Little Bits of Baby (20 page)

‘Nonsense. It's been lovely having him to chat to. We played Hangman, didn't we Jasper?'

‘Yes,' said Jasper.

‘And Peter's still visiting at the hospital so, er …'

‘Well, we must be off and leave you in peace,' said Jake.

‘No. Stay for a drink. Do,' she touched his arm. ‘It's such fun to have you here again. Please?'

‘You're quite sure?'

‘Quite. What would you like? Wine? Lager?' Andrea peered in the fridge. ‘Gin?'

‘Lager, please.'

‘I'm afraid it's low-alcohol stuff.'

‘That's fine.'

She poured Jake a low-alcohol lager, awarded herself a gin and French and led father and son back to the sitting-room.

‘Have
you
got any photos?' Jasper asked her.

‘Several books of them.'

‘Have you got some of Mummy and the holy man?'

‘Of course, dear, but his name's Robin. There are even some of your daddy. You see that shelf there? The bottom one? Well, all those big books have photographs in. Let's see. Yes. Try the navy blue one. That's it. Take them over to the table so you can look at them comfortably – it's a bit big to hold on your lap.'

‘Thank you,' said Jasper and hauled the book onto a writing-table by the window where he sat and pored over his parents' mysterious past. Andrea turned back to Jake and smiled.

‘It seems so long ago, now,' she said.

‘No seems about it,' said Jake. ‘It was. I had lunch with Robin today. Did he tell you?'

‘No. He's only just come back.'

‘Oh yes. You said. Sorry.' Andrea noticed that Jake had still not found the ability to sit back on a sofa and relax. She half expected him to call her Mrs Maitland. ‘It was rather strange,' he said. ‘He just turned up out of the blue.'

‘Oh dear,' she said. ‘I hope he didn't disturb your work.'

‘No. It was good to see him properly. We didn't really get a chance to talk at the christening.'

‘Mmm.' She sipped her delicious drink, which she had made rather strong, and wished she were drinking it alone with Peter. She wished Peter would hurry up and come back. ‘We're so thrilled to have him back.'

‘I bet. I gather he may be staying back for good.'

‘We hope so. He seems to have missed London terribly. He's out all day, nearly, walking around, taking favourite buses, talking to strangers in cafés – same old Robin.'

‘You don't find him changed?'

‘Do you?'

‘Yes,' Jake frowned. He was still fairly good-looking, she decided, but only because she knew how he used to look and laid her memories over the thickening neck and now indelible frown. ‘He's changed all right. He's the same Robin but now he's more so. Everything's slightly exaggerated, imbalanced almost. Sorry, that's an awful thing to say, especially when you're so pleased to have him home again.'

‘No, of course not.' She took an icy sip, knowing exactly what he meant, and stared across at Jasper for a moment. The child was either fascinated by the photographs or extremely sly. She turned back to Jake. ‘You know,' she said quickly, ‘No one's ever really told me what happened, why he ran away.'

‘But surely Candida did. I thought.'

‘Not really. She was so hysterical when she called us up. All she said was that he had disappeared and that “it was all a stupid misunderstanding” and then we hardly saw her after that. Not until after your marriage, of course.'

‘I wrote a letter.'

‘Yes. To Peter. I remember. It was sweet of you but it didn't explain much.' She dropped her voice. ‘Dob was very in love with you, wasn't he?'

‘No. Not exactly. He hadn't told me. It was stupid of me not to notice I suppose, but he hadn't told me and when he finally did I panicked. I wasn't the last one to see him, though. Candida was.'

‘Yes. I know. But surely, when you heard he'd turned up at Whelm you must have been surprised. You knew him so well. He'd never shown any interest in God before?'

‘He was reading theology.'

‘Well, I know that, but that didn't make him Christian. He was far more interested in Eastern things. If we'd had a telegram from an ashram,
that
would have been understandable, but Whelm of all places … Peter went half-mad, you know. He was convinced they were holding him against his will. It almost broke him.'

‘He's coming up the steps now,' Jake said.

They both coughed; ridiculously, she thought, like adulterers in a bedroom farce. The front door opened and shut.

Peter called out,

‘Hello?'

