Keeping Secrets (6 page)

‘Wasn't it … dreadful?'

‘It was, but not half as bad as some of the other women here. You see that one in the bed opposite – she had a terrible time, I could hear her. But she's getting over it …'

Smiling, she raised her hand to the woman, large and sweating a little in a bright pink nightdress, her baby at the breast. ‘How's it going?'

‘Not so bad,' said the woman. ‘I expect I'll feel better once the stitches are out. How's your baby, all right?'

‘Lovely,' said Alice.

She turned back to Hilda, who couldn't remember Alice ever speaking to a stranger with such confidence, and said in an undertone, ‘Her baby squawks all night, poor thing. Hettie's good as gold.'

‘Hettie?'

‘Harriet. After Tony's mother. And her second name's Sonia, after Mummy.'

‘The bluestocking and the film-star,' said Hilda. ‘I hope she copes with that.'

‘Of course she will. Anyway, no one could call a baby Harriet, could they? She looked like a Hettie as soon as I saw her.'

Between them, the baby whimpered, and trembled suddenly; Alice bent over the crib. ‘Come on, Hettie.'

‘Are you allowed to pick her up?' Hilda asked, and they both laughed. ‘What am I saying?'

Gently, but oh, how surely, Alice lifted the baby, dressed in disposable nappy and hospital-issue vest, and cradled her in the crook of her arm. Her face glowed.

‘You look as if you've been doing it all your life,' said Hilda.

‘I feel as if I have, isn't it extraordinary? For the first time in my entire life I feel I've got it right, as if I know what I'm supposed to be doing and can do it.' She was unbuttoning the front of her nightdress. ‘The only thing I'm not much good at yet is this, but they keep saying not to worry, it'll come. Your tits are supposed to get sore, that's what one of the women along there was saying, she's using this spray stuff … come on, baby, latch on.' She laughed again. ‘That's all anyone in here talks about – latching on.'

Hilda watched her bend over Hettie, trying to plug the gaping little mouth with an enormous rosy nipple, and felt suddenly like someone from another planet. Alice always used to say she was outside everything, she thought, that I was the one who belonged in the world. Now, seeing the two heads so close, long fair hair brushing small pink forehead, she felt excluded and unnecessary.

‘Pity Father can't see her,' she said. ‘He'd have been so pleased.'

‘Mmm.' Alice was still preoccupied. ‘Come on, Hettie, in the
mouth
… That's it, clever girl. There we are.' She looked up. ‘Oh, lovely, there's Tony.'

Hilda turned to see him coming down the ward with an enormous bunch of roses, which he raised in greeting. ‘How is everyone? Hello, Hilda …' He bent to kiss her cheek, always the kindly host, including putting the visitor first, even today.

‘Congratulations,' she said warmly. ‘She's simply lovely.'

‘Isn't she?' He went round the other side of the bed, putting his arm round Alice, kissing her and his daughter on the head. ‘How are we feeling today?'

‘Fine,' said Alice happily. ‘Much better. Look, she's feeding really well.'

‘Very good.' He perched on the bed beside her, and Hilda got up, saying: ‘I must get back to work. Come on, Tony, have the chair.' ‘It's all right. I'm okay here. Do you have to go?'

‘Yes, I really must. Well … Goodbye, all.' She patted the baby's warm creased fingers, and blew Alice and Tony a kiss. ‘See you soon.'

‘See you,' said Alice abstractedly. ‘Thanks for coming.'

Hilda went down the ward, walking past all the other women with their cribs, and flowers, and brand-new babies. Outside the hospital the traffic was thundering down the hill from Highgate to the Archway Road, and it was very hot. She crossed over, and stood at the bus stop, finding herself for a few minutes absorbed in a fantasy in which she lay with her own baby beneath the trees in her father's garden, listening to the birds. Then the bus came and she went back to work, telling everyone: ‘I've been to see my niece.'

On an evening in October Hilda was correcting essays at her desk. The weather had turned colder; the last of the light was fading behind the trees in the square. Hilda had switched on her desk lamp and felt cocooned and absorbed, at home in a way she realised now she had never quite felt in the summer months.

