A Married Man, page 41
‘Leave it,’ I ordered breathlessly, as for a moment, we parted. We listened. Motionless, we stared at each other. It wasn’t beside us, shrieking and loud, it was in the next room, but nevertheless, it was insistent. It wasn’t going to stop.
‘We have to get it,’ said Jack suddenly, drawing away from me and kneeling up. ‘It might be David.’
‘Oh! Yes of course.’
I sat up as he left the room. Suddenly I felt very much in the present. Very much on a rucked-up Persian rug in the sitting room at Netherby, my clothes rumpled, my old self, threatening to be shocked, appalled even by my behaviour. I bit my lip and bade my old self down, tried to think straight. My head was spinning incoherently, but through the blur, through the confusion, the only clarity of thought I had was that I wanted him back. I wanted him here, now, beside me, by the fire, making it all go away.
And he was back, a moment later, his footsteps echoing as he smartly crossed the flagstone hall. As he came through the door though, his face was ashen.
‘That was David,’ he said. ‘He was phoning from the hospital. Rose died ten minutes ago.’
Chapter Twenty-eight
When I awoke the following morning, it wasn’t that I didn’t know where I was, it was just that I couldn’t work out why. I appeared to be in bed, in the green room. Yes, definitely the green room, at Netherby, I thought, peering sleepily at the faded William Morris wallpaper, but – I struggled up onto my elbows – God, I felt so groggy. Drugged almost. But then … yes, of course. Jack had given me something to make me sleep. I stared at the spriggy wallpaper. My mind reeled back. Jack, white-faced, helping me upstairs; up that sweeping staircase, one arm around my shoulders, the other supporting my elbow as I – what, went into shock again? Was that what had happened, why I’d been so weak? Leading me in here, giving me a glass of water, handing me a pill zzzetting me into bed, then pulling the covers up, and telling me to sleep. Me, taking the glass with a shaky hand, trying to stop crying, looking at the grim face before me, that for some reason, ten minutes ago, I’d been kissing the life out of. Ten minutes before, that is, we’d heard the news that Rose was dead. Ten minutes before, when we’d lain together on the rug, entwined, whilst she’d died of smoke inhalation in a hospital bed.
I stayed like that, propped up on my elbows, the full force of the horror sweeping over me. I gave a sudden shiver, even though it was a warm morning and the sun was streaming through the gap in the heavy linen curtains. When I finally sat up, I realized that, apart from my shoes, I was still wearing my clothes. I swung my legs around out of bed, and immediately felt sick. Whether it was the after-effect of a pill I wasn’t used to, or Rose’s death, or my home burning to the ground, or perhaps the full implications of my outrageous behaviour the night before dawning, I don’t know, but I ran to the bathroom and threw up.
Slowly, I washed my face, wiped it numbly with a towel. Then I sat on the edge of the bath for a bit. Eventually I got up and tentatively made my way back to the bed, feeling the walls for support. On the bedside table was a photo of Ned. Yes, even here, in the spare room, and for once, I couldn’t look at him. I turned it away. Couldn’t face him. Ned had had little love for his mother and was no hypocrite, but he would certainly have been horrified by the nature of her death. I stood up slowly, my eyes riveted suddenly by a small gap in the curtains. I knew that if I drew them, I’d see the ruined barn. I knew this was possible from this room. But I couldn’t move. Rose was dead, had died in there. This seemed so overwhelming, so colossal, it was all I could do to stand there, wiping sweat from my top lip, trying to comprehend. And then abruptly, from the next-door room – I heard voices. Raised voices, shrill and insistent. The boys. Oh Christ, the boys! I flew out onto the landing and darted into their room.
Max was standing at the end of Ben’s bed in his Harry Potter pyjamas, a cup of milk in each hand. His cheeks were pink with indignation, and he was shouting at Ben, who was pale and wide-eyed, sitting up in bed.
‘Mum! Ben says I’m fibbing, but it’s true, Joan told me! I went down to get a drink and she told me in the kitchen. Granny’s dead, isn’t she? Tell him, Mummy!’
