It was not in Grace’s nature to initiate rows, but her anger on discovering what Lucien had done seethed so furiously all day that she determined to confront him when he arrived next morning. His outrageous act signified it was time to put an end to his troublesome visits. The pity–the affection, even–she felt for him was now far outweighed by her fury.
Her intention was to brace herself for the row as soon as he arrived–she might even refuse him his customary tea and toast -and to be rid of him by nine thirty. Then, putting the whole disagreeable matter from her mind, she would spend the rest of the day preparing for William’s return. On the telephone he explained there had been a less than successful expedition to some weird church, and he was tired and hungry and looking forward to being home. God, was she looking forward to that too …
Her plans were confused by Lucien’s non-appearance at the usual time. Nine thirty, nine forty-five, still no sign. Perhaps, too guilty to face her, he wasn’t going to appear at all. Perhaps the return of the cufflinks had been a farewell sign. Well, in some ways that would make everything easier. Grace would not have to charge herself up to shout and accuse. She would be spared his intimidating response–something she had witnessed on occasions if ever she had offered some small criticism. She would not have to resist one of his sudden bouts of charm and persuasiveness should he disagree with the plan to bring their peculiar relationship to an end.
At ten o’clock Grace began her preparations for William’s supper. Convinced by now she would not be seeing Lucien today, she felt her usual calm override the obnoxious tumult of the last twenty-four hours, and concentrated on the pleasing rolling of her pastry. With so much on her mind, it had not occurred to her to protect herself from surprise by locking the back door. At ten past eleven she heard it open. There was the familiar sound of Lucien’s slouchy tread: and there he was, grinning down at her. Lucien with huge dull pupils to his eyes, damp jacket, thickly bristling jowls.
To one who is unaccustomed to entertaining anger in the first place, to reassemble it once it has faded is not an easy matter. Grace, knife in hand (she had been making such a fine job of slicing the edges of the pastry from the pie dish), stood looking at him in incredulous silence, waiting for a pulse of indignation to fire her.
There: caught you out, didn’t I? Tricked you! Bet you thought I wasn’t coming. Bet you thought now I’d returned them I wouldn’t be coming back to face the music.’ He was smiling. The scoffing bore no malice.
‘Lucien,’ Grace said.
Lucien took a step towards her. He put a hand on her shoulder. She stiffened. He removed it at once.
‘Look, I can explain. I’m no thief–well, am I? You know that. I nick a bit from those who won’t miss it if I’m desperate. But in here–’ he banged his chest - ‘I’m not a thief. Besides, I wasn’t stealing those cufflinks, I was just like borrowing them. Took them to a pawn shop, got the money to deal with a bit of business, had a bit of luck with another bit of business, repaid the loan, got the bloody cufflinks back and first thing I do is bring them back. You can’t fault me there. I’d say that was the act of someone pretty honourable, even in your book.’
Grace sighed. The anger she tried to summon, all the things she had thought of to say, would not return. Instead, she felt an acute weariness.
‘It was completely unacceptable, what you did,’ she said.
‘Well: I wouldn’t say that. Not considering the emergency. Course I’m sorry the bit of the business to repay the pawnbroker’s loan took a bit of time. People let you down. You can’t rely on people.’ There was no flicker of a smile at his own irony. ‘But the main thing is they’re back now. I daresay I’m forgiven, you being the sort of forgiving woman you are. How about we celebrate with a cup of tea?’
Their eyes met.
‘No,’ said Grace, putting down the knife.
‘Come on, now. Where’s your sense of humour? I’m hungry.’
‘Have you any idea the worry you caused? The misery? I’d only just given those cufflinks to William. He was distraught.’
‘Sorry about that. I’m not much of a things person myself. Possessions don’t hold much interest. So I’d not be the best at understanding that sort of thing.’
‘You could have asked me for another loan,’ said Grace. ‘I was willing enough to give you one in the first place.’
‘No: I couldn’t, could I? Not a second one. I’m not a man to take advantage of a friend’s generosity–speaking of which I’ll get the money back to you any day now, honest.’ Lucien sat down in his usual chair. ‘Are you going to make me breakfast?’
Grace shook her head without much conviction.
‘Just a cup of tea, then. I’m busy. William’s coming home tonight. I want to get on with the dinner.’
‘Lucky old William.’
Grace went to put on the kettle and get Lucien’s customary mug. She could not face an argument about that. When she turned back to the table she saw he was playing with the knife, testing the blade between two fingers.
‘You work with a mighty sharp blade,’ he said, quietly.
‘You have to, for pastry.’
Grace was conscious her heart had begun to beat faster. She told herself not to be so stupid.
‘Pastry: that’s something Lobelia never does.’
Lucien pulled the board on which Grace had been rolling her pastry towards him. He straightened out one of the ribbons that had been cut from the edge of the pie. With the tip of the knife he sliced through its middle, hand absolutely steady.
‘Imagine if that was skin,’ he said.
‘Lucien! That’s horrible.’
I am horrible, remember.’ He gave one of his ‘laughs that reminded Grace of a shaken coal scuttle. ‘I used to play with knives as a kid. I liked slicing things. One time Lobelia gave me a rabbit. It bit me, stupid bugger. I ripped right up through its belly with a penknife. That was good fun, at fourteen.–She never found out.’
Grace, unsure whether to believe him, was unnerved by the story. She poured him tea.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I had a rough night. You’re a good woman.’ He put down the knife. Grace knew she must say her piece before her resolve faded. She sat not directly opposite Lucien, but a little to one side. The sour smell of his clothes, his unwashed skin, had begun to override the smells of cooked apple, lemon and various herbs.
‘This has got to stop, I’m afraid,’ said Grace. She knew she sounded like a schoolmistress, and spoke with a note of unintended apology.
‘What has?’ Lucien’s sluggish eyes faintly widened in an attempt at humour.
‘All this coming here. You come more and more often, uninvited. I can’t cope any more.’
‘I thought I was welcome. You’ve always made me feel welcome.’
‘It’s become … too much. You don’t know the dread I live in, thinking you’ll run into William.’
‘Ah, it’s the husband who doesn’t approve. I get it, man. I get it.’ Fist bang on the table. Tea slopped on to the cloth. ‘I could come later, be sure he was out of the way.’
Grace shook her head.
‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. I work in the mornings.’
‘Not always, you don’t.’ Lucien laughed. ‘That’s one of your problems. In fact I’d say some people might quite rightly call you something approaching lazy’
‘I’m not interested in your opinion of my working schedule, Lucien: you know nothing about it. I’m just telling you I want these breakfasts … these meetings, to come to an end.’
Lucien sighed.
‘Pity, that,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve enjoyed our conversations. Looked forward to them.’ He picked up the knife again. ‘But if that’s what you want,’ he said.
Silence.
‘It is. I’m sorry.’ Her victory almost won, to apologise was the least Grace could do.
‘I suppose you feel you can’t trust me around any more. I’d be nicking the silver three times a week.’ He gave the merest sneer of a smile.
‘I don’t suppose you would.’ Grace tried for lightness. ‘It’s not that. It’s just the whole … thing of your visits. I can’t cope with the tension of them any more. I can’t put it any clearer than that, though I realise I’m not being very specific.’
Lucien now held the kitchen knife in two hands. Eyes on its blade, he slowly pushed the tip of his tongue (an unhealthy bluish dun colour) out between his rigid lips. He put the point of the blade against it, pressing hard enough to make an indentation.
‘Sharp, isn’t it?’ he said, suddenly bored. ‘Anyhow, I get the picture. I get the picture. So if that’s how you feel, Grace, who’m I to go against you?’
He suddenly got up, moved to the sink and emptied the mug with great force.
