Running to Paradise (30 page)

I
took one more look at the photograph, then carefully put it in my pocket. I would, I decided, get a frame for it. As for the rest, I’d think about what to do with that another day.

Two
days later Sophia rang. ‘Guy, Happy New Year; are you still sulking?’

‘
I never was,’ I said, ‘sulking, I mean. I just wanted to think things out, that’s all. Anyway, you could have rung if you’d wanted to.’

‘
I suppose so,’ she said. ‘Did you see that Aunty Phyll died on New Year’s Eve?’

‘
I’m glad,’ I said. ‘She was ready to go, I think.’

‘
Guy, actually I’ve got some news,’ Sophia’s voice sounded unusually diffident.

‘
Great. Let’s hope it’s good; I feel badly in need of some sort of uplift just now.’

‘
Well...it is for me, I think. I’m going to be married.’

‘
Congratulations,’ I said, noticing suddenly that the telephone table was covered in dust and there was a stain on the carpet by the front door. ‘That’s marvellous news. Do I know him?’

‘
I doubt it,’ she giggled, an uncharacteristically girlish sound. Sophia had never been girlish, she’d told me once rather sadly: adolescence and all that sort of thing had, it seemed, simply passed her by. ‘Oddly enough,’ she went on, ‘he’s a sort of cousin on my father’s side.’

‘A
Charterhouse? That surely can’t be bad; they’re all rolling, aren’t they? I seem to remember Char always said—’

‘
An Elliott, actually.’

‘
Now, that really is a surprise. How on earth, I mean I thought they were all dead—’

‘
Oh, don’t be silly, Guy, of course they aren’t.’ She sounded more like her old self again. ‘Martin’s father was Barny’s first cousin, and his grandfather was a younger brother of the poet. He’s the secretary of the H. A. Elliott Society and the custodian of the museum. The cottage in Gloucestershire where my grandparents lived has been turned into a little museum, you see. As a matter of fact, that’s how I met Martin. I went to see it, and he was down for the day doing the garden. But Guy, it was so extraordinary: I felt, we both felt, we’d known each other our entire lives! Marriage seemed the only logical step only a day after our meeting. We just knew it was the only thing to do...’

I
stood there, gazing down at the stain on the carpet, the receiver a foot or so away from my ear, experiencing a marked attack of
déjà
vu
. It had been George last time, hadn’t it, who’d burbled on about his new-found happiness. But marriage of two ‘like-minded’ Elliotts, my God! The truth, the unvarnished truth and nothing but the truth. What had Char said about Barny when she first met him? ‘I felt as though he had opened a door into my soul and was briskly shining a torch round it to see what was wrong.’ This certainly would be a marriage of pure minds. Char would have been pleased, though, but how she would have laughed.

‘
Guy, are you still there?’

‘
Of course I am. I was just thinking; that museum, isn’t it the place where your grandfather bumped off your grandmother? Hardly the most suitable location for his museum, one would have thought—’

‘
If you’re going to be facetious, there’s no point in going on then—’

‘
Oh, darling. I’m not. I really am very pleased for you. You deserve all the happiness you can get. When’s the wedding?’

‘
Quite soon, I hope. I’ll let you know. And Guy...you will come, won’t you?’

‘
Try and keep me away,’ I said.

19

The wedding took place a couple of months later. The ceremony was private, attended only by Ann, Beth and Tristram, Martin Elliott’s son by a former marriage. But the reception afterwards, in the banqueting room of some Bloomsbury hotel, was quite a large affair; the bridegroom, it appeared, had connections.

Among
the crowd of Charterhouses, Osborns and Pratts — alas, of course, no Aunty Phyll — I noticed quite a few members of the current literati and even a well-known actor. The marriage of two Elliott grandchildren had, it seemed, caused quite a stir in media circles; that one of them had so recently emerged from the wrong side of the blanket, an added bonus. The current crop of Charterhouses seemed to take Sophia’s translation from Charterhouse to Elliott, and then again to Elliott, in their collective stride. Indeed, they appeared quite proud of the connection and, so they said, found the whole thing ‘frightfully interesting, and really rather splendid’ .

