Home Fires (22 page)

‘You’re a good walker,’ he says to Elsa, then turns his face away.

She wonders if she has heard him correctly. She does not want to look at him in case that is the wrong thing to do, but out of the corner of her eye, she sees a flush on his cheeks. She knows then that she is not mistaken. He has paid her a compliment and now he does not know how to act.

Elsa keeps her features expressionless but inside, she feels a small tingle of pride. He does not say anything more.

It is one of the only times she will feel close to him.

But then, later, when they get home, he beats her with a belt for dropping a china plate. Her fingers had been wet and the crockery had slipped from her grasp but she knows better than to try and explain. She can see his face, looming over hers, the mouth skewed as he grunts with the physical effort. She feels the leather of the belt burn against her thigh and she knows there will be a bruise there later, dark as ash. She blanks his face out. She submits. She allows the blows to fall because she knows he cannot touch her, not inside where it counts.

It is evening, the light is dusky. Elsa walks into the drawing room and sees her father sitting in an armchair in the half-gloom. He is crying. Elsa has never seen a man cry before and she is shocked. The tears roll thickly down her father’s face, gathering in streams underneath his nose. His quiet sobs are catching in his throat as he tries to regulate his breathing. His shoulders are shuddering and his limbs are bent out of shape, angular and spiky like the spokes of a broken umbrella. He lifts up a hand to shield his face, not wanting to be looked at but Elsa keeps staring. He has not seen her. But still she keeps looking. She wants to remember this, to remember what it was to see him look so weak.

Coward, she thinks. And she allows herself a small smile before she turns back into the hallway and walks softly up the stairs.

Caroline

The pile of papers is growing on her desk. Typewritten sheets of military jargon, photocopies of newspaper diagrams, jottings of place names and telephone numbers and email addresses, a relevant fact heard on the radio and written down quickly on the back of a bank statement before she forgets it. All of this information spills over itself, an endless chain of words that seems to point to something, even though it is not always clear to her what that might be. The physicality of the paper reassures her. If it exists in black and white, she thinks, it will not disappear. The proof of it cannot be disputed. She will not be made a fool of because she will be able to say ‘Look – here, here it is’ and they will have to listen to her, they will have to admit there is evidence that she is right.

All her adult life, she has felt embarrassed by her lack of education, by the unstructured mess of her mind. But now she has a purpose. Now she can prove that she is as good as the rest of them at ordering her thoughts, at presenting a case.

Caroline is sitting cross-legged on the floor in her study, sipping on a cup of strong black coffee that is still too hot to drink. Each sip burns the roof of her mouth, but she does not notice. She is too busy, sorting out the papers into different sections of an ancient filing cabinet she had asked Andrew to bring back from the office. Her system for organising is haphazard – sometimes alphabetical, sometimes numerical. Occasionally, the fuzziness of her mind means it is difficult to remember which word she has used. Anything relating to Derek Lester, for instance, is either under ‘L’ for his surname, or ‘D’ for his first name or sometimes even ‘A’ for ‘Armed Forces Minister’. She giggles at her own absurdity – a sharp sound she had not expected to make.

She glances at her watch and notices she has put it on the wrong wrist so that the gold of the strap clashes with the platinum of the ring Andrew gave to her when Max was born. It is half past seven in the morning and she has been up for three hours. Caroline opens the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and reaches her arm far into the back corner. She retrieves a slim brown envelope, the tongue slipped into itself. Opening the envelope, she takes out a small silken package, a wrapped-up square of bright blue fabric. She places it on the floor and unwinds the silk. There are twenty-three white pills still left. She has further stocks hidden in different places around the house so as to avoid Andrew’s disapproval. He thinks she has reduced her dose.

She counts out the pills, lining them up along the carpet: a trail of breadcrumbs. She looks at them for a few seconds, pressing one of them down with the pad of her thumb, feeling its smoothness against her skin. Then, quickly, she takes one and swallows it with a gulp of coffee. She sniffs. Her nose is running but she has no time to wipe it. She has work to do. She must get on.

