The White Lie (53 page)

“Well, we’ve had no complaints before,” the waitress who might be the owner said. She looked like a once-attractive person does when they’ve dedicated half a lifetime to smoking. The lines closed around her mouth like a string bag.

“Perhaps, then, it’s just a question of its being faulty today,” Joan’s voice said. “Or it could be my incompetence. I’d welcome a lesson. Could you very sweetly press it down for me, so I can see how it’s done? My mother’s waiting over there. Edith Salter. And I’m Joan.”

“I know who you are, Mrs Catto,” the waitress said.

Joan took her seat with her decanted coffee, grains floating dismally on its surface.

“Now,” Edith said. “Joan. I don’t want to pussyfoot around this issue. I want to have a frank discussion, all cards on the table. And that will be that. One frank discussion and we need never discuss it again. It doesn’t help anyone to keep going over things.”

“No.”

“Not things to which there are no solution.”

“No.” Joan cut her meringue in half, shattering it into polystyrene shards.

“I want you to talk to your sister about it.”

“Mother. I’ve told you. I’m not going to.”

“So you propose never to speak to her again.”

“There may be a time for the conversation but it isn’t now. I just don’t feel like it. And that’s that.”

“You’ve decided it was her fault. Without even talking.”

“Of course it was her fault. He was my boyfriend. He was approached.” She leaned forward on her elbows and lowered her voice. “In the
bathroom
. The night before the wedding. We can’t discuss it here, Mother.”

“What I don’t understand . . .” Edith said, frowning, “. . . is why he told you at all. Why tell you? It’s upset everybody.”

“You think he should have kept it to himself? And you think I should have kept it to myself?”

“It’s upset everybody,” Edith said again.

“It was Ottilie’s decision to tell you and not mine,” Joan told her. “I’ve explained this. We’ve been over it. I wasn’t going to tell anyone. When I went to her it was only to tell her that I knew. It wasn’t a threat of exposure.”

“I think it may have come across that way.”

“Can we go for a walk? I’m not comfortable. This place is so second-rate.”

“You don’t want your coffee?”

“No. Drink up your tea. Come on.”

They went to the riverside and sat together on a bench.

“It’s going to rain,” Joan observed, looking up at the lilac-brown clouds. “The sky seems very low today.”

“I think you should be wary of taking Euan’s word for things,” Edith said.

Joan gave her a sharp look. “She’s said something to you.”

“Not at all, not at all.”

“Euan kept quiet for 33 years, Mother. For 19 of those he could have had a relationship with his son.”

“I think you should talk to Ottilie, hear her side.”

“Hear her
side?”

“Yes.”

“It’ll never end, will it?”

“What won’t?”

“It doesn’t matter. Forget it. This isn’t the time.”

“Just talk to her. Please.”

“I’m not interested, I’m afraid.” She paused and then she said, “This is Ottilie’s side. She seduced my husband the night before we were married, specifically as a revenge, because she was jealous. She forced himself on him.”

“Nobody was forced.”

“She offered herself to him when he was nervous and a bit drunk. And then, and then, she led us all a merry dance afterwards, letting us all debate about Alan, letting us choose between Alan and the house party. I’m sorry but that was contemptible. And what interests me specifically is that my husband has been unhappy about it for 33 years and has been unable to speak up.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because she made it clear that she wanted him to keep quiet. Keeping quiet was his kindness. I’m not sure you see that. It was honourable, the honourable thing to do. So tell me, what other side is there than that?”

Edith didn’t respond.

“It’s caused so much unhappiness, Mother. So much unhappiness. I only understand now, knowing what I know now, how it was at the root of everything like a poison. The reason that Euan and I were so miserable.”

***

Mog came down to the beach and sat beside Ottilie on the shore. They were watching the divers, who’d tied the boat up to the buoy. One of the men was in the water.

Mog and Ottilie were discussing Edith.

“She says she isn’t ready,” Ottilie said.

“Not even for this? But I’m not surprised.”

“I’m confident she’ll be along for the service.”

“Did you speak to Vita?”

“Yes. Dissuaded her from coming. George had told her he wanted to come too, bless him. I think the two of them were all set to get a taxi down here. You know that they’ve become close friends, that they play cards together.”

“She’s settling in well.”

“It’s more like a country club than a care home. Queen of all she surveys. And I think the shedding of Mrs H has been a big relief.”

