Heat Wave (26 page)
Authors: Penelope Lively
He pitches head first backwards down the precipitate stairs, into the small hallway at the bottom. Again, later, much later, Pauline will always think that she heard the crack when his neck broke as he hit the door.
Many people will have much to say about Maurice’s death, in the days and weeks to come. They say these things to Pauline in quiet confidential voices – her friends, Teresa’s friends. To Teresa they
speak differently. They are brisk and practical, they want her to visit, to bring Luke, to come with them to this and to that. They want to fill her days. But to Pauline they talk in those hushed voices. They murmur that it could have been even worse, couldn’t it … I mean, they say, he might
not
have died. He might have survived. But after a fall like that … The implications hang unspoken. Maurice paralysed, brain-damaged. Teresa shackled at thirty to a vegetable on a bed. It’s an appalling tragedy, God knows, they say – but you can imagine an even worse situation.
Yes, says Pauline, you can.
As it is, they say, when –
when –
she gets over it she can make a new life.
Yes, says Pauline. Yes, she can.
And of course Luke hardly had time to know him. I mean, he won’t
remember.
No, says Pauline. No, he won’t.
But it’s hideous, they say. Unbelievable. Out of the blue, like that. Maurice, of all people.
Hugh says, ‘Sell that place.’
‘Probably,’ says Pauline.
‘And for God’s sake come back to London now the inquest’s over. Pack up and come back.’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes, I think I will.’ And only then does she tell him about this summer at World’s End.
Chaundy’s man says, ‘That bugger.’ He says it standing in the entrance to the cottage, looking at the staircase, after the ambulance has been and gone and he has stayed on because he doesn’t think that Pauline is in a fit state to be left alone just yet, after what has happened, and after she has driven up the hill to get help from whoever was up there at the chicken houses. ‘That bugger,’ he says – and Pauline thinks for a confused moment that he is referring to Maurice, but it is of course the staircase he is talking about. ‘My auntie come a cropper on that once,’ he goes on, ‘but not as bad as this.’ And it transpires that relatives of his lived here, time was. ‘Damp old place,’ says Chaundy’s man. ‘My auntie was glad to get shot of it and move to the village. Different now, of course,’ he adds hastily.
Harry says, ‘I’m only calling to say … if there’s anything I can do, anything at all. I’ve told Teresa I hope perhaps she’ll think of coming out to LA for a bit. Later. To have a break.’
‘That might be a good idea,’ says Pauline. ‘Later.’
‘What a God-awful thing to happen,’ says Harry. ‘It stops you in your tracks. I mean, you think …’ Pauline understands Harry to be saying that Maurice’s death has thrust him into contemplation of his own mortality. ‘I wish I’d had a chance to know him better,’ he goes on. ‘We only met the once. How do you think Teresa is now? I talked to her last week and I thought she seemed … well, fairly calm, considering. Is she all right, do you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Pauline. ‘I hope so.’
Harry pauses. ‘If you felt like coming out to LA with her … later. I’d like that a lot.’
‘I rather doubt if I could manage it,’ says Pauline. ‘But thank you for the thought.’
James Saltash says little. He stands with Pauline in Maurice’s study at World’s End to which he has come in order to go through Maurice’s manuscript and his notes and take away what is essential.
‘We can publish,’ he says. ‘He’d got far enough with the revisions for me to see how to sew it up. And then there’ll be some money for Teresa.’ He picks up pieces of paper and puts them down again. The wedge of black hair flops on to his forehead. He still seems puppyish, but now like a puppy that has had a bad experience and is wary. He does not look much at Pauline. ‘Would you give my love to Teresa?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘By the way, I should maybe say … Carol and I have split up.’
‘Ah,’ says Pauline. ‘Right. I see.’
And James Saltash is evidently too locked into private malaise to notice a neutrality that might be thought a little unsympathetic. He continues to pick up handfuls of paper and put them down again. ‘Anyway,’ he says. ‘I’ll get on with this. Don’t bother about me. I’m sure you’re busy.’ He does not speak of Maurice. Maurice is subsumed into his own book. He has become a professional commitment.
Teresa says least of all. When she emerges from the grey silence of shock she takes on a different kind of reticence. She talks about
everything and anything except Maurice. Her friends are concerned about this. Don’t you think this is bad for her? they say to Pauline. Shouldn’t she be … well,
remembering?
Shouldn’t she talk it out? Do you think she’s suppressing it all?
To Pauline Teresa says, ‘I don’t know what happened and I don’t want to know.’ They stare at one another. The words hang there for an instant. Later, and thereafter, it is as though they had never been spoken.
PENGUIN CLASSICS
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First published by Viking 1996
Published in Penguin Books 1997
Published in Penguin Classics 2011
Copyright © Penelope Lively, 1996
Cover
Contemplation
by Adele Wagstaff.
Author photograph courtesy of Penelope Lively
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book
ISBN: 978-0-14-196883-4
