Learning by Heart (15 page)

She noticed that he was carrying flowers: nothing from a shop, all from the hedgerow, dog roses, grasses and strands of ivy. ‘Not very glamorous,’ he said, holding them out to her.

‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘all the same.’

‘They’re growing everywhere,’ he said. ‘All down the lanes.’

‘Are you nearly finished at your house?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Finished.’

‘What, everything? All the rooms?’

‘I’ve whitewashed them,’ he told her. ‘I don’t know what colour would be best to paint them.’

‘And furnished?’

‘Ah,’ he admitted. ‘Not quite.’

She walked up to the lane with him.

At the gate, she looked over the thistle-strewn patch to the low buildings.

Richard Ward stood beside her, saying nothing. He leaned on the gate, and she glanced at his profile, at the scar above his collar. His arms were muscular, but thin; she wondered how he cared for himself, living alone.

‘It’s taken a year,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she murmured. And she thought of that year: of Bisley, the books and the poetry. Of champagne. Of a clock stuck for ever at eleven thirty.

He turned to her, and straightened. She realized, with surprise, that he was nervous. ‘Would you like to go to the cinema one evening?’ he asked.

‘You and I?’ she said, and blushed at the stupidity of the question.

‘Only if you would like to.’

‘All right.’

‘Shall I see what’s on?’ he asked. ‘In town?’

‘All right,’ she repeated.

He smiled broadly. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘That’s good.’

But as she walked back through the garden, shutting the gate to the lane, passing the budding roses, and then the lines of white sheets, she felt horribly panicked. She had to stop, resting one hand on the wall of the house, and glanced back along the path, the way she had come, and thought about telling him she had made a mistake.

They saw the Ernest Borgnine film
Marty
.

‘I’m sorry it wasn’t very cheerful,’ Richard said, as they came out of the cinema.

People brushed past them. They stood awkwardly, several feet apart. ‘I thought it was very good,’ she said. ‘It was unusual.’

‘It won an Oscar. Best Film,’ he said.

It was still light: it was only nine o’clock.

‘Would you like to go for a drink somewhere?’ he asked.

They were in the centre of Yeovil, a twenty-minute drive from Sherborne. ‘I would like to go home,’ she said.

He nodded. They walked alongside each other. Richard had parked the pick-up van in a side-street; when he had come to collect her, he had apologized for it, saying he didn’t own a car.

‘I don’t mind,’ she had told him. She was staring at him now, seeing that he had taken trouble to look smart. She was wearing the same blouse and skirt she had worn all day, although she had brushed her hair and put on lipstick. It was only the pictures, not a date. They were only going together to see a film; she would pay for her own ticket; they would come straight back afterwards. That was how she had thought of the evening, yet now, looking at Richard, she realized it meant something more to him.

He had on a jacket, tie and flannel trousers, a little out of date, but all clean and pressed. He had obviously tried to comb his curly hair flat, and Brylcreemed it with a severe parting that showed a scalp reddened by the sun. She felt an enormous surge of regret and pity. She was not going to be anyone’s girlfriend.

They drove in silence. Only when they got to her house did Richard speak again. ‘Would you like to see
Gigi
next week?’ he asked. ‘It’s a bit livelier.’

She turned sideways in her seat to face him.

‘I don’t think they ever get new films here,’ he said, smiling.

‘Richard …’ she began.

‘Do you like Hitchcock?’

‘I haven’t seen any,’ she said. ‘My parents never went to the cinema.’

‘We had a film club in Italy,’ Richard said. ‘Not even
Rebecca
? Not
The Lady Vanishes
?’

‘When were you in Italy?’ she asked.

‘I was in hospital for two months,’ he told her. ‘One of the officers got us a projector. All they sent us were Hitchcocks and horror. And when we objected, we got all kinds of things. ‘
G
’
Men
, and Busby Berkeley musicals, Bing Crosby. Godzilla.
How Green Was My Valley
.’

‘You were wounded? In the war?’

‘In Sicily.’

‘Did you stay in Italy after you left hospital?’

‘I was posted back to a desk,’ he said, ‘in London.’

‘Did you live there until you bought the land?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I left the army. I travelled.’

It was getting dark now: she could barely see the borders of the garden, the trees at the edge of the drive.

