‘About what?’
‘You must be wondering why I am not in Scotland yet.’
‘A little.’
‘My plan has changed. I am to go into Somerset, to a place a thirty-mile walk from here. Mr Gleeson has friends there.’
I noticed he did not name the place.
‘When?’ I asked.
‘It is not decided. Next week, perhaps.’
‘I see.’
‘You could visit me, Miss Lizzie.’
‘You forget that I am not Miss Lizzie, since I have a husband.’
‘He seems a most absent husband to me.’
‘I assure you, he is not.’
We were not looking at each other, but staring ahead into the glister of light. The air hung blue in the depth of the Gorge, and the forest opposite was as black as smoke.
‘Look at these little flowers,’ said Will. ‘What do you think they are? Surely they should not be blooming in December?’
‘They are squills, I think.’
It was Diner who had shown them to me. Autumn squill, he’d said. He told me that there were many rare plants in the Gorge, some of them found nowhere else. He knew their names exactly. He could draw them, as he drew rough plans for his buildings before the architect worked on them. All at once I saw his fingers: quick, nervous, purposeful.
‘I am very fond of children,’ said Will Forrest, turning to look me full in the face.
‘I dare say,’ I said. ‘It’s easy enough to be fond of children when you have none. Let me give you Thomas for a day and you will see how much poetry you write.’
‘You are mocking me again, Miss Lizzie.’
‘Again?’
‘Yes. You look so grave but I am not deceived. I would take care of Thomas, you know.’
‘For an afternoon?’
‘For life.’
His fair skin glowed in the afternoon light. He knew nothing, I told myself. He was ingenuous and a poet. He had money and he had never scrubbed a floor in his life.
‘If you came with me into Somerset, I would take care of you both.’
I sighed. Here we were, sitting in a rock cradle slung above the Gorge. For the moment we were free and accountable to no one, or so he thought. It was Scotland of a kind, although we had not tramped miles across the moors to find it. There, across the Gorge, lay the county of Somerset. He would cross by the Rownham ferry at Hot Wells and walk away with his knapsack into another life, without me, because what he was suggesting was only fit for this moment, this place.
‘Look, another peregrine,’ he said, and pointed. It hung, balancing, drifting.
‘Perhaps the same one,’ I said.
‘We will take a cottage. We could keep a goat, and grow vegetables. Philo could come with us to look after Thomas.’
‘And we would all live on air, I suppose.’
‘I have money,’ he said, as if it was a natural condition, like his red hair.
‘I am married. You and I have spoken together perhaps three times, or is it four?’
‘You know we would be happy,’ he said.
‘How can you say that?’
‘It is true. I know it. You are not happy here. You look after Thomas, and grieve for your mother. What reason is there for you to stay?’
‘I cannot argue with you.’
‘No,’ he said passionately. He had pulled off his hat and now he ran his hand through his hair until it stuck up around his head. ‘You cannot. You have no argument to set against mine.’
He is beautiful, I thought, watching his fine fair skin where the flush came and went as if all his feelings were turned into colour. His tawny eyes were narrowed against the sun, but they seemed to squeeze out their own light. He was all aflame with whatever burned in his mind, and for the moment I was part of it. He had seen my fall in the same light, and so he had caught me to him. But it was a fantasy, not a reality. Perhaps he was tired of being alone. Augustus had told me his age, and he was older than I’d imagined. Perhaps he thought my presence would lend sweetness to this vision of life in a Somerset cottage. If so, he did not know me. I had not been brought up to be the answer to any man’s question.
‘But what if I also wish to write, like my mother?’ I asked.
‘You do not,’ he said, with such certainty that I was silenced. My mother had said: In time my Lizzie will discover what it is that she was born to do. Her faith in me was a flame that might flatten when the wind blew on it but would not be quenched.
