the wire netting. Held on tight.
‘I’ve told the children. They’re OK with it.’
My breathing became quite shallow. ‘When?’
‘At supper the other night.’
‘They didn’t say!’
‘No, because I said I’d tell you,’ he said gently.
It occurred to me that I was being treated carefully and gingerly. By my children and my ex-husband – for ex he surely was now. Don’t upset Ella. And they’d discussed me the other night, over scampi and chips. But … I was the one who discussed their difficult father, explained how hard it was being Sebastian. Not the other way round.
‘They’ll miss you,’ I whispered.
‘Well,’ he hesitated. ‘Josh might come and stay.’
The blood left my face.
‘No.’
‘Just to stay, Ella, in his gap year, next year. He wants to work at the Playhouse. You know he does.’
Josh harboured an ambition to act and had already decided he wanted to do anything menial at the theatre to get a foot in the door: meet directors, actors, anyone.
‘Oh, so Daddy’s got the flash pad in town and they’ll run like lemmings! Tabitha, too – all her friends live in Oxford. You’ll have them both!’
My voice was raised, shrill. People turned to look as they walked by.
‘No, Ella, it’s not like that,’ he said patiently. ‘I told you, they might stay. Of course they live with you. I’m not trying to take them.’
But my heart was racing. I felt breathless. Could see it all panning out in a hideous screenplay before me: Sebastian, in some treacle-coloured Cotswold stone college, a set of rooms up one of those venerable staircases. The children with their own bedrooms, own keys, coming and going as they pleased, smoking inside, coming back from parties at all hours – Sebastian was much less strict than me. Which teenager wouldn’t want that?
And then I saw me, at Cold Comfort Farm, in the tumbledown farmhouse. Alone with the dogs, the hens, the ducks, the sexually confused chicken, the slime in the yard, the poo, the broken fences, the escaping animals …
In the distance a figure in a grey coat raised a hand and came towards us balancing a cake.
And her!
‘I thought I’d put this in the car,’ she said as she approached. ‘It hasn’t risen as it should,’ she remarked sniffily, ‘but one must show willing. Haven’t you bought anything yet, Eleanor?’
I wordlessly handed her the car keys and she went on her way, giving me only the briefest of looks as she took in my face.
‘We’ll have to get a divorce,’ I said viciously, hoping to shock him now, as he’d shocked me. ‘No question about it.’
‘Of course,’ he said solicitously, as if I’d said I had to have a new sofa.
I was rocked again. We’d never, ever mentioned the D word. Never.
‘It makes perfect sense,’ he said, almost in surprise. Almost as one would to placate a small child. ‘We’ve had what so-called professionals would no doubt call a trial separation and it hasn’t worked. But there’s no reason why we can’t be civilized about it, is there?’ He regarded me with his brown eyes, genuinely anxious. As if I were the one to be handled with care. As if I were the one with the screw loose who could tip at a moment’s notice, and throw things. I felt as if someone had scooped me out and deposited my insides in a pile beside me. Eviscerated. Of course: hence, gutted.
‘No, no reason,’ I said breathlessly.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lottie and Hamish coming from the car park with their two children. They saw us at the same time and approached.
‘Hi, you two!’ Hamish said jovially and in a surprised how-nice-to-see-you-together voice. ‘Loving the principal-boy look, Ella!’
In an attempt to be trendy and please Tabitha, I’d got some of her boots over my jeans, but they were too long, to the knee, and didn’t quite work. I’d also tied a scarf round my neck, which didn’t help either. Hamish pecked my cheek and pumped Sebastian’s hand. They genuinely got on and embarked on a bit of man chat. Lottie had seen my face.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said in a low voice, taking my arm. We walked on ahead.
‘Sebastian wants a divorce.’
‘Oh. Well, that’s … sort of, predictable, isn’t it? Under the circumstances? I mean … where were you both going?’
‘I didn’t know it was where he was going!’
‘But it was kind of what you wanted, eventually, surely? The situation couldn’t have gone on like
this for ever?’
‘I don’t know, Lottie,’ I muttered miserably. ‘I don’t know anything any more.’
‘Yes – just wait!’ she broke off to say to Matthew, who was hanging on to her arm and leaping like a salmon, demanding money – ‘Mum, Mu-um!’ – for a stall. She found some in her bag and gave it to him. He sped off with Lil, his sister, at his heels. ‘I’ve got my mother here somewhere too,’ she said distractedly, glancing about. ‘They’ve put her on a new drug and she’s much better but as lively as a kitten. Must see where she’s got to.’
‘Not causing a stir in the Spar, then?’ I managed, forcing a smile. Life mustn’t always be about me. And Lottie clearly thought this news was predictable.
