All the Beauty of the Sun (15 page)

He glanced at the clock; quarter to three. He would have to hurry if he wasn't to keep her waiting.

Chapter Seventeen

I
RIS CROUCHED AT THE
edge of Thorp Park duck pond, holding Bobby's hand. The geese crowded them, the two beady-eyed swans circling and aloof from the mallards that mobbed each other over the crusts of bread Bobby threw with ineffective force. She hugged him to her as a swan came nearer. She had heard that one of these swans had attacked a small dog that had come too close to its young, and drowned the dog, although she could hardly credit it; she mustn't think of it; she had decided long ago not to dwell on the gruesome and cruel. Yet these thoughts came, she couldn't stop them, couldn't not picture the little dog. She kissed Bobby's cheek; he smelt of Margot and she kissed him again and again.

They sat down on the park bench that looked out over the lake towards the backs of the houses on Oxhill Avenue, where Parkwood, the oldest, most austere house amongst all the gothic mansions, could be glimpsed looming over a mass of pink cherry blossom. She looked at her watch. He would be here soon.

Taking
The Tale of Tom Kitten
from her handbag, she began to read to Bobby. She turned the pages and read the story, and he didn't seem to mind that she was distracted, that she constantly glanced along the path for George. She saw him, walking quickly as though he were late, and the excitement she felt made her feel like a very young girl. If only some way could be invented of distilling such a feeling so that it could be bottled and stored for a day when there was no George, kept for a day when there was only Daniel, or no one, only her, alone to drink in this memory of this man walking, smiling, hurrying to be with her. She stood up to meet him.

But it seemed his smile was only for Bobby; he hardly looked at her as he kissed him and said, ‘How's my best boy?' He only glanced at her and she saw that his smile was only in his voice and on his lips and only for Bobby, and all her excitement left her; she no longer felt young; the disappointment aged her a hundred years.

‘What's happened?'

George sat down, Bobby held close on his knee. ‘Sit down, Iris.'

‘Tell me what's wrong.' Her voice rose in panic and he frowned.

‘Sit down.' It seemed that they had gone back to a beginning; she thought of snakes and ladders, that silly game she would always lose. As she sat beside him, he said, ‘Daniel came to see me.'

She felt as though he had put his hand around her heart and stopped it. ‘Why?'

George kissed the top of Bobby's head. He gazed out over the pond, the ducks and swans and geese dispersed now. She was about to repeat her question when he suddenly lifted Bobby from his knee and stood up. Curtly he said, ‘I can't sit still. We'll walk to the swings.'

‘George –'

‘Come on. I need just to walk.'

She pushed Bobby on the swing, back and forth, back and forth, her palm light on the centre of his back, pushing him away and away again as George stood beside her. She felt as if she might cry with rage. George's anger with Daniel, with her – because why should his wife be spared? – was infectious. She stopped pushing the swing, it seemed too innocent a thing to be doing; she wished Bobby wasn't with them, a little witness to all this sordidness.

Bobby climbed down from the swing and ran off towards the roundabout. She called after him to be careful but George said sharply, ‘Let him go. You don't want him growing up a sissy, do you?'

She rounded on him. ‘How dare you!'

He had the grace to look ashamed. At last he said, ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Don't take your guilt out on me. Don't you think I feel guilty? All of a sudden you feel sorry for Daniel? Fine. Good. You know how it feels – you know how I feel every time I look at him. So, what shall we do, George? Confess and break his heart – and don't think that's some romantic figure of speech because I actually think it would kill him.'

‘Of course I don't want to confess –'

‘Then be quiet. Don't mention him to me ever again.'

‘Iris …' He caught her hand. When she pulled away from him he said, ‘I've spoilt everything, haven't I?'

