‘—they said in their hundred voices, ‘No, not yet,’ and the sky said, ‘No, not there.’
Annie snapped shut the book and tilted her head back, resting it against the tree under which she was sitting, gazing into the middle distance through half-closed eyes – her attention for once not immediately caught and held by the great glass structure that was Kew’s magnificent Temperate House on the far side of this part of the gardens. She had read A Passage to India twice in as many weeks; the book fascinated and yet at the same time somehow repelled her. It was – she searched for the word – it seemed a shame to call such a book ‘dispiriting’, but this was the word that came repeatedly to mind.
Her thoughts distracted, she did not at first see Davie coming out of the Marianne North Gallery accompanied by the tall figure of Richard Ross. They were almost upon her before she noticed them.
She jumped to her feet, brushing her skirt. ‘Mr Ross. Good afternoon.’
He smiled his quick, cheery smile. ‘Good afternoon. I do hope you don’t mind… I came across this young man in the Gallery – I left my fountain pen there yesterday after I had taken some notes and had to return to retrieve it – and we had the mutual thought that a glass of lemonade might be of benefit. What do you think?’
‘And a bun.’ Davie grinned up at him. ‘You did mention a bun—’
‘Indeed I did.’ Richard Ross looked back at Annie.
Annie hesitated, uncertain. ‘I’m not sure that—’
Davie’s face dropped. ‘But we often go and have a lemonade. Why can’t we today?’
Richard Ross’s bright, narrow eyes were steady and smiling on hers. He cocked a questioning eyebrow; almost, she might have thought, a challenging one.
‘Please?’ Her graceless son beamed at her, all confidence that he would get his own way.
She shrugged and gave in. ‘All right. Why not? It is very warm.’ She tucked the book under her arm, took the folder that Davie held out to her, and turned to stroll beside Richard Ross towards the Refreshment Pavilion, while Davie streaked away across the grass making engine noises. ‘In case you’re wondering,’ Annie said dryly, ‘he’s a motor car. His one dream in life – apart from being a botanist – is to own a motor car. Until he’s old enough he has to put up with pretending he is one.’
The man beside her laughed. ‘He told me. In the Gallery. We had quite a chat.’ His laugh, like his smile, was quick, warm and infectious.
She smiled up at him. ‘Do you have children, Mr Ross?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’ He hesitated a moment, then added, ‘I’m not married. Not…’ he hesitated. ‘Not any more, that is.’
He spoke with a perfectly easy straightforwardness, yet somehow the confidence disconcerted her, made her feel as if her words had been unmannerly. Annie felt a faint uncomfortable colour rising in her face. She ducked her head to hide it and the book she was carrying slipped from her hand.
He bent swiftly to retrieve it for her. ‘A Passage to India.’ He handed it to her. ‘I read that last year, when it first came out. What do you think of it? Are you enjoying it?’
Annie, the complexities of the thing still in her mind, thought seriously for a moment. ‘Is “enjoy” quite the right word for a book like that? I’m not certain it is. I’ve read it twice, and no, I’m not sure that I do actually like it. It’s marvellously written, but it isn’t exactly the most cheerful of works, is it?’
Still smiling, he shook his head. ‘Some of the best books aren’t. But I do know what you mean.’
‘It’s…’ She hesitated. ‘It’s a very thought-provoking book.’ Suddenly, as she sensed he had wanted, she was at ease again, and laughing. ‘I’m just not altogether sure I can organise the thoughts it provokes. Some of the – I suppose you’d call them philosophical – bits stump me entirely. I’ve read and reread Godbole’s piece about good and evil and although I think I can see some underlying sense of what he’s saying, I can’t really grasp it—’
‘Aren’t you just proving one of the points the book is trying to make?’ he asked. ‘East is East and West is West…’ He let the words trail off.
