Last Guests of the Season (10 page)

Oliver turned a page; Frances blew out smoke; wet feet came along the path.

‘Hello, darling.'

‘Hi.' Jess, with a towel round her shoulders, dropped into Robert's empty chair, pushing back damp hair.

‘Boys all right?'

‘Oh, yes.' She sat fiddling with little bits of grape stalk, left by Robert. ‘Where's Dad?'

‘Gone to have a read. Why don't you go and get your book and bring it up here with us?'

She shook her head. ‘I don't feel like it at the moment.' She looked at Oliver, and at Frances, tapping ash into a saucer. ‘What games do you play?'

‘Games?' said Oliver, looking up. ‘Well, Frances and I play chess occasionally …'

‘I mean children's games. Do you know the Game Of Life? It's brilliant.'

He and Frances smiled resignedly. ‘Tom's not a board games child,' said Frances. ‘Perhaps he's still too young. Many have been tried and many hurled across the room in fury. We've given up.'

Jessica, coming from a family which customarily spent hours on wet afternoons in Crouch End playing everything from snakes and ladders to Monopoly, looked bemused.

‘But chess isn't just a grown-up game, is it?' said Oliver. ‘Haven't you ever played?'

‘Actually, she hasn't,' said Claire. ‘I think she and Jack would both be quite good, but somehow we've neglected it. Neither of us is very keen, to be honest. I'm not, anyway.'

‘Well, there's a set in the house,' he said. ‘I saw it in the sitting-room – would you like to learn, Jessica?'

She nodded. ‘Yes, please.'

‘Out here?'

‘Oh, why don't you play down on the terrace?' said Frances. ‘You won't disturb Robert, will you? Let Claire and me catch up on old times, go on.' She smiled at him, and he got up, pushing back his chair.

‘Okay, then. We rendezvous in the kitchen in about an hour, yes? To organise supper?'

‘Fine.' She and Claire watched the two of them walk away beneath the vines. ‘Put on a sweatshirt,' Claire called to Jessica. ‘It'll be cool quite soon.'

She didn't answer, following Oliver's long stride; they turned down the steps to the house and a few minutes later reappeared on the terrace, Oliver carrying a wooden box. They sat opposite each other at the white table, and he began to set up the board. Claire wondered if Robert did mind them being there, and decided he probably didn't. Let's face it, she thought, Robert doesn't really mind anything very much, thank God.

‘That's kind of Oliver,' she said.

‘He'll enjoy it,' said Frances. ‘He loves teaching children – it disappoints him that Tom is so unreceptive.'

‘Well, I'm sure it's just a matter of time. Tom's into other things, that's all. He's an outdoor child, isn't he?'

‘Yes. Yes, he is.' Frances hesitated. ‘Claire –'

Footsteps came flying down the path; Tom, shrieking with laughter, was chasing Jack, waving a soaking-wet towel.

‘Careful …' said Frances, as they raced past. She covered her face. ‘It'll end in tears or fury.'

‘Don't worry,' Claire said kindly, as the boys disappeared down the steps and could be heard, having belted down the next flight to the garden, erupting into fresh gales of laughter. Squawks of alarm came from the scattering hens. ‘Let them be – I was just going to call them out of the water anyway.'

‘They've got no shoes on.' Frances lowered her hands. ‘It's all scrubby and rough down there.'

‘In that case, they can go and look for their shoes, can't they? And if they can't find them, no doubt their fathers will assist.'

Frances looked at her gratefully.

‘You wanted to talk to me,' said Claire.

‘Yes.' Frances visibly took a breath, but said nothing.

Claire waited. ‘What a strange mixture you are,' she said, after a while. ‘One minute you clearly can't bear having children around you, and the next you're all concerned about bare feet.'

Frances shook her head. She was looking out across the terracotta rooftops of the village beneath them, where the streets were filled with the sounds of activity again as the air grew cooler. Voices called, buckets clanked, children ran up and down. ‘Don't most mothers feel like that?'

‘I'm sure. But with you I sense that it's different.'

