She would not have believed how diminishing and dispiriting it was to have to rely on money she had not earned herself. Leaving her job didn’t simply mean giving up status, interest, and the utilisation of her talents; it meant that she was about to be answerable to Matt for everything she wished to buy. Money, she saw in that moment of ferocious clarity, wasn’t just the means whereby you acquired what you wanted or even needed; money was power, and lack of your own supply, even under the most benign and domestic of circumstances, was a genuine and rather ugly impotence.
Christmas that year was spent at Summercourt with her parents; her mother had written and begged her to come. “You must try to forgive us for our attitude to Matt; we can see now we were very wrong, and he is so fond of you and clearly a most devoted father, and this could be Daddy’s last Christmas—certainly, I fear, his last one at home—and it would mean so much to him, even more than to me, to have you with us.”
To her surprise Matt had said yes, all right, her dad was a good bloke even if her mother did have a poker up her backside. “But just for the two days, mind; I’ll be climbing those elegant walls by then.”
Charles and Juliet had also said they would like to come for Christmas Day, but would have to leave early on Boxing morning, as it was Juliet’s father’s birthday; Sarah was so happy at the turn of events that she went round the house singing for at least two days before working herself into a fever of anxiety about the coldness of the house and the bathrooms in particular and in relation to Emmie, but Eliza said she could bathe Emmie in the big sink in the kitchen, and Emmie could sleep in their room, and they could bring a couple of their own fan heaters to warm it up.
“I’m sure we’ll all have a lovely time,” she said. “Don’t worry. Matt is looking forward to it, truly. And he’s so obsessed with Emmie, he’s just happy to be with her.”
“It’s odd, isn’t it?” said Sarah. “One wouldn’t have expected it.” And then she added hastily that she simply meant that men weren’t normally obsessed with their babies. “I’m not saying anything especially about Matt.”
“Yes, well, I sometimes wish he wasn’t,” said Eliza gloomily, “and he’d just leave me alone to get on with looking after her.”
“And … how are you finding it, darling, being at home? With Emmie? Enjoying it, I expect, not missing your job too much.”
“Oh … yes, it’s … it’s lovely,” said Eliza carefully. There was no way she could even begin to explain to her mother how she felt.
Lost. Disenfranchised. Lonely. And confused.
Now she had Emmie, it was quite difficult to imagine leaving her. She loved her more than she would have believed she could love anything. The day Emmie first smiled at her, she never forgot. She had just fed her and burped her and was sitting looking at her, holding her on her lap, and Emmie’s brilliant blue eyes fixed very firmly on hers. She seemed to be concentrating very hard, almost anxiously, on what she was doing, which was looking back at her mother. And then, slowly, her rosebud of a mouth moved into a rather lopsided, but distinctly joyful smile. All her tiny world, every bit of her effort was in it; it was a great, joyous, evolutionary leap. And Eliza, touched beyond anything by it, found tears in her eyes and felt a great aching rush of love and something close to awe.
She had tried to explain her feelings to Matt, half expecting him to pooh-pooh it, to tease her, but he looked at her very seriously and then kissed her.
“God, I love you,” he said.
It was at such times that she knew she had done the right thing.
Christmas worked out very well. Her father was incredibly frail and was beginning to find making himself understood difficult, but he was so patently happy to have them there that it was impossible not to feel pleased in return. Pete Shaw had, as promised, been down to Summercourt to install some ramps for his wheelchair, in both the house and the garden, which was a great help to Sarah, and had taken to coming down every other Saturday to take Adrian to the pub.
“Well,” Pete said to Sandra, “what a life, stuck in that freezing pile of a place, no one to talk to except Mrs. C., who’s not exactly a barrel of laughs. He likes a good joke, and we can talk about the war a bit—he was in the army, the gunners; did some pretty brave things—and then I tell him about being at sea, and it’s closing time before you know it.”
He had also, he said, nipped up to the top of the house to look at the rooms. “Sodden, they are; it’s bloody terrifying, thinking what might happen. I’m going to tell Matt to have a look, see what he thinks, if anything can be done that won’t break the bank. Funny, isn’t it—you’d think they was rolling, but Matt says the only money they’ve got is tied up in the house.”
