Colouring In (31 page)

Yes, I love him. I do. I remember once thinking I could fall for him – never in the same extreme, uncomfortable way I could fall for Dan if he was available – but I grew to love Bert. And despite hesitations, doubts about his feelings for me, I did. Gently at first. Then one morning I’d been for an early swim, and found myself hurrying back. I realised – surprising myself – I was eager to return to the house, see the picture in my mind – Bert at breakfast – turned into reality. I ran into the kitchen, hair dripping, and he looked up. I could have sworn he was as keen for me to be back as I was. I could have sworn there were some sudden sea-change in his eyes – a realization that his business partner, his interior decorator and friendly companion, was suddenly more than that. We swooped together. We went to his bed. Big sky out of the window. Scraps of it I saw when I opened my eyes for a moment. For so long Bert had pent up his love …

By lunch-time we were spent, exhausted, elated, deliquescent. By the time I stumbled downstairs to arrange a cold lobster – we were both ravenous – I was definitely in love, and I knew that in his funny, understated way, Bert was in love with me.

We didn’t talk about this of course. I would have been wary of translating anything that I now felt into clichéd and inadequate words. It was one of those times there is absolutely no need for declarations. Everything was obvious. Everything was understood.

Now I’m firmly established in his bed and we’re known to be a couple. We carry on with this extraordinarily different life which I love to bits. I go off and come back with vegetables from cottage gardens, and faded plates from markets – the sort of minor triumphs that give me the kind of pleasure I’m sure I would have scoffed at a year ago. Bert loves it when I return with my bargains: he loves it when he sees me inventing new ways with fish and samphire. The other day he suggested we buy a small boat and did some sailing. I’m terrified of the sea and I’m a rotten sailor. But yes, why not, I said, and he was so pleased.

My only secret from Bert is that I have this odd yearning for a child. I haven’t put the idea to him yet, but I’m sure that he’d agree. Should he be against the idea, I’m not sure how I’d feel. Sad, I suppose. But I won’t think about that. I’m sure he could be persuaded.

As for Dan and Isabel – the funny thing is, I hardly give them a thought. Very occasionally a flash of their life comes to me, and the memory of that sizzling kiss with Dan.

But Isabel, my friend Isabel, has retreated. Perhaps we never had very much in common in the first place, just used each other for mutual comfort and encouragement. We did laugh quite a lot and I sometimes miss a friend whose sense of humour so exactly coincides with my own. But there was always an unspoken rivalry between us, a kind of amorphous jealousy. Though what we were rivals over, or jealous of, I can never fathom.

I would have hated her tranquil life, she would have hated mine. Sometimes I think I’d like to try to explain to her about the huge change I’ve taken, and why I love it. But I don’t think she’d be much interested, so I don’t bother. Bert apparently told her how I was enjoying it: her answer was to bet my new found enthusiasm wouldn’t last long. She’s wrong, there. Bert visits her and Dan sometimes when he goes to London: I’ve seen them only once, briefly, since I left. I don’t miss them. I don’t miss anything.

All I want is to make Bert happy, make our little business work, slow down time, and wonder at the sky.

Since Bert and Carlotta left, it’s been an extraordinarily busy and exhilarating time.
Hiding
– still not sure about the title – was finished six weeks ago. Never have I worked on a play so long and so eagerly.

I had it typed beautifully, then six bound copies made. It was a good morning, that, coming back from the stationer with a heavy bag of manuscripts. Home, I immediately wrote a short note to Sam Fielding, and went out again to post it special delivery. Isabel asked why I kept going in and out. Why I was so restless, she wanted to know. I didn’t tell her.

And now I wait. Well, I’m used to waiting. There’s something quite agreeable about it because it means that there’s till reason to hope, to anticipate a rewarding reply. The morning I dread is when I see on the doormat the fat envelope addressed in my own hand. The perfunctory, scarcely courteous note informing me some minion was very interested to read the play, but it wasn’t quite what the theatre was looking for.

