19

During that morning Eric Stenstrom himself called Alexandra. ‘Alexandra,’ he said in his throaty voice, ‘my dear. How are you?’

‘I’m OK,’ she said. ‘I suppose.’

‘I hear all kinds of things are coming to light,’ he said. ‘Things do when people die. When AIDS took my Petrie people turned up at his funeral and told me things I would rather not know. I sympathise. But now Ned’s dead, does it matter? He can do you no more wrong. That’s what I felt like when Petrie died.’

‘It seems to matter,’ said Alexandra. ‘A great deal. I am either who I thought I was, or not. In the end it is important to apportion blame. There must be a day of judgment. No court will do it now, so I must sort it out myself.’

‘At least all Petrie left me was herpes,’ said Eric. ‘I’m not HIV positive. He spared me that. If I can forgive your husband, so can you. He complained about my tights when I was playing Oberon at the National. He said they were too small. What sort of theatrical criticism was that?’

‘Ned’s sort,’ said Alexandra. ‘And I am not talking about forgiveness. There is no such thing. It may seem easier to appease, or self-interest intervenes and one chooses to forget. Or time does it for you. But that’s all. Eric, there is a rumour going round down here that I’m having an affair with you.’

‘If only you were, darling,’ said Eric. ‘If only I was other, I’m sure we would be. And we did try once, don’t you remember, for the sake of my career? It was before I met Petrie, and fell in love.’

‘We were both drunk,’ said Alexandra. ‘Ned was away in Norway. Hollywood wanted us, as a team, for the remake of Gone with the Wind. We were good together, they thought. Six years ago. What were we playing?’

‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’said Eric. ‘You were Titania. This was our big Hollywood break.’

‘We thought we’d be turned down,’ said Alexandra, ‘because the producer was insisting on a heterosexual cast. And the attempt failed anyway so there was nothing to report. And Hollywood melted away, as it always does. For me, that is, not you. But I would rather that occasion wasn’t bandied about. You never mentioned it to anyone, did you?’

‘What, mentioned my shame?’ asked Eric Stenstrom. ‘Why should I do a thing like that?’

‘You did, didn’t you!’ said Alexandra.

‘I tried once again with a woman,’ said Eric, ‘and it worked. I may have mentioned the earlier attempt to her. It would have seemed only fair. We were quite close for a time. But it was a long way back. I can’t really remember.’

‘Who was she?’

‘Some little set designer. She made models. She wasn’t powerful like you: not a strong woman. She looked kind and she looked female and she looked like she didn’t matter. But when it came to it, it wasn’t any fun. I couldn’t face a straight future. I went back to Petrie.’

‘What was her name?’

‘I can’t remember,’ said Eric. ‘It was years ago. But her name was next to yours in the address book.’

Alexandra put the phone down, and sat down herself on the carved settle, circa 1670, oak, some woodworm eradication necessary. Now Ned wasn’t there to do it, she, Alexandra, would have to. She and he had been putting it off for long enough. She went out to the garden. The comfrey was out of control: it was rooting everywhere. Blackcurrants squelched on the bough, unpicked. Greenfly multiplied on the roses, blackfly on every yellow flower around. She wondered where she would scatter Ned’s ashes. Presumably they would contain the minerals needed for organic life. They would be wasted in such a fertile place: somewhere more desert-like would be preferable. Vilna’s front garden perhaps, where the walnut tree had been cut down, illegally, to make room for the guard-dog kennels; and lime from old dismantled walls had wrought havoc with the pH balance. That could do with a soupçon of Ned. In the meantime she would abandon all efforts to keep this lot in order. Vegetation was greenfly rampant: winter would come and the riot of vegetation all vanish anyway, except for a few browned, sodden plants which had the nerve to struggle on. She left the garden and went inside; but the house felt hostile. She supposed that to be Hamish’s presence.

When Hamish came out of the study he was in a bad temper. He asked when lunch would be ready. Alexandra said she personally wasn’t hungry but there was canned soup in the cupboard and bread in the breadbin. He asked her if she had finished the funeral list, and she said she had got to the T’s. But not yet to the U’s onward. Hamish said if they didn’t go off today there was no point in sending them. He asked Alexandra to sign a cheque to Mr Lightfoot for £1,500; pointing out that since the number of guests did not affect the bill it was a waste not to have as many as possible.

‘A very Scottish way of looking at things,’ said Alexandra, and Hamish berated her for such a stereotypical and Anglocentric response. She said she had meant the remark, which was casual, in the sense of ‘an endearing Scottish way’ and that there had been nothing pejorative about it.

Hamish then moved away from the consideration of Alexandra’s idleness to the matter of her negligence. Why had she not persuaded Ned to go to a proper doctor? Alexandra replied that Ned hated doctors. It must have been obvious to everyone, said Hamish, that Ned was ill, that his heart was damaged. Alexandra said it was not obvious to anyone. Hamish observed that at least Lucy Lint had cared enough to persuade Ned to go to a faith healer: so someone must have known he wasn’t well.

‘This is the first I’ve heard of it,’ said Alexandra, and asked if it was Hamish’s habit to consult with Lucy Lint rather than with her. Hamish said he found Alexandra’s attitude truculent and Alexandra said no doubt that was projection.

