A Hidden Life (18 page)

She began with the pair of Chinese vases which had so impressed her on her first visit to Milthorpe House. She still loved them. They stood as high as her waist – what was that – three feet or so, she thought. They seemed to her slender and elegant in spite of their size, because the porcelain was almost thin enough to be translucent. Not too fat round the middle, with narrow necks and patterns of dragons and leaves and butterflies scattered over them in colours that were at the same time piercingly bright – turquoise and blue and red and gold and startling black – and so delicately applied that you could see the white of the porcelain through every stroke of the paintbrush. In the hall, one on each side of the door leading to the dining room – that would look good, she thought.

Then suddenly, in her head, she could hear Rosemary's voice. Phyl hadn't seen much of John Barrington's mother, who was quite old by the time she and Matt were married, but there was one day when they'd been standing in the hall in Milthorpe House and Rosemary had spoken quite firmly and also quite loudly. She always spoke, Phyl remembered, as though there was substance to what she had to say, even when the subject was trivial. She assumed that everything coming out of her mouth was of the utmost importance and interest to everyone, and now she declared: ‘If you'd been a prisoner of the Japanese, you'd think twice before giving house room to anything quite so
Oriental.'
She made the word ring with contempt.

‘But, Granny,' Matt came to his mother's defence, ‘these aren't Japanese. They're from China, and they're over a hundred years old.'

‘Nevertheless,' said Rosemary, stalking off in the direction of the library, and that was her last word on the subject.

Phyl smiled. Then she fetched a damp cloth and began wiping the beautiful curves of the vase. Conflicted, that's what Rosemary was about her experiences during the war. It was from Matt that Phyl gathered most of the story. John Barrington had spent time in a prisoner-of-war camp as a child. One of his books, too, had that setting. Perhaps she'd ask Lou to bring it with her this weekend.
Maybe she should have read it before, but somehow it had never appealed to her. The trouble with me, Phyl thought, is that I don't dwell on the past. Mostly, she knew, she forgot things almost as soon as they'd happened, and though she never said so to anyone, she reckoned sometimes that this was the reason for her general contentment. I don't keep going over stuff that's gone by, she told herself. I don't fret.

Almost immediately, she realized that
some
things, a few particular times, or events did stick. She remembered the day of Matt and Ellie's wedding, for instance, because she'd been ill. She'd spent most of the night before vomiting and wanting to die. That's my problem, she thought. I get sick when things get too bad. I'm allergic to unhappiness. The idea made her smile.

Constance had hardly ever talked to her. She made it quite clear that she was very unhappy when Ellie left and what's more (how she managed this, Phyl didn't know) that the situation was possibly temporary and that her beloved first daughter-in-law might just decide to come back and take up with Matt where she left off. She never actually said this, but Phyl was given to understand that it wasn't out of the question. The love and devotion she lavished on Nessa and Justin; the barely disguised dislike of Lou – that was all part of it. Constance was asserting her conviction that Ellie was better: more important, more suitable, more everything. Especially, Ellie was sexier.

Phyl hated the modern fashion for exchanging details of your sexual life with everyone you met. She never spoke about her own and was uncomfortable when other people gave her blow-by-blow accounts of what went on in theirs. She never expected any kind of revelation from Constance and that was why this particular conversation stuck in her mind. She'd been heavily pregnant at the time. Why were they in Constance's bedroom? That detail had gone, but she'd been sitting, she remembered, in a chair with no arms, upholstered in velvet, and Constance was lying on the bed, dressed in what she called ‘a house coat', but which was in fact made of some brocadey fabric and looked like something you'd wear to a fancy-dress party if you were going as a Chinese empress or similar. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, Phyl wondered whether Constance didn't rather
overdo the Oriental stuff purely to irritate her mother-in-law. Out of the blue, then, came the first remark.