‘And women are women and men are men, and never the twain shall understand each other,’ she supplied wryly. ‘Yes. I suppose I am.’ They turned and started to stroll towards the Refreshment Pavilion again. ‘But – surely – we don’t really live like that, do we? No one seems to mean what they say. No one seems to understand their own or anyone else’s motives or ideas. Worse, they don’t even appear to try. Forster writes as if life is just one big muddle. A misunderstanding. Or worse, a deceit. People say one thing and mean another. Or say one thing and do another, which is horrible. Most of their actions seem predicated on snobbery, ignorance, prejudice or self-interest—’
‘Well, I suppose it sounds cynical, but wouldn’t you agree that, on the whole, that’s often true?’ He was watching her interestedly.
She thought for a moment. ‘I do hope not,’ she said honestly after a moment. They walked a few slow steps in silence. Then, ‘Even the relationship that you think is going to survive – the friendship between Fielding and Aziz – doesn’t. And again it’s wrecked by misunderstanding.’ She tilted her head to glance up at him. ‘I suppose it’s just that the relationships seem all wrong somehow. The whole thing’s so perverse and – well, depressing, I suppose. No one seems to care.’
‘Aren’t you really saying that the book is almost too true to real life? People live like that. People are like that. Life is messy and contradictory and perverse. There are no easy answers, no neat and satisfactory endings. Life on the whole is a muddle. You can never know what another person is thinking, never truly see behind the words he or she speaks. It’s the human condition. We tend to expect our books to be different: to offer nice clear beginnings and tidy, explanatory endings.’ He grinned quickly, mocking his own sudden seriousness. ‘And if possible a well-organised middle. Passage doesn’t offer that. It offers questions rather than answers.’
They strolled in silence for a moment. The late spring sunshine filtered through the bright-leafed branches above them and touched the freshly cut grass with gold. Davie revved up his motor-car sounds and flew past them, grinning and tooting.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Annie conceded at last. ‘And pessimistic questions at that. Find me one sentence in the entire book that says anything good about marriage, for instance. Wait…’ She stopped, flicking through the pages. ‘Ah – here – Fielding talking to Adela about marriage. I’ve read it a dozen times. It begins and continues for such very slight reasons. The social business props it up on one side and the theological business on the other, but neither of them are marriage, are they? I’ve friends who can’t remember why they married, no more can their wives. I suspect that it mostly happens haphazard, though afterwards various noble reasons are invented. About marriage I am cynical.’
As she read her words had become slower, her voice quieter. She stood for a moment, staring down at the page.
He waited, watching her, interest in his eyes.
She stood still, head bowed, looking down at the book. ‘What is it that Adela asks herself before she goes into the caves?’ she asked very quietly, speaking almost as if to herself. What about love? What about love,’ she repeated, even more quietly, and with a completely different inflection. ‘There’s a question!’ And was herself surprised at the faint but unmistakeably discernible bleakness in the words.
He said nothing.
Annie flushed again, aware that perhaps she had given away more than she would have cared to, and to a stranger.
Suddenly and briskly she snapped the book shut and looked up. ‘And then silly Fielding goes and gets married himself! To someone, or so it seems, that he doesn’t understand and can’t talk to.’ She lifted her voice a little. ‘Davie – do stop tearing around so! You’ll wear yourself out in this heat!’
They strolled on. Her companion was obviously enjoying the discussion. ‘What about love?’ he repeated. ‘A question we could probably discuss for a thousand years and not come up with an answer. But you take my point? In my opinion the whole book is a question. Why do people behave as they do? Why don’t we ever learn from our mistakes? Why should one people despise another simply because of their race? Simply because they don’t understand them?’
‘Will anybody ever understand anybody?’ Annie’s words were deliberately dry.
‘I’m with Forster, I’m afraid. I very much doubt it,’ he said, and then laughed aloud. ‘Enough, enough! It’s too warm for philosophising. Here’s the Pavilion. Lemonade and buns, that’s the ticket.’
