prosze,’ Krystyna said.’ Spokojnie moje dziecko, juz wszystko jest dobrze, cichutko.’ She was surprised how easily the motherly gestures came.Jack’s parental home was situated on the outskirts of East Fortune in the grounds of a large farm that had first belonged to his great-grandmother. The house was of pale-grey sandstone, the pitched roof was clad with Dutch pantiles, and the six chimneys that protruded from it had been symmetrically arranged to frame the crescent-shaped exterior. Bought at the turn of the twentieth century, the building had dominated family life. Each descendant had been told of the importance of passing the house on in a better condition than when they had inherited it. The gravel front was weeded and raked each day, the walled garden was tended every week, and a man came to clean the sash windows, inside and out, at the beginning of every month.
The building was situated in a low valley, but the outlook was open and wide, with views from the hills behind the house that stretched out to the Firth of Forth and the North Sea. The sight of the coast was both an end and a beginning: the edge of adventure.
Jack’s mother Elizabeth had been born and brought up in the house, marrying Ian Henderson at the age of twenty-five and providing him with three boys: Angus, Jack and Douglas. In return, her husband was expected to earn enough money to keep the place going and sustain the traditions to which Elizabeth had been accustomed: talk to factors and land agents, pay the bills, and provide a steady sense of home for their sons.
It was a house of privilege and expectation. This was not a family that tolerated failure. If tasks were to be undertaken, no matter how trivial, they had to be performed well.
Ian Henderson had already given the family his Julius Caesar and his King Lear. He had educated them, somewhat against their will, in English history through his unique interpretations of Richard II, Henry IV and even Henry V (although at the age of sixty-nine this had been something of a stretch). Now he had chosen comedy, and even risked ridicule, by taking on the part of Malvolio in Twelfth Night. Angus had been signed up for Orsino, Jack was going to be Feste, and Douglas, Sir Toby Belch.
Their father had phoned each son in turn and asked, ‘You will learn your lines, won’t you?’
His three boys had replied, as they did every year, that they would do their best without intending to do anything of the kind.
Angus had been persuaded to arrive early to help erect the set. As the tallest and the broadest of the three brothers he was always called in first to help with any manual labour. His father told him that he had ‘farmer’s hands’.
The set was a series of painted hardboard flats that could be clamped together to make a castle on the back lawn. They had used them a few years previously for the History Plays and now they were brought out every summer. Ian had decreed that, whether it was history, comedy, or tragedy, most Shakespeare plays needed battlements.
He was wearing a threadbare Viyella shirt and a pair of faded red corduroys. He hadn’t bothered to dress properly because he was planning to go through his costumes later that morning. In fact he was still wearing his slippers; a twenty-year-old pair of Church’s with one heel down. He had hinted that someone might like to give him a new pair for his birthday but guessed that his family probably thought he was too old to get the wear out of them.
He asked Angus to carry out the stage weights. They were heavier than he had remembered. So much of Ian’s life now consisted of conserving his energy and making sure that he wasn’t surprised or caught out by old age. He had to concentrate harder on tasks that he had previously taken for granted. He wasn’t sure his children realised what an effort his life had become, but then, he flattered himself, it was probably because he disguised it so well.
‘You know Jack’s bringing a friend?’ he said as he watched Angus move the flats into position.
‘Female.’
‘You don’t think…’
‘We’d better not ask. She’s Polish, apparently.’
‘How did he meet her? Jack hardly ever goes out.’
‘She’s called Krystyna.’
‘Sounds very exotic. How old is she?’
‘I didn’t like to ask,’ said Ian. ‘Jack’s been quite moody recently.’
‘He’s always moody.’
‘I thought Krystyna could be the Captain.’
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ Angus lifted another panel and asked his father to hold it steady while he weighed it down. ‘Bit of a baptism of fire, coming to the family play.’
‘Well, she can see us warts and all.’
‘You’d have thought she might have better things to do.’
‘Oh I don’t know. A day in the countryside, a spot of Shakespeare…’
‘Was it your idea to ask her?’
‘Jack volunteered. He said that it would make up for his girls not coming, and besides, he said that she’d been having a hard time. Apparently she needs cheering up.’
‘I can’t see Jack cheering anyone up.’
‘Now, now.’
‘And he’s playing Feste, for God’s sake. All that gloomy singing…’
‘It will be an adventure for her.’
‘I thought Jack had renounced the world to concentrate on his work?’
‘Apparently not…’
‘And I’d have thought he would be a bit out of practice with the ladies.’
‘Well, we’ll just have to see, won’t we?’
Ian had never examined his sons’ relationships closely. Angus and Tessa were fine in themselves; but Douglas and Emma found it impossible to conceal their difficulties and for Jack to break his near-monastic existence with this new girl was very odd. He only hoped that his son wasn’t about to make a fool of himself.
‘And here’s Sir Toby!’ he called when Douglas got out of his car. ‘And the lovely Viola. Have you learned your lines?’
Douglas sighed. His father could think of nothing but his bloody play. He had no idea how busy their lives were, how tense their journey from Glasgow had been, and what an effort it had been to persuade Emma to come in the first place.
‘Not quite, Father.’
‘That means you haven’t learned them at all.’ He wished his children would make more of an effort.
‘I’m sure we’ll muddle through,’ said Emma, stepping forward to kiss Ian on the cheek.
‘Muddle through? That’s hardly the spirit. I’m relying on you. You’re the professional, after all.’
‘Well, Ian, I’ll see what I can do.’ It was so demeaning for a proper actress to do am. dram. The rest of the family kept putting the stress of the verse in the wrong places. Every year Emma wanted to take over and tell them all how to speak it properly.
Douglas put in his case for the defence.
‘There are a lot of lines, Father. And we’ve been very busy. Any chance of a drink?’
‘It’s only just gone midday.’
‘Well, that’s all right then.’ Douglas walked off towards the kitchen.
‘It’s amazing you lot get any work done at all.’
