The Golden Cup

by Marcia Willett

  Afterwards, when both were wives

  With children of their own;

  Their mother-hearts beset with fears,

  Their lives bound up in tender lives;

  Laura would call the little ones

  And tell them of her early prime,

  Those pleasant days long gone

  Of not-returning time:

  Except that I can’t talk to anyone but you of those pleasant days long gone.

  ‘Of course I shall be there,’ I answer Bruno. ‘I promise.’

  Emma who, with the aid of a chair, has managed to climb up onto the table, somehow tumbles off and sets up a great wailing. We both rush to rescue her and the moment passes in a necessity to get out the picnic in order to distract her. The sight of the tiny sandwiches filled with grated chocolate – it helps to spin out the ration – dries her tears at once; she sits on the table, her fat legs swinging, eating with great appreciation. The amazing blue-green light from the sea and sky reflects in her wide eyes and, watching her, I am seized with the familiar terror that every mother knows.

  How would it work for Emma if I were to marry Simon and have other children? Would he love her as if she were his own? I try to imagine him living with us at Paradise and somehow I can’t: he won’t fit into the picture. He is passionate about certain areas of research, has already talked about working abroad, and I try to imagine explaining all this to Bruno: why I am marrying Simon and why we are moving on again instead of staying at Paradise. Would Bruno understand? Would he think I was cheating? Have I the right to take him from his home and how could I leave him but take Emma without everything being told? How could I leave him, anyway? I love him. He has returned to the window with his sandwich and is staring out with delight: his small, immobile figure seems to be part of the scene. He belongs here, Vivi, and I have promised him …

  I wonder if you have children too. I’m sure you have: perhaps a son who is a small edition of your husband, Don, or a little girl who looks like you used to once. Everything changes once you have a child.

  Apart from all that, Vivi, how could I risk marrying Simon? Imagine how easy it would be to make a mistake once the barriers were down and my guard relaxed. How natural to say something like, ‘Oh, I remember how Honor and Hubert used to …’ And think of the more personal questions Simon might ask once we were married. Of course, in one way it would solve the dilemma of who I am, wouldn’t it? I’d simply become Mrs Simon Dalloway. No more questions asked once those awful formalities – marriage certificates, death certificates, etc. – were out of the way, but the risks are simply too great. If I can’t trust his love enough to tell him the truth now, then I certainly daren’t take the chance of him discovering it later when there would be even more complications.

  I hope he’ll believe me when I tell him that I don’t love him.

  This time Joss was not quite able to hold back her tears. Some level of her consciousness continued to assess with dismay the threat these letters posed to her own security yet she still held the true realization at bay, enthralled by the predicament of her grandmother’s journey. Joss was impressed at the development of Mutt’s self-knowledge, her brave – if utterly human – way of dealing with her hopes and fears, and her unshakeable faith.

  She didn’t need to read any further to know that Mutt’s and Simon’s love had had no future: Mutt had made her bed and must lie in it alone. With the true compassion of fellow feeling, Joss picked up the dwindling sheets and began to read the last remaining letters.

  29th March

  It’s done. He went back to Exeter this afternoon and now, although it’s late, I simply had to write about all this. I’m in such an odd state, Vivi: exalted and trembly and foolish because he told me he loved me. He took me by surprise, you see. Mousie had taken the children down to The Row after lunch on Saturday so that I could paint and hide the Easter eggs. We’d hard-boiled them earlier so that they were quite cold and I’d found an old paintbox with small squares of good bright colours, though the paint was hard and cracked.

  Well, the children went off quite happily and I wrapped myself in an old apron and settled at the kitchen table. James had gone down at Home Farm, and Simon was expected in time for dinner. I was listening to the wireless, some cheerful dance music on the Light Programme, and quite suddenly the door opened and there he was.

  Oh, Vivi, it was disastrous. I forgot my plan; forgot about being distant and sensible; forgot that I was Honor Trevannion. I simply sat there, my paintbrush held aloft, beaming at him with delight. I just said ‘Hello’ or something silly, still smiling at him, with my heart all over the place and thinking how dear he was. It was quite the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. He responded in the most natural way. He closed the door behind him, came round the table and kissed me.