But then her gaze fixes on the blue silk square and she remembers that Elsa had given it to her, years ago when Max was still at school. Elsa had just returned from an Italian holiday – one of those culturally improving package tours she went on yearly with Dorothy, her bridge-playing friend – and instead of heading straight home from the airport, she had come to stay with them for a few days.

Over dinner, Elsa had talked them through the whole itinerary in painstaking detail – the Duomo in Florence, the Frari church in Venice, the ‘simply breathtaking’ Tintoretto museum – until Caroline could feel her eyelids drooping with the weight of tiredness. Max had already gone up to bed when they took coffee in the drawing room.

‘Are you not having any, Caroline?’ Elsa asked, resting the cup and saucer flat on the palm of her hand.

‘No, I’m afraid not,’ she said, as though she had done something wrong. ‘It keeps me up all night.’

Andrew winked at her. His mother didn’t notice. After a while, Elsa had rummaged in her handbag and produced two neat packages, wrapped in paisley-patterned paper.

‘These are for you –’

‘Oh Mummy, you shouldn’t have,’ Andrew said because he always said that sort of thing.

He unwrapped his first and lifted out a pair of bright gold cufflinks, each one engraved with the image of a Madonna and Child. He got out of his chair and strode across to his mother, dipping down to kiss the top of her head. ‘They’re exquisite,’ he said. ‘I shall never take them off.’

Caroline tried to summon up the necessary gusto she knew would be required when she opened her present. Her enthusiasm for these little gifts of Elsa’s always sounded so false to her ears. She had never found any use for the trinkets that Elsa brought back from her travels abroad. She was beginning to feel that the gifts were not an exercise in generosity but in showing off.

She ripped the wrapping paper apart, too late noticing her mother-in-law’s silent disapproval (Elsa liked to keep wrapping paper to re-use) and when she saw the blue square of silk, threaded through with glimmers of swirling silver, she was not sure what to make of it. It was pretty but, when she unfolded the fabric, she saw it was not quite big enough to be a scarf.

‘How lovely,’ Caroline said. ‘Is it a handkerchief?’

Elsa looked at her levelly. ‘I daresay you can use it however you see fit,’ she said, icily. ‘But I certainly wouldn’t blow my nose on it.’

‘No, I didn’t mean –’

‘Anyway, I suppose I should be getting on up to bed,’ Elsa continued, ignoring her. ‘I’ve taken up enough of your time.’ And then, not looking at either of them: ‘Thank you for a delightful evening.’ She walked out of the room without another word.

‘Oh dear,’ Andrew said, getting up to follow her. He patted Caroline’s arm as he walked past her. She felt ashamed, her face hot. She had not meant to cause any offence. But there was a part of her, a diamond-hard sparkle inside, that felt glad she had. She switched the lights off, leaving the coffee cups to wash up the next morning.

On the upstairs landing, she could make out the low, conciliatory murmur of Andrew’s voice: ‘Didn’t mean any harm . . . would be mortified to think . . . no, no, that’s not it . . .’ And then, after these snatches of half-caught conversation, she heard Elsa’s response with perfect clarity. ‘Perhaps you should teach her not to be so ungrateful.’

Caroline’s mouth went dry. Her throat thickened with the shock of those words. How dare she, Caroline thought. She was so bloody superior. So righteously convinced of her own course of action. She would never be able to please Elsa, never.

But although her indignation was real, it lasted only for a second, and then she was overcome with guilt and anxiety. How could she have been so stupid, so thoughtless? Why did she never understand how to do the right thing? All that work trying to get Elsa to like her and now this!

She had gone to the bathroom, put down the loo seat and sat there, for several minutes, to compose herself. She did not want Andrew to see that she had been upset. And, when he eventually emerged from the guest room some ten minutes later, he didn’t say a word.