All at once unaccountably light-hearted, Annie flicked a smile at him. ‘I don’t think even the disillusioned Mr Forster could disapprove of lemonade and buns, surely?’
‘So – do I understand that you’re an artist, Mr Ross?’ Annie asked politely a short time later, settled at a table in the Pavilion, pouring tea.
‘No,’ said Davie cheerfully, around a mouthful of sticky bun. ‘He’s a solicitor. He works in London mostly, but also in Paris. Don’t you, Mr Ross?’
‘That’s right.’ Richard Ross addressed his answer to Annie. ‘The law is my living. Art is my passion.’
‘A passion I expect you find easy to indulge in Paris?’
‘Quite so. My grandfather established the family firm in London some fifty years ago. My father expanded to Paris just after the war.’ He accepted the cup of tea she offered. ‘Thank you.’ He sat in sunshine; as he looked at her, the light gilded his long lashes and glinted green and gold in his eyes. ‘Davie tells me that his father was French?’ There was a gently questioning inflection in the words.
Annie flicked a slightly repressive look at her son. What other personal details had he divulged to this undoubtedly attractive but somehow increasingly unnerving stranger? ‘Yes. He was killed in the first weeks of the war, before Davie was born.’
‘A tragedy.’ His voice was soft.
‘One of many. Like so many other young people, the war wrecked our lives before they had fairly begun. We were far from being the only ones.’ She shrugged a little, stirred her tea, eyes downcast, her face pensive.
‘You lived in Paris?’
His question reclaimed her attention. ‘Yes. Actually, my own father was French. I was born in Paris. My mother is English. Father died just before the war, and after Davie was born Mother and I came to England.’
‘Davie tells me you haven’t been back to Paris since?’
‘No.’ The word was short. Davie munched happily on his bun, apparently oblivious to the rather more searching glance his mother had sent his way this time. ‘I have no desire to go. There are too many memories. My life – our life – is here.’
‘I can understand that.’
‘Anyway, I told you – Mother doesn’t like ships,’ Davie offered innocently.
‘Davie, I’m sure Mr Ross doesn’t want to be bored by my personal foibles,’ his mother said sharply.
Davie finished his bun, licked his fingers, eyed the one that Annie was toying with. ‘Are you going to eat all of your bun?’ He grinned at Richard Ross. ‘Mother thinks I’ve got worms.’
‘You’re a growing lad, that’s all. Here, have mine.’
‘Wow, thanks!’
‘Where do you live in Paris, Mr Ross?’ Annie asked, trying to bring some order back into the conversation.
‘Rue Jacob. On the Left Bank.’
‘I know it. We had an apartment on boulevard St Germain. Philippe was at the medical school.’
Richard Ross had leaned his chin on his hand and was watching her with sympathetic interest. ‘You must have been very young?’
She shrugged. ‘Yes. I suppose we were. We were in Paris. There was talk of war. It was all very… intense. Very chaotic.’
‘And very romantic,’ he said, unexpectedly.
She looked at him. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘And very romantic. Almost irresistibly so.’
‘I’ve got a picture of my father,’ Davie said. ‘He looked just like me.’
‘He was a Parisian?’
For a moment Annie found herself wondering how on earth this man was managing – in the most engaging of ways – to extract so much information in so short a time; information that she rarely shared with anyone? ‘Yes,’ she said, a little abruptly. ‘He lived with his father in a house in Billancourt.’ A house with an unusually beautiful garden… ‘Come along, Davie.’ She was suddenly brisk. ‘Finish your bun. We’re meeting Uncle Fergus at six, remember?’ She turned to look directly at Richard Ross. Why she felt compelled to say it she was not sure, but say it she did: ‘Fergus is my fiancé.’
He nodded, lips twitching. ‘I know. Davie told me.’
This time she was startled into sudden, exasperated laughter. ‘Davie! Honestly!’
‘Well, it isn’t a secret, is it?’ her son asked in a faintly injured tone.