  Fool that I am, Vivi, I responded to that too. It was the shock, you see. I’d planned it all out in my head how it would be. I saw myself coming down for supper, the children tucked up and dear old Dot having left the dinner under way, and greeting him rather coolly but quite friendly, in a very Honor-ish way, so that the evening got off on the right note. Then, I’d planned to slip away to bed whilst he and James were having a nightcap so that the first evening was dealt with and I’d feel in control.

  Sunday had already raised problems. Aunt Julia had suggested that she and I should go to St Endellion to Holy Communion together early on Easter morning (usually the whole family goes to Matins, or Evensong in the summer). How can I tell her that I can’t receive? It was bad enough at Christmas not going to Midnight Mass, but now, on Easter morning, I cannot receive. Anyway, I saw her have the idea that I hadn’t been confirmed and, after a moment of considering this and digesting it, she let the suggestion drop at once. I feel a traitor because I know very well that the family already suspect that I am almost an atheist, although none of them goes to the early service except on special occasions. Do you remember the Stations of The Cross each Good Friday with Sister Julian and how we’d all shout ‘He is risen’ on Easter morning? I feel as if I am denying Him just like St Peter. Even if I’d tried to bluff it out that Honor was a Roman Catholic (something Hubert would have almost certainly mentioned) I still can’t go to Mass again until I’ve been to Confession. And then what? What would a priest say to me, I wonder.

  Anyway, my plan was to remain cool, in control, and in company. Sunday was to be a family day, with the Easter egg hunt after lunch followed by a special tea, and I’d suggested that Aunt Julia, Mousie and Rafe should all come up for dinner in the evening. I’d been so sensible, so clever in thinking it all out so that Simon and I should have no opportunity to be alone until the last moment when it would be too late. I was going to be distant and calm and then, at the last possible moment, make it clear that I’d been thinking things over and seen that I’d given him quite the wrong impression. I was very fond of him, I’d been planning to say, but I didn’t have any intention of marrying again.

  Instead here he was, in the kitchen, kissing me. I was still sitting down, an egg in one hand and the paintbrush in the other, and kissing him back like any love-struck girl. No, that’s not true. I kissed him in the way any woman who’s had a lover kisses a man she wants – and no man can mistake that. Simon didn’t. He pulled me to my feet, paused briefly to relieve me of my egg and paintbrush and then continued where we’d left off. I remembered my plan far too late but eventually controlled myself enough to draw away from him. He pulled himself together too, and there was a moment of horrid embarrassment on both sides.

  It needn’t have been like that. It could have been so nice if I hadn’t made up my mind that I couldn’t go through with it. It would have been so easy to smile at him and show him that it was quite all right; to make it clear that he wasn’t taking liberties but only responding naturally to the signals I’d given him over the last six months. In those brief moments I saw so clearly how wonderful it might be with him: love as well as passion and our minds tuned to the same pitch. It se
emed to me, at the time, that it would be criminal to kill something so good.

  No gold stars then, Vivi, if you’d guessed that I didn’t do it properly. I did the cowardly thing of telling him that I wasn’t ready to fall in love again whilst giving the impression that if he hung around long enough I might change my mind. I apologized for leading him on – naturally he said at once that it was his fault – and muttered something about being lonely and finding him very attractive. Dot arrived at the garden door just as he’d begun to say that he’d wait for as long as it took and I was saying that I had no plans to marry again. Fortunately we heard her in enough time to compose ourselves, I was back at my egg-painting before she actually appeared, and Simon was saying loudly that he’d take his bag up, was he in the usual room and so on, and suddenly it was all over.

  If Dot suspected anything she didn’t show it. She got on with various preparations for dinner whilst I sat painting eggs as if my life depended on it, and letting her chatter away as she always does. It cast a different light over the weekend, though, as if we were both tingling with electricity that sparked between us. Neither of us could forget that kiss and, although I followed my plan and didn’t see him alone again, it was almost as if we’d started something rather than finished it.

