Above All Things (11 page)

I was stung by his wanting to be away from us. “He does care. Of course he does. But he knows that the rest of his congregation need him too. He has to care enough for all of them.” For my part I was glad George was home. Glad I could see him, touch him. Glad he was far from what had killed Trafford and had almost killed Geoffrey.

Maybe Vi is right. I should be more stoic. It’s not as if I haven’t been through this before – there was the war and Everest twice already, then the long trip to America. There have been seemingly countless lonely mornings.

During the war, though, there was a different sensibility – it was something we were all in together. There were the church knitting circles, and Marby, when she came to stay with me in Godalming, insisted on hosting weekly first-aid classes, showing us how to wrap bandages, how to dress wounds. She would give us – me, Millie, Mrs. Graham, and Mrs. Parker from down the road – the same instructions every time. “Idle minds dwell,” she’d say, before making us repeat the directions she’d given the week before for treating burns or head wounds.

“
This
makes me dwell,” I protested at first, cutting and then rolling the long strips of cloth into workable bandages. And it did – made me think about how many ways a body could be injured, destroyed, and how insufficient our homemade bandages would be for patching it up.

“No, it doesn’t,” Marby insisted. “It gives you a sense of control.”

We didn’t talk about where our husbands were, or what they were doing. After Mrs. Parker’s husband died, she continued to join our first-aid drills, but her face was grey all the time. Millie would bring the newspaper and she’d sit by the window reading out loud from the casualty lists, all of us listening for names we knew. I couldn’t bear reading the columns of names myself. There were so many familiar names there: Vi’s husband, Captain Parker, Trafford.

I’m startled by the noise of the children tramping down the stairs, the small parade of them, their footsteps a chaotic beat. There is a chatter of questions from Berry and then the kitchen door opening, closing.

On the side table under the window is a copy of the
Times
. I should just cancel the subscription. I try to read it and try not to at the same time. I used to read the newspaper over breakfast – scanning for interesting news to write to George, things that made me feel connected to the wider world. But now the whole of England seems to be caught up in Everest fever. There have been stories about everything: what the expedition members wear, what they eat, how these details find their way to the most esteemed editors.

I do want to know. But I want only good news. Briefly, I allow myself the luxury of imagining George’s success.
He’s done it
, I think.
He’s done it
. And the certainty of his success wells up in me so that there are tears in my eyes and I can’t help but smile. It’s as true as anything, as the newspaper in my hand that I won’t read. When he comes home, he will be ecstatic and tell me it’s over, all of the leaving, the absences. And we will celebrate.

It might have happened already. Perhaps Hinks knows something.

Without reading the headline, I fold the paper over and drop it in the woodbox. If it is cool this evening we might build a fire after dinner. It can serve as kindling. The feeling of his success
calms me. I wipe the newsprint from my hands, straighten the clock on the mantel.

Under the clatter of breakfast in the kitchen, I keep one ear cocked for steps on the front stairs, for the drop of the post through the door. I check the time. Nearing nine. But the clock here is always fast. Edith likes it that way. “I can cook properly for the table then, mum,” she says. She says
mum
instead of
ma’am
. As if I’m a lady. As if she’s a lady’s maid.

I love this kitchen with its old oak table that used to belong to my mother. It is pocked and scratched across the surface from chopping and spills and burning pots. The whitewashed cupboards make the room bright and welcoming, big enough for all of us, yet still small enough to feel cozy. There is toast and jams, soft-boiled eggs, milk and tea, all of it laid out on the china I painted when George and I were first married. Pieces of it have been lost and broken, so it’s relegated to the kitchen now, to the children’s breakfast. John dips his toast into the yolk of his egg, misses his mouth slightly as he bites down.

“Why is there a party without Daddy?” Clare asks, as I lean over to wipe at John’s face. He squirms away and I give up and refill Berry’s milk.

“Pardon?”

“I think,” Clare goes on, “and Berry thinks that Daddy will be very sad if he misses the party. He might be very angry at you if you have a party without him.”

