Echoes of Silence (3 page)
Sonia had stayed to supper after all, since Polly was there.
Polly, energetic and smiling, wearing the glossy brown waves of her long hair drawn back either side and fastened behind with one of her big slides. An art nouveau one tonight, oval, with an asymmetrical design, picked up from a market stall, she said. The layers of dark patterned velvet and other rich materials that Sonia could scarcely have described and would certainly never have dared to wear probably came from the same place. The leaping firelight caught the glow of the velvet, the crimson waistcoat and the curve of the silver slide whenever she turned her head, the huge silver and amber ear-rings swung; Sonia watched, half-jealous, fascinated, as Polly sat with her arm around her daughter and talked so airily of how she had disposed of most of the tangible evidence of the last unhappy years of her life â along, presumably, with her memories of Tony Winslow. She had, she said, put her few remaining things into storage. âAll done and dusted, but let's hope it won't be for long.' She smiled down at Harriet, as if the upheaval had all meant nothing, but perhaps the show of cheerfulness was for the child's sake. âNow we must look for somewhere to live, Hattie. There's that house I saw last time I was here. Maybe it's still on the market.'
âYou can't mean that one in Ingham's Fold?' Freya protested. âThat's ridiculous! It's only a little old terraced house!'
âIt's a very nice one, for all that. The best of those I can afford. I can just about scrape the deposit together.'
âYou could surely get something less â¦' Freya paused. âSomething with more character.'
âNot at the price.'
Freya had been on the verge of saying something like âless working class', Polly had no doubt, was surprised she hadn't come right out with it, but sometimes even Freya remembered such remarks might prompt reminders of her own origins, and that was something she never cared to discuss.
âI don't see what's wrong with staying here,' she insisted. âWe're not exactly short of room. But I suppose you'll do as you please.' She'd withdrawn, as usual opting out, putting up a barrier between herself and anything unpleasant. She'd always been able to act as if on another planet, but only when it suited her. She could be as practical as Polly if she chose.
Polly, in fact, was ambivalent about staying here at Low Rigg, she and her mother living in such close proximity ⦠there was no surer recipe for disaster. She would get irritated by Freya's vagueness and the way the house was being â well, allowed to take over. Or that was what it felt like. But if she said what she thought, it would create an atmosphere. It would be wiser, if only for Harriet's sake, to move out as soon as possible.
The small house she'd inspected on her last visit wasn't Low Rigg by any means, but it was solid, square and decent, and moreover had a back door
and
a front one â not in a back-to-back street as it might have been for the price, but in a little cobbled cul-de-sac and with its rear windows overlooking an unobscured view of the town. There was no front garden, but the flagged back yard had been made into an attractive sitting-out place by the present owners, and it had an apple tree in the corner. It wasn't what she would have chosen, but it was a hundred per cent improvement on the various rented accommodations they'd suffered in the last few years.
and
a front one â not in a back-to-back street as it might have been for the price, but in a little cobbled cul-de-sac and with its rear windows overlooking an unobscured view of the town. There was no front garden, but the flagged back yard had been made into an attractive sitting-out place by the present owners, and it had an apple tree in the corner. It wasn't what she would have chosen, but it was a hundred per cent improvement on the various rented accommodations they'd suffered in the last few years.
âWhy don't we find a flat, like Elf's?' Harriet remarked into the grown-ups' silence, polishing off her portion of the delicatessen treacle tart Polly had brought as a coming-home treat for Harriet, knowing she loved it and correctly surmising that there would be no pudding provided by Freya.
âElf is different,' Freya answered shortly, looking displeased, but silenced.
Elf had once lived in one of the old weavers' cottages down in the village, the last to belong to the Denshaws. It crouched at the end of a row, and had tiny windows and draughts, but after Low Rigg Hall, with its low roofs and cold corners and stone-flagged floors strewn with a varied assortment of rugs, liable to trap the unwary, Elf had declared it held no terrors for her. For a time, she'd had the fanciful notion of using it for its intended purpose. She'd had a loom installed in the original loom-chamber upstairs, where she wove pieces of cloth and Rya-type rugs, by
which she tried to make a living, selling them in craft shops and fairs. It was an ill-conceived idea, not at all suited to her temperament. She'd tried other things, finally ending up managing a small art gallery, which she'd recently bought from the owner. She had a flat in the same mill-conversion where Ginny had her shop, smart and self-contained, like Elf herself. When she moved out of the little house, the Nagles had moved in, after Freya had been persuaded into some modernisation.
which she tried to make a living, selling them in craft shops and fairs. It was an ill-conceived idea, not at all suited to her temperament. She'd tried other things, finally ending up managing a small art gallery, which she'd recently bought from the owner. She had a flat in the same mill-conversion where Ginny had her shop, smart and self-contained, like Elf herself. When she moved out of the little house, the Nagles had moved in, after Freya had been persuaded into some modernisation.
