The Last Summer (43 page)

We sat there, in Tom’s mother’s parlour, for a full five minutes without speaking, like a couple who’d had a row – which we were, and had had – as she poured fresh tea, cut Tom another slice of cake and then returned to the kitchen
for another plate. I wanted to say something; I wanted to prove to Tom that it wasn’t the way he thought. I wanted to say, ‘Mrs Cuthbert, I love your son as much as I love life itself.’ But I didn’t. I sat there, frozen, sipping tea, with Tom on the floor, sprawled out like a child at my feet. I wanted to reach out and touch him, but I couldn’t do it. Everything I was, everything my upbringing had taught me came together in those few minutes: I was Clarissa Granville once more; taking tea with our former housekeeper. I couldn’t let it go, you see. I couldn’t reinvent myself in minutes.

And so, eventually, I put down my cup and saucer and rose to my feet. ‘I must go now. But it’s been lovely, thank you so much, Mrs Cuthbert.’

I didn’t look at Tom and he didn’t move, didn’t even stand up when I left the room. Mrs Cuthbert saw me to her door.

‘Thank you, Clarissa,’ she said, and I realised immediately that she’d called me Clarissa and not
Miss Clarissa
. I leant forward and kissed her cheek.

‘I love him,’ I whispered, tears stinging my eyes. ‘I need you to know, need you to understand.’

She frowned, took hold of my hand. ‘Yes, I understand. I understand more than you know, dear. But you have to let him go. You have to let him move on. Otherwise . . . otherwise he’s going to waste his life waiting for something he can never have. And he deserves some happiness.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, yes he does.’

Later that evening, at dinner, he was in a peculiar mood, and barely looked at me. Instead, he focused his attention on the petite American blonde, sitting where Davina had been sitting the previous evening. He flirted with her in the most obvious way, and I suspected he simply wanted to annoy me, make me jealous.

‘You know, I think I prefer American women,’ he said, leaning
towards her. ‘I find you all . . . so much less uppity than English
ladies
.’

I said nothing.

‘I don’t suppose all English ladies are uppity, Tom,’ the blonde replied, glancing at me. ‘Clarissa’s certainly not.’

‘Ah, Clarissa . . . but you see, I know
Miss Clarissa
slightly better than you, and . . .’ He leant towards her and whispered something in her ear. She looked at me, raised her eyebrows and then giggled.

‘Don’t you know it’s rude to whisper, Tom,’ I said without looking at him.

‘There you go! They’re all obsessed with bloody manners!’

‘Tom . . .’

He turned to me. ‘Yes, my love?’

I shook my head.

‘No? Is that a no, or a no thank you?’

The blonde laughed again. He refilled her glass, and his own, and then turned to me, straight-backed in his chair, the bottle poised over my glass. ‘More wine, ma’am?’

I didn’t speak.

‘Will that be all, ma’am?’ He leant forward, raised an eyebrow. ‘Or will ye be requirin’ me services later?’

I looked across the table, tried to smile.

There were others who’d joined us for dinner that night, neighbours I presumed, and, thankfully, with something in the region of perhaps thirty sitting down to dinner, the room was unbelievably noisy. My mother’s dinner parties had been sedate affairs by comparison, I thought, never this riotous. I could hear Hud’s booming voice somewhere further down the table, and, from time to time, Davina’s shrieks and laughter, but I couldn’t make out any conversation, other than Tom’s.

‘Miss Clarissa . . .’ he began, lighting a cigarette, and pulling at his tie, ‘Miss Clarissa likes the
old ways
, don’t you, darling?’

‘Please, Tom . . .’

He lifted his cigarette to his lips, staring down the table. ‘Please, Tom . . . please, Tom,’ he repeated quietly, imitating my voice, my accent. ‘Please, Tom . . . I’ll wait for you, my darling. I’ll wait, I promise,’ he went on, mimicking a young breathless girl: me.

I leant towards him and whispered, ‘You’re being unfair . . . and you’re being uncouth.’