‘Sorry about the waste.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Lucien. You’re being over … I didn’t mean I didn’t want to see you ever again.’ Grace stood too, awkward, disturbed by the look on his face. She slipped the knife into the table drawer. This made Lucien smile.
‘That’s the message that came through. I’m not stupid when it comes to messages. Anyways, no half-measures, that’s me. If I’m fond of a person I don’t believe in half-measures.’ He gave a little toss of his head in the direction of the uncooked apple pie. ‘Best let you get back to your cooking.’
Several things clamoured in Grace’s head, but she said none of them. She watched Lucien slope to the back door, more hunch-shouldered than usual, and slam it behind him.
When the reverberations of him had died away, she retrieved the knife and went back to trimming the pastry. Her sense of relief was clouded by a measure of foreboding, and somewhere in the depths of her there was a shadow of sadness, of loss.
On the flight home William found himself sitting beside Bonnie. This was not a matter of chance. Lugging her copious hand luggage up the crowded aisle she had turned and announced to her fellow players she wanted to sit next to William–a request she had never made before.
‘She’s in a mood,’ William heard Grant mutter, and unease seeped through his tired body. In the old days there had sometimes been tensions or disagreements between the players, but they had been spared of moods (women’s moods) of the sort Bonnie had inflicted on this trip to Prague.
Bonnie, having efficiently settled her viola into the overhead rack beside William’s violin, bundled herself into the free seat next to the window and patted the vacant seat beside her. She sat in a vortex of twisted things: overflowing carrier bags, scarves, magazines, jackets … William had no idea how to begin to help her make some order of the muddle. Having sat down and placed his one, small, neat, regulation-sized briefcase under his own seat, he stood up again vaguely aware he should make some offer to help her. There was a look of impatience on Bonnie’s face, not the gratitude he was hoping for.
‘Sit down, William, till I’ve sorted myself out.’
He obeyed, confused. Bonnie shifted herself from side to side, crossly punching at bags and pulling at garments. As she twisted herself about her breasts were slung from side to side beneath the pale angora of her jersey. William shut his eyes. He thought of the ugly woman in the church: of tinned artichokes, marigolds, The Gold and Silver Waltz - things that made him shudder. It didn’t work.
Bonnie was nudging him. He opened his eyes.
‘Can you put these up?’ She thrust a pile of bags and garments into his arms. They seemed to have a life of their own, squirming about. He stood, moved cautiously into the aisle to assess the next move. How was he to open the door of the rack, arms loaded?
‘Having trouble?’ Grant, on the inner seat across the aisle, looked up from the Guardian with a satisfied smile.
‘Open it for me, would you?’
‘I’d consider it.’ Grant folded his newspaper very slowly. Rufus put down his book (a new biography of Brahms–to be seen reading the latest musical biography was his only form of showing off) and grinned. Whether it was at Grant’s enjoyment of William’s plight, or encouragement for William himself, it was hard to tell.
In his own unhurried time Grant rose and opened the overhead rack. Then he sat down again, quickly returned to his paper. William, who was not a tall man, rose on tip-toe and heaved the mass of Bonnie’s stuff vaguely in the direction of the empty shelf. His aim was clumsy: he missed his goal by a long way. The bags disgorged their clutter–jackets and scarves poured down over his head and fell to the floor. Grant and Rufus, concentrating on their reading once more, did not seem to notice William’s distress. Bonnie, back to him, was staring out of the window. William, conscious of the unravelling of his dignity, began to pick up the things that had spilt on to the floor. After an age of inept dithering, an air hostess came to his rescue. In a trice everything was stuffed neatly into the rack–she was a fine, tall girl with dazzling lipstick that made her mouth look like a cut-out made of Cellophane paper -and William was able to return to his seat. He noticed that Grant’s eyes had slid from his paper to the air hostess’s athletic ankles, and the observation had a calming effect. Here was proof that Grant’s general eye for a good-looking woman had not dimmed. Had he been in love with Bonnie, in love in the way that he, William … then glancing at another woman would have been out of the question.
‘I hate taking off,’ said Bonnie, when the plane’s engines started. ‘I can never like flying.–You’ve not done up your seat-belt.’
She leant across William, hands playing innocently over his stomach and loins as she searched for the two metal clasps, locked them together. Dear God … William gripped the arms of his seat, clenched his teeth.
‘You look as if you’re preparing yourself for take off in a rocket. Relax! And don’t worry, I’m not going to make a scene like yesterday among the bones.–Sorry about that.’
William turned to her, smiled. He hoped she would read his silent message of complete forgiveness, understanding, devotion …
‘We’re off the ground,’ she said, impressively cool for one who was nervous of flying. But as the plane rose more steeply she covered William’s hand with hers, and dug her nails fiercely into his splayed fingers. He would have been happy to die at that moment, he thought. But his bliss lasted for mere seconds. Bonnie snatched her hand away and twisted once more to look out of the window. What a fidget she was, thought William, although impervious to any such annoyance.
‘When I was a child I used to think what fun it would be to put a ladder up against the clouds, and climb up and bounce on them …’
‘Did you?’
They both fell silent, then. William tried to quell the chaos in his head, and the pounding of blood through his veins, by breathing very slowly. Bonnie opened the in-flight magazine–that was the last thing he wanted, to lose her to a magazine. He saw he was in danger of missing his chance to carry on in the extraordinary vein they had left off in the hotel bar. How could he retrieve her attention? Perhaps he should use the opportunity to confront her with a matter, a personal matter, that had been worrying him for some time.
‘I want to talk to you about Haydn,’ he said at last.
‘Oh no: not Haydn. Not here, please. We had Haydn last night.’
‘And beautifully you played it, too. Whatever you may feel.’
Bonnie sighed, turned another page of her magazine. She studied a whole-page advertisement for some kind of bath essence. Girl in a bath towel standing at a window. Distant man on a charger approaching.
‘You know we’re doing our usual G major for one of the Christmas concerts?’ asked William, after a long pause in which he weighed up the wisdom of the question.
‘I know that’s the plan, yuh.’
‘Op. 77 No. 1.’ William was giving himself time to think.
‘I know that, too.’
‘Well, I just think … I mean I know your … dislike of Haydn in general. But it would be hard to imagine anyone not being seduced by this particular quartet.’ Bonnie pursed her lips, causing a flash of dimple. Turned over a page. Beefeaters posed like china mugs beside the Tower of London. ‘I mean, it’s so merry’ said William.
‘Each according,’ said Bonnie, after a while. ‘Haydn’s particular brand of merriment does nothing for me.’
William, mid-sigh, decided to take a risk. Perhaps he could persuade her to take a more tolerant view of the great composer by re-involving her with his secret category.
‘It’s an upstairs piece,’ he whispered.
‘A what?’
‘You remember, I told you …’ ‘Oh that. Yes.’
‘You should trust me.’ The despair he felt about his love (was it love?) for Bonnie was turning to the bleaker, but more familiar despair, that came to him when defending a piece of music he loved. Perhaps he should try a less subtle, more authoritative note. ‘Anyhow: whatever you feel, it’s in the programme. We’re going to have to get through it. My suggestion is that you listen to it as much as possible in the next few days, and you might find yourself coming round to it–’
‘I might. Can we stop talking about Haydn, now? I want to get on with my reading.’ Her attention was now on a photograph of a soppy-looking young man and woman on the brink of copulating over a tub of ice cream.
William, puzzling at unknown dark corners of Bonnie’s mind, turned his eyes to the small window beyond her. The intense white of a hard-edged cloud filled his vision. He allowed himself to imagine Bonnie bouncing on this white mass, but the agreeableness of the thought did not disguise his feeling of failure concerning Haydn. He had handled that badly. The odd thing about Bonnie was that she made him feel clumsy in his negotiations–a feeling that, in all his experience of dealing with musicians, he had never known before. What a strange, entrancing, difficult, irresistible creature she was. In many ways it would have made for a much happier journey had she chosen to sit next to Grant or Rufus: but then of course he would have been denied these few hours when proximity to her gilded his soul, and did something a great deal rougher to his ageing body.