‘It’s the artistic temperament,’ said Emma. ‘At least that’s what my husband calls it…’
Ian had once had such high expectations of his boys. He knew that it was wrong to show disappointment but there were times when he could not help it. Angus had given up his rugby and done well enough as a fund manager, but Jack could have been a professor if he’d put his mind to it; and for Douglas to abandon law and fritter away his intelligence by working in television was a complete waste of his ability: everyone thought so.
‘You’re here,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Home at last.’
‘We’re not late,’ Douglas replied. He leaned over the kitchen table to kiss his mother on both cheeks. He knew that both of his brothers kissed her on the lips but he had never thought it appropriate.
‘Mind your cardigan in the sauce,’ she said.
‘Bugger…’
Emma handed him a piece of kitchen towel and then kissed her mother-in-law.
Douglas dabbed at his clothes.
‘The colour almost matches,’ he said. ‘Perhaps they should market it. Apple, jade, grass, and now pesto…’
‘Your mother’s playing Fabian,’ Ian announced.
‘I’m going to play him as a very elderly retainer who could have a heart attack at any moment; someone who’s been kept on but is absolutely useless. Would you like a drink?’
Douglas was already fetching glasses down from the kitchen cupboard.
‘That’s why we’re here, Mother.’
‘Oh dear. I rather hoped that you were here to see me.’
‘Where is everyone?’ Emma asked. There weren’t enough of the family in evidence for a performance.
‘Angus isjust seeing to the stage and Tessa’s getting afew last-minute props. Imogen and Sarah are coming but Gavin has cried off. He is in London, I suppose, but I wish he’d been able to come. You know how important it is for Ian and he had him down to play Sebastian. Jack’s girls are both away. At least the Macleans are coming with their children but it’s been quite a struggle to make up the numbers.’
Ian opened some sparkling wine.
‘Jack may not be bringing the girls but he’s coming with a new girlfriend instead. At least I think she’s a girlfriend.’
‘Isn’t that intriguing?’ said Elizabeth.
Douglas was not so sure.
‘It doesn’t sound very likely.’
‘You never know,’ said Emma. ‘Your brother can be quite charming when he wants to be.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘You know, the hermit academic … mysteriously wise…’
‘We mustn’t say anything,’ Elizabeth said. ‘You remember how he used to hate people making any assumptions about his love life.’
‘He’s lucky to have a love life at all,’ said Ian.
‘Most of the time he only meets students,’ Douglas said. ‘Perhaps it’s one of them.’
‘I just hope everyone is polite to her,’ said Elizabeth. ‘We don’t want a scene.’
‘Oh you’ve no need to worry on that score, my darling,’ said Ian. ‘We’re hardly going to say anything tactless…’
‘But it would be good to tease him, don’t you think?’ Douglas asked. ‘Just for a bit?’
‘Don’t,’ said Emma. ‘Don’t even start.’
At the railway station Elizabeth Henderson was welcoming but guarded, shaking Krystyna’s hand and offering her a seat in the front of the Range Rover.
‘No, it’s all right,’ Krystyna said. ‘I’ll go in the back. I know you have not seen your son for a long time.’
Elizabeth was impressed by her guest’s politeness.
‘I suppose he does have longer legs. As long as you don’t mind…’
‘Of course not.’
‘We could have taken a taxi, Mother.’
‘That’s far too extravagant.’
‘They’re much cheaper than you think.’
‘Nonsense.’ Elizabeth had been brought up to believe that you should only take a taxi if you were either pregnant or over eighty.
Sometimes she wished everything could return to the time when her children were young, when there was enough hope and confidence to believe that each of her sons could become anything he wanted. But that was the time before compromise, before all the complications involved in growing up and finding partners and earning money.
‘How is everyone?’ Jack asked. He knew that if he kept asking questions there would be less time to satisfy his mother’s curiosity about Krystyna.
Elizabeth told them about Ian’s preparations for the play and how invaluable Angus had been (they were so grateful he had come early) and that Tessa had found the most beautiful dress imaginable.
‘She’ll make the most marvellous widow.’
Krystyna tried to remember the family pairings: Angus and Tessa, Douglas and Emma, Jack and … ? She realised that she still did not know his wife’s name.
They drove out of town, passing craft centres and caravan parks, barn conversions and new-build developments. Then they turned off the main road and followed the old drovers’ way, over river and burn, the fields divided by drystane dykes.
As they bumped over a cattle grid and veered on to even more rugged terrain, Krystyna wondered how big a house it would be and whether it was a mistake to have come.
‘Are you all right in the back, Krystyna?’
‘I am fine, Mrs Henderson.’
‘You must call me Elizabeth; everybody does, even the doctor, which I find rather disconcerting.’
They turned into a narrow drive. A Jack Russell ran out to greet them followed by a slow-moving Labrador. Jack collected the suitcases.
‘You won’t leave me alone, will you?’ Krystyna asked as they entered the hall.
‘Ah Jack,’ his father called. ‘Come and get your clown outfit.’ He walked towards them and extended his hand. ‘You must be Krystyna?’
‘I hope it is OK for me to come.’
‘You’ve saved the day,’ Ian said, giving her the firmest handshake she had ever received. ‘We didn’t have enough people for all the parts. Jack’s daughters have rather let us down.’
‘They’re busy, Father.’
‘They came last year…’
Both girls had sworn that they would never be in the play again.
‘Come into the snug,’ said Ian. ‘We are laying out all the costumes there.’
The room was filled with swathes of material that stretched back through generations of family history: velvet smoking jackets, old dress shirts, taffeta gowns cast off from long-forgotten balls.
‘I only hope it doesn’t rain,’ said Ian. ‘But I suppose it might be appropriate: the wind and the rain. Have you learned your lines, Jack?’
‘I know the songs.’
‘Is that all?’
‘You’re lucky to get that.’
‘I do sometimes worry what you do all day. Elizabeth has looked out this sailor’s suit for you, Krystyna. I do hope it fits. Are you all right about being the Sea Captain?’
