A Summer in the Country (18 page)

Poor Rory! His horror had been unbearable, exacerbating her own guilt, so that her only resource had been mental escape; flight into oblivion. How could there be a way back when she was already denying the past? Unfortunately her relationship with her mother had never been a particularly strong one—she was a demanding, managing woman—and at length she'd sought refuge with her oldest friend who'd had a compassionate grasp of the problem. It was while she'd been with Helena that she'd met Martin. He'd been like some great elemental force, a tsunami, sweeping everything before the overwhelming tide of his determination. She'd submitted to it, grateful to be relieved of thought or will.

“How can you?” asked her mother, stony-faced. “What about Rory? Have you given him a thought?”

Rory. She'd dared not look back along that dark road; there was too much horror. Martin had been beside her, watchful, guarding her, and her mother had turned away in disgust.

“Don't expect me to approve,” she'd said. “Rory's more of a son to me now, than you are a daughter. He's absolutely broken-hearted but he won't pressure you if you don't want to see him. He's talking of trying for an exchange to the Canadian Navy but I can see you're not interested.”

It had been as if there were a wall of glass between them: her mother's mouth moving, shaping words, twisting with dislike; her eyes glancing, sliding, narrowing with contempt. Martin had intervened and made an end of it. And Rory?

Louise raised her hands to her cheeks, blotting away the tears. How could she have hurt him so? Rory, who had been so kind, so understanding, and who had loved them both so much. His image rose before her: ruddy, vivid, vitally alive. His voice murmured in the darkness: warm, flexible, full of love.

“So that's that Now! Where were we?”

Louise turned on her side, pulling the quilt over her head, and allowed the storm of tears to possess her.

“We've got a friend coming for drinks,” Jemima told Magnificat casually. “You'll like him. This is not a subject for negotiation, so please remember to stay put in that chair and then he'll have to sit beside me on the sofa. And don't climb on him and get hairs all over his clothes until we know whether he likes cats. OK?”

MagnifiCat stared at her contemptuously with half-closed eyes, yawned and gave his flank a quick lick, unimpressed with her strictures.

“Of course,” sighed Jemima gloomily, “he'll simply go straight out on to the balcony. Everyone does. The view gets them every time. Pity I can't get the sofa on the balcony. I should have offered to cook for us instead of agreeing to go out to supper. The problem was, it looked a bit keen. Oh, well! He'll have to bring me home again afterwards, won't he?”

MagnifiCat stood up, arching and stretching, and setded himself again with his back turned pointedly towards her. He was not fond of the male of the species and had his own inimitable ways of making his presence felt He'd had plenty of experience and had honed his performance to near perfection. He was a first-class judge of character. First there was the nervous, awkward specimen, who, anxious to ingratiate and please, put itself out to be friendly. MagnifiCat would humiliate this type with a haughty look, brisding under a deferential pat, leaping from the determined show of affection. There was the confident specimen—the most difficult of all, this type— who was unfazed by hostility and could remain cool even if hissed at, although a quick well-aimed stab with a claw could usually wipe the self-satisfied smile off its face. Then there was the type who feared cats but was too afraid of losing Brownie points to admit it This type preferred to keep its distance and Magnificat took enormous pleasure in rubbing affectionately round its trousered legs, jumping on to its lap, and generally making a nuisance of himself whilst enjoying the grim, rictus smile on his victim's face. Finally there was the true cat-hating specimen. Nothing could be done here but to exchange that fierce, cold, inimical stare which made it quite clear to both protagonists exactly how the land lay between them. Naturally, it took Jemima—poor, simple human that she was—much longer to sum up these contenders but if only she'd followed his example her life would have been much simpler. MagnifiCat, resigned to her thick-headedness, settled himself to sleep.

Jemima prowled to and forth: sitting down, standing up again, checking the drinks tray. It was important that the room looked casually charming; not too perfect, as if she'd been cleaning and polishing for his benefit; nor too untidy lest he should think she was a slut. Annabel, after all, was a perfectionist and, though he had said he was tired of it, yet it might be foolish to present him with too great a contrast.

She thought: I wonder what she looks like?

She stared at herself in the big ash-framed looking-glass which hung over the bookcase, pushing her hands up into the thick, fair hair, wondering if she should have tied it back. She wore a black, raw silk kurta-style tunic and loose trousers which flattered her rounded and not-too-tall figure and emphasised her golden tan. She glanced at her watch just as the bell was rung and she jumped nervously, standing for a moment, hands clenched into fists, before hurrying to answer the door.

