by Rosie Thomas
She had so few possessions that it didn’t take her long to pack them, even though she moved slowly and fumblingly. When she was ready, she stood unwillingly in the doorway, wishing that she could stay. The bare little room was home, and she felt too raw and frail to be on the move again.
But she picked up William’s basket and carried it down to the car, and turned her face resolutely forward.
The streets around Jamie’s mansion block were cleaner and smarter than those of the old, crowded, cosmopolitan neighbourhood she was used to. There were smart little boutiques here, expensive-looking delicatessens, and well-coiffed women parking nippy runabouts on meters. How would she and William fit in here, on their tiny budget?
The cab driver complainingly helped her up to Jamie’s door with her bags, and Angharad realized with embarrassment that she hadn’t enough money left to tip him properly. He muttered a sour something as he walked away, and she felt irrational tears stinging behind her eyes.
The hallway of the flat and the drawing-room beyond were blurred as she walked through. Was this home, then? Jamie’s flat was comfortably, even opulently furnished, but it had a dim air of neglect and unuse. A dirty whisky tumbler stood in a faint film of dust on the glass-and-steel coffee table. Without putting William’s basket down, Angharad walked through the silent flat. There was a well-equipped kitchen that looked as if no one had ever used it, a single lemon shrivelling in the fruit bowl. There was a wide bed with a rumpled duvet in Jamie’s bedroom. At the end of the corridor, just as he had promised her, Angharad found the two rooms. They had been hastily cleared of the mackintoshes and tennis rackets, but there were dusty patches against the walls where boxes had stood, and the windows were laced with dust. There was a note propped up on the chest of drawers.
‘Welcome home. I’m sorry I couldn’t be here. Today of all days I have to appear for a client. I’ll be back as soon as I can, with provisions. I’ll get someone in to clean up. Treat it as your home. J.’
The second room was completely empty. William’s basket looked pathetically solitary in it. Angharad leaned against the connecting door and the tears came, burning her cheeks. She had no right to expect anything from Jamie, of course. He was busy, and he had already done more for her than she could possibly have hoped. But there was something about the utter silence of this flat, the emptiness and her solitude, that cut into her. She had blithely expected not to feel lonely with William, but loving and caring for him seemed to drain all her reserves of strength and she had nowhere to turn to replenish them. And then his eyes would open, and she would find herself staring straight down into Harry’s face.
It was a bitter shock to realize that she was more alone than ever.
The days that followed were Angharad’s worst, worse even than her first weeks in London. At least, then, she had had only herself to fend for. Now her breasts ached, and her stitches shot stabs of pain, and William woke and cried whenever she had fallen into an uneasy sleep.
Jamie was away, immersed in an important and complicated case. In one sense she was thankful for that, but in another way she yearned for ordinary company as she had never done before. On the rare occasions when she did see him she was perversely and determinedly bright, promising to be back at work very soon, although privately she doubted that she could ever do it.
‘Give him a chance to get settled first,’ Jamie said mildly. ‘Don’t want him howling in the nether regions and disturbing the diners, do we?’
William fed and slept and fed again. Angharad felt that he was sucking her dry and in her intense love, she was tortured by fears of not giving him enough. A reassuring midwife visited her and told her that he was doing fine, and when Angharad dissolved into helpless tears, she patted her shoulder and said ‘Post-baby blues. Quite natural and normal, you know. Haven’t you got a friend or a relative who could come and stay with you for a while?’
‘I’m quite all right,’ Angharad insisted, knowing that she was not. She would look at William, asleep or sucking fiercely at her breast, and feel the terrified conviction that she was incapable of caring for him. How could she sustain this tiny, helpless creature with the strength of her body when she was so hopelessly adrift herself?
If only Harry were here. If only Harry would come, and share with her. She longed desperately and chokingly for him, more and more painfully than she had ever done. But there was no point in letting herself stray further down that avenue. Harry had let her go. It was a blind cul-de-sac.
Then the letter came from her father.
Angharad had written to Gwyn immediately after the birth, and the warm, loving letter that had come back at once had added to the euphoria of the first few days.