‘I hope my English is good.’
‘It’s probably better than ours. Anyway, it’s all written down for you. And we’re not up to professional standards. Except for Emma: Douglas’s wife. We all have to admire her. That’s the only rule.’
‘No, you don’t,’ said Emma, coming into the room. ‘We all have to admire you, Ian.’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
Jack smiled.
‘No, you wouldn’t say it, Father. But you’d like it to be the case.’
‘I just want everyone to be happy.’
Jack turned to Krystyna.
‘Father takes it all very seriously.’
‘What a beautiful house,’ she said out loud, amazed that the family had dedicated a whole room to dressing up.
‘We nearly lost it in the Lloyd’s fiasco,’ Ian explained. ‘Fortunately, Angus is rather good with money and so after some rather deft manoeuvres we were able to survive. Close thing, though. Terrible business, asbestos …’ He was tying a series of gartered laces across his legs. ‘Do you think these will do?’ he asked. ‘I think I’d prefer leather. Perhaps I could do something with a dog lead?’
Krystyna was shown into a side room, where she could change into her costume – white trousers, a wide leather belt from the 1980s, and a heavy brocaded jacket with epaulettes. She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. She knew that she was crazy to be here, but at least she didn’t have to think about her life any more.
Ian Henderson laid out his staging plans on the dining-room table. He had drawn a grid with maps and diagrams for each character telling them where to move and when. Emma was shown that, when she was to perform her first great soliloquy, ‘I left no ring with her, what means this lady?’, she was to move across from C1 to C3 and then diagonally across to D3.
‘I think I’ll just feel my way,’ she said. ‘You know, the usual upstage centre to downstage centre thing.’
‘Oh well,’ said Ian. ‘I suppose that I had better leave it to the professionals.’
Emma knew that he didn’t really mean it. This production was the manifestation not of life as it was lived but of how Ian wanted it to be. If his family would only just do as he said, moving from A1 to B1 to C1 in real life, then everyone would be happier.
During the rehearsals he stood in the centre of the lawn and outlined his plans for the performance. Some people would enter ‘from the beehives’, others would come in ‘from the west side of the ha-ha’. Those who weren’t required in any given scene were expected to form the audience. There was a drinks table at the back of the auditorium and they were going to have an interval during which people could have a swim if they were too hot. Supper would be on the terrace afterwards.
A confident couple in Tudor dress arrived with two small girls in tow. They were the Maclean family and had come down from Perthshire. They apologised for being late. They had been held up in traffic.
This was not considered a sufficient excuse.
Ian had the adults down to play Maria and Aguecheek and they had missed their rehearsal slot.
‘You should have left earlier,’ he complained. ‘You know how bad it can get on the bridge.’
‘Jacqueline was finishing her illustrations. You know what it’s like, Ian.’
‘I’m glad to say that I don’t.’
The Maclean daughters were dressed in paisley dresses and wore their blonde curls in ringlets. They were called Sophie and Jasmine and had been fairies in the previous year’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
‘Come along everyone,’ Ian called out. ‘The curtain will rise in fifteen minutes.’
‘Where is the curtain?’ Krystyna asked.
‘In his head,’ said Emma. ‘It’s all in his head.’
‘Are the musicians ready?’ Ian called out.
The musicians in question turned out to be the Maclean girls. The four-year-old had her recorder; the six-year-old was proficient on the violin. Angus had already taken them to one side to prepare the opening.
‘Talented children make me sick,’ Emma said. ‘They think they can do it all without any training. I suppose we had better brace ourselves. My first line’s quite near the top.’
Jack appeared with a white face and a clown’s hat. He was carrying a jester’s stick, and waved it at Krystyna.
‘I’m sorry about this. I really am,’ he said.
‘Here comes Sir Toby,’ Douglas called, swaggering with a fake pot belly, carrying a half-emptied bottle of wine. ‘Now for a bit of wenching. Where’s the lovely Mrs Maclean?’
‘He’ll be drunk by four o’clock,’ Emma told Krystyna. ‘As long as he doesn’t try to sober up with a swim.’
‘Are you two all right?’ Jack asked.
‘What does it look like?’
Tessa emerged from the house dressed in black with a veil.
‘Do you think I look suitably miserable?’ she asked.
‘You’re supposed to be in mourning,’ Ian said. ‘Not on your way to a ball.’
Tessa had not met Krystyna and came over to introduce herself.
‘It’s very brave of you to come, you know.’
‘It is fine. I had nothing to do.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
Tessa had tied back her faded auburn hair to reveal a pale freckled face that had once been open but now appeared hesitant and guarded. Krystyna could tell, almost immediately, that something must have happened to her in the past.
Then she noticed Tessa’s left arm through the black gauze of her dress. Livid burn scars mottled and puckered the flesh. Tessa noticed the look and Krystyna felt embarrassed. She wished Jack had told her more about his family.
‘You look very elegant in the sailor jacket,’ said Tessa. ‘Are you one of Jack’s students?’
‘No.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘No, I mean I am older than I look, I think. I am twenty-seven.’
‘I see. But how did you meet?’
Krystyna had not prepared her answer.
‘In a pub.’
‘Jack – in a pub? That’s more his brother’s line…’
‘He is a good man.’
‘I know.’
‘But we are friends. You understand?’
‘Of course. But nobody minds.’
‘I think I mind,’ said Krystyna. ‘I don’t want people thinking it is more.’
‘Your secret’s safe with me.’
‘It’s not a secret…’
‘Beginners, please,’ Ian called. ‘The stage is set. The musicians are ready. Strike up, pipers!’
Emma walked over and took Krystyna by the arm.
‘Come with me. We’re on in a minute.’ She took her to a wooded area at the back of the stage. ‘Have you got your script?’
‘I learned it.’
‘You’ve learned it?’
‘Jack said I should try. So I did. As a surprise.’
