by Rosie Thomas
‘No,’ Julia lied, faint-heartedly. ‘Of course we didn’t.’
Drearily, they reversed the journey of the day before. Over the Stour to Blandford. Salisbury, Andover, Basingstoke, and back to London.
Mattie only stayed at Ladyhill for one more day. As if to emphasise that the precarious holiday had come to an inauspicious end, the weather changed suddenly and conclusively. Huge, solid slabs of cloud mounted up and slid across the sky. A cold wind flattened the grass and then the rain came, driving from the east. Mattie took her thin dresses from the hangers, one by one, and folded them into her suitcase.
She had returned to the single bed, with its Provencal cotton cover, in the spare room she had used in the first five days. It seemed a long time ago.
‘Don’t,’ Alexander had said gently. ‘Unless you want to.’
Mattie had thought carefully. ‘We can’t always have what we want,’ she had told him. She had gone back to the spare room anyway.
On her own, doing her packing, Mattie sighed and looked out of the window at the rain. She pressed the flat of her hand to each eyesocket, in turn, and then swept a jingling heap of bangles and earrings off the dressing table and into the suitcase.
Alexander drove her to the station. She wouldn’t let him come out on to the platform with her to wait for the train. They said goodbye in the windy car park.
‘I’m sorry if I fucked things up for you with Julia,’ she said.
Alexander looked down at her, and touched the metallic-bright strands of hair where she had scraped it forbiddingly back behind her ears. There was no frivolity in Mattie today.
‘You didn’t fuck anything up. That happened long ago.’
‘Did it?’ And then, ‘What a mess we all make.’
‘What are you going to do now?’
‘Get to work,’ Mattie answered crisply. The prospect wasn’t enticing, but she didn’t want Alexander to guess that. He put his arms around her, in the car park, and held her against him.
‘I loved these weeks,’ he said. Mattie thought how much she liked him for the simplicity of the acknowledgement. She liked him, too, for not holding out any false hopes. No if it had only happened differently, or next time we see each other …
There are only two or three men in the world worth loving, she remembered.
‘I’ve got to go. The train will come before I’ve bought my ticket.’
He held on to her for a second longer. They kissed, soft-mouthed, full of regret. Then Mattie picked up her suitcase and walked away into the ticket office.
On the train, wedged on her own amongst the returning holidaymakers, Mattie stared out of the rain-washed window.
She was telling herself, I didn’t know Julia wanted to go back to him. Why didn’t I ever realise it?
Julia has been a fool, Mattie thought. And then, wearily, Why did she choose the most important thing to be stupid about?
There were three small children crammed with their parents into the compartment. Mattie looked at them, the smallest perched on its father’s knee, wondering whether to smile at them and make friends for the journey. She decided at once that she felt much too gloomy. Her thoughts turned to whether there was a bar on the train, and if there was, at what time it was likely to open.
Julia went back to work.
There was plenty of it, waiting for her in the Garlic & Sapphires office. She ploughed through the paperwork that followed her American buying trip, unpacked and inspected samples as they arrived, and drove round to the three other shops to inspire the managers and staff with enthusiasm for the new goods. Everything was the same as it always was, only duller. Business was slack, as it always was over the weeks of the summer holidays, and the autumnal surge of shoppers looking for something amusing to enliven their bedrooms or front rooms hadn’t begun yet.
Julia telephoned Felix at Tressider Designs.
‘Come to lunch.’
‘George is in hospital.’
‘I didn’t know. Is it bad?’
‘Not yet. But it isn’t getting any better. I don’t think it will, either.’
‘Felix, I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?’
‘Buy me some lunch. Cheer me up.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Julia promised, not very hopefully.
George Tressider wasn’t a good patient. He was being treated privately, in a private room, but he complained that it was the ugliest he had ever been in. The walls were painted a pale shade of shiny turquoise, and there were blue and magenta contemporary print curtains and screens.
‘Shall I bring in some Tressider chintz and rehang?’ Felix asked him, only half joking.