A smile, reassuring.
It’s a balancing act
, I wrote to George after he left for Everest the second time.
I try to make the children feel that everything is normal, as if you’ve just gone out for the evening, or climbing with Will for the weekend. But they also know that isn’t true. They know you’re gone a long time, somewhere far away, and while we say it is an adventure, they sense the risk. I have to take some care with that – respect that they might be apprehensive
.

“I shouldn’t think he’ll mind terribly,” I tell her. “He wants us to enjoy ourselves. Mummy thought it might be fun.”

Clare nods. “Berry would like to have a party.”

“Would she now?”

Clare has taken to using Berry as her excuse to ask for things. Conveniently, what she wants, Berry wants. Berry wants biscuits. Berry wants a party. Berry wants to know when Daddy is coming home.

But Berry isn’t listening. She and John are bickering over something, snapping at each other like little sparrows, small hands grasping hair, pinching. I press Berry’s hands to the table and John lets out a piercing shriek, part victory, part complaint.

“What kind of party would you like, Berry?”

Her nose wrinkles up as she thinks a minute. “A tea party. Like Daddy promised.”

“That would be fun, wouldn’t it? Perhaps this afternoon. In the back garden.” Clare looks triumphant and for a brief moment I want to recant, to take it away so she won’t use her sister or her father’s absence to get what she wants. “After your lessons,” I say directly to Clare. “French and then maths.” Pouting now, she slouches back in her chair. “Sit up straight.”

She does and then tries to make amends. “Berry likes to go to French lessons.”

“Do you, Berr?”

“Oui.”
Her voice is a small cheep.

“Oui!”
John echoes, yelling it at the top of his lungs and kicking at the underside of the table. His glass wobbles and then tips, milk spreading across the scored surface. I reach for the tea towel near the stove and John rubs his hands in the milk, then sticks tight fists in his mouth.

“John, no!” I grab his hand and he yells again.

The milk runs onto the floor as I reach for the bell to summon Vi.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Please take them and get them cleaned up. We need to leave in half an hour. This afternoon, if they’re good, there will be a tea party in the back garden.”

Vi surveys the mess and I bristle, feeling reprimanded. She only obeys me because it is her job. There is no affection there. Not for me. Perhaps there is for George; he is at ease with the servants. I am not good with them. When I was small, I would go out of my way to clean up after Millie and Marby so as to not have to talk to my father’s maids. Somehow they make me feel a stranger in my own home. If there was a way to join Vi and Edith – for a chat, a cup of tea – I would. But it isn’t done and they wouldn’t have it. When I sit in the parlour and try to read, I can hear them chattering to each other, their small bursts of laughter. There is a creep of fear along my spine that they are talking about me. Laughing at me.

Usually Vi would take the children to their lesson, but I’m restless, my nerves taut from lack of sleep. It would do me good to get out of the house and get some fresh air. “I’ll take the children to Cottie’s – I mean, Mrs. O’Malley’s – this morning. You’ll have enough to do for dinner. Please ask Edith to join me here and then you can get the children dressed.”

I begin to gather the dirty plates, piling them and then the saucers, toss the wet tea towel in the sink.

“Mum?”

Edith is flushed red from some exertion or other in the pantry. There is sweat on her lip and I wipe at my own face. She doesn’t notice. She huffs and stares past me, a spot over my shoulder. There’s nothing there. Like Vi, she is stocky, thick legs in slouching stockings. They’re like squat bookends.

Vi and Edith are all the things I am not. Solid and reliable. There is a kind of physical power to them that I cannot really imagine. They would be rough in bed with their husbands and lovers.
I can almost picture them, shuddering against their partners.

Edith folds her hands in front of her. She is holding this morning’s post.

I cross the kitchen to the window, to distance myself from the mess, from the letters that I want to snatch from her sweaty hands. We are awkward with each other; she’s only been with us since just before George left. I know so little about her and feel she knows everything about me.

“We need to … I mean, I would like to discuss this evening’s menu.”

She nods but doesn’t say anything. Looks from me to the spill of milk on the floor and back, then puts the letters on the sideboard and begins clearing up.

