Letters From Prague

by Sue Gee

  ‘Certainly was,’ said Christopher, and raised his glass. He smiled once again at Susanna, who looked away. ‘And what do you do, if it’s not impolite to ask. Quite eclipse the rest of us, I imagine.’

  ‘I look after Hugh.’ She gathered the soup bowls.

  ‘Lucky Hugh.’ He turned back to Harriet, as Susanna gave Marsha the bowls to take to the kitchen. ‘Go on, then, tell me about your school. You mustn’t take me too seriously, you know, I’m just a loudmouth out of my depth in these gracious surroundings. I’m sure what you do is admirable.’

  ‘It’s a job,’ said Harriet. ‘I happen to believe in it, and fortunately I also enjoy it, though of course it’s difficult, much of the time. The climate in education these days makes for a lot of stress, as I’m sure you know – I mean with the National Curriculum, the tests, the lack of resources –’ She could feel herself getting into her stride.

  ‘Best thing to happen for years’, said Christopher. ‘We’ve been turning out a generation of semi-literate, half-baked, unskilled and unemployable lost causes. High time schools were licked into shape.’

  ‘And what,’ Harriet asked him, twisting her napkin, quite carried away by the force of her reaction, ‘did your privileged education do for you? Is that what has equipped you to sell plastic to the other half?’

  ‘Harriet –’ Hugh was turning his knife over, frowning, inasmuch as Hugh ever seemed to frown, or express displeasure. ‘It’s not as though you didn’t have a good education yourself, is it? Why are you getting so hot under the collar?’

  ‘A good education is supposed to make you aware. I’m riding my political horse,’ she said, realising it was quite a while since, on a social occasion, she had had need to. Like-minded colleagues and friends surrounded her life in London: no one, except perhaps her parents, would speak as Christopher had just spoken, at this polished, middle-aged table, in this clean, expensive city. She thought of her friend Jo, on long afternoons in the art room, leaning over the shoulders of her painting group, where Winston, who had learning difficulties, and roamed the playground in the dinner hour, looking for trouble, was here completely absorbed in the still life set out before them. She thought of the hours spent in curriculum meetings, of the cuts in the budget: in art room materials, books and stationery, in visits to places of interest, provision for special needs.

  She recalled, as Hugh refilled their glasses, a march, on which she had taken Marsha: hundreds of union members gathering beneath umbrellas in Trafalgar Square; the forest of placards; the slow moving off and gathering pace as the six-deep column made its way down Whitehall, past the river. The rain stopped, people began chanting: Tories out, Tories out, Tories out, out, out! Ban the tests, ban the tests, ban the tests, tests, tests! Riverboats hooted, the sun came out. They moved into the heart of Westminster: traffic slowed and tourists stared. A detachment, whom Harriet and Marsha, right in the middle, could not see, took a petition to the offices of the Department of Education, a little group of people in raincoats walking purposefully through narrow streets behind the Cathedral. They were cheered on their reappearance: the marchers moved through Parliament Square and into the Methodist Hall. Marsha ate from her lunchbox. Harriet was one of the speakers.

  She said now: ‘I’ve been a socialist all my life.’

  ‘More fool you,’ said Christopher.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Come, come,’ said Hugh.

  Susanna and Marsha reappeared, with dishes. They set down lamb, piping ratatouille, rice with coriander and toasted almonds. Susanna served ratatouille on silvery grey plates, passing them round.

  ‘Do help yourselves to rice …’ She noticed the silence. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘We’re having a crisis,’ said Harriet, recovering herself by an effort of will, and regretting her words immediately. How was Susanna on social crises? Did guests often quarrel at her dinner table?

  ‘Oh?’ Susanna looked at her, and then at Hugh.

  ‘My fault entirely,’ said Christopher smoothly, and smiled at Susanna across the table. ‘I can’t resist getting a rise, and Harriet seems to rise so very satisfactorily. You just press the button and she’s off.’

  Harriet felt herself go scarlet. She bit back the words, ‘How dare you –’ just as Marsha, between Hugh and Susanna, said with indignation, ‘Don’t talk about my mother like that!’

