Wish Her Safe at Home (3 page)

The exterior of the house was beautiful. Terraced, tall, eighteenth-century, elegant. Oh, the stonework needed cleaning and the window frames required attention—as did the front door and half a dozen other things. But it was beautiful. I don’t know why; I just hadn’t been expecting this.

“Who was Horatio Gavin?” (Philanthropist and politician—had lived here, apparently, from 1781 until his death in 1793.) “Perhaps I should have heard of him?”

Mr. Wymark’s eyes followed mine to the plaque between the ground-floor windows. He was a young man: small-boned and, underneath the well-cut overcoat, neatly dark-suited.

“Oh,” he said vaguely, “he did a lot for the poor. Tried to introduce reforms. That kind of thing.”

“Nice.”

“Yes. But if I remember rightly he didn’t meet with much success. Ahead of his time, most likely.”

I warmed to him still further, this former resident. From a distance there is always something a little touching about failure.

We went inside and for some reason—with my high heels clattering on bare boards—began our exploration at the top. Not counting the basement there were two large rooms to each of the three floors. I wondered at first how Aunt Alicia had negotiated the steep stairs; and Bridget, too, of course. The answer was they hadn’t—in any case not during their latter years. They had mainly been confined to the ground floor.

The topmost rooms had an air of Dickens. You almost expected to see Miss Havisham sitting solitary in the twilight, always the spinster in her wedding dress, swathed in cobwebs and depression.

It was like a museum with no curator to disturb the dust. The larger exhibits up here comprised several chests of drawers, a mahogany wardrobe, two single divans, a harpsichord and a loom.

“As I say,” remarked Mr. Wymark, “there are evidently a few good pieces.”

I nodded. I didn’t remember the harpsichord but the loom was something I had seen. And perhaps my great-aunt had been standing close to it on one occasion as the tea was brought in. “Bridget, why must you cut such horribly
thick
slices?”

“Ah, do you good, you know it will.”

“Such doorsteps; no refinement. So utterly
Irish
!”

“Excuse me for asking”—this wasn’t Bridget—“but are you in a position to spend money on all of this? It would probably cost you thousands, yet you’d quickly make it back. And by the way I know a handyman I’d be happy to recommend. Also, as it happens, when you
do
place the house on the market I know someone who—”

“But I’ve no intention of placing it on the market.”

He was clearly surprised. I was as well, probably more so. I seldom made snap decisions.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I was under the impression...
”

And understandably. Before I’d seen the house it hadn’t occurred to me that I might want to keep it. My roots were in London; my friends too, such as they were, my work and my interests. The familiar might be tedious and unsatisfying. But it was comfortable; it was secure.

“You mean then,” said Mr. Wymark, “you see it as a letting proposition?”

“Good heavens, no. I mean that I intend to live here. Yes, really! There’s something about its atmosphere that’s...
” I fumbled for the right word. “Well, that’s practically
seductive
! Don’t say you haven’t felt it?”

But he only answered dryly: “I’m afraid you haven’t seen the ground floor yet. Not properly.”

I ignored this.

“It’s odd: I’ve never regarded myself as being susceptible to atmosphere. But I think my great-aunt must have been more welcoming than I remember.”

He said nothing.

“Or perhaps it’s an impression that was left here earlier. Prior to 1944?”

For in truth “welcoming” wasn’t an adjective I should have associated with Alicia. Those that sprang to mind were more like “long-suffering” or “melancholy”—except of course when she’d grown animated by thoughts of
Bitter Sweet
. Bridget had been the welcoming one.

But at least nothing that Mrs. Pimm was later to tell me of screaming and cursing could radically alter my remembrance of powdered softness; of wistful gazing into dark corners; the fact that in the kitchen my life might once have been saved, the cake mixture had tasted good, there were stories of films to enthral me and of strapping young men impatient to marry me.

No, it was merciful: the old ladies’ feudings weren’t going to leave any greater imprint on myself than they appeared to have left on the house. It was a shame it couldn’t invariably be like that; that last impressions were so often the ones which endured. How many of us would want to be remembered for what we finally became?

It occurred to me suddenly that Bridget—on arriving in Bristol—would have been forty-seven: my own age at present. A sobering reflection.

Plainly the pair had lived, slept and washed—
and
cooked—in one of the rooms on the ground floor. There was a grease-encrusted Primus between two camp beds; there was a ewer in a basin (the basin ringed with scum); there were long velvet curtains, originally wine-coloured, hanging at the windows. The nets were grey—almost
dark
grey—so rotten that at the merest touch they might disintegrate.

I noticed that the Primus stove was called “The Good Companion.”

And this was where the vegetation was, too: all those overgrown pot plants—or their successors—which had been such a feature of St. John’s Wood. Nearly a dozen. One of them, incredibly, showed signs of life.

In contrast the other room was bare. Here, I was pointedly informed, had the refuse of many years amassed into something to rival the town tip; in the centre it had even touched the ceiling. And although the council had fumigated, although the rodent inspector had laid his poisons, still the air was fetid, the walls damp, discoloured—the paper hanging in places like the peeling skin of mushrooms.

The solicitor smiled at me, affably. “Does any of this shed a different light?”

“Not at all.”

In the narrow back garden, little more than a wasteland with concrete by the door, there was a very nasty WC (they couldn’t have used
that
, surely?) and a couple of coal bunkers.

