That Was Then

by That Was Then (retail) (epub)

  This was the tail-end of the season in Littelsea. Not that we were a resort to which people flocked in their thousands, but the locals made good use of the beach during the summer, especially in the school holidays. I got used to the August high-tide of humanity below my balcony, but there was a special pleasure for we sea-front dwellers in the ebbing of that tide, first when the children returned to school and then with the almost-imperceptible drawing-in of the days and the change in the light that presaged autumn. In Cliff Mansions we weren’t just fair-weather promenaders, but people who knew ‘our’ sea in all her moods. I looked at her now, twinkling benignly in the pale sun and told myself she’d have to do a lot to disaffect us, her true friends.

  There were quite a few other walkers out on this sunny weekend afternoon, but as I climbed higher their numbers dwindled – there were various strategically placed viewpoints, with benches, which the less determined used as staging posts from which they never moved on.

  When I reached the top of the cliff I left the path and scrambled up to the edge of the headland where I sat down on the grass. A sign in huge, black letters warned ‘Ramblers’ that the cliff-edge was subject to erosion, but I took a childish delight in being where I could see in all directions.

  To my left was Littelsea, made almost pretty by distance and the glow of the westering sun; ahead, the sea, with a channel ferry in the far distance, cutting diagonally towards the horizon and France. Steeply down to the right was the little bay with the overlapping flat rocks where I’d sat that earlier afternoon and met Rick and Bryony. With hindsight, I wondered whether he’d had some scandalous personal reason of his own for walking so far with his daughter on his back … an assignation, perhaps? But Desma was surely right when she said a toddler was a deterrent to such things. Perhaps, as she hoped, he was still only tempted, and hadn’t strayed at all.

  Considered options for the second stage of my walk, I realised there was one I couldn’t see and hadn’t taken into account. Behind me, on the other side of the cliff path and behind its carefully-managed belt of woodland, the Drages’ house.

  Considering it now, it seemed more and more an attractive proposition. At Headlands there would be Sabine stuck in on her own, always pleased to have company and especially good value when enraged by workmen. And where there was Sabine there, too, would be a long cold, possibly alcoholic drink and something delicious to eat in luxurious surroundings.…

  Having made my decision I was happy to defer these pleasures for a few minutes, and lie back with my eyes closed. The short, springy grass under my back was like the pelt of an animal, an animal that seemed to breathe with the sound of the sea below, and to stir occasionally when the ever-present channel breeze nudged it. What with the sun, my contented solitude, and the imminent prospect of congenial company, there was nowhere else on earth I would rather have been at that moment.

  I fell asleep. What woke me up was the first of a small flotilla of clouds sailing across the sun. The sudden shade allowed the breeze to whip up goose-bumps on my hot arms and legs, and I opened my eyes with one of those disobliging jolts of disorientation. I’d fallen asleep like a carefree child on the grass: I woke up a middle-aged woman, stiff, chilly and self-conscious.

  Fortunately there was no one about to witness me staggering creakily to my feet and picking the bits of grass off my clothes and out of my hair. Knowing how I was going to appear next to Sabine I experienced a moment’s pause about visiting her, but only a moment’s — no one ever looked as elegant as Sabine, and she was hardly going to notice or care if I had dropped a little further below her impossible standards.

  I walked away from the sea and over the main cliff path, and up the narrow track that threaded between the rowans and conifers to the back gate of Headlands. The breeze was continuing to get up, and as I moved in amongst the trees the sound of the waves was replaced by the sibilant whisper of the high branches. My footsteps, down here, were silent on the springy mulch of leaves and pine needles. It was quite cold.

  I paused at the gate. From here I had a view of the side of the house, the descending planes of well-manicured lawn, tumbling rockeries and luxuriant bursts of herbaceous border and shrubbery, the corner of the terrace where I had stood with Charles McNally. The swimming pool where the maintenance men were working – I could hear faint music – was out of sight.