Anyway,
the food was good and the drink flowed, perhaps not quite as freely as one would have wished, but a wedding reception in London in the eighties must surely cost not far short of a king’s ransom, so one couldn’t complain. Martin, who seemed a decent chap, made an extremely witty speech — I noticed the media men smirking all over their shorthand pads — and I’ve never seen Sophia look so pretty or so alive. She was dressed in a suit the colour of Parma violets, and those eyes — Martin’s are exactly the same, it’s really quite extraordinary, even rather eerie — had a look in them I’d never seen before. Seeing her standing there so happy, suddenly brought home to me what a really very rough old life she’d had up to now. Perhaps, I told myself smugly, it was just as well Char never got round to burning that diary for 1933 and passed it on to me instead; at least I could claim I’d been partly responsible for the present happy state of affairs.

I
was standing beside a rather decrepit-looking potted palm ruminating on all this, when someone gently twitched my sleeve. I jumped, spilling at least half a glass of champagne in the process, and turned to find Char, aged around twenty and looking agitated, standing behind me. She was entirely unsuitably dressed for the occasion, her outfit consisting of jeans, a long, bright orange sweater — rather grubby — and one of those padded jackets the young seem to live in. But her brown, curly hair shone with life and sprung away from her head free from any fashionable dye, and her skin — a sort of brown-peach colour — was flawless. From her ears dangled a pair of rather beautiful antique silver earrings.

For
one, long, extraordinary moment I stood there paralysed. My heart was beating much too fast and my mouth was dry. I looked wildly round the room. Was this the beginning of a heart attack; didn’t one sometimes have hallucinations, or was that with something else?

‘
You couldn’t possibly lend me a couple of quid, could you? There’s a taxi waiting outside and the driver’s beginning to get a bit stroppy. I’m absolutely skint, you see.’

‘
Who the hell are you?’ Even to me my voice sounded odd; sort of high pitched and squeaky.

‘
Char’ raised her eyebrows haughtily. ‘I’m perfectly respectable, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ She plainly assumed I was asking for references. ‘I’m a niece of the bride, and if you can’t lend me the money I’ll have to find someone else. It was just I didn’t want to bother Aunt Sophie, and I can’t be too long; I’ve left Alexander in a sort of waiting room, and he’ll wake up at any minute...’

Hastily
I produced a fiver. ‘Will this do to be going on with?’ My heartbeat, I noted with relief, was slowing down, and my voice had dropped a couple of registers. ‘And who is Alexander? If he’s an animal, I have a feeling they’re not allowed and—’

‘
Oh, thank you so much.’ Her smile was all I knew it would be. ‘Actually, Alexander’s a baby, not an animal, so there’s no problem there, except he’ll be getting hungry at any minute, and then things may get a bit dicey.’

‘
Look,’ I said, ‘wouldn’t it be simpler if I went down and paid off the taxi and you saw to Alexander? I mean, you don’t want things to get dicey, do you?’ She gave me another blinding smile.

‘
Christ, you’re brilliant. Who are you, by the way? I’m Pip Holloway, my Mum was Evie Charterhouse.’

I
took a deep breath. ‘I’m your Aunt Beth’s ex,’ I said, as we hurried downstairs — she wasn’t a girl to waste time — ‘my name’s Guy Horton.’

‘
Good heavens, are you really? I always imagined he’d look much older than that...’

I
stumbled down a couple of stairs, this time spilling the rest of my champagne — for some reason I was still hanging on to my glass.

‘
You’ve heard of me, then?’ I tried to sound casual. ‘Daddy might have mentioned you once or twice.’ She gave me a quick sideways glance. ‘You know what families are.’