‘I shouldn't think you're in a position to satisfy Matt sexually these days, dear, are you? In your condition …'

Phyl had blushed to the roots of her hair, and had not a clue what she was going to answer. Her first, her overriding feeling was of pure embarrassment, quickly followed by indignation. How could Constance be so … so
rude?
It was none of her business, but Phyl would not have dared to say that. Constance hadn't paused for an answer, but had just gone on speaking as though Phyl were an audience rather than a conversational partner.

‘Men get funny when their wives are pregnant, you know. If you're a love object, it reminds them that you're very soon going to be a mother and somehow that does take the gilt off the gingerbread for some. The sucking of breasts …' (had she winked as she said this? Phyl could no longer remember) ‘… becomes functional rather than erotic. Or maybe you don't like that? I love it – I used to love it, but alas, I married the wrong person for that kind of thing.'

She'd sat up suddenly then, and swung her legs round so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed. She'd glared at Phyl and said, ‘He's useless. John. Quite, quite useless. And it's not his fault, I know, but it's difficult to keep on blaming his mother. Though I do. I blame Rosemary. She sent him to that ghastly school and they – they repressed whatever sexual feelings he might have had almost to extinction.'

She laughed. ‘I revived them, when we met. For a while. I taught him. It was like rubbing life into a statue at first, I can tell you. I spent hours and hours on him and he did – he thawed out a little, but it was never … Well, I wanted more. I needed more, do you understand what I'm saying, dear?'

Phyl thought she ought to say something, but didn't know what. What was the appropriate remark when your mother-in-law told you your father-in-law had not come up to scratch in the bedroom? It's none of my business, she told herself. I wish I could leave. I wish I could just get up and leave. Instead she said, ‘Why did you stay with him?'

‘God, darling, you are naïve! I stayed with him because he was
handsome, presentable, someone respected by other people I cared about and because …' Here she'd grinned at Phyl. ‘He couldn't complain if I took lovers. Which I did. Many. I was discreet about it, but he knew. He must have done. So we were both happy. I'm an old woman now, but in the early days, oh, there was no stopping me. I was – well, I was a bit like Ellie. No stopping her either, was there?'

This was especially cruel. Constance enjoyed that, Phyl realized. She was very good at the tiny little remarks which, if you challenged her, she could say were not meant in the way you thought they were
 … Oh, I was only mentioning Ellie because she was so like me … nothing to do with you at all.

Not half, Phyl thought now. Constance had been comparing Ellie with what she'd been presented with after the divorce and Phyl had clearly been found wanting. She hadn't been prepared to sit there and chat about Ellie. No way. She'd decided to make some excuse and leave. She was just wondering what she could say when Constance had gone off on another tack.

‘At least,' she said, swinging her feet up on to the bed again and leaning back against a pile of about four pillows, each one edged with a frill of ornate lace, ‘John got it up long enough to father Matt! All his energies went into his books after that effort!'

This was supposed to be a jokey remark, but Phyl felt sick.

‘I've got to go, Constance,' she managed to mutter. ‘Matt'll be waiting for me.'

She'd staggered downstairs, and there was Matt, in the hall.

‘Anything wrong, darling?'

‘No, I'm fine. Just want to go home. I'm a bit tired.'

In the car, he'd glanced across at her and said, ‘Was Mother being nasty to you, Phyl? Don't take any notice. She can't help it sometimes. She doesn't really mean it.'

‘No, she wasn't nasty, I'm just tired. I told you.' She knew that Matt would have supported her if she'd complained about Constance's behaviour, but she also knew he avoided trouble when he could and particularly didn't enjoy fighting with his mother, so she decided not to speak to him about it. She couldn't have repeated what Constance had told her in any case.

She'd made a decision then to put what Constance had said out
of her head and forget about it. But I haven't, she thought now. I've never forgotten it. When Lou was born, things got even worse, because who would have thought that John Barrington, famously quiet and undemonstrative and devoid of passion, would lose his heart to a baby? But he had, and Constance, Phyl could see now, had never forgiven Lou for that.

The phone rang and Phyl flew to answer it. She didn't want Poppy woken up before she'd had time to do a bit more unpacking.

