Presence of Mind (25 page)

I didn't reply. I was realising how many inescapable reminders lay ahead – Fairfield Lodge, where every room was imprinted with memories of Briony; her friends who would keep enquiring about her, our life which, as Lance had remarked, would be so completely different without her. I wasn't sure you'd be coming back, he'd said. Had he meant that he hoped I wouldn't? It might have been the best way, a clear break, one traumatic severing from both Briony and Lance, rather than this painfully slow run-down to inevitable parting. For the first time I entered the gates of the Lodge without the usual instinctive lifting of the heart.

Somehow the weeks passed. Every Sunday evening I telephoned the MacIntyres and each time they assured me that Briony seemed well and happy. Once, at the end of July, unable to keep away any longer, I flew up to Scotland for the weekend. Gordon drove me to Drumlochhead but I didn't contact the Camerons. I hung around waiting until Briony – Ailsa – came out of the cottage, laughing and talking to another girl. I didn't dare to approach her in case my unexpected appearance upset the delicate balance of her mind. Like an outcast I stood behind some trees, gazing hungrily at the unconscious girl, until eventually she went back inside.

The summer slipped by. Stella's picture was long since completed, the exhibition proved a great success and our own open house was held. For three days the house seemed no longer our own, with strange pictures and sculptures all round the walls and every room full of strangers consulting catalogues.

Edgar continued to drop in with less and less convincing excuses and I kept promising myself dully that I would bring the association to an end. But although our kisses were never again as passionate as on that afternoon before Briony left home, they were an undeniable source of comfort to my bruised and throbbing pride and I was loth to sacrifice them. Once or twice Lance appeared while he was still with me, and his greeting of Edgar seemed less affable than it used to be. Or perhaps it was only my own guilt that made me imagine it. For throughout this time Lance himself remained kind, considerate and very distant. He no longer wore the youthful clothes he had bought at the peak of the crisis, and he never seemed even to glance at
Eternal Spring
which still hung undisputed in its place of honour. He had promised not to hurry me, and he was keeping his word. The onus was on me, on how soon I could bring myself to agree to our separation.

And during all those long weeks our Sunday sessions were held with almost religious observance. It was on one of those occasions that I attempted to salve my conscience over Edgar's approaching dismissal. Cynthia had made one of her cutting remarks to Stella and me and instead of the usual embarrassed laughter, I said rather sharply, ‘You know, Cynthia, I'm surprised Edgar stays with you, after the way you treat him.' She looked at me in amazement, the pleased satisfaction at her latest witticism fading from her face.

‘Or for that matter,' I continued bravely, ‘why you stay with him, if you really despise him so much.'

She flushed slightly and the hard blue eyes, for the first time that I could remember, dropped away from mine. ‘Are you losing your sense of humour, darling?' Her voice was not quite as confident as usual. ‘It was only a joke.'

‘Not to Edgar, I imagine,' remarked Stella, unexpectedly coming to my support. ‘Ann's right. He must think an awful lot of you to put up with you the way he does.'

‘
Et tu, Brute?
Well, well! This is a day for surprises!' Her mocking glance invited us to smile, to change the subject, but we looked back at her unwaveringly and her colour deepened. ‘The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Edgar!' she said with defiant flippancy. ‘Can anyone join?'

‘We'd be only too pleased if you did.'

‘Oh for pity's sake, what's got into you two? Edgar knows perfectly well that I don't mean it.'

‘Have you told him that?'

‘No, of course not. There's no need.'

We didn't press the point, but I knew the warning had been taken to heart. Several times that day I saw her watching Edgar uneasily and on at least two occasions she bit back on obvious dig at his expense. It was now up to me to retire, to turn Edgar gently back in his wife's direction. With luck she might be ready to receive him.

However, with my now customary lack of resolve, I delayed putting my decision into effect, and the delay proved fatal. One evening Lance returned from college earlier than expected and pushed open the sitting-room door to find me in Edgar's arms.

‘I see!'