‘I will tell William,’ Gwyn wrote, ‘that he has a grandson and a namesake. I don’t think, after all this time, that he has any anger left. It might even make him happy, although I doubt that your news will give him as much joy as it has given me. God bless you both. I will try, my darling, to come and see you soon.’
Angharad had sent her address as soon as she was installed at Jamie’s. A day or so later she saw an envelope on the doormat and recognized her father’s spiky black script. She picked it up with shaking fingers and tore it open.
The words scorched her.
‘This is your home as it has always been, although you haven’t seen fit to treat it as such … you may come back at any time and we will try to forget what’s past … but I can’t shelter a Cotton bastard under my roof, Angharad … make whatever arrangements you must for it, and then come home as my daughter again …’
A sob tore itself from Angharad’s chest. She ran through into William’s room and knelt down beside his basket. The baby was wide awake, watching the May sunlight filtering through his window. He turned his head towards her and her tears splashed on his cheek.
‘You’re not …’ Angharad sobbed as his fingers closed over hers, ‘… a Cotton bastard. You’re mine, and I love you. How could he think that I would ever, ever part with you?’
She screwed up the letter and threw it away. The thought came to her that her father must be slightly mad. Well then, that might be the truth. But if he chose to cut his daughter and grandson off in his mad bitterness, then that was how it would be. She didn’t want to hear from him ever again. Moving in a trance, only half conscious of a search for something that would bring normality back into her world, Angharad walked over to the table and picked up a magazine. It was a mother-and-baby publication, left for her by the visiting midwife.
The first picture she looked at showed a radiant young mother rocking her infant in a sunny nursery bright with pictures and mobiles.
Angharad looked through the doorway and saw William lying in the middle of his empty, dusty room. At once her disorientated mind seized feverishly on an idea.
That’s it. That’s what she would do. She would decorate his room for him. Sunshiny yellow, and she would hang it with mobiles for him to gurgle at, just like in the magazine.
Angharad ran for the kitchen steps and a bucket of water to wash down the grimy walls.
When Jamie came in at ten o’clock, he smelt the fresh paint. Angharad was perched at the top of the step ladder, painting grimly on. She knew that the yellow paint she had hastily chosen was sulphurous and harsh in tone, but she worked on with the image of the golden nursery fixed firmly in her mind.
Jamie stopped in the doorway when he saw her. Her face was grey with exhaustion and her eyes were pitifully swollen. There was a streak of paint across her face, and more in her hair.
‘Anne? Anne, for Christ’s sake. What are you doing?’
She stared wildly at him and then mumbled, ‘I wanted him to have a pretty room like other children. Even if he hasn’t got anything else.’
Jamie crossed to her in one stride. He lifted her down from the ladder and wrapped his arms around her.
‘Darling, my darling Anne, I didn’t realize.’ He kissed her hair, smelling the paint and dust. He felt her shaki
ng, and when he looked down he saw the tears spilling from under her eyelashes. ‘I should have known it wouldn’t do for you. I’m a thoughtless shit. Why didn’t you say something? No, I should have damn well known. We’ll get a bloody man in tomorrow to paint everywhere, just as you’d like it. Call up Harrods. Look,’ he fumbled and then pressed a square of plastic into her hand, ‘that’s my account. Order whatever you want. Rocking horses. Pale blue furniture with flowers on. Anything. But please, don’t look like that. I can’t bear it. Do you hear? I can’t bear it.’
He rocked her in his arms and Angharad, with the buttons of his waistcoat digging into her face, cried with her helplessness and her hurt, and her relief that he was there.
Seven
At last, Angharad stopped crying.
Jamie lifted her chin so that he could look down at her, and she was too exhausted to try to hide her smeared face.
‘Don’t,’ Jamie said again. There was an odd mixture of tenderness and perplexity in his face. Without letting go of Angharad, he moved to look down at the sleeping baby.
‘How long until he wakes up again?’
‘I can’t tell. Three or four hours, perhaps.’