‘You’re thinner,’ said Grace, as William came through the door.
‘Ooh, am I, my Ace? Perhaps. That foreign food.’
They kissed each other gently on the cheek.
‘Lovely you’re back.’
‘Lovely …’ William put down his small suitcase. Grace picked it up
‘I’ll just get your stuff into the machine. We can have supper in half an hour. I’ve done you an apple pie.’
‘I bet you have.’
He followed her upstairs, noticing that the weight of his case made her bend quite far to one side. A pretty curve to her spine, he thought. If he’d been a painter, if he’d been Bonnard, he’d have liked to paint a woman carrying a suitcase.
In his study, the thick familiar silence brought a kind of peace to his heart. He shoved a few piles of scores up the sofa, made room for himself, sat. Tonight, in order to avoid talking about Prague, he would introduce the idea of spending a few days with Dick after Christmas. Surely it would give Grace something agreeable to look forward to … winter walks together along the cliffs.
Along the cliffs … With astonishing force William’s original Dorset plan came back to him. Even as it rose before him, bright as Macbeth’s dagger, he forced himself to remember his conversation with his rational half in Prague. But since his conclusion, things had happened to shift his firmness of purpose. Bonnie had wept on his shoulder. Bonnie had chosen to sit next to him on the plane. Bonnie’s fingers, doing up his seatbelt (he had made sure to undo it himself) had ravaged his good intentions–Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie–what was she doing now, alone in her little flat in Aylesbury, not two miles from Grant? Why was he not with her, smothering her dimples with all the pent-up kisses that it was agony to hoard? Why could they not just go off and -
‘Supper,’ he heard Grace calling from downstairs, and he moaned out loud before rising and forcing himself into his usual, straight-backed, regimental position, expression swept clear of guilt, and prepared to face his dear, dear Ace over her loving apple pie.
For a few moments Grace stood contemplating the whirling soapy mass of her husband’s dirty shirts, pants and socks in the washing machine. The domestic sight brought her some relief. William was home. There was nothing to fear any longer. Should Lucien threaten her any further, she would get William to deal with him, see him off, take out an injunction if necessary. (Loyalty kept her from envisaging the scene between the milder man and the aggressive brute.) But she knew in her heart there would be no need for such a confrontation. Lucien’s exit had been very final. He would not be returning. The realisation had been sinking more profoundly into her since his departure. By now, along with the feeling of perverse loss, was the thought that without his visits her life would be … duller. Lucien’s peculiar, erratic behaviour had quickened the days … though of course when it came to the weighing up, to be dull and safe was better than to be in a state of constant trepidation.
To deflect such reflections Grace firmly turned her mind to her husband and the quiet evening before them. She could see it all: staccato news from Prague, appreciation for her home cooking, apologies for no news from home … then the sinking into their usual happy silence, both relieved to have to make no further effort. She turned her back on the washing and arranged a smile with which to greet William as he came eagerly downstairs.
By halfway through the roast chicken they had finished with carefully edited news from Prague, and the equally perfunctory news of Grace’s progress on her book at home. Then, better take the bull, thought William, although to switch his mind from a vision of Bonnie–head hiding in his neck, outside the bone-church–would require an almighty effort. His vision of that scene, curiously, was not as it had been through his own eyes–scraps of scalp peeping through her head–but that of an observer some distance away in the cemetery, regarding the odd couple they made: beautiful young girl seeking comfort from an older man. Man’s head tilted back to accommodate girl’s head in his neck. Man’s legs solidly apart the better to support her weight. The clarity of the picture was unsettling.
‘Dick suggested we might go and spend a few days with him after Christmas,’ he said.
‘Dick’s last cottage was freezing.’
‘I expect there’s central heating in this one.’
‘Jack and Laurel want to come down for a few days over the New Year.’
‘Oh, Lord. Do they?’ When Bonnie had reached to do up William’s seatbelt, he was near to fainting with pleasure. He would like to lie back and let Bonnie do up seatbelts across him for hours on end. The fantasy began to take a grip.
‘They always do. But I expect we could manage Dorset for a day or two.’ No more than a day or two, please God, thought Grace. By after Christmas Lucien might change his mind, start his visits again. She wouldn’t want him to arrive to find no one at home.
‘We could go for walks,’ William said, so quietly Grace had to strain to hear him. But he had to say something to disguise the moan that was rising within him, the deliquescence that was rendering him useless under Bonnie’s hands, metal fastenings irrelevant.
‘Are you all right, William?’
‘Quite.’ He forced himself upright.
‘You’re pale. You’re not eating much.’
‘Along the cliffs,’ said William. He smiled, made an effort. ‘You used to love walking along those Dorset cliffs.’
‘So I did.’ Though the last walk she remembered with acute feeling was the one in the park. Those horrible dogs. The incongruity of her and Lucien: him dirty and unshaven making coarse, funny observations, her in a pale mac whose lack of style had never occurred to her before, and her stiff little handbag with its gilt clasp. Funny Lucien hadn’t seemed to notice these things. Funny how, walking beside him, the park was quite different from normal.
‘You’re looking a bit pale yourself,’ said William. He suddenly noticed that was definitely the case. Grace’s cheeks were usually fine and ruddy. Odd how after a whole breast of roast chicken and tip-top bread sauce she could look so grey. ‘Did your friend Lucien take advantage of my absence?’ William had no idea why he asked the question–except that perhaps the mention of the rotter’s name might spark a bit of colour into Grace’s cheeks. He couldn’t have cared less how often Lucien came round so long as it was not when he was at home.
‘He appeared a couple of mornings as usual. But he’s not coming any more.’ Grace tilted her head to one side. A small Madonna-like smile, faintly brave, or long-suffering, tweaked the corners of her mouth. There was a long silence.
‘Why not?’
Grace gathered up the plates. The thought of the pudding to come made her feel sick.
‘Oh, you know. I was just fed up with his visits. I couldn’t think why he kept coming, what he wanted, what we could give him.’
‘Free breakfasts. Bloody scrounger, if you ask me.’
‘I’m not as generous in my opinions as you, no. I could never quite see the point of him. And his visits became intrusive.’
‘They did.’
‘Very glad he’s not going to bother us any more.’ Bonnie’s hands were in the air, poised to dive on him again.
‘Quite.’ You’ve got real talent, Grace. Your paintings are very, very good. Lucien’s voice was so loud he might have been in the room with them. There are moments when absence and presence are the same. Trying to divide them causes hopeless confusion. William’s voice came from a long way off.
‘So, anyhow, my Ace, you’re a wise woman as always. You’ve done the right thing, telling him to get lost.’ William patted his wife’s hand. He noted it had recently changed shape. It used not to have this geography of hillock veins and arid patches of brown skin. Dear God, would Bonnie’s plump little hands one day look like this? The thought was calming: he needed calming thoughts. ‘And I’ll say yes to Dick, then. Dorset.’ - From whose giant cliffs this angelic wife with the ageing hands would be flung to her death on the shingle below. The image was unclear, but positive.
‘Why not? I daresay we need a break.’ Every obscenity Lucien had ever uttered in her presence punched through Grace’s mind. Relishing the vile words, she rose to fetch the pie.
‘I shall look forward to that, my Ace.’ And the thereafter: somewhere, anywhere–it didn’t matter–playing with Bonnie. The multitude of duos for violin and viola. Playing far into the night, making ready for their ultimate and imperative union.