A wave of desolation swept through me. How was I to live in a world where no one had faith in me? Diner mistrusted me. If he could see me now he would think himself justified in following me and watching what I did. Only Thomas smiled at me with utter trust, and waved his arms when he saw me, but then he did the same to Philo and would have done so to anyone who fed and cherished him. Will Forrest wanted me to go with him but he did not know me.
‘You are everything I need,’ said Will, and he smiled as if that must be enough for me.
So I am to stir the pot, while you write the sonnets, I thought. We are to be stuck down the bottom of a Somerset lane in the winter mud, with the only sounds the scratch of your pen and Thomas howling.
‘Don’t be offended, Lizzie,’ he said. ‘I would not wish it on anyone.’
‘What?’
‘The desire to write,’ he answered. ‘If I am to be truthful with you, I am only myself in poetry. It is my native language and I talk any other with difficulty.’
‘But we are talking now,’ I said.
‘I know!’ he said, and delight leaped across his face. ‘I knew as soon as I saw you, Lizzie, that I could be alone with you and it would be the same as being alone with myself.’
I smiled. ‘It is very hard to work out whether or not that is a compliment.’
‘You may be sure that it is.’
He was a puzzling creature. He seemed very little like a man and yet he was one, indisputably. I felt it. He talked with such intimacy and yet I still had no idea what he saw when he looked at me, or what he really thought of when he thought of me.
‘You would be disappointed in a week, if I were fool enough to come into Somerset,’ I said.
He was not listening. ‘At night,’ he said, ‘we shall sit by the light of the fire, with Thomas in his cradle beside us. We’ll rise at dawn and walk for miles until we know all the country around us. I shall compose out loud as I walk: you will not mind that, Lizzie? Do you know the stars? I know them all. I shall teach Thomas the constellations, and I tell you, he will be happy. He will never be shut away out of the light to drudge at his letters. He will learn more than would ever be beaten into him at school. We will plant apple trees, quince, medlar and mulberry. We will keep bees and Thomas will learn from their society. And if we tire of it, Lizzie …’
‘If we tire of it?’
‘We shall come to Bristol in disguise, and go to the play.’
The sun fell on us and I could not help smiling. If I yielded, if I went down into Somerset with Will Forrest, I need never untangle the knots that made up my life. I could cut them through in one afternoon and not think of them again. Once I had left him, Diner would never pursue me. I would be dead to him. I would never again have to feel the anguish that seized me when I saw him lose his grip upon all that he had built. I would not feel him thrash in the bed beside me, or catch me a blow across the face. I would never see him defeated or learn what that defeat would do to him. I would no longer be afraid.
I let my thoughts run on, because I knew that this was a story told for comfort, as a child tells such stories in the dark. For Will it was a story born of loneliness and it would fade soon enough. I could not blame him for discounting my husband, whom he had never seen. He could not know that I was bound to Diner by a thousand threads.
‘You will do well in Somerset,’ I said. ‘You are one of those creatures who is loved wherever he goes.’
I spoke in the tone which says: I am going to blow out your candl
e now, and you must go to sleep.
‘But not by you, Miss Lizzie,’ he said, and he laughed, not from any amusement but in surprise perhaps that I resisted him. ‘You prefer your husband, although you are never with him.’
‘Even so,’ I said, ‘I am necessary to my husband, and he is necessary to me.’
The sun was moving off the rock-face. I had the strangest wish that Diner could see me now, and know that I had not betrayed him.
‘Your pride, Miss Lizzie, will be your downfall,’ said Will Forrest, and he dug his fingers into the turf. ‘Go back to your house then, and see what happiness you find there.’
‘It has nothing to do with happiness.’
‘It is true that marriage seems often to have little to do with happiness. But who am I to judge? I have never been married.’
I could not reply.
Suddenly his attention was arrested. He peered down close, and his voice changed. ‘Look here,’ he said, lifting a handful of turf to show me. ‘It is like a garden in miniature. Those specks: see, they are flowers.’
‘I wish you had not dug it up,’ I said. ‘Your garden will die.’
