East Fortune (6 page)

It was a hot afternoon and she wanted it to be dark but she was too pre occupied to get up and close the curtains. She would just look at the sky and the tenement block opposite.

The test was positive.

Gówno, gówno, gówno.

Perhaps it was all some sick test of fate to find out how strong she was. She decided not to see a doctor. What would be the point?
She knew.

Out in the streets of Edinburgh the only people Krystyna noticed were mothers with children. They were lifting prams and buggies on to buses, squeezing into the lift of the St James's Centre, strapping their babies into backs of cars whose stickers warned other drivers to take care:
Princess on Board, Proud Mum, Dad's Princess.
She couldn't move without noticing that a lot of people had had a lot of sex:
Baby Under Construction, It Started With a Kiss, I Love My Bump.

‘Fuck off,' Krystyna wanted to say. ‘
Spierdalajcie
.'

The kids themselves were dropping their dummies and small toys all over Edinburgh, crying out for food, wriggling to escape their confined spaces. Elder children threw tantrums on the floors of bookshops, or raced ahead towards traffic, or stood in the middle of a shopping centre refusing to go home. In the supermarkets mothers loaded their trolleys with nappies, toilet paper, kitchen rolls, baby powder, bottles and sterilising equipment. Krystyna did not think she had ever seen so many children. Did the world need another child? Would she really have to go through all this?

She took long baths at night. She kept topping up the hot water, letting it spread across her belly.

How soon would she start to show and what should she expect? A swollen stomach, tender breasts, discomfort, backache. She thought of the clothes she would have to wear, smocks and skirts with elasticised waists and accommodating tops. There would be so much to buy: cribs and mobiles and nappies and food, and she would have to work even more hours to support the two of them. At least as a cleaner she could take the baby with her.

She realised that she was imagining she had a child already. It was easier than the alternative.

She stepped out of the bath and began to towel herself dry, more aggressively than she had intended.

She tried to picture the future, alternating the days on which she imagined she had a son, Adam, or a daughter, Carolina, and the days on which she had no child at all. But on those days she missed her previous conceptions, her Adam, or her Carolina. It was as if they had already been born, had lived and were lost to her.

The days on which she imagined having a child became more common, easier to live with, although she worried how much it would inherit from Sandy, especially if the child was a boy.

How much would he look like him? Would he be a permanent reminder of all that had happened, or would he be an act of grace, a kind of redemption?

She saw Jack again. He had sought her out of guilt. She worried that at some point she would have to make it clear that it was only ever going to be a friendship. She didn't want any misunderstanding. But neither did she want to make any assumptions or be rude.

They climbed Calton Hill. It was Krystyna's nearest walk and she had been up most weekends when she was with Sandy. Going on her own, and now with Jack, was a means of reclaiming it for herself.

It was a hot, dry day, which made the climb seem steeper. Already Krystyna thought how much more difficult it was going to be if she maintained her pregnancy.

After they had reached the top they looked down towards Princes Street and out to the silhouette of the Old Town. It was a view that made the city seem more European than it did on the ground. The Castle reminded Krystyna of Prague, even of Kraków. They sat on the steps of the National Monument.

‘It's a long time since I've been here,' said Jack. ‘It must be ten years…'

‘And who were you with when you came?'

‘I think I was on my own.'

Krystyna looked at him.

‘You know I don't know anything about you. Where do you live? What do you do? What about your family?'

‘Nothing very interesting. I'm a senior lecturer in Classics. I tend
to work most of the time: teaching, translating. I don't seem to do much else.'

‘Have you always lived here?'

‘More or less.'

‘You were born here?'

‘Yes.'

‘So it is your home? You belong?'

‘Yes, I suppose I do.'

Krystyna noticed that Jack had not talked about his family.

‘What is it like to be Scottish? Tell me.'

‘It's probably just as hard to explain what it's like to be Polish. I don't know.'

‘What about your childhood?'

‘It seems so long ago now.'

‘Tell me.'

‘You really want to know?'

‘Of course.'

Jack began to tell her about the parental home in East Lothian, the countryside that surrounded it; memories of his brothers.

‘How many do you have?'

‘Two. I'm the middle child.'

‘The peacemaker.'

‘That's what they say – neither the responsible eldest nor the favourite youngest. What about you?'

‘The second,' said Krystyna. ‘I have an elder brother.'

‘Ah … so you are your father's favourite?'

‘Not since I left. I would not be his servant. He thought I was ungrateful. We do not get on well.'

‘I am sorry.'

‘Did you have a happy childhood?'

‘Sometimes I think it was too happy,' said Jack.

‘Is there such a thing?'

‘Now I am the one being ungrateful.'

‘It is unbelievable,' said Krystyna. ‘Being too happy…'

‘It was quite idyllic, I suppose – a house in the country; a mother and father who loved each other. It meant there was nothing to rebel against. You spend your life trying to live up to the standards and expectations your parents have given you.'

‘That does not sound hard.'

‘I'm not complaining.'

‘It sounds very, I am not sure of the word, is it “privileged”?'

‘It's traditional. I'm sure you've seen a traditional Scottish country home.'

‘Only the ones I clean.'

‘This is different.'

‘A country house. I cannot imagine it…'

‘Come and see it, if you like.'

‘No. It would not be right.'

‘Why not? I've got to go there in a couple of weeks. My father does these amateur theatricals.'

‘I do not understand.'

‘It started off as something for the grandchildren to make them appreciate Shakespeare; you know, get them when they're young, like the Church, but mostly it succeeded in putting them off. But we do it because my father takes it so seriously and we don't want to disappoint him.'

‘It is always Shakespeare?'

