Presence of Mind (14 page)

The click of the side gate roused me as it had last week to Edgar's arrival. This time it was Simon Pomfrett who came strolling over the grass. What a shockingly lazy scene!' he greeted us. ‘Compared with you, our garden's a hive of industry. I've just finished cutting the grass and I even bribed Roger to go round the edges with the new clippers.'

‘Good for you. Briony, get a chair for Mr Pomfrett, will you. In fact, bring three more. I'm going to put the kettle on now, and perhaps Daddy and Mrs Pomfrett will join us.'

Lance seemed a little more relaxed as we all had tea together and I reflected that perhaps painting did help him to unwind as he claimed. He was obviously satisfied with the afternoon's work and that also eased his anxiety. Nevertheless, I noticed that he kept glancing across at Briony, repeatedly bringing her into the conversation, and her own attitude became increasingly wary. And suddenly, without warning, we were thrown once again into the whirlpool of doubt and uncertainty. It all started so innocuously. A large furry bee alighted on the sugar basin and started to make its way laboriously round the rim. As we watched it lost its balance and fell on to the glistening white pile, sending out a shower of grains as it struggled wildly to regain its footing. Briony, laughing, helped it to right itself with the handle of her teaspoon and it bumbled agitatedly away.

‘That reminds me of the time a bee fell into the lemonade, and you said She broke off and frowned.

‘– that if we only had some whisky handy, we'd have had instant toddy,' Lance finished.

She looked up at him quickly. ‘Yes.'

Simon and Stella were smilingly unaware of the sudden tension, but I knew perfectly well that such an episode had never happened to Briony. It was a memory in which she herself had played no part. Well, Max, I thought, what would you make of that? Can it be explained by freak telepathy, Briony somehow reading Lance's memory of that other time?

‘Are you sure you can cope with us tomorrow?' Simon was saying. ‘We'd rather written it off for this weekend.'

‘We'd love to see you if you've nothing else arranged, and the children too. Cynthia and Edgar are coming, of course.'

‘And the Forrests?' asked Stella.

‘No,' Lance returned smoothly, ‘not the Forrests this week.'

‘I must admit I'm rather relieved. Paula's so elegant and sophisticated even in a swimsuit that she makes me feel blowsy and – overblown.'

‘Especially when you haven't had your hair done!' put in Simon wickedly, with a wink at me.

‘She said I should wear it short and wash it myself!' Stella said indignantly. ‘I wouldn't have
her
hairstyle for a million pounds!'

Lance put his cup and saucer on the tray and stood up. ‘If you'll all excuse me I must be getting back to work. Thanks again for coming this afternoon, Stella.'

‘A pleasure. We must go too.'

Briony and I walked to the gate with the Pomfretts, then, announcing she had had enough sunbathing, she went into the house. I carried the tea tray back to the kitchen and put it on the table. The grains of sugar which the bee spilt had melted in the heat into tiny transparent spots of stickiness. I stood for a long moment looking down at them. Where and when had that other episode with the bee taken place? Could it perhaps have been somewhere in Scotland in, say, nineteen fifty-eight?

Saturday's sunshine had not reappeared by the time that the first visitors arrived the next day, and for the adults at least the pool did not seem so inviting. Mark, Briony and the two young Pomfretts had a swim, but the sky remained grey and cloudy and they changed straight back into trews and sweaters. The rest of use – Stella and Simon, Cynthia and Edgar and Lance and I – sat on the terrace, talking intermittently. I knew Cynthia was full of questions about Briony's disappearance, but either Edgar had warned her not to raise the subject or some latent tact of her own kept her silent.

Lance, I noticed with faint surprise, was unusually smartly dressed. Normally he went about the house and garden in an old shirt and paint-spattered trousers, but today he wore a shirt I didn't remember seeing before and his trousers, narrow and sand-coloured, also seemed new. A silk cravat was tucked casually into his neck. He seemed restless and unable to relax, particularly when Briony was out of sight, making excuses to go over and watch the swimming, and later standing at the net when the young people played tennis. Mark at least seemed ill at ease in his company and I was uncomfortably aware that a resentment was building up between the two of them, almost as though they were the same age and resented the other's interest in Briony.