After a long weekend (moments relived and relived) William set off on Monday morning for a rehearsal. Despite Bonnie’s excellent rendering of the Haydn F major in Prague, he wondered with some dread how she would approach the G major this morning. Her prickliness about Haydn he found hard to deal with. Her resistance was extraordinary, irrational. While it was probably the only weakness in her whole being, it was an awkward one considering the Elmtree was much revered for its rendering of the composer’s magnificent quartets. On the journey to Grant’s barn he was so preoccupied wondering how best to convince, approach, persuade Bonnie, that his misjudgement of corners caused much hooting from other motorists.
He had left the house very early - ‘just in case your friend changes his mind and decides to return,’ he had told Grace. The truthful reason was his anxiety to be back with Bonnie. His acute impatience had spurred him to drive at twice his normal speed, and he arrived ten minutes before the appointed time. Bonnie’s car was there, but not Grant’s. This was strange.
William went in. Curiosity was now added to his generally nervous state. The main room of the barn was empty, the door to the bedroom open. Bonnie came out of it at once, smiling. Faced with the innocence of her entrance, a sense of relief drenched through William’s apprehensive limbs.
‘Guess what? You know what I found in Grant’s bedroom? A piano.’
‘A piano?’ William sounded, he thought, suitably surprised. ‘Did you, now?’ He needed time to fight off the question what were you doing in Grant’s bedroom? Bonnie read his mind. Laughed, teasing.
‘Don’t worry. Nothing forbidden going on between your players. I was cold. Went to borrow a jersey’ She tightened the knot of sleeves round her neck. The jersey–Grant had worn it for as long as William had known him–was flung round her neck like a scarf.
‘I see. Well, quite. Where’s Grant?’
‘Gone to get some milk.’
The news so strengthened William’s initial relief that he found himself speaking in undue, unwise haste.
‘So you arrived very early, then.’
‘Not very.’ She was teasing him again, the little minx. ‘Only now I’m so near there’s no reason to be late, is there?’
‘I suppose not.’ William took off his coat, went to sit on the chair by his music stand. Bonnie seemed not to have noticed the significance of his silly question. ‘Tried out the piano, did you?’
‘Course I did. A few notes. But it’s beyond hope. I said to Grant why on earth have you let a once-beautiful piano like this fall into this state? Why don’t you get it retuned, overhauled? We could play together, I said.’
‘You could play together!’ William, who had tucked his violin under his chin, now returned it to his lap.
‘Well, I don’t suppose we ever would. But it was a nice idea.’
William nodded, swallowed, unable to speak.
Bonnie moved to her own chair, sat. Legs, in their tight jeans, swung apart. She pushed the baggy sleeves of Grant’s jersey up under her nose, sniffing. She made a face. She was wearing the devastating angora jersey again, breasts mysterious shadowy mounds beneath it. William closed his eyes, wishing that she would burn the wretched garment. Its effects were so uncomfortable.
‘Now, William, I’ve something to say to you.’ William opened his eyes, kept them on her face. All the teasing had gone from her voice. ‘I just beg you not to try talking me into the Haydn again. It’s counterproductive. You know perfectly well, whatever my private feelings, I’m professional and will do my best. In fact, I practised much of the night–I did, really. So just wait and see. If I’ve got it all wrong you can tell me where. But don’t go banging on about Haydn in general any more, please.’ She paused. ‘I hope you don’t mind my saying this.’
‘No.’ William searched in a pocket for a handkerchief. He could feel dampness on his brow. ‘No, of course not. You’re perfectly reasonable. I didn’t mean you to practise all night, I know you’ll -
Grant came through the door swinging two bottles of milk like dumb-bells. He was followed by Rufus. A few moments later they launched into the merry, snow-swirling first movement of the Haydn in G major. Throughout the piece Bonnie wore a self-satisfied little smile, so her dimples remained firm. She played with all the joy and brilliance she had conjured so frequently playing her beloved Schubert or Brahms, and her performance was not lost on any of them. Rufus raised one eyebrow throughout: Grant nodded and tilted his head with more than usual frequency. William himself, confounded, only knew that this was the end for him. Up until this morning what he had felt for Bonnie was a mixture of admiration, friendship and lust. But her unexpected performance changed everything. It could only mean one thing: she had listened, made an immense effort, and was plainly beginning to understand the point of Haydn, whom she had found so hard to appreciate. She had done this for him. At the end of the piece there was a perplexed silence. For William it was the moment when he realised that his previous feelings for Bonnie were now replaced with something of a different order–overwhelming, and absolutely clear: he loved her totally.
It was the custom for the Elmtree Quartet to give a concert for charity every year in the week before Christmas. This was always held in a hall in Reading, and was always a sell-out. Wives traditionally attended. Many years ago Grant, the only bachelor among the players, had brought his girlfriend of the moment, a conspicuous redhead, who had fainted during the Borodin–from boredom, she later claimed–and caused an embarrassing commotion. Since then he had taken the precaution of inviting only his mother, a tiny silent widow whose amazement at her son’s profession, as well as his size, had kneaded her knotty little face into an expression of constant bewilderment.
This year it was the Handles’ turn to entertain the relations to supper after the performance. Grace always produced a delicious cold buffet and hot home-made mince pies, and William matched her efforts with famously good wine. As always on such occasions he could rely on Grace to do the whole thing beautifully, and was proud that Rufus’s (frail) Iris and, in the old days, Andrew’s (grumpy) Zara could not begin to compete when it came to suppers.
But this year he dreaded the whole occasion. The idea of Bonnie becoming a guest under his own roof, being friendly and helpful to his wife, was unbearable. He would have to make a supreme effort to appear normal, a good and generous host, equally attentive to each of his guests, yet able to conceal his passion for one of them.
To make matters more difficult, this year there was to be an addition to the party On the evening that Grace quietly made her list of food (and Grace, it occurred to William, had been particularly quiet these last few days) there was a telephone call from London.
‘Hello, William. Laurel speaking, Laurel here.’
‘Hello, Laurel.’
Long pause. Perhaps he hadn’t sounded as welcoming as she had anticipated.
‘Everything all right with you? Long time no see.’
‘Everything fine.’
‘Brilliant. We’re rushed off our feet as usual. Everything happening, time of year, you know how it is. The travel business goes mad with parties. Anyhow, Jack wants a word. I’ll pass you over.’
William made a disgusted face at Grace, who smiled in return. It was the first time she had smiled all evening.–He could hear hostile whispering at the other end of the receiver. Then his son Jack came on the line.
‘Hello, Dad. Long time no see.’ God, they even spoke the same revolting language. ‘How’s things? Doing all right?’
‘Fine, Jack, fine.’ William wondered what the final point of this call would be. ‘Just back from Prague,’ he added, making an effort.
‘Prague? Good heavens. You do get about. You should have booked the group through Laurel. She’s got some great saving opportunities to Prague, she was saying only the other day.’
‘Next time, perhaps. I’ll bear that in mind.’ After all these years Jack should know that bookings were done by Stephen who used his own excellent travel agent. But William could not be bothered to explain that yet again …
‘Now, Dad, here’s the thing: your Christmas concert. Remember we came a few years ago? Well, Laurel and I were wondering if you’d like us to put in an appearance? How about that for an idea?’
‘Good God …’
‘Mum was telling me the other day it was your turn for the supper. We always enjoy your wine, her food. How about it?’
‘We could even stay the night if you like.’
‘It won’t be that late.’ Resistance to the appalling idea was running through William’s body like lead. He stood more and more upright till he was completely at attention, stiff, cold.
‘No, not by our standards, do see. But if we stayed we could have a drink. Of course, if it’d be a bother on top of everything else, if you’d rather we didn’t, then–’
‘No, no. I mean yes. Of course it would be fine. Your mother and I would be delighted.’
‘Can’t say you sound that enthusiastic.’ Jack gave a twisted laugh. ‘But we thought what a lark it might be. I’d like to talk to Grant again–and what’s the other one, Rupert - ?’
