Letters From Prague (6 page)

A sound behind her: she turned, seeing Marsha with wet hair, a towel wrapped round her, dropping her clothes on the bed.

‘Susanna says tea in a few minutes – when we're ready.' She came up beside Harriet in bare feet.

‘You'll catch your death.'

‘No, I won't.'

Marsha looked down at the street. Harriet saw a gooseflesh chill run all along her arms, and drew her to her, rubbing them warm. Below them, gleaming cars slid past.

‘It's terribly posh,' said Marsha.

‘Isn't it? Everything. How was the shower?'

‘The bathroom's posher than Granny's, even. There's millions of bottles and things.'

‘Lotions and potions.' Harriet continued to rub bare arms. ‘Are you all right?'

Marsha nodded, but didn't answer. She probably didn't know. Children were powerless, taken hither and thither to meet this person and that. Marsha was rooted and outgoing at home; these surroundings – such space, such a carpet, such gilded mirrors – had silenced her. And Harriet, suddenly, saw Hugh, two years younger than Marsha was now, sent off to boarding-school, silenced.

Bells chimed the half-hour; Marsha shivered.

‘Come and get dressed. Susanna will be wondering where we've got to.'

‘Where have we got to?' Marsha asked, dropping the towel to the floor and pulling her knickers and socks on.

This is what comes of being an only child, thought Harriet: all that adult conversation. There aren't many nine-year-olds who'd answer like that, and be so accurate.

Marsha pulled on jeans and sweatshirt; she laced up her trainers.

‘Let's do your hair.' Harriet pulled a brush through the damp dark pageboy, the thick soft fringe. Mirrored mothers and daughters did the same. ‘Tonight we'll see Hugh again. You look a bit like him at the moment.'

‘How?'

‘A bit lost. That's how he used to look, when he came home from boarding-school. He used to sit in the dining room and talk to himself.'

‘What about?'

Harriet put down the brush. It was a long time since she had thought about those distant, well-run holidays, with outings to Kensington Gardens, and children in for tea. She had forgotten what she now could see so clearly: a child whose companions in a chilly Northumberland dormitory were scattered all over the country when term ended; a child who knew no one in London, who came home to his family and took a week to rediscover how to talk to them, when there was no one else to talk to.

She saw the gradual unwinding, relaxing, always polite but not so rigid, and then the build-up to silence again, as the end of the holidays drew near. At intervals in this interlude, Hugh sat with his back to the open door of the dining room, a dark room, with family portraits, a window hung with heavy curtains, a view to a London garden. He sat at the long, polished table; his legs in long socks swung beneath it; his fingers drummed. He was talking: Harriet, stopping in the corridor, could hear him. Not the words, but the tone. He was confiding – even at ten or eleven, sheltered Harriet was aware of this, as Marsha, more precocious, assuredly would be, too. Confiding what? To whom? She stood in the corridor, pressed back against the wall: listening, eavesdropping, guilty. Once, she coughed. The monotone stopped, the drumming on the table ceased. He turned, she fled.

Even as children, they could not confront each other.

‘What did he talk about?' Marsha was asking again.

They moved towards the bedroom door; she turned the china doorknob, painted with birds. ‘That's pretty.'

‘I never knew,' said Harriet. ‘Perhaps it's best not to mention it.'

‘Why?'

Pretty well everything was mentioned at home.

‘Oh –'

They were out in another corridor now, carpeted in deep blue wool, with runners in coffee and cream. The walls were hung with pale paper; watercolours hung at intervals, at just the right height. Susanna, in linen trousers, was coming towards them.

‘Well done.' She smiled at Marsha. ‘You look nice, Shower all right?'

‘Fine, thanks. I like all the bottles and things.'

‘I should have told you to help yourself. There's a jar of oatmeal, did you see that? You can put it in your bath, if you choose a bath next time.'

‘Oatmeal?'

‘It's all rather a far cry from home,' said Harriet, as they followed Susanna towards an open door, recalling, perched on the corner of the bath at home, an almost empty bottle of Safeway's bubblebath. The bottle disappeared as they entered the drawing room: so large that it had been made, effectively, into two rooms – one by the marble fireplace, where piped sofas and chairs stood before a screen in
petit point
, and one to the right, a similar arrangement, but made in relation to crammed bookshelves: a peaceful reading corner.

