The summer, which had begun with several weeks of untrammelled sun, became temperamental. Although there was no rain, storm clouds edged the days. Gathering their bright darkness each evening, they thickened the night sky when it came to cover them. In the orchard, trees scarcely flickered. Their shadows had a winter stillness, and the ground they fretted was patched with burnt grass.
It was very hot. It was as if some natural form of central heating had been turned too high, and in the closed walls of the earth the air was stifling. Only a storm could open a window. But there was no storm, in spite of the repetitive pleadings for one from Mrs Charles, whose overalls were stained with pungent sweat-and at night Emily, too, lay awake hoping for thunder. Every day the back of her neck, under her long hair, was wet and sticky, and all movement was an effort. After school she watered parts of the garden, spraying the parched flower beds with an arc of silvery drops that she would then trail over her own bare feet and hands and face, and find comfort for a moment. Fen alone, it seemed, was unaffected by the heat. Her long skirts changed to thin cottons, shadowy legs beneath them, and she tied wispy shirts in a knot under her breasts, leaving an expanse of brown ribs. Her hair, like Emily’s, clung in tendrils to her face, which gleamed a little damply. But she was not enervated by the heat. Rather, in contrast to the lethargy all round her, she seemed to move more dartingly than usual, and set herself to endless tasks of preparing fruit, whisking cream for syllabubs, or polishing the copper pans. Idle, during this thundery time, remained in London.
But one Friday evening he arrived unexpectedly – Emily, at least, hadn’t known of his coming. When she heard him she was lying on her bed, without thought, without energy, in that smudged world between consciousness and sleep, where the shapes of a room are doubly exposed upon the abstract patterns of the mind. She did not move, but waited for his voice in the garden. She heard it: low, enquiring, solemn. She listened to the tone of Fen’s answers – brisk, cold. Then there was silence and Emily, without meaning to, slept.
It must have been two hours later when she woke – shivery, in spite of the heat, a little dazed. She went to the window. There was a dun sky, as on many previous evenings. Though no sun was visible, the grass and trees were a troubled yellow. In these still, violent colours, Fen and Idle paced the lawn, side by side, not touching. Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, a distance of not more than ten yards. It would seem from their rhythmic steps they had repeated their journey many times. They were talking quietly, but from Emily’s room their voices were now impossible to hear.
She watched them. The chill she had felt on waking had left her. She was too hot again. Shifting restlessly, she wanted to shout down to them, but resisted. At that moment Fen paused, looked up at Idle, shrugged, and laughed. Emily could just hear her laughter, and observed Idle’s silent surprise. Then Fen turned and tripped towards the house, smiling to herself. Idle remained where he was, his eyes on her. Both their forms were outlined now with the yellow of the grass. The colour blasted the edges of their clothes, their hair, their arms, making them illusory figures. Fen stopped at the wall of the house beneath Emily’s room, half-hidden by a climbing rose. Emily leaned a little further over the window ledge. She could see her mother, arms raised, plucking at the odd dead head among the great moony faced roses, the white petals falling apart in her hands and spilling over her shoulders. Then Fen cracked the stem of a live rose and turned away from the house, offering it to Idle. But when he made no movement, just stayed watching her, she held it to her cheek, symbolising for a moment the aestival creature that she was, glowing in the stormy light, passive, still.
‘So many dead heads.’ Her voice like flags in the silence. Idle began to walk towards her.
‘Mama! Papa!’ Emily called down to them at last.
They both looked up. In spite of the threatening air, they appeared unaffected – there was a strange relief in their look, some lightness about them that defied the electric garden.
‘Em! Come on down. We’ve something to tell you.’ Fen stuck the rose in her hair, a gesture of triumph, and turned into the house.
‘Been asleep? I’ve been waiting for you.’ Idle was under her window now, crinkly face smiling up at her, arms folded over his dark silk tie.
‘Are you staying, Papa?’
‘For the weekend.’
‘Good.’
Emily ran to the stairs.’
In fact they had two things to tell her. The first was that there was to be a treat tomorrow night : they were all to see Uncle Tom’s production of Twelfth Night. The second was that the first week of the summer holidays Emily was to go with her father to France, while Fen went off on some photographic exhibition of the greatest importance. Wolf, it had been arranged, was to be included in both plans.
Emily, curled up in an armchair picking at her toenails, was torn by the combination of pleasure and disappointment in the news.
‘But why do you have to photograph just in my holidays, Mama?’
‘It can’t be helped, darling. Really. Something’s come up that’s a chance for me to try out being a professional photographer. I’m to be paid-imagine that!’
‘Where will you be?’
‘Edinburgh. That part won’t be much fun, in August. I’ve got to photograph a play there. It’s only for a week, Em. Don’t look like that. You and Wolf will have a lovely time looking after Papa.’
‘I think it’s unfair. It’d be much better if you came too.’
‘Well, things don’t always work out right, do they? Timings. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s a good chance for Mama,’ added Idle. ‘You wouldn’t want her to miss a chance like that, would you?’
If they had once been apart, Emily thought, they were together now-against her. They both seemed to think the arrangement was quite reasonable, and were therefore not inclined to understand. She said no more.
Emily watched her parents laughing at Malvolio. And indeed, dressed as an old-fashioned butler, an inspiration on Uncle Tom’s part, he was being very funny. So were Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Sir Toby Belch, tumbling about with their huge stomachs and striped socks. This Twelfth Night was a pantomime, with much rolling about on the grass (as practised in those early days) and winsome music and witty songs. Wolf, whose reluctant study of Shakespeare had produced nothing but scorn for the boringness of the old bard, was laughing so loud that tears rolled hard upon each other down his freckled cheeks.