‘Yes, yes it’s true,’ I breathed, going towards them both, encircling Max with my arm and drawing him over towards Ben in the bed. I took his hand. ‘Ben, listen. Granny, very sadly, died last night.’
‘No!’ he yelled, snatching his hand away. ‘Not in that fire! Not burned to death, that can’t be true!’ Horror filled his eyes.
‘No – no, not like that,’ I said quickly. ‘Not burned at all. It was the smoke, you see, and the shock, and her age too, you know. It was all too much for her. They had to drop her from a window, you saw that, and her heart wouldn’t –’
‘No! I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it! Granny can’t be dead, she can’t be!’
He was screaming at me now, tears pouring down his cheeks, grief buckling his pale face. Whatever Rose had been to me, she’d been his granny, and though I’d hesitate to prefix that with ‘beloved’ she’d nonetheless invested time and effort in them, and been rewarded with that precious, unconditional love only children can bring to a relationship. They didn’t judge her as I did. She was their grandmother, ipso facto, they loved her.
I let him cry for a bit, then, as his sobs subsided, tried again. ‘Ben, listen darling. I know it’s sad, and so sudden,’ I drew him close, ‘but older people, grandparents, you know, we have to accept that they die before us.’
‘But burned to death!’ he screamed, pushing me away. ‘Burned to death, that’s awful!’
‘No, Ben, that’s not true, I told you.’
‘But he’s right, the barn did burn down,’ insisted Max. ‘Look!’ And with a four-year-old’s zeal and enthusiasm for all things dramatic, he ran to the window and swept back the curtain.
I caught my breath. There, on the horizon, was the view I’d avoided from my own bedroom. Perched on the soft, rolling hills which swept up from the lake, where the king-cups gave the fields a golden glow, rose up the jagged, blackened shell of our home; sodden, from the Fire Brigade hoses, and whilst not quite razed to the ground, certainly minus a roof and most of the top floor. At this distance, it was as if the top had been taken off a doll’s house, before havoc had been wreaked with a chainsaw and a pot of black paint.
‘Wow!’ breathed Max. ‘You can still see sofas and tables and everything, ’cept they’re all black! But – our rooms have gone. Look, Mum. Look, Ben!’ He walked to the window as if pulled by a string.
But Ben was not finding it nearly as enthralling as his brother. ‘I can’t bear it,’ he whispered, clamping clenched fists to his eyes. ‘Can’t bear to think of us in there, of Granny in there, of her struggling to get out, trying to open doors, coughing, crawling along corridors …’
‘Draw the curtain,’ I ordered Max.
‘But why? I want to –’
‘NOW!’
He hastily obeyed.
‘Now listen, Ben – Max, you listen too.’ I pulled Max back from the window and put my arms around their thin shoulders on the bed. ‘What has happened here is,’ I struggled, ‘horrendous, yes. And desperately sad. But it is not the stuff of nightmares, OK? Granny was old –’
‘How old?’ demanded Max.
‘I don’t know, but jolly old.’
‘Over fifty?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said gratefully.
‘God.’
‘And she didn’t die a violent death, Ben, she died peacefully. In hospital, surrounded by her family, and by the people she loved. You are not to imagine her crawling around a burning building looking for a way out because it’s simply not true.’ Even as I said it, I saw Rose, blundering blindly along, one hand over her mouth, blue eyes wide and terrified, or even on her hands and knees as Ben had said, trousers torn, face blackened, gasping for air. ‘Simply not true!’ I lied, shutting my eyes. ‘You saw her come out alive, and I don’t want you rewriting history, OK?’
‘OK,’ they whispered, eyes huge.
I knew from experience that children will believe you if you’re insistent enough. You can tell them black is white. I remembered Ben, forgetting his lines in a school play once, and believing me when I’d said he was absolutely the best on stage because his silent presence was so magnificent. I wasn’t sure how well I was doing now, but I had to try to comfort him somehow, try to slice through the terror.
‘OK, Ben?’ I repeated.