‘Perhaps just a blindfold would do,’ George responded, with a pale echo of his old wit.
Felix smiled at him. George was brave, for all his ill-temper.
The muscular disease had progressed to the stage when George could no longer walk without assistance. When he was out of bed he sat in a wheelchair, with a rug folded over his knees. He looked like an old man. Aware of it, he lifted his hands and held them out to Felix. Felix came, stooping down to his level, and held the knotted fingers. The rich colour of his own skin made George’s look even greyer.
‘I don’t like this,’ George said.
‘I know.’
Felix held his head, cradling it against his shoulder. He looked down at George’s grey hair, and saw the scalp showing beneath the thin strands.
It was after this visit that Felix and Julia met for lunch.
‘How is he?’ Julia asked.
‘They say they can let him come home, soon.’
‘Does that mean he’s better?’
Felix couldn’t answer the question. ‘I’d rather look after him at home. He hates the hospital so much.’
Julia looked at him gravely. She understood what was happening. She had never been fond of George Tressider, but the prospect of his death seemed monstrous, a terrible injustice. She tried to imagine what it would mean to Felix. Across the table, staring blankly at his menu, he was as handsome as he had ever been but there were lines of anxiety at the corners of his mouth, and the first signs of grey were showing in his black, springy hair.
‘May I go and visit him?’ Julia asked.
‘Of course.’ He gave her the details, and Julia wrote them down and put the piece of folded paper into her handbag. ‘It’s aged him,’ Felix said abruptly. He was warning her what to expect. ‘He’s only sixty-two. He looks ten years older than that.’
‘Poor George,’ Julia said, ashamed of the inadequacy of her sympathy.
‘We’ve been married for eleven years. That’s a long time.’
‘Has it been a happy marriage?’ Julia asked softly.
‘I haven’t been a faithful wife.’ He smiled at her, an acknowledgement that they understood each other. ‘But yes, we have been very happy. We are a good partnership.’
A partnership, Julia thought. Of course, that’s what pairing was. After so long, after the passion. She knew what it was to be without it, and the sadness for Felix washed through her.
‘Hey.’ Felix touched the back of her hand. ‘This is a cheerful lunch, remember?’ He discarded the menu in favour of the wine list. ‘Let’s order some wine,’ he said. ‘A lot of wine.’
‘You sound like Mattie.’
He looked sharply at her. ‘And are we going to talk about Mattie?’
‘You know about it?’
Felix remembered Alexander playing the piano, and Mattie dancing, with her dress swirling around her. ‘I guessed.’
He would have warned, Be careful, but he knew that it was too late for that.
‘No,’ Julia said briskly. ‘We aren’t going to talk about Mattie or Alexander. Not today.’ It seemed too small, for all the hurt of it, compared with what was happening to Felix and George.
So they talked about Tressider Designs instead, and about Garlic & Sapphires and the American art market and the latest decorators’ gossip. They drank two bottles of wi
ne and turned giggly, then serious again when it was time to leave. Julia insisted on paying the bill.
‘I’m an independent woman,’ she said, presenting her credit card with a flourish. ‘I’ve fought hard enough to be. Too hard, do you think, Felix?’
‘Only if you feel that it has cost you too much.’
She didn’t look at him now. She bent her head, folding her purse away. ‘Perhaps it has,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps after all I should have stayed at home and had babies and made jam for the WI.’
‘I don’t think it would have worked,’ Felix said, truthfully. ‘But you look tired, Julia. Why don’t you take a holiday?’
‘I’ve just had one. New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Colorado.’
‘I thought that was work.’
And so it mostly had been, except for seeing Josh. And if she did go on holiday, where should she go, and with whom? ‘It’s an idea,’ she said, dismissing it.
They parted on the pavement outside the restaurant. Felix kissed her, and she held on to him for a moment.
‘You’re a good friend, Felix.’
‘As good as you are.’
