She was yanked away from him, from behind, and he couldn’t see by whom, not at first. ‘I say!’ Hester screamed, trying to wrest herself out of his grip. ‘Look here, get off me!’
‘You’re stealing again, you dirty thief.’
Digby Raverat’s soft, dry voice could scarcely be heard over the traffic. Where had he come from? He was behind Hester now, one hand clamped around her upper arm like a vice; Simon could see the white knuckles, the pink fingertips pressing into her sleeve. ‘Slut.’
The worst person Simon had known so far was an American corporal who’d buggered little boys in back rooms of shabby restaurants in Naples, and then demanded money from their parents afterwards, to keep quiet about what he’d done to them. But he looked like a villain – thick, slicked-back hair, hairy hands, a scar on his neck only partially obscured by his uniform collar. He thought of him now for the first time in a long while; the family whom he’d had to visit, as one boy had died afterwards because of what the corporal had inflicted on him. Simon wasn’t surprised when he heard afterwards that the corporal had been quietly stabbed on the Via Foria, after Ascension Day, his body tied to a cart and dragged around the city – some said he wasn’t fully dead, as one eye in that jowly, handsome face was blinking, the other too swollen shut to open.
Later, Simon would try to remember what Digby Raverat looked like: some marker, to store him away under the heading ‘Villain’. But the truth is he was a very nondescript man. The curious square jaw and pointed chin, that was all he could recall. Light-grey hair. He was small, and beautifully dressed as ever, in his pressed dark-grey suit and spotless trilby.
‘I’m taking Sylvia home,’ he said. ‘You –’ He suddenly pushed Hester viciously in the chest, like a child in the playground, and she staggered backwards. ‘You can stay here, my dear. On the street.’
‘No,’ said Hester, righting herself, leaning against Simon. ‘G-get away from me. Here’s the bus,’ she said, and she held out her hand to her daughter. ‘Sylvia, shall we get on?’ Perhaps she was determined, in her stoned or drugged or drunk state, to preserve some normality in these last moments.
‘You are a thief,’ said Digby Raverat, and he was smiling, quite pleasantly. The pavements were still bustling; Knightsbridge matrons, in swinging coats and court shoes, coming out of Harrods, bidding farewell to the doorman. He wrenched Hester’s fingers so that she winced in pain. Raverat took the teddy bear from her, holding it by one ear. It dangled in the breeze. Sylvia gave a small sad cry, as her mother tried to snatch it back, but he batted her away again as if she were a fly. ‘You stole this bear, and you’re drunk. I’ve reported it to the police.’
‘I say,’ said Simon. ‘You’ve no proof.’
He laughed. ‘Who’s this? Oh, I am sure I can guess. The new lodger, yes? I was there upstairs. I was watching you. You’re quite the little lapdog, aren’t you? I saw her take it, old boy.’ Hester was scrabbling at his arm, as his grip on her tightened. He turned to her. ‘Get a good look at Sylvia, now. You’re never seeing her again. Your mother was right. You’re a slut.’
Simon said loudly: ‘I say. Don’t talk to her like that. She’s a good mother.’
Someone jostled Simon, and he pushed them out of the way, angrily. He could feel the situation sliding out of his control. Sylvia was pressed against the shop windows, utterly still. Simon knew she had seen this kind of scene before, and worse.
Digby Raverat took a pocket watch out of his waistcoat. ‘Five oh one p.m. Hester, be reasonable. You drink, and steal, you take other men as lovers – you really must understand’ – he was smiling gently – ‘my position. So, shake hands with your daughter. Say goodbye nicely.’
He took Sylvia’s arm roughly and Sylvia pulled back, against the window. But he dragged her away, so that her black school shoes scraped along the pavement.
‘I don’t want to go with you,’ she said, in a small, clear voice, as another bus swept past them, close to the edge of the pavement.
‘I’m afraid you must. Don’t make a scene.’