“Your dad’s so good to mine,” said Eliza on Christmas Eve, as she began the momentous task of unpacking Emmie’s things for the two days’ stay. “I’m so grateful to him. Funny, isn’t it; they’re really quite good friends now.”
Matt said he couldn’t see why it was funny. “Now, look what I got Emmie for her first Christmas. Can’t you just see that on her little wrist?”
It was a gold bangle hung with two disks, one engraved with Emmie’s name and one “Christmas 1965.”
“D’you think she’ll like it?”
“Oh, yes,” said Eliza, laughing, “she’ll absolutely love it, and she’ll say, ‘Thank you so much, Daddy, it’s beautiful; please will you help me put it on.’ ”
He looked hurt; he couldn’t stand being teased about his devotion to his daughter. Sometimes Eliza wondered just how far below Emmie she came in the family pecking order. A long, long way …
They put Emmie in the carry-cot on wheels and took her for a walk while they waited for Charles and Juliet. Eliza was looking forward to seeing Charles. He had become a commuter, leaving London on the six-o’clock train to Guildford and their new house, and apparently completely unable to delay for even an hour for a drink. But he was quiet and subdued, she discovered, miles away from the charming, funny brother of their childhood and youth. Juliet had always been bossy, but now she was quite overbearing, and seemed to have him constantly running round after her, fetching her cups of tea and “another cardigan, darling, it’s so cold here,” refusing to go for a walk on Christmas morning, which would have been fine, except that she wouldn’t let Charles go either—“I really don’t want to stay here all alone on Christmas Day.”
Eliza marvelled at Charles’s patience, worried about his state of mind, and resolved to insist on meeting him when they were all back in London. She was, after all, free every lunchtime.
They all went to midnight mass in the village church, apart from Matt, who agreed to babysit both Adrian and Emmie. “How marvellous of you,” said Sarah, looking at him quite fondly. Eliza pointed out briskly that this was the first time ever that Matt had looked after Emmie, and Juliet said she thought that was quite right; babysitting was not a man’s job. It began to look like a long Christmas to Eliza.
Christmas lunch—“This is one of your best, Mummy,” said Eliza, smiling at her—was followed by a walk; Juliet agreed to this one, as it was necessarily short: “It’s almost dark already,” said Charles, who pushed the wheelchair and expressed appreciation of the new ramps—and then presents, followed by tea, which nobody wanted, and some carol singing by Eliza and Juliet, while Sarah played the piano. Everyone was putting up a very good pretence of being happy, Eliza thought; and who was to say it was only pretence? She had enjoyed her day, Matt had behaved very well, and he and Charles had spent a fair bit of time reminiscing about the army, and Matt had presented her with an extremely pretty gold bracelet watch, “in case you got jealous of Emmie’s. I’ve put the date on yours as well.
“Now,” said Matt, as Eliza stood up and said she was going to bathe Emmie, “I’d like you to come upstairs with me, Eliza. Got something to show you.”
“Goodness,” said Juliet, looking arch.
He led her up to the top of the house, into the leaking rooms.
“M
y dad told me to take a look at these,” he said. “Shocking sight, isn’t it? Tragic, really. Why they don’t move, your parents, I’ll never know. Still, I got an idea. Wanted to see what you thought.”
“Mummy! Daddy! Matt wants to talk to you. It’s so exciting …”
“What is?” said Sarah, her eyes meeting Eliza’s. Heavens, Eliza thought, she thinks I’m having another one already.
“Well, thing is, I’ve got quite a big team now, working on my various sites,” Matt said.
“Ye-es?”
“Yeah. Couple of very good roofers. And I thought I could send them down here. It’s quiet just now, and we’re waiting on planning permission on a new development; costs me money for them to be mucking about. So they could come down here, do some work on your roof.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Sarah went bright pink. “Well, that is so very kind of you, Matt, but we don’t have any … enough money for that. I have no idea what it would cost, and … I’m afraid we would just have to say no, wouldn’t we, Adrian?”
