September (1990) (59 page)

He was laughing. "And you lived happily ever after?"

"Oh, so happily. Such happy years in a little terraced house in Relkirk. Then Edmund was born, and Edie came into our lives. Eighteen years old and the daughter of the Strathcroy joiner, she came to me as a nursery maid, and we've been together ever since. It was a good time. So good that I pretended not to notice the gathering clouds of war looming up over our horizon. But the war came. Geordie joined up with the Highland Division and went to France. In May 1940, he was taken prisoner at Saint-Valery, and I didn't see him again for five and a half years. Edie and Edmund and I moved back to Balnaid and sat out the war with my parents, but they were growing old, and by the time peace was declared, they had both died. So when Geordie finally came back to us, it was to Balnaid that h
e c
ame, and it was there that we spent the rest of our life together."

"When did he die?"

"About three years after Edmund was married-for the first time, you understand, to Alexa's mother. It all happened with astonishing suddenness. We had such a good life. I made plans-for the garden, for the house, for holidays and trips that we would take together-as though both of us. were going to live forever. And so I was quite taken by surprise when I realized that, quite suddenly, Geordie was failing. He lost his appetite, lost weight, complained of vague discomforts and pains. At first, refusing to be frightened, I told myself that it was simply some digestive disorder, legacy of his long years in prisoner-of-war camps. But a doctor was finally consulted and then a specialist. Geordie was wheeled into Relkirk General for what was, at that stage, euphemistically known as "tests." The result of these tests was conveyed to me by the specialist. He sat across a desk from me in a sun-filled office, and he was very kind, and when he had finished telling me, I thanked him very much, and I got up* and went out of the room, and down the long rubber-floored corridors to where Geordie lay in a side ward, propped up by pillows in the high hospital bed. I had brought him daffodils from Balnaid, and I arranged them for him in a jug, with plenty of water so that they should not wilt and die. But Geordie died two weeks later. Edmund was there with me, but not Caroline, his wife. She had started a baby, and was suffering from sickness. Knowing that Alexa was coming was one of the things I hung onto during those dreadful, dark days. Geordie was gone, but another new little life Was on its way, to set the seal on the bonds of continuity. Which is one of the reasons that Alexa has always been so special to me."

After a little, Noel said, "You're special to her as well. She's talked to me so much about you."

Violet fell silent. A wind sprang up, shuddering through the grass. It carried with it the smell of rain. She looked, and saw the clouds rolling in from the west, blurring the hills and darkening their lower slopes with shadow.

She said, "We've had the best of the day. I hope you don't feel it has been wasted. I hope I haven't bored you."

"Not for a moment."

"I began by trying to prove a point to you, and ended up by telling you my life story."

"I feel privileged."

She said, "Alexa is coming."

He sat up, dusting scraps of grass from the sleeves of his sweater. "So she is."

They watched her approach, making her way up the steep path with youthful speed and energy. She wore her jeans and a dark-blue sweater, and her dark-golden hair was tousled and her cheeks were rosy with the wind and the sun and the effort of the climb. She looked, thought Violet, quite absurdly young. And, all at once, knew that she had to speak.

"I was so fortunate. I married the man I loved. I only hope that the same thing will happen to Alexa." Noel, slowly, turned his head, and their eyes met. "Virginia told me that I must keep my counsel and not interfere. But I think you know already how much she loves you and I cannot bear to see her hurt. I am not pressuring you, but I want you to be careful. And if you have to hurt her, then you must do it now, before it is too late. You are surely fond enough of her to be able to do that?"

His face was expressionless, but his gaze steady. After a bit, he said, "Yes. Yes, I am."

There was, perhaps mercifully, no time for more. Alexa was there, within earshot, pounding up the last few yards towards them, collapsing into the heather at Noel's side.

"What have you two been talking about? You've been up here for ages"

"Oh, this and that," her grandmother told her airily.

"I've been sent to come and tell you that perhaps it's time we thought about packing up. The Ferguson
-
Crombies have got to go to some dinner party, and they've offered to give the Gloxbys and Dermot Honeycombe a lift back to Croy. Anyway, before very long, it's going to start to rain; the sky's beginning to look really black."

"Yes," said Violet. She looked, and saw that the boats were coming in off the water. Someone had damped down the fire, and her guests were already on1 their feet, folding rugs, reloading the cars. "Yes, it is time to go."

She began to heave herself up, but Noel was on his feet before her and ready with a helping hand.

"Thank you, Noel." She dusted scraps of heather from her heavy tweed skirt, took a last lingering look. All over. All over for another year. "Come."

She led the way, down the path, off the hill.

Noel awoke to darkness and a raging thirst. And something more urgent. Analyzed, this proved to be a rising physical longing for love and Alexa. He lay for a bit, dry-mouthed and lonely and frustrated, in the strange bed, in the unfamiliar bedroom, with the windows wide open onto a dark and blowy night, where no lights shone, and no cars passed, and the only sound was the soughing of the wind in the topmost branches of the trees. He thought nostalgically of London, Of Ovington Streets where he had existed for the last few months, lapped in comfort and care. If he awoke thirsty in London, he only had to reach out a hand to find the tumbler of spring water which Alexa set out for him each night, spiked with a slice of lemon. If, in the small dark hours of the morning, he found himself desiring her, he only had to turn to the downy bed, reach out and dra
w h
er towards him. Awakened, she was never resentful nor too sleepy for his ardour, but responded with the gentle passion that he had taught her, glorying in her own new-found knowledge, confident in her own desirability.

These reflections helped not at all. At last, unable to bear his thirst a moment longer, he turned on the bedside light and climbed out of bed. Went into the bathroom, ran the cold tap and filled a tooth-mug with water. The water was ice-cold and had a sweet and clean taste to it. He drained the tumbler and refilled it, and then went back to the bedroom and stood in the howling draught, gazing out into the bloomy darkness.