“Hi.” He looked very poised standing there, very cool, and she heard a faint stammer in her voice as she invited him in. He followed her along the passage to the sitting room but did not go immediately to the window. Instead he looked about with that same calm, unhurried glance.

'This is seriously nice,” he said. “What a place!”

“It's good, isn't it?” She tried to sound almost indifferent. “I'm very lucky to have got it.”

“I should think you are. How clever of you not to have covered up all this lovely wood with carpet. Goodness! That's some view! I bet you had to pay extra for that.”

“I had a little legacy from my papa.” She followed him out on to the balcony. “It's rather special, isn't it?”

“Rather.” He smiled down at her and she looked away, trying to control her tendency to grin madly back at him. “It must be wonderful at night with all the boats lit up.”

“Would you like a drink?” She felt so jumpy, so out of control, that she needed to be occupied.

“Why not? A drop of whisky would go down well.” He was still leaning on the balcony, looking over the harbour. “It was a very good idea of yours that I should come across on the ferry so that I don't have to worry about driving. It's odd how places look so different from the water, isn't it? What's that ruined castle I saw?”

“That's Fort Charles,” she told him. “It was used by the Royalists in the Civil War. I think it was even besieged.”

“I'd like to have a good look at it,” he said. “I suppose that's possible?”

“Oh yes. You could catch the South Sands Ferry. It takes you past Fort Charles and the battery and then you're met by the sea tractor so you can get on to the beach. There's a wonderful lifeboat station there.”

“Sounds fun. I might do that.”

“I don't know if you're interested in National Trust properties but there's Overbecks Museum, as well, just above South Sands.”

“That would have suited Annabel,” he said. “Not really my scene but I might have a look at it. I suppose you've seen all these sights so many times that it's not worth asking you to join me on this Magical Mystery Tour?”

“Not that many times.” She tried not to sound too keen. “Like you say, places look quite different from the water. It would be fun. I ought to get on the river more often.”

“You should have a boat.” He looked at her in an oddly measuring way. “Are you a sailor?”

“Not much of one,” she admitted, wondering if Annabel was. “But only because I haven't had much opportunity, not because I don't like it. Are you?”

“I haven't had the opportunity either,” he told her. “Never had much to do with the sea except childhood holidays. I think I might be tempted to try it if I lived here, though.”

“Well,” she was suddenly shy, afraid of reading too much into his words, “let's have a drink, shall we, and you must meet MagnifiCat.”

“MagnifiCat?” He sounded puzzled, leaving the balcony reluctantly, but at the sight of the large, furry pile curled in the basket-chair he burst out laughing. “Oh, what a poser.”

The hair on Magnificat's neck lifted a little and he sighed: Type B: confident, cool, tricky. He ignored the smoothing, stroking, male hand, pretending to sleep on.

“He's feeling antisocial,” said Jemima apologetically. “Never mind. Here's your drink.”

“Thanks.” He raised his glass. “Here's to a rather different holiday than I imagined. You know, I think I might enjoy it after all.”

“Yes,” said Jemima, after a confused moment. “Good. I'll drink to that.”

MagnifiCat burrowed deeper into the cushion, eyes still firmly closed.

He thought: Here we go again.

As
RACHMANINOV'S
music brought
Brief Encounter
to an end Louise sat in silence, moved as usual by the film, and wondering what Frummie was thinking. She'd been unusually silent throughout—generally the soundtracks were punctuated by her pithy observations—and even now, as she rewound the video, she didn't speak. Surreptitiously blowing her nose, Louise supposed that it was possible that the film had unlocked Frummie's painful memories or transported her back to an unhappy period of her life. After all, in the fifties Frummie must have been a young woman, with a small child, so there were certain poignant similarities. Except, of course, that Frummie had succumbed to her own particular passion and fled with her lover, leaving her child and her husband. Perhaps she was struggling with remorse, wishing she'd resisted…

Louise thought: I'm being silly and sentimental. I always was a sucker for a good old weepie. Still, I hope she's not feeling too sad.

Frummie stirred, lifted the remote control and plunged the television screen into blackness.

“It's extraordinary,” she said, “but each time I watch that film I find myself utterly unable to connect with it. I simply cannot recall anyone who behaved like that. All those stiff upper lips, fearfully wearing! The only thing that I remember are those wonderful fires in railway station waiting rooms. Now that's certainly true to life.”

“Oh, Frummie.” Louise began to chuckle. “And I was sitting here trying not to intrude on your memories. How prosaic you are. I think it's a lovely film. I always want to cry buckets.”

