East Fortune (8 page)

Jack appeared with a white face and a clown's hat. He was carrying a jester's stick, and waved it at Krystyna.

‘I'm sorry about this. I really am,' he said.

‘Here comes Sir Toby,' Douglas called, swaggering with a fake pot belly, carrying a half-emptied bottle of wine. ‘Now for a bit of wenching. Where's the lovely Mrs Maclean?'

‘He'll be drunk by four o'clock,' Emma told Krystyna. ‘As long as he doesn't try to sober up with a swim.'

‘Are you two all right?' Jack asked.

‘What does it look like?'

Tessa emerged from the house dressed in black with a veil.

‘Do you think I look suitably miserable?' she asked.

‘You're supposed to be in mourning,' Ian said. ‘Not on your way to a ball.'

Tessa had not met Krystyna and came over to introduce herself.

‘It's very brave of you to come, you know.'

‘It is fine. I had nothing to do.'

‘I'm sure that's not true.'

Tessa had tied back her faded auburn hair to reveal a pale freckled face that had once been open but now appeared hesitant and guarded. Krystyna could tell, almost immediately, that something must have happened to her in the past.

Then she noticed Tessa's left arm through the black gauze of her dress. Livid burn scars mottled and puckered the flesh. Tessa noticed the look and Krystyna felt embarrassed. She wished Jack had told her more about his family.

‘You look very elegant in the sailor jacket,' said Tessa. ‘Are you one of Jack's students?'

‘No.'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘No, I mean I am older than I look, I think. I am twenty-seven.'

‘I see. But how did you meet?'

Krystyna had not prepared her answer.

‘In a pub.'

‘Jack – in a pub? That's more his brother's line…'

‘He is a good man.'

‘I know.'

‘But we are friends. You understand?'

‘Of course. But nobody minds.'

‘I think I mind,' said Krystyna. ‘I don't want people thinking it is more.'

‘Your secret's safe with me.'

‘It's not a secret…'

‘Beginners, please,'
Ian called. ‘The stage is set. The musicians are ready. Strike up, pipers!'

Emma walked over and took Krystyna by the arm.

‘Come with me. We're on in a minute.' She took her to a wooded area at the back of the stage. ‘Have you got your script?'

‘I learned it.'

‘You've
learned
it?'

‘Jack said I should try. So I did. As a surprise.'

‘Well, you'll be the most popular girl in town, I can tell you. Not that you weren't already…'

Those not in the opening scene took their seats and the play began. The Maclean girls played their music, Angus made his Orsino as foppish as he could but, as a large, bearded former rugby player, he was having difficulties.

Ian watched his family with proprietorial intensity, waiting for his first lines. It was going to be a long afternoon.

Emma strode down centre, looked around and declaimed:
What country, friends, is this?

Krystyna answered:
This is Illyria, lady.

And what should I do in Illyria? My brother, he is in Elysium, Perchance he is not drowned.

Krystyna was surprised when Emma spoke the words out loud, enunciating Viola's grief. Everything she had been unable to speak about herself was contained in the verse of the play. She had been trying to forget about Sandy but the thought of him came back, without warning, as if it had never been away. She felt the language of the play recede as the memory of him returned. She had not expected tears but now she could not speak without her voice fragmenting.

‘Very good, Krystyna,' Ian shouted at the end of the scene. ‘Very moving.'

Jack continued with Emma:
Good madonna, why mournest thou?
Good fool, for my brother's death.
I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
I know his soul is in heaven, fool.

He could see Krystyna lighting a cigarette as soon as her scene was over, hoping that no one would notice. Her hands were shaking. Jack had forgotten that the play contained such sadness. This was supposed to be a comedy, he thought, a festive celebration to while away the darkness of winter.

The two Maclean girls began to imitate the pompous way in which Ian Henderson walked, marching up and down with their heads high and their arms swinging, muttering in posh gruff English, ‘Carry on,' ‘Do keep up,' ‘For goodness' sake,' their mouths full of marbles. Jack and Angus began to laugh as their father strove valiantly to hold on to his audience.

I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will put off gross acquaintance, I will be point-device the very man
… ‘Will you stop arsing about over there…'

The children giggled in a frightened way. They turned to see where their mother was standing.

‘Come on, darlings,' said Mrs Maclean. ‘Let's go and play where he can't see you.'

‘Thank you …' Ian resumed his performance:
I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me; for every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me.

Mrs Maclean took her daughters round to the side of the house, where they could run around without disrupting the play. Then she returned to continue her performance.

Ian called out instructions in between scenes, determined that there should be no letting up, but the rest of his family had begun to flag. Elizabeth had fallen asleep under a parasol, Stewart Maclean was reading the Saturday papers, and Douglas was drinking his way through the part of Toby Belch. Only Emma and Tessa were taking the play seriously.

I prithee tell me what thou thinkst of me.
That you do think you are not what you are.
If I think so, I think the same of you.
Then think you right: I am not what I am.
I would you were as I would have you be
…

Jack watched his father walking up and down backstage. He was going over his lines, anxious for his cue, determined not to make a mistake.

He wondered if he was the only one who had noticed him forgetting more than in previous years: his slow delivery and decline in energy. He had begun to take on the look of a man who was frightened of being caught out.

They reached the part where Feste had to drive Malvolio mad. Shakespearean comedy was crueller than Jack had remembered.