I have more than usual hope this time, though: a, because I know it’s my best play since Oxford, and b, because I have faith in Sam Fielding. He is the nephew of Bert’s Norfolk old lady, Rosie. Bert arranged for all of us to have lunch at the Garrick. I imagine Sam, a very busy man, only agreed to this out of kindness to his aged aunt, but it went very well. Very jolly. We didn’t speak much about the actual play, of course. I gave the briefest outline and he agreed it was a good subject, pertinent to a lot of people. I made him laugh once or twice – on other matters – so I hope he thought my sense of humour might be apparent in the play. When we parted he said would I be sure to send the finished script to him marked personal. He gave me his absolute assurance that he himself would read it first, and then pass it on to other readers.

I was cheered by all this. It meant the script was less likely to sail off into the nowhere for months and months, like so many of the others. I’ve been waiting for a response now for six weeks – five weeks and four days to be precise. I had a brief acknowledgement – a good sign, unusual these days – from Sam. A picture postcard of Shakespeare. Sam said thanks for the script, he’d read it ASAP and be in touch. This cheered me up, too. So good to be treated politely for once.

Since then I’ve been trying hard to be patient. I haven’t, funnily enough, had an idea for another play. So, not writing anything, I feel rather at a loose end in the evenings. Isabel and I go to the theatre and to see films more frequently as a result. Every morning I’m down early, both dreading and longing for the post. When once again there’s no news I try very hard to turn my mind to other things, but it’s difficult.

And being hopelessly weak when it comes to expectation, I find myself fantasising a little. The first night, for instance – in Colchester, perhaps, or Southampton or Guildford. I don’t care where, really. Sam explained the tour is the most important thing these days: success in the West End is virtually impossible for a straight play. ‘Don’t worry about the West End,’ he said – and I don’t. ‘A good tour is what you want to aim for: you can make a lot of money,’ he assured me.

I don’t give a damn about the money. I just want the thing to be put on. I want it to work. I want all the excitement – once briefly experienced – of seeing actors saying my words. I want all the years of effort to end in just a scrap of fulfilment.

Because if
Hiding
is rejected, I’m not sure I’ve the will, the energy, the strength, to try again.

I have a particularly shaming, secret fantasy about the first night. I imagine Isabel and me, Bert and Carlotta, driving off to wherever in the provinces – for after that evening of my clumsy announcement, B and C are the obvious people to invite to come with us. I imagine them sitting there in the dark, watching this story about a married couple, so happy, so secure, and their two unmarried friends, Roddy and Liza. Married man, Paul, succumbs to a moment of lust with Liza, which rocks his equilibrium, although his wife Mary is innocent of his secret. She has no idea of the fear he suffers wondering if Liza will ever betray him. Mary is a hundred percent faithful wife, Paul believes … knows. Roddy is an honourable bachelor. So guilt only accosts two of the cast. What trauma will it cause? You don’t learn till Act 2. In the interval the audience will wonder, speculate.

What will Isabel, Carlotta and Bert make of this? Will they recognize it’s inspired by real life? Will Carlotta cast a meaningful look at me over her glass of wine? Will Isabel, much later at home, jokingly ask where the idea of the play came from?

I wonder, I wonder. With some dread, I wonder.

As my work diminishes, Isabel’s increases. It seems to be a new phrase for her. She’s working terribly hard, has become quite famous for her masks. Commissions from all over the place. And they’re wonderful, extravagant, original things – even I can see that, and I’m proud of her. With time on my hands in the evenings, I’ve taken to making the supper sometimes, to give her a break. This gives her inordinate pleasure. Sometimes I’m helped by Sylvie and Elli.

It’s good having Elli here, lovely for Sylvie. They get on well, do things together, rarely squabble. God knows how long Elli’s going to stay, but for as long as she wants as far as I’m concerned. Her grandmother has offered to have her, but the last thing she wants is to go and live in Surrey with some dotty old lady, poor child. She’s had a rough time and I like to think she’s happier now.

I miss Bert just as I missed him all those years he was in New York. His return was a great bonus, especially that week he stayed here. His going away again so soon was a disappointment, but I do understand about his new life. He plainly loves it. Whether or not he loves Carlotta, despite all she organizes for him, is another matter. It might be a case of companionship and gratitude rather than pure love, but obviously we don’t discuss the subtleties of their arrangement when he comes to London. But he did, after one particularly long lunch, admit he’d finally got his leg over.

‘Rather a coarse way of putting it,’ I said, ‘very unlike you.’

