Not That Sort of Girl (34 page)

She could see him on those occasions when at last she found her dogs. He would grin, take off his glasses, polish them with his handkerchief, ask, ‘Satisfied now?’ and they would walk home to an enjoyable tea by the fire with Christopher. But if Laura had come to spend the day, to be fetched by Emily at dinnertime, Ned would watch Laura uneasily, hasten when Emily arrived to offer her a drink, help himself to whisky to keep her company, chatter, laugh a particular laugh, glance towards Rose for reassurance. It was years before Ned was convinced she would not allow him to be gobbled up by Emily.

For her part Emily was content with the role of part-time mistress, that was what she enjoyed. If she extracted the occasional hand-out towards Laura’s upkeep, Ned could afford it. Rose knew about it, nobody suffered. When the time came for Cheltenham Ladies’ College fees and Ned moaned, he received no sympathy. Rose never fully believed Laura to be Ned’s child. At first Ned fostered the myth himself, partly from guilty panic, partly from a liking to be thought a bit of a dog. But, Oh my, thought Rose as she threaded her way through the trees, that promise still meant something in 1948.

Half-way through dinner with Harold Rhys and his new wife and her mother who was visiting for the weekend, Edwina Farthing put her head round the door and said, ‘The pup’s back,’ but there was no sign of Comrade. Two days later the water bailiff found Comrade where she had become entangled in brambles at the river’s edge, been trapped and, when the water rose in flood, drowned. Fond of Rose, the bailiff brought Comrade’s body himself, stood awkwardly watching her white face while Ned thanked him for his trouble, offered him a drink. When the telephone rang Rose picked up the receiver, said, ‘Hullo?’

Mylo asked from long distance, ‘Does that bloody promise you made to Ned still hold?’ And she, watching Ned standing a yard away, said, ‘Yes, it bloody does.’

‘That’s it, then.’ Mylo rang off abruptly and she, she remembered as she walked, had broken into terrible weeping. Ned had been kind. He had not offered to buy her a pedigree dog, he had continued to put up with the puppy, and later the puppy’s puppy. If he thought her grief exaggerated, he did not say so. He presently took her on trips to Bath and Edinburgh (the exchange control precluding travel abroad), to theatres in London. He stopped quibbling about the expense and installed central heating. He sold his London flat which Rose had always rather looked on as Emily’s preserve, and together they chose a cheerful little house in South Kensington which was to be their London base, a London home for Christopher as he grew up. For more than a year he hardly saw Emily. And I, thought Rose looking back, was grateful; I put away thoughts of Mylo; it was as though with Comrade’s drowning love for Mylo waned. When a year later she heard by chance from Richard Malone that Mylo had married Victoria, she too said, ‘That’s that, then.’

What a lot Emily contributed to the keeping of that promise, thought Rose, treading carefully now down the steep hill; it was a triumph that to this day she was unaware of her hold. But she was not alone; Mrs Freeling also fuelled Ned’s discomfort, kept Rose determined to defend him.

While Christopher was an infant and for as long as he looked in any way baby-like, Mrs Freeling eyed her grandchild with distaste. Any baby reminded her of the horrors of procreation and child-bearing she was persuaded she had suffered. But when Christopher grew into what she termed a human being she enjoyed her status of grandparent and looked on Ned with a kindly eye. ‘Christopher is exactly like his father,’ she would say. ‘One can see he takes after you, Ned, he has your eyes, your nose. I can see nothing of Rose in him,’ and Ned would preen. By contrast when Laura was at Slepe, which she constantly was, playing or fighting with Christopher, Mrs Freeling would stare at the child, draw her son-in-law’s attention to her: ‘Look at little Laura, one would hardly credit that child had a father. She’s exactly like her mother, has no resemblance to anyone but Emily, Nicholas of course, but he is Emily’s twin. It’s odd, don’t you think, Ned? Children take after their fathers; Christopher looks like you; Rose looks like her father.’

‘That’s your theory,’ Rose would say.

‘It’s a fact.’ Mrs Freeling clung to her opinion. ‘I’d say that child might not have had a father. What do you think, Ned?’