“I think lamb,” my mouth is saying. I crane my head to see the handwriting on the topmost envelope. “Spring lamb. Fresh butchered. Potatoes. Some sort of green vegetable.” How did I not hear the post arrive? Were they from yesterday? Would she have kept them from me? No. It must have come while John was screaming or when he and Berry were fighting. “A dinner that George, Mr. Mallory, would enjoy if he were home. You take care of the other courses. Nothing extravagant. Simple.”

The writing on the top envelope isn’t his, but it could contain news of him.

“The good china is still packed.” A pause and then, “Mum.”

“Oh. Of course. Have Vi unpack it while you go to market. She’ll have the time. I’m taking the children to their lesson.” A flush across my face.
Don’t explain yourself
, Marby’s voice hisses.

She bobs her head but is still waiting.

“What is it, Edith?”

“The seating, mum? And candles? Flowers?”

“No need,” I say. My hand is reaching for the letters. “The seating we will discuss later. I’ll buy the flowers while I’m out.”

——

I wait to flip through the envelopes until I am back in the sitting room and the door is closed. Outside the bells at one of the colleges toll. If George was here he would say, “Ah, King’s.” Or “That’s the alma mater.” And I would hum –
Oranges and lemons say the bells …

There is nothing from George. A bill for his boots still to be paid. A request for an interview from the
Evening Standard
; they’ve heard something about the climbers’ diet being one of sweets and want to know more. Absurd. And a letter from the Reverend Mallory, which I don’t want to read. Not now. It will be full of the usual self-serving pity for me. He uses George’s absence, or my
situation
as he calls it, to further pontificate on his son’s failings. I’ve become a convenient tool for him. A blunt one. It was better when he thought me strange and unsettling.

“He doesn’t,” George said, after I’d met his father and mother for the first time.

“Oh, but he does. I can see it. He peers at me as though I’m some strange, exotic animal. Part of him is entranced, part of him appalled. He likes my father’s money but loathes my father’s politics.”

“You mean your father’s habits.”

“Yes, fine then, his habits. I think your father is terrified he’ll find me naked some Sunday morning in his sacristy. I’d never do that. One’s parents being naturist is enough to purify any child.”

I did try to make him like me, though. I thought if the reverend and his son were able to reconcile their differences it might make things easier for me. Now he seizes on me as a means to steer George towards a more conventional life. That the reverend doesn’t like it is the one small pleasure that I take in George’s being away.

I drop the post on the side table and go to sit in the window. Unless a telegram comes, there will be no more news until late this afternoon. Six long hours.

Below me the garden is a lush green; the grass will have to be trimmed soon. From here I don’t see individual blades but a swirling carpet in shifting tones. As I watch, the lawn darkens, like sea grass, and the air above it too. Just a cloud moving in, but there is the plunging in my stomach, a flash of déjà vu.

It was the week before George left, and I was waiting for him to return from his run.

Some days it feels as if all I do is wait.

That particular day was grey and the rain on the window blurred the world beyond. George should have been home by then. He had promised to go to church with me. In the sitting room, I stood at the window, staring at the cascade of rain so I wouldn’t see his presence everywhere. The house was cluttered with his belongings – mine and the children’s still in so many boxes, but George’s possessions were everywhere. Maps and books and lengths of rope to be carefully measured.

On the floor at my foot was an envelope with his scrawl:
Blue socks, letters, book, metal flask, Burberry
. I lifted my head so it was out of my sightline.

The rain slipping down the window pulled my eyelids downwards with it. The night before George hadn’t slept and so neither did I, jostled awake by his ongoing arrivals and departures. When I came down for breakfast, he was already gone.

I dressed and waited by the window. My hands were cold. And then there was a scraping against stone, a tapping at the window. My name. “Ruth.”

He was pressed against the window, clinging, like a drowned cat, to the sill. Everything was wet.

“Don’t let go,” I cried and opened the window out, carefully, as he shuffled aside. He pulled himself up so his waist was even with mine outside the window. “Get in here. You’ll catch your death.”