Marsha immediately made for the corner.

‘Help yourself,' Susanna said again, then added, ‘Only I'm afraid there's almost nothing there you'd like. It's all rather grown-up.'

‘Oh.' Used to a house overflowing with Puffins and the books of Harriet's childhood, Marsha stopped for a moment, disappointment visible.

‘You've brought plenty of books with you,' said Harriet. ‘Come on, come and have tea. Yes?' She looked at Susanna enquiringly, seeing on the low table by the fireplace a well-laid tray.

‘Yes.' Susanna gestured Harriet to an armchair, sat herself before the table and lifted a blue and gold teapot which would not have looked out of place in the V&A. Marsha, in the corner, hovered before the bookshelves. Harriet looked about her.

There were doors to a balcony here, too, opened to let in the last of the afternoon light. Light fell on a round table, placed in a corner, with a chair. On the table a book, a glass vase, a few white roses. One or two petals had fallen on to the dark mahogany. Table, light and fading flowers: it belonged on the cover of an Anita Brookner novel, but Harriet, though she registered this, was also taken, instantly, to another table, brown and cheap, a coffee jar of roses, morning sun coming through a basement window. Karel, sitting on a junk-shop chair, lit a Marlboro cigarette and sipped tea from a thick glass mug, with a slice of lemon.

Never I think I will meet someone like you, Harriet
…

And there had never been anyone else like Karel. In adulthood, with a daughter, it felt almost shaming to be thinking this still, but it was the truth.

So. This is love. So simple, so complete.

Nothing had been simple since then. There had been interest, and liking, and even, with Marsha's father, love, but look what had happened to love. There had been desire; but there had never, actually, been quite that sense of innocent belonging. And probably, if the truth were told, there never would be now. Harriet was no longer innocent, and who knew, if she found him at all, what kind of man she might meet in Prague?

Susanna passed wafery sandwiches, papery pâtisserie dusted with icing. Marsha abandoned the bookshelves and began to tuck, in, much as though she were tucking in at McDonald's.

‘You must be starving,' said Susanna.

‘I am. This is yummy.' Marsha inhaled some of the icing, and began to cough, and could not stop. Flakes of fine pastry flew across the room.

Susanna rose; Harriet banged Marsha on the back; her eyes streamed.

‘I'll get you some water –' Susanna hurried from the room and returned with a glass. ‘Here.'

Marsha sipped gratefully, and wiped her eyes. ‘Thanks.' Pastry flakes lay all over the sofa; she brushed them on the carpet and then, getting up to brush more off her sweatshirt, trod them all in.

‘Marsha,' said Harriet, wondering that pastry could be, in such immaculate surroundings, so visible, so loud. At home, the house was well run, and Marsha was taught to be tidy, but even so – there was always clutter, and something that needed clearing up, or mending. Here –

‘Sorry,' said Marsha, moving to sit down again, and knocked a cup and saucer flying. A pool of fine scented tea sank into the carpet and settled down.

‘Marsha!'

‘Sorry, sorry,' Marsha, visibly distressed, sank back on to the sofa. ‘It's like
Granny's,'
she blurted out. ‘Everything's so
special!'

‘Susanna,' said Harriet, rising, ‘I'm sorry, she's tired, we've been travelling since –'

‘I know, I know, please, it's quite all right.' Susanna was leaving the room again, hurrying in search of a cloth. ‘Please,' she said again over her shoulder, ‘just leave it – it really doesn't –'

Marsha and Harriet looked at each other.

‘Don't be cross.'

‘I'm not, I know how you feel.' Harriet picked up tea leaves, one by one, and dropped them into a saucer. ‘But you shouldn't have said that, even so.' Rising, she took in what before she had somehow not quite taken in: Susanna's portrait, hung above the fireplace, gazing out of the frame – not at her, but beyond her, refusing to meet the observer's eye.

‘Marsha,' she said quietly, as footsteps returned along the corridor, ‘don't worry about it, just be careful, that's all.'

Susanna was back in the room, with a cloth and a bottle of something. She smiled at Marsha, who blushed.

‘I didn't mean it,' she mumbled. ‘Sorry.'