‘Rufus.’ Jack had known Rufus for years.
‘Rufus, yes.’ A distinct pause. Then a controlled lightness of touch. ‘And the girl, Bonnie. We haven’t met Bonnie yet, have we? She looked a jolly good sort to me.’
So that was it. Jack, for all his so-called love for the dreadful Laurel, wanted to keep his hand in. Try out his attractions on Bonnie. The thought made William feel so sick he found it hard to speak.
‘Bonnie will be there, I hope,’ he said at last.
‘Some boyfriend in tow?’
The impertinence of all this. In his fury a plan came so fast to William’s mind that there was no time to consider its wisdom. He would lie.
‘It seems,’ he says, ‘that Grant and Bonnie … well.’
‘An item, you mean?’
‘A what?–Look, I would ask you to be discreet about this, Jack. It’s not something any of us mention. It’s nothing to do with us, their private arrangement. I know no details. It’s just something we’ve observed, we accept, and we wait without questions until we are told.’
‘Right. Keep your hair on, Dad. I’m not that interested. Just said it would be nice to meet her.’
‘Quite. So we’ll see you at the concert, then. I’ll leave tickets at the door.’
‘Thanks, Dad. Bye for now.’
‘They want not only to come to the concert, but to stay the night,’ William said to Grace. He moved his arms, trying to shake off the rictus.
‘That’s all right. What was it you were saying about Bonnie and Grant?’
In a long moment’s silence, William considered. Again, in general deviousness he was now stepped in so far … Besides, it would be no bad thing if Grace, too, was under the impression that Bonnie and Grant -
‘They seem very fond of each other,’ he lied.
‘Rather suitable, I’d say. Though whether, in a small group–’
‘They’ve admitted nothing yet, so I can’t worry about that sort of thing till they have.’
‘Of course not.’ Grace returned to writing her list. ‘As for Jack and Laurel, I’ve an awful feeling they’re going to make use of the occasion to announce their engagement.’
‘Bet you anything you’re wrong there,’ said William. ‘They’re too busy for that sort of thing. With any luck we’ll escape ever having to be Laurel’s parents-in-law.–I say, my Ace: that’s a very small helping you’ve given yourself. Anything the matter?’
Lucien kept his word. He did not appear again and Grace increasingly felt the loss of him. She thought she might send him a Christmas card, but then realised that might be tempting fate. Much though she would like to see him from time to time, she had no desire to return to the state of perpetual anxiety his visitations had caused her. So she did not post the carefully chosen card, and concentrated on organising the party after the charity concert. William, as usual, was averse to discussing any of the arrangements. He liked to leave it all to her, and was always pleased with the result.
In the days before the party Grace had noticed he was more withdrawn than usual. Jumpy, twitchy. He spent longer than ever tweaking sheets and deciding on the number, and exact positioning, of the blankets each night. And then he slept badly. Awake herself for many hours in the night, listening for the return of the wolf (whose signal, if it came, she would this time appreciate), Grace felt him tossing about, snatching at the bedclothes he had so carefully arranged earlier. Such a pity, Grace reflected, that the very idea of his own son’s presence affected him so badly, for surely it was the thought of Jack and Laurel at the party that was causing him such agitation. But there was nothing she could do about that. She had tried often enough to make him understand that disappointment in your children is to do with your own aspirations for them, that they themselves have no interest in reaching. William should be glad Jack was doing so well in accountancy. He should stop regretting the fact that his son had not pursued a youthful talent for chemistry and become a doctor: or even his youthful facility for picking out tunes on a guitar, and become a musician. William was irrationally depressed by the dullness of Jack’s job, combined with the heavy weight of Jack’s ambition to make his fortune. He could not bear the fact that Jack–never a very lively or endearing character–now communicated in wince-making clichés in the belief that they gave importance to his utterances. William, so pernickety about language, so worried about its corrosion, was increasingly allergic to psychobabble, marketing babble and all the other contortions that the English language suffered these days: it was no wonder he was so reluctant to agree to get-togethers with Jack and Laurel. Their way of speaking reminded him of the new and ghastly trends of ‘Cool Britannia’, of which he wanted no part. It offended him so deeply that in their presence he found it hard to conceal his disapprobation. Their company was tedious and unmelodious. And it was mostly Laurel’s fault. Before her entry into Jack’s life father and son had, in a limited way, got on well enough. Laurel had been the cause of Jack’s slippage into the deadliest kind of self-satisfaction. Though Jack himself, as he once told Grace, loved her for the confidence she had given him. Laurel … Grace could see her flaunting some dreary little diamond ring at the party, boasting of special economy fares to the Caribbean for their honeymoon. She shivered, and pulled back her share of the blankets very gently, so as not to provoke William’s ire over the unhappy state of the bed.
But Grace was the first to admit her fears were ill-founded. Perhaps to make up for their undisguised boredom last time, Jack and Laurel behaved well at the concert. If they had brought calculators or travel brochures to pass the time, they refrained from using them. They sat in the front row, with Grace, Rufus’s wife and Grant’s mother, and gave every appearance of enjoying the music. There was no ring on Laurel’s finger, Grace noted, as Laurel clapped excessively at the end of each piece. So they were to be spared the announcement of an engagement, thank God, thought Grace, and began to enjoy herself too.
William, from his seat on the platform, briefly took in the row of disparate relations, then cast his eyes towards Bonnie. He wondered if she would repeat her excellent performance of the Haydn that she had produced in the rehearsal, or, bored now she had achieved William’s praise, fall back into mechanical playing.–But she did not let him down. She played faultlessly, enjoying herself, flaunting her new liking for Haydn. Her elbow danced so hard the velvet sleeve slipped higher than usual up her arm, and her hair swung and glinted under the stage lights. At the end of the piece she turned with a smile of triumph (as William saw it) to him alone, and he smiled curtly back. Their shared secret, which the audience could not guess at, blasted William’s concentration. Shuffling through his music for the Schubert in A minor (Grace’s favourite quartet, chosen on purpose) he glanced down at the front row again. Unlikely Laurel would have enjoyed the Haydn. Amazingly, she was clapping hard. So was Jack. His eyes, William could not fail to see, were on Bonnie, penetrating the velvet quite brazenly. William swung round on his seat, glared at his son. The applause stopped. There was a moment’s puzzled silence–so menacing was William’s look, no one could have failed to notice it. His reward was to observe a deep and ugly flush suffuse Jack’s face. Jack then turned to Laurel with a stupid, guilty grin.
Rufus nudged William’s elbow.
‘Get on with it,’ he whispered.
William gave the signal. They began to play the Schubert. Grace, puzzled by Jack’s enpurpled face, wondered what had caused William’s apparent anger. Her eyes trailed over the players, dipping and swaying, locked in their music. She then looked towards the Exit door at the side of the platform. She watched it open slowly. A head peered round, scanned the audience. Within a second it was gone.
Lucien.
Dear God, Grace thought. He’s back … Lucien’s back. What had he in mind now? In the heat of the hall she felt herself turn very cold. What was he up to? What was his new plan to torment her? Grace kept her eyes on William. She hoped to be lulled (and also invigorated by its occasional intimations of stormy weather) by the andante, which she loved so much.
At the end of the concert Jack and Laurel hurried out with Grace to drive her home, so that everything could be finalised before the others arrived. It was clear their good behaviour at the concert had caused them considerable strain. As soon as they arrived at the house they made straight for an opened bottle of William’s claret, and drank two glasses very quickly Grace was left to manage on her own.
In her scurrying to arrange food and light candles she had no time to ponder further on the extraordinary flash-sighting of Lucien, and half thought it might have been a figment of her imagination. But the effect was in the trembling of her hands, her clumsiness lighting the tree. On her knees searching for the switch she crashed into the lower branches so hard that the coloured balls flashed and swayed dangerously. Laurel, scarlet cheeked, squealed.
