‘Like the other one?’ Daniel asked.
‘I don’t know. Elizabeth Jennings poems, maybe. I haven’t read many, though.’
‘I can be your great interpreter,’ Daniel said. ‘We can be like Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears.’
Kitty’s heart jolted. She heard Daniel’s voice in her head again: So then marry me. This wasn’t quite the same statement, but . . . Didn’t she want him to play her music, to share it with her?
‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘that I need – space for my music.’
‘Of course.’ He looked bewildered. ‘Of course you do.’
She wanted to say, I can’t write when you’re around, but she knew he’d have an answer for that too, or at least . . . Oh, she needed to be careful. Not only because of what they’d just come through, the effortful untangling of connections and assumptions and where it left them, but also because her music, and her belief in it, wasn’t an easy topic after all. It was just taking shape inside her as a thing that could occupy her life; that she could devote herself to, and that might make sense of her. It felt like a tiny baby – tender, flawless, fragile – and she felt, suddenly, like a tigress who might do irrevocable damage defending it.
Perhaps Daniel understood some of that, because he didn’t say any more about music. Instead, when he spoke again it was to say, ‘I don’t have a family, Kitty, so I –’
‘So you want to be part of mine.’ And that was another thing that shouldn’t have been said; that she should have guarded against.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No. It’s just you I want. I like your mother and your sister, but that’s not what I want from you. I’m glad the – secret is out of the way now, but only because . . .’
He stopped, looking at her with a sort of desperation she hadn’t seen in his face before. They had reached the church now: beside them, a flight of white steps led up to the heavy door. If they could just get up them, Kitty thought, they could be absorbed by the blessed coolness, the blessed darkness of the interior. They could look at the painting that had been there for centuries, and breathe in the safe, sequestered air.
‘It’s no good, is it?’ Daniel said. ‘There’s just too much stacked against us. We’ll never be like other people.’
Kitty stared at him. She ought to feel something now, relief or sorrow – she ought to know which side her feelings fell, at least – but there was nothing. Just the whiteness of the sky all around her, the echoing silence in her head.
‘Perhaps we won’t,’ she said. It seemed a little thing to say, but she knew it wasn’t: that she was allowing that great ballast of certainty inside Daniel to be vaporised. It was a shame, when it had survived so much, when she could see now that it was heartfelt, but she couldn’t stop it. He was right, she thought. How could they ever be like other people? How could she?
‘I’m sorry,’ said Daniel. ‘I feel I’ve been a fool, but I haven’t meant to be. I haven’t meant anything except . . . It’s just bad luck, isn’t it? That we . . .’ He tried to smile. ‘Listen, Kitty, I don’t want to be in the way. I think it would be better . . . I’ll get a bus, or something. A train.’
‘I can drive you,’ Kitty said. ‘I can take you to the station.’ She meant to be kind, helpful, but she could see from his face that he saw it only as eagerness to be rid of him. For a terrible moment she thought he might be going to cry. ‘Or else you could . . .’ she began. ‘There’s no rush. You can stay.’
‘No.’ He looked almost angry now. He didn’t have much money, Kitty thought; she wondered if he’d have to buy another ticket. Into the cavern inside her guilt and pity were begin to seep, like rainwater filtered down through layers and layers of rock. ‘No, I’ll go. There’s a – I might catch the last Eurostar tonight.’
60
The afternoon was just beginning to slide towards evening, the light modulating from silver to gold. Flora and Martin turned right out of the front door, away from the village, and he led her down the road and through a gate with two rough stripes, red and white, painted on the post.
‘Have you identified the randonnée signs?’ he asked. ‘I should have explained them to you. There are lots of paths around here.’
‘Yes,’ said Flora. ‘I’ve found plenty of places to walk.’
‘This is part of a much longer trail,’ Martin said. He glanced at her, a look shot through with concern, inexpertly veiled. ‘People are fanatical about keeping up these routes.’
