She had phoned me from the ship to say she was coming home but had she told Arnold? I doubted it and so I called him. We had been telephoning each other quite a lot regarding Charles and his school problems and so he was expecting me to talk of that.
“Arnold”
“Ted. No problem I hope?”
“No, but it’s a little difficult. Could I come round to see you? I could be with you in half an hour and it wouldn’t take long.”
“Not really convenient. I have to go out.”
“It won’t take long but, perhaps, I have a little explaining to do so it’s a little difficult over the phone. It is important.”
“Very well.” And he rang off, no doubt giving little thought to my request.
I had been wondering how I was going to explain not only Alicia’s imminent return but also how she came to be telling me about it and not her husband and family and in the event I didn’t do it very successfully.
“No. Ted. It won’t do. She cannot come back as if she’s not been away for 5 years. As far as I am concerned as soon as she left the sanatorium she left my protection and I no longer consider her my wife. She has the allowance. You know the agreement, as long as I pay the allowance she stays away. She cannot come back here. Not now. It would be all too much.”
“What do you suggest she does? She is arriving on Saturday.”
He soon collected himself.
“I neither know nor care. She cannot come here and that is the end of it. You sort it out.”
I had no difficulty in recognising her, but she was different. Five years before she had been a child in many ways, now she was sophisticated and confident as she walked through the arrivals hall towards me. I was conscious that I probably had changed not one jot as she walked unhesitatingly towards me, her gloved hand outstretched. “Ted, it is good to see you! Where are you taking me? I can’t imagine Arnold would be too happy to see me. I didn’t really mean to come to Liverpool but that’s where the ship was headed. So I thought of you. Ted will sort everything out I thought and here you are, sorting everything out for me.”
It occurred to me, as I closed the car door after she had folded her long legs without any difficulty into the foot well, that she wouldn’t remember the last time I had put her in my car. I had been taking her to the Nursing Home when she was having Susannah. I remembered so clearly, and wondered whether I had adequately kept that promise I had made to her. Did she know how unwelcome her return would be to her husband but how pleased I was to see her again. As I slid into the driver’s seat I told her I would explain all over lunch at The Adelphi.
The dining room was crowded, there was a special lunch for Americans who were staying there before crossing the Atlantic. I had forgotten it was their Independence Day.
She started to tell me about her life since she had left.
“I have been around Africa in a wonderful small boat with just five other passengers. Well you know that – I sent you a postcard from Cape Town. Did you get it?” She didn’t wait for any reply “I went to America, to New York and across the country on a wonderful train to San Francisco. I have been all around the world.” She paused, a trifle dramatically, but I did not interrupt. He voice was lower, calmer as she continued.
“But now I am coming home. I will tell you and you mustn’t tell anyone. But I have not been alone!”
I think I was supposed to be surprised by that.
“At the sanatorium I met this wonderful man, Louis. He was French and he was very rich. He was also dying. He said to me that he wanted to spend the last months of his life travelling the world with a beautiful woman! Well what could I say? I went with him. He had a nurse so I didn’t have to do any horribly ‘personal’ things for him. I just had to accompany him in public and sing for him. You see he loved my voice and he just wanted me to sing and I could! After all those years of thinking I would never sing again I could!. I know what you’re thinking. Well it wasn’t like that. We had separate staterooms and he never expected anything, though I did get to be quite fond of the old chap. But sadly he has just died and I am alone again. You know how much I hate being alone. So I’ve come home. “
It was obvious to me that she had nowhere to live, nowhere to go and had no idea what to do next. She was not just ‘passing through’, she needed to establish the groundwork for next stage of her life.
After we had eaten she went across to their table to talk to a loud group of Americans. I watched her as she charmed them, laughing and flirting as she drank more and more champagne. I was embarrassed, but hardly surprised, when I saw her being handed up onto the table where she shook her hair loose from its pins, closed her eyes and sang their national anthem.
I had never heard her sing before.
Her voice was stunning, as good as any professional I had ever heard, possibly with the exception of Kathleen Ferrier whose records my mother was particularly partial to.
I couldn’t watch, I hated exhibitionism even when done with such style. I left her to it and went to reception where I booked a suite in the name of the firm, saying a valued client would be unexpectedly staying overnight. This was not unusual other than the fact that the ‘valued client’ was at that moment standing on a restaurant table. I reassured them that she was thoroughly respectable.
I would have made my excuses but I was sure she had more or less forgotten she was having lunch with me, so I told the manager to send her luggage to her room and explain to her that I had had to return to the office and would call at 10 the next morning.
Back in the familiar surrounding of my office, which years before had been Arnold’s, I rang Max.
I needed his help.
“Bring her to me. I will look after her.”
“Should I tell Arnold where she is?”
“No need, unless he specifically asks.”
“You want me to bring her to you?” I had to be sure that was what he really wanted me to do.
“Yes, Ted. Do it.”
The next morning I collected Alicia promptly at 10, surprisingly she was waiting for me in the foyer. For a second time in two days I settled her into the front seat of my Humber.