“Have you ever thought,” asked Frummie, “how much more romantic and splendid our own lives would be if we lived diem to music?”

Louise looked at her, puzzled. “How do you mean?”

“Well, think about it. When we're watching films or plays how much of our emotional response is actually created by the music? How affected would we have been by those two somewhat anally retentive people if it hadn't been for dear old Rachmaninov thundering away in the background?”

“I hadn't thought about it,” said Louise uncertainly. “But what about Shakespeare at the theatre? Or any stage play, for that matter? We don't get background music then but we're still moved.”

“Ah, but in the theatre you get the atmosphere, that exciting current that flows between the actors and the audience. It's essential for the rapport to be developed for any stage production to be really successful. The emotion has to be live and real and raw or it doesn't work. It flops. But the cinema and television need aids to recreate that magic, so they use music. Even the old black-and-white silent films knew that they needed the pianist sitting in the pit. If you think about it, it's the music that really rouses the emotions, whether it's fear, compassion, grief.”

“I wonder if that's true.” Louise thought about some of her favourite films:
Death in Venice
without Mahler;
The Deer Hunter
without Samuel Barber. “Actually, I think you might have a point.”

Frummie snorted. “Of course I have a point. And what I'm saying is, I think we'd all feel much nobler if we had an orchestra around when we're living those really dramatic moments of our own lives. I'm sure it would be much less of a dreary struggle if Brahms or Mozart was accompanying our own private dramas. We watch all these plays and films and are moved by suffering and fear or great romantic passion, yet our own lives we imagine to be rather pathetic and dreary. I've always had a fancy to die to some great dramatic musical theme but I can't quite decide what it should be.”

“Wagner?” Louise began to enter into the spirit of the thing. “Beethoven's Ninth?”

Frummie frowned thoughtfully. “The thing is, that it needs to be long enough to see you through. One might not be able to keep nipping out of bed to keep restarting the tape.”

“You need one of those remote controls for your radio,” Louise told her. “You just point it at it and it would keep playing.”

Frummie looked at her, impressed. “Do they make them for radios, now?”

“They do indeed. I'll get you one.”

“Of course one might not be even strong enough to do that” Frummie looked faintly irritated by these complications. “How difficult it all is.”

“It would be frustrating if the music stopped at the wrong moment.” Louise was amused at the idea. “I suppose it would have to be something powerful and dramatic.”

“On the other hand I might prefer something sexy and terribly evocative,” said Frummie. “Something that really invokes a memory. Nina Simone, perhaps. Someone with a gravelly voice that plucks the heartstrings right out of your chest, so that you're way back there in that dim, shadowy cellar and you can see the little, round tables with their half-empty glasses, and ashtrays spilling over, and a velvet evening bag dumped down amongst the wet sticky rings. You can smell the grey smoke curling in the thick atmosphere, which you could cut with a knife, and you can hear the rich beat of the bass and the hush-hush of the drum. There's a black singer in a low-cut dress who's sitting at a piano. One of those old prim French uprights. Her eyes are closed and her head's thrown back so that you can see the long, rippling black column of her throat. She's singing about love and lust and betrayal and she's singing
your
story because you know that the bastard sitting opposite is going to tell you, later on, that he's leaving you for the bitch you saw him with that morning. But you'll go back to his room with him, anyway, and cling to him and give him what he wants because you love him more than anything else in the world and you can't see straight for lust. That's what she's singing about and everyone knows it.”

There was a silence. Presently, Louise looked at her.

“It sounds terribly poignant and real,” she said. “And I have to admit that it's not much like Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson.”

Frummie gave a crack of derisive laughter. “Not much. But that's the way it was for me.”

“I thought you were dreary, respectable and middle class,” suggested Louise, trying to disguise her own emotion with a lighter tone.

“I was.” Frummie smiled her down-turned, derisive smile. “Oh, I was, darling. That's why it was so bloody painful.”

“Not Mozart then.” Louise wished that she had the courage to give the older woman a hug. “So be it. Nina Simone it is. And I'll come and sit with you so that the music doesn't stop.”

“I'll hold you to that.” Frummie was getting to her feet with the usual grimace of pain. “It might take a while, though. I don't give up easily. I hope you'll have the time to spare.”

“You've given me the time when I needed it,” said Louise lightly. “You say the word and I'll be there when it's your turn.”

“Supper,” said Frummie. “Before we get maudlin. And a drink. But we've got a deal.”