Geenie did not go to Diana’s room that night. Instead she slept in the soft centre of her own bed, and dreamed of the maps on Jimmy’s wall. In her dream, she drew all the countries and the seas on the floor of Jimmy’s study, and when he came into the room, he was carrying his walking stick, and he was ready to take her anywhere.
In the morning, she rose early. Sitting at the dining table, rubbing sleep from her eyes, she watched Diana bring in a plate of toast, a pot of tea and two cups.
‘Where’s Kitty?’ Geenie yawned.
Diana spread the toast with butter, being careful to get it in all the corners. ‘There’s no baby, you know,’ she said, taking a bite.
Geenie had almost forgotten about her mother’s announcement. The day on the beach seemed long ago, now. ‘Isn’t there?’
‘Daddy told me yesterday.’
Geenie nodded. Then she asked again, ‘Where’s Kitty?’
‘Haven’t seen her. Daddy made me toast, and I made the tea.’ Diana sipped her drink.
‘You can make tea?’
‘It’s far better, actually. Not so strong. Want a cup?’
Geenie shook her head and watched in silence as Diana ate two more slices of toast, thickly smeared with raspberry jam.
The door opened. ‘Five minutes, darling. We’ve got to catch the eight-forty.’ Spotting Geenie, George stepped into the room. ‘Don’t look so worried,’ he said, giving her a pat on the head. ‘You two will see each other again. You’ll have to visit Diana at her mother’s. Won’t she, Diana?’
Pushing past George, Geenie ran from the room and took the stairs two at a time. Dragging all her dressing-up things from the bottom of the wardrobe, she plunged her arms into the pile and threw stockings, hats, shoes, dresses and waistcoats over her shoulder until her fingers touched the cool sleekness of fur.
Diana was standing in the hallway with her suitcase by her feet when Geenie made it back downstairs. Geenie thrust the coat towards her friend. ‘If you’re going,’ she panted, ‘you’d better have this.’ It weighed down her arms and draped on the floor about the two of them, like a king’s cloak.
Diana hooked her hair behind one ear. ‘But it’s yours.’
‘Take it.’
From the driveway, George was calling his daughter.
‘It’s Jimmy’s,’ said Diana. ‘You have to keep it.’ She stroked the fur collar. ‘It suits you best, anyway.’
When the front door had closed, Geenie wrapped herself tightly in the coat and went in search of her mother.
. . . .
As far as Ellen was concerned, they’d already said their goodbyes on Harting Down, and there was little point in getting up this early in the morning. She burrowed beneath the bedclothes and closed her eyes. What she really couldn’t stand was the thought of another drama. She’d spent all yesterday avoiding it. After the play, Crane had gone to Laura’s to meet with Lillian and make the necessary arrangements for Diana, who was going to stay with her mother while he went on his lecture tour, and Ellen had gone to the hairdressers’. She’d actually had an appointment this time, and Robin had spent hours dyeing her hair jet black and then styling it in the same Hollywood wave as before. While she was sitting in the chair, watching his steady fingers move around her face, she’d thought again of Crane’s scrap of poetry. His blood is heavy with wanting. Ridiculous. It had to be make-believe, Ellen decided, just like that amusing little play the girls had put on. Geenie had shown a lot of nerve, barking back at Diana like that, and almost pushing her over. It was actually very promising.
Once she was polished and set, Ellen couldn’t quite face going back to the cottage in case he’d returned, so she went for tea at the White Hart before meeting Robin again, this time in the back room. It had been, as always, vigorous and refreshing, but she meant to make it her last visit. Since she’d decided her daughter should go to the local school in September, she should make the most of the few remaining weeks of summer with Geenie. Perhaps she could teach her to dance. Besides, Robin was getting to be an awfully expensive habit.
Ellen shifted in the bed. Crane had come up late last night, but she hadn’t pretended to sleep. Instead, she’d opened her eyes and said, ‘In the morning, will you just go? I don’t think I can stand it, otherwise.’ He’d brushed her hand with his, and she’d caught it and held fast. But now, as she lay between the sheets, looking at the little boatmen on her curtains, she did think about going downstairs and blocking the doorway. Forbidding him to leave. Begging him to stay. She covered her head with the pillow, but still she could hear the muffled sound of his careful tread on the hallway boards, the click and shudder as he pulled open the front door. She put her hands to her ears and closed her eyes, as she’d done as a girl when her father was leaving the house to visit his mistress. It was surprisingly comforting, especially with the pillow draped over your head and shoulders and your body curled in on itself. Almost like someone was holding you.