By some lucky chance the heaviness of so many previous evenings had evaporated. The air was light and clear, leaves stirred in a warm breeze. The actors frolicked about the lawn, the lake flecked with swans behind them; the audience was mounted on raised seats under a striped canopy. Fen was her most beautiful. She wore a dress of long white pleats, a lilac gauze scarf plaited through emerald beads at her throat : her hair, half piled up, was escaping its ribbons. Her face was restless with laughter, her brown hands flew constantly in delight to her cheeks. Idle, too, appeared happy, his eyes flicking from the lawn to Fen, imitating her laughter. If it hadn’t been for the thought of France, it would have been a perfect evening.
In the interval, when the audience gathered under the chestnut trees, Tom brought them plates of strawberries and cream, and goblets of mead. Emily and Wolf tried it : liked it. They drank a whole goblet between them.
Tom was surrounded by admirers. One particular girl, tall with a dull pretty face, stuck relentlessly to his side. Wolf noticed her at once. He urged Emily to walk a few yards away with him so that his speculation would not be heard.
‘Reckon Marcia Burrows has had it as far as your uncle’s concerned.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nobody, especially Miss Burrows, would get past her.’
‘Perhaps not.’ Warm and melancholy from the mead, Emily felt within her the dying fall of a plan that is struck with little future.
‘As for your parents’ – Wolf nodded his head towards them – ‘I’ve never seen two people less divorcified. I don’t know what you were talking about.’
Emily looked over at them too. They were listening to Tom, faces intent, smiling.
‘Oh, that,’ said Emily. ‘I think that’s all over. They seem to be all right now.’ The gold and green leaves on the lower branches of the trees confused her with their dancing. Her knees felt weak. She wondered if she was going to be sick. Concentrating hard, she noticed Wolf put on his most philosophical face.
‘Oh, well, it’s difficult to tell sometimes. Grown-ups decide on divorce like we decide on a game of marbles. Heads we do it, tails we don’t. That sort of thing.’
‘You’re right, Wolf,’ said Emily. She put her hand on his arm because she felt unsteady. He let her leave it there until they reached their seats.
The sky darkened during the second half of the play. Stars appeared, the first for weeks, and lanterns were lit in the trees. When the lovers finally sailed away in a creaky punt across the lake, the band played a wild haunting tune, and fireworks showered down through the sky till they met and drowned with their own reflections in the water. Emily felt better. She took her father’s warm hand, leant against him. Although so much was going on before them, they both turned to look at Fen. She was shining in her whiteness, her laughing face against the moon.
‘I don’t like treats being over,’ whispered Emily.
‘There’ll be others, from time to time. France could be fun, you know.’
France. Without Mama. Papa a bit lost sometimes, like he was without her.
Emily joined in clapping with the audience. She clapped till her hands were stinging, and the fireworks and the stars and the swans and the leaves shimmered like the last act of a dream. She felt reluctant to leave this luminous night place. It was easier, here, not to think about France.
There was one further piece of news kept from Emily till the day they left. Marcia Burrows was to come with them. She met them at the airport.
Emily, already dulled by a disloyal reluctance about going on the holiday at all, was hardly surprised, hardly interested. She assumed her father would explain how much Miss Burrows needed a holiday, how she could keep him company while she and Wolf played, and how, with her there, they might even do some essential work. Emily judged his explanations accurately: he said precisely those things.
At the airport Marcia Burrows seemed a little flustered. Dressed like an eager novice traveller, in white linen coat and matching hat, she kept tapping her small new suitcase as if to check she still carried it. Idle, superb in dark glasses, led his small dazed herd of travellers with great authority. Instinctively he understood the ways of the world’s airports, and Miss Burrows’ eyes glittered with admiration.
Brittany was their destination. A small, unpretentious town on the coast full, it seemed, of children with middle-aged French parents in espadrilles and sailcloth trousers, but who nonetheless eyed the sea with some suspicion and lay in firm rows on the sand. The shops, cluttered with Brittany china, found an avid buyer in Marcia Burrows. As one who had never adventured beyond a landlady cousin in Bognor for her holidays, she was enchanted by everything she saw, and spent most recklessly on postcards and ashtrays. The sun shone, local gulls screamed furiously at the annual disruption of their quiet habitat, and fumes of fresh fish rose in the narrow streets. Down at the harbour, nets were strewn along the quay to dry, and there was a dried-sea smell of sunbaked sails, faded rusts and cobalt blues, that lay rolled in the fishing boats. Emily, who always expected anywhere new to be disappointing, was nicely surprised by the place, and Wolf, who had once had the misfortune to spend a day at Nice airport with Coral, admitted it wasn’t bad compared with the South of France. They did little to resist the temptations of the local patisserie, and Marcia Burrows’ attempts at French – nothing could stop her-kept them giggling like old sophisticates.