‘Richard,’ she said, ‘you’re very kind to take me out. I enjoyed the film. But I don’t want to impose on you.’

There was a silence. Then, ‘I see,’ he said.

The worst of it was, she felt nothing, not even guilt. She was not even sensible to his disappointment. She had gone tonight because she had been taken off guard, but all she wanted was to be left alone. She felt truly anaesthetized. She wanted to get the world around her straight and in order; that was all she cared about, or concentrated on. She didn’t stop all day. Any day. Her father had already objected that she was unbearably restless, but it had troubled her to sit quietly with him, helping him with the crossword as her mother used to do. She knew what he was saying, but she couldn’t help it. The world was flattened somehow, all the interest taken out of it. She forced herself to move because she felt lost, sunk in the grey, if she was still.

Richard opened the door, got out and came round to her side to hand her down from the pick-up. He walked her to the front door. She could feel the imprint of his fingers and she wanted to get inside.

‘Cora …’ she heard him murmur, as she turned her back on him.

She banged loudly on the door, the heavy iron knocker making a sound that reverberated down the passageway inside. Her father didn’t come. ‘Daddy,’ she called. ‘Daddy.’

She knocked quickly and repeatedly with the flat of her hand, and then, through the single glass panel at the top of the door, saw the shadow of her father walking out of the dining room.

She turned to Richard to thank him for the evening.

He was standing back from her, a distressed frown on his face. ‘Good night, Cora,’ he said. And, under his breath, ‘I’m very sorry.’

It was another fortnight before she summoned the courage to go and see him.

He was working outside his house, digging out soil behind it to make a flat area. When he saw her climbing the slope, he stopped and wiped his hands on the seams of his trousers.

As she drew near, he smiled.

It was a close day, the sky overcast; warm and oppressive. Sweat marked the cotton of his shirt, the back and shoulders.

‘Are you making a garden?’ she asked.

‘I thought I’d lay some flagstones,’ he said, ‘so there would be somewhere to sit out and look at the view.’

He indicated the hill behind her; she turned, and saw her own garden, the street beyond, the edge of the little town and the hills in the distance.

‘This was how you saw what had happened to Mother,’ she murmured.

‘Yes,’ he said. He dug the spade into the ground.

‘What will you do when you finish it all?’ she asked. ‘Will you stay here or sell it?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I may sell … Would you like to see inside?’

He took her in through the front door, which faced the lane. A rough driveway of broken chalk and flint had been laid. She glanced up at the building, thinking that it was very plain and serviceable, a man’s house, perfectly square, with a large window at either side of the door.

They went into a short, straight hallway and from there into the kitchen. There was a sink, an electric stove and a large, floor-standing boiler. In the centre stood a red Formica-topped table, and four chairs, all very new. In the food cupboard opposite her, with its drop-leaf door and two glass-fronted shelves above, she saw the bare essentials: salt, bread, gravy browning, and cans of soup.

The room was white. Everywhere was white – the sitting room, the two bedrooms, the bathroom. Except the two rows of bright green tiles around the bath.

‘I’m not very good with colours,’ he admitted. ‘The tiles were cheap, though. What do you think?’

‘I think …’

‘Be honest.’

‘I think I know why they were cheap.’

They smiled at each other.

‘Would you like some tea?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Please.’

He brought the cups to where she had gone to stand outside, looking in the opposite direction this time, to the brow of the hill behind. The grass and thistles were yellowed, sprayed with weed-killer to keep them down. To the left-hand side, in the sheds, she could see piles of bricks, railway sleepers, ironwork and roof tiles.

He handed her a cup of tea. ‘If I built it again, I’d do it differently,’ he said.

‘In what way?’

He shrugged. ‘I think it lacks something,’ he said. ‘It’s rather boring and square.’

‘I think it’s amazing that you built it yourself.’

‘Do you?’ he said, turning to her. ‘But it needs a woman’s touch.’ To her surprise, he blushed, and turned his profile to her again. ‘What would you do with it?’ he asked, nodding at the land.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘The soil isn’t very good. It would take a lot of improving.’

‘Perhaps I chose badly all round,’ he said.

‘Oh, no,’ she replied. ‘You would surely make a profit if you sold the house. But you could dig out a lawn, and plant trees on the rest. It might be very nice in time.’