‘Well, you’ll be the most popular girl in town, I can tell you. Not that you weren’t already…’
Those not in the opening scene took their seats and the play began. The Maclean girls played their music, Angus made his Orsino as foppish as he could but, as a large, bearded former rugby player, he was having difficulties.
Ian watched his family with proprietorial intensity, waiting for his first lines. It was going to be a long afternoon.
Emma strode down centre, looked around and declaimed: What country, friends, is this?
Krystyna answered: This is Illyria, lady.
And what should I do in Illyria? My brother, he is in Elysium, Perchance he is not drowned.
Krystyna was surprised when Emma spoke the words out loud, enunciating Viola’s grief. Everything she had been unable to speak about herself was contained in the verse of the play. She had been trying to forget about Sandy but the thought of him came back, without warning, as if it had never been away. She felt the language of the play recede as the memory of him returned. She had not expected tears but now she could not speak without her voice fragmenting.
‘Very good, Krystyna,’ Ian shouted at the end of the scene. ‘Very moving.’
Jack continued with Emma:
Good madonna, why mournest thou?
Good fool, for my brother’s death.
I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
He could see Krystyna lighting a cigarette as soon as her scene was over, hoping that no one would notice. Her hands were shaking. Jack had forgotten that the play contained such sadness. This was supposed to be a comedy, he thought, a festive celebration to while away the darkness of winter.
The two Maclean girls began to imitate the pompous way in which Ian Henderson walked, marching up and down with their heads high and their arms swinging, muttering in posh gruff English, ‘Carry on,’ ‘Do keep up,’ ‘For goodness’ sake,’ their mouths full of marbles. Jack and Angus began to laugh as their father strove valiantly to hold on to his audience.
I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will put off gross acquaintance, I will be point-device the very man… ‘Will you stop arsing about over there…’
The children giggled in a frightened way. They turned to see where their mother was standing.
‘Come on, darlings,’ said Mrs Maclean. ‘Let’s go and play where he can’t see you.’
‘Thank you …’ Ian resumed his performance: I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me; for every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me.
Mrs Maclean took her daughters round to the side of the house, where they could run around without disrupting the play. Then she returned to continue her performance.
Ian called out instructions in between scenes, determined that there should be no letting up, but the rest of his family had begun to flag. Elizabeth had fallen asleep under a parasol, Stewart Maclean was reading the Saturday papers, and Douglas was drinking his way through the part of Toby Belch. Only Emma and Tessa were taking the play seriously.
I prithee tell me what thou thinkst of me.
That you do think you are not what you are.
If I think so, I think the same of you.
Then think you right: I am not what I am.
I would you were as I would have you be…
Jack watched his father walking up and down backstage. He was going over his lines, anxious for his cue, determined not to make a mistake.
He wondered if he was the only one who had noticed him forgetting more than in previous years: his slow delivery and decline in energy. He had begun to take on the look of a man who was frightened of being caught out.
They reached the part where Feste had to drive Malvolio mad. Shakespearean comedy was crueller than Jack had remembered.
They have here propertied me, keep me in darkness, send ministers unto me, asses, and do all they can to face me out of my wits.
Krystyna lit another cigarette and walked across the lawn to see the view of the fields beyond the house. The heat had brought out the aroma of garlic in the country lanes and the air was heavy with summer. She watched the bees gather nectar and return to the hives. She remembered eating honey as a child, direct from an old teaspoon, and drinking ice-cold water from a metal cup. How old had she been at the time? Five? Seven?
She tried to think where the two little girls had gone. No one was paying them any attention.
She walked round to the side of the house to see the Macleans’ younger daughter reaching into the swimming pool. She had dropped an object into the water, something shiny like a mirror or a brooch, and Krystyna saw her topple forwards into the deep end.
It happened so quietly, with the light bright on the surface, that for a few seconds Krystyna thought that she was dreaming.
‘Oh,’ the other girl said. Then she looked at Krystyna. ‘Jasmine’s fallen in.’
The figure in the water was upside down and sinking to the bottom of the pool. Her dress billowed above her. The paisley darkened as it absorbed the water, spreading out over the surface, obscuring the girl’s head.
Krystyna watched, intrigued at the pattern forming, the spread of the clothing and the weight of the material.
Then she woke up. She realised that she had to jump in and save the child.
She dropped her cigarette and dived from the side of the pool. She felt the cold of the water burst around her. I’m pregnant, she thought. What is this doing to my baby?
The costume from the play was heavier than she had anticipated, pulling her down to the bottom of the pool. She should have taken the jacket off but there had not been time.
Krystyna pushed herself forwards and turned on to her side. Then she reached out her right arm and felt for the girl’s waist, pulling her along.
She stretched her left arm out wide, making half-strokes through the water, and used her legs to kick them forwards. Krystyna was running out of breath but wanted to surface once she was back within her depth.
She felt the brightness of the day, the sun in her eyes. Then she could hear the child coughing, alive. No words, no call for mother, no tears.
Krystyna stood up and stumbled back through the water, turning Jasmine round, holding her against her chest, patting her on the back as she choked back to life.
‘Uspokój si prosze,’ Krystyna said.’ Spokojnie moje dziecko, juz wszystko jest dobrze, cichutko.’ She was surprised how easily the motherly gestures came.
Jasmine’s sister was standing where she had left her. No one else had seen them.
Krystyna held Jasmine at a slight distance and looked into her shocked white face. Then she swept the hair away from her eyes.
‘Better now?’ she asked.
Her own clothes felt heavy and cold. She sat down to rest on the edge of the pool and noticed that Jasmine had cut her ankle.
‘Bracey gone,’ Jasmine said. ‘All wet.’
Krystyna took charge.
‘Let’s find towels?’ She looked at Jasmine’s sister. ‘Do you know where they are?’
‘Me show,’ said the girl.
They walked back to the house, drying and changing in the scullery. Krystyna did not know whether she would say anything or if the incident would be kept as a secret between them. She tried not to think what it would have been like had she not decided to leave the play: the parental horror, the child floating, attempts at resuscitation, the ambulance called, people standing, activity redundant, lives ruined.
