Encounters (42 page)

She awoke next morning in a state of rebellion. She rang the office and said she had flu. (She still, childlike, crossed her fingers when she told a blatant lie, however expedient.)

Then as soon as the shops were open she went to the greengrocer. Before he had even set his wares on the pavement she had bought two large earthenware pots of hyacinths. They were half opened into lush heavy white heads and already their scent as she carried them home was overpoweringly exotic. She set them down near the phone and then reached for her address book.

Mary seemed astonished at her request, but agreed quite amiably to meet the 10.50. Kate felt guilty as soon as she hung up. She wanted to impose herself on someone else’s life. She wanted to borrow some of Mary’s serenity. She wanted quite simply to steal a day for herself; and that day had to have the essence of perfection within it. It had begun with the new treasured feeling of aloneness and with white hyacinths. It continued with a taxi: the plutocrat’s barouche, as George called them, she remembered defiantly as she settled herself back on the broad seat. The bus queues lined the road as they went past and she had an irresistible urge to thumb her nose at them. But she did resist. She had stood dirt-splashed on the edge of the gutter in the nine o’clock queues too often herself to fling insults in their poor resigned faces.

Victoria was a palace of promises; the train, as it fled into the spring countryside, a magic dragon, a princess’s carriage, a mystery tour. She gazed at the tiny pale green buds on the trees, the yellow whip-lash branches of the stirring willows along the line and ignoring the other passengers began quietly to hum to herself.

The train, a conspirator in her list of happy things, was on time as was Mary with her mud-splashed estate car with the silky spaniel in the back, the baby in the baby seat and shopping next to it. She leaned across and opened the door.

The set had fallen out of Mary’s hair, Kate noticed as she climbed in and she felt a ridiculous sense of being let down. The immaculate clothes had been replaced by stained jeans, and a broad kimono top, beneath which she might or might not be pregnant of a baby elephant, lacked even a suspicion of the Harrods’ account which had so shocked Kate before. Kate had a horrible suspicion suddenly that perhaps Mary wore her best clothes for ‘going up to town’.

Mary put her foot flat. ‘Got to get home before the washing machine stops,’ she said apologetically. ‘Otherwise Gerry’s shirts will crease. If you’d rung last night I’d have done them then.’ She swung the car off the main road into a narrow high-hedged lane.

Kate raised a deprecating hand. She wrinkled her nose. There was a mingled odour of dog and regurgitated milk in the car which filled her suddenly with nausea and she closed her eyes wearily. The
joie de vivre
which had given her the impetus for the day had gone. She was suddenly limp and drained. She followed Mary into the house, loaded with shopping and therefore unable to fend off the inquisitive spaniel from her white trousers.

Basically the house was all she had hoped and expected. It was pleasant, detached, attractive, with a gnarled fruit tree on the lawn and mossy grass sprouting through the paving stones of the drive, but her call had obviously caught Mary unawares. The hoover lay in the hall surrounded by looped flex. A duster and tin of polish sat on the hall table and she glimpsed baskets of washing in the kitchen.

Mary straightened up from putting the baby in its bouncing chair. ‘I’m sorry about the mess, Kate. It’s lucky it was you. I knew you wouldn’t mind. If you had been Sally or someone like that I’d have told you not to come.’

Who was Sally? Kate groped back in her mind to school days and vaguely pictured a tall girl with buck teeth and freckles.

‘She’s married a baronet, you know.’ Mary puffed slightly as she bent to collect a squeaky toy from beneath the sideboard. ‘He’s very nice; they came to dinner last week, but I could see her looking round to see if I’d dusted on top of the pictures.’ She giggled and Kate relaxed a little. That giggle made her feel more at home. So did the sight of the kettle going on. But Mary’s remark rankled a little. I wanted you to bother for me, a little voice cried out inside her somewhere. I do care what it looks like. I wanted it all to be perfect.

‘And had you?’ She didn’t mean her voice to sound quite so weary.

‘Had I what?’ Mary was putting hot milk in the coffee and Kate shuddered. She had imagined the steaming saucepan contained some concoction for the baby.

‘Dusted the pictures.’