His voice was the first intimation we had of his presence. Edgar's arms abruptly fell away from me and I took an instinctive step backward. Neither of us spoke. Quite simply, there was nothing we could say.

‘I seem to have been extraordinarily slow in the uptake.' His voice was hard and cold. ‘How long has this been going on?'

Edgar answered steadily, ‘It depends what you mean by “going on”. I've been in love with Ann for some time, but –'

‘And she with you?' Again the clipped, furious coldness.

‘Lance, I'm sorry you found out this way. Personally I should much have preferred it all to be above board.'

‘How noble of you. Then why wasn't it?'

‘Ann's had enough on her plate without a showdown about this too. However, now that you do know I hope it can all be dealt with in a civilised fashion. After all, it's not as though you care for her yourself.'

An expression of white fury blazed across Lance's face and for a moment I thought he was going to hit Edgar. Then, with an obvious struggle for control, he said tightly, ‘You seem to be very sure of my feelings.'

‘It's rather obvious, isn't it? And you probably realise that Cynthia and I –'

‘Will you please go?' We weren't prepared for the abrupt change in tone and Edgar looked startled.

‘Now look, don't let's –'

‘
Get out.
'

For a moment the two men stared at each other. Then Lance moved to one side of the doorway and Edgar, with a bewildered look at me, walked past him and out of the house.

The sound of his car starting up reached us clearly in the stillness.

Lance said, ‘May I ask why you apparently told Edgar to keep the association secret? Wouldn't it have been more honest to be open about it as he suggested, especially since I so obviously don't care for you?'

I said aridly, ‘I'd no idea how he felt until a couple of months ago.'

‘You certainly didn't appear to be in any doubt just now. Has Cynthia also been informed of her own emotions, or have you kept it from her as well? My God! To think I've always regarded Edgar as my friend!'

I roused myself to Edgar's defence. Obviously his defection mattered more than my own. ‘He knew I was unhappy, and he just –'

‘And how long have you been unhappy? For sixteen years? Were you afraid to tell me you'd made a mistake?'

‘But I hadn't,' I stammered, hardly knowing now what I was saying. ‘It wasn't a mistake, Lance. Please try to understand. And Briony –'

‘Of course. I should have guessed. You would put up with a lot for her sake. Briony was happy and seemed to love me –' his voice cracked – ‘so you heroically bore your sorrow in silence. Now that she's gone, of course, it doesn't matter, which was presumably why you allowed yourselves to be rather less cautious than usual.'

‘You make it sound so – vile.'

‘And isn't it?' he flung at me. ‘You, of all people, whom I'd always thought of as – '

‘As what?' I whispered.

He stared at me and the pain in his eyes knifed into me. As I watched the anger dropped suddenly away from him and he seemed to sag. ‘It doesn't matter. You were right. Nothing matters any more.' He turned on his heel and a moment later I heard the front door and his car. Like a blind person I put my hands out in front of me and felt my way across the room.

My desolation, my isolation, was complete. Even Edgar had been taken away from me before I was ready to stand alone. And now Lance — but I didn't dare to think about Lance.

The hours crawled by and he didn't come back. Mrs Rose knocked to enquire if he would be in for dinner. We waited till eight o'clock and then I ate alone. That is, I mechanically put food into my mouth and forced myself to swallow a little. Still the painting hung on the wall as though gloating that now the havoc it had wrought was complete. Briony had gone. Lance had gone. And, irony of ironies, it was I, who had always hated it, who was the only one left with it.

I had to get away from its luminous magnetism and, like Lance had so often done, I took refuge in the studio. For a while I sat on the chair with my arms across the table and my head buried in them, as I'd found Lance that night when Briony had first disappeared. Remembering that night I started to tremble. Outside the air grew denser and deeper blue. Midges hovered in a soft blue cloud, the scent of the stocks in the shrubbery flooded the small room with almost unbearable sweetness.

I switched on the light, watching the garden beyond the window leap backwards into contrasting darkness. Dully I looked around this room where I had never been without Lance. It probably knew him better than I did.