Andrea called back, ‘Hi! In here,' and Jake stood up.

‘We really must be off,' he told her. ‘Your supper …'

‘No,' she said.

Peter came in saying,

‘Hello, darling,' then, ‘Hello, Jasper. Still here? And Jake! What a lovely surprise.'

‘I came to pick up Jasper,' Jake explained. ‘It's Samantha's day off and there's normally a supply nanny to cover her but the supply …' He saw Andrea was smiling at him. ‘Well, anyway, there was a mix-up and Candida was kept on late by some emergency. Can't think what it was, she's normally home by two-thirty or three.'

‘Oh, well,' said Peter, who had been rather too obviously not listening, grinning as he was at Andrea.

‘How was Marcus?' she asked him, receiving his welcome kiss.

‘Bad,' he muttered. ‘It's nearly over.'

‘Poor thing,' she said.

‘Can I get you another drink, Jake,' asked Peter, taking Jake's glass. ‘Another lager, was it?'

‘Actually, I really must be off. Candida may be home and worrying about Jasper. It's long past his bedtime. Thanks so much, Mrs Maitland … I mean, Andrea.'

She laughed. They all did.

‘It's having Robin back here,' Jake muttered. ‘Feels so strange.'

‘We'll give him your love,' she replied, thoughtlessly.

‘Sorry about the squash,' Peter told him. ‘Any other time. Oh. Sorry.'

‘What squash?' asked Andrea, sleepily, feeling the drink reach her knees as she stood in farewell. ‘Come along, Jasper. Time to go home. Did you like the photos.'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Very much. Bye.'

‘Bye.'

He ran out into the hall after the men. She heard the front door open again amid muttered manly goodbyes. She went to sit where the child had sat and began to look at the photographs. Robin and Candida grinning from their treehouse. Another one with Candida in a cowboy hat and Robin in a dress Andrea had once been made to wear as a bridesmaid. She turned some pages and found a terrible, wet camping trip to Suffolk. A much younger Peter grinning up at the camera while frying bacon in a field amid strings of wet clothes. Andrea, unbelievably twee in a sou'wester, glaring from the shelter of a church porch. Candida and Robin curled up under the same blanket in the back of the dormobile, then brand-new, boxes of groceries looming behind them and Candida's irritating penny-whistle discarded in merciful sleep.

There was a clinking of ice cubes on glass and Peter came back. He had poured himself a grapefruit juice.

‘I should have told you,' he said. ‘It was so silly.'

‘What was?' She had no idea what he was talking about.

‘The squash. I've been playing secret squash games with Jake every week since, oh, well for ages. Years.'

‘But that's lovely,' she said. She laughed. ‘Why on earth didn't you tell me?'

‘To be honest, I can't remember. It seemed vital at the time that neither you nor Candida should know. I think … I think it was because I still missed Dob so much and Jake was a last kind of link to him. What was curious was that he obviously felt enormously guilty over something and seemed to regard the weekly contact with me as some kind of penance.' He was standing by her and stroking her hair. ‘Do you mind very much?'

She thought a moment.

‘No,' she said, meaning ‘I'm not sure,' and she looked up at him, ‘but I'm glad you told me.' He sat on the window seat beside her.

‘Darling,' he said and they kissed. He looked at the photographs with her for a while. He said nothing but she could hear the slight snort he always made when he smiled.

‘Peter?'

‘Yes.'

‘Don't think me stupid, but your visits to Marcus are real, aren't they?'

‘Of course!' he laughed.

‘And the squash games with Jake are the only other thing you do away … away from me?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘And I won't be doing those much now.'

She understood what he meant and kissed him back to show she did.

‘Funny,' she said. ‘When Robin used to bring him home for weekends and things I thought he was so nice – rather serious and loyal and things – and now he's faintly pathetic.'

‘Mmm,' said Peter. ‘Even dull.' He kissed her.

‘Before you cook me supper,' she said.

‘Mmm?'

‘Shall we go upstairs and change a little?'

‘Mmm.'

Groping one another, half-crippled with desire, they made their way towards their bedroom. She had forgotten that Robin was home however and, giggling with nerves, they had to hide in her study until he left the house. Robin called her name twice before hurrying out.

