Wish Her Safe at Home (19 page)

This is, of course, the first love letter I’ve ever written. Just fancy! I’m enjoying it so much. (It almost makes our separation seem worthwhile! Almost, I said!) But now I suppose I’d better get down to some rather boring facts for the time being and tell you exactly why I couldn’t be at home when you rang—has it been a little naughty of me, all this while, to keep you in suspense? My most heartfelt apologies, good sir! And how I wish my silly old granddad had a silly old telephone down her
e...

I couldn’t bear to read it all; there were more than a dozen sides. Towards the end I simply skimmed. Some of the words were badly smudged—most likely my Biro had been running out. A comma, for instance, had smeared across three lines; one full stop looked like the hangman’s noose. I imagine I just hadn’t cared. I imagine I’d been feeling much too pleased with myself, with life, to fret over anything so pitifully mundane.

* * *

I told Horatio all of it;
all
of it; though in a funny way I had the feeling he already knew.

And understood.

After I had made myself a sandwich we finished with some more songs.

“Gin a body meet a body

Coming through the rye;

Gin a body kiss a body,

Need a body cry?”

I said, “I once read the book of that. I liked it but I couldn’t quite—not quite—see what the fuss was all about. Not like when I first set eyes on James Dean...
in one of his films, I mean. Now
that
was an entirely different affair. And it didn’t even happen—would you believe this?—until about a year after his death!”

At first I could have bitten my tongue off. And then I thought: But why? Just be natural. People aren’t so easily hurt as you’d imagine.

(I smiled...
Except, perhaps, by vicars and by chemists.)

I felt like singing him a song of my own choice.

“After the ball is over,

After the break of day...
”

Nothing strident or bouncy or out of keeping with our mood—even something a little melancholy: a lament for lost innocence and artlessness and for the fragile, gossamer, everyday little hopes that people carry with them throughout the early part of their life. Maybe through every part of their life.

“Many the lie that was spoken,

If you could count them all;

Many the heart that lies broken...

After the ball.”

And as I sang I danced...
to that sad and wistful, dreamily haunting little tune...
and while I did so I was very much aware of the presence of Aunt Alicia—and Bridget—and Miss Havisham—and Sylvia: poor disappointed ladies all who had each in one fashion or another been left waiting at the church, waiting at the church, waiting at the church...
I could have cried for them; my heart was overflowing. Because there, I knew only too well, there but for the grace of God...
the most wondrous and bounteous grace of God...

“Oh, the days of the Kerry dancing;

Oh, the call of the piper’s tune...
”

It was a gentle, pleasant, homespun evening; comforting, companionable, snug.

Better far than any knees-up.

That night I dreamt that I killed Celia. Like my dream of many years before, the one involving my father’s repressed dissatisfaction, it should have been a nightmare but instead it was something I didn’t want to wake up from. I stood with her on the suspension bridge and pointed to the beautiful reflection of a star upon the water. And then as she leant over...

I watched her plummet and waited till she’d gone down for the third time. (“Un—deux—
trois
!”) Then I straightened my shoulders, briskly brought my hands together as if—no, not to clap—simply to indicate a job well done and an obstacle disposed of. I pulled the collar of my ermine cape more snugly round my neck and strolled back to the carriage in which Tommy sat waiting patiently to take me to the palace. He said not a word but he gave me a nod and a reassuring smile (I knew it wasn’t wind) and then he drove me hell-for-leather through the starry night.

In my ball gown and glass slippers I ran up six flights of marble stairs. Both the stairs and the ballroom were open to the sky, although many chandeliers hung blazing in the void and at each corner there was a Corinthian column, presumably intended to support a roof. The dance floor was deserted.