She watched him as he walked away. But I’m not good, or much of a friend, she was thinking. She looked at her watch. Half past three. She should have been back at work long ago. Over the next weeks, she thought two or three times about Felix’s suggestion.
Julia’s eye for a witty or original piece of merchandise had never deserted her, and over the years of running her shops she had developed into an efficient administrator as well. The Garlic & Sapphires operation ran smoothly, but for Julia most of the uncertainty and so most of the excitement had gone. She knew what pieces would sell, and she knew how to price them and how to display them. Sitting at her desk she remembered the anxiety, and the thrills, of the very early days, when she had done everything herself, and had snatched bites of sandwich for her lunch in the little cubicle behind the first shop.
She didn’t often, nowadays, experience the charge of excitement that she had felt in New York. It occurred to her that perhaps Felix was right, in a sense. Perhaps she needed not so much a holiday as a change of scene, and the different perspectives that a change would bring.
It was a long time, too, since she had been away for any reason not connected directly with the shops. Lily never wanted to go anywhere on holiday except to Ladyhill, and Julia had taken the opportunity provided by her absences to work harder, for longer hours.
For what? she thought now, with sudden bitterness.
She would go away, she decided. For a proper holiday, some time soon.
In the end, it was George Tressider who provided the final impetus.
Julia had been to see him in the hospital. She had taken him a huge bunch of extravagant, creamy lilies, and a big, plain white cylindrical vase from the shop to display them in. George was touchingly grateful for the offering. It was the vase, even more than the flowers, that pleased him. Julia arranged the lilies in it and set it on his bedside table.
He lay back, gazing at them. ‘You’ve no idea,’ he said. Even his voice sounded thinner, drained of all the fluting emphases. ‘People bring exquisite flowers, and the nurses take them and dump them in Woolworths’ green cut glass, or a bulbous purple pot. I would rather not have flowers at all, than see them made hideous. You have given me much pleasure, by bringing the right container. It is all a question of balance, and proportion, isn’t it? In the big things, as well as the small ones. It’s the search for the right balance that has made my work so pleasurable.’
The next time she saw him, he was much happier. Felix had taken him home, to the old flat in Eaton Square. It was a relief to see him once more ensconced amongst the Lalique bowls and the Regency furniture, the French marble mantels and the billowing Tressider chintzes. There were flowers everywhere, perfectly arranged, and bowls of pot pourri on the tables contributing to the scented atmosphere. George was sitting in an armchair. He was wearing one of his immaculate, waisted, lavender-grey suits, and a high-collared pale pink shirt, His hair had been cut and brushed back, and he looked almost himself again. Almost well, Julia thought, until his hand held hers. His flesh felt dry and papery, as if it would flake off the bones.
‘My dear. Here we are again,’ George said. ‘Restored to grace.’
They had tea together, the three of them. Felix brought in a tray, laid with the full works. Georgian silver teapot, sugar bowl and cream jug, although they all took their tea with lemon. Silver tongs, and a little spirit lamp to keep the water hot. Meissen china, white and gold, practically transparent in its thinness, and lawn and lace fragments too delicate to be called napkins.
‘Pretty,’ Julia murmured, accepting a tiny triangle of cucumber sandwich.
George and Felix treated each other with a kind of watchful tenderness. Julia was moved, but she felt like an intruder. She stared at the tiny plate on her lap, while her eyes burned.
George drank his tea, but he ate nothing.
Afterwards Julia helped Felix to carry the precious paraphernalia back into the kitchen. ‘He likes beautiful things,’ Felix said. ‘He has collected all these, over the years. It would be a pity not to use them, now, wouldn’t it?’
‘Of course,’ Julia reassured him.
George wanted to talk. She listened, while he described the early days of Tressider Designs, after the War, when there had been no money and even fewer materials. ‘Make do and mend. The best training of all, having to make something from nothing.’ He looked round his glowing room with clear satisfaction. ‘That, and never missing an opportunity. The only trouble with getting old, you know, is that you regret the opportunities that you did miss.’
