CHAPTER 15
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, a toast! The bride and groom.’
The champagne glasses were raised; a murmur of ‘the bride and groom’ went round the room; the bride smiled radiantly, the groom just slightly awkwardly.
She kissed him; he kissed her back and then rose to his feet, looking rather serious.
He was very handsome, Venetia thought; and very sexy too. She had always been able to see the attraction. It was all that rather violent, suppressed energy. And he was immensely clever; her mother kept pointing it out. She knew it was partly to annoy her; Celia was taking a perverse pleasure in the whole thing. But he was. There was just no doubt about it. Completely wasted in his chosen career. Still—
‘So I would just like to thank Mr and Mrs Warwick for welcoming me to the family and to assure you I will do everything in my power to take care of Elspeth.’
Pity he hadn’t done a bit more four months earlier, Venetia thought savagely; she was finding this very hard.
‘And I would also like to thank my own parents for all they have done for me, and the sacrifices they have made. I propose a toast to them: my parents, Dora and Robert Brown.’
There was a momentary awkward silence; then ‘Dora and Robert! Congratulations. Jolly well done.’
It was Lord Arden’s voice, cutting into that silence, saving the mood just in time. Celia, looking at him across the table, remembered sharply, for the first time in several months, why she had wanted to marry him. Or at least why she had thought she wanted to marry him. She rose to her own feet, smiling first at him and then at the Browns.
‘Dora and Robert,’ she said firmly. The rest of the room followed, raising their glasses. The Browns sat looking proudly embarrassed, but smiling properly for the first time that day.
‘Bunny, that was very well done,’ Celia smiled at him across the drawing room. ‘We were all a bit slow on the uptake, I’m afraid.’
It was six o’clock, the bride and groom had departed for their honeymoon – a week in the Scottish Highlands – the Browns for the small hotel where they were spending the next two days with their two younger sons, in order to experience the wonders of London for the first time. Venetia had gone upstairs for a rest, to recover from the traumas of the day. Boy was dispensing drinks to the remaining guests.
‘What’s that, my dear?’ said Lord Arden. ‘Oh, the toast. Yes, well, they’re very sweet people. Very sweet. I particularly liked Dora. Very bright woman. We had a most interesting chat.’
‘What about?’ said Celia. ‘I was most intrigued, Bunny, I must say, you seemed to be getting on tremendously well.’
‘Suez.’
‘Suez?’ said Boy, astonished.
‘Yes. Our Dora is very well-informed. She says she has a lot of time to read the paper while there aren’t any customers in the shop. She thinks it’s a very good thing Nasser has nationalised the canal. I was very impressed, I can tell you.’
‘How extraordinary,’ said Boy.
‘Not at all,’ said Celia, ‘you’re so stupidly narrow-minded, Boy. I’m surprised at you. Why shouldn’t Dora Brown be intelligent? Keir’s brains must have come from somewhere. Just because someone is poor and illeducated doesn’t mean they’re stupid. Barty’s mother could hardly write and her father couldn’t even read, but look at Barty.’
‘Yes,’ said Boy, ‘just look at Barty.’
Barty’s announcement that she was going to get married again had caused considerable division in the family.
The romantics thought it was wonderful, that she deserved some happiness; the realists were deeply sceptical, given that her husband-to-be had no money, no job worth talking about, was younger than she was and had a daughter he was raising on his own.
Sebastian and Kit, who had congratulated Barty most heartily when she told them, and expressed huge pleasure at being the first to know (after the girls, who had gone into a state of stratospheric excitement), only discovered on the flight home how extremely uneasy they both were about it, and indeed about Charlie Patterson himself.
Izzie, on the other hand, being the leading romantic, and who pointed out, with perfect truth, that she knew Charlie better than any of them, said she thought it was absolutely lovely, that Charlie clearly loved Barty very much, and that it was absolute nonsense that he was marrying her for her money.
This unthinkable, unsayable thought was first expressed with great forcefulness by the boys.
‘Well he’s certainly a very smart guy,’ was all Nick Neill said; Mike Parker was more outspoken.
‘So he’s got no money, no job—’
‘He has got a job,’ said Izzie indignantly, cut off abruptly in her rhapsodising.