Perhaps thinking of the draughty cottage, Freya shivered and said now, âThrow another log on the fire, Polly, please.' The fire didn't need it but Polly obliged. Like Ginny, Freya complained if her surroundings were not always at Turkish bath temperatures. Yet most of the house remained chilly, even in summer, except for this room. She called it the morning room, if you please, a grand name for a good-sized parlour at the back of the house which the Denshaws had always used as a family living-room, since it was on a south-west-facing corner of the house with windows to either side and consequently received the sun for much of the day. So much sun was a mixed blessing â it had faded and rotted the yellow silk curtains and cracked the white paint on the window sills and panelling, which should never have been painted at all, since they were of oak. But Freya had liked the idea of a yellow and white room, an antidote to so much dark panelling elsewhere, and so, yellow and white it was.
âAnyway, good news,' Polly said. âI've got myself fixed up with a temporary job, starting after Christmas â at your school, Hattie. A teacher's had to leave unexpectedly. How's that for a bit of luck?'
âOh, wicked,' said Harriet.
âIt's not a permanent solution, but it'll do until I start at Dean House.'
Working as she did, teaching children with special needs, she'd counted herself lucky in being promised a permanent position at the one school in Steynton dedicated to such. The position wasn't available to her for six months, so this temporary job was welcome, enabling her to keep Harriet at the school she was already attending, the twins' school, one with an excellent reputation.
Teaching ran in the family: their father, whose whole life it had
been; his brother Philip who, while practising as a doctor for forty years, had also taught music in his spare time to generations of Steynton schoolchildren. Polly herself had chosen the profession almost in default, not knowing what else she wanted to do, though now, specialising as she did, she couldn't imagine any other kind of work she'd like better.
been; his brother Philip who, while practising as a doctor for forty years, had also taught music in his spare time to generations of Steynton schoolchildren. Polly herself had chosen the profession almost in default, not knowing what else she wanted to do, though now, specialising as she did, she couldn't imagine any other kind of work she'd like better.
âWell, I shall be too busy to help you settle in, whatever house you decide on.' Freya smiled beatifically, as if that had ever been a possibility Apparently, she'd decided to go along with Polly, for the moment. âDue to these memoirs of mine, you know,' she added, and paused. âWhich I really wanted to keep a lovely secret, but alas! Dot's been very naughty, telling you. She never could keep anything to herself,' she added roguishly, an attitude so at variance with her usual one it was not to be taken seriously.
Sonia glanced at Polly, saw that this announcement was no news to her. Well, of course, Dot Nagle, once having let the cat out of the bag to Sonia, would have had enough sense to lose no time in telling Polly as well. Sonia shifted uneasily, waiting for the outburst as Freya's limpid gaze turned from one to the other, but Polly, having been prepared, wasn't rising to the bait.
âNot a bad idea, really,' she said mildly, with a swift warning glance at Sonia. âIt's a pity not to leave a record of the family to posterity.'
Freya's rare smile appeared. Catlike, satisfied. âAbsolutely right, Polly! And when I say my memoirs â well, I really mean the book will be about the Denshaws â but I am part of them, after all! There'll only be a teensy little chapter on me.'
âEdited, I assume,' Polly said.
There was the slightest of pauses. Then, âOf course!' Freya declared, but it was accompanied by the Look. The one that had once made her famous on two continents, the haughty smoulder that had started a whole new generation of look-alike models. A new creation, a new face, right for the time, it had launched her on a meteoric career. Now she allowed it to remain only for a moment, then determinedly cleared her expression. âI shall need your help when we get to the family bit, Polly. Yours and Philip's. You two have always been so keen on that sort of thing - you know so much more about it than I do.'
By which Polly assumed that, although Freya had apparently
been working with this writer woman for nearly two months, they hadn't yet got beyond the âteensy little chapter' on Freya herself.
been working with this writer woman for nearly two months, they hadn't yet got beyond the âteensy little chapter' on Freya herself.
âI'd be delighted.' The intrinsic interest of it apart, it would mean that she and Philip could keep an eye on what was said â if that wasn't already too late. Freya could be discreet, stubbornly so when it suited her, but if she wanted to say anything, nothing would deter her.
