Apple Blossom Time (44 page)

‘Well, you were wrong.’ I reached over and poured another slug into both mugs. ‘He’s in Germany now and everyone knows there are plenty of
Fräuleins
desperate for a British passport, then it’s off to America. Land of the free and home of the brave. Without me.’

‘Better off without him. Believe me. In America, the mothers get the balls and the sons get the…’

‘Vee! Your language!’

‘What’d I say? Tell the truth and shame the devil, Pansy always reminds us. Here’s to men…’ She leaned forward and our toothmugs clinked again.

‘Who needs them?’

‘The bastards! What’d we do without them?’ She laughed and cocked her head on one side, cute and knowing. Jennifer might have got away with the gesture, but not a grown woman. ‘I really did hope that you and Martin … So why don’t you just run off with him? What’s keeping you?’

‘I’ve found my father.’

‘No!’

And I told Vee everything.

‘Honestly, I can’t understand what all the secrets are about. Your family is very odd,’ she said when I’d finished. ‘Why don’t you just up and tell them – straight out. I would.’

I looked across at Vee and realized that she didn’t have a clue. She was so honest, so straightforward. She’d have done what I could never do. She’d have thrown her arms around any long-lost relative and hugged him.

‘You don’t understand. No-one in my family ever –
ever
– says what they really think.’

‘Well, it’s about bloody time they started.’

*   *   *

And in the morning I looked and felt terrible. The tiny, age-spotted mirror above the washstand showed me bleary eyes and puffy lids. My tongue seemed to have grown in the night. It didn’t seem to fit into my mouth properly. Vee looked as bright as a button.

‘Practice makes perfect,’ she trilled.

I stuck out my furry tongue at her and she pedalled off on my bike to look for work around the village.

*   *   *

I tried, but I couldn’t stay away.

I went back to Greentops, alone this time, no Geoffrey waiting impatiently in the drive. I’d thought about asking Vee to go with me for comfort, but Vee was never the person to trust with a secret. She knew enough already. If I’d been sober, I might not have told her the half of it. Besides, with two children and a job as general dogsbody at Thurlow’s farm – a three-mile, uphill bike ride – she had more than enough on her plate.

The autumn was further on its way to winter. The trees were closer to being bare. Their bones were beginning to show. The chrysanthemums in the hall had been replaced by a vase of burnished leaves. The game of ludo in the conservatory seemed now to be Monopoly. Nothing else had changed. Smelly old Heathcliff still lay on the rug and looked up at me with white, filmy eyes.

‘Now, we’ve met before, haven’t we?’ asked the plump woman who was my father’s wife. ‘Haven’t you been … yes, weren’t you here a few weeks ago, asking for Edwin? Didn’t you find him?’

‘Yes, thank you. Yes, I did. And he … he promised to show me around his tree church again. It was so interesting.’

‘But he’s out. Was he expecting you? He does forget things, rather. Come and have some tea while you’re waiting. I don’t suppose he’ll be long. He’s just popped down to the village for some screws. There’s always something that needs mending. But my husband is very good with his hands, thank goodness. He keeps the old place together somehow.’

She showed me into a comfortable drawing room, shabby in the right way, with patched armchairs drawn up to a fire and a tabby cat curled up on a hairy cushion. A man was sitting by the fire, not reading, not doing anything that I could see, not even thinking, just staring. He had a disturbing, young/old look, untouched by time, yet worn to transparency. When I came in, he got up and tried to rush past me.

‘It’s all right, Keith,’ the woman said as he passed us. She held out a hand that didn’t touch him, but seemed to halt him, all the same. ‘No need to go. Miss – er, Mrs – er…’

‘Laura Kenton.’

‘Mrs Kenton has come to see Edwin about his trees. That’s all right, isn’t it?’

But he jerked his head and kept on going, out of the room.

‘Oh, dear,’ she sighed, ‘he really can’t cope with strangers.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to upset anyone.’

‘It’s not your fault. He’s always the same. Now, sit here. I won’t be long.’

I sat by the fire, wondering what on earth I had been thinking of, to come back. Once should have been enough. I’d found what I’d been looking for and that should have been sufficient. I ought to have gone away and kept my recognition to myself. But I’d come back. I was meddling again. I could never let well enough alone. I’d come back with fierce curiosity and a lame excuse.