My father has a successful import business whom I am hoping to join him shortly. My parents are intending to marry me
… The telephone rang and she picked it up, expecting a call from Lizzie, one of her part-timers. When Stephen Knowles said carefully: ‘Hilda?' she was completely taken aback, recognising his voice immediately.

‘Hello.' Her tone was less than welcoming.

‘I hope I haven't disturbed you.'

‘I was working.'

‘Have you got a few minutes? I've been thinking about you … I just rang to see how you were.'

‘I'm very well, thanks,' she said briskly. ‘How are you?'

‘Fine. I'm down in London, staying with James and Klara; I'm going back to Norfolk tomorrow.'

‘Oh.'

‘I don't suppose you're free for lunch?'

‘I …' In that pause Hilda saw, as the drowning were supposed to see the whole of a life flash past, everything that might, and might not happen if she said yes: that she, a woman who so far had lived a quiet, well-ordered, sensible life might find herself caught up in opera – passion, secrecy, suffering and exaltation. Then, as she had thought when they stood on the front doorstep and he had asked her for her telephone number, she thought: but this is absurd, I am assuming far too much, and so she said carefully: ‘I think so. But I have a class at three, so …'

‘I could come over,' said Stephen. ‘Is there anywhere nice near you?'

Hilda said: ‘Incredible as it may seem, there is. There are several places near the college, on Church Street. I mean …' she floundered a little, ‘do you mean a pub? Or what?'

‘I'd rather thought a what,' said Stephen, and she could tell that he was smiling. ‘A wine bar or something?'

‘There's a wine bar with a fox outside,' said Hilda. ‘I could meet you there. You can't miss it.'

‘On Church Street, Fine. About half-past twelve?'

‘Let's say one, I teach until half-twelve.'

‘I'll look forward to it,' said Stephen. ‘We'll talk properly then, shall we?'

‘Yes. Yes, all right. Goodbye.'

She put down the receiver and remained sitting on the sofa, unable to suppress not only pleasure but a rare excitement.

Hilda pushed open the door of the wine bar and stepped inside, looking round. Even at one o'clock, only a few of the round marble tables were occupied, and Stephen wasn't here yet. She hesitated, then went to a table not far from the door, where she could look out on to the street. On the opposite wall, behind the bar, the menu was chalked on a blackboard; approached by a boy in carring and striped shirt, she ordered a mineral water, and sat waiting. Outside, the sky was dull grey, threatening rain, and Church Street was clogged with traffic. The wine bar was not far from the post office; old ladies with shopping trolleys and single men in shiny worn suits went slowly past the window, collecting pensions and giros. Above the town hall a red and white notice announced, each month, the number of jobless in Hackney, tens of thousands. Among them, and the mothers and childminders with push-chairs and trailing children, were several of Hilda's students, wandering with bags of chips; seeing them, she turned away, not wanting to be recognised.

When she turned back again she saw Stephen, who must have parked in a side street. He was looking up at the fox sign, then stepping out of the way of a tall black boy with a Walkman. He looked well-dressed, well-heeled, quite out of place, and seeing him Hilda felt a flicker of disappointment: he was an ordinarily attractive man, that was all, he had nothing to do with her. Good, she thought, now I can live in peace, and then he pushed open the door, looking round as she had done, and saw her, and gave a slow, direct smile of recognition. She smiled back, meeting his eyes, and felt both peace and disappointment disappear.

‘Hello. Sorry I'm late.' He pulled out a bentwood chair and sat down beside her, moving a small glass vase of flowers. ‘Have you been waiting long?'

‘Just a few minutes. What was the traffic like?'

‘Oh –' he spread his hands, smiling. ‘Traffic, you know. Not a problem.' He looked at her glass, and the half-empty bottle beside it. ‘Is there wine in that?'

Hilda shook her head. ‘I can't drink in the lunch hour, I'd never manage to do anything afterwards. But please –'

They both laughed. ‘I shouldn't be drinking either,' said Stephen, ‘not if I have to drive back. How about just a glass each?'

‘Okay. Red, please.'

‘Good. And food … are there menus?'

‘Over there, on the wall.'

He turned, looking at the blackboard. ‘Right. What do you feel like? Garlic mushrooms? Quiche, surprise, surprise … jacket potato and salad … I wonder what the soup is.'