“I don’t know how George affords it.”

“Your grandfather pays. It was one of the things in the letter. But keep that between ourselves.”

“I’m glad to hear it. That makes me feel better about him.”

“About George?”

“About grandfather. And about George.”

“I felt bad about putting them off but I didn’t want people here today. Church is different. That’s Mother’s way. That’s her day. Everybody will be there and that’s fine.”

Mog looked at her in profile. “You alright?”

“No.”

“Silly question.”

“Boring answer. The truth is”—she paused, considering it—“I’m achieving something of what I want. Quietness about it. That’s all I want. Quietness. Working my way forwards. I will be so glad—not glad—but—you know.”

“Me too. When it’s over with finally.”

Both men were in the water now with breathing equipment, and one of them had disappeared under the surface.

Ottilie stiffened. She averted her eyes.

“Me too,” Mog said. “Come on. Let’s go back.”

“I thought I wanted to see but now I don’t.”

“Me neither. Come on.” Mog was already up, holding out a steadying hand to her aunt.

They walked away from the beach in silence, back down the path. The cottages came into view, and the end of the house, its fine dressed corner stones, a pair of corner chimneys, the entrance to the walled gardens.

“It’s going to be so hard saying goodbye to it,” Mog said.

“You have an important lesson to learn,” Ottilie told her.

“What’s that?”

“To be as sentimental about the future as you are about the past.”

They went in at the back door and up the back stairs to the hall, through the gothic arched door and past what’s now Pip’s office. Henry’s dogs were there in the hallway—all but one of the dogs—and they looked to Mog as she came in with a definite canine air of expectancy. Badger wasn’t there because Edith had moved Badger and Badger’s bed to Ottilie’s cottage. Edith has become a keen evangelist of salt-water therapy and joins the old dog often in his swim, going out there together in all weathers. She keeps busy. She’s learning to cook. She reads a lot, sitting with Ottilie in the studio in the afternoons, the books piled up beside her. She says she needs to get herself an education, and has been reading about Spanish history, Spanish art. She goes daily to church. She’s had no contact with Thomas Osborne or Susan Marriott since she moved away from Peattie. Susan has made no effort to keep in touch, for which Edith’s grateful. Thomas left a message on the answerphone that she hasn’t yet answered.

“I’d better take the dogs out,” Mog said.

“Can’t you put them in the walled?”

“Tried that. They dug and trampled. Not a huge success with Angelica.”

Ottilie seated herself on the second-to-bottom stair, crouching over a little as if she were cold.

“Don’t think about it,” Mog told her. “What we need is distraction.”

“Toast,” Ottilie said. “I’ve remembered I haven’t eaten anything today. Might feel better.”

“I’ll pop the dogs out first and then I’ll make some.”

“I’ll make it.”

“If you like, but I’m happy to. You look tired.”

“The truth is, I am. Exhausted. I’ll wait for you here. Close my eyes for a bit.”

“Go sit in the drawing room.”

Mog was gone for what seemed like a long time and Ottilie barely moved, sitting with her head resting on the wall. Then Mog appeared with a tray.

“Shall we?” Mog asked her, inclining her head and turning to go down the corridor.

“Can we do it here?”

“Here?”

“Do you mind?”

“Course not.”

“I’ve always disliked the drawing room. Even before.” Mog took the tray to the stairs and placed it on a tread above where Ottilie was sitting, and the two of them ate toast and drank tea in silence.

When they’d finished, Ottilie said, “I’m going back down there.”

“You don’t want to be there,” Mog said, without looking up.

“I do. And I want to go alone. Do you mind?”

“Of course I don’t. If you’re sure.”

“The stupid thing is, I’ve been losing sleep over it and it’s Ursula I’ve been worried about.”

“I know.”

“What if?”

“I know. But we’ll deal with it as we go. You know what Pip thinks. It won’t go any further.”

“Maybe so but it will be all over the papers.”

“Unavoidable.”

“There’s something I need to tell you. We’re going away on our trip, immediately it’s over with.”

“I’m glad for you. And for Gran. It’s absolutely what she needs.”

“She’s always wanted to travel and Henry wouldn’t.”

“Not because—I mean—you won’t stay away, will you?”

“The truth is, we can’t afford to be away for long. We need to be careful with money, at least until the sale goes through, and even then . . .”

