A WARM, STILL evening; the scent of the cut grass drifts and mixes with honeysuckle and meadowsweet and the moon is just visible in the pale sky. Swallows swoop and wheel in and out of the barn where their babies wait eagerly for those nourishing beakfuls of food, stoking up for the long journey ahead.
Camilla, setting the table on the veranda outside the kitchen door, pauses to watch them. She’ll miss them when they go, despite the mess they make on her washing. She likes the way that the young from earlier broods are all helping to feed these last nestlings; a family at work together. Her sons and their families have been here during the summer; separately, overlapping, singly, in groups; the summer has been full of visitors – and she loves it. She loves to cook and nurture and entertain. Now she misses them just as she will miss the swallows. As the grandchildren grow older, and their lives grow busier with their own friends, visits to the valley aren’t the great treat they once were. They are outgrowing the toys and demanding more sophisticated entertainment, but at least the two eldest cousins, Ollie and Luke, love sailing, Annabel adores cooking, and Lucy can practise her flute without neighbours complaining.
Camilla lights the candles in their prettily painted glass bowls. This veranda, with its slate floor, fluted stone pillars and glass roof, is perfect for summer evening entertaining. It looks out across the sloping lawn to the Horse Brook, slipping its shining way through the trees, and it is Camilla’s favourite summer place. Even in the rain she will sit here planning: menus, spring bulbs, a present for a grandchild.
The candles flicker and gleam as the daylight begins to fade; the moon grows brighter in the east. Camilla’s thoughts dwell briefly on her supper: roasted tomato, basil and parmesan quiche, beetroot salad with rocket for colour, a honey-roast ham. A jug of Pimm’s is in the fridge with several bottles of rosé and bowls of raspberries and meringues.
She can hear voices. Mungo and Kit are with Archie in the hall and she hurries in to meet them. Tall, thin, elegant Archie is stooped in an embrace with Kit, who stands on tiptoe to hug him, and Camilla smiles at the sight of them. How different Mungo and Archie are, in almost every way possible. Serious, responsible Archie, working in his father’s law practice in Exeter from the moment he left university: imaginative, emotional Mungo, risking parental disapproval and security to follow his star. She loves Mungo’s gay friends and his girlfriends and, because nothing seems to get too serious for too long, her relationship with him has never been strained. He beams at her, opening his arms for a hug.
‘Are we on the veranda, Millie?’ he asks. ‘Oh, good. A perfect evening for it.’
‘Come and have a drink,’ she says. ‘How are you, Kit?’
She senses that Kit is a tad stressed; a little bit tense.
‘It’s great to be here,’ Kit says, kissing her. ‘London is an oven.’
Camilla takes the Pimm’s from the fridge. ‘I hope you don’t have to go dashing back?’
Kit shakes her head. ‘I work very part time these days and anyway everything’s gone dead. People rushing away, hoping the hot weather will last. This late heat wave has taken everyone by surprise. So what’s new? How’s the family?’
Camilla pours her a glass of Pimm’s. ‘They’ve all come down during the holidays and it’s been wonderful. I’m just rather sad to see all the children growing so fast. I do so love them when they’re small. Actually, we’ve let the cottage on a short-hold tenancy to a nice little family, did Mungo tell you? Not that he’s met them yet. Emma is the daughter of a friend of mine and her husband is an MO in the Royal Marines. He’s just gone back to Afghanistan for three months. She’s got two little ones, which is such fun. I thought of inviting her to supper but Archie wasn’t too keen. I think he wanted you all to himself.’
Kit looks affectionately at Archie. ‘The dear of him,’ she says, and then crouches to embrace the dogs, who come wagging enthusiastically to meet her. Kit is a great favourite. They lick her ears whilst she laughs helplessly, an arm around each of their necks. Camilla watches her, amused, understanding why Mungo is so fond of her: there is something so wonderfully uncomplicated about Kit – unlike Izzy. Poor mercurial, insecure Izzy.
She helps Kit up, pushing the dogs away, handing her the glass. ‘Let’s have our drinks,’ she says, and leads the way out on to the veranda.
Kit pauses to sip appreciatively. She’s falling under the familiar spell of being cherished. She’s spent her working life advising wealthy couples on the designs for their empty new penthouse flats, choosing a pretty lamp or a dining table, sourcing materials, selecting kitchens, and it is such heaven to allow other people to take charge occasionally. This was at the root of the temptation with Michael, of course. He was so responsible; so adult. She was able to imagine a future where anxieties and problems were shared, even taken on to his broad shoulders, so that she could be free of the responsibility. His size and rather shaggy head gave the impression of a large animal: a bear, perhaps, or a huge dog. She was always able to identify with Beauty’s attraction to the Beast and for some while she was blinded to Michael’s blinkered views and his absolute need to conform. After years of friendship with unconventional people Michael was a novelty. She thought he was reliable when he was merely intractable; wise when he was simply stubborn. Even Hal had remarked rather anxiously on Michael’s stolidity and self-regard, though the fact that he was an old naval oppo was a mark in his favour.
‘I thought you’d all approve,’ she said later to Mungo. ‘I could see my playing Camilla to his Archie.’
‘Michael isn’t a bit like Archie,’ Mungo answered at once. ‘Michael is a bigoted control freak who just happens to look like a rather attractive dog. And you aren’t Camilla. For God’s sake, sweetie, open your eyes!’
How odd love is, thinks Kit. Like a virus attacking us when we’re low. Perhaps I thought it was my last chance for a relationship. Imagine being married to Michael now and getting Jake’s letter.
This idea gives her a little jolt. How quickly all Michael’s apparent virtues would have crumbled to dust in the light of Jake’s personality. Kit tries to imagine them together and fails utterly.
