by Ann Swinfen
He clasped his hands between his knees now and looked at her steadily.
'I need to talk to you about St Martins, Mum. We have major repairs to do. And I don't think Natasha can be expected to go on running things much longer. And the trust is very nearly bankrupt.'
Chapter 8
The children's voices rose, shrill and confident, over the sound of birdsong. They had been arranged where the lawn sloped gently down towards the sunken garden, elevating them sufficiently above their audience to give the impression of a stage. Most of the guests had gathered to hear them, some bringing their chairs across to the paths between the flower beds, others standing in groups and chatting between songs. Miss Baxter, who was deeply committed to her job as a teacher and who longed to become a part of village life, had suggested the concert to Natasha as the school's contribution to marking the anniversary.
'St Martins has done so much for the school over the years,' she said earnestly to Natasha. 'The headmaster has told me about the splendid talks that members of the community have given to the PTA and to the children, and about the musical and artistic help you have all given. And I believe you yourself led the campaign in the seventies that saved the school from being shut down.'
'I am,' said Natasha, 'a great believer in the value of village schools. My own grandchildren and the other children from the community have been very happy there.'
'I do so agree with you,' said Miss Baxter, smiling warmly with all of her rather large teeth. 'About the value of village schools.'
'Without a school, a village becomes moribund,' said Natasha.
'Oh yes!' said Miss Baxter, not quite sure what moribund meant. Then she suggested the concert. Nothing too elaborate or ambitious. Just the children spontaneously singing some of the old folk songs that were so important, weren't they?
In the end Natasha had felt obliged to agree, as it would have seemed ungracious to refuse. The result had been weeks of intensive preparation that might have made the children resentful, except that they were now so stuffed with food and lemonade that their T-shirts strained over rounded stomachs, and their faces presented a mosaic of jam stains and cake crumbs.
Twas on a Monday mo-orning that I beheld my da-arling,
She looked so neat and cha-arming, in every high degree.
They sang lustily and relatively in tune. Johnny Dawlish, Mr Dawlish's grandson, and a boy of remarkable charm and wickedness, pulled the ponytail of the girl in front of him in time to the music, so that her head jerked backwards at every stressed syllable. Miss Baxter, perched on an upturned wooden crate to conduct, observed the jerking. She frowned, shook her head and smiled at Melissa, to indicate that she quite understood such enthusiasm, but it was not necessary to express it in movement. Melissa rolled her eyes and gave Miss Baxter an agonised look, trying to indicate Johnny Dawlish without turning round. Johnny raised an angelic face to Miss Baxter (who had not yet known him long) and continued to tug.
Between verses Melissa said out of the side of her mouth, 'I'll get you for that, Johnny Dawlish, see if I don't.'
The local amateur dramatic group (Clunwardine Priors and Stanway Bridges, known as the Priorbridge Thespians), having heard of the school's contribution to the anniversary, had been determined not to be outdone. For the last two months they had been rehearsing A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was to be presented at half-past six on the terrace. This had appealed to Natasha, since the date of the party was close to midsummer and the Thespians had a generous portion of talent in their ranks. Sally, Olga and Eric all belonged to the group. Sally, their treasured wardrobe mistress, produced costumes which gave the Thespians the outward appearance of a professional company. Olga had a walk-on part tonight as a courtier, in addition to her regular duties as stage manager. Eric, a silent man in ordinary life, was a more than competent actor. Tonight he was to be one of the rustic mechanicals, Peter Quince. To her great secret excitement, although she feigned indifference, Chrissie was playing the fairy who encounters Puck in the forest.
Frances had walked across from the house to hear the singing and came up behind Mabel standing at the far end of the sunken garden, as the children were finishing their first song.
She put her arm around Mabel's waist and dropped a kiss on to the plump cheek. 'You can't imagine how good it is to be back,' she said.
