“Well, whose feet am I going to stand on?”
The absurdity of her question somehow made everything all right again. He was caught unawares by this absurdity, and despite himself, began to laugh, wryly, as much at himself as at her. “I don’t know. I suppose mine. The truth is, that you’ve been part of my life for so long that I don’t think I can bear the thought of your going away and leaving us all. Leaving me. Life would be so dreadfully dull. There’d be nobody to argue with. Nobody to yell at. Nobody to make me laugh.”
Jenny thought about this. She said, “You know, if I had an ounce of pride, I would go away. I’d be the sort of girl who didn’t want to be loved on the rebound from some other person.”
“If you had an ounce of pride, you wouldn’t have told me that you loved me.”
“You must have known.”
“I only know that you were there long before Rose.”
“So what was Rose?”
Fergus fell silent. Then he said tentatively, “A pause in the conversation?”
“Oh, Fergus.”
“I—I think I’m asking you to marry me. We’ve wasted enough time as it is. Perhaps I should have had the sense to do it a long time ago.”
“No.” She was suddenly very wise. “A long time ago would have been too soon. I thought you belonged to me then. But now, like I said, I know that nobody can ever belong to anybody else. Not totally. And yet, it’s only when you think that you’re going to lose something that you realize how precious it is.”
“I found that out too,” said Fergus. “What a very good thing that we both found it out at the same time.”
Out in the middle of the water, it was becoming chilly. Jenny, despite herself, shivered.
“You’re cold,” said Fergus. “I’ll take you back.” He reached for the oars, took his bearings with a glance over his shoulder and turned the little boat.
Jenny suddenly remembered. “But I can’t go back yet, Fergus. I’ve only caught one trout and we’ll need three for supper.”
“To hell with supper. We’ll go out. We’ll take all the parents and I’ll stand the lot of you dinner at the Creagan Arms. We might even rustle up some champagne and it can be an engagement party—if you like!”
Now they were heading home, back towards the mooring, the little craft skimming across the choppy waters of the loch. The wind blew from behind her. She turned up the collar of her jacket and dug her hands deep into its capacious pockets. She smiled at her love. She said, “I like.”
LAST MORNING
Laura Prentiss woke to the unfamiliar hotel bedroom and the sounds of her husband making shaving noises from beyond the open bathroom door. Perhaps out of deference to his sleeping wife, Roger had left the bedroom curtains closed, and when Laura groped first for her spectacles and then for her watch, she saw, with some surprise, that it was already half past eight.
“Roger.”
He appeared, in his pyjama trousers and a face half-covered in lather.
“Good morning.”
“I’m afraid to look. What sort of a day is it?”
“Fine.”
“Thank heavens for that.”
“Cold, with a bit of wind. But fine.”
“Draw the curtains and let me look at it.”
He did this with difficulty, first trying to pull the curtains manually, as he did at home, and then realizing there was a gadget involved, a string with a handle that was meant to be employed. Roger was not good with gadgets. He tugged at it and was finally successful.
The sky beyond the glass was a pale, clear blue, swept with long, thin fine-weather clouds, and when Laura sat up she could see the sea; dark blue and flecked with white horses.
She said, “I hope Virginia’s veil doesn’t blow off.”
“Even if it does, she’s not your daughter, so you don’t need to feel any responsibility.”
Laura leaned back on her pillow, took off her spectacles and smiled at him gratefully. He had always been a comfortably practical man, and this morning was obviously treating the day as though it were a perfectly ordinary one, getting up, shaving, going down to eat his breakfast.
He disappeared back into the bathroom and, through the open door, they continued their conversation.
“What are you going to do this morning?” she asked.
“Play golf,” said Roger.
She should have known. The hotel had a fine links on its doorstep.
“You won’t be late?”
“Am I likely to be?”
“And leave plenty of time to change. It will take such ages to get you into your morning suit.” She might have added. “Specially since you’ve put on weight,” but she didn’t, because Roger was sensitive about his mildly expanding waistline, and had decided to ignore the small insert which the tailor had been forced to let into the back of his trousers.
“Stop worrying about details,” said Roger. He appeared once more in the doorway, smelling of after-shave. “Stop worrying about anything. You’re a guest at this wedding. You’ve got nothing to plan, nothing to agonize over, nothing to do. Enjoy it.”
“Yes. You’re quite right. I will.”
She got up, pulled on her dressing-gown and went to the window. She opened it and leaned out. The air was icy and smelt of salt and seaweed. Already there was a single golfer, in a red sweater, out on the fairway. Below her, in the hotel grounds, lay the little pitch-and-putt course, and she remembered, long ago, bringing the children to this very hotel for a summer holiday. Tom had been six, Rose three, and Becky a fat baby in a pram, and the weather had been terrible, nothing but rain and wind. They had passed the time playing card games in the leaden sun porch, and every time the rain stopped had dashed across the links to the beach, where the children had crouched, sweatered and chapped of cheek, and built sand castles of dark, sodden sand.
But some time during that holiday Tom had been introduced to the pitch-and-putt course and the fascinating frustrations of golf, and after that he was out by himself in all weathers, his small form bent against the wind, and golf-balls and divots of turf flying in all directions.