  A little to my left, and further up was the brand new tennis court in all its sharp-edged, pristine magnificence. It would be nice, I thought, to play up here on crisp, bright days during the autumn and winter, in perfect privacy and with the promise of Martin’s well-stocked drinks trolley to follow.

  I opened the gate quietly, conscious of being an intruder, and closed it carefully behind me. Walking across the grass it occurred to me that the entire floor area of my flat could comfortably have fitted inside the Drages’ tennis court. What must it be like, I wondered, to own so much, to be the rulers of this small, perfect clifftop kingdom? I admired it, but I was genuinely glad that such a kingdom, with all its attendant responsibilities, wasn’t mine. This thought cheered me up – perhaps I was after all the carefree soul who’d fallen asleep on the grass, who cared nothing for possessions or appearances.

  As I got nearer the house so I could hear more clearly the music being played down at the pool. Surprisingly, it was Puccini, the overture to Madame Butterfly. Trust Sabine to employ workmen with refined tastes, or to make it her business to refine them.

  The pool came into view. The music swelled. There was no sign of any work being done – on the countrary the water was a clear sapphire blue, the tiled surround immaculate, and someone was swimming. Or at least there was someone in the water, in the farthest corner, perhaps taking a break between lengths. I walked down the slope, not wanting to advertise myself until I was sure it was Sabine.

  When I was about fifty yards away I caught a glint of her favourite lime-green swimsuit. But at the very moment that I smiled, raised my hand, opened my mouth to call her name, another head rose from the water between her body and the side of the pool, dark and sleek as an otter between her guiding hands.

  I ran back the way I’d come, my heart beating so violently that I felt blood might suddenly burst in a hot spray from my nose and mouth. I didn’t look where I was going. I didn’t even know if they had seen me. My flight was not just from this place, but from knowledge and discovery and change. I wanted to run until I dissolved the picture that was in my head.

  My own panic shocked me. Nothing could have prepared me for what I’d just witnessed, nor for the violence of my reaction.

  The tide had turned. The sea change was complete.

  Chapter Twelve

  Looking back, it seems unbelievable that I said nothing to Ben for over twenty-four hours. And yet I can all too easily recreate the sensations which prevented me from doing do.

  For one thing, when he returned that evening at about nine it was obvious that he did not know I’d been there, and had seen the two of them. He was in buoyant form, at his chattiest and most charming. He’d gone up to Headlands this evening, he told me, and Sophie and Martin were back from the show, so he’d stayed for supper. He didn’t seem to notice my quietness, and he made no mention of Sabine beyond the invitation to supper.

  I don’t mind admitting that this behaviour threw me. Not only was there no visible mark of Cain, but no evasions, no lowered eyes, nor any of the elusive strangeness of several recent occasions. On the contrary, this was a return to the old Ben, who could make me feel that he and I had a special relationship, a shared way of looking at things.

  I began to doubt myself and the evidence of my own eyes and instincts. After all, I didn’t want this to be true – so maybe, maybe it wasn’t. After all, what had I actually seen? Only Sabine, a naturally flirtatious character, taking a dip in her own pool with my son who was a regular visitor to the house, her stepdaughter’s boyfriend, for heaven’s sake. People did lark about in swimming pools, it meant nothing, and anyway I had been
an interloper and interlopers, like eavesdroppers, get what they deserve.

  I understood now why women did not always scream when they were attacked. Because along with the dread and fear there was the ludicrous, programmed response – is this real, or a joke? Surely it can’t be happening? In the same way I was reluctant to make a scene in case there turned out to be a perfectly, blessedly, reasonable explanation.

  So, in the face of every natural impulse the fear – and hope – that I might be mistaken closed my throat.

  All the pleasure had gone from my lunch date with Mrs Rymer. In fact if I’d remembered in time I would have selfishly cancelled no matter what the disappointment to her. But it was eleven the next morning when her note, still lying on the dining table, reminded me, and by then it was too late. I suppose I could have invented some sudden, violent indisposition but on balance I wanted to be out of the flat before Ben got up – away from him, away from the doorbell and the telephone and anyone that I knew.