But their real pleasure was the hotel : built of white wood at the end of the last century, it threw an aristocratic shadow over the beach, a magnificent and chipped monument to more glamorous seaside days. Its long wooden terraces leapt beneath the feet of running children, and the older guests were not disturbed : perhaps because of the dampness of the wood all sound was muted, muffled, no sharper than the soughing of the waves. There were no carpets. The lino floors were newly streaked with sand each day, so that every evening guests were aware of a slight crunching underfoot. Two unhurried waiters served drinks to vast parties of grown-up relations on the terrace, while the children played ping-pong in a room behind them. The dining room smelt of fish and fried herbs, and the checked tablecloths and napkins were always slightly damp. Idle had arranged a window table : it was during their long, delicious meals, looking out upon the spumous sea and wide sands, that Emily most missed her mother. She would have liked this: the baby lobsters, the icy white wine, the funny shouting French families in their man-made fibres. She should have been there.
But Idle made great efforts to entertain the children. Late mornings in bed, reading, were his only selfish pleasure. Eleven onwards, he was theirs. He drove them to heathery cliff tops for proper picnics – provided by the hotel – of melon and runny cheeses, and croissants and chocolate. He climbed over the rocks with them, stepping in and out of warm shallow pools: he swam, and played boules on the beach, making an effort, it seemed, to consume as much energy as he could. Marcia Burrows was a contented spectator to these activities. She would sit on a rug, legs straight out in front of her, linen hat with a floppy brim on her head, a white hand always sheltering her eyes. Sometimes she would look anxiously at Idle and warn him not to overdo it-he would laugh at her to conceal his irritation at her anxiety, and tell her not to worry. He was enjoying himself, he said.
One evening, after dinner, Idle agreed that they should go to the local discotheque for an hour. Emily was delighted : friends at school had been to discotheques. The experience would be new to her. But when they arrived, her excitement vanished at once. She wished they hadn’t come. The music hurt her ears, and the strobe lighting, slashing everything as it did into strips of livid colour, was unnerving.
They sat at a dark table, an incongruous foursome. Idle and Marcia Burrows looked twice as old as anyone else in the place. Emily wished they were younger. She also wished that Miss Burrows would stop holding her hands up to her ears in that pained fashion, and that Idle would stop grinning round at everybody as if determined to enjoy himself. Wolf, who had always thought dancing was stupid, and whose mind was in no way changed by the writhing creatures before him, blew patient bubbles into his Coca-Cola, longing to return to the hotel. Then the thing that Emily most dreaded happened : Idle suggested that he and Marcia Burrows should dance. Miss Burrows leapt up, all of a dither in her keenness, saying she didn’t know if she could manage this kind of thing, but she would like to try.
In the violent lights that ripped about them, the grown-ups were absurd. Idle moved with stiff-hipped enthusiasm, and held up his hands in a position of surrender. Marcia Burrows bounced about with small skips, quite out of time with the music, like someone used to maypole dancing. Her sunray pleated skirt, printed with snakes and ladders, flicked about her knees, and her face was radiant with effort. Emily noticed the strange glances the couple were receiving from the other dancers. She wondered if her father was aware of the mirth he was causing … And if he cared.
‘They look bloody loony,’ said Wolf, embarrassed as Emily by the performance. ‘Your mother, now, if you don’t mind me saying so – if she was here they’d all be looking because she dances the best I’ve ever seen.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Emily.
She looked once more at her father. Behind his grin, as he watched his frolicking partner, his eyes were dull. Mama: I can’t bear for them to go on. It was suddenly clear to Emily what she must do. In order to get Marcia Burrows off the floor, she must dance herself. She must dance as she did with her mother, as her mother had taught her. Her best. She stood up.
‘Where are you going?’ Wolf was puzzled by Emily’s determined look.
‘To dance.’
‘You can’t expect me to.’
‘Don’t want you to.’
Emily danced her best. Slowly at first, bending her body to the sounds, stretching her arms, feeling the weight of her head and the swish of her hair as she rocked her neck from side to side. Through the squalls of music, she heard Marcia Burrows’ shriek of amazement, her giggle. Then dimly Emily saw her cavorting back to the table. Idle was now before Emily, hopefully practising a kind of rhythmic bow, like a courting pigeon. But she swung away from him, impatiently. So he, too, shuffled back to the table.
Emily was left on her own among tall, teenage strangers. Some of them, tanned boys with dark eyes, divided from their partners, danced opposite her for a while. The music, encouraging, grew faster, louder. Emily became a totally pliant thing, wild but never uncontrolled, intoxicated now by the flashing lights that turned her movements and the shadow of her movements into a quivering film. She was oblivious to the attention she caused – didn’t notice for some moments that she was alone on the floor. Her only thought was that she had to dance her best for Mama. It didn’t matter, really, that Mama would never know …
When the music finally subsided, Emily returned to the table. Applause, like rain, splattered the newly still darkness. Sweat pricked everywhere on Emily’s body. Her tee-shirt was damp, all the fire had left her.
‘That was pretty good, Em.’ Idle was proud, sad.
‘What a little dancer! ‘ Marcia Burrows was still clapping her feathery hands. Wolf sniffed.
‘Let’s go, shall we?’ Idle was paying. The music had started again – strange, distant sounds now that Emily had climbed down from them. ‘That was quite fun, wasn’t it? There was gooseflesh on Idle’s arms.
‘No,’ said Emily, ‘it was horrible. All wasted.’ Too late to take back what she had not meant to say. Apologies would confuse.
‘Really,’ said Idle, ‘I don’t understand you.’
‘Your father and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, didn’t we, Idle ?’ Miss Burrows enthused. In reply, Idle merely sighed.