(Did she or did she not do this on purpose? Surely she was not clever enough to invent such a tease?) And Ned would flush, say, ‘Ah, well—I don’t know,’ try and change the subject, while Rose, aware of his distress, suggested an immaculate conception or on one occasion, ‘Perhaps Emily siphoned up someone’s spunk in the bath,’ disgusting her mother, earning a scandalised but grateful glance from Ned. (‘You went too far there, dear.’ He was never cured of the word ‘dear’.) And Laura, who liked being discussed, would stand close to Ned staring up at him with her mother’s bright and wicked eyes. Then Ned, his guilt fuelled by his mother-in-law, would soon be reminding Rose of her promise, if not outright, by hints. Small wonder, thought Rose, descending the hill, that there were no false pretences when Mother died. But let me be honest now, thought Rose grimly, while to thwart Emily was fun, a good motive in its way, that wasn’t what kept me with Ned all those years. His insecurity was matched by my need for security.

A
T THE FESTIVAL OF
Britain in 1951, early for a rendezvous with Ned and Christopher up for the day from his prep school, Rose watched the crowds enjoying the gaiety, the atmosphere of optimism. Coming up behind her Mylo said, ‘Why did you hang up on me three years ago?’

Rose span round: ‘It was you who hung up.
Why
did you marry Victoria?’

‘Because we hung up, perhaps …’

‘Ned was beside me. I had just heard Comrade was dead, she was drowned, her body …’

‘Our little friend! So that was it!’

‘You need not have rushed off and married Victoria …’

‘There was no exact rush. You were stuck with Ned, and your child, living in that house. You love that house, I know you do. Getting used to it all. It seemed the thing to do. You didn’t expect me to hang around indefinitely.’ (She had.)

She searched his face: ‘You have several new lines, more grey hairs.’

‘I see birds’ feet … Your eyes …’

‘Oh, Mylo.’

‘I love you.’

‘I am meeting Ned and Christopher for lunch.’

‘How are they?’ He grinned at her.

‘Very well. Ned and Christopher have been to the dentist, we are meeting here.’

‘I love you, darling.’ He did not bother to lower his voice.

‘Have you any children?’ She fended him off.

‘Victoria has a daughter.’

‘A daughter. How lovely for you.’ She stiffened.

‘She’s not mine …’

‘Oh.’

‘She’s Picot’s.’

‘But she didn’t
like
Picot.’

‘You
didn’t like Ned.’

‘What a stickler you are for truth.’

‘No need to be bitter.’

‘Is that why you married Victoria?’

Mylo said, ‘Cut the lunch. Come and spend the afternoon with me. Please.’

‘If I did …’

‘I haven’t changed and nor have you. I want to hold you … come on, just a little fuck for old time’s sake.’

Weakening, Rose giggled. ‘What about Victoria?’

‘What about Ned?’

‘It wouldn’t help. It would only make things worse.’ She fumbled for her resolve.

‘Are things bad, then?’

‘No, no, of course not. I’ve got everything I …’

‘Except me.’

‘Except you.’

‘We used to think having each other would be enough for eternity …’

‘There they are, I can see Ned and Christopher.’

‘Nice-looking boy.’

‘Victoria has lovely eyes.’

‘Yes.’

‘Mylo …’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t touch me.’

‘All right, I won’t.’

‘Thank you.’ She felt desolate.

‘Perhaps you would explode if I touched you.’

‘Yes, I would.’

‘Good. Some day I will telephone and you will come.’

‘Here they are …’

‘Who was that you were talking to, Ma?’ asked Christopher.

‘Um … he’s called … I think he’s called, er …’

‘I’ve booked a table.’ Ned pecked her cheek, took her arm. ‘All the restaurants are terribly crowded, we don’t want to lose it, come on.’ (If Mylo had touched me, I would have gone with him.)

‘Yes, yes, I’m coming. How sensible to book a table.’ They started walking. Mylo was nowhere to be seen.

‘What does that man do, Ma? Where does he live?’

‘I don’t know, darling. What part of the Exhibition do you want to see?’

‘I’d really rather go to the Fun Fair. Who was he, Ma?’

‘Who was who?’

‘That man …’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How funny, it looked as though you knew him well.’

‘Well, I don’t.’ (I don’t know where he lives or what he does, only that he’s with Victoria. Those eyes!) ‘He was only asking me something I don’t know the answer to.’

‘This is such an easy place to get lost,’ said Ned. ‘This way, I think, ah, here we are, here’s the restaurant. I hope they’ve kept our table. In spite of the signposts.’