The cat climbed on to my lap and began to knead my thighs with her claws. I stroked her head with absentminded kindness and wondered how I could get out before my father came home.

‘Here we are.’ She laid a tray on the low table in front of me. Heathcliff lay down with a grunt beside her and laid his heavy head against her legs. His jaws left saliva streaks on her skirt, but she didn’t seem to mind. ‘It’s such a walk from the kitchen. Whoever designed this house ought to be made to work here. Funny, when I was a girl, no-one gave a thought to how many miles a day the maids had to walk.’

‘You lived here as a girl, then?’ I asked.

‘Yes. Milk or lemon?’ She passed me a wide, rose-garlanded teacup with a twiddly handle, difficult to hold. ‘I was born here. Oh, it was so different, then. Full of people. Aunts, uncles, masses of cousins every summer. Full of fun. Still, we do our best now. No-one can keep up these old houses as they used to be. My father was a consulting psychiatrist – quite a daring thing, then – and during the first war, he joined the army as a senior medical officer. The house became a convalescent home for cases of neurasthenia – you know the old joke – officers had neurasthenia, NCOs had shellshock, other ranks were shot – not such a good joke, after all. Sugar? Do have a biscuit. Some of the boys here don’t take sugar in their tea, so I find there is enough to make them a little treat now and again. And after the war – well, some of them had nowhere else to go and I had to earn a living after my father died or sell the house, so they’re still here. Like Keith. His family pays to keep him out of sight. He’s very sweet, but he can’t stand change. Everything has to be in the right place, at the right time. Furniture. Ornaments. People. Or he gets very upset. He’s managed to get a job once or twice, but people can’t stand it when he spends all morning arranging the paperclips and shouts if someone uses up a stamp. Richard is younger. He was in the navy, Atlantic convoys, and his ship was sunk in 1942. He is quite an ordinary young man, until he hears a bang – a door, a car, thunder, it’s surprising how many bangs there might be in one day – and then he dives under the table and won’t come out for a long time.’

She was a comfortable person to be with. Untidy in a way that set you at ease, a very English, droopy cardigans and animal hairs sort of way. Slightly overweight, but with generous curves still in the right places and a sweet smile. Twenty years ago, she might have been quite pretty.

And I suddenly wondered – why hadn’t I thought of it before? – if I had any unknown brothers or sisters. The thought scared me and excited me at the same time.

‘And your husband…’ I began, putting the cup carefully back in the saucer, trying not to rattle it. ‘Did you meet him…?’

‘Edwin? Yes, Edwin was a patient here. He was … he is … he has difficulties. He digs holes, as you know. They interest him, for … various reasons. And when he has dug them, he obviously can’t just leave them. I suggested filling them with trees. I don’t mind. I love him, you see.’ She looked at me across the hearth and the firelight flickered on her skin and revealed the tension in her jaw. She smiled. For the first time, I saw the hint of steel within her softness. ‘You’re so like Edwin, as he was when we met.’

I stammered something. Whatever I’d expected, it wasn’t this.

‘I’ve been waiting for you for so long. Expecting you. Goodness. Did you think I didn’t know?’ She gave a little rattle of laughter, sharp and sudden as hailstones against a window. ‘How blind you must think me. You are his image. And to see you together – why, you might as well put an advertisement on the front page of
The Times.
No chance that he would recognize you, because he hasn’t been looking. But I have. I watched you both walking across the garden last time you were here and I thought – here is Edwin’s daughter come to claim him at last. Have you?’

‘No,’ I answered slowly and I thought carefully about my response. ‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t know why I’m here. When I last came, I didn’t even know he was alive. I came to look for his grave.’

She shivered. ‘Not yet. It’s funny. I’ve been afraid of you for so long and now that you’re here, I find that I’m not afraid any more.’

‘I didn’t know anything, you see. I didn’t know who he was, or where he was or why…’

‘But surely … There, darling…’ She took the last biscuit off the plate and tossed it to Heathcliff. His slobbery jaws snapped round it. ‘Is your grandmother still alive? Surely she told you … No, I can see that she didn’t. How cruel.’

My voice came out as a whisper. ‘She doesn’t know I’m here. No-one knows I’m here.’

