Lamb in Love (30 page)

Dazed by the force of this imagined reproof, he looks down at the letter again. He had tried to persuade Vida that there was no one to fear, that the mystery of this campaign to woo her would end well, would end—happily. He had spoken with a confidence he does not really possess. He had spoken from sheer will. But he has never imagined that there might be some unexpected rival, some intervention from the world itself; it is as if his own ardor, abandoning him in disgust, has formed itself into someone against whom he can never hope to compete, some man who is everything Norris wishes himself to be. The postmark of the letter has been nearly obliterated by a damaging smudge; he can't make out where it might have been sent from. Norris brushes at it with his fingertip; there is no return address, either. There is only the handwriting to go by, a heavy, masculine, admirably formed hand, the letters of Vida's name executed with a triumphal flourish.

I
F
N
ORRIS HAD
anyone to advise him, if he had a friend who could clap him on the back and give him courage, he might be rescued from what comes next. But he is so sure of his failure, so confident that despite all his longing—because of all his longing, perhaps—he will be humiliated, that he can't think clearly now. He thinks not what a reasonable man might suppose—that this is a letter about some business or legal affair, that this is a correspondence of some official capacity. It does not occur to him
that this letter might be from a friend or even from her uncle Laurence, though he knows she has recently written to him; and the building in the stamp does look like the Parthenon, a stamp Laurence might easily have come by. Instead of such conclusions, his mind leaps ahead like a dog madly in pursuit of a phantom fox.

He is jealous, flagrantly jealous, wounded deep in his heart by what feels, already, like an infidelity, and so he reads the script on the front of the envelope as the haughty penmanship of some very well-to-do gentleman, a friend of Mr. Perry's perhaps, someone he has brought back to Southend House once or twice. And this gentleman, this friend of Perry's—well, he would have had occasion to meet Vida, wouldn't he? She might even have made up his bed for him in the morning, or hung up his shirts as a courtesy, or brought him a gin while he sat in the garden. And Mr. Perry would have had the most marvelous things to say about her, of course, about how she's like a mother to Manford. The gentleman friend, eyeing her retreating back as she walked away across the lawn with the pitcher of water and the plate of limes, would have noticed her beauty. “I see why you've kept her here in hiding, Thomas,” he might have said, his eyes never leaving her back. And then he would have found opportunities to speak to her here and there, in the kitchen or the garden. They would have spoken about his business and his travels; she would have told him how she'd always wished to travel herself. He would have heard this remark, received it in thoughtful silence. And since then, he would have found that he cannot forget her. She seems to be everywhere, no matter where he goes, no matter what room with splendid views he unpacks his bag in, no matter what countess or rich American divorcée takes his hand across a table. He would not be able to forget Vida.

I could lose her, Norris thinks, gripping the envelope between
his fingers. A surge of hate rises up in him, so vicious that he feels nearly suffocated by it. Who is this man, imposing himself on her in this insidious and disgusting way! He glares at the envelope as if it has emitted some foul odor, as if it contained the evidence of some monstrous, criminal urge.

He puts out a hand, finds the back of the tall chair he uses behind the counter, and lowers himself into it. He is shaking; the feeling terrifies him, sickens him. He is used to frustration, not rage, though he understands that sometimes, when matters seem too confounding, too intransigent, he experiences moments of an indifference so final that it seems permanent, as permanent as his own skin. He has felt his own eyes roll briefly to the back of his head as if he could will himself to faint in the middle of his own life, will himself to be absent from whatever troubles him. At his mother's funeral, he had felt himself hardly present, for instance; waves of a sliding unconsciousness folded over him again and again as he stood at the graveside, a clod of earth clenched in his hand. As he leaned forward and scattered the earth into the grave, prompted by a touch from the vicar at his elbow, he heard the sod smack hard upon the coffin, like a rock, and the sound frightened him. Afterward, returning alone to the empty house, he moved quietly through the dark rooms, sat down before his grandmother's organ. Yet he did not play; he felt the muscles in his arms seize—he understood that some part of him wished to smash the instrument with his fists. He forced himself, at last, to play a chorale, his hands trembling. And afterward he tasted blood, realized he had bitten himself. Stumbling to the lavatory, he pulled the chain for the light, fumbled vainly in the cupboard for something to help, felt the warm blood in his mouth, and spat into the basin. He fell to his knees on the cold tile floor and wept then, blood and spittle dribbling down his chin.