The next morning, Caroline had set the alarm earlier than usual so that she could go downstairs and make breakfast. She wanted to show how sorry she was, rather than attempt to explain it, because she knew her words would get muddled and over-emotional and that Elsa hated any show of hysteria. She laid the table with extra care, folding linen napkins on each side-plate, rubbing down the toast rack with the edge of a dishcloth to make it gleam and placing a small vase of peonies in the centre. She defrosted a packet of croissants and, although normally she would have made herself a quick cup of instant, she took out the cafetière to make a proper pot of coffee. She decanted the milk into a jug, hand-painted with blue and white flowers.

By the time Elsa came down, Caroline had her apron on, a spatula in one hand, ready to scramble the eggs.

‘Good morning, Elsa,’ she said, brightly. ‘I hope you slept well?’

Elsa, resplendent in a knee-length red cardigan, drew the belt more tightly around her waist. ‘I did, thank you.’ She sat down, unfolded the napkin on her lap and laid her hands lightly on the table, her fingers tapping ever so slightly up and down on the wooden surface. ‘This all looks delightful,’ Elsa said.

‘I’m glad –’ started Caroline but at exactly the same moment, Elsa said something. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what –’

‘I said I think I owe you an apology,’ Elsa said, the words stumbling out in a pile. Caroline looked across at her mother-in-law and saw that she was embarrassed and that what underlay this embarrassment was the slightest tinge of something else; of nervousness. She was so startled by Elsa’s show of remorse she forgot to answer and stood there, the spatula still raised, unable to speak.

‘I overreacted,’ Elsa continued. ‘I’m not sure why.’

She glanced up at Caroline briefly and then down at the table again, fiddling with a curl of hair, moving her knife a millimetre to the side with her free hand.

‘Elsa, you don’t need to apologise, honestly. It was a beautiful gift. I – I – oh I don’t know. I was too stupid to realise what it was. It was my fault. I’m so bad at . . . you know, at finding the right words.’

Elsa smiled. ‘Words can be treacherous,’ she said. ‘At the best of times.’

‘Let’s forget it ever happened. Let me make you something to eat.’

After that, they had enjoyed a relatively pleasant breakfast of scrambled eggs and if Elsa had noticed that the croissants were slightly limp around the edges, she didn’t say so. In fact, she was unfailingly polite for the remainder of the morning. When Andrew left for work, it was Elsa who suggested they go out furniture shopping at a nearby antiques shop in Upton-upon-Severn.

‘We could make a day of it,’ she said. ‘I need to find a bookshelf for the downstairs sitting room and you’re so good at that kind of thing.’

Caroline, taken aback, reddened. ‘No, I’m not!’

‘Nonsense. Just look at this house. You’ve done wonders with it,’ Elsa said, avoiding eye contact. ‘We could have lunch. My treat. As a way of . . .’ There was a pause. ‘Well, what do you say?’

So they had driven into Upton, Caroline more nervous than she should have been at the wheel, conscious, as she always was, of the probability that Elsa was judging her, examining her from the corner of her eye. It took her three goes to get into a parking space on the high street.

‘Sorry about this, Elsa,’ Caroline said, pulling the stiff steering wheel towards her. ‘I’m terrible at parking.’ She laughed, too loudly, and hated herself for it. ‘It’s a lack of spatial awareness. I don’t have that kind of brain, not like Andrew or Max. They know exactly what fits into where and at what angle. You should see the two of them playing snooker together down the pub, it’s amazing . . .’ She carried on in this vein, the sentences babbling out of her and although she wanted to stop talking, she found that she couldn’t. She needed to fill the silences.

When they got to the antiques shop, they found a ‘Back in Five Minutes’ sign on the door.

‘Honestly,’ said Elsa. ‘It’s the middle of the day! You’d think they’d be thrilled to have our business.’

‘Yes, quite.’ The shop had never been closed before. This day of all days, Caroline thought to herself. Typical. ‘We could go for a cappuccino just across the road if you like?’ She signalled towards a nearby café, the windows misted up with condensation. ‘We’ll be able to see when he gets back.’

‘Good idea.’

They sat at a window table with their mugs of coffee. Caroline ordered a square of millionaire’s shortbread.

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like one?’ she asked.

‘Good Lord no,’ Elsa said, the note of criticism implicit. ‘We’ve only just had breakfast.’