The next day the sky clouded over. Emily, tired and irritable, found nothing to enjoy. Idle suggested that everyone should rest that afternoon, and if the evening was fine they would go to their favourite beach. But Emily remained hot and alert on her bed, unable to read or sleep. Eventually, she decided to go along to her father’s room, suddenly wanting to see him on his own, unsure what she should say to him.
She knocked on the door, opened it without waiting for an answer. The room was dusky behind drawn blinds. Idle was lying on the bed, dressed in a both-robe. Marcia Burrows stood beside him, a glass of water in her hand. She, too, was in a dressing gown. On hearing the door she made a clumsy pirouette towards Emily, swatting the dressing gown around her knees.
‘Oh, dear. Is there anything the matter?’ Her face was a deep plum.
‘No.’ Emily shut the door. Stood watching them. ‘I wanted to see Papa.’
‘I was just insisting he took his pills.’
‘Are you ill, Papa?’
‘No, darling. I’ve probably been overdoing the good food.’ His voice was tired. One hand rested on his stomach.
‘It’s your ulcers, Idle, whatever you may say.’ Marcia sat down on the end of the bed and patted one of Idle’s ankles. It was stuffy in the room in spite of the open window.
‘What are ulcers?’
‘He should be having lots of milk. That’s what they always recommend for ulcers. But the French milk …’ Marcia Burrows clacked one of her leatherette slippers against her heel. Emily’s head ached.
‘I’m all right, Marcia.’ Idle gently twitched his foot from out of her grasp.
‘Shall I go away?’ Emily asked.
‘No. Stay.’ Idle smiled, half in pain.
‘I’ll go. I’ll go and carry on with my siesta.’ Marcia Burrows stood up, her face lively with offence. ‘It was only remembering your father’s pills made me leap out of bed.’ She addressed Emily in some confusion, then left the room quickly. Idle seemed amused by her manner of departure.
‘What’s the matter with her?’ Emily asked. Papa was closer now Marcia Burrows had gone.
‘I dare say she doesn’t like her nursing routine to be interrupted. She’s a woman of inflexible habits. The sort of thing you and I aren’t entirely used to.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be silly. Come here.’ Idle patted the bed beside him. Emily sat down. ‘You all right? Enjoying yourself?’ Emily nodded silently. ‘Only two more days. Funny how the time goes so fast. I think it’s been a good time, though. Being with you so much.’
‘But I wish …’
‘I know.’
A small breeze shifted the blind, making it tap at the window ledge. Emily swung her feet on to the bed and rested her head on her father’s chest. From this position she could see half her mother’s face-half her smile of a few years ago – in the photograph on the bedside table.
She cried. Quite suddenly, surprising herself by the tears.
‘Don’t, darling. Don’t, my Em.’ Idle’s hand was gentle on her head.
‘I don’t know why I’m crying, Papa.’
‘You’re tired from last night.’
‘Yes.’ Her body heaved. ‘But I hate crying.’
‘You hardly ever do. You’re a pretty brave one, you know.’ His voice was medicine. Emily lifted her head. Idle dabbed at her eyes with a corner of his bath-robe. His London smell had absolutely gone, now.
‘You smell of the sea,’ Emily said, ‘and there’s sand in your hair.
Idle smiled.
‘Tell you what, we’ll never get to sleep now, will we ? Shall I read to you ?’
Emily nodded. Warm, better.
‘Great Expectations. Mama and I got to page sixty-eight.’
‘You go and get it for me, then later we’ll go out. Look : I think it’s getting brighter.’
But when the time came, although her spirits were temporarily restored, Emily felt disinclined to join the beach party. Wolf was desolate at her lack of enthusiasm. He kicked moodily around her room.
‘We’ve been stuffing in all day. Why don’t you want to come now it’s sunny?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Gloomy old Emily. Emily gloomily gloomily Emily. I could make a tongue twister out of it. Do you want to be on your own ?’ He was sarcastic.
‘Yes.’
‘Women and girls always want to be on their bloody own. Stupid spoilsports, I think. Well, anyway, your father-he’s not a spoilsport, at least-he said he’d help me fly my model aeroplane.’
In the end, Emily went with them. Although the sun had broken through the cloud, it was a cool evening. The cove they went to was deserted. Idle and Wolf flew the plane on the cliff top. Marcia Burrows, in a new cardigan to protect herself from the light breeze, watched them patiently. She wasn’t a bad old stick, really, Emily thought. Kind, and not much trouble. But brittle, somehow. Frail. Good but uninspired. The sort of woman who, if she married, and had children, would make an easy grandmother. But rather an embarrassing mother.
All the same, she looked a bit out of things, sitting here. Ill at ease.
‘Don’t you want to help the others fly the kite?’ asked Emily.
‘I wouldn’t be much good at that.’
‘Mama loves kiting.’
‘Your mother and I have different kinds of stamina. She’s physically energetic – admirably so. I’m, well, more of the persistent kind. Privately persistent, so that you’d never guess.‘ He eyes, blurred from the wind, were on the horizon. She seemed to be speaking to the elements rather than to Emily.
‘But are you just going to go on and on being a secretary, for ever and ever, until you’re old?’
Marcia Burrows roused herself a little.
‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything, but probably not. Who can say? One thing you learn when you’re as middle-aged as I am’ – she smiled to herself – ‘is your exact role. And you accept it, even if it’s second best. You accept your role in the lives of other people. There’s no use in reaching for some sort of unobtainable heaven if you’ve been born equipped only with a step ladder. So very persistently you stick to your minor role. — That’s not to say you can’t imagine, sometimes.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘Well, I can’t explain myself better than that.’ Marcia Burrows stiffened herself against a new gust of wind.