But almost immediately a solitary resplendent figure emerged from the outer darkness of—perhaps—a terrace and came towards me with his arms outstretched. As we joyously reached one another the cape slipped from my shoulders and he gathered me into his embrace and kissed my waiting lips, tenderly yet passionately and long. Then we swayed together, almost as a single organism, to the most lovely lilting waltz you ever heard. But the words inside my head weren’t quite in triple time: “If you want to be a big success here’s the way to instant happiness: stay young and beautiful if you want to be loved...
” He said, “Oh, my darling. Tomorrow, the coronation...
”

I said, “Roger, I knew perfectly well who you were; you didn’t have to give me that hint. You’re the Crown Prince Rudolf.”

“And you, my own beloved Flavia!”

Next minute we sat together in our coach—it was daylight—regally acknowledging the cheering of the crowds; I with a dignified uplifting of the hand, Roger (or Rudolf) merely with a gracious inclination of the head, which conveniently if rather wickedly allowed
his
hands to set out on a right royal progress of their own. More of a walkabout really.

“Darling,” I said gently, “I don’t think that you should. Not here. Not in the coach.”

“Give me one good reason why.”

His head continued its solemn nods; my hand its gracious waves.

“Oh, that’s unfair,” I answered. “You know of course I can’t.” I smiled. “All right. I’ve always been like putty in your hands.”

Well, as I say, it was very far from being a nightmare: the bells ringing, the populace cheering, the Archbishop waving us Godspeed from the cathedral steps—and all the while those merrily cavorting fingers...
oh mmm, just there, oh
yes
, that’s it...

Even when the coachman turned round to reveal the smiling face of Celia it was still all right. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Horatio stepped in at the last minute and wouldn’t let you do it. You only
dreamt
that bit about my fall.”

“Oh, Celia, I’m so glad. Such
very
welcome news! But all the same, dear, if you can, please try to keep your eyes to the
front
!”

Celia laughed. “Oh, darling, what a rascally old daddy you have!”—for one of the footmen turned out to be Thomas, a little older than the night before. “So it’s probably just as well, isn’t it, that nowadays Flavia can truly be thought of as one of the family?”

Horatio, it transpired, was there as well. He was always there when needed. I nodded at him with sweetly serious gratitude. (I was still nodding at everyone when I remembered.) “Thank you,” I mouthed. “Thank you for stopping me. I’m so relieved you did.”

And yet he shook his head.

“Rachel, it really had nothing to do with me. It was you who made the ultimate decision.”

“You see?” crowed Celia. (I suppose she considered that—as a person who had so very nearly plummeted—she might have had
some
right to pontificate.) “In the last resort you are always alone!”

“What nonsense,” I cried. I looked quickly at Horatio. “
We
know better than that, don’t we, my darling?”

His answering look was full of confirmation. Sometimes, I find, there are few things more sexually arousing than pure unadorned kindness. Both Rudolf and Celia looked on in outright jealousy.

* * *

I’ve said I wasn’t intending to hurry through my book and I meant it. But in the May of 1781 Horatio attained his majority and although I wasn’t anxious to hasten the death of his poor father it must be admitted I
was
rather looking forward to the time when he and his mother and Nancy should arrive in Bristol. For despite the fact that much of the next twelve years would inevitably be spent away from home—and generally in London—the first period of his life with which I was so happily dealing, indeed almost two-thirds of his entire allotment, still represented little more than just a prologue to the main events. And the bright mid-September day on which the small family was eventually to move into
this
very residence, No 12 Rodney Street, then a recently built dwelling in a recently developed area, was the day on which I believed the true story was about to start.

By then he was a grown man, of course, with a lithe and well-formed figure and an altogether striking appearance.

* * *

Exactly ten days after my coach ride, at about nine o’clock on the evening of Wednesday 16th September, just as I was thinking of going downstairs to watch the news (dear Mr. Morley, art thou listening down below?), I had a fine opportunity to judge something of this from my own firsthand observation. He was standing at the mantelpiece.