The other undeniable awkwardness was between myself and Edgar. The erratic progress of our awareness of each other – one step forward and two back – did nothing to smooth the way for naturalness when we met in company. Distractedly I tried to remember exactly what had been said between us at our last meeting, but had only a rather unsettling memory of his arms round me and my hand in his. It would be very easy to lean on Edgar's dependability, even to accept his soothing comfort when things became fraught as they seemed increasingly to do, but I knew that only a very fine line separated such acceptances from something much deeper. For his part, after years of rebuff with Cynthia he was probably more than ready to turn to me, might even already imagine himself in love. All of this was a complication I hadn't time to consider with the attention it called for.

Over lunch the rift between Lance and Mark widened embarrassingly. I can't remember how it started except that it was something to do with a disputed point in the tennis foursome. It seemed that Mark had smashed the ball into the back of the court, thereby losing the set, when a gentle tap, or so Lance insisted, would have dropped it just over the net and saved the day. The hypothetical argument became quite heated. Mark, a polite boy, had flushed and I could see was only with difficulty holding back a stronger retort than manners would allow. Whether a challenge was actually issued I don't know, but it was all at once clear that he and Lance were to embark on a singles game to establish who was the better player.

‘What about handicaps?' Simon enquired, entering into the spirit of the thing. ‘Mark must be a lot fitter than you, old boy.'

‘Not at all,' Lance answered tightly. ‘I play on and off at weekends and am in pretty good shape. I'm certainly not going to accept any kind of advantage. We'll play on a level footing and see who wins.'

‘Okay, if you say so. I'll come and be umpire.'

‘I'm not going to miss this!' Stella remarked, and so it was that we all made our way to the bottom of the garden and set up four chairs alongside the court. To be fair, the opponents did seem to be evenly matched. They were much the same height and although Lance could give Mark twenty years, there was little difference in weight. I stole a glance at Briony, sitting with Lindsay on the grass at our feet, and noticed the excitement in her. I was not surprised. Those two were playing for her favours as surely as knights in a tournament five hundred years ago.

The game began. Lance played with flair and style, Mark more slowly but powerfully. At the net Simon, perched on a step ladder, kept meticulous score. For a while the points went to the server but at the end of the first set Lance broke through to win 8—6. Elated by this success, his play became noticeably more erratic. He was also, though he would never have admitted it, beginning to tire. Each point had to be fought for, sometimes with several deuces, and by the end of the second set, which Mark won, they had been playing for over an horn'. Stella had discreetly fallen asleep behind her sunglasses but at my feet Briony, hugging her knees, intently watched every stroke. I wondered which of them she wanted to win. For myself I was tired of sitting in one position and uncomfortable at the less than sportsmanlike atmosphere of the game. As inconspicuously as possible I left the court and made my way aimlessly through the fruit trees to the walled kitchen garden which was old Jack's pride and joy.

‘Mind if I join you?' Edgar had fallen into step behind me. I smiled vaguely in reply, and after a moment he said quietly, ‘Just what do you suppose he's trying to prove?'

I gave a little shrug. ‘I don't know.'

“What's the matter, Ann?' His voice was gentle and almost my undoing, but how could I possibly begin to tell him?

‘Nothing,' I tied. Up and down the narrow little paths we walked, past the straggling peas and scarlet runners, the netted preserves where strawberries were slowly ripening and alongside the wide neat rows of potatoes, onions and lettuces. I kept walking, guessing that if I stopped here in the seclusion of the walled garden Edgar's arms would come round me and I would not have the strength or the will to resist him. We completed the square in silence and came out again on to the lawn, closing the door in the wall behind us. A scattering of applause greeted a good shot – whose, we had no way of knowing.

Edgar said, “What will happen if he loses?'

‘I don't know. Somehow I don't think he will. He can't afford to.'

‘I'm sorry for that boy,' he said abruptly. ‘He doesn't deserve this.'

‘I know.'