Flora nodded, glad that the footpath obliged them, at this point, to fall into single file. It ran along the edge of a wood, with a field of maize tall and bright on the other side. The air smelled slightly sweet and slightly woody, and in the narrow space between vegetation and vegetation everything was close and still.
This had been a generous suggestion of Martin’s, Flora thought. It was clear that he felt responsible, in some way, for the shock she’d had, and was eager to make amends – and it was true that after that extraordinary scene in the hall at Les Violettes, after the cup of tea Martin had insisted on making and no one had wanted to drink, her daughters had both melted away: Lou to lie down, and Kitty out, somewhere, with Daniel. Neither of them could be blamed for disappearing, any more than they could be blamed for the news, or the manner of its breaking, but Flora was grateful that Martin hadn’t fled immediately back to Francine.
‘How’s Claude?’ she asked.
‘Better,’ said Martin. ‘Much better. Out of the woods, they think.’
‘I’m glad.’ Although, Flora thought, if she felt anything about Claude Abelard’s survival it was a fleeting sense of pity for Martin and Francine, denied their happy ending.
‘Flora,’ Martin said, ‘I feel I’ve got off on the wrong foot with you. I feel . . .’
‘Please don’t worry,’ she said. ‘You’re not to blame. If there’s been any misunderstanding, it’s not your fault.’
It would be wrong to say that she’d taken the news in her stride; no one with any feeling could have managed that. But her self-reliance, her splendid rationality: this was the moment for their grand entrance, Flora thought. It hadn’t taken long to weigh up the hiding of Daniel’s existence from her against the hiding of Kitty’s paternity from Henry – nor, indeed, to acknowledge that Daniel was merely living proof of an attachment she had understood all too well, years and years ago. And there was something singularly apt about the way the circle had been closed: Henry’s infidelity had produced Daniel, and Flora’s had removed the barrier to his liaison with Kitty. It was, after all, the last act of a comedy, she thought, the final episode in this bizarre saga of coincidence and misapprehension, with everything falling at last into its rightful place.
What troubled her most was the fear of history repeating itself: of Kitty, precious Kitty, involving herself with Henry’s son; risking the same trail of reversals and betrayals as her mother. But if she couldn’t bear that prospect for Kitty, she could hardly deny that she rued her own choice. Was that, then, where it ended, this tit for tat of revelations? Did it lead her inevitably to regret, after all?
It was odd: these big questions felt somehow less overwhelming than they should. Flora had often observed, among her patients and their relatives, the human brain’s merciful ability to scale down profound emotions at moments of crisis. Was that what was happening to her, she wondered, or had her rage and grief for Henry, for everything connected to Henry, simply burned itself out?
Looking up and seeing Martin ahead of her as they rounded a corner, it struck her, with a glimmer of amusement, that being alone with him aroused more pressing feelings just now than the great upheavals that had racked her family. She dreaded any attempt on Martin’s part to explain himself – which she rather feared might be the purpose of this outing. Dreaded it not because their encounter earlier in the summer didn’t merit re-examination: her feelings for him had been real enough, she admitted, but she didn’t much care, after the rigours of the last few days, to have them res
urrected now in the name of absolution and remission for Martin.
But as the minutes passed and Martin said nothing more, Flora began to relax. Perhaps after all this was just a walk: Martin’s idea of a civilised resolution, without the wearying business of explaining themselves to each other. She watched his back retreating in front of her, taller than Henry and more solid than Landon, his summer jacket creased and casually worn. She hardly knew him, she thought. It was a mistake to imagine that that back was familiar, or that it might elicit any authentic response in her. It was all shadows and fancy. The summer would pass and all these memories would be bound up as a curiosity, the narrative of a trip she would never take again. She felt her perspective take wing and soar up into the sky so that she could look down on the pair of them, climbing slowly up the hill, with the clear sight of a hawk.
When the path widened and Martin fell back to walk next to her, she accepted his presence at her side without a flicker.