“No, well, I could help there as well,” said Matt. “First off, it won’t be nearly as much money as you might think; we can do everything at cost, and then I could arrange you a loan. Not me personally, my company. We got a couple of very good bank managers who value my custom, if you know what I mean; it’d be company rates. And if it was too much, I could absorb it, and you could pay me off as you could afford it. What d’you say?”
“I … I just don’t know what to say,” said Sarah. “It is so terribly kind, but we couldn’t possibly accept; I’d feel so embarrassed, and why should you—”
“Well, I’m married to your daughter,” said Matt, smiling at her suddenly. “I don’t like to see the family house going to rack and ruin.”
“Oh, dear,” said Sarah, and there were tears in her eyes, “oh, dear, it’s so … so good of you. I just don’t know what to say …”
“You’re such a fraud,” said Eliza, as they got ready for bed, “pretending you’re so hard and tough. It’s so wonderful, Matt, so generous; I can’t believe it.”
“It’s you I’m doing it for, really,” he said. “Because it worries you. Because I love you.”
“Oh, Matt—I love you too.”
“And if it’s not too cold, leave that nightdress off, would you? I want to celebrate Christmas properly with you.”
“Now, how can I refuse, after what you’ve done for us all?” said Eliza, grimacing at the cold as she pulled her nightdress off again.
She woke Emmie, yelling as she came. She simply couldn’t help it. Matt grabbed a pillow and put it over her face, but it was still quite noisy. And good. So, so good.
They had only just started having sex again; it was different. She’d dreaded it, had lain there almost shaking when the statutory six weeks were up, but Matt had been very patient, very careful; even so, it took her a while to start responding, wary of pain, of tenderness, of damage even, but when she did, when the half-forgotten sensations began, when she felt the stirring, the wanting of him, when she started moving under him, it became a roller coaster, a wonderful, wild, rediscovered delight, gathering pace, sweeping her along, carrying her up and up and into pleasure.
“Goodness,” she said, lying back when it was over, wiping on the back of her hand the tears that always came, “goodness, Matt, I never thought that would happen again.”
“Nor did I,” he said with a grin.
She turned to him now, moved beyond anything at his generosity, filled with love and a certain pride in him, kissing him, pulling him against her, wrapping her long legs round him.
“More than more than?” he said.
That was their private joke; he had once asked her if she wanted sex “more than anything” and she’d said no, she wanted it more than more than anything.
And … how did you describe that feeling? It was exactly that. You could want lots of things more than anything, but wanting sex, wanting the sweet, shooting, aching, painful pleasure of it, the absolute laughing, crying joy of it, the huge, wild relief and release of it, that really was more than more than anything. Nothing could be better than that. Really and truly, nothing at all.
Emmie woke again.
“Now look what you’ve done,” she hissed at Matt.
“I didn’t make all that noise. Your fault, your fault entirely.”
“So that means I have to go downstairs and heat up the bottle and sit and feed her in that freezing kitchen. While you sleep?”
“Got it in one,” he said. “Anyway, you can sit by the Aga.”
She picked up the baby, went down into the kitchen. She waited until she was inside, with the door closed, before turning on the light, and then jumped.
Her mother was sitting at the table, a bottle of whisky in front of her. She was clearly a little drunk. She was also crying.
“Mummy,” said Eliza in alarm, going over to her, putting her spare arm round her shoulders. “Whatever is the matter?”
“I just feel so … so ashamed,” said Sarah, “so very ashamed. Of how we—I—treated you and Matt. When he is clearly so kind and loves you so much. What he’s doing for us, with the house … well, it makes everything so much better. I don’t know how to make it up to him; I really don’t.”
“Oh, Mummy,” said Eliza. “That’s easy. Just tell him what it means to you. He’ll understand the rest. I’m just glad he could do it for you. Now, I wouldn’t mind a drop of that whisky myself.”
