Colouring In (23 page)

It was a cool morning in Holland Park: leaves beginning to turn, intimations of autumn, my favourite season. Having walked so fast I was out of breath. I sat on a bench to watch the peacocks strutting on the grass, trailing their trains of iridescent greens and blues and aquamarines, the colours of Turkish seas, and the shot silks I once bought Isabel in China. They had a snobbish, proprietorial look that made me smile. Should I deign to approach their territory, I felt, they would make known their disapproval in some alarming way. Already they were squawking their warning in horrible voices, ill-matched to their magnificent feathers that seemed to come from wooden throats. One of them raised its tail. Through half closed eyes I saw that a giant fan appeared to be approaching me with some speed. I was determined not to be intimidated, and kept my seat. The peacock came to a halt at the edge of the grass, considered me for a few moments, head on one side. Having summed up the very small potential of my threat, it turned back to join its companions.

‘What the hell am I doing, sitting in the park watching peacocks?’ I thought. I wished Bert was in London. Had he been here, I might have talked to him. He was always so patient with my glooms, so wise in his advice and encouragement.

Then, from nowhere, something appeared. Where do ideas come from? That is the question writers are so persistently asked, and find hard, if not impossible, to answer. In my own case, a scrap of reality – an incident, or an overheard sentence – sometimes spark an idea. That wasn’t so this morning. There I was sitting, despairing, watching peacocks in the park when suddenly I knew without doubt what should be the subject of my next attempt. It would be something that was becoming familiar to me, and must be familiar to many others.

I stood up, a chill down my spine and more ordinary cold across my shoulders and chest. Wished I’d worn a jumper. I hurried back to the car and was glad of its warmth.

I knew this rising of hope, this foolish excitement, so well. I would surf the wave, buy quires of new paper, spend God knows how many hours trying – and this time, I would tell myself yet again, I really believe it could work.

I longed to tell Isabel. But I decided not to just yet. The right moment would reveal itself. I stopped on a double yellow line to buy stacks of paper – prematurely, I know, nothing to print out just yet – But it was a positive step. I came out to find a parking ticket, and didn’t care. The stationer’s plastic bag sat beside me on the passenger seat, symbol of my new and thrilling plan.

I was on my way, again. On my way.

Gwen gone! Huge, secret relief. Life won’t be quite back to normal till she returns to work in a day or two. But oh, to have the house to myself again. She was the most perfect, undemanding and appreciative guest, but the fact is I don’t much like visitors of any kind. On Monday morning I was up in my studio even before Dan and Sylvie had left, and began on an order for six masks which will be very late unless I go back to work in the evenings for a while, too. Well, that’s fine. Dan always disappears into his study – this play seems to be taking a particularly long time to finish. From time to time I rather like working at night, then meeting Dan for a glass of whisky and the ten o clock news. I can see that some people might think our life very dull.

I suppose it might have been the whole thing of having Gwen here, upsetting my routine, that made me so irritable, and then so awful to Carlotta when she came round on Sunday. She will do that, appear without warning, and I hate it. I’d planned to collapse for a few hours with my book, while Dan and Sylvie were out. Her arrival put paid to that idea.

I fear I was not just unfriendly, but sort of scoring over her, too, and getting some pleasure from it. The Bert thing: letting her know I’d had a long talk to him. She, obviously, wouldn’t ring him unless it was some work thing to do with his house. They’re not that sort of friends. I think he’s bored stiff by her pushiness.

Anyhow, I watched her face carefully. She put up a very good show of slight interest and not caring. But I could read her: she was jealous. Why? I think I know. For all her protestations, she wouldn’t be averse to some interest or admiration from Bert. I mean, anyone can see his attraction, and she’s become used to money. So it was mean of me to goad her a bit, but in an uncharitable way I enjoyed it at the time. She was in an odd mood, anyway: huffy, edgy. Said she’d been going out a lot, was lacking sleep. God I’d hate her life. I felt bound to ask her to stay to supper, though perhaps my invitation was lacking in enthusiasm. Luckily she said no, she had a date with ‘someone.’ I didn’t give her the pleasure of asking who.