He drank some more. His thirst was assuaged, but his other need stayed with him. Fresh water and Alexa. It occurred to him that these two basic necessities, which, immediately, were more urgent than anything else in life, were in some strange way a reflection of each other. Adjectives flowed through his mind. Clean, sweet, pure, transparent, good, innocent, unsullied. They applied to both the element and the girl. And then, the final accolade. Life-giving.

Alexa.

He prided himself that it was he who was responsible for her flowering from gawky youngster to confident woman-finding out that she was a virgin had been one of the most astonishingly disarming experiences of his life-but as well he knew that it had been a two-way deal, and he had been on the receiving end of a great cornucopia of love and companionship and undemanding acceptance, for although she had been blessed with worldly riches, her gifts had not all been material. Being with Alexa had been a good interlude in his life, one of the best, and whatever happened in the future, he knew that he would always remember it with gratitude.

And what was going to happen? But he did not, at the moment, wish to consider this. More pressing to concentrate on now. Alexa. She slept in her own bed, in her childhood bedroom, only a few yards distant, across the landing and down a passage. He thought about going in search of her, silently opening and closing her door, slipping in between the sheets beside her. She would make space for him, turn to him, her arms ready for him, her body waking for him. . . .

He considered this course of action for a bit and then decided against it, for, he assured himself, practical rather than high-minded reasons. He knew from experience that it was all too easy to lose one's way in the unlit corridors of other people's country houses, and did not relish being discovered in some broom cupboard, along with the Hoover and a lot of old dusters. And here} at Balnaid, he had not even got the watertight excuse of going to the loo, because he had a perfectly good bathroom of his own.

And yet, even without these excuses, and putting more worthy reasons out of his mind, he still found himself wondering if he could pluck up the nerve to go in search of her. It had something to do with this house. There was an atmosphere he had sensed as soon as he walked through the door, a feeling of family, which rendered the notion of clandestine corridor-creeping simply out of the question. His long conversation with Vi, out on the hill during the afternoon, had further strengthened his conception of Balnaid. It was as though all the generations who had lived here were still around the place, in residence, living and breathing, going about their daily occupations, watching, and perhaps judging. Not just Alexa and Virginia, but Violet and her stalwart and much-loved Geordie. And before them, the old people, Sir Hector and Lady Primrose Akenside, solidly entrenched, highly principled, and still in charge of a house brimming with individuals; children in the nurseries, guests in the spare rooms, and housemaids and parlourmaids snoring away in the attics upstairs. This was the sort of enduring househol
d t
hat, as a boy, trapped in London, Noel had longed to be part of. A well-ordered and lavish life-style with all the attendant delights of the outdoors. Tennis parties and picnics, on an even more elaborate scale than the one that had taken place this afternoon. Ponies, and guns and fishing rods, and devoted gillies and keepers only too eager and ready to give the young gentleman a guiding hand.

This morning, driving up to Strathcroy with Alexa beside him, dazzled by the countryside and the colours and the sparkling air, he had been overwhelmed by the sensation that in some way he was driving back to the past, to a world that he had once known and yet forgotten. Now, he accepted that he had never known that world but, having found it, was reluctant to let it go. For the first time in his life, he felt that he belonged.

And Alexa?

He heard Violet's voice. If you have to hurt her; then you must do it now, before it is too late.

The words had an ominous ring to them. It was possible that it was already too late, in which case he had reached the watershed of his relationship with Alexa, and with Vi's warning ringing in his ears, knew that the time had come to take stock. Before the weekend was over, some sort of a decision had to be made.

He saw himself, as though from some great distance, teetering on that watershed, endeavouring to make the vital choice as to which path he would follow. He could go back the way he had come, which meant leaving Alexa, saying goodbye, trying to explain, packing his bags, moving out of Ovington Street; returning to the basement flat in Pembroke Gardens, placating his tenants, informing them that they must find some other place to roost. It meant going back to the old life, somehow getting himself back into social circulation. Calling up friends, meeting in bars, eating in restaurants, trying to find the telephone numbers of all those emaciated and beautiful women, feeding them, listening to their conversation. It meant driving to the country on Friday evenings, and then struggling back to London, on roads choked with traffic, the following Sunday night.

He sighed. But he'd done it all before, and there was no reason why he should not do it again.

The other alternative, the other path, led the way to commitment. And for Alexa, and everything she represented, he knew that this time it had to be total. A lifetime of assumed responsibility-marriage and probably children.

Perhaps it was time. He was thirty-four, but still devilled by the uncertainties of immaturity. Basic and deep-rooted insecurities rattled their bones at him, like a lot of gruesome skeletons lurking in a forgotten cupboard. Perhaps it was time, but the prospect filled him with terror.

He shivered. Enough. The wind was rising. A gust rattled the open window-frame. He discovered that he was chilled to the bone, but, like an icy shower, the cold air had finally stilled his unrequited ardour. Which settled at least one problem. He got back into bed, bundled in blankets, and turned off the light. For a long time he lay awake, but when he finally turned and slept again, he had still made no decision.

Chapter
10

Friday the Sixteenth

The rain started soon after he left Relkirk. As the country road climbed, heading north, mist drifted down from the hilltops, and his windscreen was beaded with damp. He switched on the wipers. It was the first rain he had seen for over a week, for New York had sparkled in the warmth of an Indian summer, sunshine reflected from towers of glass, flags snapping in the breeze outside Rockefeller Center, vagrants enjoying the last of the seasonal warmth, stretched out on the benches of Central Park, with their bags and bundles of meagre possessions gathered all about them.