‘Not so.’ He stooped, and carefully fitted the turf back into the spot from which he had lifted it. The skirts of Augustus’s coat impeded him, and he switched them aside impatiently. ‘It will rain tonight. The wound will heal as if it had never been.’
‘When I first met you,’ I said, ‘I thought you were very young, but now I think you must be older than I am.’
‘Yes, I am old enough.’ He pulled off his hat and bent his head towards me. ‘Can you see a grey hair?’
I peered. ‘No, I think not.’
‘But I am lined. Tell me the truth: I am lined, am I not?’
‘Very lined.’
‘And I have lost several teeth, which is why I smile with my mouth closed. I expect you have noticed.’
‘No, I had not noticed.’
He laughed, and I saw that his teeth were good, with only a single chip on the front.
‘Do you ever tell the truth?’ I asked him.
‘Only in poetry. That is why I write poems, in order to discover what I truly think and feel.’ He sighed. ‘You and I should have met long ago, Lizzie, when I still had my teeth and before you learned to be so proud.’
His eyes gleamed. I could not tell if he was really angry with me, or laughing at me. Either way, I discovered I did not mind.
‘But surely Augustus does not advise you to bury yourself in Somerset? He must see it as a temporary measure. You cannot be a radical in a potato patch.’
‘I am a poet. You call me a radical but I could never do what Augustus does. I see doubly, and he sees singly.’
‘You were radical enough for them to threaten you with imprisonment for sedition.’
‘Yes. I cannot explain it. I am not a man of action, Lizzie. I wear Augustus’s coat but it does not fit me.’
‘You might go to Paris. Your gifts would be welcome there.’
‘You think so! I’ll tell you a secret, Lizzie. I cannot bear the sight of blood. If you were to rip your finger on a briar I would turn sick and faint, and you would have to bind it up yourself to get the wound out of my sight. Is that not contemptible?’
I thought of Mammie, the sodden cloths, the iron smell of the blood. The mattress taken off to be burned.
‘No,’ I said, ‘it is not contemptible. But sometimes blood cannot be avoided.’
‘There are many who say that. They will sow the field with blood and bring up a harvest of liberty. These are the words they use.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘I saw a man stabbed once.’ He hesitated again. ‘He was my friend. We had been drinking together all evening and we thought ourselves immortal. We staggered home together and we were fools enough to go through the park. We were attacked. I gave them everything, instantly, but Gregory resisted. He had a watch given to him by his father. It happened so fast I do not remember a word being said. There was not even a cry. I heard a grunt and it did not sound like a noise a man could make. Then the thieves were gone and Gregory was on the ground. Very likely they did not mean to kill him. I lifted our lantern: it was still burning. He looked at me but I could do nothing for him. I pressed my fist into the wound in his stomach. There was dark stuff coming out of his mouth and I thought it was wine and then I knew that it was blood. I cried out for help and no one came. His eyes were still open but he died. I will not go to Paris. I will be happy in a potato patch, in the right company. I will rise early, walk, dig, write. I like to be alone.’
‘I am sorry,’ I said.
‘I did nothing for him.’
‘You could not have done.’
‘He was drunk. He scarcely knew where he was going. I was leading the way.’
‘You were both drunk. Such things can happen anywhere, in the street or in a doorway.’
‘Yes. But it was I who said we might hear a nightingale if we went home through the park. I did not know how much blood there was until I looked at myself in the glass, and then I threw away all my clothes. I will not go to Paris. Won’t you come with me into Somerset, Lizzie?’
‘You said you liked to be alone.’
‘I could be alone with you. With you I would lose nothing. Look at us now! We are part of each other’s solitude. You do not pry into my heart.’
I thought of Diner and how we had dissolved into each other on those early nights, so that there was nothing I did not know of him, or he of me. Or so I had believed. I shivered: we had been sitting too long.
‘We must go back,’ I said. ‘It gets cold when the sun is off the rocks. But we must not been seen together.’
‘I’ll go with you as far as the path, in case you stumble.’