'You've no call to stay away so long,' said Mabel gruffly. 'It's nearly four months since you were here. Natasha needs you around sometimes, you know. So do your mum and dad. So do I, if it comes to that.'
'Oh, Mabel,' said Frances, 'I do love you. You're so dependable. Solid as a rock.'
'Get along with you,' said Mabel.
* * *
They run through the dark streets to the wailing of the air-raid warning. Mummy is ahead with Hugh. Her face is a horrible greeny-white. Frances saw it in the hall light before they shut the front door and began to run. Her gas-mask bumps up and down painfully against her chest and she wants to cry but doesn't have the breath for it.
'A stitch,' she gasps, 'I've got a stitch. I can't – run – any – more.'
Mabel, who has been running with her, holding her hand, stops at once. Mabel is Mummy's friend and came to live with them a few days ago. Her hair was full of white dust when she arrived on their doorstep, and she didn't have anything but some clothes tied up in a bundle with a bit of string.
'It was all I could find in the rubble,' she said to Frances later, in the room they shared. 'I had two new pairs of silk stockings I was saving for something special, and there was nothing left of them but little wispy ribbons.'
Now Mabel bends down and scoops Frances up in her arms. 'Don't you worry, lovey,' she says. 'Mabel will carry you.'
The ARP warden shepherds them down the steep dark steps into the underground station just as they hear the bang of the first bomb exploding. It is very near. Frances hates the underground and clings to Mabel's neck like a baby monkey. It always smells funny down there, and now that it is used as an air-raid shelter it smells worse. Hugh likes it. He likes the singing and the jokes, and all the strange people herded together by the war. 'It's an adventure, Franny,' he says. But Frances hates it. She feels trapped, and imagines everything above her in London falling down on top of her – the houses and the gardens and the buses – so she will never be able to get out.
Mabel finds a clear corner for the four of them and spreads out the travelling rug she has been carrying over her arm. She takes Frances on her lap and cuddles her. She is a much more cuddly person than Mummy is. Mabel starts to sing softly to Frances.
Two, two, the lily-white boys, clothèd all in green-I-Oh!
One is one and all alone, and ever more shall be so.
What a funny song, thinks Frances, her head cushioned on Mabel's plump arm. I don't know what it means.
* * *
A slight disturbance interrupted the singing. The neat rows of children quivered and broke, and there was a squeal from somewhere in the middle of the group.
'Johnny Dawlish,' said Natasha.
'I don't think so,' said Irina, straining to see. 'There's a yellow-haired little girl with a ponytail – she seems to be hitting someone.'
'Johnny Dawlish will be the cause of it,' said Natasha with certainty.
'Oh yes, you're right, Mother, he's there. But it's Johnny Dawlish who's being hit.'
'He will have started it. An enterprising and clever child, but he misapplies his talents. He reminds me of Hugh.'
'Hugh? Hugh was never as naughty as that scamp!'
'Irina, he was never out of trouble. Full of high spirits and inquisitiveness. Just as he is now. He's never grown up to this day, doushenka, and you know it.'
Irina sighed. They were sitting together on the old wooden garden bench where Natasha had sat talking to Anya that morning. The bench had been in the garden at St Martins when they had first arrived, and Irina had always been fond of retreating on a sunny afternoon to this quiet corner.
'I do think
it is time Hugh settled down, Mother. We could do with his help here. I think he's very inconsiderate, the way he stays away for so long. Anything might have happened to us – he never gets in touch.' Her voice took on the injured tone that Natasha had always felt was her daughter's greatest failing. She laid her hand on Irina's.
'My dear, you will never change Hugh now. You must know that. You might as well try to cage the eagle.'
The children were singing again, 'The Nut-Brown Maiden'.
When they had finished, Natasha turned to Irina again. 'Frances looks tired, don't you think? And not very happy.'
'I don't think she's ever been happy with that man. But that was her choice. I don't think she looks any unhappier than usual.'
