The Road to Lichfield

by Penelope Lively

  The road led back to Cuxing in known and tedious lengths. Judy said ‘It’s good I feel all right again because I’m riding with Susie tomorrow. Why are you driving so fast, Mum?’

  There was a heat-wave. Anne moved through leaden days, agreeing with everyone on the perfection of the weather. Sun umbrellas and reclining chairs bloomed in the gardens of Cuxing; the climbing rose came out and flamed up the side of the house; Paul and Judy flopped in and out of the kitchen, drinking squash by the pint. The days were forty-eight hours long, from bird-shrieking dawns to weary clock-ticking midnights. In normal summers, around now, one was waiting for the summer holidays – anticipating, planning – and beyond that loomed, pleasantly enough, in the natural progression of things, the autumn, which is more appropriately the beginning of the cycle than the end.

  This year, not so.

  The trouble with the past is that it is also time transformed. There are days, in which we move around, but in them are we also moved, and moved sometimes so far from our established selves that there is no going back. The days are gone, but are never to be emptied. And neither am I, thought Anne, not ever, now. There is no going back to June of last year when I was thirty-nine, innocent, and, I believe, happy. This is the process called experience, by which it is made certain that we have about as much stability as an amoeba. We complete, we think, an opinion, an attitude, a response – only to find it blown apart by the casual and random activities of time. Of a minute, of an hour, or a day, that, apparently, shatters the calm reflection and reassembles it differently. My garden was much the same last year – give or take a few inches of growth, the odd flower – but now, looking at it, those shapes and colours repeating last year’s are invested with the images of the months between. Superimposed on the impervious lawn is my father in the clutch of his hospital pillows; David’s face stares from the unsympathetic leaves of the chestnut.

  Don said, ‘There’s a letter from the Scottish hotel people confirming the reservation. And a card for you.’ He turned it over. ‘Doctor Johnson’s birthplace.’

  ‘Oh, is there.’

  I wonder if you could give me a ring sometime, it said, I noticed a window broken at your father’s house and thought maybe I could do something about it. 57698 will find me, it went on, yours David F.

  ‘Something wrong?’ said Don.

  ‘Oh no. It’s just this schoolmaster who was a neighbour of father’s – he wants me to give him a ring, something about a window broken at the house. It’s nothing.’

  ‘I’ll be a bit late in tonight.’

  ‘Will you?’ she said. ‘What would you like for dinner? Anything special?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘A steak – that would be a treat.’

  ‘Whatever you like, Annie.’

  ‘I’ll get a steak.’

  David said, ‘I’m sorry about that, but I was feeling a bit low, after that rather unsatisfactory evening. How’s Judy?’ ‘She’s fine. Quite all right next day. It was unsatisfactory, wasn’t it?’ ‘When will I see you?’ ‘Next week. Tuesday. Tuesday evening.’

  On the A46 dual carriage-way (Warwick and Kenilworth passed a few minutes ago, lurking off-stage to right and left) the car coughed explosively and the engine died. She steered onto the side and opened the bonnet, staring into it as the landscape suddenly halted and the traffic fizzed by. Lichfield became not fifty minutes away but thirty-odd miles; the car no longer an obliging certainty but an insoluble problem. When a man in a van drew up behind her she accepted gratefully his offer of help. He would stop off, he said, at the garage down the road and ask someone to come along. She sat on the road’s embankment in the sunshine, wondering how long all this would take. When at last the breakdown truck arrived the mechanic glanced into the engine and said the coil had gone. He could, he said, have it done by five or so. It was now almost twelve o’clock. He towed the car to a garage in a featureless suburb while Anne debated what to do. Bus to Lichfield, and return that evening, with David? Wait in this dispiriting place? But buses to Lichfield did not offer themselves. Now if it was Coventry, said the mechanic helpfully, the Coventry buses run every half hour, and she thought: Yes, why not? There’s the cathedral, and I’ve not been there since that time with father, years ago. I can spend four hours in Coventry, easily enough, and come back here for five o’clock.