‘Good heavens,’ cried Mrs Maclean when they returned. ‘What’s happened to Jasmine?’
‘Jas-jas fell in the water…’
‘Well, that was very silly of you, wasn’t it, darling?’ She looked at Krystyna but continued speaking to her daughter. ‘And did the nice lady fish you out?’
‘Lost bracey,’ said the girl.
‘Never mind, darling, we can buy you another one. Was it very frightening?’
‘Cold now.’
‘Let me see what we’ve got in the car.’ Mrs Maclean picked up her daughter and smiled briefly at Krystyna before walking away. ‘So kind of you,’ she said. ‘I hope you didn’t get too wet.’
Krystyna realised that being foreign made her anonymous. The family and their friends were so settled that nothing unnerved them. She could not imagine what had given them such confidence or decide if it was all a façade. People could be so careless, she thought, so unaware of how quickly a life could change or be ruined.
The play was nearing its end. Jack was singing about the wind and the rain. Krystyna stood and listened. She could not see him as a little tiny boy at all. All she could see was sadness, a lost man who never would ‘thrive by swaggering’.
He was looking out to a fixed point on the horizon. He was distant as he sang, far from his family. Krystyna thought it was the way she herself might be when she could no longer concentrate on what people were saying to her.
A great while ago the world begun…
She thought of the last time she had seen a performance of Shakespeare at home. It had been a political production of Hamlet. They had gone as a family and her father had become annoyed when, towards the end of the play, they had stressed the folly of defending a patch of Poland against the army of Fortinbras. It is already garrisoned.
She could picture her mother before she was ill, gathering blackberries and redcurrants for jam, making sure the family could carry the fruits of summer into the colder months, wanting to please, doing all that she could to alleviate her husband’s temper.
But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day.
A group of women began to lay a long table by the bay window. Elizabeth Henderson had said that it was so much more civilised to eat outdoors in the summer. She walked slowly along the dinner table, checking that the cutlery was properly aligned and that the seating arrangement conformed to the plan she had drawn up that morning.
The servants in the play had been friends from nearby villages. Now they became waiters at the table. One of them brought out six or seven garden flares and began staking them in the ground. When she lit them she found that they produced more flame than she had anticipated and one of the torches burst into light next to Tessa.
‘Get that away from me!’ she said.
‘I’m sorry,’ the girl stammered. ‘The man said they don’t always light very well.’
‘The man was wrong.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
Krystyna asked Jack what was happening.
‘Tessa suffers from nerves.’
‘Only nerves?’
‘And she’s scared of fire. Have you seen her arm?’
‘I did not ask.’
‘Don’t.’
‘I was not going to do that. I have manners.’
‘And try not to smoke in front of her if you can avoid it.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘It’s all right. I’ll tell you later. It’s just that she hates any kind of flame. But we don’t talk about it. I’m sorry. I should have warned you.’
Now she had been told not to enquire any further, Krystyna wanted to know.
Perhaps this was what it would be like for her in the future. As soon as people knew that her boyfriend had committed suicide it would be all that they wanted to ask her about.
Perhaps her child would be a distraction. She imagined people either asking about the father or deliberately avoiding the subject.
Ian was pouring out more wine, calling people after the characters they had just played: the fair Olivia, good Cesario, more wine for Sir Toby.
He still had a piece of spinach stuck between his teeth but Krystyna did not tell him. He hoped that she had enjoyed the play.
‘I was impressed. They all obey you. You have state control.’
‘I suppose you know all about that.’
‘I was only eleven years old when the Berlin Wall came down.’
‘I was about forty when it went up. I suppose you’ve seen a lot of changes. Did you experience what it was like before?’
‘A little; after martial law my father was still a Communist.’
‘Really? I thought they all went into denial. I visited Prague in 1991 and they had all vanished: not a Communist in sight.’
‘My father was a big Party member under Gierek.’
‘Old school, then?’
‘I am sorry?’
‘A real Marxist?’
‘Absolutely. After Solidarność he would walk into shops and denounce soap.’
‘Soap?’
‘And toothpaste. All capitalist decadence. What is wrong with state soap? What is wrong with state toothpaste?’
‘They must have been rather surprised.’
‘It was embarrassing. “How many toothpastes do you need?” he said. Only when my mother showed him Western make-up did he understand that capitalism had won. It was revolution by Max Factor.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He was the boss of a steel works outside Kraków. Now he is a civil servant. He is very political.’
‘Are you?’
‘My country is a mess. That is why we are all coming here.’
‘I hear there’s hardly a plumber left in Poland. They’re all in Britain.’
‘We have Vietnamese. You have Poles. Maybe it will go on until all the poor countries are empty.’
Ian laughed.
‘I love a bit of optimism. How did you meet Jack?’
Krystyna still did not know how to answer.
‘It is a long story.’
‘We have time.’
‘I do not know him very well.’
‘Well, he can be a bit shy; but he’s a good egg.’
‘Egg?’
‘Sorry. Person. Should have done better, of course, but it’s hard to recover when your wife walks out.’
‘He does not talk about this.’
‘Too busy with his books, probably. He was never that good with other people. But then university lecturers seldom are, don’t you find? They don’t get out enough.’
‘Jack goes out, I think.’
‘Only when you make him. He’s very shy.’
‘Do you think so?’ Krystyna asked.
‘Well, he always was as a child. Perhaps he’s different now. Parents lose touch with their children eventually, don’t they?’
‘Not all the time. Your family seems very happy.’
‘We do our best.’ Ian paused for a moment, and then stood up, as if he had only just remembered what he had to do next. ‘Thank you so much for being in the play. I can’t tell you how much it means to us. It’s so refreshing when new people come into our lives.’
‘You are very kind.’
‘No. You are the one being kind. I only hope you enjoyed it.’
‘I have never been to a play like this before.’