  I wonder if your marriage is working out for you, Vivi? You look so happy in your wedding photograph and he looks really nice in a tough, strong-jawed way. And I shall never know, shall I? How easy it is, once you have irrevocably lost something, to imagine that the one thing you can no longer have is the only thing you ever truly wanted. At this moment I long for the relationship we once shared, you and I: that odd, close – and often painful – comradeship that is peculiar to siblings. I long for my religion that was once as natural as breathing and so much a part of the fabric of my life. And I long for Simon.

  I’ve lost everything that was important to me – but I have gained Paradise.

  The Easter egg hunt is great fun although Emma cannot quite get the hang of it. Once Bruno has found the first egg – balanced carefully in the lower branches of the wisteria – she expects them to be anywhere she chooses to look and there are wails of disappointment punctuated by shrieks of delight. Rafe is there to help them, to guide them towards the painted eggs whilst pretending to be as amazed as they are each time one is discovered. Rafe is enjoying himself. Often he finds Mutt at his elbow, reminding him where she has hidden the eggs, and they laugh together at the sight of Emma staggering purposefully in Bruno’s wake, screaming encouragement. She is just as happy if he finds one, possessiveness having been entirely left out of her character, and anyway he shares them scrupulously between the two of them.

  ‘Because she is too small,’ he says seriously to Rafe, ‘to find them on her own.’

  Rafe puts the egg into the basket with the others and grins at Mutt.

  ‘I hope Emma likes hard-boiled eggs,’ he says. ‘There must be a week’s ration here.’

  Mutt makes a face. ‘Thank goodness for Home Farm,’ she says, ‘and Emma will eat anything. But I’ve been thinking, Rafe. Why shouldn’t we have our own chickens? There’s plenty of room out in the kitchen garden.’

  For a moment they are drawn together in their mutual enjoyment of the garden. Mutt is beginning to love working in the Paradise gardens almost as much as she loves sailing, and Rafe is ready to encourage and assist. James is always ready to describe the glories of the past, and has gladly given his permission, and they have quite a few plans for the grounds, which have deteriorated since the war began. With no able-bodied man to help, and Margaret falling ill, large areas have been neglected, and Mutt and Rafe would like to see it all restored to its former beauty.

  Emma sits down suddenly in a patch of long wet grass and begins to howl and Mutt runs to pick her up. Their discussion is abruptly brought to an end but Rafe feels that warm glow of sharing with her; the joy of all that lies ahead fills him with contentment.

  Bruno, too, is happy. His sharing of the painted eggs with Emma is not totally altruistic: his natural generosity is assisted by the knowledge of the present that Simon has brought with him from Exeter. He has found a baker who has made two chocolate eggs on which the children’s names have been written in icing. There is a little silence when he opens the cardboard boxes to show them – such luxury has not been seen for years – and then everyone cries out at once. Bruno sniffs the special, delicious smell of the chocolate. All through church and lunch he thinks about the eggs; a lovely secret thought.

  There’s something else too: something just for him. He puts his hand into the pocket of his shorts and feels the shape of the little red bus.

  ‘After all,’ says Simon, ‘you are my godson, old chap. We men have to stick together.’

  Bruno doesn’t mind sharing his godfather with Emma – he can see that it would be unfair if she’d been left out of the kittens and the chocolate eggs – but it’s good to have something just to himself.

  He can see that Simon is happy too, which is good, but it is to Rafe he instinctively turns now. With Rafe he feels the same sense of security he has in the company of Aunt Julia and with Mousie.

  ‘That sister of yours,’ says Rafe feelingly – and Bruno laughs too, shrugging and rolling his eyes just as he’s seen the grown-ups react to her escapades.

  Watching Mutt swinging Emma into the air to distract her from her wet knickers he feels a deep sense of belonging.

  ‘Time for tea,’ Mutt is calling – and they all set off together towards the house.

  9th April

  I had a letter from Simon a few days ago. It was beside my breakfast plate and James watched me as I opened it, though he pretended to be absorbed in his own letters. It occurs to me that the chemistry I described, zinging between me and Simon during that weekend, might have been obvious to other people too, and I feel anxious and guilty. I wonder what James thinks of me, having told him I wouldn’t marry again, and I fear that he might misunderstand and disapprove in some way. In an effort to appear calm and unaffected I helped Emma with a few mouthfuls of her porridge and cut the top from Bruno’s egg before I opened the envelope.