He nodded. ‘But why us again?’ he asked, turning his pale face up to mine.
Max frowned, confused, but I knew what Ben meant. Knew he was talking about his father.
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted.
I regarded the white face of my child beside me and felt fury rising up within me like a high-speed elevator. Fury that once again my precious boy had been damaged. And why had Rose let them go down to the barn alone? What the hell had she been playing at? Why hadn’t she put them to bed up here? But now was not the moment. Ben was starting to shiver. I reached for his dressing gown and pulled it around him. ‘Here, Ben, put your arm in the sleeve, and try to –’
‘Can we go home, Mum?’ he interrupted, in a small voice.
I stared. Shifted back on the bed to look at him properly. Then glanced quickly out of the crack in the curtain where Max had failed to draw them completely, to the blackened remains beyond. Oh God – how much had this affected him? Had he not completely taken it in?
‘Can we?’ he repeated.
‘He means to London,’ put in Max.
I swung around and looked at him. ‘To London?’ They both nodded. I caught my breath. ‘But darlings, the flat’s gone! I sold it, you know that.’
‘But you could buy it back, couldn’t you? Offer him more money? Ask the man who bought it if we can buy it back from him?’
I licked my lips, marvelling at their simple faith, their trust in the consummate ability of grown-ups. And of course I’d been hoist by my own petard. Not a moment ago I’d prided myself on my ability to get them to believe I could fix anything, that black could, quite easily, be white.
‘I know,’ I said suddenly, ‘we’ll go to Lucas and Maisie’s.’
‘Yes!’ they both gasped, and for the first time that morning, the dull fear lifted from Ben’s eyes.
‘Yes, let’s go to Lucas and Maisie’s. We could live there, couldn’t we, Mum?’
I didn’t answer that, didn’t gainsay it, even though I knew it might not be possible. Because if there was a crumb of comfort on the horizon, by God I’d let them snatch at it. Let them imagine the welcoming arms of their cosy grandparents, the shambolic, chaotic, Bohemian house where I’d grown up, where anything went, and where, within a twinkling, Max would be helping Lucas sort screws into boxes in the garden shed, with Ben at the kitchen table, playing Racing Demon with Maisie, shrieking with laughter as they slapped down cards and tore to the finish. Oh no, with the prospect of all that, I wasn’t going to pour cold water.
‘Can we?’ said Ben, clinging to it. ‘Can we go?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ I said carefully, thinking defiantly that we jolly well would go, no matter what anyone here said, whatever opposition I encountered, and that once in London – well, we could get rid of the nurse, and I could look after Maisie. They wouldn’t need a nurse if I was there, and then we could move into the spare rooms on the top floor, couldn’t we? Suddenly all things were possible. All things. Because you see, if I could take Ben’s mind for one moment from the terror he had the brains to imagine … well, I’d move bloody mountains. Do whatever it took to spare him more pain.
‘Wait here,’ I said tersely, ‘and get dressed. I’ll be back.’
They hopped off the bed, if not excited, certainly relieved. A plan had been formed.
‘We can’t!’ Ben’s face was suddenly panic-stricken again, as he stood there, arms outstretched in his pyjamas. All he possessed. Damn.
‘Yes, you can.’ I pulled open a drawer. ‘Remember, Granny kept these in here, in case you stayed.’ I dragged out shorts and a T-shirt. ‘See?’
‘Oh yes. She did,’ Ben said slowly. He fingered the clothes reflectively, remembering Granny again. Nothing could be fixed that rapidly.
‘So come on, buck up,’ I urged, hoping he wouldn’t regress too far. ‘Oh, and hop in the bath first to get rid of the soot. I’ll be back in a moment.’
I flew into my room and put my shoes on, dressed, already, in all I had in the world, then crept out along the corridor.