‘Yes!' She closed her eyes, shaking her head. ‘No. No … It's just …' She laughed brokenly. ‘You talk as if the pain of what Paul did to us came as a shock to you, that seeing Daniel still so angry was a
shock
! Had our hurt really not occurred to you, George? Did you really think it was only you and your child who truly suffered? Daniel and I thought Margot would never recover. At one time … at one time …' She stopped and thought of Margot curled up so tightly on the floor of her childhood bedroom, silent, Bobby's teddy bear clutched to her chest, her eyes staring and big in her gaunt face. She had knelt beside her and tried to hold her but her daughter's body had been limp in her arms, and she had smelt different, as sour as her breath, and felt different too because she was skin and bone and not soft and plump as she had always been. Daniel had come and carried Margot to bed, murmuring to her, brushing back her rat-tails hair from her face, tucking her in, murmuring her name, murmuring,
Daddy's here.
She'd had to go to Bobby, who was crying from his crib beside Margot's bed; she'd had to hold her grandson,
Paul
's son, and watch Daniel comfort their child.

She watched Bobby now as he stood gazing at a group of older children on the roundabout. He was such a timid child. Perhaps this was Paul's fault, too. She remembered Paul holding Margot's hand, fearfully shy as he was then, as he told her and Daniel that he was going to marry their daughter. She remembered how astonished she'd been because although Margot looked frightened, she also looked at Paul as though she was besotted by this odd boy. She'd had the idea that she would take Margot aside and explain Paul to her, only of course she couldn't – Paul was Margot's way out of disgrace.

She turned to George. ‘I should take Bobby home.'

‘Iris, I've decided to go back to London to see Paul again, spend time with him while I still can. He can't come back here – I know that now … I might just as well go to him …'

As coldly as she could she said, ‘Yes. I think that's a good idea.'

She could see how her coldness surprised him; he glanced away, shifting from one foot to another like a child who had been caught out in a lie. After a moment, plaintively, he said, ‘I did try to talk to Paul before he married Margot, Iris. I tried to make him understand that if he married her … Well, he would have to
change
 … Perhaps I wasn't firm enough – clear enough, I remember that it was excruciating –'

She laughed harshly. ‘Excruciating. An agony of pussy-footing.'

‘Yes! It was – agonising for us both! Paul didn't have to do what he did – he did only what he thought would be best for all of us. Would it really have been better if he hadn't married Margot, if we'd had to give Bobby up? And I thought at the time that he could change. I
wanted
him to change, and the last thing I wanted to do was discourage him by telling him how hard it would be. So blame me – blame me for being an ineffectual father.'

‘All right, I will.'

‘And I'll blame you for not watching Margot every minute of every day.'

She turned away from him, too angry to meet his gaze, and watched Bobby watching the other children. He was so like his father, so like the Harris family, hardly theirs at all, a little cuckoo in her nest. She loved him; she felt like his mother, had been his mother for all Margot had been able to look after him; but sometimes she wished he had never been born, never conceived; she couldn't, no matter how hard she tried, feel the same enormous love George felt for him, as though he was all he had left in the world.

She turned to George. ‘When will you leave for London?'

‘Tomorrow, the first train that leaves in the morning.'

She nodded and began to walk towards Bobby. She thought George might follow her, but when she reached her grandson and glanced back he was already walking away.
Coward,
she thought, like his son, that pitiful boy who had seemed to quake whenever he saw Daniel, as though he knew that he would never be able to keep his vows to Margot. ‘Coward
,
' she murmured aloud, her bitterness so potent she might have shouted the word at him, her anger making her cry out like a mad woman – ‘Don't you dare walk away from me!'

She took Bobby's hand, snapping at him that they had to go home, but he pulled away from her and ran after his grandfather. George stopped and swept the little boy up into his arms, holding him close as she walked towards them, their faces level, both watching her as though afraid of what she might do next. They were so alike, the two of them; she wondered if Bobby would grow up as flawed as all the Harris men seemed to be, one way or the other. But they were also kind, she thought, and patient in the face of the worst troubles, accepting that trouble was as much their due as anyone's. Daniel said they brought their troubles on themselves.