  I got changed and made up hurriedly, dreading the least sound from Ben’s room. My hand shook as I applied eyeliner and lipstick and when I’d finished I felt not enhanced, but grotesquely disguised. At one point I wept from sheer tension and the bleak sadness of it all. As I closed the door of the flat behind me I was sure I heard his bedroom door open, and I fled down the stairs with the skin on the back of my neck prickling. Fled, for the second time in twenty-four hours, from my own son.

  Mrs Rymer was waiting for me in the hall at Whitegates. She was elegant in a lovat-green dress with a long red-and-green scarf draped round her shoulders and caught with a large, Celtic-looking brooch. Ribbed burgundy tights covered the bandages on her legs. One of the nurses hovered, but she had her stick with her and managed the short walk to the car very well, only leaning on my arm slightly to negotiate the two shallow steps from the front door to the drive. Once in the car I noticed that she had on some wonderful, poignant scent – not the sort of thing one buys in an atomiser at the high street chemist. In my vulnerable state the scent made my eyes sting with tears.

  I cleared my throat. ‘I haven’t booked anywhere,’ I said. ‘ But if you’re sure you’re happy with a pub.…’

  ‘My dear I shall be in seventh heaven even if all we do is drive about and admire the view,’ she said.

  I took her to the Fore and Aft (known locally as the Up and Under) on the seafront near the Martello Tower, and we sat at a table with a view of the promenade and the beach.

  ‘How clever of you,’ she said. ‘This is just the ticket.’

  She had a glass of white wine, and I a glass of red and we ordered sea bass. As I came back from the bar with our drinks I caught her looking at me in her intuitive way, but she came of a generation which would have regarded personal questions as impertinent. If I wished her to be anything more than a charming, appreciative guest, that would be up to me.

  We talked about the sale, and about Littelsea, and Whitegates, and her family. Or at least she talked, which was how I wanted it. I didn’t trust myself to remain composed on any subject relating to myself. Since she had mentioned him so freely at our last meeting I asked her about Gerhardt.

  ‘What happened when war broke out?’

  She flicked a hand. ‘Over. Kaput.’

  ‘That must have been devastating.’

  ‘The whole thing was no picnic, which perhaps put the personal side of it into perspective. One just got on with it.’

  ‘Did you try to keep in touch?’

  ‘He wrote me some letters. I didn’t reply.’

  She paused. It wasn’t a hesitation, but a quite deliberate pause, which made me wonder if I’d overstepped the mark. It was my turn now to wait. Our food arrived and made the wait even longer. Then she spread her big hands on either side of her plate, adjusting the alignment of her knife and fork with her fingertips, like piano keys. When she did reply her voice was matter of fact.

  ‘He was a Nazi, my dear. I couldn’t be doing with that.’

  She made it sound so crystal clear, so perfectly practical and simple. And yet I knew it couldn’t have been. My admiration for her was boundless, but when I said so she waved it aside.

  ‘This looks absolutely delicious,’ she exclaimed cheerfully. ‘Do you mind if I tuck in?’

  It was good, and we both cleared our plates, she with gusto and relish, I more from habit than anything else. She declared herself not a coffee drinker, so I had a double espresso while she put away sticky toffee pudding and a second glass of wine. I realised that this pleasant interlude was drawing to a close and that when I got home everything would still be there, waiting for me. The really bad stuff I could not possibly mention, but I sensed that like Jo she might have a clear perspective on my dilemma with Charles McNally.

  ‘I wonder if I might ask your advice – it’s only a small thing.’

  ‘In the unlikely eventuality that I can be of the least help, I will.’

  ‘I think I know what you’ll say.’

  ‘Of course.’ She sat back, hands folded round her wine glass. ‘We only ask for advice to have our own opinion confirmed, don’t you think?’