  We eat breakfast in the dining-room, and sometimes the sun streams in, circling Emma’s head with a fuzzy golden halo and smoothing the gleaming rosewood of the oval table to a deep richness. It glints on the dark blue and gold-leaf patterns of the eggshell-thin china teapot and strokes its way over the silky stitches of Margaret’s big tapestry hanging on the wall. Its warmth blesses and cheers us, making us eager for the day ahead and nourishing our plans and ideas.

  The morning of Simon’s letter it was raining. The dirty grey sky leaked with an unrelenting drizzle and the room felt chill and bleak. We’d had a warm spell – the spring comes and goes here, tantalizingly showing us her glories and then retreating behind a sharp shower of hail or a wild gale from the west – and this sudden reversion to winter was depressing. Emma was grizzling – as irritatingly persistent as the rain outside – and Bruno was asking if we could walk over the cliff to The Lookout after breakfast. James smiled gently at nobody whilst managing to convey sympathy for me and tolerance towards the children.

  ‘We’ll see,’ I said to Bruno. ‘If it clears up, perhaps,’ and opened Simon’s letter.

  To my horror I saw that my hands were trembling, just a little, and I quickly laid the sheets on the table beside my plate, pretending that I wanted to spread my slice of toast with some of Julia’s bramble jelly. I bent my head over the plate, my eyes scanning the lines of small, cramped writing. It was a sweet letter, Vivi, apologizing for taking advantage of my ‘vulnerable state’ and telling me that he’d fallen in love with me. He wrote: ‘I shouldn’t be so surprised that I feel the way I do. After all the things Hubert told me about you, I was half in love with you before I’d even met you …’

  He went on to assure me, if somewhat clumsily, that Hubert would be pleased to think that we might be gaining comfort from each other, but a cold dread had already fallen ac
ross my mind.

  All the things Hubert told me about you.

  What things, Vivi, had Hubert told his oldest friend about his wife? My first reaction was one of overwhelming relief that I hadn’t already somehow given myself away to him. I looked up and saw that James was watching me. There was such far-seeing wisdom and affection in his eyes that fear clutched at my stomach. I knew then that I couldn’t bear to see disillusionment and disgust in those eyes and that I had no choice but to follow my chosen path.

  I smiled at him. ‘A bread-and-butter from Simon,’ I said lightly, ‘thanking us all for such a lovely weekend.’ Oddly I found it difficult to speak: my chest felt tight and the words came out rather breathlessly. Folding the sheets and carelessly stuffing them back into the envelope I wiped Bruno’s fingers and danced Dolly upon the table to distract Emma. ‘Perhaps Bruno’s right. We should visit The Lookout and give it an airing. But we’ll go round by the lane, I think. Too wet for the cliff. What sort of morning have you got, James?’

  ‘Oh, an office morning for me, I’m afraid.’ He drank up the last of his tea and pushed back his chair. ‘Humdrum, boring old paperwork.’

  He slipped away and I smiled at the children. These two were now my life, my work, my whole future, just as I had seen it in that hotel room in Karachi, and nothing must distract me from it. No goblin cries, no delicious fruit, no more kisses …

  After lunch I wrote back to Simon while the children were resting upstairs and James was nodding over the newspaper in the office. I sat at the dining-room table and wrote to him that there was no future for us, that my mind was quite made up, and that, having experienced true love and companionship, I knew that I didn’t love him in that same way. I asked him not to pursue it but to be kind about it, although I added that I was very fond of him and hoped that we would always be friends.

  By writing to me he let me off the hook, because it is always so much easier to do this kind of thing at a distance, but I couldn’t have gone to Exeter to see Simon so I decided that it was quite in order to write to him. Don’t think it was easy, though, Vivi. I hated it. All that morning whilst I was winding the children into scarves and pushing their warm little feet into gumboots I was mentally writing that letter. Phrases and sentences jostled about in my head as we went down the drive, Emma jumping with passionate glee into every puddle, and I rehearsed it a thousand times as we lit our little fire and Bruno chatted non-stop to me and to the variously imagined friends with which he peoples his life.