It was hard not to think of the past now. For years the lectures had kept Audrey firmly in the present, and even with hope, the future. Now everything was speeding up; the past and the future a constant pendulum from which she was trying to free herself. The war, the abortionist, that pregnant woman she was trying to help, and the question of desire that lingered even now. What had Miriam released in asking about it? What power it had, desire. The power to change her life.
The river, an antidote. Up and down she swam, daily, to shake this thing that had got hold of her. Her past.
She’d woken in the night, sweat quickly turned to a chill that had her shivering under her covers until dawn. It occurred to her that she needed to confess, she needed someone to bear witness, to hear her speak of that time in her life when all innocence had seeped away without notice. It was Miriam who’d got her started. Now she knew she must tell her more, things her family didn’t know, things she was not sure she herself knew. That’s what was needed. A release from all the things she had come to know.
When Miriam arrived, she told her as much, this need to tell her things about her past.
“Perhaps a priest—”
“No, not a priest. I want you to listen, that’s all.”
They had arranged to meet for tea, but Audrey was too agitated to sit so they walked instead. “Feel this,” Audrey ordered removing her glove and holding her hand out to the sun’s warmth. “This heat is like a gift this time of year.” She slid her glove back on and tramped along the river’s edge.
“I was to have lunch with Robert,” she began after they’d walked up the riverbank. “I had arrived in London on a series of lies. The first was I had told Robert I was free that day so we could meet. I wasn’t free, exactly, since my cousin Margaret and her husband, Benedict, were arriving from Somerset, and I was expected to be there. The second lie was to my parents: First my mother, whom I told that I’d arranged to have lunch in London with a school friend who was leaving for America. Then to my father, to whom I embellished the story with a visit to the doctor, knowing he would not accept a lunch date as an excuse to miss family obligations but would not question a medical appointment. That was far too personal a topic for him to pursue. The last lie had been to the taxi driver who took me to the restaurant to meet ‘my husband.’ I told him that for no other reason than to hear the sound of it. The unacknowledged lies, of course, where those that sat deep inside me, buried to protect me from the reality of how uncomfortable I was making this trip, pretending to be someone who might dash up on the train to London for lunch, who might be in love with a man I knew so little about.
“I barely noticed the fog at first, but the train that took me into London began to slow, and soon all my imaginings of the day, my rehearsal of the moment we would meet, the details of the conversation I would initiate, receded, and I saw that the landscape was becoming shrouded. By the time we reached the station we were at a snail’s pace, and I became angry, frustrated, anxious that I would be late for my meeting with Robert.
“I should have anticipated the fog that was then so frequent, though in fact I’d experienced it only a few times. Three or four times a month it descended like a ghost to hold London captive. Trains stalling, cars crawling through streets, walking treacherous, breathing itself taunting death. It’s London’s location in the Thames estuary that makes it prone to mist, but combine it with the coal smoke and it creates the pea-souper and makes living in the city a health hazard.
“But Robert was there waiting for me, and he, too, seemed timid, pleased to see me, as if I mightn’t have come. And there was champagne, oysters, and a friendly chap who stopped by our table to say hello to Robert, suggesting Sussex at the weekend as if it were an event and not just a place, and the time passed as if neither of us had anyplace to be, no further appointments to make, or trains to catch, so when we stepped outside, into the sulfurous yellow mist that stubbornly blocked our way, we hardly knew what to do.
“A taxi to the train station. But the driver said it was no use. No trains running, he told us. But Robert was adamant. Just go, man, he told him. We’ll see to it.
“But the taxi driver was right. No trains running. So we began our charade as Mr and Mrs Robert Fuller and took out a room at the train hotel. We did this with so few words—I mustn’t. There is no other option. Well, of course—that we were in the room before we’d even imagined what it would be like to be there. It was difficult to be the lesser one, to not know entirely what to do, especially when we were finally alone, the heavy door clunking shut. Alone, we had no purpose, and the silence made us both awkward, so I wandered the room, touching furniture or curtains as if I were considering making a purchase.”
Audrey paused as the sound of an engine ripped in the distance, her head cocked as she glanced up. “A tractor,” she said. “I have become attuned to all manner of noises these days.”
“Come,” said Miriam, leading her away. “There’s a pathway to the forest along here.” They walked through the field from the river and soon they were in the enclosure of the forest, on a pathway just wide enough for the two of them.
“I had a heightened sense of curiosity that extended to sex,” Audrey continued.
“My experience was so limited I felt not so much desire, but a series of questions, of what a man looked like under his clothes, what one was to do, where one put one’s hands, should I lean in or step back from a kiss? I had been educated on the mechanics; it was the nuances that left me adrift.
“At any rate, a message was sent home. I would stay in London with my friend, I told them, the one who was to go to America. ‘Boston,’ I told my mother the next day when I returned home. ‘Sarah will be visiting her aunt in Boston.’ The lie slid off my tongue so effortlessly I barely blinked. I had become a sophisticate in the last twenty-four hours. ‘How dreadful,’ my mother consoled, ‘to be trapped in London with that relentless fog.’
“But it wasn’t dreadful. Not at all. Robert was sweet. He ordered tea, more champagne, spoke of his plans to go to France in the summer, and I imagined this was setting me up for an invitation. I had so little knowledge of life outside of my family that my constant emotion was one of yearning.
“Such a different time. You asked me about desire, and it’s true that’s what guided me, but it seemed in line with the mood before the Great War. Yearning was everything. This was the era of optimism, hope, innovation. My parents had taken me to the Paris Exposition in 1900; I’d been on a moving sidewalk, seen talking films, an escalator, and everyone’s favourite, the Palace of Electricity. So many lights—five thousand multicoloured incandescent lamps. The extravagance!
“That day in London with Robert, the posh restaurant, the luxurious hotel, it had symbolized something of that time in Paris, and those lights, which, to my child eyes, seemed like they would forever lead me to my own brilliant future.
“But in London that night it was gas lamps that lit the hotel, and somehow the room where we spent the night took me back to Paris, and I held on to the mood after I’d gotten up, unable to sleep, and sat by the window, in the shadows from the one lamp I’d left on. I rode the tide of this gaiety all the way home the next day and the day after that, feeling intoxicated.
“It took me nearly two months to acknowledge that I was pregnant, a full month after Robert had left for France. It wasn’t as though he’d ignored me during this period, it was the fact that his attention, so warm and companionable, was altogether less frequent than I’d expected. I saw us as lovers, he seemed to think of me more as someone to take to a party. One of Robert’s lovelies.”
Audrey walked over to a tree that had died still standing, though one large branch had split away and lay across the forest floor, moss and decay creeping over it. Miriam went over and perched on it.
“Have I told you too much?” Audrey asked, joining her.
“Probably,” said Miriam. “But there is no untelling, is there?”
“There’s more. But not for today.”
The engine that had gone quiet started up again, and Audrey jumped up. “Bloody noise. Is there nowhere to have peace? Even here. Is there nowhere to hide?”