‘Sugar? – Yes, of course I had.’ Mary giggled again. ‘I even dusted the cat that evening.’

Kate spent the rest of the morning as a bystander feeling very much in the way but constantly being reassured: ‘I know you won’t mind, Kate; I must get it done. Just let me finish this then I can sit back and relax. No, no. I don’t want you to help when you’ve come for the day.’

The baby’s lunch was dreadful. Mary spread sieved apples liberally all over its face then to Kate’s horror she sat down on the kitchen chair, and heaving her shirt up to her chin, proceeded to expose a heavy blue-veined breast. The baby seized hungrily and painfully, Kate saw aghast, at the raw nipple. My God, I’m a prude! she thought to herself. She was not sure where to look. There was nothing beautiful in the sight of mother and child. The one seemed ungainly, the other obscenely greedy and the expression on Mary’s face, if totally unembarrassed, was anything but placid.

‘The dog’s trying to get into the cupboard, Kate. Clout him for me, will you? And turn down the peas while you’re up, there’s a dear.’

But at last it was all over. The baby was put to sleep in its pram after its nappy had been changed, mercifully out of sight and not on the kitchen table as Kate had gloomily expected. The dog was put out, the housework at last seemed to be if not finished, then suspended, Mary produced some expensive sherry and the lunch began to smell as though it were nearly ready.

Mary sat down and smiled with relief. ‘All under control at last, so we can talk.’ She eyed Kate with disarming directness. ‘How’s George?’

‘Away for a few days. I was browned off alone in the flat. I hoped you wouldn’t mind me coming.’

‘Of course not.’ Impulsively Mary leaned forward and put her hand on Kate’s. ‘I thought perhaps there was something wrong. You looked so lost and unhappy when I saw you in London.’

‘I did?’ Kate was shocked. ‘Well, I’m not, or at least …’ She hesitated. ‘I’m not unhappy, Mary, and I love George dearly, but perhaps you’re right about being lost.’ Shrugging, she held out her glass for a refill as Mary uncorked the bottle again. ‘I feel sort of empty; purposeless.’

‘Have you and George ever thought of getting married?’

It was strange, thought Kate, how married people so often leaped on that idea as being the true panacea. She shook her head violently. ‘He doesn’t believe in it and I, well, I don’t think I believe in it either. Not with him.’

Mary glanced up shrewdly. ‘Keeping your options open? That doesn’t sound to me as though you’re wildly satisfied with him, or it would be “George for ever, right or wrong”.’

‘Is that how you feel about your husband?’

‘Gerry?’ Mary laughed. ‘I’d never really thought, but I suppose I do in a way. I’m very happy here. I have a good man to live with, a lovely child and a nice house. I’m awfully lucky.’ She stopped for a moment, frowning and then went on. ‘But it’s more than that. I’ve stopped striving after impossible goals. Most of my dreams are realizable – perhaps not now, but one day.’

Kate was pleating the tablecloth between her fingers. ‘At least you still have your dreams. That’s my problem. I seem to have lost all mine and my ambition. But not because I’m content. I’ve given up or lost interest; I’m not sure which.’

She glanced up under her eyelashes and saw Mary absently studying her finger nails.

‘Perhaps that’s part of growing up; what they call maturity.’ Mary, getting up to strain the peas into the sink, was enveloped in a cloud of steam.

‘No, it’s not. There’s something else wrong. Something deep down inside me. I think it is George in a negative sort of way. When I’m with him I don’t bother about things; nothing seems to matter.’ She noticed what she was doing to the tablecloth suddenly and tried to quickly flatten out the creases.

‘George dominates you too much; he’s killing the real you.’ Mary put a plate before her. ‘I told you before, you ought to leave him. Now stop worrying about it for a bit and eat.’

After lunch they walked in the fields, Kate in borrowed gum boots, the baby in a kind of back pack on Mary’s shoulders.

‘Do you still believe in God?’ Mary asked suddenly, in the companionable silence as they watched the spaniel running figures of eight in the meadow grass.

‘I’m not sure.’ Kate answered without thinking and then stopped short. Two weeks ago she would have said no. Two years ago she would have said no.