  It was nineteen sixty-three, she seemed to remember Christmas. Her mother had stayed at Starbridge, to look after Paul, aged two, and Judy, just a few months old. And she didn’t, Anne thought, want to go anyway and I did; the arrangement suited everyone – she evaded an afternoon of sight-seeing, and I achieved one. And it was a good day, somehow it sticks in the mind still—set apart from the rest of that time. I didn’t mind father disagreeing about the cathedral, I enjoyed arguing, I hadn’t anyone to argue with, Don never would …

  There had been Graham (bored, not managing to conceal his impatience to be back to London and real life – he’d just got his first full-scale producer’s job and was restless with ambition), herself, Don (also, perhaps, bored) and her father. It had been her father’s idea. Time, he said, we took a look at this creation of Spence’s, not that it’s going to be my cup of tea, I imagine. Coming from the car park through and out of the new shopping precinct (where, now, Anne walked past fountains palmy with trees and shrubs where then there had been rubbish-littered earth) he had said; Look at it, now! A monstrosity! Might as well be a cinema, those great bare walls, nothing spiritual about that, just a barn, plonked down there. And what a juxtaposition – with the ruins of the old one alongside. Can’t the man see how it shows him up?

  But that’s just the point, father, she’d said, walking beside him up the steps (up which, now, she climbed, among flocks of tourists), the point is to preserve the past and add to it – respect it but at the same time contribute something of our own. And I – don’t agree with you – I think it’s handsome. The stone’s lovely. And it’s the bulk that’s impressive. Of course it’s not like cathedrals as we’re used to them – but what would be the point of mindless architectural reproduction? We’ve got gothic cathedrals already. This is meant to be different.

  It’s different all right, he’d grumbled, going into the porch and turning right under the great engraved glass screen (to which Anne, now, turned back for a moment, thinking: yes, that’s fine still, I like that), but look at this, Anne – no nave to speak of, no aisles, just pillars that might as well not be there. And what’s that thing at the end, may one ask? That’s the Sutherland tapestry, father, she’d said, don’t rush things, we’ll get to that in a minute. Now you must admit there’s a marvellous feeling of light and space. And the choir stalls are splendid, like a flight of birds.

  And where in all this had Don and Graham been, she wondered now, pausing in front of the baptistry window, before that boulder from Bethlehem. Were the colours perhaps rather harsh? And, as she considered this, nineteen sixty-three swam back once more with Don standing at her side and her father turning to him to say: well then, Don, what do you feel about this? Anne’s pro and I’m against, on the whole, though I’d agree there’s a slight case to be made out for the stone itself, but how’s that for a stained glass window? Where’s the imagery in that? Stained glass tells a story, as far as I’m concerned. Take Canterbury.

  It’s abstract, father, she’d said in irritation. It’s a development of a tradition, not just doing the same old thing again. It’s not trying to imitate Canterbury, or anywhere else for that matter.

  And turning away from the window now (yes, the colours do seem violent) to walk on down the aisle, she searched for Don’s reply. What had he felt? What had he said? But there was only her father, ahead of her now, studying the tapestry with an expression of distaste, and saying he thought it garish. And it’s fussy, he said, all those creatures in little boxes, and why’s the figure squatting in that awkward way? and what are his hands like that for?

  It’s Christ in majesty, father. I think it’s ver
y impressive.

  Not much majesty there as far as I’m concerned.

  Turn round and look back, father. It’s from here you see the windows – that’s the whole point of the building – as you turn back from the altar you see them, because they’re zigzag in the walls. Isn’t that tremendous?

  And still is, she thought now, turning with the length of the cathedral before her. Suddenly you see where the light comes from – the walls stop being solid. And in remembrance there was Graham, hands stuck in the pockets of an expensive-looking suit, staring up at a column of greens and blues, and she went to stand by him, saying: aren’t they marvellous, the windows? Mmn, he’d said, spectacular – his thoughts elsewhere, she could see, just as all that Christmas they’d been for the most part elsewhere, tolerating the domesticity of it all, bored with the babies and all the fuss they engendered, teasing her from time to time, patronising Don, raring to be off back to London first thing on the twenty-seventh.