‘Oh, my dear,’ she said softly. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Must I?’

‘Tell me. Please.’

‘There’s so little I can tell. All I really know is that Edwin arrived here as a patient in 1920. He’d come from Netley, I believe, but then so had many of our convalescents. Edwin was very withdrawn. He wasn’t interested in anyone or anything. He didn’t seem to have any memory earlier than Netley. But that wasn’t unusual. As my father frequently observed, the treatment he called electrical suggestion often did more harm than good.

‘I was twenty years old, rather spoiled, the darling of an elderly father, and surrounded by hosts of damaged young men, but this was the one I wanted. This was the one I fell in love with. He was … he still is a very handsome, a very gallant man, intelligent, very quiet … but he was damaged and I thought – with the arrogance of youth – that I could cure him. And I suppose I have – in a limited way.

‘A year later, my father died and we were married. The two events were connected. My father would never have allowed the wedding. Never. He told me so.’ She smiled and again I caught the glint of something unexpected, something flinty. ‘I’ve always known what I wanted. Without my father, it was even more important to keep our patients and I was determined to run the house as it ought to be – I wouldn’t allow standards to slip – so easy to become shoddy. I took over the paperwork myself and it wasn’t until then that I found out that it was Lady Ansty who paid Edwin’s bills. I wrote to her, to tell her of our marriage. And it wasn’t until then that I found out that Edwin was already married.’

She paused and looked over at me for my reaction. I just nodded, encouraging her to go on.

‘That’s all,’ she said, simply.

It was nowhere near enough.

The old dog began to thump his tail.

‘Edwin’s back,’ she said. ‘Heathcliff always knows.’

There was the sound of footsteps in the hall and then his voice. ‘Angela? I’m back. Angela, where are you?’

‘Here, darling.’

We both stood and suddenly she gripped me around the top of my arm, with fingers that dug deep into the flesh. I knew that I would carry the marks of her nails for days. I squirmed and pulled back, but she would not relax her grip.

‘Stop it. You’re hurting.’

‘He must not know,’ she hissed, with her face inches from mine. ‘I warn you. He must never know.’

But by the time my father came into the room, we were standing apart and both smiling. He was patting down hair ruffled by the wind and his cheeks were reddened by the cold. He brought in with him the smell of soap and frost and wholesome earth.

‘Edwin,’ she said, ‘do you remember Mrs Kenton?’

‘Oh, yes, I remember you,’ he replied. ‘I showed you my trees and you promised to come back. I’m so glad you’ve kept your promise. Delighted.’

And, keeping my jaw rigid to hide the trembling of my mouth, I shook my father’s hand.

*   *   *

Alone with the portraits and medals, my grandmother has sat, manipulating, pulling the strings and watching us dance. She has watched and said nothing. She has seen my mother marry again. She has seen Kate’s birth. She has seen me struggle in pursuit of the truth.

She has known everything and said nothing. She is the silent canker that has lurked at the heart of this family for three generations.

*   *   *

So I cornered her. I chose my time carefully. I waited until Mother and Tom had gone to Devizes market. They’d caught the early bus and wouldn’t be back until evening. It had taken a bit of persuading to get Tom to agree to go. I suspected that only the thought of the extended market day licence in the surrounding pubs had persuaded him.

I found my grandmother in the morning room. She was balanced on top of a stepladder, taking a duster to the pelmets. I had always seen her as indestructible, glamorous and ageless. Now I saw how stick-thin were her arms and legs, how hunched the top of her spine had become in the last few years. The room was so high that, even from the top of the ladder, she could barely reach the pelmets. With one hand clutching a curtain for balance, she flicked the duster over the top of her head.

‘For heaven’s sake, Grandmother,’ I blurted. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

She wobbled and I caught my breath and wished I’d said nothing. Then she turned carefully. ‘Oh, it’s you, Laura. What a silly question. What does it look as though I’m doing? There are generations of spiders up here building absolute palaces.’

‘Do come down. Slowly. If you really insist on having that done, why didn’t you ask me?’

‘Because you’re never here to ask.’

She felt her way cautiously down each step. When she reached the bottom, I realized for the first time that she had shrunk a couple of inches. How odd, that I had never noticed before. She had always been a small woman and now she was a tiny one.