Tall and willow-slim still, she was seventy, and could have passed for younger had it not been for the arthritis which had crippled her of latter years. She hated having to walk with the aid of a stick, she who had once pranced so elegantly down catwalks in many of the world's capital cities; she loathed the heavy, orthopaedic shoes she was forced to endure, drawing attention away from them as much as possible by wearing trousers or long skirts, though this was hardly a penance, since they further served to accentuate her grace and slenderness. Tonight she was immaculate as usual, in beautifully tailored dove grey slacks and a heavy silk shirt the colour of aubergines, with a lilac cashmere button-through jersey thrown casually around her shoulders; big pearl ear studs gleamed beneath the immaculately cut curve of dark silver hair. She was one of those women whose skin, through luck â or constant pampering â had stayed soft and elastic, and tonight, in the glowing lamplight, it looked radiant.
Polly was never quite sure whether love or admiration predominated in her wary relationship with Freya. She'd always stood her corner, challenged the hidden steel in her mother's personality, but inevitably she'd been drawn back by Freya's â charm, was it? Charisma?
Call it what you would, combined with her striking looks, it was a quality which had knocked out their father, already middle-aged, the successful and respected headmaster of the local grammar school, when he first set eyes on her. They'd met at a dinner party given by old friends of his, at a time when Freya had come north to model clothes at a prestigious charity fashion show in one of Yorkshire's stately homes, and Laurence's hosts had regarded their guest as something of a catch. What had possessed him, a supposedly confirmed bachelor, to ask her to marry him? To assume she'd be prepared to throw up her
glamorous modelling career to become the wife of a mere schoolmaster - one with a big house, local status and a small private income, to be sure, but none of them anything to write home about? Maybe he hadn't really expected her to say yes, but she had. Their marriage had apparently been the subject of bitching and speculation in all the newspaper gossip columns and those reputed to be in the know gave it three months, yet it had endured for the next twelve years, until Laurence had suddenly died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-four.
glamorous modelling career to become the wife of a mere schoolmaster - one with a big house, local status and a small private income, to be sure, but none of them anything to write home about? Maybe he hadn't really expected her to say yes, but she had. Their marriage had apparently been the subject of bitching and speculation in all the newspaper gossip columns and those reputed to be in the know gave it three months, yet it had endured for the next twelve years, until Laurence had suddenly died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-four.
It was a bit daunting, growing up knowing that your mother had been the most talked of fashion icon of her day, the Naomi Campbell, the Kate Moss, the Evangelista of her time. Polly had embarked on a school project on women's magazines in her senior year, and had come across her mother's striking face on so many old covers of
Vogue
and other magazines that she'd shrunk with embarrassment and been tempted to give up the project in favour of something else. She'd been heavily into feminism at the time, and ashamed of a mother who'd been, for heaven's sake, a
model
! A lovely face and nothing between her ears.
Vogue
and other magazines that she'd shrunk with embarrassment and been tempted to give up the project in favour of something else. She'd been heavily into feminism at the time, and ashamed of a mother who'd been, for heaven's sake, a
model
! A lovely face and nothing between her ears.
Well, those were just feminist clichés, the sort of excess baggage that Polly had long since thrown overboard, and had they ever been true of Freya? Something of a lightweight she might be, but her shrewdness was never in doubt. That, presumably, was why she'd married Laurence, calculating that time was not on her side, that her fame and glory couldn't last for much longer. Cameras showed no mercy and she was knocking thirty. She was untrained for anything else and she'd always lived extravagantly. Perhaps she'd felt it better to withdraw while she was still at the height of her success and grasp whatever security was offered to her.
Marriage. Whoever, outside it, could tell whether it was successful or not? Polly had no means of judging that of her parents, since Freya gave no indication and Laurence had died when she was only three. But Freya had never showed signs of regretting what she'd done â though she talked and gossiped endlessly, wistfully, with Dot Nagle about those glamorous years, dropping the names of couturiers and fashion photographers still famous. Encouraged by Dot, her erstwhile success grew in her mind, exaggerated beyond what it had been. Yet she seemed to have accepted without grumbles the vastly different life she'd
found, playing the headmaster's wife when strictly necessary with charm and grace â providing she could make her own rules and have her little expeditions up to town now and again. Though still, as she'd always been, Ruth among the alien corn.
found, playing the headmaster's wife when strictly necessary with charm and grace â providing she could make her own rules and have her little expeditions up to town now and again. Though still, as she'd always been, Ruth among the alien corn.
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