‘Matt? Hi …'

‘Hi, Phyl. What are you and Poppy up to?'

‘She's napping and I'm unpacking.'

‘Right.' Matt was silent for a second and then said: ‘Shan't be back for lunch today, darling. Just wanted you to know. Hope you haven't made anything?'

‘No, don't worry, no problem at all. I'll keep the soup for the weekend. Put it in the freezer. Anything exciting?'

‘Ellie's just phoned and said she's coming in. Wants to talk about Justin and the house, Nessa – that kind of stuff. Easier to go to lunch than bring her home, right? Over more quickly.'

‘I don't mind at all, if you'd both like to come here. It'd be fine.'

‘Well, no, it's okay. There's Poppy and – well, it's easier just to go out somewhere. You don't mind, do you?'

‘Good Lord, no,' said Phyl, sounding too hearty, even to herself. I do mind, though, she thought as she put the phone down. I'm still jealous of bloody Ellie. I can't help it. Matt wouldn't do anything, would he? Of course not. He was too – what was the word for it? Too upright. But she'd been thinking about Constance and John and their sex lives – how long had it been for her and Matt? She blushed as she realized she couldn't remember. I have to do something about that, she thought. I can't blame everything on Poppy not sleeping well. Am I undersexed? Is something wrong with me? Matt and I get on so well in every way that we could easily fall into something that's more like friendship. I'd hate that to happen.

She opened another box and started to take out the second Chinese vase. I don't want to think about this, she told herself. I won't. Not now. Later. She couldn't shake the feeling that something like a shadow had fallen over the morning.

Matt put the phone down with a sigh and a feeling that he'd been let off the hook. I haven't got anything to reproach myself with, he thought, so why do I feel guilty? He'd almost wished that Phyl had kicked up a fuss, been outraged and jealous, forbidden him to see Ellie at all, much less go out to lunch with her, but (typically of her) she didn't, so here he was, waiting for his ex-wife to arrive and pretending to himself, his secretary, the other partners in the firm that there was still stuff to talk about relating to his mother's will. This was not true. Constance had tied everything up extremely neatly in just the way she should have done and all he had to do was see that it was executed according to her wishes. Ellie had no more to say on the subject and neither had he, so what was this lunch about?

She'd phoned him a couple of days ago and Matt was ashamed to admit that since then he'd turned the thought of Ellie over and over in his mind, imagining different scenarios, most of which morphed quite quickly into a sexual fantasy of one kind or another. He laughed out loud, hoping very much that no one was near enough to his open door to hear him. He was amused at the thought of any kind of shenanigans taking place at the Belle Hélène, which was where he'd decided they would go. He liked the food there and it was near enough to the office for them to walk.

Phyl hadn't noticed how carefully he'd dressed this morning. She didn't notice much that wasn't related to Poppy and it occurred to Matt that the way to get the child back with her mother was to throw himself on Lou's mercy and confess that the presence of this beloved baby was having some unforeseen side effects – e.g. a non-existent sex life. She'd take her back at once if he did that, but he was too embarrassed to utter such a thing, and besides, he didn't want to put pressure on Lou, who was evidently doing some kind of intensive work she wasn't prepared to tell them about. All she'd said was, ‘It's amazing to be able to work uninterrupted. I'm so grateful to you and Mum.'

So – nothing was going to change any time soon, and because he loved his granddaughter he didn't mind the disruption as much as he might have done. He stood up from his desk and went to the
partners' lavatory, where the mirror had been hung near the window. He peered into it and was quite happy with what he saw. All my own hair and teeth, at least, he told himself. And not too much grey, either. While they were married, Ellie had taken charge of his wardrobe and bought all his shirts, and she'd once told him that blue was his colour. He'd believed her. Today he was wearing a grey suit with a pale blue shirt and a tie he hoped went with both. He wasn't going to improve his image by staring at it, so he washed his hands and left the room.

Ellie was waiting in the comfortable chair in his office when he returned.

‘Ellie, hello. So sorry I wasn't here to welcome you …'