I knew he must have stood there on countless other occasions but now I realized that by standing beneath his own portrait he was probably making some subtle reference to the Ouspensky theory of time; I can’t pretend I understood it. He had his back towards me and—just the way I’d always pictured him—was gazing pensively into the flames. Luckily I’d had the chimney swept a few days earlier and since then had lit a fire up here each evening.

I wanted to get up and touch him. I wasn’t sure I dared.

Then I must have glanced away an instant, without realizing I did so. For when I was next conscious of looking at him he still stood there in the same position. But now he was naked.

It might have been shocking; somehow it wasn’t. As I had known he would, he had a lovely muscular back—broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist—a dancer’s buttocks; strong and graceful legs. Such handsome feet. I’d also been correct about his hair...
because obviously he wore no wig. It was dark brown, almost black—and short—with a natural healthy sheen. His skin looked healthy too; Roger’s by comparison might have seemed a fraction over-tanned. And I so much wanted to touch him.

I was suddenly aware of his eyes in the portrait: you know how it is when you feel you’re the focus of somebody’s attention—you immediately glance up. There was no hint of embarrassment. Nor even of amusement. I wouldn’t have wanted either. But was there—yes?—a look of somehow even greater attachment?

I felt that anyway he always watched over me and protectively followed my every move. Yet was there now something marginally more pronounced about the quality of his concern? Marginally more profound?

While I met his look unwaveringly—unsmilingly as well yet with a smile about to burgeon—his other self disappeared. But that was unimportant. I understood it would come back; I mean, that
he
would come back. (In fact I knew he hadn’t even gone, not essentially.) And the eyes continued to express at least the same degree of tenderness.

Suddenly...
I became so good. I had something to live up to and I realized that my actions inside the house were no more important than my actions out of it. He could see me everywhere, knew just what I was up to. I distributed largesse. I did the one thing I reckoned he would want especially: I helped the poor. I was down to my last twelve hundred at the bank but even this didn’t worry me: a little here, a little there: I felt convinced that in some way he’d provide. It was as though he’d actually told me that the more I gave the more I would receive.

But it wasn’t only money that I gave. I gave away my time as well: writing time, probably the hardest kind. I talked to old ladies in the street and, more importantly, I listened. I suffered fools gladly. Sometimes I carried their shopping for them or helped them onto buses. I had no fear. To think
now
about my nervousness as a younger woman could frequently amaze me. I would rush into any situation without a shred of inhibition. When a man fell off his motorcycle I was the first to be beside him, administering first aid and comfort—similarly when some poor woman had an epileptic fit. Indeed, I almost welcomed all such incidents.

I travelled specially—and often—into poorer areas of the city, with twenty or more pound notes folded neatly in my purse, each carefully separate. And marvellously I seemed to attract people who said, “Excuse me, lady, any chance you got the price of a cuppa?” and I felt so glad. It made no difference even when I suspected it was more the price of a pinta they might be hoping for; I had little patience with anyone who said never give money to an alcoholic, they’ll only drink it—weren’t they as entitled as the rest of us to their brief moments of escapade and flight? I practically advertised for hard luck stories and from the young just as much as the old—from students in snack bars, or dropouts and drifters, just as much as from hoboes lounging on benches by the cathedral or from tired housewives standing at their own front doors. The employment exchange made a first-class venue. Likewise the social security office.

Oh, people often gazed at me quite strangely but I didn’t care. I didn’t give a hoot. I always tried to look my best, my motives were only of the highest, I had no cause to feel ashamed. So let them gaze; a cat may look at a queen. I always stepped out with my head held high, with my prettiest laugh and my most radiant smile, whenever I believed I was the object of attention. They could only have admired me.

And felt envy.

Not that I wanted that. (Oh, of course I wanted that but I was always trying my damnedest not to.)

And of course, too, my writing did suffer; but even that was unimportant. (Well, arguably.) Horatio was a man now—he was twenty-one—why should there be any rush? (In fact there was every reason why there shouldn’t be.) I had the strongest feeling I was standing on the brink of something, heaven knew what. I only knew it must be something good.