He had died on his verandah, on a warm evening, with his ritual pink gin in his hand and his gramophone playing in the room behind him. He was very fond of his gramophone. He never owned a television, but he had a great love of music. Night of love, O lovely night, O, Night that’s all divine. The Barcarolle. He had been playing “The Barcarolle” when he died, because they had found it still on the gramophone, the finished disc still spinning, the needle grinding in the final groove.
He had an old upright piano, too, which he played with gusto but not a great deal of finesse. When Laurie was small he taught her songs and they had sung them together, with Grandfa providing the accompaniment. Mostly sturdy sea shanties with no-nonsense tunes. “Whisky Johnny” and “Rio Grande” and “Shenandoah.” But his favourite was “Spanish Ladies”:
Goodbye and farewell to you, fair Spanish ladies,
Goodbye and farewell to you, ladies of Spain,
For we have received orders for to sail for old England …
He would play it in slow march time, with great crashing chords, and Laurie would have to hold the long notes and she frequently ran out of breath.
“Wonderful slow march,” Grandfa would say, remembering Colours at Whale Island, with the Royal Marine band playing “Spanish Ladies” while the Captain inspected the Guard, and the White Ensign fluttered high in the morning sky.
His stories were legion, of Hong Kong and Simonstown and Malta. He had fought the war in the Mediterranean and then moved to the Far East and Ceylon. He had survived bombings and sinkings and shattered ships, only to bob up again, joking, indestructible, surviving to become one of the best loved flag officers in the Service.
Indestructible. But he wasn’t indestructible. No person was indestructible. At the end of it all he had keeled over in his chair, listening to “The Barcarolle,” and the glass of pink gin had fallen to the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces. There was no saying how long he might have sat there, with nobody knowing that he had gone, but one of the local fishermen, working on his boat, had looked up and seen him and realised something was wrong, and had walked up to the house, his cap in his hand, to break the news.
Goodbye and farewell to you, fair Spanish ladies …
At the funeral service they had sung “Holy, Holy, Holy!” and then “Eternal Father Strong to Save.” And Laurie had looked at the simple coffin draped in the White Ensign, and had broken into noisy, unstoppable tears and had to be discreetly ushered out of some side door by her mother. She had not been back into the church since the funeral; had made a lot of excuses for missing the wedding rehearsal yesterday. “I’m the only bridesmaid, and I know what I have to do. There’s no point in my coming, and there’s so much to do here. I’ll help move furniture, and vacuum the drawing-room carpet.”
But today—today was the wedding and there could be no excuse.
And no excuse to stay in bed. Laurie got up, dressed, and brushed her hair, then went along to see Jane. Jane had been given breakfast in bed which, being lazy, she loved. Laurie hated breakfast in bed because she always ended up sitting on crumbs.
She said, “Good morning, how are you feeling?” and went to give Jane a kiss, and Jane said, “I don’t know. How should I be feeling?”
“Nervous?”
“Not nervous at all. Just cosy and comfortable and cossetted.”
“It’s a super day,” said Laurie, and pulled Teddy out from under the pillow. “Hi, Teddy,” she said to him. “Your days are numbered.”
“Not at all,” said Jane, snatching him back. “There’s life in him yet. He’s got to survive to be mauled by all our children. Have a bit of toast.”
“No, you eat it. You’ve got to keep your strength up.”
“You’ve got to keep your strength up, too. You’ve got to do all the right things, like catching the bouquet when I hurl it in your direction, and being charming to the best man.”
“Oh, Jane.”
“Well, come on, it’s William Boscawan. Surely it isn’t impossible to be charming to William? I know you usually snarl like a wounded animal if he so much as walks into the room, but that’s your fault. He’s never been anything but civil to you.”
“He’s always treated me like a ten-year-old.”
William Boscawan was an old bone of contention. His father was the family lawyer and William had joined the firm some five years ago, and so had returned to live and work in the neighbourhood. And not only to live and work, but also to break the heart of every girl in the county. He had even had a small fling with Jane until he had lost her affections, permanently, to Andrew Latham, but this had made no difference to his friendship with Andrew, and when the wedding arrangements were made, nobody was surprised when Andrew announced that William was to be his best man.
“I can’t think why you don’t like him.”
“I like him all right. There’s nothing wrong with him. It’s just that he’s so smooth.”
“He’s not a bit smooth. He’s sweet.”
“I mean … oh, you know what I mean. That car, and that boat, and all those girls batting their eyelashes every time his glance swivels their way.”
“You’re being very mean. He can’t help it if girls fall in love with him.”
“I’d like him better if he wasn’t quite so successful.”
“That’s just a sort of inverted sour-grapery. Just because other people like him, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t like him too.”
“I’ve told you, I don’t dislike him. I mean, there’s nothing about him to dislike. I just wish sometimes he’d get spots on his face, or have a blow-out in that fast car of his, or fall in the water when he’s sailing.”
“You’re impossible. You’ll end up with some old academic bore with glasses like the bottoms of bottles.”
“Yes, those are the sort of men I go round with all the time.”