She was in front of George, Daniel's condemning voice in her head, full of self-righteous hurt. How could she think of Daniel's hurt now, how could she think of her husband when she stood so close to this man who last night had undressed her, kissed her over and over, repeating how much he loved her, adored her, who had been so gentle with her when she wept that this would be their last time, there would be no more nights like this. And it seemed to her that George's heart had been breaking just as hers was, even as he'd laughed, as though ashamed of his tears, saying, ‘
I'm sorry, I'm ridiculous. Listen, listen – no one knows the future –
'

She thought of her future without him and said, ‘What time does your train leave?'

‘Seven thirty.'

‘From Thorp Station?'

He frowned. ‘Yes – Iris –'

She touched his mouth. ‘Be quiet. Let's go home.'

Lying in bed beside her husband, as Daniel rolled over, tugging at the bedcovers, she kept still on her back, hoping he was asleep. He had to be asleep before she could remember properly, remember her first night in George's bed, how he had kissed her deeply and passionately, drawing back only to murmur, ‘Iris, Iris …' No one had ever said her name like that, with such tenderness, and his hands were tender and his mouth and the way he looked at her the whole time, holding her gaze, only closing his eyes for a few moments at the end, his face transformed as she knew hers was. She had closed her eyes too, alone in that moment, there was only her own body becoming fluid, mindless. He stopped, and still she went on as he buried his face in her neck, his breath coming hard and warm against her skin.

Why hadn't she married him? Why hadn't she met him when she was nineteen and thought she needed someone to marry? Where had he been, anyway? She could have searched for him, found him, stood before him:
here I am.
She shouldn't have settled so young, but gone on her quest, found him, stood her ground:
here I am. I love you and you'll love me.
And we won't have sons to be maimed in wars, or daughters to marry men who break them; we shall have children who are perfect and no one will ever hurt them if we are their parents, you and I together. She should have known when she was young that he was out there, somewhere, she could have found him. But she wouldn't have had Margot.

Only this thought saved her: her darling girl who wouldn't be Margot if George was her father, but another girl, quicker, brighter perhaps and not steadfast and modest, not compassionate, with such a soft heart as to fall in love with frail young men because she felt such a mix of pity and admiration and desire, a toxic love potion of feelings. ‘He's asked me to marry him!'
Who, darling?
Who? Because there had only been Robbie, dull, ponderous Robbie, as though he'd had all his senses knocked out of him in France, all his wit so that he seemed middle-aged, staid:
Pleased to meet you, Mrs Whittaker. How do you do, Mrs Whittaker? Thank you for having me. You're very kind, Mrs Whittaker.
Very kind.

Robbie didn't shake like Paul, twitch like Paul; he didn't raise his eyebrows behind Daniel's back like Paul, didn't catch her eye and smile like Paul, as though she was in on his joke. Robbie didn't do any of these things. Robbie just went to visit his brother in the asylum one day and was knocked off his motorbike and killed. And she had held George as he had wept and tried to steady him when he raged and she had thought that Robbie had always been his favourite, secretly, in his heart, but she had been wrong. There was no one to compare with Paul for being a favourite; even Daniel had admired Paul more than his brother, at first.

Iris stared at the ceiling as Daniel snored beside her. The curtains didn't quite meet and outside the moon was full and bright, lighting up the familiar shapes of their room, the wardrobe and the chest of drawers, the chair where Daniel sat to tie his shoes, the picture her mother had left her of Jesus holding up a lamp beside a half-open door,
The Light of the World
.

Her mother had said, ‘He's every inch the vicar, isn't he? Vicar in the making.' Daniel had been a curate then. She could tell her mother didn't quite take to him, even before she said this. But she had thought Daniel honest and steadfast and handsome in a way she tried so hard to make more of. And Daniel
was
honest and steadfast, and she knew that if he wasn't easy then at least he wasn't glib or silly: he wasn't a fool to make her squirm with embarrassment or shame. They would have a serious, useful life together; there was a lot to be said for respect and trust. So, she married him and Daniel had slept beside her every night since, every night but two, so that they knew each other so well and could say anything to each other, although mostly they said hardly anything at all. She could almost blame Daniel for going away – he must have known it would be dangerous to leave her; he knew everything about her – he must know how much she loved another man.