‘You said you knew an easier way.’
‘Even so, you might stumble.’
‘We must hurry,’ I said. ‘It will be dark soon.’
21
Philo was on the front steps, looking out. As soon as she saw me she began to run towards me, and I ran too, quickened by fear.
‘Where’s Thomas? What’s wrong?’
She was blotched with crying and incoherent.
‘Was it Augustus? Did Augustus come and take the baby?’
She shook her head.
‘Philo, for God’s sake. Tell me what’s happened.’
It came out clotted with sobs. ‘The babby was crying. I was walking him up and down like I always do. I swear to God I never leave him crying. Mr Tredevant – he come in. He says – he says —’ Philo’s mouth squared and she bawled like a baby. I took her by the shoulders and shook her.
‘Philo!’
‘He goes and shouts right in my face, ’F you can’t stop that damned caterwauling I’ll stop it for you. I couldn’t hold on to Thomas. I had to let him take him.’
I saw it. Thomas, beside himself, purple and flailing. Diner, black with rage, plucking him out of Philo’s arms.
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did he take him out? Did he wrap him up?’
Philo nodded helplessly. ‘I couldn’t stop him.’
I realised that I was digging my fingers into Philo’s shoulders and I released her, stepped back and saw the men who’d been working the pulley along the terrace. They had stopped work and were staring at us.
‘Get inside, Philo. Quick.’
I stripped off the old shawl and wrapped myself in my cloak. ‘You stay here. If he comes back with Thomas, don’t say a word. Take the baby upstairs and keep him quiet till I come back. He may have taken Thomas for a walk, to calm him. I shall go and find them. It’s all right, Philo, Thomas will be back directly.’
I heard myself gabbling, and Philo’s face showed she did not believe me. When had Diner ever dreamed of taking Thomas for a walk? Hot panic swelled in me but I forced it down. I must think clearly. It was my own folly that had caused this: if I had not gone to meet Will Forrest then Philo would not have been alone with Thomas.
While we were playing with words, Thomas had been taken away. But I would find him and bring him back and then for once I would confront Diner.
I ran even though people stared after me, all the way to Grace’s Buildings. There was a pair of heavy oak doors which were usually kept locked, with a small entry cut into the right-hand one, tall enough to fit a stooping man. Diner had told me once that the doors were made to withstand war, siege and riot. Heavy bolts and iron bars ran across them, and the doorway could be easily defended. Perhaps he had meant to tell me that one day he would lock me out.
I twisted the handle. It gave, the latch went up, I pushed it open and stepped in. Light from the glass dome high above fell into the hall like snow-light. Everything was quiet. Curving flights of stone steps led upwards, floor above floor to the dome. Diner’s rooms were on the second floor.
A door opened and a man I did not know came out, stopped, stared at me. I could not reach the stairs without brushing past him.
‘I am here to see Mr Tredevant.’
He stared again, bowed, and made way. I felt him watching me as I ascended. I stepped as lightly as I could but the stairwell echoed. The stairs turned, and turned again. I was on the second landing, and there was the door to Diner’s office. I tiptoed to it and put my ear to the wood. There was no sound. If Thomas was there, he must have cried himself out. Noiselessly, I turned the handle. The door gave way easily, and with a push it was open.
He was where I had seen him a dozen times before, bent over his desk with a heap of papers in front of him. But everything else was different. The room was more or less dismantled, with bare shelves and boxes of papers on the floor. My God, I thought, he is packing up. Things were far worse than I’d known. The curtains were gone from the windows, the drawings of Canford Square and Horace Row from the walls. Even the Chinese rug had disappeared. I saw it all in an instant, and that there was no sign of Thomas.
Diner did not look up. He was so immersed in what he was doing that he had not sensed the opening of the door. I stepped forward.
‘Diner,’ I said.
His heard jerked up. He had expected me. Of course he had. His eyes narrowed, watching me.
‘Lizzie.’
Birdcage Walk Page 21