‘Of course not, but—’ Annie shook her head and gave up. ‘Thank you for the tea, Mr Ross. We really must go…’ She stood up, reached a hand for Davie’s. ‘Say goodbye to Mr Ross, Davie.’
Richard Ross too came politely to his feet, opening his mouth to speak, but Davie forestalled him. ‘Goodbye, Mr Ross. I’ll see you on Thursday,’ he said.
Annie looked from one to the other.
‘I’m sorry,’ the man said quickly, ‘I was going to mention it. I should have said something earlier—’
‘I’m going to lend him my book about Marianne North. The one you got me for Christmas.’ Davie frowned a little uncertainly. ‘It is all right, isn’t it? He did say he’d look after it.’
‘I—yes, of course it’s all right.’ For a reason she could not, or perhaps did not want to explain, Annie had an obscure feeling that it wasn’t all right at all, but she could not bring herself to be so churlish as to say so. She was brisk. ‘We’ll meet you in the Gallery, then, Mr Ross. About five?’
He hesitated.
‘I said he could come and pick it up,’ said Davie.
Dark eyes and hazel held each other steadily for a moment. ‘I hope you don’t mind?’ the man asked gently.
‘Of course not. Why should I?’ She smiled, very brightly. ‘Don’t tell me – I expect you know where we live?’
He nodded gravely, his eyes laughing. ‘Davie told me,’ he said.
‘Is something wrong?’ Fergus asked. They were sitting at the open French doors of her sitting room watching Davie play on the swing. ‘You’re very quiet.’
Annie shook her head quickly. ‘No. Nothing. I’m just a little tired, that’s all. The warm weather, I suppose.’
He leaned forward and took her hand. ‘We have plans to make. Have you chosen a date?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry, I haven’t.’
‘It should be in the summer, I think. June? July, perhaps? And the honeymoon? Where would you like to go?’
‘I—hadn’t thought—’
‘I need to know the date, my dear. I have to book time away from the office.’
‘Yes, I realise that. I’m sorry. I’ll get myself organised in the next few days, I promise.’
‘It can only be a week, I’m afraid. I can’t trust Smithers to run things for longer than that. He’s reliable enough, but lacks initiative—’
‘That’s all right. A week will be lovely.’ Annie put a hand to her head.
‘You’ll make the arrangements with your mother to take care of Davie?’
‘Yes, Fergus. Of course I will.’ Her voice had sharpened. ‘As soon as we set the date. She’ll come to the wedding and she’ll stay until we come back.’ She rubbed at her head again. In the garden Davie was swinging high, his feet grazing the leaves of the tree. ‘Fergus, I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m not quite myself tonight. I have a headache coming on. Would you mind very much…?’ She let the words trail to silence.
‘Of course not, my dear. Would you like me to get you something? A cup of tea? An aspirin?’
‘No, no.’ She was suddenly desperate for him to go. ‘As I said – it’s just the heat. I’ll get an early night. I’ll be quite all right.’
Fergus stood, bent to kiss her cheek. ‘Don’t get up. I’ll say goodbye to Davie and let myself out. I’ll pop in on Thursday.’
‘No. Not Thursday. We… won’t be here. I’m taking Davie to see an old friend in Richmond.’
‘Very well. Until the weekend, then.’
‘Yes. We’ll meet you at Liverpool Street. I thought we’d catch the five o’clock train if that’s all right?’
‘Of course. I’m looking forward to it.’ He kissed her again and went into the garden.
Annie watched as he walked over to the swing. Davie scraped to a halt. Fergus ruffled his hair and said something; Davie smiled half-heartedly. Fergus gave him a push, setting the swing in motion again, turned and lifted a hand to Annie. She waved back, watched him to the garden gate. Why had she lied? Why had she felt that if Fergus had said another word she would have screamed at him?
‘A boy needs a father,’ her mother had said, and ‘he’s a good man’.
Yes.
What about love?
‘Davie,’ she called. ‘Come along in. Time for bed.’