‘Oh pardon me. I forgot. A real estate business run during school hours with no secretary, OK, what you could call quite a modest job, and he’s marrying a woman who has millions? Nice work, Charlie. There’s one born every minute. Although I wouldn’t have thought Barty Miller was one of them.’
‘Mike, that is just so unfair. Charlie is the sweetest man—’
‘I never said he wasn’t sweet,’ said Mike, ‘I just expressed a view that he was smart.’
‘Anyway, Barty’s wealth is hugely exaggerated. She didn’t get much of her husband’s fortune and neither did Jenna, he died without knowing—’
‘Yeah, yeah, we know. Listen, a mansion in the Hamptons, a house in the Upper Eighties and a publishing company based in New York and London don’t come exactly cheap. Get real, Izzie. Now Charlie Patterson may be the sweetest man on God’s earth, he may be closely related to the angels, he may be standing right behind Billy Graham in God’s line-up, I certainly don’t know that he isn’t, but it don’t alter the fact that he’s got very, very lucky.’
‘I think you’re both horrid,’ said Izzie. ‘And I shall tell Barty to strike you off the post-wedding party guest list.’
‘Now that’s really very mean. You wouldn’t do that, would you?’
‘I would. If you go on talking like this. Now I’m going to do some work. I have to leave on time tonight.’
‘Ah. Do we have a hot date, Lady Isabella?’
This was their new name for her, ever since they had heard her father calling her Isabella.
‘No I don’t,’ said Izzie. ‘I’m looking at apartments, that’s all. And don’t call me that stupid name.’
‘I love you. So very, very much.’
‘And I – love you.’
She heard the hesitation herself; however slight, it was there. It always was. He smiled. If he did hear it, he was not acknowledging it, and he should certainly not mind. She had made it clear, that first evening, that it was vital they entered this marriage on clear, honest terms. She did not love Charlie as she had loved Laurence; that was impossible. But she cared for him very deeply, she loved being with him, she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. It was very simple; he must understand that.
Charlie did. He said it was fine that way; that he was very, very happy to be cared for deeply, and that she should love being with him. He was going to make her happy; that was his only concern.
Reminding herself that whatever else Laurence had done, he had very seldom made her happy, she went to bed that night in Charlie’s arms, deeply content.
They told the girls first; they sat and listened, their eyes growing larger and starrier by the moment, clasping one another’s hands, looking alternately at their parents and at each other. Neither spoke for a long time; then Jenna said simply, ‘So now Cathy can be my sister. And come to Dana too.’
Charlie had looked at Barty quizzically, sweetly, and she had liked him for it, for reading her so well, as he always did, and had said, taking his hand, ‘Yes, of course she can,’ and had not felt anything but delight that she could do so much for both of them.
Then she told Sebastian and Kit; they had been wonderful, absolutely happy for her, had shaken Charlie by the hand, offered to buy them all lunch. Charlie had said that sounded great, but Barty said she had lunch with an agent which had taken her months to fix: ‘I can’t cancel it, I really can’t. Let’s all have dinner instead.’
It was only afterwards, sitting in the cab going downtown, that she realised she must have sounded exactly like Celia . . .
She sent a cable to Celia; she felt she must tell her as soon as possible, before there was any danger of her getting a whiff of the news from someone else. She wasn’t sure what reaction she might get; when it came, by way of a cable, it was of course totally predictable.
‘Delighted. Inform date of wedding soonest. Letter follows. Love Celia.’
No questions asked, no surprise expressed – Barty had never forgotten Celia’s mother, Lady Beckenham, saying it was common to appear shocked or surprised by anything – just an assumption that she would be at the wedding. Which of course she would have to be. Only...
‘It means I have to ask them all,’ she said to Charlie.
‘Why?’
‘You don’t understand. You don’t have just one Lytton, to anything.’
He was silent for a moment; then said, ‘You did want it small and private.’
‘Yes, I did. What about you?’
‘That’s what I wanted too.’ He hesitated. Then, ‘Suppose – suppose we just had mothers? And the girls and Izzie of course.’
‘Neither of us has a mother.’
‘No I know. But Lady Celia is the nearest you’ve got. And I could ask Meg’s mother. And with the girls, that’d be very neat. No awkwardness asking cousins and great-aunts and old college friends.’