‘Then can you tell me what flamboyant means?’
‘You ask so many questions! Wherever did you pick up such a word?’
‘Mama said Papa had flamboyant admirers, but you weren’t the most flamboyant.’
‘Oh. Did she? She’s right, of course.’ Marcia Burrows crumpled a little. ‘It means – showy, decorative. Not dowdy. Not a secretary for life. People like your mother and father are flamboyant in the best sense of the word. They attract other flamboyant people. They always will. It’s a sort of luxury. Perhaps well deserved, perhaps unfair,’ she added. ‘Now, Emily, do leave me, will you? I like to look at the sea without all this chatter.’
‘All right.’
Emily, shivering in her bathing trunks, wandered away. She had the feeling there was no longer any need to feel sorry for Miss Burrows. In spite of all the laughable things about her she seemed to be quite happy on her step-ladder, whatever that was, persisting away privately in her own peculiar world. Emily scrambled down the cliff to the beach – a long, shell-shaped curve of sand. It was windless down here. Quiet, except for the distant rasp of the breakers. The sand was soft warm ridges under her feet, cold if she wriggled her toes more deeply.
She walked towards the sea, wondering at its sadness. Perhaps it was just because it was evening. Perhaps the waves don’t like the end of days, the coming of night, the lighthouse flash. And yet it was lucky, the sea. Because even if it was quite boring, millions of years of swirling up the beach and slipping back again, at least it was always the same. The tides would go on till the end of the earth, you could count on that. Whereas with people, even the people you knew best, you could never tell. Their ways, in fact, were much more mysterious than those of the oceans. Most peculiar, sometimes. Put out if you went to see your own father in the middle of the afternoon. And … oh! Here was a cluster of shells, lying in the sand like a family. Such pretty ones. Emily stooped to pick them up. She would take them home as a present for Mama. Mama would like them. She could make them into a new necklace. Papa, of course, being a man – well, Papa wasn’t much interested in shells.
They returned to England. Idle and Marcia Burrows stayed in London: Emily and Wolf went home. Fen was already there, welcoming and gay. In a mood of capricious energy, she had arranged bowls of cream and white roses in most rooms, and trailed honeysuckle, already dying, across the mantelpiece in the kitchen. She had made summer puddings and left them to cool in the larder : and in the evening she threw lavender on to the fire so that the house itself became infused with the peaceful smell of summer gardens. Emily wondered at her happiness.
Fen asked questions about France but hardly seemed to listen to the answers. She sat at the kitchen table, a yellow chalk in her hands, shuffling through a pile of large photographs. Emily, too, looked at them, with less interest than her mother. Pictures of some theatre, some play: shadowy men in long robes, girls in togas and sandals, garlands of flowers on their heads.
‘Do you mean this was your job, photographing this play?’
Fen nodded.
‘I told you. What d’you think of them?’
‘They’re good.’ Emily sighed. She studied one particular picture. One of the actors with a long beard looked very familar. She looked again at the wild eyebrows. Of course. ‘Is this Kevin?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Yes.’
‘But I thought he wasn’t an actor any more.’
‘He missed it too much. He’s going back. He’s going to sell the factory. He had awfully good reviews-you know, the critics were nice about him. They said the play wasn’t up to much, but his performance was marvellous.’ Fen had no hope of containing her smile. Emily let the photograph fall on to the table with a click.
‘So that’s why you were asked to take the pictures?’
‘It could have had something to do with it.’
‘So Kevin was there all the time ?’
‘Rehearsing.’
‘Did Papa know? Did he know Kevin was in the play?’
‘Of course. He was pleased it was a chance for me …’
‘I wish you’d told me.’
‘Oh, Em. Why? I didn’t think it was important.’
‘All the time in France, I imagined you being sad in Scotland, just working.’
‘You silly old thing. I was having a lovely time. Whatever are you looking like that for? Come here and tell me which of these you like best.’
Emily moved closer to her mother, who was far away, absorbed in the photographs. And the pleasure of being home again, for all the warmth of the evening kitchen, and the flowery smells, was a little dimmed.
A few days later Emily remembered the restaurant plan. Before reminding Wolf she would, she decided, make one positive move and buy the candles. She would act upon his advice and get the night-light type of candle, so that there should be no risk of the barn catching fire. The idea of the restaurant was something to look forward to-it would be arranged for one of the weekends when Idle was home. Marcia Burrows might be there, too : it wouldn’t matter one way or the other, and Wolf’s father. Coral was the only problem.
Emily bought four night-light candles in the village shop and, carrying them in a paper bag, walked home. It was midday, very hot. Everything bright with high summer. Soon, it would be early autumn, the best time, when she would feel more energetic. Now, she felt enervated. Walking was an effort. She was glad to be on her own because she could not have bothered to talk to anyone. Not even Wolf. Though she would ring him as soon as she got home, and make a plan for this afternoon.
But halfway down the drive the shade of the barn tempted her. Anything to shelter from the hard sun for a moment. Wolf could wait.