As we drove through the quiet Sunday morning streets I told her of the arrangements that had been made.
“Max has asked that you be his guest tonight, while things get sorted out.”
“I suppose I have been away a long time. Yes, I think that is a very good idea.”
I did not know the nature of their relationship – they were obviously good friends though I had assumed it was for business reasons she had given his home as her contact address of ‘last resort’.
“How is Elizabeth?” she asked gently, “Has she recovered from Veronica?”
“I don’t think she ever will recover, she was almost a recluse before their loss, she was never seen in public, rarely went out of the house at all. Now I understand she rarely leaves her rooms. I think Max will love having you around, you will be company for him.”
“I won’t be any trouble at all.”
As we had entered the Mersey Tunnel no more conversation was possible. A few minutes later, out onto the streets of Birkenhead, the subject had changed.
“It seems a very long time ago that you drove me in the opposite direction Ted, five years and we have a new young queen on the throne. I missed all that excitement.”
“It seems that you have managed quite a lot of excitement of your own.” I tried not to sound disapproving.
“Of course!” she laughed “and I’ve told you all I’m going to tell you about it! But what about you? How have the last five years been? You haven’t changed a bit!”
Before I replied it occurred to me that the old Alicia would never have thought to ask.
“Everyone’s getting back to normal after the war. Houses are springing up all over the place, they’re building over the bomb sites. Rationing is all but over now.”
“No, Ted. What’s happened to you?”
“Well I am getting older.” I wasn’t used to talking about myself, I wasn’t sure how I could describe my life without giving away how much my caring for her and her children had dominated those five years. “I still work at Roberts and Jones, obviously, and still live with my mother, not much has happened really. Five years isn’t long in the overall scheme of things you know. My mother needs help, people need my help.”
“No girlfriends?”
“No. I’m always busy I suppose.”
As I spoke I realised how dull my life sounded.
We were driving down Bidston Hill into the fields of the Wirral when I broached the subject of Arnold.
“Arnold will not be happy that you had returned. He has his life now.”
“Kathleen you mean.”
I couldn’t make a direct reply so I turned the subject. Perhaps I said too much.
“The business, it isn’t doing very well at all. I have been sending you your allowance and have paid any bills you send, as was agreed, but the business isn’t as profitable as Arnold thought it would be. He inherited a thriving business, of course the war was a very good time, but now he’s lost all the military contracts and it’s getting harder. He knew he was never a businessman so he should have got a good team around him, but all he did was employ old friends from the army”
“Henry”
“As you say, including Henry”
“No one could ever call him a businessman.”
“That’s true, but the problem is that none of them are.”
“But what about the pots and pots of cash stashed in the bank? He wasn’t dependent on the business was he?”
“He has been eating into that capital. He loves his cars, he has, well, he has expenses, keeping up his standing in the community.”
“Keeping Kathleen you mean.”
“That as well.”
“How bad is it?”
I realised I had gone too far. It was my job and my responsibility to be discreet – it had been unforgivable of me to breach Arnold’s confidences. I had forgotten the lesson I try to teach everyone who joins the firm Discretion in all things. I had let my concern for Alicia take me too far.
I tried to backtrack “Oh I have painted a gloomy picture haven’t I? It’s not ‘bad’ at all. The Donaldsons are still very comfortable.”
“But we were ‘rich’, Ted, not ‘comfortable’. I don’t think I would want to be ‘comfortable’ it sounds very boring.”
I remembered that for a very long time and reminded her of it when just to have been ‘comfortable’ would have been wonderful.
We reached Sandhey and I pulled into the drive. Alicia jumped out of the car almost before I had pulled on the hand brake and ran round the side of the house. I followed her.
The sea formed the backdrop to the scene, the great expanse of blue with wisps of white horses stretched northwards until it merged with the blue sky. It was an idyllic spot, in such a fine position right on the corner of the peninsula. The house had been built on top of the run of low cliffs that overlooked the dunes and the sandstone rocks of the Point. The spectacular views completely compensated for the battering the house took during any gales.
Despite its exposed position the garden itself was sheltered. The large lawn was surrounded by banks of mature shrubs, massed banks of hydrangeas and fuchsias which filled the garden with colour for most of the year, protecting it from the wind that always came from off the water.
Standing on the stone patio at the side of the house Alicia looked across the river to the hills of Wales, they seemed so close on this sunny morning – even nearer were the small outcrops of sandstone that made up the islands of Hilbre. They were only a few hundred yards from the shore and were a magnet for trippers and birdwatchers. She watched a number of small groups of people heading for the shore, just finishing their walk back from the islands, well before the tide came in. She was quite deliberately holding a pose – aware of how beautiful she looked, the wind moulding her thin dress to her figure, her hand raised to prevent her trademark hat from blowing away.
She was well aware that two men were watching her, captivated.
Max emerged from the French windows onto the patio and nodding brief acknowledgement to me addressed Alicia, “Good morning my dear, how lovely to see you so well.” Holding her shoulders and kissing her on each cheek in turn in the continental fashion.