She thought for a minute.
‘It’s a lovely idea. I really like it.’
‘Good. Now I have another idea. I don’t know how you’d feel about it.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Suppose I ask Jamie to be my supporter?’
‘Jamie!’
‘Yes. I thought it would be nice. He’s been so kind to me, and I just thought—’
‘Don’t you have a closer friend you’d want to ask?’ Barty asked, trying to give herself time to think, wondering how exactly Jamie had been so kind to Charlie. As far as she knew he’d done nothing to help him at all.
‘Not really. You know I lost touch with them all over the past few years. And I thought it would be nice for you, too. I know how fond of Jamie you are, how important he is to you.’
‘Yes,’ she said and now that the idea was settling, she found she liked it, that it reconciled the past with the future. She was indeed terribly fond of Jamie. And he was so different from Laurence, so easy, so sweet, there would be no – no what? She pushed the idea of exactly what aside.
‘Yes,’ she said, kissing Charlie. ‘Yes, I think it’s a really nice idea. Thank you. And he’ll love it.’
‘Good. Now – where?’
‘Not – not South Lodge,’ she said quickly, and then felt ashamed of herself.
‘Well, of course not,’ he said so gently, she felt even worse. ‘I would never, ever have thought of such a thing. No, no. The Waldorf ? The Plaza? My place?’
She kissed him, laughing.
‘Your place. No, let’s have it here. We can get married at the City Hall and then have just a family lunch. And a party later, maybe. How would that suit you?’
‘It’d suit me very well.’
‘Good. I can’t wait for you to meet Celia.’
‘I can’t wait to meet her. I hope she likes me.’
‘Now on that,’ said Barty, ‘all bets are off. She is a law absolutely unto herself. There is no logic to her likes and dislikes. Never has been.’
‘Will she bring the noble Lord?’
‘Who? Oh, Lord Arden. I shouldn’t think so. We can’t tell her not to. But Sebastian says he’s not allowed to go anywhere much with her these days.’
‘Can’t he insist?’
‘No he can’t,’ said Barty. ‘Believe me.’
‘Tell me—’ he said casually.
‘Yes?’
‘Celia and Sebastian – they seem to have a rather – close relationship.’
‘They’re great friends,’ she said carefully. ‘Lifelong friends.’
‘No more than that?’
‘Charlie, I don’t think I want to talk about it.’
‘Why not? It’s intriguing.’
‘It’s – off-limits,’ she said. ‘Sorry. Not my story to tell.’
‘So there is a story?’
‘Everyone has a story,’ she said with a stab of irritation. He had become more pressing since she had said she would marry him, she was noticing it more and more; only over small things, of course, but not letting subjects rest, asserting his choice over films they saw, restaurants they ate at. Well, that was probably good for her . . .
‘Yes, and this one is intriguing, I suspect.’
‘It’s one you’re not going to hear. Unless Sebastian or Celia tells you themselves. Which is hugely unlikely. Now let’s change the subject, shall we?’
He smiled at her, his most open, guileless smile. ‘Sorry. Now then, the only thing about this plan is, what about your nice brother? Shouldn’t he be invited?’
‘I very much doubt if he’ll come. He runs a farm. Not easy to get away. Oh dear, you’re right, he should be invited, though. He and Joan. Maybe we should have it in England. But then—’
‘No, let’s have it here. And then visit England.’
‘Yes, all right. But I do want you to meet Billy. You’d like him so much.’
They set the date for the wedding in January.
‘That will give Celia time to get over here. It seems silly to wait, when we could do it tomorrow. But—’
‘January’s only a month away. I can wait that long. To make you Mrs Patterson.’
She hadn’t thought of that. She felt a stab of alarm at no longer being Mrs Laurence Elliott. She called herself Barty Miller at work, but domestically, socially, she was Barty Elliott. It was important to her, linked her still to Laurence. But – she had to give something up, for God’s sake. And she had to move forward. It was a bit like South Lodge; she could no longer keep that for herself. And professionally, of course, she was still Barty Miller. That wasn’t going to change . . .
‘Noni, that was Style.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘They want you to do another job for them.’