He didn’t look at me, but sighed, loudly. ‘Ah! What it is to be rich and uncouth. Of course, that’s why the English don’t particularly like Americans, you know?’ he continued, turning to the blonde again. She looked nervous, and I wanted to tell him then to stop, but I knew we’d say things, I knew there’d be a scene. ‘Because you’re all so damned rich and uncouth!’ He leant forward, smiling at her now, and her eyes darted from him to me and back to him.

‘Oh dear, I do hope not,’ she said. And as she reached for her wine, she knocked over Tom’s glass.

I placed my linen napkin over the wet tablecloth. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said.

‘No, don’t worry,’ he repeated, refilling his glass. ‘It’s only ten pounds a bottle.’

‘Tom! Please . . .’

He turned to me. ‘Please what?’ And then he moved closer. ‘Can we leave now? I don’t want to be here . . . I want to be with you.’

I glanced across the table, tried to laugh, and then looked back at him. ‘I think you’ve had enough to drink,’ I said in a whisper.

He sat back in his chair, surveying the table, his guests; his eyes half closed. And I wondered how much he’d had to drink. It was so unlike him, I thought, to be this angry, this rude.

‘I think our host is a tad weary,’ a voice on my left suddenly
said, and I turned to a man I’d barely spoken to all evening, but one who Tom had introduced me to earlier. His name was Oliver Goddard and he was some sort of business adviser to Tom, though I couldn’t for the life of me work out what exactly he advised him on.

‘Yes . . . perhaps,’ I replied, knowing that
our host
had had little to no sleep the previous night.

At that moment Tom rose to his feet and excused himself from the table. The blonde looked relieved, and I turned my attention to Mr Goddard.

‘Please, do call me Oliver. Mr Goddard sometimes sounds to me like the name of an undertaker.’

Oliver was unmarried, lived in London, but came down to Deyning quite often. He’d heard from Tom that I’d grown up there and wanted to know more. He seemed particularly impressed by the library, and so I told him of my father’s collection of books, how vast it had been, and how many volumes we’d sold at auction for pennies. And we spoke about books – poetry in particular. I failed to notice Tom’s return to the table, possibly because Oliver was in the midst of reciting ‘The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God’ to me.

‘I love that poem,’ I said, when he’d finished, ‘but I’m afraid I don’t have the brain to memorise verse like that.’

‘And I have the brain to memorise, but not analyse,’ he replied.

‘I think women analyse more than men. We like to cogitate and ponder on all things – particularly the human condition . . . and the soul.’

Oliver laughed, lifted a match to my cigarette. And perhaps it was that, or perhaps he thought we were flirting, but Tom suddenly interrupted our quiet, civilised conversation and said, in a voice loud enough to silence some of the table, at least, ‘For God’s sake, Goddard, don’t try and impress her ladyship with your fucking poetry and intellectual mutterings. If she’s
out of my league, dear boy, she’s sure as hell out of yours!’

I was mortified. And he must have seen something in my face, because all at once he adopted the demeanour of a chastened child, without any word uttered from me – or anyone else. I glanced at Charlie, who gave me a nod, as if to say, it’s all right, he’s drunk. He was drunk; he didn’t know what he was saying. And of course I was the only one there privy to his
torment
.

Davina appeared at my side. She suggested we go through to the drawing room for coffee and, as I rose to my feet, Oliver stood up. I smiled at him, glanced at Tom – who stared down the table with a look of sulky defiance. I wasn’t angry for me, I was angry at the way he’d spoken to Oliver, who seemed so pleasant, so harmless.

‘I need some fresh air, Davina . . . do you mind?’

‘Shall I come with you?’

‘You are kind, but can you give me five minutes on my own?’

‘Yes . . . yes, of course,’ she said. ‘But, Clarissa, you know you can tell me – if there’s something you need to share, if you need a confidante.’

‘Thank you, Davina. But I don’t need a confidante, just a breath of fresh air. I’ll be back in a moment,’ I said, and walked off towards the front door.

Outside, a yellow light shone out across the driveway, upon the trees and parkland, creating eerie shadows where there should have been none. Everything has changed, I thought: Deyning – all shiny and bright, with its dazzling electric lights in every room – and me and Tom. We couldn’t turn back time; we couldn’t go back to how we’d once been. And neither could Deyning.