‘I do. It helps you know. One is no longer so terrifyingly alone.’

They climbed the stile and set off up the edge of a field. A delicate shadow of green lay across it; spring stirring deep in the soil.

The route Mary took led them back over another stile into the ancient churchyard. Rooks were busy in the budding beeches behind the belfry and the sun was slanting through the lichened stones, showing up eroded inscriptions.

‘I often rest here for five minutes.’ Mary sat down squarely on a tombstone. ‘It’s peaceful here. A good place to collect one’s thoughts. You ought to look in the church. It’s got a beautiful medieval screen.’ She sat and watched, the panting dog at her feet, as Kate wandered to the door and lifted the heavy latch.

The church was shadowy and very cold. The thin spring sunlight was filtered by the windows to throw ice-diamond facets onto the worn pavings. Slowly she walked up the aisle. She hadn’t been inside a church since Mary’s wedding. She tried to remember when she had last prayed. It had been a selfish prayer; a please, please, make it all come right prayer and it had got nowhere. It was illogical to pray to a God in whom one did not believe. It was not even permissible as a safety valve, just in case He might exist. But what if one had genuine doubts?

She raised her eyes to the agony of crucifixion in the east window. For six hundred years men and women had knelt in this church before that image. She could feel their prayers and their peace around her. She could almost smell the incense which had not been burned there for four hundred years.

Thoughtfully she slipped into a pew and, half-embarrassed, knelt. But her mind was still empty of prayer. She searched for the long-familiar words, hesitating as her lips fumbled silently and then gave up. There was too much turmoil still inside her.

Mary was wandering around reading the tombstones when she came out at last. They made their way back to the house in silence.

Only when they had drunk their tea and were watching the baby kicking happily on the rug before the fire did Mary allude to her long wait in the churchyard. ‘Did it help at all? I often go there to be alone.’

Kate smiled. ‘I suppose it did in a way. It’s a long time since I sat on my own to think like that. I’ve got as far as recognizing that it’s not intrinsically my lifestyle that’s at fault, although that is depressing me too. It’s something inside me.’ She picked up a rattle and shook it tentatively. ‘You’re right. Being with George is suppressing my will to live as an individual. He scorns faith in God; he denies the old standards and while I’m with him I agree with him. But I think deep down inside perhaps I’ve been yearning back towards them all this time. I’ve been allowing him to think for me and act for me. I’ve let him make all the decisions, even for my conscience, just as I let him decide what music we’re going to listen to.’ She looked up at Mary and grinned. ‘You know that’s why I came to see you today. I think I’d already made up my mind, but I needed someone to tell me I was right.’

That night when she walked wearily up the dark streets from the Underground back to the flat she found she was thinking deeply about her childhood again. She recalled with envy that early burning certainty in things which had so guided her daily life.

She paused by the phone to sniff the hyacinths and then, going into the bedroom fell on her knees beside the bed. In the trunk wedged beneath it was a carved sandalwood box. She pulled it out carefully and gazed for a moment at the design on the lid. Then she opened it. Nestling in a bed of cotton wool were her few pieces of jewellery and beneath them all she found the little silver cross. She held it in the palm of her hand for a moment, remembering the glow of security and otherworldliness it had always given her. Surprised, she found a little of the feeling remained.

Inexplicably, George brought her back a delicate Indian silk scarf when he returned and even more inexplicably he admired the hyacinths without once commenting on her extravagance in buying them. He even offered to help paint the flat but she still told him she was going.

‘Kate, why?’ He took her hands and gazed at her, shocked and horrified.

She shrugged. ‘It’s hard to explain. There isn’t anyone else or anything like that. I just feel terribly restless.’ She felt her resolution wavering at the sight of his anguished face. She had not really thought that he would mind much beyond the first irritation at the inconvenience of losing her.

‘Will you come back?’ He was beginning to look lost. ‘Please Kate, will you come back?’

Again she shrugged. She turned away, hating herself for the pain she was giving him. ‘Shall we just say I need to be alone for a while. I’ve chucked the job. I’m going down to Cornwall for a couple of weeks.’