He was standing with his arms crossed, frowning at the land.

‘You’re very critical of yourself,’ she observed.

He said nothing.

‘Richard,’ she added hesitantly, ‘I came to apologize. I was very rude the other night.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said.

‘My father was annoyed that I didn’t bring you in.’

‘I asked you too soon,’ he said.

‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘It’s not you.’ She finished her tea, and handed him the cup. ‘Would you come to dinner tonight?’ she asked.

‘I don’t want you to feel that you must invite me,’ he said.

‘I don’t,’ she told him. ‘I would like to give you dinner. I’m cooking anyway. Nothing special. I would like you to join us.’

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘Eight o’clock?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That would be very nice.’

When he turned up that evening, precisely at eight, she was rather touched at the effort he had made to look respectable. It was with a pang almost of affection that she noticed, as he walked into the sitting room and her father rose to shake his hand, that part of the back of his shirt had not been pressed properly and the garment hung off him.

Over dinner, her father asked Richard about his home. ‘I was posted briefly to Barrow,’ he added.

‘That’s not far away from us,’ Richard said.

‘Cumberland and Westmorland are beautiful counties.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Richard agreed. ‘They are.’

‘Are you a fell-walker?’

‘I was once.’

‘Not many mountains here.’

‘No.’

Cora’s father turned to her. ‘We had a competition,’ he told her, ‘in the Naval Air Squadron. To run up a few peaks. Three in thirty-six hours.’ He laughed softly to himself, brandy glass in hand. ‘Let me see,’ he mused. ‘We started at Langdale. The Pikes, if I recall rightly.’

‘I’ve walked them many times,’ Richard said.

‘Beautiful, quite beautiful,’ Cora’s father said. ‘Bit younger then, of course. Right the way down, over Blea Rigg to High Raise, and back towards the big waterfall …’

‘Dungeon Ghyll.’

‘That’s right,’ Cora’s father confirmed. ‘And what is it that you can see across from the waterfall?’

‘Side Pike, Wrynose Fell.’

The two men smiled at each other. ‘And you,’ Cora’s father said, ‘Rannerdale, you said.’

‘That’s where I was born,’ Richard replied. ‘Under another big mountain, Grasmoor.’ He turned to Cora. ‘Under a mountain and next to a lake.’

‘And brought up there?’ Cora asked.

‘Until I went to boarding-school.’

Cora’s father nodded. ‘Never forgot Barrow,’ he said. ‘Never do forget those things. Cora’s mother and I were married there.’ There was a pause. ‘A navy man yourself?’ he asked Richard.

‘Army. First Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment.’

‘See service?’

‘Richard was wounded in Sicily,’ Cora said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Richard glance at her. He took his arms off the table and sat back in his seat.

‘With the invasion?’

‘Yes,’ Richard said.

‘From North Africa?’

‘We had a roundabout journey,’ Richard said. ‘We came from Bombay to Port Said.’

‘By sea?’ Cora asked.

‘No,’ he said, ‘across country, through Pakistan and Persia, down to Palestine and Egypt. We sailed from Port Said in July 1943.’

‘Hell of a journey,’ Cora’s father observed.

‘Yes, sir,’ Richard replied. ‘A long way.’

‘Well,’ Cora’s father said, pushing back his chair, ‘I expect we all travelled some distance then.’ He stood up. Richard, too, got to his feet. ‘No, no,’ the older man told him. ‘You two stay and chat. I have to go into town and see Edward Miles at the Rotary Club.’

Cora saw how he avoided her gaze, and felt momentarily irritated at his obvious ruse to leave her and Richard alone together. She began to clear the table. ‘There’s no need to help me,’ she told Richard, as he made a move after Cora’s father had left the room.

‘I’d like to,’ he told her.

They carried the dishes into the kitchen. As they went in, they saw, in the darkness, for the light was turned off, the garden’s landscape: the last rim of daylight on the hill, the silhouette of the trees.

‘It’s your light I can see sometimes,’ she said, realizing it suddenly. ‘Through the trees. My room faces in this direction.’ She had seen the square of illumination only occasionally but hadn’t wondered what it was or to which house it might belong.

Richard said nothing. She opened the window, and a warm, insistent breeze blew in. They stood in silence, in semi-darkness.