N
OW HE STARES
down at the envelope still in his hand. He lets the others fall from his grasp, scatter over the floor.

In his office he puts the letter carefully on his desk. He fills the kettle with water from the rusty sink in the lavatory, plugs it in. He sits heavily in his chair, as if drunk, waiting until steam rises from the kettle. When he holds the envelope to the vapor, trying to angle it in his hand so that the steam pries up the sealed edge, his fingers burn from the wet, sharp heat, and he sucks in his breath and retreats. Casting about, he spies a pair of scissors, fixes the letter gently between the blades, and then offers it to the chimney of steam again. After a minute the envelope begins to curl. He shakes the scissors, turning them like a long fork. The sealed seam of the envelope begins to buckle and part.

“My dear Vida,” he reads.

“I'm so glad you liked the little painting. I've got boxes of them here, I have to tell you; you'll probably inherit them when I go, and have to sell them off for a shilling apiece to cover my funeral expenses! But no, now that I think of it, Ari has already said he'll have me burned at the stake and my ashes tossed into the Aegean! Have I written you about Ari? I hired him about a year ago to help me clean up around here; your old bachelor uncle has never been much good with the mop, I'm afraid. Ari arrived in answer to a few vague inquiries I'd placed in the village, perfectly gorgeous to look at and not a word of English, and now he claims he'll never leave me. What have I done to deserve such riches, I ask you!

“But I ramble, and there isn't any need of me going on and on about Ari (though I could go on and on, I assure you), because I want you to meet him in person. Your last letter made me think—your mother would never forgive me if I didn't see to it that we
had you here in Corfu to visit, at least once. I know you've been the soul of conscientiousness with Manford, and I admire you for it; but your news that he's working at Niven's now (does Mr. Niven still wear that funny monocle?) made me think that this was just the right time for you to have a proper holiday. Or a permanent one, for that matter. What's holding you in Hursley, after all? Here I've got this gorgeous, rambling old place, with the most spectacular views on earth, and Ari brings me figs and olives and fresh fish every day, and I sell enough paintings (particularly in the summer, to the silly tourists) to provide for all three of us—you, me, and Ari. I remember you, Vida. I knew we really were blood relations because you were such a romantic. I remember how much you wanted to see the world once. Come along and join us, dear girl. It would do my selfish old heart good to think your mother would be proud of me. I think I need some real family around me at last, and Ari's too splendid a cook to waste on just me.

“Ari is painting your room, as we speak—sky blue. He can't imagine anyone not wanting to come to Corfu, in any case, and wants to know whether I think you'd prefer a rose-colored blanket on your bed or palest dove gray. Well? Which shall it be? We await you, my dear, with open arms.

“Fondly, fondly, fondly, your uncle Laurence.”

Norris's hands are shaking. He tries to fold the paper, forces it back unevenly into the envelope, and then, quivering, tries to lick the edges to seal it again. The paper is wet, though, and comes away on his tongue, bits of weak blue paper, sweetish-tasting. He tries to press the folds closed with his trembling fingers, but the damp paper refuses to lie smoothly. He puts it down on the desk, presses his palms against it, leans down as though trying to stifle
the breath from a man. The ink bleeds away under his hands. The letter is ruined.

She will go away.

Go on then, he thinks. Go on. Damn you. Damn you.

“H
ALLOO
? M
R
. L
AMB
? Anyone at home?”

The voice holds a false, happy trill. The Billy.

Norris freezes, his hands still over the letter. He picks it up after a second, folds it hurriedly several times, and shoves it into his breast pocket. He touches his upper lip, feels the sweat there and a bit of paper, which he picks off with shaking fingers.

“Coming!” He buttons his cardigan and tries to take a deep breath, but his heart feels as if it has been shot full of holes; he will never stop up so many wounds.