Emily walked through the wide, doorless opening to the barn. Its cool shade flung over her like water : the familiar smell of warm musty hay bristled round her and the pigeons, chiming on their high rafters, fluttered a little, ghostly fans in the half-light. Emily leaned against the old dog-cart, panting. Its high iron wheel dug into her back. She turned, and read the carved message once again : Ada loves Charlie. Tracing the words with her finger, she wondered if the cart had belonged to Ada or Charlie. Ada, most probably. She was a girl with old-fashioned hats tied on with veils, and a small waist and a secret smile. She owned a glossy pony and a tall whip, and she drove through the country lanes hoping to run into Charlie. But Charlie had a huge black hunter: he galloped across ploughed fields and jumped the hedges. Ada, racing along the lanes, could never hope to catch him. Perhaps they only met at church, Sundays, where, after the service, Charlie would hold the pony’s head while Ada climbed into the cart. She would give him a smile, and drive away filled with a love she could never mention. Perhaps it was only years later she had sold the cart, a poor grand mother by then, married to some man who said why don’t you get rid of that junk? And so she had inscribed the message in loving memory before letting it go to a local auction.
Emily climbed into the cart. One of its hard seats, split, frothed with white stuffing. Part of an old rein was looped over the side of the cart, the cracked black leather quite stiff. Emily held it, bending it gently, wondering if she could ever make it pliant again, as it must have been in Ada’s hands.
From the darkness of the barn the scene outside was a huge, oblong picture, very bright: part of the house, its mossy roof dazzling green, on the left : an apple tree on the right. Fen walked by, a whicker basket over her arm. Looking for more roses, perhaps. She couldn’t want more roses. Emily called to her. Fen stopped, peered into the barn. The folds of her long corn-coloured skirt shifted gently about her ankles. Perhaps Ada had stood just like that, once, looking for Charlie.
‘I’m here! In the cart.’
Fen came towards her. She crossed from the brilliant light outside to the barn shadows, and as she did so the summery essence of her figure seemed to evaporate. Suddenly, though still warm and gold, she was a harbinger of autumn : summer had quite fled from her shape, leaving her beautiful but melancholy.
‘What are you doing here? I was wondering where you were.’
‘Why don’t you come up in the cart?’ Emily swung open the small door and Fen climbed in. The cart rocked for a moment, till Fen sat on the split seat opposite Emily. ‘I was thinking of Ada and Charlie.’
‘It’s sad they had to sell this. They’d probably had it for years,’ Fen said.
‘Do you think they married, then?’
‘Oh yes. They’re grandparents. Living in a little cottage in a wood somewhere. They’ve got sepia photographs of themselves in this cart, don’t you think?’
‘I thought Ada lost Charlie. I mean, never got him.’
‘No. You are an unromantic one. They sit by the fire, remembering.’
‘I hope so.’ Emily watched her mother shifting on her seat. Her smell of stephanotis fused with the greyer smell of hay. Emily wanted to touch her, but she kept her hands on her paper bag. ‘I bought the candles for the restaurant,’ she said. ‘You know, Wolf and I are going to make a restaurant one night in the loft. For you and Papa and Wolf’s father and perhaps Marcia Burrows. We wondered if we could borrow a tablecloth and if you could help us a bit with the food, secretly … We’re going to make the menus this afternoon. When do you think it should be? Mama?’ She paused. ‘What’s the matter, Mama?’
Fens’ eyes met Emily’s. They were bleak in the shadows. And fear, like a shawl, seemed to have wrapped round her, making her cower down on the seat. Her long silence was alarming.
‘Em,’ she said eventually. ‘I don’t think you had better make plans for a restaurant. You see, Papa and I aren’t going to be here together, any more.’
Miles above them, in the dark, a pigeon twirled and tumbled. Its friends cooed their appreciation.
‘Why not?’ The sides of the barn lurched like a ship in a storm. Emily held on to the frail sides of the cart.
‘Well … Oh God, I didn’t want to tell you any of this till the end of the holidays, Em. Then we wanted to tell you together. But with all your plans …’ Her voice wavered away.
‘But I bought the candles. What shall I tell Wolf?’
‘You’ll have to tell Wolf the truth. We’re not going to be married any more, darling.’
‘But I bought the candles, Mama.’
‘I know. But it’s all over, really. Papa and I can’t live together any more. We’ve tried, but we can’t.’
‘Why not? Don’t you love each other any more?’
‘Oh yes. I expect we’ll always love each other. For ever and ever and ever, like we’ll always love you.’
‘I don’t understand. If you love each other … and except for that time Papa was cross with Kevin, you’ve never had rows and things.’
‘So I don’t understand.’
‘I wish I did. I wish we did. I wish I understood why things go wrong, and then they can’t be mended again, no matter how hard you try. It’s hard to explain. But something dies, and you can’t bring it to life again. So if you stay together, it’s a kind of – living death.’
‘I still don’t understand.’
‘And you find yourselves loving other people in the old, alive way.’
‘So you mean you’re going to get divorced ?’
‘Divorced?’ Fen sat upright at the harshness of the word. ‘I suppose we shall get round to that. There’s no particular hurry.’
‘And what else will happen? What will happen to here? To me ?’
‘Oh, darling. We haven’t thought out the details. We’ve just agreed to part. We’ve got to discuss everything.’
‘But what will happen to you?’
‘To me? I’ll be all right. The plan is that I shall leave at the end of the holidays … and go and live with Kevin, follow him wherever he goes in the theatre. I’ll see you a lot, of course. As many weekends as you want. Wherever I am, I’ll come for you.’
‘And Papa?’