She looked round at the scene, five minutes later, as Emmie sucked peacefully on her bottle and she and her mother downed rather large glasses of Adrian’s best single-malt and giggled.
“If a health visitor came round now,” she said, “Emmie would be taken into care. Alcoholic mother and grandmother.”
“Miss Scarlett,” said Demetrios, beaming at her as she walked into the foyer, the still blessedly small foyer, a wonderfully sweet, cool contrast to the pelting heat outside. “How very, very nice to see you once more.”
“It’s lovely to see you too, Demetrios. Are you both well, you and Larissa?”
“Very, very well. Larissa is having a baby—”
“A baby! How lovely.”
Would she ever be able to contemplate babies again without a catch at her heart?
“Yes. Very soon, in three, four weeks.”
“That’s wonderful. So … is she resting?”
“Resting? No, Miss Scarlett, she is busy—busy in the kitchen, busy in the garden, I don’t know where she is not busy.”
“Well, I’ll catch up with her later. You know why I’ve come?”
“I do. And we think it is very, very good plan. We would like to join your club after all. If we may.”
They had been wary at first, afraid of losing their uniqueness, their personal running of the place.
“Excellent. We can talk tonight.”
Over dinner in the vine-roofed veranda, watching the sunset, she agreed on terms, told them it would be for the following year.
“I know most bookings are in January–February time, so there’s no point doing anything before then. You can go in my next little brochure, and … well, I’m sure you’ll get lots of people.”
“Lots of nice people?”
“I can’t guarantee it,” said Scarlett, laughing, “but just let me know about any who aren’t and I’ll tell them they’re out of my club. Oh,” she added, as a tall shadow fell across her view, blotting out briefly the sunset. “Oh, hallo.”
The owner of the shadow looked at her blankly, and attempted a rather anxious smile.
“I don’t think—”
“Mr. Frost. Good evening. Can we get you a drink? You remember Miss Scarlett; she was here last year at the same time as you. Excuse me. Larissa, can you get some vine leaves, perhaps, and some olives …”
“I … well, of course, I …” He looked increasingly bewildered.
Scarlett took pity on him, stood up, held out her hand.
“Why should you remem
ber? I was staying here on my own, and so were you, but we overlapped by only one night. Scarlett Shaw.”
“Ah. Well … yes, of course. How rude of me.” He took her hand. “Mark Frost. How do you do, Miss Shaw?”
“Please join me. I’m just chatting to Demetrios and Larissa.”
“Oh … no, I couldn’t … that is, no, I’m just passing … I …”
Since there was nowhere to pass from or to at the taverna, this was obviously a feeble attempt to escape; Scarlett felt quite sorry for him. He was so clearly excruciatingly shy, it would have been cruel to pursue the encounter. She would make her excuses and disappear to her room, but Demetrios had returned with a bottle of ouzo and four glasses.
“There. We all drink together. Larissa will be back very soon. Mr. Frost is building a house here, Miss Scarlett.”
“Oh?” said Scarlett, passing him the glass of ouzo, hoping it would help him feel better. She actually hated the stuff, sipping at it cautiously now so as not to offend Demetrios. “And … is it going well?”
“Yes. Very well.”
“Perhaps tomorrow, Mr. Frost, you could show the house to Miss Scarlett.”
“Oh … I don’t think …” He looked as if Demetrios had suggested Scarlett do a striptease.
“No, no, Demetrios,” she said quickly, “you know I’m leaving first thing. But are you staying here while your house is being built, Mr. Frost?”
“Yes. Yes, I am. When I can get away.”
“Of course.”
She smiled at him; he smiled back, very briefly, his whole persona transformed. He was, she realised, quite exceptionally good-looking in a kind of chiselled way; she had not properly absorbed that fact before, the height, the slenderness, and the floppy dark hair. What she had remembered were the unusually dark grey eyes looking warily out from the wire-framed spectacles. He was very tanned, and when he did smile, his teeth were American-perfect. He could have been a film star.
“Mr. Frost found out about us through a friend,” said Demetrios. “His friend came here three years ago and he very kindly suggested Mr. Frost come to see us.”
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