He didn’t talk about being ill, only about getting old. Julia didn’t know if he understood that he wouldn’t live very much longer. His eyes settled on Felix. ‘I didn’t miss all that many,’ he said. Felix smiled at him, Julia saw that they were happy, and understood that it wasn’t the amount of time left that was important, only the quality of it. And she saw clearly that the quality of her own time, however much of it remained, was about as precious as the green glass hospital vases. At the same time the opportunities, unrecognised and unreached-for, were slipping past her.
‘I thought I’d take the chance to go away,’ she said suddenly. ‘Now that the business is ticking over. For a long, open-ended holiday.’
‘You lucky girl,’ George said immediately. ‘You must go to Rome, of course. The most fascinating, the most erotic city in the world.’
And so Julia made her plans.
She consulted Lily first. ‘I think you should go, why not?’ Lily said, surprising her. ‘You never have a holiday. Marilyn and I will be okay.’
She told the shop managers, and her assistant. They echoed Lily’s words. Julia’s conviction of her own indispensability began to weaken. It was unnerving, but she also felt her spirits lifting. It was an opportunity, and she would take it. She took a precise, grown-up pleasure in planning the holiday to suit herself alone. She booked a flight, and a room in an elegant, expensive hotel recommended by George. She spent half an afternoon in a bookshop choosing maps and guides, and another day buying clothes that she didn’t need. She enjoyed the tidy, finicky preparations without, she realised afterwards, ever quite believing that she was really going.
Then, one afternoon in the middle of October, she found herself airborne in an Alitalia jet. London and England dropped away behind her. Lily and Marilyn had waved her off; she had told her staff that she wasn’t sure when she would be back, only that it would be well before the Christmas rush started.
Julia unfastened her seatbelt and looked down at the indeterminate meal placed in front of her. Staring at the individual plastic portions she felt an upsurge of loneliness so powerful that she was afraid that it would choke her.
She had no idea where she was going and no idea what she would do when she reached her destination. She didn’t even have any fixed return date to look forward to. It
was one of the bleakest, most bewildering moments she had ever known.
In Rome airport, she took control of herself. She told herself that she was a traveller, after all. She was independent and potent and free, just as Josh had seemed to be. She summoned a taxi and rode to her luxurious hotel, unpacked her new clothes and hung them carefully in the empty cupboards. She took a bath in her big, marble-lined bathroom and ate a deliberate dinner in the hotel dining room. The food was good, and the maître d’hôtel and the waiters were attentive. Afterwards she went back up to her room and looked at the guidebooks. Tomorrow, she would see the miraculous sights. She undressed calmly and lay down in the big, wide bed.
She slept badly, in fitful snatches shot through with vivid, uncomfortable dreams.
Julia did her best to be a conscientious tourist.
She visited the Capitol, the Forum and the Palatine Hill. She toured the Colosseum and St Peter’s and the Vatican museums. In between she ate meals and drank cups of cappuccino that she didn’t want. She could see that Rome was fascinating, but she didn’t feel herself drawn into it. It was a duty that she fulfilled mechanically, ticking off the objectives in her books. She recognised that it was erotic, too. Men looked at her, in the streets and restaurants, but she brushed off the glances and the lingering stares like darts that threatened to pierce the slow, thick cloak of her isolation.
After four days, she realised that she couldn’t bear it any longer.
In the street one morning she saw a long-distance bus crowded with Italian families. The destination board at the front announced NAPOLI. At once she thought of the days she had spent there with Josh. The teeming, pungent streets had fascinated her. The memory of them now offered a welcome contrast with the cosmopolitan elegance of Rome.
I’ll go to Naples, Julia thought. Why not?
She went back to her hotel, packed her belongings, and checked out.
In Naples the summer’s heat still hung in the air and radiated from the crumbling walls, but the sky was veiled with a thin layer of cloud. From her visit with Josh, Julia remembered the watery brilliance of spring sunshine, and this humid greyness depressed her spirits that had risen as she left Rome.