They have here propertied me, keep me in darkness, send ministers unto me, asses, and do all they can to face me out of my wits.

Krystyna lit another cigarette and walked across the lawn to see the view of the fields beyond the house. The heat had brought out the aroma of garlic in the country lanes and the air was heavy with summer. She watched the bees gather nectar and return to the hives. She remembered eating honey as a child, direct from an old teaspoon, and drinking ice-cold water from a metal cup. How old had she been at the time? Five? Seven?

She tried to think where the two little girls had gone. No one was paying them any attention.

She walked round to the side of the house to see the Macleans' younger daughter reaching into the swimming pool. She had dropped an object into the water, something shiny like a mirror or a brooch, and Krystyna saw her topple forwards into the deep end.

It happened so quietly, with the light bright on the surface, that for a few seconds Krystyna thought that she was dreaming.

‘Oh,' the other girl said. Then she looked at Krystyna. ‘Jasmine's fallen in.'

The figure in the water was upside down and sinking to the bottom of the pool. Her dress billowed above her. The paisley darkened as it absorbed the water, spreading out over the surface, obscuring the girl's head.

Krystyna watched, intrigued at the pattern forming, the spread of the clothing and the weight of the material.

Then she woke up. She realised that she had to jump in and save the child.

She dropped her cigarette and dived from the side of the pool. She felt the cold of the water burst around her. I'm
pregnant,
she thought. What is this doing to my baby?

The costume from the play was heavier than she had anticipated, pulling her down to the bottom of the pool. She should have taken the jacket off but there had not been time.

Krystyna pushed herself forwards and turned on to her side. Then she reached out her right arm and felt for the girl's waist, pulling her along.

She stretched her left arm out wide, making half-strokes through the water, and used her legs to kick them forwards. Krystyna was running out of breath but wanted to surface once she was back within her depth.

She felt the brightness of the day, the sun in her eyes. Then she could hear the child coughing, alive. No words, no call for mother, no tears.

Krystyna stood up and stumbled back through the water, turning Jasmine round, holding her against her chest, patting her on the back as she choked back to life.

‘
Uspokój si
prosze,'
Krystyna said.'
Spokojnie moje dziecko, juz wszystko jest dobrze, cichutko.'
She was surprised how easily the motherly gestures came.

Jasmine's sister was standing where she had left her. No one else had seen them.

Krystyna held Jasmine at a slight distance and looked into her shocked white face. Then she swept the hair away from her eyes.

‘Better now?' she asked.

Her own clothes felt heavy and cold. She sat down to rest on the edge of the pool and noticed that Jasmine had cut her ankle.

‘Bracey gone,' Jasmine said. ‘All wet.'

Krystyna took charge.

‘Let's find towels?' She looked at Jasmine's sister. ‘Do you know where they are?'

‘Me show,' said the girl.

They walked back to the house, drying and changing in the scullery. Krystyna did not know whether she would say anything or
if the incident would be kept as a secret between them. She tried not to think what it would have been like had she not decided to leave the play: the parental horror, the child floating, attempts at resuscitation, the ambulance called, people standing, activity redundant, lives ruined.

‘Good heavens,' cried Mrs Maclean when they returned. ‘What's happened to Jasmine?'

‘Jas-jas fell in the water…'

‘Well, that was very silly of you, wasn't it, darling?' She looked at Krystyna but continued speaking to her daughter. ‘And did the nice lady fish you out?'

‘Lost bracey,' said the girl.

‘Never mind, darling, we can buy you another one. Was it very frightening?'

‘Cold now.'

‘Let me see what we've got in the car.' Mrs Maclean picked up her daughter and smiled briefly at Krystyna before walking away. ‘So kind of you,' she said. ‘I hope you didn't get too wet.'

Krystyna realised that being foreign made her anonymous. The family and their friends were so settled that nothing unnerved them. She could not imagine what had given them such confidence or decide if it was all a façade. People could be so careless, she thought, so unaware of how quickly a life could change or be ruined.

The play was nearing its end. Jack was singing about the wind and the rain. Krystyna stood and listened. She could not see him as a little tiny boy at all. All she could see was sadness, a lost man who never would ‘thrive by swaggering'.

He was looking out to a fixed point on the horizon. He was distant as he sang, far from his family. Krystyna thought it was the way she herself might be when she could no longer concentrate on what people were saying to her.

A great while ago the world begun
…

She thought of the last time she had seen a performance of Shakespeare at home. It had been a political production of
Hamlet.
They had gone as a family and her father had become annoyed when, towards the end of the play, they had stressed the folly of
defending a patch of Poland against the army of Fortinbras.
It is already garrisoned.

She could picture her mother before she was ill, gathering blackberries and redcurrants for jam, making sure the family could carry the fruits of summer into the colder months, wanting to please, doing all that she could to alleviate her husband's temper.

But that's all one, our play is done,
And we'll strive to please you every day.

A group of women began to lay a long table by the bay window. Elizabeth Henderson had said that it was so much more civilised to eat outdoors in the summer. She walked slowly along the dinner table, checking that the cutlery was properly aligned and that the seating arrangement conformed to the plan she had drawn up that morning.

The servants in the play had been friends from nearby villages. Now they became waiters at the table. One of them brought out six or seven garden flares and began staking them in the ground. When she lit them she found that they produced more flame than she had anticipated and one of the torches burst into light next to Tessa.