Thus her rare rows with Ned had run, until one or other of them laughed, when the curse was lifted. Now she laughed but Hamish didn’t. He said he was glad she thought it was funny. The £1,500 would clear out her joint account with Ned; things were in a perilous state. Hamish remarked that it was as reasonable for himself to be in touch with Lucy Lint, as for Alexandra to be in touch with Eric Stenstrom. He revealed that he had picked up the extension and overheard the conversation.

‘Then it will be apparent that Eric Stenstrom is gay,’ said Alexandra, ‘as Ned was well aware, so you can stuff all this rubbish.’

‘I put down the receiver at once,’ said Hamish. ‘I do not listen in to obviously personal calls, and Ned in his letter referred to Stenstrom as a bisexual. As a consequence, Ned was understandably worried for your health, and his. It must have contributed to the strain and distress he endured.’

Alexandra asked if she could see this famous letter, and Hamish said no, in the light of her aggressive and unhelpful attitude he would not show it to her.

Alexandra asked Hamish if he could at least tell her the date of the letter: was it before the beginning of the Doll’s House run? Hamish said yes. Alexandra asked how many years before.

One year, five, ten?

Hamish said five. Perhaps.

Alexandra remarked that Ned, like everyone else in the theatre world, knew that Eric Stenstrom was single-mindedly gay, and probably HIV positive, though he denied it.

Hamish said gay was a false and confining definition: most gays, especially in the theatre world, were indeed bisexual, or so he understood.

Alexandra said anyway Ned would hardly have gone on having sex with a wife whom he suspected of having an affair with agay – or bisexual, who cared? – who was HIV positive and admitted to having herpes, now would he?

Hamish said but he understood from Lucy Lint that she, Alexandra, hadn’t slept with Ned since the child was born. Alexandra said that may be what Lucy Lint wanted to believe but it was far from being the case.

‘You mean Ned deliberately deceived Lucy Lint?’ asked Hamish. ‘Though I imagine it’s what men do tend to say in such circumstances.’

‘Try to understand,’ said Alexandra, ‘that Lucy Lint simply makes things up.’ Hamish suddenly collapsed and started to cry for no apparent reason. It was as if he were a well which filled up with antagonism and when it was emptied that was that. He had to wait till it filled up again. Alexandra consoled him. It seemed required of her. He laid his head upon her shoulder, little-boy-like.

‘It’s the shock,’ he said. ‘I’ve lost my brother,’ he said. ‘Ned was all the family I had left.’

‘You have me,’ said Alexandra through her teeth. But Hamish’s arms grew tighter round her, and for a moment again she thought it was Ned back: there was the familiar shock of intent which went with the touch, the sense of inevitability, the sheer meantedness, but this was Hamish, not Ned. It was nothing: what she’d felt was just a kind of earthquake aftershock, the shadow of the old moon in the new moon’s arms; not the real thing at all.

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t!’ and drew away.

‘But if you were never faithful to Ned,’ Hamish said. He grabbed her arm and pulled her towards him. He was the reverse side of Ned: the other side of a coin. Not very adult, not very male, not very nice. He pawed and picked at her; he didn’t assault her or engulf her. He was a fly crawling over the skin, not a wasp stinging. ‘Why are you being so fussy now? Haven’t we had enough of this grieving widow act? Is there something the matter with me? Do you want to be fucked by film stars, is that it? Got used to better than me? Aren’t I good enough?’

Now she was pushing him away, having to, her hand on his chest, and his face crumpled again.

‘Everything’s gone wrong in my life,’ he mourned, ‘everything. I want to go home. I hate this place. You have to forgive me. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just wanted to be Ned, just for a moment. To be with you, to bring him back.’

‘Ned’s dead,’ she said. ‘How it rhymes. How it fits.’

‘You’d better be nice to me,’ he said. ‘You’d better. Or else.’

He was like a child, back when Ned was twelve and he was ten. She ignored him. He went back into the study to sit among the piles of paper, once tidily confined, now scattered everywhere, in an order she suddenly saw might well not be rational.

Alexandra went down to the mortuary and sat by Ned’s body. ‘Did you or didn’t you?’ she asked him. ‘Why did you take me to Lucy Lint’s? I remember it so clearly: the kind of thing you would normally forget. Framed in my mind. She was a little flustered. She opened a bottle of wine. She said in her soft voice, “Well, might as well open this, I suppose.”It was Barolo, I remember that. I wondered how she could afford it. Well, Ned? Well?’

Ned was there, but somewhere else. Off on his journey through the forest, expiating the sins he had committed. She understood it now. Of course Ned hadn’t looked back. She wondered if Sascha would grow up to be like his father. That was the worst of it. If you hated the father, how did you not hate the child? When she touched his arm, she found it yet more compacted: the body seemed to radiate cold, to push her away. Ned was a metaphor turning to marble.

Mr Lightfoot came in to say Mr Ludd was to have company: a Miss Partridge, a seventy-five-year-old spinster, would be resting here for a day or so while the necessary decisions were made. He laid a hand on Alexandra’s arm. Since Ned had died, all kinds of people had touched her. They were being kind, but diminishing her in their minds to child status.

‘Forgive and forget,’ Mr Lightfoot said to Alexandra. ‘That’s the motto!’

‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘This way I don’t let him die. If there’s no forgiving, there’s no forgetting.’