  I don’t know, she thought, it all seems different, not at all how I remembered. I do like the glass – but the rest, well, I can’t think how I ever approved of the tapestry, it seems hideous now, and the furnishings have dated so. Very Festival of Britain. The choir stalls look like something from Heals – all that brass and teak. And yes, I see father’s point – it does seem barn-like. No surprises. It doesn’t unfold, as a cathedral should. It’s funny, it seems quite different – this isn’t what I remember at all.

  She came out and over into the ruins of the old cathedral. It was a hot afternoon. She sat on a bench (where she was joined by three Indian teenagers with Birmingham accents that sounded generations deep) and watched a sparrow ferry food to its young in a nest high in the broken tracery of a perpendicular window. But of course, she thought, it’s not the cathedral that has changed. Places don’t change, except willy-nilly through time – or destruction, like this one. It’s me that must have changed, and if the cathedral seems to be not what I remember, then it is the remembering that has gone wrong, not the cathedral. The cathedral is as it was in nineteen sixty-three but I am not, and somewhere along the way I appear to have lost my taste for it. She listened to the teenagers talking of a football team, O-levels, and the whereabouts of the station. The sparrows lifted their cargo of scraps, tirelessly, to the shattered windows. On a nearby bench two women dumped themselves down, hung about with carrier bags – Marks & Spencer, Boots, Mac Fisheries. The teenagers had turned on a transistor that muttered the commentary to a cricket match. Anne thought of her father, of her children, of David.

  Presently she went into the cathedral again and bought some postcards, then wandered slowly back through the shopping precinct to the bus station. By half-past four she was back at the garage; by eight, on her bed at Starbridge, David deep within her.

  ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘I could stay. The boys are away tonight and – I said I might be out.’

  To Mary. I have only twice, Anne thought, heard him say her name. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘that’s lovely. What a nice surprise.’

  She woke alone in bed and lay for a moment in fear, hearing a car stop and start outside. ‘David …’ she called, and when his voice answered from the bathroom, felt a flood of relief. ‘What are you doing? I heard a car – I thought you’d gone.’ ‘No, just shaving. That was someone in the lane. Shall I make coffee?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘come back. It’s not coffee I want. Not just yet.’

  ‘I brought you a postcard, father, of Coventry Cathedral. Do you remember going there one Christmas? I was there yesterday and it made me think of it, and how you didn’t much care for it. I didn’t like it so much this time, I must say.’

  The hand that has been holding the cup of tea to his lips (not sweet enough, but there is no way of telling them) comes up now with a small bright rectangle of card which is put into his hand. They are talking about cathedrals. He brings the bright card closer to his eyes and now the colours sort themselves out into a pink block, and some trees. A cinema? A school? Anne, about whom he is concerned from time to time, talks of stained glass, and a tapestry, and suddenly the concern and the picture in his hands are fused and he knows where he is, walking beside her up the steps of this disagreeable building, with a sideways glance to see if that glum fellow, his son-in-law, is still with them or has chickened out of the visit.

  Something has happened to Anne. The spark has gone out of her, this last year or so. The children could account for some of that, of course, but all the same …. She hasn’t even had a good spat with her brother, this Christmas. She has allowed a number of blatantly provocative statements of his to go unchallenged. And Graham is provocative all right, as he always has been, but more so now perhaps brandishing his seedy career – though there is admittedly a chance that one could be wrong about that, not everything on the box is meretricious, after all, but one could have wished otherwise for him, all the same. He can look after himself, though, Graham, and no doubt will. Anne is another matter. Let us see, her father says to himself, if we can’t stir up a bit of the old spark. And as they go into the cathedral he offers his opinion of the place. And the bait is taken, so it seems the old and vigorous Anne lurks not too far away, hibernating, perhaps, till times are better. But will times be better? Well, Don, he says to her husband, what do you think of it? But Don has no opinion, it seems. He is glancing surreptitiously at his watch, and has toured Chapel of Unity, engraved glass screen and now the Baptistry with just the same amount of time and study allotted to each. Well, Don says, I suppose you have a point about the colours being a bit strong, but it all seems quite pleasant to me. That won’t do, thinks James Stanway, that won’t do at all. And he walks away down the nave (or what passes for such) wondering how all this has come about, and what it might lead to. He tries to remember the name of that chap she used to bring home when she was an undergraduate – dark, garrulous young man. Why didn’t she marry him? Anne is a talker, and not just a talker of nothings, and a thinker, he suspects, too – a lot more so than her brother, in fact – and old Don is as silent as the grave. You can always talk to yourself, of course. But it is better not to. It is a great deal better not to. Oh, Anne, he thinks. I could tell you a thing or two. But I can’t. There isn’t, unfortunately, much to be done at all.