It was surely mid-morning, but all was silent. The huge house was deathly quiet as I passed down the long passage, under archways, past a longcase clock that must have stopped, or else someone had failed to wind it, to the top of the sweeping staircase. As I paused for a moment under the domed glass roof that crowned the stairwell, my hand on the polished banister rail, it struck me that it felt more like a mausoleum than ever. But then, that was only fitting, wasn’t it? She had been its lifeblood, Rose, its force. It was Archie’s house, sure, but only in name. Her tiny presence had been the pulse of the place as she scurried energetically up these corridors, its arteries; raising her less industrious daughters from their rooms, then down to Joan in the kitchen, berating her for preparing cold cuts when there could have been a cottage pie, then off to scold Archie about his smelly Labrador – leaving seething people wherever she went. Running around with a poker, almost, stoking little fires, keeping them going, hustling everyone along, and without her – the place seemed to stop.
As I got to the bottom of the stairs, I had an awful feeling that something like a sigh of relief had swept over the house, too. The painted smile of one of the blackamoors who stood sentry at the bottom seemed to confirm this. I glanced away, horrified. No, no it was an empty, soulless place that I crept through now, I insisted, and when I finally found the shattered remains of her family in the morning room, I knew it to be so.
Archie was slumped in a wing chair by the fireplace, staring into an empty grate, with Pinkie and Lavinia perched on either arm. His eyes were blank and glazed, and he looked about a hundred years old. The girls were talking across him in low voices as he sat numbly between them, staring blankly, his fingers twitching. They stopped talking when I came in, and stood up.
‘Lucy,’ sobbed Pinkie.
I quickly crossed the room to hug them both.
‘Pinkie, Lavinia, I’m so sorry,’ I whispered, holding them both tight.
They nodded, gulping. Their clothes smelled of smoke and I realized nobody had been to bed. Lavinia drew back from me after a while, eyes dry in enormous sockets, hollow with misery and fatigue; Pinkie, her shoulders shaking, sobbed quietly into a spotted hanky of her father’s as I hugged her. I looked over her shoulder.
‘Archie …’
I went across and perched on the arm Pinkie had vacated. His ancient Lab lay protectively across both of his feet. He made as if to rise, but couldn’t. I got off the arm and crouched down in front of him, the better to see his face. My hand closed over his. He squeezed it.
‘She … had a good life, you know,’ he murmured softly. ‘A full one. Children, grandchildren, the garden, and so on … Committees and what not. And she wasn’t in any great pain, when she went. It was all … very peaceful. Quiet. And thank God the lad came. Thank God she saw him.’
‘Hector? Was Hector there?’
‘Lavinia rang him. Came immediately. Up from London. Wouldn’t come back here, of course, but – well. They had time together. Alone.’ He took his eyes off the grate and looked at me directly for the first time, his swimmy brown eyes childlike, bruised, looking for confirmation. ‘That’s important, don’t you think?’
‘Oh yes. Yes, very,’ I breathed.
‘And she had such sadness, too, of course. Ned, her favourite, you know, always her favourite …’
I blanched at this in front of the sisters, but nodded, because I did know.
‘Yes.’
‘Never got over that. Never. Thought that the boys, Ned’s boys … well, thought the world of them, what?’ He raised his eyebrows enquiringly, then looked back to the grate.
‘Yes, I know,’ I murmured. His voice was vague, distant, and he seemed confused.
‘Filled a gap, I suppose. But she dreamed too much. Didn’t know it could never happen … would never happen. I couldn’t let her have that, however much she’d been hurt. You do see that, don’t you, Lucy?’ He turned to me again. Eyes wide, appealing. ‘Wouldn’t have been fair. Or proper.’
I wasn’t sure I did see. Wasn’t sure I had a clue what he was talking about, but I kept on nodding.
‘Yes, Archie, I see.’
‘And of course she didn’t know, so that was a blessing. Didn’t know I wouldn’t have it. Died thinking she could. That I’d let it happen.’
I glanced desperately at Lavinia for help, but she was standing with her back to the room at the tall, floor-to-ceiling windows. She held herself tightly, arms crossed, staring out at the parkland, sunk in her own private misery, Archie’s ramblings not reaching her, or her not wanting them to …
‘But thank God those boys got out. Thank God …’