Then, of course, when she’d gone I felt awful. I’d been mean, bitchy, behaved shamefully. After supper, when Dan was safely in his study, I rang her. Rather unsurprisingly, she was in – some quick story about the date’s airplane being held up in Paris. I know her face-saving lies, and offered sympathy. She must have known I guessed the truth.

Anyhow, I apologised. I mean I really was sorry for being such a cow. Carlotta is dementing at times, but she has a vivacity which is infectious. Loving her is an old habit. She took all this very nicely: said she quite understood what a trial it must have been having Gwen, and how lovely for me to get back to normal. Then, after a small friendly pause, she said that, actually, she had talked to Bert in Norfolk, too.

Yes, she, too, had rung him, but only to ask whether she could throw out his old chair. We both laughed, recognised we were quits, somehow. Carlotta’s not one to bear a grudge or maintain even the slightest hostility after a dispute: it’s one of her many qualities. I ended by saying that once Bert was back – and, as neither of us knew when that would be, we were doubly bound in ignorance – we should all have a get together here.

‘I’d like that,’ she said, and I knew from her voice she meant it.

Honestly. Grownups talk about children being moody. But what about them? Ma and Pa have been so weird lately. I’m sure they think whatever it is that’s bugging them doesn’t show, but it does. Mama’s been vaguer than ever, hardly seems to hear my questions. She’s sort of on automatic pilot. She’s not bad tempered, exactly, but just distracted. I asked her what was the matter and she gave that boring old reply about there weren’t enough hours in the day. I think that secretly she found having poor Gwen to stay was a bit difficult. I mean looking after her, and the housework and everything on top of her masks. I see that was difficult, but not
that
difficult.

As for Papa, I don’t know. I suppose it’s something to do with his play, which he seems to have been at forever. But he never talks about it and I don’t like to ask. I just wait for the day when it will all work for him and we’ll all be going off in a limo to the first night and everything. No one’s come round for ages. Every evening it’s the same: just the three of us for supper, subdued, each of us caught up in our own thoughts, I suppose, and not bothering to make much of an effort. Boring.

What I actually think is that perhaps the rentals are having a mid-life crisis. Elli says that’s what’s happening to her parents, especially her father. She heard him saying to someone he thought his pulling power was on the wane – I mean, like, who could bear to be pulled by Elli’s father? Fat and bald. Horror. Anyhow he’s taken up jogging. We saw him once on the way to school. In shorts –
shorts!
Even Papa, who never says anything mean about anyone, thought it was a pretty gross sight. I didn’t tell Elli we saw him. She would have died.

As for her mother, her mid-life crisis apparently means she spends even more money on facials and Pilates and having her hair blonded and aromatherapy and all that rubbish. Elli says it’s embarrassing how much time and money she spends on herself these days. She now only actually works in the mornings but is still on the telephone all the time. And what
for?
That’s what we both wonder. We had a long talk about it all the other day – Elli was in tears because her mother had mentioned having a face-lift, which Elli thought would be completely awful. I tried to cheer her up. We got pretty serious about what it must be like being grown-up: we tried to imagine being forty something, and we ended up saying what we really hoped was that we wouldn’t be so vain. We made a promise that if ever one of us saw the other starting to do daft vain things, we’d say something. We’re determined to keep that promise. Though I do sometimes wonder if Elli and I will still
be
friends in thirty years’ time.

Back to work, thank the Lord, and pretty much my old self. I feel much better. My face is almost its normal colour and I’m full of modest plans. I think the whole incident must have given me a jolt.

Mrs. G had done her best but she’s not a natural housewife. I had to give a thorough turn out to most of the rooms, and plainly the stairs hadn’t been hoovered for a week or so. There were six or seven of Mr. G’s shirts to iron – Mrs. G says she ruins anything she tries to iron, so I took some home with me. I didn’t say anything, of course. In fact I congratulated her on how well she’d done, and she was very pleased. I went on to make a little joke. I said you don’t really need me, Mrs. Grant. You can manage on your own. She looked horrified, I have to say. It’s nice to know you’re appreciated.