I rose stiffly to my feet and moved over to the heap of canvases stacked against the wall, flicking unseeingly through them and remembering the times he had painted them. To my mind they were much more arresting, more humane, than the one which had erroneously established his name. I turned from them to the pile of rough sketches on the table. It was here that I'd seen the sketch of Ailsa that day. With the dull pain which was now permanent I wondered if he had kept it I started to turn over the sheets and stopped suddenly. A tide of burning heat washed slowly over me and ebbed away, leaving me shivering. I was looking not at the elfin face of Ailsa but at my own, yet with an expression on it that I hadn't realised anyone had ever seen. The essential features were the same as those which confronted me in the mirror every day – short, softly curling hair, wide eyes, vulnerable mouth. But the whole aura conjured up by those few skilful strokes was one of tenderness. The eyes were soft and full of love, the mouth gently curved. Was that how I looked when he made love to me? But our infrequent lovemaking had always been in the dark. Was it then as he imagined I would look, if I loved him? As, perhaps, he hoped I might one day look?

With the sketch in my hands I sank slowly on to the chair. ‘I suggest' Max had said, in his dry, professional voice, ‘that it was the woman herself who attracted you, but you repressed the truth.'
Could
it have been the truth? And if so, when had he realised it himself? That night here when we had loved each other so spontaneously? Or when I went away with Briony and he thought I might not return? Then why hadn't he told me, instead of pushing me even further away from him? Why in heaven's name hadn't he said anything?

Tenderly I put the sketch on the table and after a moment, laid my cheek down on it and closed my eyes.

‘Ann! Oh, thank God! When you weren't in the house I was sure you must have gone!'

I turned my face away from the light and saw the paper on which I'd been resting. I sat up, staring down at it. Lance hadn't noticed it and slowly, inconspicuously, I turned it face down. He sat down opposite me on the stool where Stella had once sat.

‘Ann, I'm sorry. I'd no right to speak to you like that. I don't know why I made such a fuss, when I'd already given you permission to go if and when you were ready. I suppose it just hadn't occurred to me that you wouldn't go alone. Edgar's a decent enough fellow really, and he's had a raw deal with Cynthia. One day –' he smiled crookedly – ‘I might even manage to be glad for him.'

‘But you can't now?'

Slowly I turned over the sketch on the table and heard his indrawn breath.

‘When did you draw this?'

‘A few weeks ago. Why? Doesn't it fit in with Edgar's ideas?' He stared down at his hands, gripped tightly together between his knees. ‘I hadn't intended to go into all this – there didn't seem to be much point – but now you've seen that I might as well tell you. I suppose you have a right to know.'

‘Yes?' I had expected the moment of truth before. This time I wouldn't anticipate it, in case the mere fact of doing so dispersed it.

He said in a low voice, ‘I still can't say I'm all that fond of Max, but I have to admit he knows what he's talking about. All that jargon about building up my love for Ailsa with guilt, and so on – it was pretty near the mark. And he was right about my not allowing myself to be interested in you in that way. It was safer to opt for Briony. And having convinced myself of my own undying love for someone else, I had to assume the same for you. It was a kind of double indemnity. Of course, I wasn't aware of all these ramifications at the time.' He gave a mirthless little laugh. ‘It's just my luck that I should only find out you weren't still firmly committed to the past by discovering that you'd fallen for Edgar.'

I said steadily, ‘Lance, I'm not, and I have never been in love with Edgar. He knows that.'

‘But he said –'

‘That he loved me, and that was what I needed. Quite desperately.' He made some movement but I went on quietly, ‘You still haven't got it quite right. I was never committed to the past. My love for Michael died even before he did. It was schoolgirl infatuation, really, nothing more. Our marriage was a disaster. I've never told anyone this before and I wouldn't tell you now except that it seems we've both been going around blindfold for too long. It was rather ironic, really, that while the love of your life was for Ailsa, mine was for you.'

‘You mean – all this time –?'

‘Yes, all this time.'