Providentially I was saved from replying, as she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and raised an arm for silence: ‘Christ, he’s started.’ From somewhere below us came an angry wail. Char’s great-grandson wanted his tea.

We
arrived breathless at the bottom of the stairs, to find the hotel porter crouching on the floor behind the reception desk; beside him the blue, plastic-covered box that contained Alexander. The porter was waving a rattle and making animal noises in an ineffectual attempt to calm down the yelling child.

‘
He seemed a bit fretful, Madam,’ he told Pip, ‘so I brought him in with me.’ He sounded as if he thought the whole thing was his fault.

‘
How very kind of you. The thing is he’s hungry, you see. It looks as if I’ll have to feed the little wretch.’ And Pip, rather to my surprise — I thought the young, liberated female immune from all that sort of thing — actually blushed.

The
porter coughed discreetly. ‘There’s a comfortable Ladies Rest Room, Madam, just round to the left, with all the...er facilities.’

Pip
smiled straight into the man’s eyes. ‘What a super idea. I was wondering where on earth I could go, and what an incredibly efficient porter you are.’ This time it was the porter who blushed.

Briskly
she turned to me. ‘When you’ve paid the taxi, would you mind awfully nipping upstairs and telling Aunt Sophie I’m here and will be up myself in a minute or two, plus offspring. I promised Daddy I’d be at the wedding, you see, that’s why he let me have the fare over from New York.’

‘
You’ve just arrived, then, from the States?’ I had to shout, Alexander’s screams were getting louder by the minute. ‘Have you anywhere to stay?’

Ignoring
my question, she gave her son’s cot an angry shake: Will you shut up, you little menace?’ she ordered. ‘And don’t be so damned greedy, I’m coming as fast as I can.’ And to both my own and the porter’s surprise, Alexander obediently shut up. Once again she turned to me: ‘Look, I’m not trying to hurry you, Uncle Guy,’ I winced, ‘but unless we want a case of assault on our hands, I do think you’d better go and pay the taxi.’ I went.

Upstairs,
I told Sophia, who was about to go and change. She laughed. ‘Pip made it then, good for her. She’s Evie’s daughter, you know. She doesn’t get on with David or her stepmother, and of course they’re livid about the baby.’

‘
I would imagine they might be,’ I said.

Sophia
gave me a look. ‘She’s a chip off the old block, Guy ducky. You must have noticed that already, so be careful.’

Again
I was saved from having to reply, this time by Martin, who appeared at her elbow. ‘Look, darling, if we’re going to catch that plane, I really think you should get a move on.’

‘
Goodbye, Guy darling,’ Sophia gave me a long, and I thought rather sexy kiss. ‘Tell Pip to come and help me change — Room 209. I want to see that baby. And Guy...remember what I said — watch it.’

After
the happy pair had been given a suitable send-off, we took a taxi, Pip, Alexander and I, back to my flat. They appeared to have very little luggage, just a carrier bag containing a few basic necessities for Alexander — even then I had to dash out to the chemist before it closed and buy a box of disposable nappies — and a dilapidated hold-all minus its zip.

In
the taxi, Pip, at my instigation, gave a brief outline of her present circumstances. She seemed unwilling to talk about herself: indeed, more inclined to discuss me and my ‘relationship’ with her grandmother. I managed, temporarily at least, to head her off this sensitive subject, by saying I thought our priorities lay — if I were to assist her — in my knowing her current situation, rather than wasting time discussing family gossip. To my surprise, this rather pompous speech appeared to impress her and she agreed to begin.

She
had been too young to remember her mother, she told me, the latter having died when Pip was just over a year old. Indeed, she hadn’t realised that Paula was not her real mother until she was eight — the knowledge when it came, came as a relief, she said darkly, but didn’t explain why and I didn’t like to ask. She did not, of course, remember Australia either, as they returned to England when she was around three years old. Reading between the lines, her childhood did not seem to have been a very happy one. Sent to boarding school at an early age, she had spent much of her holidays staying with relatives, especially Aunt Ann in Scotland, to whom she seemed devoted. Anyway, despite a few hiccups (her words) she left school with three A-levels under her belt, and the idea she should go on to university.