  As in the kitchen, earlier, a horrified silence fell, but this time Harriet, moved by her daughter’s loyalty, moved straight to her defence.

  ‘Okay, Marsha. Thanks, it’s okay, let’s just –’

  There was another silence.

  Christopher said: ‘I can see I shall have to watch it. My apologies.’

  Hugh said: ‘You were always rather –’ and stopped.

  The two men looked at each other. There was a different kind of silence.

  ‘Rather what?’ Marsha asked hotly.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Hugh, and then, in his more familiar tones, avuncular and kindly, ‘Why don’t we just talk about the weather for a bit?’

  ‘Is that of interest to anyone?’ asked Harriet, still on her mettle, trying to calm down.

  ‘Yes.’ Susanna spoke with surprising authority. ‘I think the weather has a real function on occasion. I don’t know exactly what you were discussing –’

  ‘Politics,’ said Christopher. ‘Always a mistake.’

  ‘But central to character,’ said Harriet, and then: ‘Oh, all right, I’ll stop. Marsha – eat up, it’s all right now.’

  ‘Yesterday it rained,’ said Hugh.

  ‘And today the sun shone brightly,’ Harriet said gamely, doing her best.

  ‘And it was ever thus,’ said Susanna, with a smile to the table of such charm, such all-inclusive warmth and gentle humour that Harriet thought: She’s not just beautiful, she’s irresistible. She glanced at Christopher, as she picked up her knife and fork and felt again a flicker of unease – no longer for herself, but for Susanna, at whom he was gazing.

  It grew darker: Susanna lit candles. They went on to talk – neutrally, carefully, gradually relaxing – of the city, its blend of charm and formal elegance.

  ‘There is the other side,’ said Hugh, over pudding, as Marsha yawned. ‘Tomorrow you must visit the Marolles.’

  ‘There’s always another side.’ Harriet took a spoonful of raspberries. She had read about this overcrowded district, as about much else. ‘So. Tomorrow we go slumming.’

  ‘I might join you,’ said Christopher. ‘I’m rather good at slumming.’ He smiled at Susanna, and finished his meringue. ‘That is, of course, if I’m invited.’

  Marsha looked down at her bowL Hugh suggested they talk about it later, over coffee. There was so much to see and to do, and they weren’t here for long –

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Christopher. ‘Just a thought.’

  Beyond the windows bruise-coloured clouds were gathering; reflections of the candle flames shone deep in the glassy surface of the table.

  ‘Mind if I smoke?’ he asked, feeling in his pocket.

  Nobody said that they did. He leaned forward, and again Harriet noticed the tremor in his hand as he drew the candlestick towards him a little, a cigarette between his lips. Flame and tobacco met; his eyes met Susanna’s; again, she looked away.

  ‘They’re sexy as hell and they kill you,’ he said, inhaling hard.

  In the uneasy laughter which followed, Harriet’s mind was full. Marsha should go to bed. Christopher should go home. Where was his home? In the midst of these thoughts, which felt anxious and disordered, she was unexpectedly assailed by the memory of Karel, unpeeling the cellophane wrapper from a packet of Marlboro, the thin gold strip between his finger and thumb, the lid flipped open, a cigarette withdrawn. She saw these things with the clarity of a film, watched in a darkened cinema: Karel lighting up, leaning back, inhaling, looking at her across the varnished table. In her summer dress, on the other side of the table, she rested bare arms and looked back at
him, absolutely still. The sun shone through the open window; above them, on the pavement, people went to and fro.

  I shall never love anyone else …

  For all that twenty-five years had passed, for all that Harriet had been hurt, and grown up, and grown wiser, she still thought now, as people began to get up, and leave the table: he was wonderful. He was brave and committed and rare.

  She felt Christopher’s heavy presence beside her, smoking still as they left the room – so loud, so disruptive, intrusive: a man adrift. She saw Karel’s long brown fingers close on a western cigarette, inhaling not with coarseness but with grace, and she thought: you put all the rest in the shade.

  What had become of him? Where was he now?

  Marsha was sent to bed: she was dropping.

  ‘Sleep tight,’ said Christopher, as she left the drawing room. ‘Make sure the bugs don’t bite.’