Remembering the small boy he had been, she felt sad, thinking, Where have all the years gone? and immediately was annoyed with herself for being a typical, doting, cliché-ridden mother.
* * *
She shut the window when Roger came back into the room. She said, “I thought Tom would have liked a game this morning. Keep his mind off this afternoon.”
“I thought of that, too, and I asked him, but he said he had other things to do.”
“You mean like recovering from last night’s party?”
Roger grinned. “Maybe.”
Tom had gone out on a traditional bachelor’s spree with one or two of his friends who’d come up for the wedding. Laura hoped, for Virginia’s sake, that the party had not been too rowdy. Nothing in this world could be more unattractive than a sheepish and hung-over bridegroom.
“I wonder what he’s planning to do.”
“No idea,” said Roger. He came over to kiss her. “What about breakfast?” he asked.
“What about it?”
“Do you want it up here? You only have to call Room Service.”
She must have looked agonized, because he grinned, recognizing her horror of asking anybody to do anything for her, and went over to the telephone and ordered her breakfast for her, without asking her what she wanted because, after twenty-seven years of married life, he knew. Orange juice, a boiled egg, coffee. When he put the receiver down, she smiled at him gratefully across the room, and he sat on the edge of the bed and smiled back at her, and she had the good feeling that the momentous day had started well.
* * *
While she was eating breakfast, propped up with Roger’s pillows as well as her own, her two daughters burst in upon her, talking nineteen to the dozen as usual, and come to find out how she was going to spend the morning.
They both had long mouse-coloured hair and clean shining fa
ces naked of make-up except sooty smudges of eye-shadow and mascara. They wore their usual bizarre uniform of jeans and sneakers, long-sleeved blouses and short-sleeved sweaters, and carried sacklike handbags with dangling fringes. Laura thought they were both beautiful.
They sat on the foot of her bed and ate the bits of toast that had been sent up on the breakfast tray, loading them with butter and marmalade and munching as though they had not seen food for a week.
“It was a super party last night…”
“I thought it was meant to be a bachelor party?”
“… well, of course it started out as one, but this is such a tiny place that in the end we all met up and joined forces. He’s terrific, that friend of Tom’s … what’s his name? Mike, or something…”
“Yes, he plays the guitar like a dream. Super songs, the kind we all know. Everybody joined in, even quite prim-looking people.”
“Did Tom come home with you?”
“No, but he wasn’t far behind. We heard him come in. Have no fears, Ma. Did you think he was going to die of drink in some Scottish ditch? I say, is there any coffee left in that pot?”
Laura pushed the tray towards them, leaning back, watching them chattering. Why did they have to grow up and get jobs in London and leave home forever?
In the middle of a sentence Rose suddenly caught sight of her watch. “Gosh, look at the time! We must go.”
“Where are you going?”
“There’s a beauty salon in the village, believe it or not. We found out last night. We’re going to go so that we’ll stun all Virginia’s smart friends this afternoon, and not be a cause of shame to our brother. Why don’t you come too? We can ring up and fix a time for you.”
Laura’s hair was short and inclined to curl. She had it cut once a month, then dealt with it herself. The thought of spending a morning being rolled and bouffed and sprayed with lacquer, today of all days, was almost more than she could bear. She said, “I don’t think I will.”
“Your hair looks super anyway. I’m glad we haven’t got curly hair, but I must say when one gets a bit long in the tooth, there’s nothing more charming.”
Laura laughed. “Thank you very much.”
“That was meant as a terrific compliment. Come on, we must go.”
* * *
They collected their handbags and climbed off the bed, slim and long-legged and graceful. As they made for the door, their mother said, “You’ll get back in plenty of time to get changed, won’t you? We really mustn’t be late today.”
They smiled. “We will,” they promised. Rose was going to wear trousers, and Becky a long granny-type dress in prune-coloured cotton, with hand-crocheted lace at wrist and throat. To complement this outfit she had chosen an enormous natural-straw hat, which looked to Laura as though the brim had started to unravel. But on making a few tactful inquiries, she had been assured that this was half its charm.
When the girls had gone, Laura stayed where she was for a little, trying to decide what to do next. She thought of Virginia, waking up in her parents’ house only two miles away. She wondered if Virginia had had breakfast in bed too; whether she was feeling nervous. But no, one could not imagine Virginia nervous about anything. She was probably calming down the rest of her family, coping serenely with all the last-minute details.
And Laura tried to conjure up her own wedding morning, but it was too long ago and she discovered that she could remember very little about it, except that the wedding dress had been very slightly too large, and Laura’s Aunt Mary, ever-present in times of crisis, had got on her knees with needle and thread, making the waistline fit.
* * *
Getting up and bathed and dressed took, for some reason, much longer than it did at home. Analysing this, Laura discovered that she was putting off time. Was, in fact, fearful of going downstairs and getting involved with Aunt Lucy and Uncle George, and Tom’s godmother and her husband, and the Richard cousins who had come, unexpectedly, all the way north from darkest Somerset to be present at Tom’s wedding. It was not that she did not dearly love all these people, but this morning she wanted to be alone. She wanted to go out into that miraculous fresh morning and walk, and sort herself out and not talk to anybody.