As I walked down the driveway, I thought of him. I knew he’d feel wretched and my heart ached for him. And though I’d seen it all before – the mood swings, the rage – I wondered
how often his anger boiled over, how often he lost control. Everything in his life appeared immaculate and ordered, even the woman he’d chosen to marry. But I’d seen the bottle of pills in his bathroom, prescribed ‘as and when necessary’.

He deserves some happiness . . .

The glow emanating from the house faded, ahead of me blackness; so I stopped and stood for a while, next to the fence where Tom had first told me he was going to leave England. I thought back to that night, remembering my dance with Julian Carter: how I’d grabbed his head in my hands and kissed him.
Oh, stupid, stupid girl . . .
The following year, shortly after Christmas, in his room at a home for disabled servicemen and war veterans, Julian had placed a gun against his temple and put a bullet in his brain. Now I wondered if with that kiss I’d inadvertently reminded him of something; something he’d never again know.

I walked on a little further, distancing myself from that thought with small steps into the darkness, and then I stopped again, and stared up at the heavens, trying to see the stars. But even the night sky appeared peculiarly illuminated. It was not quite a full moon, and high above me silver-edged clouds moved quickly across her misshapen face, for I’d never seen the man in the moon, only ever
She
: an infinitely patient, nurturing and maternal force. And with such power too: the power to control tides and seasons, fertility and farming, and, perhaps, even sanity. ‘Oh!’ She seemed to be saying to me now, open mouthed, aghast.

Slowly, stars began to appear, and if I kept my eyes fixed, concentrated, more and more became visible, until the sky was literally filled with them. And then I heard a boyish voice say, ‘They’re all there, you know, if you look hard enough.’

‘But what shall I do,
Georgie?
What do I do?’

Let him go . . . let him move on . . .

I heard an owl call out from the top of a tree beside me, and I turned and looked back at Deyning, shining into the darkness
like a rampant beacon. Yes, everything has changed, I thought; and I began to walk back towards the house.

Inside, as I crossed the hallway, I could hear the men in the dining room, and Tom’s voice: light, back in control, charming. But I didn’t want to go and join the women for coffee. I was embarrassed by Tom’s outburst, unsure who had heard, and I had no wish to hear about weddings and babies, or flowers and gowns. So I went up to my room, undressed, and lay down upon the bed.

It’s impossible, Impossible. Soon he’ll be married; have a family of his own . . . he deserves some happiness.

I could hear someone clapping; voices and laughter downstairs. My mother had always said that the marble floors – ‘those blasted floors’ – made the house too noisy, and she was right, everything echoed. There would be no rendezvous that night: we’d had our night together. And I reached over and turned off the lamp.

I don’t think we exchanged any words the following morning, and his mood was noticeably sombre.

‘Thank you so much, Tom,’ I said, shaking his hand as we stood outside the house on the driveway. ‘It’s been splendid . . . really quite splendid.’

He stood with Nancy and watched us go, but I didn’t wave, and as our car pulled away I didn’t look back.

As we headed down the driveway, Charlie said, ‘Queer sort of outburst last night. What do you suppose brought that on?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ I replied, turning away, staring out of the car window.

‘Hmm. Well, just so you know, he apologised to me after breakfast this morning. Said he hoped he hadn’t off ended you.’ And as we pulled out of the driveway, on to the road, he must have seen my face, because he added, ‘Oh dear, he did upset you.’

He reached over and patted my hand. ‘He’d had a lot to drink, dear . . . and you know, he’s a decent enough chap. He’d be mortified if he thought he’d upset you, or any of his guests.’

I pulled a handkerchief out from my bag. ‘He didn’t upset me, Charlie, really,’ I said. ‘I’m simply sad to be leaving Deyning, again . . . that’s all.’

I read of his marriage in
The Times
two months later. Charlie had been surprised, even a little piqued that we hadn’t been invited. ‘It wasn’t a big affair,’ I said. ‘Davina told me that they were only having about a hundred.’