‘This part is rather dull,’ he said. ‘In a moment it opens up. There’s a bit of a climb and then a lovely view before the drop down to the mill.’
‘Very good,’ said Flora. She meant only to sound composed, but she heard an echo of Jean’s sharpness in her voice and was sorry for it. ‘Look at the flowers,’ she said. ‘So pretty, growing along the edge of the corn.’ She’d noticed them elsewhere, these strips of colour fringing fields and roads: poppies and cornflowers and several others she couldn’t name, in rainbow shades of red and blue and startling yellow.
‘They keep down the pests,’ Martin said, ‘or so my mother always said. Like roses in the vineyard.’
‘Not just for the benefit of walkers, then,’ said Flora.
‘No.’
The path turned quite steeply uphill then, the maize rising ahead of them in a sweep of gold. It was rather hot for exertion, Flora thought, even though the afternoon was nearly over. For a while they climbed in silence.
And then, abruptly, Martin spoke again. ‘You talked about misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘I’m a simpler soul than you, I’m afraid, so if there’s any misunderstanding I suspect . . .’ He broke off for a moment, breathless either from the gradient or from the rush of words. Flora felt her heart drop – and then leap in wonder.
‘Oh!’ she said. The top of the hill was suddenly upon them, and in the evening light the valley flared with colour. A mythic landscape, she thought. Surely this was the point of the excursion, and of the evening – a fitting conclusion to their little tale?
Martin stood beside her, but Flora could sense that his mind was on what he’d been saying, not on the marvels laid out below, and after a while she realised he was speaking again. His words flitted around her head like birds that wouldn’t settle for long enough to be identified; she wanted to flap them away.
‘I realise I’ve made a mess of things,’ he said. ‘I thought . . .’ Oh, there’s Champigny, Flora thought, and the lake . . . ‘I was concerned for you,’ Martin went on, ‘and I wanted very much to . . .’ And is that Montallon, on the horizon? There are so many châteaux, of course . . .
‘Flora.’ Martin’s voice was suddenly insistent. ‘Please let me explain. I’d heard from Francine that you had your daughters staying, and – well, I assumed – your . . .’
‘My what?’ said Flora, turning to him at last.
‘Your lover, I imagined.’
Flora stared at him, and Martin lifted a hand to his forehead in a gesture of self-derision.
‘How I could have thought that of you, I really . . .’
Flora was bewildered. He was mortified to have impugned her honour – was that it? To have suspected her of something that was in fact perfectly true, although perhaps it wouldn’t be necessary to admit to that, or to explain the complications and limitations of her relationship with Landon. There was enough burlesque in the situation already.
‘Please don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Not on my behalf. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Don’t say that.’ Martin looked miserably at the ground now. ‘I’m no good at making myself understood, that’s the trouble. No good at understanding people, either, although I thought . . .’
‘What?’ asked Flora. Stranger and stranger, she thought. She felt like sitting him down in a consulting room and taking him through his story step by step. When did you first notice the pain? Is it there all the time?
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ he said. ‘I should never have gone back to England, but I was too much of a fool to think about changing my plans. It all happened so quickly, and I thought a bit of time, a bit of space – and at least I knew where you were; I knew you were at Les Violettes.’
‘What?’ said Flora again – or something like that. She hardly knew whether she’d said anything at all.
‘It was all a bit much for me, to be honest. Behaved like a bloody teenager. But I thought you’d got the gist, before I left. I thought my emails – then finding out that I knew something so terrible about your family . . . When there was an excuse to come back, I just leapt in the car and came.’
‘But what about Francine?’ Flora said, before she could stop herself. ‘Surely you came back for Francine?’
‘Yes, of course; of course.’ He looked troubled again, but there was a spark of hope in his eyes now; a glimmer of possibility. ‘But not . . . After a fashion, yes, but as a friend, not . . .’
‘That was my misunderstanding,’ said Flora.