I was rather dreading doing the spare-room. It had come to feel like my room, and I’d hated leaving it after my lovely week there which I shall always look back on as if it was a dream. But in a funny way, once I’d left it, it had just become the spare-room again, nothing to do with me, so I didn’t mind. It even looked different. Well, I suppose I was sat so long in the arm chair looking out of the window, the visitor. And now back in my job I was busy getting the tops done and everything. No wonder it looked different. ‘You’re a daft one, sometimes, Gwen,’ I told myself.

There’s a date set now for the identity parade. I had ever such a nice letter from the police. I’m a bit nervous, of course – I’ve never had occasion to be in a police station – but they assured me it would all be over very quickly and there was nothing to worry about. Mrs. G said the same: nothing to worry about. She was pleased they were going to some trouble to try to track down the man who mugged me, and all the others. So was I. I was pleased to be able to help their efforts.

What I did think was, it was time to buy a new coat. I hadn’t had a single piece of new clothing for as long as I could remember, and this was just the occasion. I wanted to look smart for our Metropolitan Police. I wanted to look like a responsible person who could rise above adversity, and my old coat wouldn’t be much use at that. So I decided that I’d spend a nice quiet hour or so in Marks: treat myself to a new bag – the one the man got away with was on its last legs and there were only a few pounds in the purse – and a coat or jacket that would suit all weathers. I’d not shopped for clothes for ages. I set off quite excited.

In the week that followed my meeting with Rosie, a great deal happened very quickly. I didn’t change my mind about buying her house. I remained convinced it was the best idea I’d had for years – one of those fallen from the sky, coincidence things. Or fate, perhaps: my arriving over the garden wall just as potential buyers, not wanting the house, were leaving. Such happenings, I like to believe, are kindly arranged by the Gods.

Rosie and I got down to things the day after we met. I agreed to pay the price that the agent had suggested. And it was amazing to find how quickly the negotiations for buying a house can be accomplished if two decent lawyers work keenly towards the same purpose. By the end of the week the contract was signed, the deposit paid. I spurned the idea of a surveyor: I was aware a lot of structural work needed doing, and had no interest in knowing exactly how much it would cost me before the place was mine. My London house, which I would sell as soon as possible, would be worth at least three times what I was to pay Rosie.

I spent part of every day with her, and bought three more of her paintings. She was pleased to think they would stay on the walls.

We went through the house very carefully, room by room. She pointed out the copious work that would have to be done. The garden that I would inherit, though, was perfection. I’d always fancied myself as something of a gardener. I’d have the time, now, and would enjoy learning.

Rosie supplied me with constant carrot cake: I took her bottles of claret, which she loved. One night I drove her to the hotel for dinner. She had dressed herself up in an old velvet dress, and several scarves that shimmered and glittered, gipsy-like. She looked marvellous. Must have been quite something when she was young, I thought again. What a dinner, what a companion! We had already discovered she had known several of my parents’ Norfolk friends, but she was always vague about her own past and I did not press her. No: we talked about local poets, and the crisis of the eroding dunes, and job possibilities for my new life. She suggested several causes – mostly environmental – that would benefit from both my money and my business experience. I said I would look into all of them as soon as I returned. She then questioned me, a look of concern in her merry eyes, about how I thought I’d manage living alone on the marsh?

This was something I had not thought of much, knowing it would be fine. I’d never shunned solitude. I’d always been attracted by the idea: far better to be on your own than to be with the wrong person, I said. At this she pursed her lips, questioned my belief that I’d be happy. It was one thing to live alone when you had a great passion in life which you could pursue without interruption – painting, writing, composing, whatever – quite another if you had nothing specific to do. Then, the days could be long … and lonely. I assured her I was pretty good at regimenting my days, and once I’d offered my services to various local organisations, I’d be off to work every day, as in London or New York. The joy would be coming back to the marsh. Rosie still looked doubtful.

By the time we were drinking brandy with our coffee she had become emboldened enough to express slight curiosity about the romantic part of my life. I felt it safe – and rather agreeable – to be able to tell her that I was in love with a married woman, my best friend’s wife, which made it hard to contemplate anyone else. She smiled: said she could imagine that. For over forty years I’d been on my own, I said, and quite happy, and it might be too late to change. I’d probably become stuck in my ways and no woman would be prepared to put up with them. – Besides, where was I going to find a wife on the marsh?