In the moment I am losing myself in a memory of Rangoon, Douglas walks into my room again. I blink rapidly and force myself back to the present.
‘How are you today?’ he asks.
I study his impenetrable face. So calm and controlled that I take my cue from him. ‘I’m well, thank you.’
‘Shall we sit?’ he says, indicating a chair. Then he gets straight to the point. ‘Have you thought about Simone’s offer?’
I nod but don’t admit how challenging this decision has been for me and still I’m not entirely sure. I take a sharp breath.
‘So?’ he says.
‘Well … all things considered, I think it might be for the best.’
‘I’m glad.’
I’ll bet you are, I think, but do not say. I try to speak, explain myself, but losing track, break off mid-sentence.
‘I would not send you if you didn’t agree, but you will love the cottage,’ he says as if he hasn’t heard my mumbled words.
‘You’ve seen it now?’
‘Indeed. It’s Cotswold stone, only a few steps from Simone’s, and with a lovely garden encircling it on three sides.’
I smile, delighted by the thought. I do love my flowers.
‘The village is perfect too. Minster Lovell. Quiet. With a river running alongside it. Simone knows a good doctor who will visit you at home. There’s a pub, a mill, a small corner shop, and a wonderful bakery delivers to your door.’
I nod.
He bows his head for a moment and, before he looks up, I notice how thin his hair has become. My darling is entirely bald at the top.
‘But now we need to discuss the conditions,’ he says.
His face is solemn, and I pick up a hint of anxiety in his eyes. He must be worried about these conditions of his.
Outside it’s noisier than before. I rise from my seat and walk over to the open window. A wind is getting up and I see it beginning to lash the trees as if a storm might be on its way. I spot lamps already casting their golden light in the drawing rooms of the houses on the opposite side of the park, even though it’s only mid-afternoon.
‘Diana?’
I turn towards him. ‘Yes?’
‘Come and sit down again, please?’
I do as he bids and stare him in the face. Why is he looking anxious?
‘So, the thing is, I feel the decision we are making is in the best interests of Annabelle. I hope you understand.’
‘Of course.’ I make my voice sound reasonable.
‘It might seem harsh.’
I blink rapidly, worried now.
‘But I don’t feel any contact with you is helpful for our daughter.’
‘Elvira,’ I hear myself say.
‘Diana, it’s Annabelle, you know that.’
Stupid, stupid mistake. I feel momentarily flustered and want to cover my face with my hands. But we all make mistakes, don’t we? I realize he’s waiting for me to speak.
‘Of course. Of course. That’s who …’ I trail off, unable to finish.
His eyes soften for a moment. ‘It’s better if I bring her up alone. The instability, you know, it upsets a child. She doesn’t understand why you don’t care for her.’
I feel the heat pricking my eyelids. ‘I care.’
‘I’m sure you do, but it’s not enough, and we’ve already said it can’t go on like this. I propose to set up a trust for you to be administered by Simone. I do believe this is the best solution, not only for Annabelle, but also for you.’
I bite my lip and scrutinize the floor and I know it’s he who wants me away from here.
‘Being away from here will help you,’ he says, echoing the words in my head. ‘We will tell Annabelle you have gone but that I don’t know where. That you left a note saying it would be better for all of us. And then, at a much later time, when she has all but forgotten you, I will tell her that her mother has died.’
I gasp. ‘That’s the condition?’
He nods. ‘It must be a clean and total break. I want her to grow up free from, well, free from –’
I interrupt. ‘Me.’
His voice takes on a note of resignation. ‘I wouldn’t have put it so bluntly, but yes, I suppose that is the crux of it. You will not be confronted daily by your failure as a mother and neither will she. It really is best she forgets you. Naturally you will revert to using your maiden name.’
It is a statement, not a question.
I think about leaving this house where I grew up. My house. Though it’s his now. The few months we lived here before going to Burma, everything lay before us and we were so happy. I want to tell him how I feel. How I’ve felt for years. I want to give voice to the hurt he’s caused me and the hurt I have caused myself, yet I remain silent. But then, suddenly, as if I have no choice, the question I want to ask slips out.
‘When did you stop loving me?’
His eyes are so sad I can hardly bear to see them.
‘It isn’t about that,’ he says and observes me for the longest time. ‘I never stopped loving you.’
‘But?’
‘No, my dear. You stopped loving yourself.’
‘And that’s what you really believe?’
He stares at me as though he knew I had been referring to the affair he’d had, because after all, how could he if he’d still loved me? After a moment or two he opens his mouth and I wait. He says nothing, but his eyes give him away and it is shame I see. Shame fighting with his pride.
After he has gone I pace the room, hearing the rhythm of the rain beginning to pound on the roof, resounding like the beating of my heart. His decision seems so callous, but I can’t argue with the facts. I’ve been no kind of mother to our daughter but I do want to make her life better. So, will my going do that?
An hour later Wilkes brings me a tray of soft-boiled eggs and toast soldiers, and treats me as if I were the child. She looks at me pityingly and I wonder if she already knows I am to be banished. At least it’s not to the Grange, I think, at least. But never to see my daughter again? I don’t eat the eggs and toast. Instead, I curl up in a ball on my bed, pull the blankets over my head and, cocooned in the darkness, I cry myself to sleep.