‘Take a care, Mother,’ shouted Jack. He made his single contribution to the evening by heaving his mother to her feet. Once she was upright he slapped at the pine needles on her shoulders. ‘Keep your hair on,’ he added. ‘Not exactly a large party. Nothing to worry about, is there?’
Grace wanted to cry. She wanted to run away, leave them all to it. She said nothing.
When the others arrived they marvelled at her efforts: the table full of food, the smell of a stew of long-marinated meat and herbs, the baskets of Christmas roses propped up against holly, the candlelight. William poured wine, Bonnie delivered the glasses. An efficient team they made, he thought. It occurred to him the evening might not turn out to be as bad as he had anticipated. As the guests drank quickly and seemed interested in talking to each other–in the odd way that people who know each other well suddenly do at parties–this feeling grew. His only concern was for Rufus’s wife, Iris. A narrow woman in a nervous little dress, he noticed she kept to the less bright parts of the room, not speaking, but appearing to listen. When someone pushed the door further open and light increased, Iris stepped quickly back into relocated shadow. She took care to avoid the Christmas tree–fearful of reflections of the glass balls on her quiet grey skirt, perhaps, thought William. ‘She never likes to stand out,’ Rufus had once confided. There was no danger of her doing that tonight. William made his way over to her. Flushed by Bonnie’s presence in the room, he felt the concern for one less fortunate than himself that came from the certainty of his own secret love.
‘My dear Iris,’ he began, ‘why not come and sit by the fire?’
‘Thank you, William. I am a little chilled.’
It was no wonder Rufus was so constantly attentive to his wife. She looked too frail to last many winters. The idea of her death was unsettling. What would happen to the Elmtree should Rufus become a premature widower? Iris’s pathetic little hand, fretted with high, blue veins, shook as she held her glass. William swore to himself that never again would he scoff at Rufus for ringing home so often.
Perhaps it was a couple of glasses of his own good wine, combined with Bonnie’s presence (Bonnie’s existence), that heightened William’s sympathy for a woman to whom he had paid almost no attention, and showed nothing more than polite interest, for so many years. Whatever the reason, he determined to sit next to her for a while, concentrate on her completely. He ushered her to the sofa by the fire. Slowly, she sat. But before William could take his place beside her, Grant pushed his tiny old mother, turtle head emerging from a shell of shawls, down into the cushions. Grant’s tangible impatience caused him to push the old lady too hard. She fell stiffly back, and seemed unable to rock forward.
It was one of those moments when several things happen very fast. In retrospect they become a fluid stream of flashing lights, their order not quite clear, but their significance underlined by the main discovery of the moment.
William glanced round the room. No sign of Laurel. Everyone else happy. Grant hurried out of the door holding two empty bottles. William was left to tilt his mother to a forward position. Having accomplished this small charitable gesture, he exchanged a smile with Iris–in a smaller flash he remembered how beautiful she was when Rufus first met her–and heard Iris enquire after the old lady’s health and comfort. His proposed seat now taken, he placed himself of the arm of the sofa next to Iris, and gave every appearance of attending to the valetudinary conversation taking place beside him.
In truth his attention was caught by Bonnie and Jack, who sat in small chairs (brought down from upstairs) turned to face each other in the window. The drawn curtains–a swirl of tulips unnaturally plunging and soaring across stretches of nasty blue, which William had always disliked–were the backdrop to Bonnie’s familiar evening shape of black velvet. Set against the mad flowers, was her expression troubled, eager, amused? William could not be sure. Jack was half-hidden from William’s view by the Christmas tree. But he could see his son’s shoulders were hunched in a show of intense concentration. As a child Jack had always hunched himself over whatever the object of interest–his trains, a comic, a fancy penknife. As a grown-up the position was familiar when he concentrated on a wine list or the Financial Times. Now, he was horribly hunched towards Bonnie.
‘Once you’ve had your stomach out–you’ve nothing to fall back on,’ observed Grant’s mother, to no one in particular. ‘Don’t you agree?’ She stretched out a hand, still muffled in shawls, to touch William’s knee.
‘Oh, I do.’
‘It’s all part of the process,’ Iris added.
Her mysterious observation faintly intrigued William, but nothing could detract from his study of Bonnie and Jack. Jack was the speaker. Low voice, but William could detect a few words.
… came, not expecting anything … don’t suppose … ever been so moved …’
‘Really?’ A sweet surprised smile from Bonnie, innocent of the rubbish she was being fed.
‘And … I don’t know … mind me saying, Bonnie, the sight of you … the most beautiful violinist I’ve ever seen, and do you know what?’ Here Jack leant further towards Bonnie, whispered something in her ear. She pulled back at once, laughing, blushing.
This was intolerable. William stood. Grace caught his eye.
‘Isn’t it time to eat?’ she said. ‘Get everyone to help themselves.’
‘Where are Grant and Laurel?’
‘I don’t know about Grant. I asked Laurel to take the brandy butter out of the fridge.’
With a quick glance at the window–Bonnie and Jack were stirring, standing, pulling apart reluctantly as wet wool, William thought–William left the room. With burning face he hurried to the kitchen. There he found Grant and Laurel, eyes locked, by the dresser. Laurel, holding her (third or fourth) glass of wine in one hand, was picking invisible fluff from Grant’s collar with the other. Her face was a lustful scarlet, and shining.
‘… and I could get you at least fifty per cent reduction to Corfu, off-season,’ she was saying.
Grant, on William’s entrance, turned, startled. He had the dappy look of one who had for a brief moment seriously been attracted to the idea of a cut-rate Greek holiday
‘Great,’ he said, to no one.
Laurel touched his hand.
‘You’ve only to give me the signal.’
‘Laurel!’ William shouted so loud he surprised himself as well as the others. Laurel, still webbed in her dream of a conquest of a client (possibly more, the handsome brute), turned to him with no flicker of guilt. Her eyes were dreamy, stupid.
‘William?’
‘Grace told you to get the–’
‘I did.’ She nodded towards the table and a bowl of brandy butter. William clasped his hands, desperate. Things were completely out of control. And he must get back now, see what further outrage his son and colleague were up to–though not for anything would he leave Grant and the appalling, predatory Laurel on their own. Grant, for all his size, wouldn’t stand a chance against Laurel.
‘It’s time to eat,’ he said. ‘Back in there.’
Something of his perturbance must have penetrated Laurel’s insensitive skin, for she hurried out, head high, secret smile to Grant.
‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Your daughter-in-law’s a fast mover.’
‘She’s not my daughter-in-law and I hope she never will be.’
‘I sympathise there.’
‘I’m sorry if she embarrassed you.’
‘Takes more than a tacky little travel agent to embarrass me, worry not.’
They looked at each other with the understanding of old colleagues who have weathered many years of minor incidents that have no lasting effect on the whole.
‘Let’s eat, then.’
‘I’ll offer Laurel a sausage on a stick, see if I can send her a little public message.’
‘Behave yourself, Grant.’
Back in the sitting room Bonnie was sitting on the floor talking to Iris and Grant’s mother. Jack was standing by the tree, plate and fork in hand, eyes on Bonnie’s back. Rufus was attempting to engage Laurel in conversation, but she was digging without interest at her Elizabethan stew, puzzled by her lover’s moody look. Rufus got little response.
Grace, always a thoughtful hostess, saw to it that everyone’s plates were piled. But she herself could conjure no appetite. She found it very hot in the room. Stifling. She had only sipped half a glass of wine, but the candle flames and tree lights were all bending and swaying as if in a wind. She moved uncertainly towards William. He was standing alone by the piano, a bleak, bemused look on his face. But then William had never enjoyed being a host. And this evening, for some reason she could not clarify in her mind, Grace was beginning to agree with him. Parties were no fun for those giving them, particularly when the guests were both disparate and difficult.