Mr. Wymark was observing my reaction. It struck me quite abruptly that I didn’t like him—not only that I didn’t like
him
but that these days I didn’t appear to like anybody very much. Everywhere, it seemed, I sensed ulterior motives.

I gave myself a little shake. When I was an old lady I should clearly have the most terrible persecution complex. I’d lock every door, window, drawer and cupboard, see double meanings in everything that people said, wonder why so-called friends didn’t write—or else wonder why they did; watch eagle-eyed the customer in front of me at the checkout to make sure she didn’t put
my
goods into
her
shopping bag; check and recheck my slip from the cash register—had the girl gone haywire or was there something about me which she didn’t like?

No. No.
No
!

I smiled.

I looked at him afresh.

He was a dark-haired, smoothly shaven, self-possessed young man who plainly meant the whole world nothing but good. I said, “Well, thank you for showing me all this, Mr. Wymark. You’ve been most kind. Now come and let me buy you a cup of coffee and a Chelsea bun.” In my own ears I sounded just like anybody’s favourite aunt.

But he glanced at his watch, abstractedly mentioned another appointment and said that if I didn’t mind he would see me later at his office. Or could he drop me off somewhere?

He waited while I gave water to that one surviving plant and spoke to it encouragingly. He seemed reinvigorated; it was as if I’d watered
him
at the same time, spoken to him in the same soft and persuasive style. “I can see you’ve got green fingers,” he said.

“My mother would never have agreed with you!”

“Anyway, I can certainly put you in touch with somebody who has: a fellow who’ll be able to work such wonders on your garden! A friend of mine...
an undergraduate. Name of Allsop.”

I thanked him and again told him he was kind. “And you seem to be wonderfully well-connected!”

“I’ve lived in Bristol all my life.”

“Have you indeed? So did you ever meet my great-aunt?” I had meant to ask him earlier. “And if so what did you think of her?”

“Are you referring to when she made her will?”

“Yes.”

“I’d have you know, Miss Waring, that at that time I wasn’t even
born
.”

“Oh dear! Was it so very long ago? You make me feel quite ancient.”

I added quickly:

“But it’s not as if I’d gone completely mad. She might have had more recent dealings with your firm?”

“Of course she might. But in fact she didn’t.”

Then, with a feeling akin to sadness, I watched him drive away: this dark-haired, smoothly shaven, self-possessed young man who so plainly, it appeared, meant the whole world nothing but good.

Yet he didn’t return my wave and I thought that for some reason he clearly hadn’t taken to me.

“I think I should like to have been somebody’s favourite aunt,” I said. “I think it might have been fun.” This, to the woman whose table at the teashop I had asked to share.

She smiled, hesitated, finally remarked: “Well, perhaps it’s not too late.”

“No brother, no sister, no husband—somehow I get the feeling it might be!”

“Oh dear.”

“Did you ever see
Dear Brutus
?”

“
Dear Brutus
? Yes! A lovely play.”

“Wouldn’t it be fine if we all had second chances?”

She nodded, now looking more relaxed. “Oh, I’d have gone to university and got myself an education!” I reflected that she probably needed one. “But otherwise I don’t think I’d have wished things very different.” She gave a meaningless laugh and started gathering up her novel and her magazine. Poor woman. What a lack of imagination. (And what a dull, appalling hat.) Yet I realized that I envied her.

“What about you?” She said it as if she felt she had to. She was pulling on one of her gloves.

I had a moment’s sudden unease upon the question of my own hat.

“Me?” I had always considered it pointless engaging in a serious conversation unless you were prepared to give it your all. “Well, I suppose, chiefly, I wouldn’t have been so stupidly kind to my poor mother.”

Yet it seemed I had embarrassed her. “Oh, but I’m sure your mother appreciated it! Indeed I’m certain she did. Ah, but there’s my bus! So sorry to rush off like this...
” She smiled back at me from the doorway and dashed into the street.

I hadn’t noticed any bus.

“No.” I shook my head. “She took it solely as her due. But that’s the old, old story. Nothing new under the sun, as they’ll always tell you.”

Yet this was a happy day. Not one for letting in the glooms. I picked up my bill, totted up the figures.

And, after all, it was hardly as though I’d ever won a beauty contest, was it? Therefore no real reason to suppose that—if I hadn’t been stuck at home—I’d have been whisked off by some gentleman like Mr. Darcy or Rhett Butler or Jervis Pendleton. No real reason at all.

Or was there? I pulled on my own gloves with gay decisiveness. Yes, it seemed so important to be gay. In London I was seldom gay; at work, practically never. I sat at my table and pondered and grew increasingly elated. It was as if I’d received a revelation. Here in a tearoom along with the fruit scones and the jam doughnuts. I wasn’t even sure what had led up to it. Previously, of course, I had often discovered the secret of happiness: courage on one occasion, acceptance on another, gratitude on a third. But this time there was a rightness to it—a certainty, simplicity—which in the past mightn’t have seemed
quite
so all-embracing. Gaiety, I told myself. Vivacity. Positive thinking. I could have cheered. Still sitting at my table in the empty café I knew that concerning the house I had made the right decision. Bristol, merely a name to me before, was going to treat me well, provide me with a new start. London in my imagination had now become grey; maybe always had been? Bristol was in flaming Technicolor.

They were as different to each other as Kansas from the Land of Oz.