‘Don’t touch her,’ said Hester. ‘Let go of her arm.’ Digby Raverat tightened his grip on Sylvia, and Hester’s voice rose, clearly, magnificently, above the roar. ‘I said, let go. You can’t tell me what to do. You can’t always control me. You try, you’ve tried every day,’ but then she started struggling to get the words out, overwhelmed with sobbing, heaving breaths. ‘You’re – I don’t understand why you’re like this – why are you like this? I don’t want you, I don’t want your money. I just want to live with my daughter, and that’s what she wants too. Do you understand? She needs me.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Raverat, with an arch look of surprise. ‘They’ll ask you in court, Hester – how many times have you returned her late? How many times have you been drunk when you’re with her? What about the time you dropped her when she was three? Or when you left her behind in that restaurant? These things, these things, my dear. You’re not a fit mother.’ His voice hardened, and he tightened his grip again on his daughter’s arm, so that she gave a small howl. ‘It’s over, Hester. Understand that.’
Hester shook her head. ‘N-no,’ she said, her gaze empty. ‘I won’t. N-no. Damn you.’
‘Hester,’ said Simon, suddenly really alarmed. ‘Not here. We’ll discuss it later. Come home with me and –’
If he hadn’t said anything, would she have moved? But she did. Afterwards, he could recall it in perfect slow motion, every split second –
The omnibuses, lumbering along the road, the setting sun, blinding one’s vision when one turned towards it. The crowds on the pavement, weaving slowly between their small group.
Raverat was still gripping his daughter’s arm. Hester stepped forward, and took Sylvia’s other, free, hand. ‘There,’ she said, with a small smile. ‘Darling, he shan’t hurt you again. No one shall.’
She looked up at Simon, that frank, lovely face of hers with the glimmer of a smile playing over it. ‘You’re lovely,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Holding her daughter’s hand she closed her eyes, and Simon understood then what was going to happen, but he was too far away – he stepped forward.
He heard the screech, and the scream, and saw, for one split second, the last moments, as Hester pushed Digby into the path of the bus, and as she was yanked along with him. Simon reached out one hand and grabbed Sylvia’s shoulder, enough to make her turn, hold back, for the briefest split second – enough, just enough.
The bus hit Hester, knocking down her husband, crunching them under the tyres – he heard the sound of bones smashing, a body puncturing. Simon’s vision went dim, and when he opened his eyes again something had been thrown up into the air – Sylvia, flying in an arc, hitting the front of the bus, then thrown to the side, out of sight.
Silence, then screams, then shouts, then cars hooting, people calling. He rubbed his head, blinking, trying to see. He was on the pavement, eyes level with the road.
Underneath the bus in front of him there were two separate piles of clothes, a smell of petrol and burning and something disgusting, drains, faeces, and someone was screaming, her mouth was open, and he was scrambling to his feet, swaying, and he couldn’t hear anything, anything at all. Finally there was silence. As though he had stopped being able to hear. He stepped on something soft and looked down. The teddy bear was on the pavement, legs neatly splayed apart, watching the scene with beady amber eyes.
Part Four
1989
Chapter Twenty-Four
‘Pass it around, Janey. Oh God, you’ve bumsucked it.’
‘I haven’t.’
‘Yes, you have. Jesus. Haven’t you had a spliff before?’
Janey raised herself up on her elbows. She was laughing, and her face was red. ‘No, of course I haven’t, you bloody idiot.’ We smiled at each other, getting used to each other, this new, intensely enjoyable connection. ‘I’m square, remember?’
I do remember. I remember everything.
&
nbsp; This is why she was cool, that Janey Lestrange, my dearest friend, my new life, my other half. She didn’t care. She didn’t realise then that she didn’t care, but she didn’t. She was shy and awkward and clever – Jesus, she was clever. That first evening when she arrived and Joss was banging on about some stupid poem of his and she stood there looking at him, one quizzical eyebrow raised, her thin, dry hands clutched together the only sign of how nervous she was, and her curious patchy dark head.
Even though it was almost dark, Joss was wearing sunglasses. He raised them, fumbling slightly, and said in a drawling monotone:
‘Slowly, Miss D and two Us. It’s not a straw. You’re inhaling. Not sucking.’
We had purloined a bottle of cooking sherry from the kitchen. Our mother was in her study. Since Rory’s death she’d stopped going upstairs with my father after supper. She would tidy up, for ages, in the kitchen, then go and work. My father was pottering around on the terrace. The pater familias, shut out from the marital bedroom. He could go up, of course, but he didn’t want to be alone. That’s the thing about him, I realise. He couldn’t stand being alone. All my mother wanted was to be left alone.