‘It all went so quickly, didn’t it? But then everything moves so much faster when you’re older. Are you sure you don’t want any port?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Good girl. But I’m sure the others will. I should go and see to it all…’ Ian made a half-hearted gesture with his hands and walked away.
Krystyna thought about her own father. He was so much more irate, worrying always about money and the need to earn a living, never at ease. She had not meant to talk about her family. At least no one seemed to know about Sandy.
It was late but the air was still warm, heavy with the prospect of a storm. Krystyna could see Jacqueline Maclean sitting on the edge of a grass bank with her two daughters, staring up into the sky, pointing out the stars before bedtime.
‘It doesn’t look like a plough at all, Mummy…’
‘It is. Let me draw it in the air for you. Look.’
Elizabeth rose from the far end of the table. She was talking to Tessa.
‘There’s nothing sadder than the end of a meal, don’tyou think? And I do so hate the leftovers, the waste.’
‘Don’t let it upset you,’ Tessa said.
‘But if you’ve sown something from seed, watered it, nurtured it and watched it grow; if you harvested it, washed it, prepared it and served it, then it’s very hurtful when people push it aside.’
Ian returned to the table to find Douglas pouring white wine into a glass that already contained the dregs of some red.
‘It might as well be meths.’
‘I do know the difference.’
‘That quaffing and drinking will undo you.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Of course it is.’
Jack suggested that they went inside for their nightcap.
‘I do not think so,’ Krystyna said. ‘I have had enough.’
‘Come and sit with us for a bit,’ he said. ‘Wind down.’
The living room displayed paintings of the three sons and silhouette portraits of the grandchildren. There was a separate picture of Ian in all his regalia, and a full-length portrait of Elizabeth in a dark velvet ball gown and a string of pearls. It had been painted when she must have been at her most eligible, at the age of twenty or twenty-one, and it came from another age. Looking at it, Krystyna realised that Angus had married a woman with the same profile as his mother.
She overheard Douglas saying to Jack, ‘How on earth did you meet her?’
Jack replied, ‘It’s not what you think.’
‘What is it then?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But you’re hoping to move things on a bit?’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘It is if you bring her here.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re jealous?’
‘Of course I’m not jealous.’
Angus sat at the piano and began to play a Chopin nocturne. The rest of the family was amused by the seriousness of his attempt, his head low over the keyboard. He was overemphasising the dynamics, his foot heavy on the pedal for sustained longueurs.
Krystyna rested her head on the sofa and tried not to fall asleep. The music reminded her of the lessons she had taken at school, trying to play scales and broken chords as quickly as possible, getting them out of the way so she could concentrate on her pieces. She had given up around the time of her first serious boyfriend: Radek. She asked herself what would have happened if she had stayed with him and what he was doing now. She certainly wouldn’t have been sitting in a large country house on the outskirts of Edinburgh with people she hardly knew.
Jack came and stood beside her.
‘Would you like me to show you to your room?’
‘Jestem zmczona.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I am tired.’
‘Let me help you up.’
‘No. I can do this.’
She rose from the sofa, walked slowly out into the hall and then rested her hand on the banister at the foot of the stairs. She wondered how many hands had worn the wood away from the handrail to such a smooth, unpolished finish.
Jack waited outside the door to her room, letting Krystyna open it for herself.
‘That is a pity,’ she said dreamily, and then corrected herself. ‘That was a joke.’
‘I know.’
‘Thank you for asking me. You are kind.’
‘You’re very welcome. They all love you.’
‘I do not think so.’
‘They do, believe me.’
Krystyna smiled, touched his shoulder and closed the door.
The room was filled with paintings of Italian hill towns, avenues of trees, a still life of lemons on a sky-blue plate; amateur efforts, Krystyna realised, executed on summer holidays long ago.
She sat on the high brass bed with its white counterpane of Indian cotton. It had been made up in the old-fashioned way with sheets and blankets rather than a duvet. Hospital corners. She realised that nothing in the house was new. The carpets and furniture, the fixtures and fittings had all come from previous generations.
Behind the rose-patterned curtains the window was open.
Krystyna lay back on the bed and tried to recall the events of the day, the journey out of Edinburgh, the play, and the little girl in the swimming pool. She tried to imagine which members of the family would call themselves happy, and if Ian had been satisfied with the performance. What would he be thinking now?
Outside the storm broke. Some days seemed endless, Krystyna thought, while others raced away.
She could still see Jack, in his jester’s costume, singing: But that’s all one, our play is done…
It was not love that she was feeling, she told herself, or even the beginnings of it. It was different, but it was a need, born from the sensation that so much remained unsaid between them. From now on, she thought, any time apart might seem a lessening, a missed chance, an occasion for regret.
She began to fall asleep, thinking that she had not known this feeling of safety for a long time. It was a house no one would ever want to leave. What would it be like just to stay here, she thought, in this home and this bed, and do nothing but attempt to recover and have her child, absenting herself from her own life and becoming part of a different family altogether?
Krystyna waited until she heard enough people downstairs before coming down to breakfast.
‘Have whatever you want,’ said Jack, when she walked into the kitchen. ‘It’s all laid out. Mother’s had it ready for hours.’
‘I wouldn’t say hours.’ Elizabeth was dressed in a navy-blue Sunday suit and had a hat waiting on the sideboard. ‘Did you sleep well, Krystyna?’
‘It was a very comfortable bed. Thank you.’
‘Have some toast.’ Elizabeth picked up her hat and began to inspect it. ‘There’s porridge too, of course.’
Krystyna smiled at the ‘of course’, and poured out some coffee.
Elizabeth turned to her next chore.
‘I’m going to ask Douglas to take all the bottles to the recycling,’ she announced. ‘Perhaps he’ll get the message that way.’
Emma was not convinced.
‘With a hangover? He’ll either take it as a challenge or feel guilty and drink more to forget.’
‘That doesn’t sound very charitable.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be.’
‘Is he still in bed?’
‘I suppose so. I told him we had to leave before lunch. I’ve got to meet someone about the next play I’m doing.’