Twenty-Two

‘No. Poor Venetia couldn't make it, they've sent her on location again already. Such a shame. Good for her, though. I'll just see how things are next door.'

Candida left her guests alone in the twilit conservatory. She took a quick look in the dining-room – Samantha's place settings tended towards the erratic – then moved quickly to the kitchen. Madame Rostand's latest delivery,
noisettes d'agneau fourrés en croûte
was already in the oven, which was risky as some guests, including Jake, had yet to arrive. Candida stirred the mint sabayon nervously, having made it herself, then took little bowls of chilled soup from the fridge and arranged them on a tray. She had made the soup herself, too. The deceptive simplicity of carrot blended with coriander and a hint of Jerusalem artichoke was an appeal to Robin's new asceticism. The evening would finish with one of Samantha's remarkably good summer puddings.

The front door opened and shut.

‘Jake?' she hissed.

He came in looking tired, crumpled, less than adorable.

‘Sorry,' he said.

‘I said seven-thirty,' she reminded him.

‘And I said sorry.'

‘It doesn't matter. Venetia's cancelled and Robin and Faber are late. Heini too.'

‘I don't know why you had to ask those two.'

‘I'd like Gilda to meet Faber and Robin's my oldest friend,' she said. ‘And yours.'

‘But I took him out for lunch only the other day.'

‘Well, I wasn't there, was I?'

He slumped to a chair and watched her being fast.

‘And they're so in love,' he complained.

‘So?'

‘Calf love's disgusting at our age.'

She stopped in mid-action to check his suit.

‘Are you going to wear that?' she asked.

‘Well, I … Who else is here?'

‘Never mind,' she said. ‘There's no time.'

The doorbell rang.

‘That'll be them.'

‘It could be Heini.'

‘It'll be them. You go. I'll finish this.'

Jake went to let in young love. Candida feverishly scattered chopped coriander across the soup bowls then ran after him. Robin and Faber were both in white. Entirely in white.

‘Faber. Robin,' she noted.

‘We're very, very late, aren't we,' Robin told Jake smugly. ‘I never used to have the self-control.' His hair was neat and his beard had gone. Faber's influence, she decided.

‘You look lovely,' said Faber, holding her fingertips and admiring her admirable dress.

‘Is that white stuff muslin?' asked Robin, moving in beside him.

‘Yes,' she said, holding out some of the fabric and looking down at it, ‘And the silver's just sort of splashed on with a brush. The dry cleaners will have a fit. And look at you two, all in white. I could eat you both.'

Faber chuckled, Robin licked his lips and Jake, embarrassed, led them to meet the others. Candida went upstairs to find Jasper. Samantha had just finished getting him ready for bed.

‘Perdy-M's out for the count,' she told her mistress.

‘Thank God,' said Candida then held out her hand to her son. ‘Come along darling,' she said. ‘Come and say goodnight to everyone.'

‘No,' said Jasper.

‘I'll read you a story,' Samantha suggested.

‘All right.'

Candida took his hot newly-washed hand in hers and led him downstairs. Heads turned as they reached the top of the few steps into the conservatory and the geranium air was full of warm greetings and affected surprise.

‘We've just come to say goodnight,' said Candida.

‘You off already?' asked Robin.

‘It's the holy man,' said Jasper, pleased. ‘Do I have to go to bed?'

‘Yes, darling. Say goodnight.'

Jasper looked around at his parents' guests.

‘Bye,' he said and was passed back to Samantha who was waiting behind in the candle-lit shadows.

‘Not too long a story,' Candida told her. ‘He's running rather late. Now,' she went on, turning back, ‘Has everybody met?'

‘Er. I don't think I have.' Tanned and tiny, Uncle Heini was grinning at her from a capacious reclining-chair.

‘Heini!' she bent to kiss him. ‘I didn't see you arrive.'

‘I came in through the garden,' he chuckled, ‘Your wallflowers smell so beautiful.' He turned to the others to explain. ‘They're always at their best on their way out,' he told them. ‘Like old men.'

‘Now everyone, this is Heinrich Liebermann.'