Harriet was moved to put an arm round her; Marsha, scarlet, shrugged it off.

Susanna knelt down upon the carpet, and did not speak, rubbing gently until the stain had gone, leaving only damp wool, which she brushed with long, well-cared-for fingers. How long was it since she had had to go down on her knees and clean up anything?

‘There.' She rose, smiling again at them both. ‘I've fixed it, and now we forget about it. And please don't say sorry, Marsha: you're right. A grown-up place can be terribly prim.'

‘It's beautiful,' said Marsha uncertainly.

‘Well. Who'd like more tea? Or have we done tea for today?'

‘I think we've done it,' said Harriet, realising, with relief, that she liked Susanna. ‘Thank you for being so nice.'

‘Not at all. And in that case –' Susanna stood there, damp cloth and bottle of something incongruous against pale shirt and linen trousers. ‘I'll get rid of this and then we can talk about your visit. I've got lots of books and maps – is there anything you particularly want to see?'

‘I want to see Hugh,' said Marsha.

‘Of course you do.'

Tea was cleared; books and maps were spread upon the table by the bookshelves. They looked at pictures of the cathedral, of markets, museums, parks with lakes, and waited for the sound of a key in the lock.

‘Hugh.' She held out her arms.

‘Harriet.' He kissed her, once on each cheek. No hug: a greeting as to a dinner-party guest, as Susanna had greeted them. But with warmth, undeniably, and when he drew away to look at her he still looked like Hugh. Medium height, compact – well, perhaps just a bit of thickening round chin and middle; close-cut curly hair receding from a clear, intelligent forehead; kind brown eyes. In his well-cut suit, and blue silk tie, he looked, it had to be said, what he was: a Eurocrat, a bit – oh, dear – of a fat cat. But Hugh, still, in that smile.

‘God, it's nice to see you.'

‘You, too. Where's my favourite niece?'

Marsha, suddenly shy, had retreated from hall to drawing room.

‘Marsha?' He strode towards the open door. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are.'

She came, giggling. He held out his hand, very formal; she took it, and shook it, and he picked her up and hugged her.

‘What a weight. What a
weight!'
He staggered into the drawing room, and dropped her on to a sofa. Marsha jumped up again, knocking the coffee table.

‘Careful!' said Harriet, following. ‘Careful,
please!'

‘Especially now,' said Susanna, behind her. There was a shivering chink: Harriet, turning, saw a tray with champagne, fresh orange juice, tulip glasses. ‘Oh, how lovely.'

‘But of course.' Susanna set the tray down on the table, and Marsha, setting herself to rights, told Hugh, ‘I knocked tea everywhere before you got here.'

‘Did you, now?' He was straightening his tie. ‘Please – let me.' He picked up the bottle and peeled away the foil; he unscrewed the wire –

‘Susanna? Have you a glass?'

She held it ready. They waited, watching the cork's slow rise –

‘There!' It flew across the room towards the bookshelves. He filled the glass, more glasses; they raised them. All, it felt clear, were suddenly filled with warmth and goodwill.

‘To you. Welcome.'

‘To you. It's lovely to be here.'

‘Shouldn't this child be drinking milk, or something?'

‘Milk?'
Marsha sipped again. ‘Ugh. Ow. There's bubbles all up my nose.'

Susanna poured fresh orange juice into a fresh glass. ‘Here.'

‘Thanks.'

They made themselves comfortable, they began to talk. Susanna had closed the balcony doors against the approach of evening; even though it was August, the air, before she did so, had begun to feel perceptibly cooler, and the room, because the apartment faced so directly on to other buildings, had begun to darken. After a while, she rose, and turned on the lamps: light shone through green shades, falling in pools on tables and the arms of armchairs and bookshelves, and on Susanna's face, as she sat down again, sinking gracefully against cushions in the corner of the sofa by the
petit point
screen, beneath her portrait.

There was a lull. Hugh stopped asking Harriet about her work and Marsha, with initial coaxing, began to tell him about her school. Soon, with enthusiasm, she was relating a fearsome history of personality clashes.

Harriet looked up at the portrait and back at Susanna. She was watching Hugh and Marsha; she seemed relaxed, happy to listen.