‘Papa hasn’t been very well, as you probably know. He’s been working too hard for too many years. He’s given himself ulcers. So he’s not allowed to work so much any more. He’s going to be here most of the time, looking after you, and you don’t need to move school. One day, perhaps, you’ll move to a smaller house.’
‘But who will look after Papa and me?’
‘Who will look after Papa and you?’ There was a long silence. ‘I believe Papa said something about Marcia Burrows…’
‘Marcia Burrows?’ The pigeons made dizzying arcs of white in the barn dusk. ‘Will Papa marry her?’
‘But he can’t love her.’ Marcia with her toes pointed to the sky on picnics, her fear of the cold, her grey neatness, her sad willingness to please. ‘Papa can’t love Marcia Burrows, he can’t, he can’t…’
‘I daresay he doesn’t,’ said Fen. ‘But people often substitute the habit of loving for just plain habit.’
As birds and barn, lightness and dark encircled her in their spinning, Emily was supported by the warn familiar place of her mother. They slipped, arms about each other, into the corner of the cart, their hearts pounding at the horror of all prospects. And even as the first nightmare blazed through Emily, the second began to formulate.
‘Mama, you and Kevin – you wouldn’t get married, would you? You don’t love Kevin, do you? You couldn’t!’
Emily felt the huge movement of Fen’s sigh.
‘I don’t know about marriage, Em. Honestly. We haven’t discussed it. We’ll see what happens. For the moment all we know is that we’re happy when we’re together … and we want to make you happy as possible in the circumstances.’
Emily listened to herself laughing, or it may have been a pigeon noise.
‘Why did it have to happen to you and Papa, after all these years?’ She must have asked out loud, because she heard Fen’s answer.
‘I don’t know. Sadly, it happens to a lot of people.’
‘Couldn’t it ever be all right again, if you tried?’
‘No.’
Emily released herself from her mother’s hold. Somewhere in all the turmoil was á small flicker of hope.
‘I think it could be. If you really tried.’
‘No, darling. There’s no point in thinking that. Really.’ Fen’s wan voice fluttered down, chilling. Emily took her hand.
‘Then please tell me why it happened.’ Emily glanced at her mother: Fen’s head was high, her eyes bright as she looked out at the garden.
‘What can I say to you, Em? Sometimes you do things without meaning to, not guessing at the risk you’re taking. Strong as you may think you are, you’re not strong enough to stop what happens. You stand, looking at the whole disaster from a long way off, terrified by your own actions, but unable to stop.’
‘You mean, like when I threw the ink at school.’
‘Like when you threw the ink at school.’
‘But everyone forgave me for that.’
‘It isn’t just a question of forgiveness. We all forgive each other. Papa and I …’
‘Don’t cry, Mama.’
‘Of course I shan’t cry. I never cry, do I ?’
‘No.’
‘And you’re not to worry. I promise we’ll see to it you’ll have the best life possible, given this has happened. We’ll see you a lot together, Papa and I – we’ll never fight, or be difficult, like some separated parents. In a way, it might be quite fun, having two lots of families …’ Her ridiculous voice, almost breaking, strained on. ‘Mightn’t it? Don’t lets think about it any more today … I couldn’t bear it. Em, Em. It’ll be all right, honestly. You’ll get used to it. It’ll just be different.’
Already the speckled dusk in the barn had changed its tone. The garden outside was no longer merely brilliant, but cruel. The pigeons mocked-had their cooing ever been a comfort? Fen, with her shrill voice, remained the only familiar figure in the landscape. But soon she would be gone. It was different already. Quite, quite different. Emily flung her bag of candles on to the floor. Perhaps, if she had never got into the cart – perhaps if Ada and Charlie had kept their stupid old cart …
‘Help me get some more roses, Em,’ Fen was saying, climbing down the small step. ‘They’re almost the last.’
She crossed the floor of the barn, came to the glitter of the sun outside. It tore at her silhouette like flames. She turned back to Emily, beckoning, not noticing the flames. Not noticing she was on fire.
Mama!
Emily followed her.
Coral had made an effort with the tea. She had arranged small plates of different kinds of sandwiches and coloured biscuits, and had bought an iced cake. But Emily hadn’t the energy even to pretend she was hungry. She sat in silence, tearing a piece of bread into smaller and smaller bits. Coral chattered on in a cheerful voice, as if nothing had happened, as if nothing was wrong. But she received no answers to her silly questions. Wolf, in deference to Emily, kept silent too.
Tea over, the children went out into the garden. They just stood there, a few feet apart, not talking. Toys were strewn over the lawn, but Wolf knew it was useless to ask Emily what she wanted to play.
‘What do you want to do?’ he asked, at last.
‘Go home.’
‘But you’re meant to stay here till … till your father comes to fetch you later.’
‘I know. But I’m going now. You can’t stop me. Do you want to come?’
Wolf looked at her, worried by the sharpness of her voice. She stood very stiff, arms by her side. When a breeze blew a strand of long hair across her face she tossed back her head. Suddenly she looked much older than he felt. He nodded. Of course he would go with her, no matter how cross it would make Coral.
It was nearly six weeks since Emily and Fen had sat in the cart in the barn. Six warm, busy weeks. They had done so many things, mostly with Wolf, spinning out the days, not wanting them to end, going to bed late and getting up early. Idle had been down once, just for lunch. And for those few hours the madness to come had seemed unbelievable : they had been happy, hadn’t they? Talking, laughing, just like so many other times. But when Idle said goodbye, Fen had turned her head away, quickly, not waving, and ran towards the house. Emily, left between the two of them, had remembered, then. It was like waking up to bad reality after a good dream. All her life, till now, she had been used to it the other way round.