“It won’t be a fortune once the debts are paid.”

“It won’t be a fortune.” Ottilie kissed Mog on the cheek, and went back through the gothic door and down the back stairs. A few minutes later the phone began to ring.

Angelica appeared out of nowhere, rushing past and into the office. She answered and was quiet, murmuring her responses. She laid the handset down on the desk and then she came out again, looking solemn.

“We need Pip. Where’s Pip? Do you know where Pip is?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t,” Mog told her.

Pip came in from the terrace. “What is it?”

“It’s them,” she said. “They’ve found him and it’s starting.”

Pip was standing on the end of the jetty, talking to a man in a wetsuit. Both of them had their backs to the boat, which was tied up alongside. Ottilie was in it, sitting in it, talking apparently to the deck. There was something on the floor of the boat, something large, something long, positioned under a big piece of dark green plastic or in a dark green plastic bag. Pip began to speak about arrangements, and used the word
remains
, and the police diver put a hand on his shoulder. I felt as if my neck were held from behind by a strong hand, preventing me from looking away.

What I’d like is to dream new memories and make them true. With proper attention to detail they could be as true as the old ones. The truth is that I have lived the escaped life, on and off, in snatches, for brief spectacular snatches. We’ve run together through southern woods, my children and I. My wife has beautiful eyes and there was love in them. And what I’ve discovered is that there’s all the time in the world. There’s time to read and also to write, and my writing is beginning to find its footing. There’s nothing but hopefulness. The days stretch long and warm and the meadows around our house are permanently in flower, aside from a Christmas that I visited, or made or whatever it was, one furnished with log fires and games and time spent in the kitchen together. Fantasy: that’s a word I’ve grown stubborn about, one I won’t admit to. I know what I know, and what I have done and where I have been. I think that I lived it. I lived it all.

You’re sceptical. But in the end it doesn’t matter how much of it was ever really mine. These were still experiences. This was still my life. Memories are all we ever have, after even a day in the world, and who’s to make a judgment on what’s real and what’s not? I know, I know. It’s pathetic and it won’t do. We all know what’s real and what isn’t. I concede. But the mind is a potent other world and conjures up realities if you’ll allow it to. That much you must now concede. That is how I escaped Ursula, Ursula’s oar, escaping with a broken wrist and swimming to the shore. I took the money and went south to a new world, and met the woman I was meant to meet and felt my girls kick under my hand. None of this you could dissuade me from. I’m sad for my mother, that none of this will ever also be hers. That’s my sustaining emotion now, that I’m sad for my mother.

***

Pip sent Angelica a text message. She read it and then she said to Mog, “He says that we should come down.”

“I don’t want to see,” Mog told her. “I’ll stay. You go, and I’ll stay here.”

Angelica came forward and put a hand onto Mog’s, folding it into her own. “We’ll walk down together.”

“I don’t want to go, really not, I can’t,” Mog said to her. “You go though. You go.”

“We’ll go to the wood. Just that far. We’ll go across the field and into the wood. We’ll go to the tomb and then, if we don’t want to go further, we won’t. We’ll come back across the field again. They’ll never know we were there.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Let’s go, then. I know later that I’ll be sorry if I don’t.”

They came down to the wood, walking across the field in the peculiar light. The lilac cloud cover was turning increasingly brown, and the humidity was building again, building into release, into rainfall. The women went into the back of the wood and made their way slowly to the tomb, Angelica leading. Angelica went first.

“There’s nothing to see,” she said, turning to Mog. “Nothing disturbing. Just the boat at the jetty. Ottilie’s in the boat. Pip’s talking to one of the divers.”

They seemed, incongruously, to be talking about wine. One of the divers had been on holiday to the vineyards in Chile, was recommending South America for travelling, and Pip was saying that before he and his girlfriend got married, before he and his wife had children, they might take six months off and go there and see for themselves. The estate was up for sale, Pip explained, and the diver said that he knew, he’d heard, and it was such a shame. It will be best for all of us, Pip told him, to make a new start. It was inevitable in any case, unavoidable, the only possible decision. The money they made from the sale of the land was only ever going to be a stop-gap, and as it turned out it had been just enough to get the house into a saleable shape. Bed and breakfast, it’s like treading water, he said; there’s no real money in it. Break even was never going to be enough. “This way,” he said, “everyone gets seed money to start something somewhere else.”