When she unfurled her arms and legs, the cottage was quiet. She lifted the pillow from her head. The sun was warming the sheets, and her daughter was opening the door and throwing herself on the bed beside her, wearing a beautiful fur that Ellen hadn’t seen or touched for a long time. With a laugh, she recognised it: Jimmy’s sable coat. Accepting it from the girl’s hands, Ellen draped it across the bed, and she and Geenie lay down together and slept on top of the coat until lunchtime.
. . . .
Kitty was too exhausted to cry any more, but she wasn’t refusing to get out of bed. It was just that she didn’t see why she should. George (she thought of him as George for the first time, and it was less painful: George was not the man who’d kissed her goodbye last night) had said Mrs Steinberg knew nothing of their love affair (was that what it had been?), but Kitty couldn’t believe him. The woman was sure to throw her out. She may as well try to sleep for another hour, and then, when she was stronger, she could face it.
But it was no good. Although her body was heavy, her mind was still alert. She peeped over the sheets. The green silk frock was sprawled on the floor, where she’d kicked it off last night. The best thing to do would be to give it back to Lou and tell her it could be altered after all. With enough determination, you could make anything fit.
Rolling over, Kitty covered her eyes against the sun, which was glaring through a gap in the curtains, and gave a little groan. Sounds were coming from the kitchen, quiet ones at first: shoes on the flags, the larder door creaking. Then louder: drawers opening, cutlery chiming. Pots being clashed together. Kitty turned over again, trying to ignore the row. Let the woman get on with it, she thought. She wouldn’t know butter from margarine, or a skillet from a saucepan. Let her pull the kitchen apart, if that’s what she wants. See how she fares.
Then she noticed something poking between the wall and the mattress. She reached for the corner of the material and tugged. Her embroidery. Sitting up, she spread it across her lap, flattening out the creases with her hands and remembering the day at the beach, how she’d felt the embroidered scene was so much better than the real one. Running a finger along its surface, she felt the thickness of the rocks, the pinched knobbles of the crab’s eyes, the fine filigree of the girls’ fishing nets. She’d had a thought that she might give it to George – Mr Crane – as a gift. But now she was glad she hadn’t. Perhaps it was good enough to put on the wall. She could use it to replace the awful painting of the woman at the waterfall.
Then she remembered that by the end of the day she’d be back at Lou’s, among her sister’s things, where anything homemade was not tolerated.
There was a knock at the door. Kitty gathered the embroidery to her chest and turned her face to the wall.
‘Kitty.’ It was Geenie’s voice. ‘Kitty?’
She waited for the girl to go away.
‘Ellen says, will you have lunch with us?’
So that was it. Even now, they couldn’t make themselves a meal. Kitty threw off the bedclothes and, still in her nightgown, pulled open the door. ‘Can’t you get your own lunch, just for once?’ She was almost shouting. Geenie stepped backwards, and Kitty looked beyond her into the kitchen. Mrs Steinberg was standing at the stove, stirring something. Her hair had changed colour: it was glossy and black, like oil, and it made her nose stand out even further. There was a smell of burnt toast, and a pot of tea was steaming on the table.
‘It’s only scrambled egg,’ the woman said, frowning at the stove, ploughing her wooden spoon into the pan. ‘Well, you can make up for it tomorrow, Kitty, I’m sure. But for now, we’ll have to put up with my effort.’
‘I helped,’ added Geenie, hopping on one foot. ‘I cracked the eggs.’
Kitty folded her arms across her chest. ‘I’m not – dressed.’
‘What does that matter?’ Mrs Steinberg was dolloping mounds of egg onto plates. ‘Sit down and eat.’
Kitty could tell by the way the egg fell with a heavy splat that it would be rubbery. The toast in the rack looked limp and cold. But her mouth filled with water.
Taking a chair, she sat at the table.
‘Just a minute.’ Mrs Steinberg disappeared from the room. Kitty looked at Geenie. ‘The costumes were lovely,’ the girl said. Then the cottage was filled with the thump and soar of music, and a man’s sweet, rasping voice began to sing.
Mrs Steinberg returned. ‘Much better,’ she said. Pushing a plate of egg over to Kitty, she sat with Geenie at her side. Kitty took up her knife and fork. Together, the three of them began to eat.