Adele sounded slightly irritable; she would have preferred it to have been her. The pictures had been very good, she knew. Despite some rather grudging praise from Laura Proctor-Reid, they had had a very strong dramatic quality, and Noni had looked marvellous, no one would have known she wasn’t an experienced professional. She had a natural grace, in any case, and had immediately picked up the rather exaggerated angular poses Style wanted. And what Marella had insisted on calling her French look, her dark hair and eyes, her rather white skin, her narrow frame, had suited the clothes very well.
‘Well – are you going to do it?’ Adele’s voice was impatient.
Noni looked at her thoughtfully. She was so touchy, these days, so easily upset. Geordie’s extended absence had made her worse; now that he was coming home in a few days, she was raw with anxiety. It probably wasn’t a very good idea to do the job for Style, encroaching on her mother’s territory, a territory she was no longer very confident about. And there was no way she really wanted to be a model; it was a pretty silly way to make a living. But she had been fascinated by what had been done that day, a few quite ordinary-looking garments turned into a brilliant visual idea. And it had been fun too—
‘Noni ! Do concentrate. They’re waiting on the phone.’
‘Oh – sorry. I’ll speak to them, shall I?’
It was the downtrodden assistant, Mary Louise; Noni had rather liked her. She was clearly used to being kept waiting.
‘Oh that’s perfectly all right,’ she said in her nervous near-whisper. ‘It was just that Miss Proctor-Reid would like you to work for us again. She wants to do a feature on spring jackets, couture, mainly, and she wants to shoot them in Paris—’
‘Paris!’
‘Yes. Next week. Just before the real Christmas rush starts. I realise it’s short notice, but Miss Proctor-Reid really wants you.’
‘I’m not sure—’
‘Oh Miss Lieberman, please say yes.’
‘Noni, I do rather need the phone. Please hurry up.’
Noni looked at her mother. She was on edge; Geordie was coming home in just a few days, war would be breaking out again, her mother crying, Clio upset, Lucas sulking . . . although Lucas was changing, was somehow happier, a bit easier these days, beginning to grow up at last. But he wasn’t going to welcome Geordie.
Adele banged down a coffee pot very loudly, turned the cold tap on full.
Noni looked at her tense, aggressive back. ‘Yes, all right,’ she said, ‘I’d like to come, very much, thank you.’
Adele walked out and slammed the kitchen door.
Elspeth was working hard at telling herself that she was very lucky really; she was having a baby, a much-wanted baby, she had a husband who loved her, she had her own home. Thousands, millions of girls all over the country would have envied her. Of course the home wasn’t very big, in fact it was very small, a one-bedroom flat in one of the new high-rise, council-owned developments which were replacing the slums and the bomb-damaged areas on the outskirts of Glasgow, but it was modern, and only on the third floor of the building. When she had first seen it, when Keir had proudly shown it to her, she had been so appalled, she hadn’t been able to disguise it. He had stopped short in his guided tour, had been first upset then angry.
‘Of course, it’s not what you’re used to, I can see that. It’s not a plush flat in Chelsea. But I have to pay for it and it’s the best I can afford. You know about that, Elspeth? Paying your way? It’s an odd notion, I give you that. Maybe you’ll learn in time. It’s not a rich publisher you’re married to, it’s a struggling supply teacher. Sorry. Perhaps you should go home to Daddy and the Lyttons right now and admit you were wrong.’
‘Keir don’t. I’m sorry. Very sorry. I can’t – can’t help being a bit worried.’
‘Oh indeed. What are you a bit worried about? The neighbours? Not quite your style? The decor? Sorry about the curtains. Or rather the lack of them. You’ll have time on your hands for a bit, perhaps you could lower yourself sufficiently to make a few up. My mother will help you. She offered to make them, as a matter of fact, only I thought you’d want to do it yourself.’
‘Keir, stop it,’ she said, fighting back the tears. ‘Don’t be so angry. I’m sorry. Of course I like it, it’s – it’s sweet. But it is a bit – small.’
‘I don’t see that. It has a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. You’re lucky, I looked at a few with an outside toilet.’
‘Yes, but – but where will the baby sleep? There’s no room for a – a. . .’ ‘Nursery’ was the word struggling to get out. She crushed it just in time. ‘For its – his room.’