‘Oh, she’s still doing that, but in different ways. She picks arguments with everyone now, terribly punchy. Last week she made the girl in the bank cry. Sorry, Ella, I’d better find her. Please God, she’s not at the apple-bobbing holding someone’s head under.’ She hurried off.
Sebastian and Hamish had peeled off to guess the weight of a teacher, the marvellously game and rotund chemistry master, Mr Chivers.
‘How dare you!’ he bellowed cheerfully as a cheeky child guessed twenty stone. ‘I haven’t even had lunch yet!’
The audience laughed and, amongst them, I saw Ludo’s daughter, Henrietta, pale, blonde and sensitive. Ludo himself was behind her, I noticed with a start. I saw him put his hands on her shoulders and throw his head back and roar as Mr Chivers made some other quip. They’d had to move Henrietta here for the sixth form, when the money had run out. Ludo’s lovely face was wreathed in smiles. He hadn’t seen me. Neither had he seen Sebastian, who was almost beside him. Same height, but much darker. In every way. Sebastian’s face was, as ever, inscrutable, unlike Ludo’s, which was an open book, showing every emotion. It was convivial now as he joked with Mr Chivers that his handle-bar moustache must surely weigh a few pounds? Sebastian would never have bantered openly like that in public, or had his hands resting on Tabitha’s shoulders. Comparisons. Sometimes odious, but sometimes a good idea. If they helped. To see more clearly. I breathed a little more easily. A few paces behind Ludo, viewing the proceedings with disdain, was Eliza, in a prim summer shift dress I’d seen in the Boden catalogue. Navy blue with taupe trim. She was standing with Ginnie and Richard, I perceived, in surprise. But of course. Richard, despite having children at private schools, had been asked to be a governor here, as a man of some standing in the local community and a prospective high sheriff. He’d been rather flattered and said he’d think about it; he was obviously checking the school out. Ginnie, though, looked pained to be amongst us. She was fingering her pearls, a bright smile on her face, looking awkward. She’d got a pink embroidered coat on – no make-up obviously, and her hair was still on end – but nevertheless she made a complete contrast to the other parents here, who wore casual jeans or shorts. But perhaps that was the point. She cast Richard a meaningful look.
‘She’s foul to him,’ Lottie hissed in my ear as she beetled back to my side. I jumped. Bit strong. Then I realized she was talking about Eliza, who she’d thought I’d been watching. ‘And he holds the fort pretty much all the time these days. Any excuse and she’s off to London.’
‘London?’
‘That’s where her man is. I told you. And of course Ludo can’t do a thing about it because she rules the roost.’
As if to demonstrate, at that moment, Eliza, looking exasperated, strode across to pull Ludo and Henrietta away, as if they were making spectacles of themselves by hooting with laughter. I saw Henrietta look tense as her mother had a low word, holding on to her arm, and then we all caught each other’s eyes – Eliza, Ginnie, Richard, Ludo, Henrietta and me. As Lottie peeled off diplomatically, the rest of us converged, greeting each other enthusiastically, exclaiming about how wonderful it was to see each other, kisses all round.
‘I don’t know a soul!’ Ginnie cried in mock alarm, a hand to her heart. It occurred to me that in the right social circles that would never usually stop her. She’d be in like a heat-seeking missile. ‘Thank God you’re here, I’d quite forgotten!’
‘Forgotten where your nephew and niece went to school?’ I said, surprised, and quite sharply for me. Ludo and I ritually pecked each other’s cheeks: the current coursed through me.
‘I know! Too silly of me. I’ve brought mine, of course.’
‘Why?’ I asked in wonder, as indeed, my own niece and nephew, with a blonde girl I recognized as Frankie, hovered at a distance. They were in a rather awkward huddle watching the skittles, not knowing anyone.
‘Because I’d like Hugo to try for an internship here, teaching cricket,’ boomed Richard, who was sporting a bright pink shirt and yellow cords. He was a small man with no volume control. Perhaps that was why. ‘Employers like to see some proper community work these days, not just building orphanages in Thailand.’ Surely that was charitable work, not community? Was working at a state school now in the same bracket? ‘And he needs to show he’s capable of getting on with all types, if he’s to go into the City eventually. It’s much more PC to have something like this on your CV than, say, working at Summer Fields for a term.’
I cringed at the volume, and the content. Hid from one or two parents who’d turned to stare. Richard beamed and nodded genially at them in his loud clothes. He’d never quite got the country-squire look right, principally because he wasn’t one. Had bought into it. For all his booming and his vibrant colours, though, I liked Richard. He didn’t dissemble for anyone. Said exactly what he thought. And although he had his detractors, I wasn’t one of them. His heart was in the right place.
