Casting Off (41 page)

After a moment, she said, ‘How do you know?’

‘I haven’t lived with you all these years without knowing
some
things about you. I know how you feel about her. I know how difficult you will find it. But if that seems the best thing, of course she must come and live with us and I’ll do everything I can to make her feel welcome and help you about it.’ He put his arms round her and she did not resist. He moved strands of her hair from her face to kiss it; she was making a sound that was between laughing and crying, he could not tell which, and then she was clinging to him repeating his name and he felt the frenzy of her relief.

He saw her off the next morning. ‘Good luck, darling.’ The combination of a railway station, the raw cold and her romantic fur hat reminded him of
Anna Karenina
. He told her this thinking it would please her, but to his surprise her eyes filled with tears. ‘It’ll be all right. I’ll ring you this evening to see how things are.’

She nodded and withdrew from the window as the train began to move.

That’s that, he thought, as he walked back down the platform; he was conscious of that mixture of freedom and desolation that seeing someone off on a journey seemed always to induce. He was pretty sure that Mrs Headford would be coming to live with them and, in spite of making light of it to Zoë, the prospect was an imprisoning one. Her presence, apart from Zoë’s feelings about it, would undoubtedly circumscribe their lives. He decided to make the most of his immediate freedom: he would ring Archie and see whether they could have an evening together and put things right. Archie had been away a good deal since the summer; he had recently given up his job at the Admiralty and had rather slipped from view. But he seemed to spend some time in his flat, although on the one or two occasions when Rupert had tried to arrange something with him it hadn’t come off. He’d have one more go, ring him when he got to the office, and if he was in London, explain that he, Rupert, really wanted to see him. He did: apart from anything else he felt he owed Archie an apology. Even now, when he thought of that evening in August – he had not seen him since – he felt a deep embarrassment, amounting to shame.

It had been at the end of August while Zoë and Juliet were still at Home Place: Ellen had gone with them and they had taken Wills for the month. He and Hugh had been keeping house, but on that particular evening, he knew that Hugh had some engagement and, on the spur of the moment, he’d decided to call on Archie on his way back from the office. It had been one of those stifling days when people kept telling each other that a good thunderstorm would clear the air. Archie’s flat, with its large window and balcony looking on to the square, would be wonderfully cool after the office, which had been relentlessly baking and airless. Someone was going in at the outer door to the flats and let him in. He had walked up the stairs – two flights (poor Archie, he thought not for the first time, his leg had never got right) – and rung the flat bell. Just as he was thinking that Archie couldn’t be back yet, the door opened – and there was Clary.

‘Dad!’

‘I didn’t expect to see you,’ he said, as he bent to kiss her.

‘Nor me you,’ she answered.

‘I haven’t seen you for such a long time. Did you have a good holiday?’ She’d told him she was going away with friends – she wanted a change from always going to Home Place.

‘It was all right.’ She had led the way into the sitting room. On the table was an enormous jig-saw puzzle. ‘I was just doing it to pass the time,’ she said. ‘Archie’s gone out to do some shopping. He’ll be back any minute.’

He felt a curious constraint between them. ‘Are you having dinner with him?’ He knew that she sometimes did this.

‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

She wasn’t exactly dressed for going out to dinner, he thought. She was wearing a pair of cotton trousers that were very baggy on her, and one of her usual collarless men’s shirts. The sleeves of the shirt and the bottoms of her trousers were both rolled up and her feet were bare. She had become very thin, particularly her face. ‘Have you found a new job?’ Even the information that she had left the last one had come via Hugh from Polly. He’d been really bad about keeping in touch.

‘Nope.’ She had wandered back to the table and her jig-saw.

He had sat in the large armchair by the fireplace and lit a cigarette. For some reason, he felt nervous. ‘Clary. One thing I’ve been wanting to ask you for some time now is about your journal you wrote for me. I should so very much like to see it.’

‘I’m afraid you’re too late. I got rid of it. Burned it, actually.’

‘Why on earth did you do that?’