‘Like life, any number of signposts, yet one still gets lost,’ she had said lightly. Ned had laughed, called her a philosopher. ‘You didn’t know your mother was a philosopher, did you?’ He was so proud of Christopher in those days; his fury came later during Christopher’s adolescence and later still during the era of long hair and screwball jeans.

She had sat at the table, picked up the menu, while Christopher switched his curiosity to the food. He lost his precocious inquisitiveness as he grew up, growing into the incurious man he was today. If he’d kept it, thought Rose, he might not have married Helen.

She came out of the wood, stepping onto the footpath along the creek. She remembered with a pang how fast her heart had beat as she looked at Mylo that day, how she had felt sick with desire.

I feel sick with desire now just thinking of him. At my age! I’ve had no breakfast, perhaps I am confusing my hungers. She stood staring at the still water and across the water to the trees on the far side.

A
FEW YEARS LATER,
travelling up Knightsbridge on a bus, she had looked down on Mylo walking with Victoria. As she craned her neck to get a better view of him he burst out laughing at something Victoria said and took her arm. The pain she felt was out of all proportion.

In an effort to blot him from her mind she experimented with lovers. If other men could give her enjoyable orgasms, she argued, it would cauterise her pain. Long ago Mylo had suggested that whereas the act of sex with him would be sublime, with Ned or others it would be quite otherwise. She decided she would prove his arrogance wrong.

She had been circumspect, mindful of Ned, not wishing to hurt his feelings, discreet and secret, wary of Emily and Nicholas. She experimented over a period of several years with different types of men. She tried quite hard.

Standing on the path looking across the still water of the creek she remembered ruefully that all that she had learned from these experimental efforts was that the act of sex so joyous with Mylo (tolerable with Ned) became something rather messy, the postures ridiculous if not obscene, at best laughable. ‘These calculated adventures must cease,’ she remembered thinking; she could not even recapture the frivolous charm of the tonic brush with George Malone. ‘I am sorry,’ she had said to her current experiment, ‘but there it is.’

‘But you slept with me last Wednesday,’ he had complained. He had been angry when she said, ‘Not this Wednesday, it’s early closing.’ Not finding her feeble joke amusing he cut her for ever after at parties or in the street.

Hurrying along in the rain one day, head down, she bumped into a man walking the other way. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised.

‘I am not.’ The man put his arms around her. She recognised Mylo. ‘Where are you going in such a rush?’ He held on to her.

‘I was leaving a lover.’ (This was not the case.)

If she had hoped for a rise, she did not get it.

‘Come along in here.’ Mylo kept hold of her, led her into the lobby of an hotel, made her sit on a sofa. ‘I saw you belting along the street, waited for you, you walked into me as if I wasn’t there.’

‘You are
not
there,’ she had said angrily,
‘ever.’

‘I am at the moment, darling.’

‘What?’ (I can’t bear this, she had thought, I can’t.)

‘I
am
here, Rose,
now.
What’s the matter?’

‘I told you. I have just left a lover. I’m late.’

He had laughed. ‘So now we have lovers.’

‘Yes,’ she snapped.

‘Is it enjoyable?’ Amused and teasing, he made her turn to look at him.

‘It’s terribly boring,’ she had burst out and Mylo said, ‘I am glad to hear it.’ As he examined her face, ‘You are looking very beautiful,’ he said. ‘I like it when your face is wet from the rain.’

‘Actually I was hurrying because I came out without an umbrella,’ she admitted.

‘You hadn’t just left a lover?’

‘No.’

‘Thought not.’ He held her hands. ‘You don’t lie very well.’

‘I did have lovers …’

‘Why?’ His voice had been harsh. ‘Why?’

‘Victoria.’ She whispered the name defensively, then repeated it louder, ‘Victoria.’

‘And what about Ned?’

‘Ned doesn’t know I …’

‘You know what I mean, Rose, don’t prevaricate, what do you imagine I feel about Ned?’

‘It’s not the same for men.’

‘A stupid remark not worthy of your intelligence.’

‘You are hurting my hands.’ But she had not drawn them away.

‘You know I married Victoria because of her child.’

‘You never said so,’ she had said huffily.

‘You did not give me much opportunity.’

‘I saw you with her from the top of a bus. You were laughing,’ she accused.

‘Laughing’s not a sin.’

‘And you love her.’

‘Who said so? Yes, I love her in a way.’

‘There you are, then.’ The pain of meeting him made her sulky.

‘And Ned?’

‘We are friends.’ Did she at that time admit to herself the love of security?