  She gave him a thin smile.

  ‘What time are you coming to bed?’ she asked Harriet, as they made their way down the corridor.

  ‘Soon. When Christopher’s gone.’

  ‘He’s not going to come with us tomorrow, is he?’

  ‘Ssh, I shouldn’t think so.’

  She sat on the twin bed, watching Marsha undress, and pull on her red spotted pyjamas. She stood at the basin, brushing her teeth; dark hair, bare feet, pre-adolescent thinness and straightness – a reed, a fawn. She looked vulnerable, very much a child, but she also was fiery and fierce, they had all seen that tonight. For a moment Harriet wondered whether to take issue with her: one had to learn to control oneself in social situations, no matter how provoked; she herself had often failed to, whereas Susanna –

  Whereas Susanna wept, when she could no longer keep herself under clamps.

  And anyway, Marsha had been right. Touchingly loyal.

  ‘Come here,’ she said, when the brushing and spitting had stopped, and the toothbrush – very blue, very new – and been put back in the mug.

  Marsha crossed the pale grey carpet and sat on her lap. They rested their heads against each other, and rocked. Marsha’s slender foot brushed the carpet; she buried her face in her mother’s neck.

  ‘You were great,’ said Harriet. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Marsha this and Marsha that,’ she murmured. ‘You’re always trying to stop me saying things.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You say things. You get cross.’

  ‘I know.’

  Marsha drew back, and looked at her. ‘Why was Susanna crying?’

  ‘I don’t really know, not exactly.’

  Marsha’s foot went slowly across the carpet: bare toes, grey wool, over and over. ‘They haven’t got children,’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is that why?’

  ‘What a grown-up person you are. Perhaps. I don’t know.’

  You wouldn’t like me if you got to know me – I’ve been like this all my life …

  ‘Come on,’ she said, patting Marsha’s back. ‘Bedtime. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘Full of interest and activity,’ said Marsha wryly, clambering beneath the covers.

  ‘Indeed. Precocious child.’ Harriet bent to kiss her. From along the corridor came the rise and fall of voices, the chink of coffee cups, Christopher’s laugh, too loud. ‘Sleep tight.’

  ‘Don’t let the bugs bite,’ mimicked Marsha. ‘Ugh.’ She made a face, pulled down the pillow, and closed her eyes.

  Harriet switched out the light and left her.

  In the drawing room, Susanna, next to the petit point screen, offered coffee from the green and gold tray before her. Christopher was sharing the sofa, albeit at a distance; an arm was stretched out along its back towards her.

  ‘I’m about to hit the road,’ he told Harriet.

  ‘Oh?’ She took a tiny cup and sat next to Hugh, stirring with an exquisite little spoon. ‘Which road do you hit? I can’t remember where you said you –’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  Harriet went on stirring, seeing in her mind’s eye her well-worn map of the city. The blue vein of the Canal de Charleroi ran down the western side; the east held the Pare de Bruxelles, divided by long straight paths laid out like the arms of compasses, a lake’s circle of blue at the head. Compasses – one of the symbols, she had read somewhere, of the Freemasons. Right in the heart of the city.

  Where, between east and west, was Christopher living? Looking at him as she sipped her coffee, and took from a silver dish a chocolate, offered by Hugh, she wondered: is he the kind of man whom the Masons might invite to join them? Is he rich? Discreetly powerful? Willing to swear an oath, to keep a secret? To keep it unto death?

  He had moved his arm from the back of the sofa; he leaned forward, eating the chocolate. His jacket was rumpled, his tie swung against the overweight chest, his hair could have done with a wash. There were all these things, and his manner, to reckon against him, and yet, as she had done earlier in the evening, before their confrontation, she recognised, albeit unwillingly, a kind of attraction, as he leaned back again, and looked her full in the eyes.

  No. He was a maverick, a self-seeker – a bully? – not to be trusted. No, she thought, looking away from his gaze, with its curious mixture of insolence, humour and directness: he isn’t the Mason type.

  And then, with a prickle of gooseflesh: no, but Hugh is.