There was a pause. ‘I'm different, certainly,' said Frances, and tapped out another cigarette from the packet. She lit it without turning, leaning back in her chair, her feet resting on a ledge in the stem of the table. She suddenly looked drawn, despite the day in the sun.

‘How about a drink?' said Claire. ‘Shall I go and –'

‘No,' said Frances, ‘please don't go. You'll get all tangled up with the children …'

‘Well, what is it, then? Come on, Frances, it's okay, you can trust me. Is it about children? Tom? He's a nice boy, I like him. You and Oliver mustn't worry so much about things, it'll all be fine.' She could hear herself sounding brisk and dismissive and capable; perhaps that in itself was a threat to someone so apparently unsure of motherhood, someone who she had guessed was perhaps not, in any case, Tom's real mother. So she stopped, and Frances said abruptly:

‘It's not about Tom, it's about me.'

‘You mean – you and Oliver?' Claire asked, following this morning's train of thought.

‘Indirectly, yes. Well – perhaps I should say directly.' She drew on the cigarette; smoke drifted up towards the overhanging vines and away towards the cloud of midges which had begun to dance above the path. She said: ‘I thought everything would be all right, but it isn't. I thought I had changed, but I haven't.' There was another silence, and this time Claire did not attempt to break it. Frances said slowly, ‘I've been in love with someone else for a long time.'

Claire waited; nothing more came; Frances still did not look at her.

‘Well,' Claire said at last. ‘That must be rather difficult. Does Oliver know?'

‘I don't know. I don't think so. No one knows.'

‘And are you actually having an affair?'

‘No.' The hand which held the cigarette was shaking. ‘I mean, I'd like to, but she's married.'

The running footsteps and laughter of the boys, the squawks of panic-stricken hens, had faded: they had moved right across to the other side of the garden, beneath the lemon trees. The sounds from the village seemed distant, too, as Claire let those last little words sink in. From the end of the path came the steady, unending flow of water pouring into the tank, a sound which was always with them, soothing and cool, but which now felt profoundly altered.

‘Oh,' she said carefully. ‘Oh.'

‘Don't look so worried,' said Frances drily, turning at last to meet her eyes. ‘It isn't you.'

‘I –' Claire swallowed. ‘I didn't think it was.'

And then Frances smiled, warm and direct, and Claire felt suddenly as though she were seeing her properly for the first time. ‘Didn't you?' she asked. ‘Not even in Bristol?'

‘What?'

‘Didn't you realise what I felt for you then?'

‘What?'

The house, the garden, Robert and the children were whirling away: Claire, frozen into this moment, sat looking at Frances in transfixed astonishment. With such clarity that the last eighteen years might never have passed, she saw her: jumping each time Claire came near her; hiding away; talking freely only when they were alone; hiding away again; finally disappearing, without so much as a goodbye. She saw her, pretty and self-assured, smiling at Simon Blair, the tutor everyone had dreamed about, distantly acknowledging Claire across a sunlit room, as if she cared nothing for her at all.

‘I need a drink,' she said at last, and then, as Frances tipped forward on her chair and made to get up to fetch one, she added: ‘No, wait, just a minute. You're right, we'll get all tangled up with the children.'

‘What about a cigarette?' asked Frances, offering the packet. Claire took one, lit it, and coughed violently.

‘Ugh.' She put it straight out again. ‘You smoke far too much.'

‘I know. I've tried to give it up, but I can't.' She gave a wry smile. ‘Change is never so easy.'

Claire sat with her elbows on the table, looking at her. ‘Go on. Who is this woman?'

Frances looked away. ‘We work together – she was there when I arrived.'

Claire tried to remember what Frances had told her, the day they ran into each other again. ‘You went there when Tom was two … That's a long time.'

‘Yes.'

‘And does she know?'

‘No.' Frances was distant again. ‘No, she hasn't a clue.'

‘You're sure?'

‘Certain. After all, you didn't guess, did you?'

‘No. But perhaps this person is a little more astute.'

Frances touched her arm affectionately. ‘You're astute enough, Claire.' She paused. ‘And what would you have done if you had guessed? Or if I had told you?'

Claire considered. ‘Probably run a mile.'