‘It was childish stuff. Noël said—’ She stopped and he saw her bite her lip. ‘It was something I’d utterly outgrown. I didn’t want anyone to see it. So I burned it.’ She looked at him and he felt she was challenging him. The old Clary: doing something that would make him pay attention – mind.

‘I’m really sad about that,’ he said, after a moment. ‘And I feel it’s my fault. I’ve been out of touch with you and I don’t like it.’

‘Don’t you?’

They both heard the key in the lock, and a second later Archie walked into the room. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Fancy seeing you here!’ In some way he did not sound enthusiastic.

‘I was on my way home, and I just thought it would be nice to see you.’

‘I expect you’d like a drink. Have we got any ice, Clary?’

‘I expect so. I’ll go and get it.’

‘Clary doesn’t look well,’ Rupert said.

And Archie replied, ‘She’s been a bit under the weather.’

‘She says she hasn’t found another job yet.’

‘Time enough for that.’ He was busy with the drinks cupboard. ‘Like a gin and tonic?’

‘That would be lovely.’

The french window on to the balcony was open and Rupert went towards it. ‘How was France?’

‘It was the same and not the same, if you know what I mean. I didn’t stay long.’ He went to the open door of the sitting room. ‘Clary! I think there’s a lemon somewhere about. Could you bring it? And a knife?’ He took off his jacket and threw it on the sofa. ‘God, it’s hot out!’

‘Is your office as hot as mine?’

‘It’s not so much hot as completely airless. Their lordships don’t believe in windows that actually open.’ He went to his shopping bag, which he’d put by the door when he’d come in. ‘I’m afraid the tonic will be distinctly tepid.’

Clary came back with a bowl of ice in one hand and a lemon and knife in the other. She gave these things to Archie and then went and sat in front of her jig-saw puzzle. Archie made the drinks and asked after Zoë. He said she was still at Home Place with Juliet and Wills, but that when she got back they would start house-hunting, as it looked as though they had a buyer for Brook Green at last. ‘And how’s Poll?’ he said – to Clary.

‘All right as far as I know.’

The feeling of unease prevailed. When Archie offered him one for the road, he suggested taking them both out to dinner, but Clary instantly said: ‘I don’t feel like going out.’

Archie said that he had bought a pork pie and a lettuce, and he could share that with them if he liked, and he accepted, feeling rather desperately that if he spent more time with them, things would get back to normal, and also because he thought then that he would drive Clary home and find out what was the matter with her. Something was, he was sure, and Archie knew what it was.

At supper he and Archie talked about impersonal things, chiefly the situation in India – there had been three days of bloody fighting in Calcutta and they had a prolonged but not very heartfelt argument about whether there would be less of a bloody mess if the Muslims had their own state in Pakistan, which branched out to a division between him and Archie about British power, casting off the Empire, and generally taking a back seat from the point of view of international politics. He thought this was a mistake; Archie thought it right. Clary, who did not eat her dinner, nibbled a lettuce leaf and said nothing.

‘We’re boring you,’ he said.

‘Well, you aren’t, actually, because I wasn’t listening.’

‘Why aren’t you eating?’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘You’ve got awfully thin.’

‘I expect that’s because I’m not hungry.’ She was blocking him and he felt defeated by her.

‘Look here,’ he said, when Archie went to the kitchen to make coffee, ‘I feel I’m spoiling your evening.’

When she did not reply, he said, ‘Clary! What’s up? If you’re angry with me, I wish you’d say why. When we’ve had our coffee, I’ll drive you home and perhaps I could come in and we could have a proper talk.’

‘I’m not going home,’ she said. ‘I’m staying here. At present.’

He stared at her and she stared back. ‘Why?’ he said at last. ‘What’s been going on?’ Looking into her eyes, which now seemed so enormous in her uncharacteristically white and bony face, he saw that for a moment they came alive – with a shocking misery. Then they clouded again to the deadness that he realized he had seen at intervals all the evening. She had gravitated back to her jig-saw; he pulled a chair opposite her at the table. ‘My darling girl, what is it? I know you’re very unhappy. I love you and you always used to tell me things. What is it? What can I do?’

‘You can’t do anything.’ She looked up from the puzzle. ‘I will tell you if you like. I fell in love with someone and I got pregnant. And then I had an abortion – killed the baby. But Archie’s seen me all the way through it.’