In the dark corridor before we went out to eat that night, Mummy had clasped my hands tightly and pulled me into her study. Her wide, sparkling eyes were huge.
‘Kitty, darling. The place at King’s. Are you absolutely sure you won’t go?’ Her low, beautiful voice thrummed through me – every syllable weighted with restrained, exquisite pain. ‘We should tell them, one way or the other.’
I knew who she meant when she said ‘them’. She meant Professor Lovibond, the owlish professor of history who had interviewed me. ‘I knew your mother,’ he’d said nervously, as I shifted on my seat, angry that he should bring it up. ‘She wrote to me a month ago, mentioned I’d be interviewing you.’
‘She what?’ I’d said, forgetting to add verbs. I remember the view behind him, the mud-green Cam, waterlogged fields, spiked edges of ancient buildings poking into view through the leaded windows. I did not feel at home here. I knew I never would.
‘Lovely girl. I remember her mother too. A bad business,’ he’d said and then when I’d looked bewildered, had added hastily: ‘Anyway, nothing to do with today.’
Discovering my mother felt she had to interfere in the application process did not add to the quality of the interview. I had folded my arms, trying to hide how upset I was, and my answers became monosyllabic. The light from his desk lamp glinted on his round glasses so I couldn’t see his eyes, but I could still make out his gaze that started at my too-short denim skirt and then slid up my body, the gaze I had noticed men now tended to give me. Nice legs. Bet she’s a handful.
I’d been relieved when I hadn’t got the place. I didn’t want to go. Not on those terms, and increasingly, not on any terms. I wanted to see the world. Really see it.
But Letham’s had taken action. They hadn’t got anyone into Oxbridge the previous year, and they really wanted to have their cake and eat it – they needed to maintain their impeccable social image (‘We are exclusively for daughters of the gentry’) with the promise of an excellent education (‘Let’s face it, most of them will marry and never work again, but they need to go to university. Shove ’em out into a nice place full of Oxbridge rejects, but add one or two to the Honours board in the Great Hall and what happens afterwards isn’t our problem, is it?’).
My history teacher, Dr Forbes, was an old pal of Professor Lovibond, they’d been up at Cambridge together. Mummy wrote another letter (I found out afterwards) and Forbes had had a word. I often wondered how it had gone. ‘I say, old boy, I’d love it if you reconsidered re Hunter . . . Catherine Hunter, that’s it. Yes . . . yes, I know. Fierce competition. Fierce. But awfully clever girl. And it looks good on dispatches, et cetera.’
I was brighter than most people I knew; I understood this, more fundamentally than I understood I was beautiful. That was something other people said after staring at me, it wasn’t something I consciously worked at. I didn’t ever try to be beautiful. Dr Forbes, for all he was a sexist old dog and, after what happened with Mimi Rosenthal, patently not a suitable person to be teaching in a girls’ boarding school, had a brain like a finely tuned machine, and exhorted us to acquire the same, to treat it well, keep it oiled, up to date, carefully tended. I enjoyed this. Most of the other girls took no interest.
But I’d wanted to go because I had been properly accepted by them. Not because they’d rejected me first time round, and because two men sorted a place out for me with some help from my mother. I kept saying: ‘Someone who really wants to go can use the place. It’s not fair.’ I could have flunked my exams, but I’m not like that. I still wanted to be the best, of course, and I was.
But now I looked at my mother, and I said: ‘I’ve been thinking about it. Perhaps it’d be good if I went.’
‘Oh! Darling Kitty.’ Her hands, tightening around mine, the scent of lavender rising up as she hugged me, the buds she kept in her pockets crushing against me. She was frailer than me, quite tiny, I noticed, for the first time. ‘You won’t regret it. Really.’
I hugged her back, then released her. Holding her, I said: ‘But if I go, there’s a letter I want you to send them. You have to promise you’ll write what I say.’
‘Anything.’
‘I want to defer for a year.’
‘What?’
‘You said anything, Mummy.’