We stood in the middle of the lawn, unwilling to return to the court, unable to leave it completely. The garden stretched away towards the house, the deserted pool on the right, the rose garden and Lance's studio on the left.

‘This is a fabulous place, isn't it?' Edgar remarked. ‘The grounds are so attractive and the house itself pure Queen Anne.'

‘Yes, I love it.'

‘I remember when you and Lance bought it, and how you had all the old paint scraped away down to the original honey-coloured wood. The house seemed to come alive again, as though it had been waiting for you.' He gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘Just as well Cynthia didn't hear that burst of rhetoric!'

‘One of the advantages of being married to an artist is that he knows just the right colours to complement the woodwork and style of architecture.'

‘Yes, that terracotta in the hall was a real brainwave. The sitting-room colour scheme's built round the painting, isn't it?'

I turned to stare at him, my instinctive denial melting away unspoken. Because he was right. The soft blues and greens of the furniture, the oatmeal carpet and the vivid cyclamen of the long curtains were all repeated in the canvas over the fireplace. It seemed unbelievable that I should have failed to realise it. The painting had dominated our lives even more than I'd appreciated.

‘Funny, that outburst last weekend,' Edgar was going on, unaware of the disturbance his previous remark had caused me, ‘with that analyst chap staring at the painting and Lance all on the defensive. I thought for a moment they were going to come to blows!'

I said rockily, ‘We'd better go back and see how the game's progressing.'

Mark and Lance, faces flushed and shining with sweat, shirts sticking to their backs, were still playing hard. Stella had woken up and was chatting to Cynthia. Briony was the only one who didn't seem to have moved during our absence as every fibre of her concentrated on the game in play.

As it happened, we arrived just in time to see the end. The score was eight all in the final set when Mark, stretching backwards to slam a ball, stumbled and twisted his ankle. It was obvious the game would have to be abandoned and although the ankle was swelling rapidly and seemed painful, I couldn't help being thankful that an honourable finish had been possible. Briony hovered anxiously as Mark limped back to the house between Edgar and Simon, and Lance watched them go with a frown.

‘I shouldn't have thought he was hurt as badly as all that.'

‘The wounded hero always gets the acclaim,' Cynthia remarked acidly. She linked her arm through his, giving it a squeeze. ‘Never mind, my sweet. If they want to make a fuss of him, let them.
I
thought you played magnificently.'

‘It would have been much more satisfactory to have had a definite result,' he muttered. ‘Damn the boy! I just about had him, too.'

‘You'd better put your sweater on,' I said quietly. ‘You're very hot and there's quite a cool breeze.' Seeing the hurt bafflement on his face, I added, ‘And well played, darling. Cynthia's right, you were magnificent.'

Leaving him to her ministrations I quickened my steps to catch up with the others. ‘Briony, find a stool to prop Mark's foot up while I organise a cold water compress. He'll have to rest it now.'

The afternoon slid away in an atmosphere of anti-climax. Briony was still in the grip of her new-found power, seeming deliberately to play Lance and Mark against each other as though to prolong the excitement of their contest. Lance's attention, though he kept well away from Mark, was centred entirely on her. I saw Edgar's frown as his eyes went from one of them to the other, and my heart sank. I was relieved when, at about six o'clock, the party began to break up. Simon offered to take Mark home, since he obviously couldn't ride his bicycle.

As he prepared to hobble into the car, the boy turned to us. ‘Thank you for the super lunch, Mrs Tenby. And thanks for the game, sir. You certainly kept me on my toes!' The hopeful look he gave Lance was an obvious mixture of apology and conciliation, but Lance, to my regret, merely gave a curt nod and hoped formally that the swelling would soon go down. I knew from Mark's face as he turned away that he realised his tentative olive branch had been rejected. It may well have been his downcast expression which led Briony to reach up quickly to kiss him. It was all innocent enough but the effect was disconcerting. While Mark flushed, smiled and got in the car, Lance turned on his heel and walked abruptly away.

‘That was hardly tactful,' I chided her as the car drove off.

‘Why?' She tossed back her hair and eyed me with unusual defiance.