Natasha was silent, then said, 'Usually, she contains herself. She achieves – how shall I say? – a contentment, a balance in her life. But now she is upset and restive. I have never seen her like this, not since she was in her teens.' She paused again. 'She is as unsettled as Katya.'
'Mother – don't be ridiculous!'
'Yes, she is moody and unsure of herself, like an adolescent. And as well as being unhappy, she looks so young. She looks vulnerable.'
* * *
'Have you seen Anya?' Frances asked Mabel, as they hurried back to the house to replenish the tea urn before the rest of the audience returned from the children's concert.
'No,' said Mabel. 'No, I haven't. She was serving on the main table when people first started arriving, but I've been so busy myself I lost sight of her. She'll be somewhere about, talking to her friends from the village, or helping Sally, or with that boyfriend of hers, the Greek boy.'
'No, she's not with him. That's why I asked. I've just seen him over there with Desmond Fraser and Chanor Patel. In fact I haven't seen them together all day.'
'He seems a nice boy,' said Mabel, holding open the back door for Frances to follow her into the kitchen.
'Yes. Yes, he does. I liked the way he started straight in and helped, as soon as he got here. Not many young men would have done that. Our big family usually frightens people off. I quite took to him.' Frances gazed around the kitchen, where Olga was squirting washing-up liquid into a sink full of hot water. 'Oh dear, Olga, were you going to tackle this all alone?'
'I don't mind,' said Olga, with her shy smile. 'We need more dishes and glasses, and there isn't time to run the dishwasher. Mrs Dawlish is coming to help in a minute, when the concert finishes.'
'We'll help too,' said Frances, unhooking Gregor's striped butcher's apron from the back of the larder door and pulling it over her head. She plugged in the tea urn to heat up. 'Have you seen Anya anywhere?'
'I'm here,' said Anya, following them in with a large tray precariously loaded with piles of miscellaneous dirty plates.
'Olga and I can do this,' said Mabel. 'You two take out those extra cakes we've been hoarding in the pantry, then come and get the tea urn when it's ready. People will be dying for a cup of tea after the concert, and the children will be panting with thirst.'
* * *
'I think he's super, your Spiro,' said Frances.
They had restocked the refreshment table and had now paused for a moment with cups of tea and pieces of Olga's sponge cake, sitting at a small table at the end of the lawn near the ha-ha.
Anya made a slight, impatient gesture. 'Your Spiro' was almost – though not quite – as bad as 'your Greek'.
'What's the matter, darling?'
So Anya told her, as she had told Natasha earlier, about Spiro's idea for a restaurant, and the row they had had. Frances listened in silence, making no comment. So Anya went on and told her about her own sense of failure in her career.
Frances bowed her head and began tracing patterns in the cake crumbs on her plate. Still she said nothing.
At last Anya could stand it no longer. 'Well?' she said challengingly. 'Well – can't you say something, Mum?'
When Frances looked up at her, Anya saw that her eyes were distressed, and immediately felt ashamed. She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Frances began to talk.
'When I was seventeen,' she said, 'I fell in love. I suppose that whatever age you are when you first fall in love, it is an overwhelming experience. But if you are older, you understand yourself better. You have a little more control over things. At seventeen it takes over every moment of your waking life.' She paused. 'In many ways I was very young at seventeen, living here at St Martins.'
'Only half my age,' whispered Anya. 'Only half my age.' Frances did not seem to have heard her.
'We had a love affair. Yes, I think you could say it was a love affair. It coloured everything for me – for him too, I suppose – that one long summer.' She sighed, and smiled briefly. She raised her eyes and looked at Anya. 'It was so innocent. Nothing happened. Not what your generation, jumping in and out of bed with each other, would even think of as an affair. But perhaps, because of that, it meant all the more. I sometimes think that the freedom you have is a poor thing, compared with what you have lost. Even a touch, a time alone together, a simple kiss, was so significant for us.'