Archie! Suddenly, everything – all the things that had seemed so odd and uneasy all the evening – became horribly clear. Her being in the flat, her staying there, Archie’s defensiveness when he had remarked on her looking ill, his attempt to get rid of him, ‘one for the road’ – good God, and he was old enough to be her father, only a year younger than himself! It was monstrous! Trusting, loving young Clary – his beloved daughter, being betrayed by his best friend. He wanted to kill him – murder him . . . He got to his feet with an inarticulate cry of rage and turned to see Archie leaning against the door frame. ‘You bastard! You – bloody – bastard!’ For the first time in his life he knew what seeing red meant. As he launched himself across the room, Archie’s form became obscured in a red haze.

‘Steady on! If you’re leaping at me I’m the wrong conclusion.’

At the same moment there was Clary, grabbing his arm. ‘Dad! Dad – for goodness’ sake!’

It took him minutes to believe them, but, of course, he had to believe them: Clary seemed to think it was almost funny – absurd, anyway; he didn’t know what Archie thought but he sensed that he was deeply angry or hurt or both. In his confusion and embarrassment, he thought he had said a number of foolish things. He knew that he said he was sorry – more than once – and that he also tried to make them see how easy it was to make such a mistake. He knew that he had asked Clary why she hadn’t told him, to which she had replied that she had simply thought he would be angry with her. Archie said almost nothing; most of the time he stood on his balcony with his back to them.

‘I suppose it was the man you were working for.’ He didn’t make a question of it.

‘It doesn’t matter who it was,’ she said. ‘It’s happened now. I’m all right, Dad.’

‘You don’t look it.’

‘I am. I’m over twenty-one, Dad – I’m not a child.’

He floundered a bit more in this manner, feeling worse and worse about the whole thing – that this should have happened to her, that he had jumped to crass conclusions, that she had turned to Archie rather than to him, there seemed no end to it. He said he thought he’d better go, and Archie, speaking for the first time, said, ‘I rather think that would be a good thing.’

Clary came to the door of the flat with him.

‘Are you all right for money?’ he said hopelessly. At least, he supposed he would be allowed to do that. But she said, yes, she was. He wanted to hug her and bear her off. She allowed him to kiss her cold little face, but then she stepped backward, eluding his grasp. Attended by Archie, he went. Down the stairs, through the outer door to the street where his car was. It was almost dark. It felt like the worst evening of his life.

The next day he had rung Archie at work to apologize and was told that he’d gone on leave. He rang the flat at intervals during the day and in the evening, but there was no reply. Since then, his efforts to see Archie – messages left saying that he would really like to see him got no answer – failed, and when he rang the girls’ flat, Polly, when eventually he got hold of her, said that Clary had gone to stay with friends. ‘I think she wants to have a good shot at writing her novel,’ she said, ‘but if she rings me I’ll tell her you called, Uncle Rupe.’

His own life had overwhelmed him after the problems with his brothers, house-hunting, the move, all that had intervened. Now, however, he would make one last throw to see Archie. By himself, he thought. He was conscious of an uncomfortable jealousy – that Archie should clearly have so much more of Clary’s confidence than he did. And I won’t just turn up, he thought. He knew that he couldn’t cope with them together.

He got Archie, at his flat, first go. He sounded guarded, but agreed to meet him at the Savile Club to which they both belonged.

The prospect made him feel nervous, but was also a kind of relief.

Three

September–December 1946

Afterwards, many times in the ensuing months, she had thought how very nearly she hadn’t met him. She had almost decided not to go to yet another of the drinks parties that Caspar and Gervase regularly gave and to which they always asked her. But when, on this particular occasion – in September – they had informed her of the next one and she had started to say that she didn’t think she could (would) come, Caspar had said, ‘You must, darling, you really and truly must. I think, my dear one, that you must regard your attendance as part of the job.’ And he had run his hand through his silvery hair and regarded her, head a little on one side with the dispassionate brightness of a bird. He combined a romantic appearance with a shrewd expression that people who did not know him often mistook for sympathy.