‘Well, he can sleep with us. What’s wrong with that?’
‘With us! Keir, we can’t have a baby in our room.’
‘And why not? He won’t take up much space. He’ll still be able to sleep and breathe, all that sort of thing.’
‘Well because – because – ’
‘What you mean is that your sort, people like you, don’t have babies in their rooms. They have nurseries and nannies. Well, I’ve told you, Elspeth, if you want that sort of thing, you’ve married the wrong man. This is the best I can do. If it’s not good enough for you, then I’m sorry.’ She saw, suddenly, a dangerous brilliance in his dark eyes, realised how upset he was. She went up to him, put her arms round him, kissed him.
‘Keir, I’m so sorry. It’s all right, really. You have to forgive me, make allowances for me. I’m just a spoilt brat, as you’re always saying. I love the flat, really I do. It’s sweet. And I’ll make curtains, and – and everything. It’ll all be fine. Please forgive me, Keir.’
She was crying herself, now; he looked down at her and relented, smiled suddenly at her.
‘All right. I forgive you. And I’m sorry it isn’t – bigger. When I’m a headmaster, I’ll buy you a fine house. Meanwhile, maybe the bairn can sleep in the living room at night. I’m told cots are quite easily transportable.’
Danger was averted: for the time being.
But now they had moved in, into the tiny space, where she felt like a caged tiger, pacing up and down much of the day, for want of anything else to do. Naturally energetic, intensely hard-working, she was desperate with boredom. She had hoped to be able to carry on with her editing in a freelance capacity, but even Celia had found herself unable to convince Jay that this would work and especially not with a book as important as the Clementine Hartley novel; that had hurt her almost more than anything else.
She cleaned the flat each morning, carefully and energetically at first, then with increasing listlessness, and usually found herself at ten or eleven o’clock with endless empty hours ahead of her. She would have gone for long walks, had she been in London, but it was hardly walking territory, endless streets, leading to more endless streets; and then the neighbourhood was not exactly rough, but it was very lower class, and she was already teased by the children in the block. They called out ‘hoity toity’ when she walked past them and stared and giggled at her, and their mothers regarded her, she knew, with a mixture of curiosity and scorn. She had tried to be friendly at first, but it hadn’t worked, they assumed she was being patronising and, at best, ignored her, at worst, were outwardly rude, staring at her from their cosy groups of three or four, standing at their doorways in the block’s long concrete corridors or in the shops. And there was the problem of understanding what people said to her; their accents were very thick and unfamiliar; she had to keep saying, ‘I’m sorry?’ or ‘What did you say?’ and it emphasised horribly the difference between them.
Shopping, trips to the greengrocers and the butchers and the corner shop, had become a dreaded ordeal; she had tried to do it at times when the shops were empty, leaving it really late until the children were home from school and having their tea, or early in the morning before most of the mothers were about, but they were almost always about and anyway, she was even more nervous in the dark evenings.
She had already told Keir that next time they went down to London, she was going to bring her car up with her; she told him it was so that she could be more efficient with the shopping and so on, but it was actually so that she could feel less of a prisoner. He had argued with her briefly and then given in; she resisted the temptation to point out that he too would benefit from having the car.
She felt quite frightened by her loneliness and isolation; she felt she had somehow landed in a completely foreign country, where she knew nothing of the customs, didn’t speak the language and had no point of contact with anyone. Sometimes whole days went by when the only person she spoke to was Keir; she tried to tell herself it would pass, that it would get better, but she couldn’t see how. She filled the hours with reading, and writing letters to her mother and Celia, but the awful emptiness of her life provided very little material for that and she was horribly aware of their forced cheerfulness and increasing brevity.
The only outings she actually enjoyed were to the ante-natal clinic at the hospital. There, among other young women in the same situation as herself, nervous, excited mothers-to-be, many of them for the first time, she managed to cut through the barriers of class, of her accent, her clothes, and to feel one of a group, discussing the problems of sickness, sleeplessness, heartburn, the baby’s kicking, the anxiety about the pain of labour, the debate over breast-versus-bottle feeding.