‘OK. But what will you do?’ Automatically the little hands reached into the capacious pockets of her skirt, rubbing the lavender heads together; the scent rushing to fill the air between us. She inhaled. ‘Daddy won’t want you hanging round – he’s not keen on you going in the first place.’
‘Mummy – you promised. And there’s something else, too.’ I swallowed. ‘It’s really important.’
‘Go on.’
‘I want to have your name. I’ll go if I can be Catherine Lestrange.’
‘What?’ Mummy said again. She took a step back, into a pile of sketches, which cascaded to the ground. ‘Why? What on earth for?’
‘I just said. Didn’t I? I want to change some things in my life. You changed your surname when Simon became your legal guardian, didn’t you?’
She nodded, lips pressed tightly together. ‘Yes. But that was to stop anyone getting hold of the house, and my possessions – he had to move up north for a job, and it meant –’ She shook her head. ‘Yes. I changed it. Deed poll and everything. I didn’t want my old name any more.’
‘There, you see? You’re on my birth certificate as Sylvia Lestrange. I checked. That’s all I need. But I don’t want . . .’ I pointed behind me, I circled my finger inwards, a whirlwind. ‘. . . this. I don’t want any part of this any more.’
My mother took a deep, ragged breath. ‘But are you saying you’ll go?’
‘Give me time. I’m still not sure.’
She looked down the corridor at a sound from outside. Quietly she said: ‘You have a couple of days. That’s all. Most people would kill for the chances you’ve had.’ Her jaw was clenched, the tension of years. She released my hands and reached up, stroking my hair; I flinched. ‘Yes, Charles! I’ve got the salad dressing!’
I’d stared at her, wondering if she was allying herself with me or not. I couldn’t read any of them any more. ‘I know that, Mummy. Will you write the letter?’
My father appeared in the doorway. He glanced around the study, taking in the papers, the gouache, the stacks of material. I saw the disdain on his face, melting into something like contempt.
‘Hurry up then. Good God, it’s not that hard, is it?’ His eyes slid over me, and the black fog of hatred I had for him suffused my chest.
‘Come on, fatso,’ he said, and reaching towards me, still with that odd look in his eyes, he pinched my waist. I yelped and squirmed away. He chose to take it as a joke. ‘Here we all are then. Let’s eat,’ he said, stepping out of the dark hallway into the evening sunshine. ‘What what
?’
I rubbed my ribcage, tears smarting in my eyes. Mummy followed him out, then paused in the doorway. ‘Listen,’ she said, her mouth barely moving. Her face was hard. ‘OK, I’ll write the letter. You can take my name. We’ll not say anything for the moment. But you – you think carefully about what you’re doing, Kitty. My name is hard come by.’
I have thought, I wanted to tell her. I’ve thought it all through.
I’d got three As, in History, English and Latin. Joss had failed two of his A-levels, but gained a D in History. My father found this hilarious, and kept slapping him on the back. ‘Bloody historian we have here! Perhaps you should have been the one to apply to Oxbridge, Joss! Have a change of heart! A regular boffin! Do you need glasses! What what!’ Joss had nodded, as if he found it amusing. PF didn’t say anything to me.
We’d had champagne at dinner, but neither Joss nor I deserved it. Janey’s headteacher had collected the results from her school and rung her here. Later, I had heard her in the tiny cloakroom on the telephone to her mother, burrowed far into the coats.
‘Would you at least let me talk to Miss Minas just to see if – Yes, I know. I know. Yes, Mum.’
Afterwards, Joss had stood silently beside her, as she rested her head on his chest. It made me feel furious. All through supper she said nothing, though we included her in our toasts. ‘Come on, Janey,’ my father said at one point, irritated: she wasn’t important enough to have feelings that derailed his evening. ‘Toast our historian here, even if you can’t be happy for him.’
‘Cheers, Joss. Well done. Kitty, well done. You deserve it.’ Dully Janey had raised her eyes and clinked her glass against Joss’s.
Taking the dishes in after the main course I patted her arm.
‘Hey, Janey. Won’t you tell me what you got? I won’t laugh.’
She shook herself slightly, putting the plates down on the kitchen table. ‘You’re right. It’s just embarrassing. When I set myself up as some kind of clever clogs. I got the same as Joss. A D. And two Us.’
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