Then
out of the blue, Daddy got promotion and was sent to New York to be in charge of his firm’s US subsidiary. And — perhaps suffering a few tardy pangs of guilt at his obvious neglect of his daughter — despite protests from Paula, suggested Pip should join them. There was a Fine Arts course going in Manhattan that was just up her street, and she could always do university after that. Despite Paula, Pip said yes: ‘I’d have been daft not to, wouldn’t I,’ and off to New York she went.

It
had been a fantastic time, she said; opening her eyes to many things, not the least of which was Chinese porcelain. Unfortunately, most of her fellow students were weeds and she and Paula rowed more or less continuously.

‘
And Alexander?’ I asked carefully.

‘
Alexander,’ she said, looking dotingly down at the sleeping boy, ‘comes from Scottish crofter stock.’

‘
Oh,’ I said, feeling out of my depth. ‘Does he? That’s nice.’

‘
His father was the son of the janitor to the apartment block where Daddy and Paula live. Mr Milne went over from Scotland after the War; he’s an ex-sergeant in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.’

‘
I see,’ I said. ‘And his son?’

‘
Don drives a cab. I used to go round with him at night sometimes, it was fantastic.’

‘
And...and then you got yourself pregnant?’

Her
green eyes looked at me coldly. ‘You could put it that way if you like,’ she said, ‘but it was hardly an immaculate conception.’

‘
I’m sorry,’ I said humbly, ‘I didn’t mean it like that. Do please go on.’

‘
Well, the trouble was, when I discovered I was pregnant, Don wanted to marry me. That was out, of course: I mean who wants to get married these days? Anyway, I should hate to live in New York. Daddy and Paula wanted me to get rid of the baby. Aren’t people unethical, Uncle Guy? I mean really, it makes you wonder.’ I nodded sagely.

‘
Anyway, even they couldn’t force me to have an abortion, but Paula certainly didn’t want me lurking round her tea parties getting bigger by the minute, with no husband to show for it, so I was sent away to some cousins of hers in Connecticut. Actually the Lyndons weren’t bad. There were lots of animals there and it’s lovely country. The only snag was I was expected to help with the housework, which I’m not too keen on — though I do like cooking — and Father Lyndon would insist on making love to me.’

‘
Good heavens.’ Despite myself, I was shocked. ‘Didn’t you try to stop him?’

‘
It wasn’t easy,’ she said evasively. ‘Anyway, that wasn’t a problem for long, as by the time I was about seven months I went off sex completely.’

‘
I see,’ I said again. Suddenly she bent down and tucked the blanket more tightly round the sleeping Alexander; all that was visible now was his nose and a tuft of reddish hair.

‘
When Alexander was born, no one knew what to do with me. I think Daddy hoped I’d agree to have him adopted, but, of course, I wouldn’t. What on earth was the point of having him, just to give him away?’

There
was silence for a moment, while she looked out of the cab window. Suddenly, underneath her enormous
savoir
faire
— all Char’s family have that, it’s built in — I sensed a massive loneliness, desolation even: she and Alexander against the world? I put a tentative arm round her. ‘So, what happened?’

‘
I have this friend Patsy, who was married last year. She has a baby a few months older than Alexander, and she wrote suggesting that we came over and stayed. She’s married to a man in computers and they live in this huge flat in West Hampstead. She said there was plenty of space and I could rent a room there, and do a course at the university, or something. As there didn’t seem that many options on offer, and Patsy and I get on quite well, I wrote and said yes, I’d come. Of course, I had to borrow the money for my fare over from Daddy. I had hell’s own job to get it out of him, and he only let me have it on condition I represented him and Paula at Aunt Sophie’s wedding. He thinks I’m going back in a fortnight, but I’m not. I’m staying here if it kills me — I hate America.’