  Well, he says to the assembled party, moving again under the engraved glass screen, how about a cup of coffee somewhere? I daresay this new shopping precinct will run to a Lyons or whatever.

  Graham picked the postcard up off the mat, along with something from the income tax and a brown envelope from Charing Cross hospital, and took all three into his kitchen. He read it while waiting for the coffee to percolate: Anne had broken down here while en route for Lichfield and spent an hour or so looking round. Remember one Christmas, she said, ages ago? ‘Here,’ it appeared, as he turned the card over, was Coventry Cathedral, St Michael pinned like a butterfly to its rearing wall.

  I do remember, he thought, quite well, funnily enough. Early sixties, just after I got the job with Thames. The Fanny time. And as he stands with the card in his hand (the coffee percolating away now, unobserved) he returns to Coventry and Fanny’s face floats for a moment, as it floated then, in the greens and blues of some great high window. Oh God, he thinks, I want her, I really do. I can’t wait till next week – how am I supposed to get through three more bloody days, festering away here? Annie is on about the glass or something, and he jerks himself from Fanny’s face and walks with his sister down the cathedral, thinking: but it’s different this time, she’s a different kind of girl, Fanny, she’s not someone you mess about with.

  She could walk out on me, he thinks, in cold fear. She’s not the kind of girl to stand any nonsense. Perhaps that’s why I want her so.

  And, walking with the others across a square and into some fearful futuristic shopping place, he thinks: I could ask her to marry me.

  Sitting over the buns and coffee, he looks at his sister and thinks that marriage has knocked the stuffing out of Anne
, a bit. That, or the kids. You don’t, of course, he reflects sagely, have to have kids, and he’d damn well see to it they didn’t. And why Annie had to pick old Don, he’d never know. You wouldn’t think, really, they had two words to say to each other, but maybe that doesn’t matter too much. Would Fanny marry me? I don’t know, he thinks wretchedly, and wonders if he dare find out. He imagines Fanny, her lovely face turned towards him on the pillow, saying kindly: no, Graham, I’m awfully sorry, but no thanks. And knows he could not really stand that. And he imagines them married, living in some two-up, two-down in Notting Hill, fettered to one another and with maybe some damn baby yelling its head off upstairs (because as observation shows that kind of thing is not quite as controllable as is made out), and wonders if he could stand that either …. Oh, Fanny … he thinks, spooning sugar into his cup, and looks across the table at Anne and his father arguing away still about the pros and cons of the cathedral.

  Graham stuck the card on the kitchen shelf and took the coffee off the stove. He opened the envelope from Charing Cross hospital and read that an appointment had been arranged for him on July 18th. Would he follow carefully the enclosed instructions and attend the Out Patients Clinic at 9.30 a.m. The telephone rang (second time already that morning – first his assistant to say that the actress they wanted for the new play was holding out for half as much again as he could offer, and now the studio to announce an impending strike of scene-shifters; his stomach began to grind and would grind, now, on and off all day). He poured himself a cup of coffee, went with it to the window, and stood there thinking of Anne, of her children (a nice boy, Paul, and the girl would be pretty, given a year or two) and of his father. I’ll get up to Lichfield this weekend, he thought.

  ‘You saw her at her worst, I’m afraid,’ Anne said to David. ‘She really isn’t like that. She’s … oh, it’s so difficult to explain one’s own children.’

  ‘Adolescence is not the most engaging period.’