‘On a Sunday?’
‘Right, kirk.’ Ian was standing in the doorway. ‘Everybody ready? Have you had breakfast, Krystyna?’
‘I will just have coffee. And a cigarette. I will go outside for the cigarette.’
‘That doesn’t seem very substantial.’
‘It is what I have always, Mr Henderson.’
‘Ian, if you don’t mind. We’re friends now.’
Jack knew that his father was not one for waiting.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘We’ll catch up.’
‘I don’t suppose Douglas is anywhere to be seen?’
‘What do you think?’ said Emma.
Jack checked with Krystyna.
‘Are you sure you’re happy to come?’
‘I like church,’ she said.
She followed the rest of the family down the drive and out into the road. She looked at the shafts of sunlight through the trees and remembered walking with her grandmother when she was a girl. ‘God’s promises’, she had called them.
The kirk was a stern and simple building decorated by the Ten Commandments and plaques commemorating the dead.
Jack hoped that Krystyna would not be reminded of the funeral. He had not asked her about her faith. He knew that she was Catholic, but did that mean that she believed suicides were denied salvation? If she could make Jack responsible for the accident, or if he admitted some kind of responsibility, would this help Sandy on his way in the afterlife? Krystyna would surely not go as far as this, but Jack could not be sure. Still, he realised, he hardly knew her.
Elizabeth Henderson was certainly making an effort, showing Krystyna to the pew, making sure she had a hymn book, introducing her to the remaining regulars who kept the faith alive.
The first reading was taken from the Book of Genesis: Sarah laughing at the idea of having a son when her husband Abraham was a hundred years old. Jack wondered whether anyone had ever laughed in the kirk. It was such a solemn place.
Afterwards Ian took him aside. He wanted a word in private.
‘I’m sure I can borrow my son for a minute. You’ll be all right, won’t you, Krystyna?’ he asked. ‘You will be with some of the most interesting women in Scotland.’
‘Then I will try to be interesting.’
‘I think you’ll do rather more than that.’
Jack and his father turned left, away from the path, and walked to the end of the graveyard. Ian wanted more than a word. He had decided that it was time to choose his burial place.
‘A bit early, isn’t it, Father?’
‘Not at all. But I can’t talk to the others about this. They’re too preoccupied.’
As a child the death of his parents had been the one thing that Jack could not imagine. Other people suffered the loss and yet he felt that his family was somehow immune, his father driving confidently to and from Edinburgh, his mother giving piano lessons and recitals for charity.
‘I don’t know what the hurry is,’ Jack said to his father, trying to sound as normal as he could. ‘I’m sure you’ll bury us all.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He spoke as if his son was six years old. ‘I can’t make up my mind about the exact spot but I’m not keen on cremation. I definitely want to be buried.’
‘And here?’
Ian looked surprised. He couldn’t accept that his son would doubt him or that anyone could think he might want anything different.
‘Yes. Somewhere here. Definitely.’
Jack thought back to the services of his childhood: the smell of damp linen, old men singing tremulously, shrunken women in their best hats.
Hamish Watson, Fiona Johnson, Angus Nicholson.
‘It seems smaller, don’t you think?’ his father was saying. ‘It’s positively cluttered.’
‘I suppose people will keep dying,’ said Jack.
He thought of Sandy, and of Krystyna.
‘I’m in the departure lounge, of course,’ his father would tell his friends on the telephone. ‘Although there’s a wee while before take-off … with luck, there might even be delays…’
Prostate cancer.
‘How have you been feeling?’ Jack asked.
‘Not too bad,’ Ian replied. ‘The doctors insist on keeping me alive.’
‘Are you taking all the medication?’
‘Of course,’ Ian replied. ‘But I don’t think it’s doing any good. Johnny McIntosh has to take fourteen pills a day. Although anyone who takes so many can’t be that ill.’
They stopped under an oak tree. Jack remembered his father’s adage: two hundred years growing, two hundred years standing, two hundred years dying.
He looked back at the kirkyard with its sturdy tower, a Covenanter stronghold, the graves of the martyrs, the peewees crying.
‘What about the stone?’ he asked. ‘What do you want it to say?’
‘I can’t decide.’
‘I think we just had his name and dates. We probably picked In loving memory. That’s always a safe bet.’
‘I think we have to do better than that.’
Ian was surprised by contradiction. He could still picture Jack as a boy in the back seat of his car on one of their days out, complaining that he always had to sit in the middle. He was the son who played his cricket defensively, who put too much sauce on his chips and who ate his ice cream so slowly that it melted down the cornet and over his hands before he had finished.
‘I want it planned,’ Ian continued, ‘so that when the moment comes you all know what to do. I’d like to enjoy it.’
‘You won’t be there.’
‘Oh I think you’ll find that I will.’
They passed the graves of people Ian had known in the past: Billy McIntyre, the farm labourer; John Maltby, who ran the post office; Hamish Anderson, the session clerk.
The graves surrounded them, chronicling lives, disasters, and the accidents of war. They told of age and of love; of lives lived as bravely as fear and luck would allow.
Jack remembered Sandy’s coffin being carried from the kirk to a private cremation. He wondered where the ashes had been scattered and if Krystyna had been back since.
Ian stopped by the headstone of Robert Little, the publican who had always greeted his father with a free dram at weekends.
‘Do you really believe in the resurrection of the body?’ Jack asked.
His father paused, surprised by the directness of the question.
‘I believe in the promises of Christ.’
Jack remembered him reading the Lorimer translation into Scots soon after it was published.
Deith is swalliet up in victorie
Whaur, than, O Deith, is thy victorie?
Whaur, than, O Deith, is thy stang?
This would be the moment to talk about what had happened, he thought; the boy in the road, the inevitable collision. As far as Jack knew, his father was the only other member of the family who had killed a man. It had been in the war and he had been sick as soon as he had realised what he’d done.
‘I kept thinking of his sweetheart back at home.’