“Ah, Mrs. Billy,” he says, coming through the door at last. “What a pleasure. And how are you this morning?”

But he feels as mean as he has ever felt in his whole life.

H
E PASSES THE
day in a stupor. He hardly speaks to the villagers who stop in to collect their mail. He forgets to have anything to eat. He sits at his stool and stares ahead of him. He hears the sound of waves, far off, and sees, again and again, Vida's body on the fountain's rim, tiny and tempting like a ballerina on a music box.

At last, at four, he pulls down the blinds with a fierce clatter and locks the door and goes round to Niven's. The bakery is empty. Norris cranes round the door to look in the annex where Manford usually sits, but it's empty there as well, Manford's stool pushed beneath the high table. On the counter is a tray of iced buns. Norris stares at them, then reaches out and pushes his finger deliberately into the top of one, collapsing the pastry and
grinding the icing. When he hears a sound from the back of the bakery, he grabs the bun and stuffs it in his pocket, smearing sugar on his coat.

“Oh! Mr. Lamb!” Mrs. Blatchford comes through the door with her arms full of boxed cakes, her face flushed red.

Norris stares at her impassively.

“Well? What have you got up your sleeve?” she asks impatiently when Norris fails to say anything. “Just standing here like a ghost? There's the bell, you know! You might have rung if you'd wanted something.” She jerks her head toward the bell on the counter and sets down her boxes with a thud.

“Where is he?” Norris says.

“Who? Manford?” Mrs. Blatchford glares at him. “Well, aren't we pleasant today?” She bends over heavily, fitting the boxes into the glass shelves below. “A lovely day to you, too, Norris Lamb. Just the day for pleasantries. Mr. Niven gone off to his golfing and me here all alone, the vicar needing six cakes for the committee, and no one's thought to tell me until the last moment.” She huffs, stands up again. “He's never come in today. Vida rang up, said they were both ill. What's it to you, anyhow?” she adds sharply.

But Norris doesn't answer her. He bangs out the door and sets off down the lane.

She laughed at me, he thinks. She laughed when I fell down in the mud.

At the front door to Southend House he reaches for the chain, pulls hard on it. After a long moment, Vida opens the door. She is wearing an old dressing gown—not his gift—a worn blue one with the satin collar faded away. Her face is very pale. She cranes round the door and stares up at Norris, puts her hand up to her mouth as if she might be sick. She seems very small, smaller than
ever. He sees the declivity at her throat, her tiny wrist crossed before her chin.

“Mr. Lamb!” she says. “I thought you might be Dr. Faber.”

“No,” Norris says. “Sorry.”

“Excuse me.” She closes the door slightly and disappears behind it; he hears her cough. She opens it again and looks out at him.

Norris glances away as if something up in the trees has just caught his eye. “Manford?” he asks, not looking at her. “He's not well either?”

“He's in bed.”

Norris waits. “Nothing serious, I hope,” he says quietly after a moment.

She makes a gesture of slight fatigue. “Just a flu, I'm sure,” she says, “but I like to have Dr. Faber see him, in any case.”

“Of course.” Norris looks down at his feet and then glances up only as far as her throat, stopping before he meets her eyes. He points to her dressing gown. “You'll catch cold, with that thin thing on,” he says. He allows his eyes to linger on the fragile proportions of her neck. “Perhaps you need a fire,” he says.

He looks up at last and meets her gaze. “And some tea,” he says. “My mother used to make me a nettle tea. Very effective. Very—soothing.”

Vida looks back at him; her eyes have filled surprisingly with tears. Her lips part but no sound comes from her.

He steps toward her then, takes her arm. “Come on,” he says gently, and feels how his heart has suddenly sent forth a million branches, buds flinging themselves open to the rain. “I'll make you some tea,” he says. “We'll see about Manford.”

“A
LL RIGHT THEN
?” He tucks the rug around her knees, places the teacup on her lap. She steadies it with her fingertips, leans back against the chair, and closes her eyes. “Go on. Take a sip,” he says, standing over her. Vida puts the cup to her lips, takes a swallow, grimaces.