The boy in the earring was beside them again, holding a notebook. He flashed a smile at Stephen. ‘What can I get you? The soup today is cream of leek and potato.'

‘Is it really?' said Stephen with a laugh, and Hilda could see that the boy was enchanted.

They ordered soup and rolls, and a winter salad, and in a moment the boy came back with their glasses of wine. He put them down carefully, flashing another smile that clearly excluded Hilda, and took their order back to the bar.

‘Cheers.' Stephen raised his glass.

‘Cheers. You've obviously made a conquest.'

‘Do you think so?' he said, and meeting his eyes again – warm, interested, quizzical – Hilda felt the rest of the room slip away, leaving them alone. She looked down, quickly, fiddling with her glass, not knowing what to do with such undeniable sense of intimacy, and Stephen said gently: ‘How are you, Hilda?'

‘I'm very well,' she said matter-of-factly, looking up again, and past him to the window. ‘How are you?'

‘I'm also well,' said Stephen, ‘if you want a bulletin on my health. I'm working hard, and planning things with James, and I keep thinking about …'

‘Here we are.' The boy waiter was beside them with a tray. He set down bowls of soup, cutlery, a basket of rolls. Steam rose in thin wreaths between them. ‘Piping hot, mind you don't burn yourself.'

‘You're very solicitous,' said Stephen. ‘Thank you.'

‘My pleasure.'

‘Does this happen to you often?' Hilda asked, when he had gone, ‘I mean, that boy …' Easier to talk about him, a welcome distraction.

‘Not that I'm aware of,' Stephen said, offering her the basket. ‘It must be the weather. Have a roll.'

‘Thank you.' She took one and began to draw her soup away from the edges of the bowl with great absorption.

‘Tell me what you've been doing,' he said. ‘Did you go away in the summer?'

‘No, not this year. I've spent too much money buying my flat, but I think it was a mistake – I shouldn't have spent the whole time here. Before, I used to go and see my father a lot, and because he was in the country I could cope with London … Still.' She could hear herself begin to gabble. ‘Next year I'll fix something up. In the meantime my sister's had her baby, a little girl.' She sipped her soup cautiously. ‘This is very good. What about you – didn't you say you were going on holiday?'

‘We went to Italy,' said Stephen. ‘We've got some friends with a house in Tuscany, they go every year, and they asked us to join them. It's a lovely place, looking down into a valley, all stone farmhouses and a winding path and olive trees. Blazing hot.' He began to break his roll into pieces, watching her. ‘I found myself wishing you were there.'

Hilda was silent. A flurry of rain pattered suddenly against the window, and she turned to look at it. Outside, people were starting to hurry home, and a few took shelter beneath the wine bar's awning, stepping back quickly as a bus splashed past. She felt as if she were about to open the door to a house she had sometimes imagined, but never visited.

‘Hilda?' Stephen reached out, and carefully touched her hand. ‘Say something.'

Hilda looked away from the window, and back at him, feeling his touch on her fingers, lightly insistent. Impossible to pretend that rain, or food, was claiming her attention.

‘And what about your wife?' she said deliberately, taking her hand away. ‘Not to mention your son. How was their holiday?'

Stephen put down his soup spoon and leaned back, running his fingers through his hair. He sat looking past her, at the window and the rain, and then he said slowly: ‘What do you want me to say? I don't want to involve you in … all that.'

Hilda said nothing, waiting.

‘I suppose,' he said, ‘I should have realised that a principled person is a principled person. Somehow principles have not been uppermost in my mind. Only feeling.' He looked back at her, studying her face.

‘Honesty,' said Hilda, ‘is what I would hope for from anyone.' She smiled. ‘Which is probably why I have so far managed to avoid emotional entanglement – perhaps I hope for too much.'

‘And expect too little,' said Stephen. ‘You don't appear to have a very high opinion of the human race.'

‘I don't think that's true, it sounds priggish and superior. I hope I'm not like that. I think I'm just … reserved, that's all. Cautious.'

‘With everyone, or just with men?'

‘I think with everyone. Except my father – we got on very well. I suppose in some ways I feel more comfortable with women: not out of choice, I simply haven't found many men sufficiently interesting.' She shrugged. ‘Or interested in me.'