Another sentence she couldn’t help speaking: her mind at work again, unravelling the confusion, laying the bones of the story straight. But then suddenly there it was, set out between them, and Flora felt a horrible chill, as though solving the puzzle had unleashed a genie whose presence was the last thing she needed. Martin had thought she’d moved her lover into Les Violettes, and she had thought he’d come home to claim his, and both of them had been miserable. Which meant . . .
She couldn’t move, couldn’t look away, but she could feel the blood racing through her head in protest. Whatever it was, the story of this summer, whatever it might turn out to be, it wasn’t a love story. If it had been, it would have had a different ending: the ending that had ducked away from her the morning after the storm, and which she felt suddenly, perversely, glad to have escaped. It certainly wouldn’t have brought her here, her and Martin, to the top of this hill, with the setting sun and the breathtaking beauty of the valley below – no, dammit, this was pure hyperbole, pure parody, an example of hideously poor taste on the part of whatever deity they might look to for deliverance.
‘Martin,’ she said. Oh God; she could see now that he wanted to kiss her, that he thought that was what was going to happen next. ‘Listen, Martin, I can’t . . .’
The hand that had strayed towards her flew away now, lifting itself in a gesture of apology and self-restraint.
‘I do want you to understand,’ he said. ‘I want you to know what my feelings are; that they are – can one still say honourable?’
Honourable. Henry, surely, had used that word. Or had he? Henry seemed suddenly hazy, along with everything else. And what did one say, Flora wondered, what did one do, faced with a declaration one didn’t want: with a diagnosis one wasn’t equipped to manage?
‘I won’t press you,’ Martin said now. ‘I haven’t forgotten – it’s only a few months, I know, since – but if you could – when you’re ready – perhaps we could be here together for a while, and see – or at Orchards, even, if you . . .’
‘Martin,’ she said again, ‘I can’t – it wouldn’t be fair. It’s better for me just to say no.’
‘Really?’ The look on his face was piteous.
‘Really,’ she said. At least she had some courage left. ‘I’m sorry. But it’s better to be honest, don’t you think?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course. You really are – you’re a marvellous person, Flora. Of course I can quite see that I – but I’m very glad to have met you. I hope perhaps sometime we mi
ght see each other . . .’
‘Perhaps,’ agreed Flora. Thank God, at least, for the Englishman’s restraint. She smiled at him now. ‘I’m glad to have met you too,’ she said.
61
The walk home passed in a burble of purposeless conversation, as though neither of them dared to allow silence to settle for more than a second or two. To Flora’s immense relief, Martin drew his keys out of his pocket as they approached the front gate and climbed into his car without even coming into the house, muttering something about the hospital, friends to visit, apologies to the rest of the party, before driving off with an uncharacteristic squeal of tyres – which was, thought Flora, the most honest expression of his feelings since they had turned for home at the top of the hill.
Flora passed through the house with the odd sense that she had returned to being a visitor at Les Violettes. The engravings on the walls, the hall chest, the familiar tableaux glimpsed through doorways and windows all seemed to hang back from her, to retreat towards the shadowy domain of memory; sighs and whispers in the waxed air seemed to debate her right to be here. She had no idea, now, how much longer she would stay. She dreaded the thought of discussing with Martin whether he wished to go back to Orchards or to stay here; she dreaded his hopeful face suggesting that there was no reason they couldn’t share the house, even if . . . She had never been in the position of splitting possessions, negotiating over access, and it felt ignominious to enter that territory now, on such a slight justification.
Out in the garden she was surprised to see Kitty bending over a flowerbed. She was still wearing the white sleeveless dress she’d had on earlier, and it was clear from its appearance that she’d been labouring for some time. Flora stood for a moment in the doorway, watching her pulling viciously at the weeds that had taken hold in the last week or two, then breaking off to empty a can of water over the parched earth. She recognised the satisfaction of the physical labour, but the gusto with which Kitty was applying herself to the task raised a warning too.
The Things You Do for Love Page 37