Frances gave a little laugh, and then she suddenly crumpled, and looked so stricken that Claire, in a wave of pity, found herself saying quickly: ‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean – just because I said that, doesn't mean that she – your friend now –' She broke off, feeling, although she had been invited, as if she were trespassing in unknown territory. And anyway, what was she thinking of, giving the slightest encouragement?

Footsteps from the far end of the path, and the chink of glasses: Robert, carrying a tray, with a blue-striped china jug.

‘Oliver and Jessica are deeply engaged with the chessboard,' he said, plonking it down on the table, ‘So I thought I'd do the decent thing. Claire, move all this tea stuff out of the way, will you?' He sat down, and began to pour, handing them each a glass; he raised his own. ‘Cheers.' He looked from one to the other. ‘Oh. Sorry. I'm interrupting.'

‘At last the penny drops,' said Claire, as much to herself as to Robert. She picked up her glass and drank quickly. Never had red wine hit the spot more accurately, or been more welcome.

‘Shall I disappear?'

‘No, of course not.' Frances was standing; she picked up her glass. ‘This is very nice, thank you. I'll take it with me, if I may, and start the supper.'

‘No rush …' Robert began, and stopped as she swept her cigarettes and lighter off the table and walked rapidly away.

‘I'll do the children first,' she said, over her shoulder. ‘In a little while, okay?'

‘Fine,' said Claire, and watched her rapid progress between the vines, turning to run past the water tank, down the steps to the house.

‘Well,' said Robert, drinking again. ‘This looks promising. Drama on day two. Day one, really.'

‘Shut up.'

‘Sorry. Only joking.'

‘I know.'

‘Want to tell me about it?'

‘Not at the moment. Just let me gather my thoughts, will you'? And make sure the boys are all right.'

‘I will,' he said kindly, patting her shoulder. ‘See you in a bit.' And he took himself off again, up to the poolside to survey the view, then back again and past her, pulling off a few grapes on the way.

Claire sat at the round white table. A scooter puttered past, on the mountain road, going down towards the village. It was growing cooler, but she did not move. She thought: I am a woman of my time, I should surely be able to take all this in my stride. But she found that she could not, that she was unsettled and bewildered, feelings with which she had long been unfamiliar. If Frances had felt so much for her, all those years ago, did that say something about herself, as well as everything about Frances? And what, anyway, was this ‘everything'about someone who seemed to be neither one thing nor another? She refilled her glass, hearing, from down in the garden, Robert's voice, organising Tom and Jack, who had stayed too long in the pool, towards the idea of a bath and pyjamas.

‘I don't want a bath with
him,'
said Jack.

Claire pulled on her sweater, and shivered.

Upstairs, in the bedroom at the back of the house, which still held the warmth of the day, Frances swung back the peeling wooden shutters and looked through the open window out across the valley. The sun was very low, and the sky's streaks of grey were thickening; she stood with her glass of wine and cigarette listening to domestic evening noises drift up from the village: clattering dishes, a tinny signature tune, a wailing baby. She could hear women talking.

She leaned on the narrow window-sill and tried to let these sounds distract and calm her, but they did not. She thought about secrecy and disclosure: about the distance, which she had just discovered to be infinitely greater than she had supposed, between knowing something about yourself and revealing it. There seemed to be, as she had always thought there to be, very good reasons for keeping up appearances.

She watched below her the children playing in the yard of the threshing barn, pulling their wooden cart up and down, laughing. Keeping up appearances helped keep everything as it should be – and I am not as I should be, she thought, seeing again the change in Claire's face as she listened, her expression of shock and retreat. No matter that she had quickly tried to cover it: it had been there.

Well. A lesson had been learned: there would be no more revelations. She drew on her cigarette, and closed her eyes, and Dora's calm and lovely face came floating up before her.

The road to the market town, some twenty miles away, wound high through the mountains, between forests of pine and eucalyptus which oozed milky gum into little cups like half coconuts, fastened to the bark. On the left the ground sloped steeply down to the river; clusters of red-roofed houses were sprinkled on the far hillside, beneath a cloudless sky.