She laughed a little at herself. 'I sound positively Victorian, don't I? But I do think something has been sacrificed. Was it the sixties? Was it some kind of post-war need to smash what had gone before, because people – my generation, I suppose – thought that what they were going to put in its place was going to be so much better? Some things are better, of course. In many ways, women have a better deal – but not in all ways. And I think a tenderness has gone out of life.'
She was silent for so long that Anya felt compelled to speak.
'It wasn't Dad, was it? I mean, you didn't meet him till Oxford – and that would have been later – that winter?'
'Yes. That winter.'
She began to draw patterns in the cake crumbs again.
'I was out of my depth at Oxford. It seems odd to me now, looking back, that I should have been so gauche, so socially naïve. After all, St Martins has always been full of interesting and creative people, coming and going. But in a way that had always been happening in the background of my life, not involving me directly. And everyone was so relaxed and easygoing. I've realised since, of course, that that is the mark of true professionals. They simply get on with things. It is those who are trying to impress – and who don't have much to be impressive about – who make the most show and noise.'
She sighed suddenly, sharply. 'I was so impressed with Giles. And his friends. And terribly flattered to be taken up by them. Coming from my rather bookish rural grammar school, to find myself amongst the well-heeled London social set was very seductive. They made a great fuss of me, and I was too naïve to see that they were also making a fool of me. They treated me like a kind of mascot.'
'You didn't get married till the end of your second year, did you?'
'No. I don't think Giles was serious about me that first year. But when we came back after the summer, he laid siege to me, and I was too inexperienced to resist. Not that I wanted to. At least, I don't think I did.'
'And he – I mean, the other man – was it all over by then?'
'No.'
Anya waited.
'Not for him. I realised later – a few years later – that it hadn't been over for me either, but by then it was too late.'
'This love affair, when you were seventeen –'
Frances interrupted, speaking almost to herself, as though Anya wasn't there. 'I was seventeen. He was older, of course. He was twenty. He seemed to have grown up so much, that last year at art college. It was a kind of awakening for me. Suddenly I felt alive all over. Life was positively burning in my fingertips. It had a curious kind of forbidden excitement about it too, almost like incest. Yet here was this stranger, so big, so adult, so male.'
Anya looked at her, her mouth parted in astonishment. 'Was it –?'
'Yes,' said Frances. 'It was Gregor.'
* * *
'Granny!' Chrissie was plucking importunately at Franc
es's sleeve. 'Have you spoken to Samira's mummy yet?'
'Not yet, darling, but I haven't forgotten, I promise you.'
Samira stood behind Chrissie, rubbing the toe of her right shoe on the back of her left leg.
Oh, please, Granny!'
'What is it?' asked Anya.
'They want Samira to have one of Jeannie's puppies. Mrs Patel isn't keen on dogs, so I've promised to be a go-between.'
'Tell you what, Chrissie,' said Anya. 'If you go and look in my duffel bag – I brought you a present.'
'What, what?'
'Go and find it. My bag is hanging up in the cloakroom, and your present is in the front pocket, wrapped up in yellow paper.'
The two girls dashed off.
'I may just have made it worse,' said Anya ruefully. 'I've brought a collar and lead for Chrissie's new puppy. I hope it doesn't make it more painful for Samira.'
'Well, I hope I can persuade Mrs Patel. She is a very sweet person, but she is fearsomely tidy, and dogs can't help making a bit of a mess. Hairs on the upholstery and muddy feet. But I do like that child. It's the least I can do, to speak up for her.'
They sat in silence for a moment.
'Mum, thank you for telling me.'
Frances looked at her, troubled. 'I'm not sure that any of what I said is much use to you. I suppose I have been brooding on it myself just recently. It's so easy to lose your way, where matters of the heart are concerned. I was misled by unfamiliar glamour, you see, and failed to understand the value of what I had with Gregor. Our relationship was confused by our having grown up together. In some ways we knew each other too well. There was no mystery about him. And yet, and yet . . .'