‘You all right, my Ace?’
‘Hot. Isn’t it very hot in here? I’m going for a breath of air.’
Grace slipped out of the room. She stood for a few moments in the hall, arms crossed under her breasts, hugging herself. She listened to the thin weave of voices, the occasional laugh. She studied the huddle of alien coats on the hooks. She longed to know if Lucien’s appearance was a signal, and meant he would be here in the morning.
Grace moved towards the front door. It was one of those high-waisted Edwardian pieces of design, with stained-glass panes at the top–the bust–that cast multi-coloured patterns on the floor when the sun pushed through. Such doors, in their demureness, reminded Grace of nineteenth-century dresses.
She found herself opening it. She stood by the narrow margin of cold damp air, grateful for its relief. Outside, three parked cars shone with damp, and the laurels, entangled in a dim moving fog, were indistinct shapes, no detail of leaf or branch. Grace shivered. About to shut the door, she looked down. On the step was a milk bottle surrounded by a circle of six tangerines. A feather of folded paper was sticking from the neck of the milk bottle. Grace bent and picked it up. Unfolded it. She read its message by the light in the porch. Happy Christmas, it said.
Grace stood there, reading the scrawled words again and again. Eventually she gathered up the carefully arranged tangerines, and took them to the kitchen. In her excitement she dropped them on the floor, watched them roll towards various points and under the table. No sooner had she knelt to retrieve them than Rufus came in carrying empty glasses.
‘Can I help?’
Dear Rufus! Just as William had felt unaccountable warmth towards Iris, Grace was conscious of an extraordinary beneficence towards Rufus, simply because he was inadvertently caught in the slip stream of her own delight.–He was much more efficient than her, catching the rolling tangerines, handing them to her to arrange in the fruit bowl.
‘Very nice evening,’ he said. ‘You always do these things so well.’
‘Very modest,’ said Grace. ‘But thank you.’ She did not care a damn if he noticed her blush, her dithering, her general sense of ungrounding. From now on she would enjoy the peculiar gathering. Thrilled by the knowledge that somewhere out in the shadows Lucien was, or at least had been lurking, she knew that she would now enter into the spirit of the evening. For her, the party had only just begun.
Perhaps, sifting all these things in her mind, she had the look of one preoccupied: for Rufus made no effort to engage her in further conversation. He went back to the dining room. Grace remained leaning against the sink luxuriating in one of those times when, at your own party, you can snatch a solitary moment, not having to speak or attend to anyone. In the quiet space of an empty room it can almost seem as if it was a normal evening and the guests did not exist. Grace was in a semi-trance of contentment. Then, she heard a shout.
She made her way back to the others, peeped round the door.
She saw what everyone was looking at in a freeze-frame moment. Laurel and Grant stood face to face in front of the Christmas tree. Grant was cramming a large sausage into her mouth, too fast for her to chew. There was absolute silence except for a glugging, a strangled giggle, from Laurel. Her scarlet cheeks bulged from side to side, her eyes flew about. Near to choking, she put her hands against Grant’s chest to steady herself rather than to push him away. For all her discomfort Laurel managed to convey she was enjoying the scene: centre of attention, shocking everyone.
‘Leave off, Grant! You’ll choke the girl.’
Grant turned briefly to his mother, whose squawk of warning broke the spell. He laughed.
Grace’s eyes flew to Jack. He put down a plate of half-finished food. The gesture was heavy with menace. He moved solemnly towards Laurel and Grant. On his way, passing close to Bonnie, he briefly touched her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. Grace tasted bile in her throat.
Jack snatched the sausage from Laurel’s mouth, flung it carelessly across the room. It knocked over a glass. Then he hit Grant hard on the cheek. A hollow, watery sound. Spectators gasped in its wake. Iris clasped Grant’s mother’s hand.
‘It was a joke, you idiot.’ Grant held his cheek.
‘Some joke.’Jack moved a pace nearer his target. His first punch had been very minor compared with what he had in mind.
Jack! What are you doing?’ Laurel pawed at him, trying to push him away from Grant. She was making a dreadful noise. He brushed her away, clenched his fist, landed another strong thump on Grant’s nose.
Grace saw blood stream across Grant’s face like a warning flag. There was a ragged chorus of screams, alarmed pleas to stop. People were shifting, moving about, embarrassed, not knowing what to do. William, hands held up like a man surrendering, was pushing past Rufus to reach his son. In the moment of confusion Grace noticed how pale were his palms, the skin grained like rice.
‘Stand back, Dad,’ shouted Jack, ‘I’m not finished.’ He held up a fist again. William, relieved by the command, gladly obeyed it. He’d felt he had to make some gesture of defence–though who to defend was a moral problem. There was small likelihood of his being very effective in stopping a fight between two men considerably larger than himself.
But Grant, several inches taller than Jack, had had enough. One feeble jealous hit he could have accepted without reciprocating. A bloodied nose was a different matter. He lunged at Jack–unsteady on his widely placed feet–and managed to spin him round at the same time as clubbing him on the side of the head.
Jack fell heavily against the Christmas tree, knocking it over. He lay among its branches, blood from Grant’s fist smeared across his cheek, one eye swelling. Fragments of coloured broken glass were scattered on his dark jacket. Several unbroken balls hovered on the floor, each one with its tiny window of light reflecting a particle of the scene. They were quickly smashed by chaotic feet. Jack groaned, others screamed. Laurel sobbed into the curtains, pulling the tulip material round her like a cloak.
‘Do something, someone!’ she groaned, but offered no help herself.
Grace saw William and Grant take Jack’s hands and pull him into a sitting position on the floor. Grant’s blood gushed on to Jack’s trousers and the carpet. Bonnie took Grant’s hand, led him out of the room. Grace could not decide who to attend to–Grant was hurt worse than Jack, but Jack was making more fuss.
‘Thish has all got out of hand,’ he muttered. Sitting there in the mess of blood and chips of glass, he looked both pathetic and revolting. Grace hated her son at that moment.
‘Let’s get him on to a chair,’ suggested Rufus, who seemed to be the only unperturbed man in the room.
‘What were you doing, bashing up Grant like that, you bastard?’ screamed Laurel from her curtain cocoon.
Jack turned his blackening eye on her.
‘What were you doing, you bloody little flirt?’
‘Shut up, you two.’ Rufus spoke on William’s behalf. ‘Let’s get this mess cleared up.’
Given the command, everyone helped. Grant’s mother lowered herself on to the floor. She moved slowly round the room on all fours, picking up minute specks of broken glass. The old lady was still swathed in all her shawls, and William, despite the whole ghastly business, could not help noting that in her likeness to an old sheep she provided an element of humour. Rufus replaced the damaged tree, Iris dabbed at the blood on the carpet with her handkerchief soaked in mineral water, Grace swept around replacing things very quickly, and William poured new glasses of wine for everyone but Jack and Laurel.
Jack sat in his chair, brushing himself down, watching the clearing up all round him. Sullen, he made no effort to help or to speak. The looks of disapproval, launched by the helpers, he defended with a hostile jut of his jaw. He did not look at Laurel, whose sobs had turned to snivels. She still clutched at the protective curtains. The feeble bitch, thought Grace: and loathed Laurel, too.
‘Thish has all gone horribly wrong,’ observed Jack, at last, to no one in particular.
‘You can say that again.’ Laurel let the tulips fall from her.
Jack looked at her. ‘I don’t know what you think you were doing.’
‘You’ve never been able to take a joke. A bit of fun.’
‘Not my idea of a joke, oral shoshage.’