He laughed, ashamed of the crude nature of his confession. But I think it explained things: if he loved Carlotta he would never have used such language. Anyhow, I’m pleased he’s so contented in Norfolk, and we’re going up for the weekend soon. At least he comes to London from time to time – engaged, now, in collecting antique art books, his new passion – so we see him.

Carlotta, surprisingly, has only appeared once, briefly. Apparently she’s done a complete volte face. From loathing the idea of the country, she now loathes the thought of London. Well, she always was pretty extreme.

Can’t say she ever looms in my thoughts. That one moment, those few nefarious seconds, have become dreamlike (not a good dream), and like a dream they’ve faded, leaving behind nothing but a faint unease. Yes, there’s still a fear of her breaking her promise.

The funny thing is I’ve written so much about Carlotta, in the character of Liza, that the two have become slightly confused. Reality and fiction have become so tangled it would take much thought to re-divide them. And then am I Paul? Is he me? The only absolute certainty is that we share a guilt, a shame, that won’t quite go away. What I sometimes think is that Mary and Roddy, the two absolutely innocent characters – muddles with Isabel and Bert – are the duller notes in the play. Maybe I should pep them up a bit. I’ll see what Sam thinks, what the director thinks …

Waiting, I’ve discovered, has its own strange tides, its own rhythms. One moment I’m fiercely patient, other times there’s the rage, the fury at my own helplessness. Sometimes I wake despairing, sometimes full of hope. On a bad day the hours clunk through my fingers like the beads of a rosary. On a good day I feel feet off the ground. I’ve been through all the sensations. How much longer must I wait? I tell Isabel none of this, for it’s so boring hearing about someone’s constant disappointment. So my biggest fantasy is about the morning the letter arrives saying … Yes: a few changes here and there (God, I’m willing to do a thousand changes) but, yes, we’d like to take on your play.

Then I’d scream into the kitchen waving the letter, tell Isabel that I’d made it at last, and we’d hug each other in mutual delight till we could scarcely breathe.

That’s what I imagine, all the time.

I was having trouble threading a needle with invisible thread – dreaded thought, are my eyes really going now? Had I better see an oculist? – when Dr. Johnson’s thought, that friendship should be kept in constant repair, came to me. Perhaps, a half submerged thought, I’d been thinking of Carlotta. Once Johnson’s sensible observation struck me, I realized with some guilt I’d done absolutely nothing about keeping our friendship in repair since she’d left London – amazingly, almost a year ago.

We hardly ever speak on the phone, and when we do our conversations are no more than snippets of exchanged facts, hers more copious than mine. As always, I’ve little news. Nothing much changes here, except that I’m incredibly busy with the masks, which are suddenly going astonishingly well. But there’s nothing much to say about my work that would interest Carlotta. So I listen to her fragments of information: office almost finished, going to buy a boat (
sail
? Carlotta?). I don’t express surprise. I know about the retired postman from whom she excitingly buys home-grown carrots, and the amazing bargains she’s found in Fakenham market. Carlotta: whoever would have thought she’d enthuse about such things?

She assures me she loves it all, and she’s never been so happy. She doesn’t actually mention Bert, but I presume they’re lovers by now. They must be. I never quite like that thought, I don’t know why. But I know I have a minuscule part of Bert to myself that she will never know about, and doesn’t have. He and I talk every few weeks, and that’s a comfort – which is odd considering I don’t need a comfort.

Perhaps I just like the slight – very slight – wickedness of secret conversations with someone who, so briefly the moments could hardly be registered in time, recognized in each other – well, something. I’m not sure what.

I’m determined, of course, never to ask Bert exactly how it is with Carlotta. I wouldn’t like to put him in the position of having to answer a question he wouldn’t want to be asked. I’m sure it’s an agreeable arrangement: he says she’s changed so much, relaxed, living for the moment instead of her old way of always making plans, etc, etc.

But he never says he loves her. That’s quite cheering.

And, really, all is well. The year – I’ve been so inundated with orders – has flown. Sylvie’s so happy that Elli’s here. It’s like having the sister she’s always wanted, she says. Elli’s a sad, enchanting child. I dread the day some change is decided, and she has to return to one or other of her parents. She likes it here, and Dan and I agree she’s been a wonderful influence on Sylvie who has, I think, realized how lucky she is having a stable home and constant parents. She’s become much less moody and difficult.