They glared at each other, and then started to laugh. Jane said, “I give up. Your aggressions have defeated me.”
“Just as well,” said Laurie. “Now, I’m going down to have some breakfast.” She made for the door, but as she opened it, Jane said “Laurie” in quite a different tone of voice, and Laurie turned with her hand on the knob.
“Laurie … you’re going to be all right?”
Laurie stared at her. They had never been very close, had never exchanged confidences or shared secrets, and Laurie knew that for this reason, it had taken some effort for Jane to say that. She knew that, in return, she should let down her own barrier of reserve, but it was her only protection against the emptiness, the sense of aching loss. Without it, she would be lost, would probably burst into tears and be unable to stop crying for the rest of the day.
She could feel every nerve in her body drawing in on itself, like a sea anemone suddenly touched. She said, “What do you mean?” and even to herself she sounded cold.
“You know what I mean.” Poor Jane looked agonised. “Grandfa…” Laurie said nothing. “We … we all know it’s worse for you than for any of us,” Jane floundered on. “You were always his special person. And now, today … I wouldn’t have minded the wedding being put off. I wouldn’t have minded being married in a registry office. Andrew feels the same way as I do. But Mother and Father … well, it simply wouldn’t have been fair to them…”
“It’s not your fault,” said Laurie.
“I don’t want you to be unhappy. I don’t want to feel we’re making you more unhappy than you are.”
She said again, “It’s not your fault.” And after that there didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so she went out of the room and closed the door behind her.
The morning progressed. The house, unfamiliar and stripped of furniture, was slowly taken over by strangers. The caterers arrived, vans appeared at the door, tables were erected, glasses set out, looking as the sun struck them like hundreds of soap bubbles. The florist’s lady turned up in a little truck to put the finishing touches to the arrangements that she had spent most o
f yesterday concocting. Robert drove to the station to fetch Aunt Blanche. One of the children was sick. Laurie’s father couldn’t find his braces, and her mother all at once threw a fit of temperament and announced that she couldn’t possibly wear the hat which had been made to go with her bride’s mother’s outfit. She came downstairs wearing it, to prove her point. It was a sort of baker’s boy beret made of azalea pink silk. “I look like nothing on earth in it,” she wailed, and Laurie knew that she was near to tears, but they all told her she looked smashing, and once she’d had her hair done and was wearing the bride’s mother’s outfit, she’d knock the rest of them into a cocked hat. She was still unpersuaded when the hairdresser arrived, but this new turn of events mercifully diverted her, and she allowed herself to be led upstairs.
“Good,” said Laurie’s father. “Nothing like a new hairdo for calming down the nerves. She’ll be all right now.” He looked at Laurie as he ran a hand over his thinning hair. “You all right?” he asked her. His voice was casual, but she knew that he was thinking about Grandfa, and she couldn’t bear it. She said, deliberately misunderstanding, “I haven’t got a hat, I’ve only got a flower.” She saw her father’s expression and hated herself, but before she could say anything more, he had made some excuse and taken himself off, and then it was too late.
* * *
The caterers provided a lunch for them all in the kitchen, and the entire family sat around the familiar table and ate unfamiliar food, like chicken in aspic and potato salad and trifle, when they usually had soup and bread and cheese. After lunch, they all went up to change, and Laurie brushed her silken hair, wound it up into a coronet on the top of her head, and fixed the single camellia into the coils. Then she dressed herself, finally slipping the long, pale dress over her petticoat and doing up the row of tiny buttons on the front. She fastened a rope of pearls around her neck, picked up her bridesmaid’s posy, and went to stand in front of the long mirror that hung on the back of the door. She saw a girl, pale and unfamiliar, her neck exposed by the upswept hair, dark eyes shadowed, face empty of expression. She thought, This is how I have looked ever since Grandfa died. Untouchable, unreachable. I want to talk about him, but I can’t. Not yet. Once I get through today and it’s all over, perhaps then I shall be able to talk. But not yet.
She opened the door, went down the steep stairs, and knocked at the door of her mother’s bedroom. She went in and her mother was sitting at the dressing table, putting on her mascara before finally dealing with the dreaded hat. Her hair, fresh from the stylist’s hands, curled and fronded about her neck. She looked immensely pretty. Her eyes met Laurie’s in the mirror. After a little, she turned on the stool to take a long look at her younger daughter. She said, with a small shake in her voice, “Oh, my darling, you look quite lovely.”
Laurie smiled. “Didn’t you think I would?”
“Yes, of course. It’s just that suddenly I feel all maternal and proud.”
Laurie went to kiss her. “I’m early,” she said. She added, “You look lovely too. And the hat’s really pretty.”
Her mother caught her hand. “Laurie…”
Laurie pulled her hand free. “Don’t ask me if I’m all right. Don’t talk about Grandfa.”
“Darling, I understand. We all miss him. We all have a great empty hole in our hearts. He should be here today and he isn’t. But for Jane’s sake, for Andrew’s sake, for Grandfa’s sake, we mustn’t be sad. Life must go on, and he wouldn’t have wanted anything to spoil this day.”
Laurie said, “I won’t spoil it.”