  Christopher set down his coffee cup. He brushed crumbs of chocolate from over-large hands. He said, ‘You won’t have heard of my neck of the woods. I’ve taken rooms, as in better educated times they used to say, in a quaint little suburb beyond the Gard du Nord. Convenient for the office. You must come and see the office, it’s rather nice.’ He rose, running his hands down his thighs. ‘I must be off.’

  They got to their feet; there were smiles, a general exodus, expressions of gratitude and enjoyment. No one said anything more about the next day’s excursion: out in the corridor there was an exchange of kisses, as Hugh held open the apartment door. Recalling many an evening in her parents’ house as she grew up, Harriet had time to wonder, as Christopher and Susanna brushed each other’s faces – once, twice – if there were any social hiccup which the English were not capable of smoothing over with this gesture. And then Christopher was turning towards her, looking down at her, full in the face.

  ‘Goodbye to the opposition.’ And this time his expression was so full of humorous irony that she could not help but smile back, as he took a step towards her, and put a heavy hand on her shoulder. Harriet was tall, but he was so very much taller that she, as Susanna had been, was forced to reach up as he bent for the social kiss – once, twice.

  ‘Sorry if I was crass.’

  ‘Perhaps I over-reacted.’

  As quite often in London, at her parents’house, the end of an evening, with the prospect of freedom, created its own warmth and good mood; the most irksome guest might be viewed, on the way to the front door, with a certain affection. And she watched Hugh and Christopher shake hands warmly, with expressions of pleasure at their renewed acquaintance.

  ‘We’ll be in touch again.’

  ‘Very good.’

  They moved out on to the landing, waiting for the lift.

  ‘Shall I come down to see you out?’

  ‘No, no, I’ll be fine.’ A last word of thanks. The lift came, the door closed behind him; he was gone.

  ‘Phew.’

  ‘Actually he wasn’t so bad.’ That was Susanna.

  Hugh looked at her. He put an arm round her. They made their way into the kitchen, yawning. Harriet followed, feeling two things at once: the pleasure of being, at the end of an evening, part of a family, with people to talk to, over a nightcap; and the sadness of being out on a limb, of not being part of a couple. In London, where family lives were complex and various, this feeling was swiftly dealt with by the relief of not having to endure or deal with the marital unhappinesses she from time to time witnessed amongst her friends. Here, even though she had been given an insi
ght into real unhappiness, she was, after all, on her own with Marsha, who was asleep.

  Hugh and Susanna warmly included her in their conversation talking, it seemed in retrospect, about anything except Christopher Pritchard – as they put things into cupboards and dishwasher, brought through the coffee tray and offered a brandy. But still. She could not help but be conscious, as they sat round the table, that when this conviviality was over Hugh and Susanna would, in whatever state of harmony or disharmony, go to bed together, and she would go to bed alone.

  Chapter Three

  Courtyard opened into courtyard; the streets were full of people, the air full of music, tenement balconies hung with washing. The underclass of the city lived here; this, too, was the immigrant quarter, populated by guest workers from Turkey and North Africa.

  So far, Harriet and Marsha had been shown privilege, prosperity, architectural grace. It had felt first alienating, then alluring – Marsha, after a couple of days, had lost all awe of her surroundings, bathing freely, this morning, with Susanna’s oatmeal pack, munching from a dazzling array of cereals in the kitchen and generally moving about the apartment as though she had lived here for years. Harriet, having coffee with Susanna before they set out, had heard her humming as she came out of the bathroom, with its porcelain doorknob and handpainted tiles. She and Susanna had smiled at each other, pouring more coffee, planning the day.

  ‘Are you sure you feel up to all this traipsing about?’ Harriet asked her, lifting a blue and white cup.

  ‘Of course. I like showing you things.’ Susanna pushed back her hair. She was pale this morning, and looked tired, but hers had been the footsteps Harriet heard first on waking, moving about the kitchen.

  ‘How did you sleep?’ she asked her, putting the cup down.

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  Harriet wondered, but did not ask. There was quite a lot she wanted to ask about, but not first thing in the morning. They left soon after the arrival of the cleaning-lady, who greeted Marsha in Flemish.

  Marsha frowned. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Good morning,’ Susanna translated. ‘I am very pleased to meet you.’