  ‘Perhaps. But I’m not sure I have an opinion.’

  ‘As soon as I open my mouth, you will have. Go ahead and tell me.’

  I sketched out the problem, sounding as casual as I could. ‘ I did say,’ I concluded sheepishly, ‘that it was trivial.’

  ‘On the surface it is,’ she agreed. ‘ But the fact that it’s exercising you so much proves that it isn’t, at least as far as you are concerned.’

  ‘Well – no.’

  ‘I don’t want to ask you another thing, but perhaps I could suggest something. If you do nothing, or say no, to this man, you will certainly be relieved of the problem, but you will never know why it was important. And if at some later time you do see why, that might prove bothersome.’

  I waited again, sure she was going to add something, the other side of the argument. But she didn’t.

  When we left the Up and Under I took her for a short drive. As we cruised slowly along the prom we passed The Esplanade and I saw the Chatsworths – Ronnie, Dennis, and the boys – sitting over lunch at a window table in the restaurant. Of course they didn’t see me, I was just another car, but I was cut through by a pang of envy for their happy, sociable family outing.

  I went along the Brighton road, and then described a curve for a few miles inland, and came back through Hawley End, forgetting that this might have poignant associations. But if it did, she didn’t let them show. Instead, she stared thoughtfully out of the window and remarked:

  ‘You know, I don’t miss this place.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No, it was never my home in the way that our married houses were. And latterly it was rather less amusing than where I am now.’

  At Whitegates, I saw her to her room.

  ‘That was so lovely, I can’t tell you,’ she said, giving me her firm handshake. ‘I wish I could say I shan’t eat for the rest of the day, but it would be an empty promise. Meals mark out the day here.’

  ‘We must do it again.’

  As I drove off, I could still feel the bracing touch of a tougher, no less passionate but more pragmatic generation. She doubtless did think my problem trivial – I almost wished I’d mentioned Ben, to really shake her – and though she was prepared to take it seriously, she wasn’t going to indulge me for a second longer than the situation merited.

  I was on my own.

  On the way home I decided that I would walk straight into the flat and dial Charles McNally’s number. Now, while my life was overshadowed by something so much greater, would be the right moment to Just Say No.

  Ben, of course, was not there.

  In spite of my resolve it was still a shock to hear Charles’s voice only seconds after I’d spoken to the reception desk.

  ‘McNally.’ He sounded curt and peremptory, not at all Sunday-afternoonish.

  ‘Oh – hello. This is Eve Piercy.’
/>   ‘Eve, hi.’

  There was a just perceptible warming of his tone, but he didn’t exactly express unbridled delight. Then again I didn’t want him to, so that was alright.

  ‘Thank you for your message, by the way.’ By the way?

  ‘You’re coming up to town?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He had skipped an entire stage of the exchange, assuming that it was not a question of if, but simply when.

  ‘OK.’ I recognised that moving-right-along intonation from Ben and his peers. ‘So how do you want to play this?’

  ‘I’ll call you, shall I, if I’m coming?’

  ‘I’d really like that. I want to go to Ronnie Scott’s – do you like jazz?’

  ‘I don’t know enough about it. I started and stopped with Acker Bilk.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘ “Stranger on the Shore”? Early sixties? And Kenny Ball—’ I was stumbling into a quicksand of inconsequential conversation from which it would be horribly difficult to escape.

  ‘Never heard of the guys. It would be my privilege, Eve, to convert you.’

  ‘You can try,’ I said, fatuously.

  I think he laughed. He had one of those almost voiceless laughs in the back of the throat, infectious to witness but disconcerting over the phone.

  ‘Right … I’ll look forward to hearing from you, I really will.’

  ‘Bye.’

  I put the receiver down and sat there. It had all been perfectly simple, perfectly friendly and I was committed to nothing. Why then, was my heart racing? And why could I not tell whether I was elated or disappointed? Mrs Rymer’s cryptic words came back to me: ‘… you’ll never know why it was important.’ I still didn’t.