Jack could talk to him now. His father would surely understand and be sympathetic. But he did not know how to begin.
‘I think here, don’t you? Under the spreading yew …’ Ian said.
The decision had been taken while Jack had been dreaming. The opportunity had passed.
‘I’ll ask the Minister.’
‘It’ll be a bit of a dig…’
‘We’ll manage,’ said Jack, unable to imagine the day.
‘It’s a good spot.’ Ian looked down to the river. ‘The waters of life near by. Your mother will like it.’
Jack looked out at the view: the distant fields bordered by the drystane dykes, the thick fields under open azure skies. He tried to recall what it had been like when he was a small boy, with his father walking ahead down the lanes with the dogs, admonishing him to keep up, as the doves circled above the old doocot. He had taught his son the name of every field and stream: Peffer and Pilmuir Burn, Brownrigg and Binning Wood, Fourtoun Bank and Kilduff Hill.
They left the kirkyard and closed the gate. Jack felt the heat of the day beginning to rise. He tried to anticipate the next time he would come here, attempting to inoculate himself against the shock.
They walked back along a road that was dried and rutted with tractor tyres. Jack thought back to the walks they had shared in the past, when his father still displayed some of the army attitudes left over from the war: If it moves, shoot it. If it doesn’t, paint it. He could smell the wild garlic under the trees.
He expected some kind of acknowledgement of the conversation they had just had but his father was already on to the next thing.
‘I think I’ll need my sunhat,’ he said.
In the kitchen Elizabeth had been telling Krystyna about the history of the house and how her mother had stocked up on rations at the start of the war.
‘She was hopeless with measurements and ordered a ton of soap – the village lived on it for years.’
They looked up, surprised to be interrupted. Jack could smell roast lamb and hoped they might be able to stay on for lunch.
‘I’m giving you a lift,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Krystyna needs to get back to Edinburgh. We’ve had such a lovely chat.’
‘I told your mother what happened.’
‘Oh,’ said Jack.
He could not think what to say. If he had wanted his mother to know he would have told her himself.
‘Why?’ he asked
Elizabeth defended her guest.
‘She had to talk to someone, don’t you think? Of course I read about the accident in the papers but I never thought that it might have anything to do with you. Or with Krystyna, of course. Why didn’t you tell me, Jack?’
‘I didn’t know where to start.’
‘And why does everything have to be such a secret? You don’t tell people things and then we’re never prepared when the truth finally emerges…’
‘Perhaps there were reasons why I didn’t want anyone to know. I don’t see why I have to tell everyone everything that happens to me…’
His mother looked over her glasses at her son.
‘We’re your family, Jack.’
‘I’m sorry…’
‘I could not pretend any more,’ said Krystyna. ‘I saw that you were not going to say anything. You cannot be alone.’
‘I didn’t want anyone to have to worry. I didn’t want to have to talk about it…’
‘It was very brave of Krystyna to tell me, don’t you think?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘I can see that. But I didn’t want it to become a big thing.’
‘It is a big thing,’ Elizabeth said. ‘That’s the point. I’m sorry if you’re upset with us.’
‘I’m not upset. I thought it was private.’
Krystyna tried to calm him.
‘How can it be private? That is what a family is for. People know something is wrong even if they do not say.’
Jack wasn’t sure he needed the lecture.
‘I’m sorry, Mother.’
‘That’s all right.’ Elizabeth rose from the table. ‘I’ve told her all about you, of course.’
‘That’s all I need.’
‘Don’t worry. I haven’t given away any secrets.’
‘I didn’t think there were any left to give away.’
He and Krystyna had specifically agreed not to say anything about the accident. It was typical of his mother to get the story out of her. Jack worried how soon the rest of his family would find out what had happened and how much more explaining he would have to do. He knew that there were limits to his mother’s discretion.
Ian walked into the room.
‘I hope you’re both staying for lunch?’ he asked.
‘We have to go back,’ said Krystyna. ‘There is a Polish Mass at the cathedral.’
‘But you’ve already been to church.’
‘I must go once more. Your church does not count…’
‘I see.’ For the first time that weekend Ian was silenced. ‘Well, I do hope you’ll come again,’ he said.
‘I would be honoured.’
‘I’m not sure honoured is quite the right word.’
‘I think it is.’
‘Then I’m flattered. And thank you again for the play. It was very good to meet you, Krystyna. I’ll remember every minute of it.’
‘I am not sure about every minute.’
‘Well, perhaps nearly every minute. Now I’m going to take a look at the roses and the bees.’
‘I’ll bring the car round,’ said Elizabeth. She did not like goodbyes. They always took longer than expected.
When the actual moment of departure came something made Jack hesitate. He realised that he wanted to wait for his father to emerge from the house, to see him one more time.
‘Come on, Jack,’ his mother said. ‘What are you waiting for? Get in.’
He heard a sash window being raised, and he looked up to see Douglas framed above them, shielding his eyes against the brightness of the day. Angus and Tessa came out of the house to wave them off.
‘Here we are,’ Ian called. He stopped when he realised that all three of his sons were looking at him. ‘What are you all waiting for?’ He was almost irritated.
Jack smiled.
‘Nothing, Father.’
Ian had taken off his jacket but was still wearing a tie. Dark-blue braces held up the trousers of his Sunday suit. He was brandishing an old pair of secateurs and carrying a gardening trug. On his head was a floppy white sunhat that looked too big for him.
Elizabeth started up the car and a flock of starlings flew from the trees. The blossom had fallen with the morning breeze.
She tried to catch her husband’s eye but he was already striding away from her. Soon the bees would leave the last of the lavender and the buddleia and travel further, seeking out the wild flowers that grew by the river; white bryony and charlock, dandelion and nettle.
Ian continued walking out into his garden, with his floppy hat and his secateurs, watched by his three sons and the women who were with them, intent on nothing more complicated than seeing to his bees and dead-heading a few roses.
He turned a corner, out of sight. He did not look back.