‘You mean next summer?’ I asked.
‘Exactly,’ he said more anxiously. ‘I’m already that far ahead, Ella. Have to be.’ He glanced at Ginnie and I detected another agenda here. That, for once, the loud voice had been calculated: painting a picture to appeal to his wife. ‘And cricket would be good for him,’ he said in a lower voice. ‘Working with children, too. More fun.’ He meant than the internship Ginnie was lining up for Hugo at Deloitte’s, courtesy of our uncle. I agreed, but didn’t comment. I’d got involved once before, agreeing with Richard that working in the pub would be a good idea, and then been on the receiving end of Ginnie’s fury.
‘Except Uncle Bertie has gone to a great deal of trouble,’ Ginnie told us now, muscling in, ears like Mr Spock’s. ‘He had to really persuade the board at Deloitte’s. And Hugo’s already had the interview.’
‘Let’s play it by ear, eh?’ Richard told her gruffly. ‘He doesn’t like London very much. Prefers the country. And, anyway, there are other factors at play.’
‘You mean the girlfriend!’ she hissed.
There was an awkward pause. I couldn’t quite believe my sister was getting so wound up about something a year hence.
‘As I say, other factors,’ Richard said in a placatory manner and I remembered Josh had told me Hugo wasn’t sure he wanted to go into the City at all. Had said he’d been channelled all his life, from Summer Fields, to Harrow, to Cambridge; he wanted to make the next step himself. Might take another year off.
‘Here they come,’ I said nervously, as Hugo, Frankie, Araminta and Josh, who was of their number now, slowly left the skittles and ambled our way.
‘I gather you’ve met her,’ Ginnie muttered tightly.
‘Yes, when I went to see Dad. I thought she was lovely. And Josh says she’s great.’
The teenagers changed course suddenly, perhaps seeing their parents ominously huddled together. They headed off towards the hamburger stand.
‘Sweet little thing,’ said Ginnie brightly, but her eyes said: I’d like to poison her. ‘Not a great deal of polish, obviously. But hey-ho.’
There was an awkward silence.
‘Well, quite,’ said Eliza, loyally. Henrietta crept away.
‘Henrietta!’ Eliza called after her, then made to follow, tottering in high heels. ‘Henrietta, I thought we’d have a word with your
English teacher!’ Henrietta walked faster. ‘While we’re here. Henrietta!’
‘Darling, leave her,’ Ludo began mildly. She swung round furiously. ‘Oh, you! A fat lot of help you are!’
He raised his eyebrows imperceptibly as she stalked away.
This was turning out to be such a lovely day. Meanwhile, happy, smiling people with fish in bags and toffee apples ambled past.
‘She’s upset,’ Ginnie told Ludo, laying a hand on his arm.
‘I know,’ he said shortly.
‘This can’t be easy for her,’ Ginnie went on in a low voice, still with the hand on the arm. ‘It is so different from Musgrove Park.’ My eyes widened. ‘It’s not just the children, Ludo, it’s everything. The parents, the teachers, the buildings …’ She gave a little shudder at the concrete block behind us, as if, at any moment, it might crumble, like in King Kong.
‘Ginnie – my children are here!’ I spluttered.
‘Oh, I know.’ She laid her other hand, the one that wasn’t on Ludo, on me. All she needed was a white robe and a halo and she’d be Jesus. ‘I know, angel, and, golly, they’ve done brilliantly. Apparently Josh’s art is fantastic. I’m just saying that it must be awfully hard for Eliza, after lovely jolly Musgrove – speech days, tennis parties, that sort of thing. With people she’s comfortable with.’
‘I think you’ll find there are plenty of people here to be comfortable with,’ Ludo said stiffly, but I was speechless. And so embarrassed for Ludo, whose fault this terrible comedown surely was. This ghastly tumble from fee-paying perfection.
Even for Ginnie this was breathtakingly dreadful, but I knew she was upset about what Richard had just said. Her mind was still on her own children, which always brought out the worst in her.
‘Mum’s here somewhere, did you know?’ I told her rigidly.
‘No, I didn’t.’ She looked around, surprised. ‘Oh, well done, angel. You are getting her out and about.’
I shut my eyes. If she called me angel again I’d slap her. In front of all these people. Instead, luckily, when I opened my eyes I saw my mother approaching. Ginnie released Ludo’s arm to wave in greeting. As she went off to meet Mum I made a mental note to ask Ottoline, who had the most impeccable manners, whether it wasn’t terribly naff to touch people quite so much. Holding on to them. I was sure it was.
My Husband Next Door Page 21