‘Time for you to sleep as well, then.’
Jamie steered her towards the bathroom. He drew the shower curtain and turned the water on for her. Angharad realized that she was aching to her bones. When Jamie had closed the door behind him, she peeled off her filthy clothes and let the scorchingly hot water splash over her. When she came out again she found one of Jamie’s thick towelling robes, warmed, hanging behind the door for her. She put it on and wrapped her hair in a towel. Then she crept out, intending to slip back down the corridor to her room, but Jamie called out to her.
‘In here, please.’
He was in his bedroom, smoothing a clean sheet over the wide bed. She stared, and then a suspicious shaft penetrated Angharad’s numbness. Horrified, she backed away. Darling, he had called her, and kissed her hair.
‘I can’t sleep with you.’ The words were out before she could stop them.
Jamie didn’t even look at her, but she saw the dull crimson in his face and wished that she could have bitten out her tongue. ‘Nor can your baby sleep in the paint fumes you have generated in your own rooms. The general idea was for you to have my bed, and to put William in my dressing-room. But if you’re so afraid that I’m going to pounce on you …’
‘I’m sorry, Jamie. I know you didn’t mean anything of the kind.’ They looked at each other for a minute, and if Angharad saw the uncertainty in Jamie’s face, she didn’t try to fathom why it was there.
‘Where will you sleep?’
He bent down again to tuck in the corner of the sheet. ‘In the sitting-room.’ Then he was holding the duvet back for her. ‘Get in,’ he ordered. Angharad obeyed. She had never slept under a duvet before and it felt exotically light and warm. Jamie left the room again and she looked round at the deep carpet and the drawn curtains, heavy enough to keep out every chink of light and to muffle the pervasive noise of London traffic that had disturbed her sleep for months. There was a pile of new books and glossy magazines on the bedside table.
When Jamie came back again, he was carrying William’s basket in one hand and a steaming mug in the other. Casually he deposited the baby in his dressing-room between the ranks of suits and highly polished shoes and gave Angharad her hot drink. It smelled strongly of whisky, and Angharad was so irresistibly reminded of being ministered to by Aunty Gwyn that she half smiled.
‘That’s better,’ Jamie said. The tentativeness had gone, and he was the brisk proprietor of Duff’s again. ‘Drink that and go to sleep. Tomorrow we’ll try to sort things out for you. You haven’t made a bad start, but I think you could do with some help, just the same.’
Angharad’s independent pride might once have dictated otherwise, but the raw bewilderment of the last few days had changed all that.
‘Thank you,’ she said simply. She could only hope that Jamie Duff would understand how badly she had needed his help, and how grateful she felt for it.
Jamie was as good as his word.
The very next day a pair of decorators arrived and presented her with colour cards from which to choose paint for her rooms. Another ring at the flat doorbell heralded a delivery from Harrods. When Angharad unpacked the bulky packages, she found a white-painted cot and a chest of drawers, and a nursery table and chair. In another box was a mobile exactly the same as the one in the magazine picture. She realized that Jamie must have seen the picture too, and understood everything.
Angharad ran to the telephone, longing to ring him and thank him for his thoughtfulness. She was holding the receiver when she realized that she had no idea where to find him. Instead, she went to wrap William in his outdoor clothes. They would make their first proper expedition together, shopping. Angharad would cook a wonderful meal for Jamie.
As soon as Jamie came back into the flat that evening, he stood in the hallway and sniffed appreciatively.
‘Where are you?’
Angharad was in the kitchen, stirring a saucepan, with a tea-towel wrapped round her waist in the absence of her Duff’s apron. She waved the spoon at him and smiled. Jamie stopped short. He had never seen that smile before. It left him groping for something rational to say. He cleared his throat, and tried. ‘Mmm. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to come home and smell cooking. Don’t do it again or I’ll start to expect it.’
‘I’ll do it whenever you like,’ Angharad said shyly. ‘It’s the least I …’
‘That’s enough. What is it?’
‘Sole Véronique, but I sort of embroidered a bit.’