She thought of asking a couple of these girls, with whom she became genuinely quite friendly, to visit her in the flat, but rejected the idea. At the hospital they were on neutral ground, in her home where, modest as it was, there were expensive ornaments, family photographs in silver frames, piles of books with no shelves to put them on, she knew she would be branded immediately as different, posh, stuck-up. Safer to keep things as they were, herself at a distance.
But visits to the infirmary were only monthly; she was wretched most of the time, her loneliness and boredom emphasised by a visit home. Keir had insisted that they spend Christmas alone together, in their own home, and he had been right, it had been surprisingly and sweetly happy, but they did go to London for New Year. There, in the warmth and busyness of her family, she had looked at the icy solitude of her new life and wondered, for the thousandth time, whether she was actually doing the right thing. She dreaded going back as if it were to some ordeal. As indeed it was.
The worst thing, of course, was the effect it had on her relationship with Keir; depression and a sense of isolation hardly made for a happy atmosphere. She tried to be cheerful, to express interest in his day (not often very happy either, but at least busy), and always had supper ready for him. But after that – which he liked, and she hated, to have early, at six – he disappeared into the bedroom where he had a small desk, to do his marking and preparation work for the next day, leaving her to face another two hours of solitude. She became resentful and irritable with him, which in turn increased his truculence, his constant references to the difference in her circumstances, his observations that she was not enjoying her new life; and as for sex, a continuing nausea, and the discomfort of the growing baby, made it something she dreaded rather than welcomed. Which shocked and distressed her more than anything.
She was unable to regard her marriage as a success: to put it mildly.
‘Oh,’ said Lucas. ‘Oh, hallo.’
Geordie nodded at him briefly.
‘Good afternoon, Lucas.’
They stared at one another: hostilities had already resumed. ‘Good trip?’
‘Yes, thanks. I’ve come for Clio.’
‘Right. I’ll call her—’
There was no need: ‘Darling, Darling – ’ she threw herself into Geordie’s arms; he hugged her tight, kissed her dark curls.
‘Did you miss me?’
‘So, so much.’
‘I missed you. Coming out with your old daddy?’
‘Yes please!’
‘Go and ask Nanny to get you into your hat and coat.’
She ran upstairs.
‘She misses you,’ said Lucas.
‘Well, I’m glad somebody does. How’s your mother?’
‘Fine,’ said Lucas. ‘Much better, I’d say.’
He knew this was completely untrue; but he refused to give Geordie the satisfaction of thinking anything else.
‘Good,’ said Geordie. ‘Ah – here she is. My best girl. Tell your mother I’ll bring her back in the morning. OK?’
‘OK.’
Adele was upset that she had missed Geordie. She had been out shopping and had got held up in traffic. She phoned him later that evening.
‘I’m sorry I missed you. Everything all right?’
‘Perfectly all right.’
‘Could we – could we meet, do you think? For lunch or – or tea?’
‘If you like.’ His tone was the opposite of warm. ‘I’ll see you when I get back, won’t I? Won’t that do?’
‘I meant not here. You know. Let’s have tea, Geordie. At Browns, perhaps? About four? It’s nice and quiet there.’
‘Yes – all right. Now Clio and I have a date with Pooh and Piglet. Sorry.’Bye, Adele.’
‘’Bye, Geordie.’
She wanted to talk to him; to explain that Lucas was going up to Oxford next year. To ask him if he would consider coming home then. She really thought he might.
She had supper alone with Lucas that night; Noni was away, in Paris. Lucas was changing: it was wonderful. He had grown up, just in the past few weeks. He seemed to be moving, at last, from sulky adolescent to someone more talkative, easier, even at times quite cheerful. He was happy too; he actually talked to her about his new passion, the debating society at school, where he was clearly becoming a star; it seemed very odd to her, broody, silent Lucas. Although of course he had always been articulate when it had suited him, swift with the right – or rather the wrong – words, the withering put-down, the tart observation. And more surprising, his social life seemed to be developing; he seemed to have friends of both sexes, was suddenly in demand for parties; girls obviously liked him and she could see why. He was going to be very sexy, with his dark, brooding looks, his unmistakable French style. He was, in fact, exactly like Luc. Except, she hoped, nicer . . .
She told him her plan; she felt she must, and she didn’t want him to think he was being pushed aside – again.