“It’s worst for you. We all know that.”
She said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
* * *
She went downstairs. Everything was ready for the wedding reception. Everything was unfamiliar, everything was strange. It wasn’t just the house, the unrecognisable drawing room, the massive flowers and the caterer’s tables. It was herself. The thin, light feeling of the dress, the delicate shoes, the chill around her neck without the usual heavy fall of hair over her shoulders. Nothing was the same. Perhaps this was the beginning of growing old. Perhaps when she was really old, she would look back and think, That was the beginning. That was the day when I stopped being a child, when I knew that good things couldn’t go on forever.
Still holding her posy, she went through the open French windows and sat on a chair on the terrace, looking out at the garden. Small tables and chairs had been set out on the lawn, sun umbrellas flowered, casting dark round shadows on the grass. Beyond, the garden sloped to the blue waters of the estuary. The masts of the fishing boats showed beyond the fuchsia hedge, and the high-pitched roof of Grandfa’s house. She thought of magic and the vagaries of time; of being able to put back the clock. To be twelve years old again, in shorts and sneakers, running down the lawn with her swimming towel under her arm, to collect Grandfa and take him on their daily expedition to the beach. Or to catch the little train into the local town, where he would stock up on tobacco and razor blades and buy Laurie an ice cream cornet, and they would sit on the harbour wall in the sunshine and watch the men working on their boats.
* * *
A car drove up to the house from the road. Laurie heard the scrunch of gravel, a door slam, but took no notice, imagining it was something to do with the wedding—a barman, recruited at the last moment, or the postman with greetings telegrams for the happy couple. But then the front door opened, and a man’s voice called out, “Anybody around?” and it was, unmistakably, the best man, William Boscawan.
He was the last person she wanted to see. Laurie froze, silent and still as a shadow. She heard him cross the hall and open the kitchen door. “Anybody there?”
Still soundless, she walked down into the heat of the garden and crossed the sloping lawn. The breeze caught her long, fragile skirts and blew the airy fabric against her legs, and the soles of the new sandals slipped a little on the dry grass. She reached the gate in the fuchsia hedge and nobody had called her back. She closed the gate and went on down the path to the cedar house.
The door was unlocked. It had never been locked. She went in and smelt the fragrance of the cedar panelling, and tobacco smoke, and a whiff of the bay rum that the old man had always used on his hair. The narrow hallway was hung with photographs of the ships he had commanded. She saw his huge Burmese temple gong, and the antlers of the wildebeeste he had once shot in South Africa. She opened the door of his living room and went in, and there were the worn Persian rugs, the sagging leather chairs. It was very warm; a bluebottle buzzed against the closed windows on the opposite side of the room. She went across and undid the latch of the window and it slid aside. The stuffy abandoned room was filled with a great gust of air. Laurie stepped out onto the verandah, and the flood tide lapped at the sea wall below her feet, and the estuary was blue as the sky and dappled with sun pennies.
* * *
Laurie felt suddenly exhausted, as though, in order to get here, she had walked for miles. Grandfa’s chair stood by the telescope. She sat in it, cautiously spreading the skirts of her dress so that they should not crush. She leaned back her head and closed her eyes.
Small sounds began impinging on her consciousness. Traffic sounds from the distant causeway, the slapping waters of the high tide, the scream of a solitary gull. She thought that if she could just sit here, alone, undisturbed, for the rest of the day … not go to the wedding, not talk to anybody …
Somewhere a door opened. The draught this caused through the house stirred Grandfa’s heavy curtains. Laurie opened her eyes but did not move.
The door shut again, and then footsteps came through the house. The next moment William appeared at the open window. He stepped over the sill and stood looking down at Laurie. Even in that moment of dismay, she had time to admit to herself that in his morning suit with the best man’s white carnation, he looked sensational. The stiff white collar accentuated his tan, his black hair matched the sombre coat, his shoes were gleaming. He wasn’t good-looki
ng. He wasn’t even handsome, but his sheer masculinity, his smile, his blue and sparkling eyes added up to an attraction that was impossible to ignore.
He said, “Hello, Laurie.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked him. “Aren’t you meant to be supporting Andrew and getting him to the church on time?”
William grinned. “Andrew’s as cool as a cucumber,” he told her. He went back indoors and returned with a chair which he set down and then sat in, facing Laurie, with his long legs stretched out in front of him and his hands in his trouser pockets. “But a little anxious about confetti in the suitcases. So I came over to fetch Jane’s luggage, and we’re going to hide it in some unsuspected car. He says he doesn’t mind about tin cans tied to the bumper, or even kippers hidden in the engine, but he does object to confetti being spread all over the hotel bedroom floor.”
“Did you see Jane?”
“No, but your father fetched her stuff down. It was then that he realised you were nowhere around, but one of the caterer’s ladies had seen you come down the garden, so I came too. Just to make sure that everything was all right.”
Laurie said, “I’m fine.”
“You’re not ratting on the wedding?”
“Of course not,” she told him coolly. “And hadn’t you better go back to Andrew before panic sets in?”
The Blue Bedroom: & Other Stories Page 5