‘Carry on. Is there time to chill some champagne if I put it in the freezer?’
‘Most definitely.’
Jamie lit candles and they sat opposite each other at the kitchen table to eat. Jamie poured the champagne into tall flutes and the atmosphere was instantly festive. He raised his glass and the rising bubbles shot little points of light.
‘To Anne and William. Long life and happiness.’
Anne echoed him, ‘Especially William.’
They talked about Duff’s with the relaxed informality of old friends. ‘We need you back, Anne, and soon. Pierre admits it. We’ll fix something up for William, don’t worry.’
In spite of her doubts, Angharad felt a warm glow at the idea of being needed. ‘I want to come back. You know, I think William smiled at me today?’
‘Clearly a prodigy.’
After dinner they sank into opposite corners of the deep sofa that had been Jamie’s bed the night before.
‘Whisky?’
Angharad felt warm and comfortable, with drowsiness beginning to blur the corners of the room. It occurred to her that the delicious, unfamiliar sensation was happiness. Was it only yesterday evening that she had been perched on her stepladder in the empty, dusty nursery?
‘Why not?’ She smiled at Jamie. ‘Put lots of soda or something in it, please.’
‘My dear Anne, it’s a single malt.’ Jamie’s shocked voice made her giggle, and then they were laughing together.
‘You know, you’re terribly pretty when you laugh,’ Jamie said matter-of-factly. His fingers touched hers when he handed her the whisky glass and she felt no need to jerk her hand abruptly away. She sipped her drink slowly, not thinking, and only half listening to the austere cello suite that Jamie had switched on.
His question startled her with its suddenness.
‘Won’t you tell me about it? About what happened to you, and him? Whoever he is?’
Angharad’s head jerked round and she glimpsed a kind of hunger in Jamie’s eyes. Hunger for herself? To know her secrets? Or curiosity? She thought, and the old images came flooding back. There was the lake, and the long ridge of The Mountain, and the two dark heads, opposite faces of the same coin. The same features that she could already see forming in her baby’s face, like molten metal taking shape as it cooled.
Al
l that was locked inside her. The narrow bed in the cottage at Heulfryn, and another bed framed by an arch. The two of them there together, and the secrets that would link the three of them for ever.
Those images were reality for Angharad, and this plush flat, and Duff’s, and Jamie’s face watching her, everything around her now except for William, were grey and insubstantial by comparison. But the greyness was safe, and numb. She didn’t want to let the real world leak back into this limbo. Not yet, not even to please Jamie. And she wanted to please him.
‘I’ll tell you one day,’ Angharad lied. ‘But not now. I can’t, you see.’ She reached out and put her glass down on the table. ‘Shall I sleep in here so that you can have your own bed back?’
‘No,’ Jamie said almost brusquely. ‘Good night, Anne.’
A day or two later Angharad had a visitor. She opened the door to a woman in her mid-thirties, wearing a navy blazer with a string of pearls showing at the neck. A silk headscarf was knotted at the chin over her fair, shoulder-length hair.
‘Hullo, I’m Caro Gould. Duff, as was. Jamie’s sister, y’know.’
Swallowing her surprise, Angharad held the door wide open and Caro strode in, hitching her bag over her shoulder.
‘Jamie says you need a spot of female company so I thought I’d drop in. Can I see the babe?’
‘Of course.’ Angharad’s face lit up at the thought of showing William off. She leant over the cot with Caro.
‘What a super little chap. But jolly hard work on your own, I should think? God, I’ve had three and I know. Not that I personally could have done it without help. Not from Charles, of course. He’s my husband. Infants are not his strong point. No, I’ve had a super nanny. It’s partly that I’ve come to see you about.’
Caro beamed at her and Angharad smiled back. Jamie’s confident, forthright elder sister seemed as good-natured as he was himself.
‘The thing is, my youngest has just started at kindergarten, and so our lovely nanny hasn’t a thing to do all day. Here are you with this tiny chap and a job to get back to – quite indispensable, Jamie says – so I thought, why not team up? What d’you say?’