She considers telling Camilla about her dilemma, about Jake. Camilla will be fascinated, even charmed, by the romantic possibility but she will quickly become practical; cautious about any commitment. Just at the moment Kit doesn’t want it to be up for discussion in this way. Camilla would expect some kind of rational conversation, extracting facts, leading to a decision. She would ask about the letter, and exactly what it is that Jake is proposing, and it would be difficult to explain it without the context of the past. The letter, short but clear, unfolds in Kit’s mind.
Kit, my dear, this is an almost impossible letter to write. I’ve thought about it for several months and I know now that any attempt at explanation or justification must mean that I am either disloyal to Madeleine or to you. We both know what happened and why. Let’s leave it at that.
Madeleine died earlier this year from cancer. She had been ill for some time. Her death has made me value life even more deeply and now, as I begin to look forward again, I’m hoping that the future might include you. I’ve gathered from our yearly exchange of birthday cards that you are not married but there might be other complications about which I have no knowledge. Would it be possible to meet? To say that nothing has changed would be trite, cheap even. But at some very deep level the love we shared does seem unchanged. Is this possible? Help me out, Kit. I’m a banker not a poet, and if I go on I shall make a fool of myself. I need to see you; to see your expression when I say these things. I can’t begin to write how much this would mean to me.
With my love,
Jake
Kit is filled with nostalgia for their shared past; she longs for him. She picks up her glass and has another sip to steady herself just as Archie appears beside her.
‘Come and see the moon,’ he says.
It’s a magic world on the veranda: candlelight, moonlight, starlight. Black bats flit and dart amongst the eaves, pale moths drift and flutter round the guttering flames, an owl screeches down in the woods. Kit is suddenly filled with envy of Camilla, who has lived her life here amongst this tranquillity with Archie and her children and her garden; giving life and nurturing it. Beside this abundance her own life seems suddenly shallow. She thinks of Jake and Madeleine, and their four little girls, and wonders what her life with him might have been like if she hadn’t been so dilatory.
‘I want to be Camilla,’ Izzy said to her once. ‘She’s so … uncomplicated and she does so much. She’s so practical and confident. She wouldn’t have a panic attack about what to wear to a party or because she couldn’t decide what to buy for supper. I don’t think she really likes me much but she’d never show it.’
Kit didn’t protest that of course Camilla liked her; she knew Izzy too well to make empty, automatic responses to these tiny cries of pain. Izzy hid the fear and despair so well that even those close to her would never have guessed at the depths to which she plunged.
‘And darling old Archie is such a poppet,’ Izzy added wistfully. ‘Imagine having an Archie.’
‘We’d both drive him mad in twenty-four hours,’ Kit answered. ‘He’s so sane and normal and responsible. We must just be grateful for Mungo.’
‘Oh, I am, I promise you,’ said Izzy fervently. ‘He saves my life over and over again. Well, I suppose it’s my life. Perhaps it’s someone else’s life. The trouble is I’ve played so many parts that I don’t know who I am any more. I’m not sure I ever did. I listen to myself talking and wonder if other people can tell that there’s nobody there really.’
‘Would you really swap your fame and success to live in a tiny hamlet, bringing up children …?’
‘No,’ Izzy said sadly. ‘Not as me. Not as Izzy. The responsibility would freak me out and I’d mess it all up. That’s why I want to be Camilla. Actually be her. That innate sense of her own worth. Those darling babies, and Archie like a rock at her side.’
‘And the dogs,’ said Kit, keeping it light. ‘Never mind the babies. I’ll have the dogs.’
Archie is smiling at her, topping up her glass.
‘I’m hoping you might come out sailing with me tomorrow,’ he says. ‘No good asking these two but I thought that you and I could have a potter down the river. Take a picnic.’
‘I’d love it,’ Kit says quickly. ‘Yes, please. If that’s OK?’
She glances at Camilla, at Mungo.
Camilla shakes her head. ‘Too hot for me. Can’t cope with the dazzle on the water. And it’s no good looking at Mungo. You know he gets sick in the bath. It’ll be lovely for Archie to have some company.’
‘I’ll cook supper for us all,’ says Mungo. ‘And what were you saying about a new tenant at the cottage? I must go and introduce myself. And how’s James’s novel coming along? Do you see much of him? He seems a bit self-conscious. As if he thinks we’re all talking about him.’
‘But we are talking about him,’ points out Archie.
‘You know what I mean, though.’
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ agrees Camilla. ‘When I talk to him it’s as if he’s waiting to get back to the fact that he’s a writer. It’s odd how he can turn almost any subject back to it.’
‘Poor James,’ says Mungo. ‘I suppose writers are just as bad as we actors are. Insecure. Needing love and approval. It’s the creative spirit. Or perhaps we weren’t loved enough as children.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t start all that,’ cries Archie. ‘You were loved just as much as I was, and I don’t feel the need to make everyone love me.’
‘Ah, but you have wonderful Millie and your children …’
‘Just stop it,’ Camilla says, amused by this familiar interchange. ‘Anyway, the question is whether we should give a little party and invite Emma and James. Would it work? I don’t see why not …’
Kit sits down at the table, takes an olive, listening to them talk. She thinks about Jake, trying to imagine him here amongst these special friends and a mix of excitement and terror churns her gut. Camilla goes inside, murmuring about supper, and the brothers stand together talking. Kit watches them: tall, lean Archie and short, muscular Mungo. The sense of panic recedes and she breathes deeply. Bozzy and Sam edge closer, jostling for her hand on their smooth heads, nudging her knee. She leans forward so as to embrace them both, happy as she has always been in their undemanding company and uncritical affection.
She thinks: if Jake had been a dog I’d have been fine – and gives a little spurt of laughter, buried hastily in Sammy’s warm neck.
The tranquillity and the moonlight enfold her; for this space of time she can be peaceful.