It wasn’t till two days ago that Fen began her packing, and then she did it at night after Emily was in bed. She stored the packed suitcases in the spare room, but Emily saw them. She also noticed, although Fen was careful about what she removed, the disappearance of small things: the necklaces that seemed to hang from every mirror, the quill pen that lived on the dresser, a Victorian mug, some of the bright wools, some of the battered cookery books. Irreplaceable things, peculiar to Fen.
The curve of the summer had begun its downward slope, and the heat had gone out of the days. There were early mists again that dulled the apples, morning and evening : the roses browned and died, and the sunflowers, much taller this year, stood like childish paintings of the real sun, their primiitve faces dazzling in the sky. Inside, Emily’s new gumboots and new mackintosh, ready for the new term, were in the hall. Fen, unused to sewing, had sat by the fire one night struggling with a name tape, and Emily had prayed that the cotton would never run out, the task would never end. But it was soon over, like every precious action these days, and Fen returned to her cooking. In the last few days she had cooked wildly, extravagantly, fast filling the deep-freeze with things Emily felt there was no hope of ever wanting to eat. Sometimes, making pastry or sieving gooseberries, she would talk vaguely of future plans: what fun it would be when Emily joined Kevin and her on their trips round the country … But then she would break off, distracted, and write a note about the milk or the forwarding of letters, and pin it to the dresser. Sometimes she looked sad, and fell silent. But Emily discovered that talking about Kevin’s new play soon cheered her.
Fen had said goodbye to Emily this morning, and sent her over to Wolf for the day. She herself was to leave later, collected by Kevin. Then Idle and Miss Burrows would arrive in the evening, for the weekend. The following week Idle would take Emily back to school, and he and Miss Burrows would stay at home. He had, it seemed, almost retired. He planned, he had told them that day at lunch, to write a book. Anyhow, he’d be there. Nearly always.
So the plans for the parting, now it had come, were simple and easy. So unbelievably simple, quite possibly they were not true. It was to check this that Emily now walked back home, contrary to all orders to stay at Wolf’s house : she wanted to make sure, finally.
Kevin’s car was in the drive, one door open, a stack of things on the back seat. Emily and Wolf slipped into the orchard and climbed an apple tree. From the protection of its thick leaves they watched Kevin emerge from the house, a suitcase in each hand. Emily, who hadn’t seen him for some time, was shocked at his height. Also at the ugliness of his face and the blackness of his hair. She watched while he wedged the suitcases into the boot of the car, then stretch himself, scratching his ribs. He called out impatiently to Fen.
Fen came out of the front door, slamming it behind her. She seemed to be all in orange – something new, a dress Emily didn’t know – scarves flying from her neck, her face pale. Unsmiling, she checked the door, then let her hand run over the stone wall of the house. She tweaked at a curl of honeysuckle as if to break it off, but then left it. Slowly she walked to the car, looking at the ground. When she reached him, Kevin put his arm round her. Still she didn’t smile, just brushed the hair out of her eyes. She got into the car, not looking at anything. Banged the door.
Kevin started the engine. Turned. They drove out of the gate. If Emily leapt from the tree, ran very fast across the lawn, climbed the wall, jumped down into the road in front of the car …
‘Mama!’ She heard her own cry as she scrambled down through the branches.
‘They’ve gone,’ said Wolf.
‘I know.’ On the grass, Emily didn’t try to move.
‘You’d better come back to us.’
‘I’ll stay here.’
‘You’ll get into trouble.’
Emily shrugged.
‘You go, though.’
‘Sure you don’t want me to stay with you ?’
‘No.’
Wolf glanced at her face. It seemed smaller than usual, the eyes bigger. Not surprising, really, all this divorce business. Perhaps they should have tried out his plan after all, the plan that day on the church tower. But Emily had seemed so certain it was all right, then.
‘Come up any time, won’t you?’ Wolf said. He’d have to go : he couldn’t bear to stay with her, looking like that.
‘Thanks.’
‘Tomorrow or something.’
‘All right.’
Wolf walked away, hands in his pockets, whistling.
Alone in the garden Emily wandered towards her old hiding place in the long grass. She sat there, looking at the silent house, the shut windows of the kitchen. The church clock struck occasionally, but she didn’t count the chimes. It began to feel like evening : cool, fading. The grass was no protection. She was cold, cold, as if caught by a sudden dew. After a while – a long time, perhaps – she heard a car. It drew up at the front door. Marcia Burrows got out first – through the window of the car Idle handed her a key. She began to walk up the front path, her head making uncertain pecking movements. She was wearing her customary grey flannel suit, and carried a number of small boxes. At the door she fumbled for a moment, then went in.
Now Idle got out of the car. He wore a blue London shirt, no coat. Folding his arms over himself, as if he felt suddenly chilled, he looked up at the house, and then across the garden to Emily’s hiding place. She leant back, trying to hide completely for a moment. But then she remembered that particular game was over. It belonged to last year. Peering through the grass, she saw her father coming towards her, as she knew he would. She stood up.
‘Papa!’ she said.
He couldn’t have heard her, so far away, but he smiled. Emily waited for him. She wondered if he would carry her on his shoulders, so that one last time she could lose her head in the clouds.