She put on a tweed coat, tied a scarf over her head, cautiously let herself out of her room, and went down the wide staircase to the lobby. Thankfully, she realized there did not seem to be anybody about, and she made for the main door, but as she passed the glass doors of the dining-room she stopped, for there, in solitary state, sat her son, eating a large, late breakfast, and reading the newspaper.
And at once, as though feeling her eyes upon him, he looked up, saw her and smiled. She went through the doors and across the room to join him, regarding him anxiously, searching for bloodshot eyes, bad colour; but her eldest child, much to her relief, seemed to be in the best of health.
He pulled out a chair for her and she sat down.
“How was the party?”
“Great.”
“The girls told me you’d all met up…”
“Yes, by the end it was a free-for-all; half the local inhabitants joined in as far as I could see.” He folded the newspaper. “You look as though you’re planning a little outdoor exercise.”
“Yes, I thought I’d go out for a walk.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Tom.
“But…”
“But what? Don’t you want me?”
“Yes, of course. It’s just that I thought you’d have a million other things to do.”
“Such as?”
“I can’t think of one, but I’m sure there must be something.”
“Neither can I.” He got up. “Come on, let’s go.”
* * *
He wore a thick cardigan and did not seem to feel the need for a jacket. With no more ado, they went together out of the dining-room, and out through the door. The wind had an edge to it like a knife, but the turf of the little pitch-and-putt course was green as velvet from the shower of rain that had fallen during the night, and all the flags on the greens blew straight and perky.
“Isn’t it strange,” said Tom as they set off at a spanking pace, heading for the right-of-way that led across the golf-links to the beach, “that the girl I should marry should come from this part of the world, and we should all come back to stay in this hotel? Do you remember that holiday?”
“I’ll never forget it. I shall always remember the rain.”
“I don’t remember the rain. I only remember trying to teach myself how to play golf.” He stopped and took a stance and swung an imaginary club. “That was a good shot. A hole in one.”
“I should have thought you’d have wanted to play with your father this morning.”
“He asked me, but somehow it didn’t seem quite the right thing to do on one’s wedding morning. Anyway, if I had I should have missed out on this nice little walk with you.”
He grinned down at her. He was fair like his mother, with the slightly curly hair that he had inherited from her. The shining commas of hair lay thick and close to his skull. Otherwise he resembled his father, except, in the disconcerting fashion of modern children, he had grown to be four inches taller than Roger, and was brawny to match.
She remembered the tough, peppery little boy, pitting himself against the complexities of golf, just as he had always flung himself head first at any problem, not always with felicitous results. But he had never been discouraged, and had finally got his quick temper under control; and somehow that little boy had turned into this shrewd, amiable young man who had finally got himself engaged, and today would be married, to Virginia.
Virginia was, Laura often thought, a match for Tom: intelligent, capable, amusing, and pretty to boot. If they had been less in love, she might have had reservations about two such positive people deciding to spend their lives together. “There is not room,” Laura’s wise old grandmother had once said, “for more than one born leader in a family.” But perhaps if the two b
orn leaders loved each other sufficiently to take turns standing aside, then it would be all right. She stole a glance at Tom, striding out beside her, and he caught this anxious glance and grinned reassuringly, and she thought, Yes, it will be all right.
* * *
The path led over the dunes and down to the sand which was at first soft and dry, and then firm where the high tides had washed it flat. There was a line of seaweed and flotsam from passing ships. An old boot, a blue detergent bottle, a wrecked crate.
“Do you remember,” said Tom, “reading Ring of Bright Water to me when I had that knee operation, and how we liked the idea of Gavin Maxwell making all his furniture out of old herring-boxes that had been washed up on the beach?” He stooped and picked up a ragged slat with a nail protruding from it. “Perhaps I should emulate him. Think of the money I’d save on three-piece suits. What could I turn this into?”
Laura considered it. “The leg of an elegant coffee-table, perhaps?” she suggested.
“Good idea.” He leaned back, then flung the piece of wood far out to sea. They walked on.
* * *
Ring of Bright Water had been only one of many books that she had read aloud to Tom during the tedious weeks after the operation. His knee had been injured playing football; he had torn a ligament and a blood clot had formed, but the operation to clear this had been as delicate as a cartilage removal, and he had lain on his back for six weeks while his mother played games with him, read to him, watched television or solved crosswords with him, anything to stop his getting bored. Both of them were devilled by the unspoken fear that Tom would never be able to play football again, and for Laura it had been a particularly anxious time, and yet, looking back, she remembered it only with pleasure and gratitude. Pleasure at having him to herself, rediscovering with him all the books that she had loved at his age, and gratitude at being given time, like an unexpected present, really to get to know her son, to discover him as a person.
Tom, too, had been thinking about that time, for he suddenly said, “You read aloud so well. Some people are awful at it. You used to do different voices for different people. It made it all come real.”
Flowers in the Rain & Other Stories Page 26