‘It’s just that you won’t be here,’ she said earnestly, ‘and so you won’t have to live with one another. It’ll be quite different, don’t you see?’
He sighed. ‘While I’m away, I suppose. Yes. But I’ll be back, won’t I, in the vacations? I honestly think, Mother, if this is what you want, and if he agrees, I should find a flat. Geordie and I could never live together. Not now.’
‘But Lucas—’
‘No, Mother, we couldn’t. But that’s fine. I quite fancy a bit of independence.’
‘But you’re much too young to live on your own.’
‘Oh I don’t know. I quite like the idea.’ He smiled at her.
Adele didn’t; she contemplated Lucas living alone in London, unsupervised, his burgeoning sexuality untrammelled, and knew it was out of the question.
‘And you don’t feel you could even try? In the vacations?’
He looked at her for a moment, then said, ‘No. I don’t. It wouldn’t work.’
‘This isn’t just about school, is it? Not any more?’
He hesitated. ‘No. Not really. I mean, I’ll never forgive him. For what he did to you, as well as me. I know I was difficult—’
She half smiled. ‘Just a bit.’
‘But I was only a kid. He’s a grown man. Supposed to be. We could have worked something out. Still. Blood on the tracks now. I’m sorry about it all.’
‘Oh, Lucas, don’t. And of course I don’t want you to leave.’
‘Well – I’d have to. If he came back.’ She could see this was different; not emotional blackmail. He hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘There’s something else, though, Mother. He’s just not good enough for you. Honestly.’
‘In what way?’
Just for a moment she felt he wanted to tell her something; but all he said was, ‘Oh – he just isn’t. I suppose I’m a bit biased. No, you do what you can with him, Mum. I’ll get out of your hair.’
Anyway it didn’t work. She came home, ran upstairs, locked herself in her room, weeping. They had moved too far apart, Geordie said, he didn’t think he could even contemplate coming back now.
‘It’s not just Lucas, Adele. It was what it revealed – about us. And the value you put on our relationship. It’s natural, I suppose, that you should put your son first. But I tried so hard, Adele. So very hard. You gave me no credit for that. You didn’t seem to care how miserable I was, or lonely, or about my separation from Clio, and Noni’s distress – you just went on, knowing you were right, knowing what was best for all of us. And I’m afraid that destroyed rather a lot for me. But – ’ his voice had changed; she looked up, saw the old Geordie suddenly, smiling gently at her, infinitely sad ‘ – I’ll always love you. Always. But I can’t fight your love for your son. And we can’t turn the clock back. I only wish we could.’
Noni came home from Paris, excited, happy, ran into the house, calling to her mother. Lucas came out to the hall, shook his head, indicated the closed door. She went up, heard the muffled weeping, tried to find the strength to go in and comfort her, and somehow – just couldn’t. Later she and Lucas sat discussing it, over a bottle of wine.
‘Geordie’s so ghastly,’ he said. ‘Utterly ghastly. She just can’t see it.’
‘Lucas, he’s not ghastly. When will you let it rest, why can’t you make more effort?’
‘Noni,’ he said, ‘it’s not just me. It was never just me. He’s a spoilt brat. Even more of a spoilt brat than I am. He likes life easy. Comfortable. Geordie-shaped. Everything going his way.’
For the first time, he told her about the overheard telephone conversation, the lipstick-stained shirt; she stared at him in horror.
‘Oh God,’ she said, ‘God, how horrible. You don’t think, do you, there’s anyone else now?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Possibly. He’s been over in the States quite a long time.’
‘Yes, but he’s been working.’
‘Every night? Every day?’
‘Oh God,’ she said again. ‘Maybe I should write to Izzie, see if she knows anything, has heard any gossip.’
She went upstairs again; her mother was asleep. Lying fully clothed on the bed, surrounded by dozens of discarded tissues. It would all start again in the morning. Noni sighed. She was getting very weary of it; very weary indeed. She seemed to be the only person not getting any consideration. Everyone was worrying about her mother, about Lucas, about Clio; and the burden was falling most heavily on her.
She made a decision that night: to leave Oxford and take up modelling full time. She supposed she was running away from reality, but she just didn’t care. It was her way of getting through it all; and she was going to take it.