Grant’s mother looked up from her position on the floor near the grate, bewildered. ‘Moral?’ she asked. ‘Where does moral come into all this? I think you owe my son an apology.’
‘He’s not getting a bloody apology,’ said Jack. ‘Not on my life.’
‘You always spoil everything.’ Laurel moved close to Jack. She touched his only slightly swollen eye with one finger.
‘Leave off. Take your ruddy fingers off me. We’re going home.’
‘You bastard. You’re not going to forget this.’ Laurel burst into fresh tears.
‘You’re staying here as planned,’ said Grace to Jack. ‘You’re in no condition to drive.’
‘We’re going home, Mother, so don’t interfere.’
‘You do what your mother says, my boy,’ said William. He was conscious that he had been no very great help in the general shambles, and here was an opportunity to exert himself without danger of further confrontation. He carried two glasses of wine out to the kitchen for Bonnie and Grant, keen to leave the disagreeable scene in the dining room.
Grant sat at the table, head tipped back. Bonnie dabbed at his nose with a scrunched-up wet dishcloth. She touched him very gently. William stopped. His heart had remained calm during the fight. Now it lurched and stumbled. He put the glasses on the table.
‘Anything I can do?’
‘Thanks, no. Bonnie here’s a very fine nurse.’
‘I’m sorry about all that–my son. I don’t know what–’
‘Don’t mention it.’ Grant’s voice was thick beneath the dishcloth. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t resist giving him a dose of his own medicine.’
‘He deserved it. Should teach him a thing or two.’
‘Daresay the sausage was a poor joke, and Jack had had a lot to drink.’
‘No excuse.’ William shrugged.
Bonnie stood back to appraise her work on Grant’s nose.
‘Pretty good,’ she said, smiling at both of them. ‘Almost as if nothing had happened.’
‘Let’s carry on as if that was the case.’ Grant stood, ruffled Bonnie’s hair. ‘Thanks. Don’t let this stupid business spoil your party, William. Grace has done it all so well. Let’s go back and finish up the food.’
He left the room but Bonnie did not follow him.
‘Sorry about your dishcloth,’ she said, and threw the bloody clump into the sink.
‘No matter
‘- and about events in general.’ She gave him a look (didn’t she?) - a look that penetrated his turbulent being, a secret acknowledgement of something William did not dare to name. ‘I have to say–forgive me if this is rude–but your son Jack doesn’t take after his father.’
William smiled. Shrugged.
‘He’s trodden a dull path since Laurel came into his life.’ God Almighty, Bonnie was right up against him, the warm velvet of her pushing against the length of his body, her heavy arms flung round his neck–as she so often flung them.
‘But as for you, William, you’re a wonderful, wonderful host and no shoddy behaviour can spoil your party’ He could smell the claret on her breath. How much had she drunk? Not that William cared … in vino veritas, he believed. All he asked was to remain where he was, propped up against the dresser (fortunately) for ever, listening to her sweet words. He patted her shoulder with a hand that raged to cup a breast.
‘Dear Bonnie.’
‘You’re a man in a million. We all think so–Grant, Rufus, me of course.’ (Here, William rather wished the others had not been included among his admirers, but in the general bliss of things it didn’t really matter.) ‘And what I’m demanding, here and now, is a Christmas kiss.’
Bonnie placed her glorious mouth on the astringent line of William’s own. Her lips did not part, but pushed. William kept his eyes open so that the out-of-focus muddle of thick lashes and the exquisite pores of her nose filled his vision. Faintness shot through his body, emptied his head. Bonnie moved away.
‘There. Thanks.’ Her cheeks matched the holly berries on the table. There was a deliquescence in her bearing that spoke of the effects of William’s superb wine, it had to be admitted. But why not? He would buy her a lifetime of Montrachet ‘85, given the chance. ‘I mustn’t leave out Grant and Rufus, must I? Kissing.’ She giggled. ‘Here. Come on.’
William took her hand. They made their way to the door. The marvellous thing was the he knew that the others surely would not be dealt the same quality of kiss. It would be public–theirs had been private. What’s more, at the kitchen door Bonnie let go of his hand, quite rightly. She would not want the others to have any idea of the absolute oneness that she and William had just experienced. No: it was their secret, and William had every intention of keeping it too.
In the hall they saw Jack and Laurel dragging their feet upstairs.
‘persuaded them to stay,’ said Grace. They were both way over the limit to drive.’
They watched the couple turn the corner towards their room -not looking back to bid their audience goodnight.
‘At least,’ said William, ‘they don’t look very engaged.’
Bonnie laughed at this. She laughed so hard William half suspected it was her way of cheering them all. (Their almost passionate kiss had of course cheered him. His being was now privately burnished beyond measure.) Her laughter, he could see, worked on Grace and Grant. The evening, which had been so thrashed and spoilt by his son, now righted itself in Bonnie’s gaiety. He judged there could be some enjoyment to be had in the hour or so before the guests began to go.
In a muted way, there was. The remaining guests ignored the bloodstains on the carpet and the smashed balls on the tree–the inside skins of these delicate, broken balls were visible: they gleamed like mother-of-pearl, flushed with a paler version of their outside colour. The guests ate more than they really wanted for fear of disappointing Grace, and talked of Christmas plans. William refilled glasses, and dreaded their departure. Ten days holiday: ten days without Bonnie. He knew Grant was driving her back to her flat in Aylesbury–of course that made sense, but he could not like the thought, even with Grant’s mother as chaperone. He knew Bonnie was travelling north the next day to be with her own family for a week. Here, he and Grace would have their usual quiet Christmas, but beneath the surface there would be both yearning and agitation which he must keep from Grace. And then, the dreaded few days with Dick. The walk on the cliffs.
It was Rufus who, at almost midnight, suggested they should end the evening with a few carols. He was always keen for a singsong, secretly a little proud of his resonating voice–in his youth he used to sing a lot of Schubert lieder. Grace loved the idea. She clapped her hands, said she’d find her book of carols.
But Grant, apparently unaware of her offer, looked at Bonnie.
‘Bonnie’ll play for us,’ he said.
Bonnie smiled. Grace sat down again.
‘I didn’t know Bonnie played the piano,’ she said.
‘One of her hidden talents.’ Grant gave Bonnie an encouraging smile. ‘As we discovered in Prague.’
William saw the disappointment sweep over his wife’s face. He knew how much she would have liked to have been the accompanist.
Bonnie got up, moved over to the piano. Pale flakes of light showered across her velvet skirt like a rush of sunlight through leaves. She moved magnificently, everyone’s eyes upon her.
‘I haven’t played a carol for years,’ she said. ‘But I’ll try.’
Bonnie had no need of Grace’s music book. She could play anything by ear. She drifted through a few minor chords, warming up, trying out the piano. Grace felt an irrational tightness within her. She recognised a gift she herself did not have, would never have. The huge waves of the evening, stilled for a while when the fight was over and Jack and Laurel had gone to bed, now returned, almost swamping her. She turned to William. He stood in an awkward position, like a man trapped in volcano lava and made rigid. His eyes were on Bonnie’s back, expressionless. He was wonderfully conscious that after all there had been no opportunity–and probably no desire–for her to bestow Christmas kisses on Grant and Rufus. The thought gave him profound satisfaction.
‘Silent Night’, Bonnie began.
‘Stille Nacht.’ Rufus, also proud of his German, made it impossible for the others to join in. He had no intention of being denied his solo. In the past, his rendering of the carol had moved people to tears. This was not to be the case tonight, but he would give it his best. Glancing round the room he saw that Grant’s mother was asleep, Iris was twisting her engagement ring, and Grant was lighting one of his revolting cigars. Only William and Grace, in their unmoving postures of listening, seemed appreciative.
‘Heilige nacht,’ he went on, and moved one hand to his heart.