‘Every summer.'

‘It must take a lot of time.'

‘My father is retired. Why don't you come?'

‘I cannot do that. What would everyone say? What about your wife? Or your children?'

He looked surprised, as if he had already told her about them.

‘Oh they don't come, I'm afraid. I don't have a wife any more.'

‘I am sorry. I did not know.'

‘No, that's all right.'

‘She died?'

‘No. She left. The girls are away. University, travelling, you know the kind of thing. Come to the play. Be my guest…'

‘I do not think so, Jack.'

It was the first time she had said his name. It sounded strange, more familiar than she had intended. It surprised her. Perhaps she had said it out of pity after he had mentioned his wife.

‘You should come. Honestly,' Jack continued, ‘there's something charming about it. I think that's why we still do it. You could even be in it, if you like. We're always stuck for numbers.'

‘What about the audience?'

‘It's just the family. When you're not in a scene you just sit down and watch. It's very informal.'

‘Do you have costumes?'

‘Of course. And then there's a bit of a dinner party. It's like a shooting party, except with Shakespeare instead of guns. Why don't you come?'

‘I have not been invited.'

‘I'm inviting you.'

‘I would not know what to say.'

‘You don't have to say anything. The lines are all written down for you.'

‘It would be crazy.'

‘Yes. But that's the point. You could return to Edinburgh and tell your friends how mad it is.'

Krystyna was surprised by his enthusiasm. Talking about the eccentricity of his family had given Jack a confidence she had not seen before. It made it harder for her to say no; and besides, the event sounded so odd, so British, that she thought she might even enjoy it. It was like a secret piece of tourism, revealed only to the few.

‘What is the house like?' she asked.

‘It's very beautiful,' Jack said. ‘It explains everything.'

‘Everything?'

‘Well, almost everything,' Jack replied, and then appeared to stop himself. ‘I don't think I've ever said that before.'

Krystyna tried to think what it could be like: a country house, a
dacha,
a home; perhaps it would be a place where no one could reach her, a retreat from all that had happened and all that was about to happen; a kind of sanctuary.

And what else would she do? She could not think of any alternative other than remaining in her room and staring, without thinking, at the walls.

‘What do you say?' Jack asked.

‘All right,' Krystyna replied. ‘Why not?'

She began to walk ahead of him, down the hill and back into the city. She would be nervous on the day, she knew, but at that moment she had a feeling of recklessness, of light.

Jack's parental home was situated on the outskirts of East Fortune in the grounds of a large farm that had first belonged to his great-grandmother. The house was of pale-grey sandstone, the pitched roof was clad with Dutch pantiles, and the six chimneys that protruded from it had been symmetrically arranged to frame the crescent-shaped exterior. Bought at the turn of the twentieth century, the building had dominated family life. Each descendant had been told of the importance of passing the house on in a better condition than when they had inherited it. The gravel front was weeded and raked each day, the walled garden was tended every week, and a man came to clean the sash windows, inside and out, at the beginning of every month.

The building was situated in a low valley, but the outlook was open and wide, with views from the hills behind the house that stretched out to the Firth of Forth and the North Sea. The sight of the coast was both an end and a beginning: the edge of adventure.

Jack's mother Elizabeth had been born and brought up in the house, marrying Ian Henderson at the age of twenty-five and providing him with three boys: Angus, Jack and Douglas. In return, her husband was expected to earn enough money to keep the place going and sustain the traditions to which Elizabeth had been accustomed: talk to factors and land agents, pay the bills, and provide a steady sense of home for their sons.

It was a house of privilege and expectation. This was not a family that tolerated failure. If tasks were to be undertaken, no matter how trivial, they had to be performed well.

Ian Henderson had already given the family his
Julius Caesar
and his
King Lear.
He had educated them, somewhat against their will, in English history through his unique interpretations of
Richard II, Henry IV
and even
Henry V
(although at the age of sixty-nine this had been something of a stretch). Now he had chosen comedy, and even risked ridicule, by taking on the part of Malvolio in
Twelfth Night.
Angus had been signed up for Orsino, Jack was going to be Feste, and Douglas, Sir Toby Belch.

Their father had phoned each son in turn and asked, ‘You will learn your lines, won't you?'

His three boys had replied, as they did every year, that they would do their best without intending to do anything of the kind.

Angus had been persuaded to arrive early to help erect the set. As the tallest and the broadest of the three brothers he was always called in first to help with any manual labour. His father told him that he had ‘farmer's hands'.

The set was a series of painted hardboard flats that could be clamped together to make a castle on the back lawn. They had used them a few years previously for the History Plays and now they were brought out every summer. Ian had decreed that, whether it was history, comedy, or tragedy, most Shakespeare plays needed battlements.

He was wearing a threadbare Viyella shirt and a pair of faded red corduroys. He hadn't bothered to dress properly because he was planning to go through his costumes later that morning. In fact he was still wearing his slippers; a twenty-year-old pair of Church's with one heel down. He had hinted that someone might like to give him a new pair for his birthday but guessed that his family probably thought he was too old to get the wear out of them.

He asked Angus to carry out the stage weights. They were heavier than he had remembered. So much of Ian's life now consisted of conserving his energy and making sure that he wasn't surprised or caught out by old age. He had to concentrate harder on tasks that he had previously taken for granted. He wasn't sure his children realised what an effort his life had become, but then, he flattered himself, it was probably because he disguised it so well.

‘You know Jack's bringing a friend?' he said as he watched Angus move the flats into position.

‘Male or female?'

‘Female.'

‘You don't think…'

‘We'd better not ask. She's Polish, apparently.'

‘How did he meet her? Jack hardly ever goes out.'