“Oh Max how lovely of you to have me to stay in your beautiful house. It is so good to see you again, if only for a few days.”
There was something between them, I don’t know what, but the understanding between them was almost tangible. From that first moment I saw them together I felt excluded.
I should have seen it coming, really. I knew Max made regular trips to his home country and perhaps the sanatorium hadn’t been that far out of his way.
Watching them with their easy familiarity I have to admit jealousy. She was only as nice to me as she would be to any other person from whom she needed favours.
I wondered how easy it would be for the love I felt for her to change to something entirely different. Why she had come back? She knew she would not be allowed back into the marital home. She had no real interest in the children. She had only come back because she had run out of options. I would love to have been part of the solution to her problems but I was a realist.
Now a very reasonable option had presented itself for her in a rich, lonely man. Although Alicia never actually said when they became lovers, she freely admitted to the relationship years later, when it no longer mattered.
I knew at that moment that I would only be a part of her life when she had nowhere else to turn.
I do not know the details of that evening’s interview between Alicia and Arnold. It was one of the very few things she would not go into when, years later, we had long nights to fill with conversation.
I know it was not a long interview and I was soon made aware of the consequences.
They came to the office the following day. The papers she had signed in my car on the way to Lime Street were destroyed, wills were changed and the terms of the divorce were drawn up. Perhaps they were unduly harsh.
“You deserted your family.”
“You were committing adultery, openly.”
“Are you saying both Susannah and Charles are mine?”
“I will not answer that. You are beneath contempt!”
That was a surprise to me. If not Arnold, who could Susannah’s father be? I had never suspected her of having an affair. Surely not Max even then?
“You cannot, you absolutely cannot put the blame for that on me. I will not have it.”
“Ted, could you leave us please. I need to tell my wife some of the facts of life.”
I left.
Some 15 minutes later my secretary knocked on the door and took in a tray of tea and biscuits.
“It seems to have quietened down.” After she had shut the door behind her. I knocked on the door of my own office and went in. Arnold got up from the chair behind my desk and walked to the window. I made no comment about the presumption – I supposed it was an automatic thing for him to do. I wish he hadn’t sat there, I had left the room in such a hurry that I had not closed the file on my desk, the file with all the correspondence from Alicia to the firm over the past five years. I wondered how much he had seen.
“I think we need to try to agree the terms.” Bringing everything back to a business footing I hoped no more skeletons would be let out of cupboards. There were certain things I did not think I should know.
Arnold took a piece of paper from his pocket and read:
“The divorce will be on the grounds of my wife’s desertion. She will not counter sue on any grounds whatsoever. She is to see Charles and Susannah for a maximum of two weeks every year. She will see them in an hotel. They will never visit her at her home. She will never be welcome here.
“She is to sign an agreement that she will never,” he hesitated for emphasis and repeated “never, communicate with the press or with any other person or in any way use any information she may have, or think she has, to interfere with my social, business or political affairs.
“In return I will undertake to buy a house, for the maximum sum of £2,000 and pay an allowance of £100 per month.
“No! That wasn’t what we agreed!” Alicia interrupted, words streaming out “You said you would be fair. You said that you would make sure I was ‘generously provided for’. Those were your words. ‘Generously provided for’. You cannot, you will not, expect me to live on £100 a month. Arnold, this is ridiculous.”
Ignoring her Arnold continued “This allowance will cease when she re-marries as re-marry I have no doubt she will.”
He chose to be even more insulting. “Should she choose to live with a man as his wife but not go through any form of marriage ceremony that will also terminate the allowance.”
Alicia opened her mouth as if to say something but before she could frame any words that could make sense Arnold had continued.
“The allowance is not a generous one as I have no intention of paying to maintain a lifestyle from which I get no return. I have, as we are all aware, maintained payments throughout the past five years. I did not abandon my wife, where many men would have. I have bought tickets for journeys I would never make, I have bought clothes I would never see, I have bought lingerie for the benefit of other men. I have not questioned this. But it ends here.”
“You were rich Arnold, you could afford it. Just because you’re going broke you think you can spend what’s left on your brat instead of me.”
Did she realise what she had said?
Arnold looked at me. I looked away, unable to hold his eyes.
“Why do you say ‘were’ Alicia? Why do you say I’m going broke? Do you know something more than you should of my affairs?”
I looked up and saw that, although he was addressing Alicia, he was looking at me. There was nothing I could say. He knew that I was the only person who would have told Alicia anything about his business and Alicia had, in that one statement, given evidence of the betrayal of the trust that was essential between a man of business and his solicitor.
We had never been friends, Arnold and I, but I had been able to keep an eye on Charles and Susannah while I had his trust. In that look I realised now I would no longer be able to do that.
Arnold kept his eyes on me as he rose and walked to the door, opening it he said to my secretary “Tell Max I wish to see him.”
Alicia looked at me, shrugged her shoulders and followed her husband out of the door.
I sat down.
I put my head in my hands and swore quietly at and to myself.