Song at Twilight (14 page)

Only the other day he said to me, "Prudence, I don't know what's come over you lately. You look so well. Ten years younger I should say." Happiness works wonders for one's looks, but I have to admit to taking a little extra care with my appearance these days. I wanted to take his hand and say, "Don't you realise, Eric, it's because of you." But instead I just smiled.

During all this time we have not mentioned Morag once.

*

July 29th

It must be days now since I wrote those fatal last words and I have not had the heart to return to this diary since. Not since the day when Eric appeared at my door looking drawn and old and distraught with, I couldn't help noticing, his fly-buttons undone.

"What on earth is the matter?" I asked him.

"It's Morag," he said. "Poor Morag. She's back in London and seems quite unable to cope alone. Funny really, when you think what a frightful fellow that husband of hers was."

We went into the kitchen and he sat down. I offered him a cup of coffee. He really looked as if he could do with a tot of brandy or some medicinal whisky, but it was only nine o'clock in the morning.

He put his elbows on the kitchen table and his head in his hands.

"I had her on the telephone for hours last night. She said it was all right while she was in Canada. But ever since she's been back, she's been all over the place.' He looked up at me.

"She's a very old friend you know, Prudence," he said. "A very old friend indeed. And now she's alone in the world, I feel I ought to go to her."

I turned away with a lump in my throat.

So that, I thought dramatically, is the end of my little idyll. Ah well.

"I don't know how long I'll be away." he said, "but I really must go and look after her."

"And what about me?" I wanted to scream. But years of well-trained spinsterhood forbade me to speak out of turn.

"She's talking about retiring early," he said. "It seems she can't face work anymore. I may bring her back down here with me. God alone knows!" He sipped his coffee. "Well, it's an ill wind…" he said.

Bring her back down here, I thought. And I would have to smile and go to the wedding and be their friend. I hated Morag.

"Have you had breakfast?" I asked Eric gently.

No, he hadn't. He'd been in too much of a rush.

I boiled him an egg and made him some toast and put a jar of homemade marmalade on the table and made some fresh coffee and told him I'd miss him.

When he said good-bye, he squeezed my hand and kissed my cheek and said, "You're a wonderful person and a good friend. Thank you for everything."

I could not prevent two large tears from rolling down my cheeks. I cannot imagine what he must have thought of me.

That afternoon Eric took the train to London. Laurel went with him. She had apparently to distribute her fatuous leaflets at London zoo. I thought it was high time Victor and Patricia came home and shook that girl.

Since Eric has been gone I have enjoyed nothing. How foolish I was at so late a stage in my life to allow my guard to slip and to let myself develop so strong a feeling for another human being. I should have been content with my dog, and with the role which I so sensibly assumed all those years ago. I was not cut out for love then, and at my age it is nothing short of ridiculous. And very painful. 

Eric has written to me of course. But that is not the same as his being here. Besides he writes of nothing but Morag and how I hate to think of him cosily settled into her flat.

Laurel is forever going backwards and forwards to London with her silly pamphlets. I cannot imagine how she can afford the train fares. She tells me, rather disconsolately, that her religion is not having the immediate impact which she had hoped it would. But she is not prepared to give up yet.

Meanwhile she spends a great deal of time with Eric and Morag when she goes on these trips to London. She says that she has even come to like Morag who is very kind to her and allows her to stay in the flat whenever she wants. That leaves me out in the cold.

But I must try not to be sorry for myself.

That was not easy this morning when Eric's most recent letter arrived.

He has decided to stay in London with Morag. He will miss the country dreadfully, and his garden. He will miss me too and all our enjoyable outings but he hopes that very soon I will come and stay and meet Morag. Somehow he feels that things were meant to turn out this way.

I honestly felt so weary when I read that letter that I had no further desire to go on living. It would have been quite all right by me if just then, sitting as I was at my kitchen table, I had quietly and peacefully passed away.

I suppose I must have sat for hours at that table, too weary to move, too weary even to cry.

Then as the morning wore on I began to grow angry. I was angry with Morag for winning, angry with myself for letting Eric go so meekly and angry with Eric for being so wet. I cannot believe that he is doing what he really wants.

This afternoon I summoned up enough strength to go out, and even to walk towards Eric's house. Since he left I have not liked to walk past his cottage but have tended to take Pansy in the other direction, as the sight of it standing there empty and the memories of all the happy times I have spent there are too painful. Besides it hurts my feelings to see the weeds encroaching on the flowerbeds and the vegetables wasting away, unharvested.

I put Pansy on her lead and told her that we were going for a little walk. She wagged her old tail and looked quite happy, oblivious of the sorrow in her mistress's heart.

We walked down the road briskly. The sky was grey and it looked like rain

Eric's house is only a three minute walk away from mine which is the last – or first – house in the village. It is round the bend in the lane on the opposite side of the road.

As we approached the bend I heard a peculiar banging. For some strange reason it reminded me of the hacking sound at the end of
The
Cherry
Orchard
when all the trees are being cut down.

It didn't really occur to me to wonder what the noise was, but as we rounded the corner I was confronted by the full horror of my present and future interminable loneliness.

There, at Eric's garden gate, were two young men in suits nailing a board to a post. The board flaunted the name of our local estate agent and on it was written in large red letters, "For Sale".

Chapter 14

October 14th

The days are drawing in and the summer is well and truly over. Eric seems to have been gone for an age now. I suppose in fact it must be nearly three months since he went to live in London with Morag.

I am trying to come to terms with my loneliness, but it is not easy. Perhaps I never realised quite to what extent I depended on Eric's company and neighbourliness. My little garden is looking untidy and needs to be put to bed for the winter, yet somehow I have no heart for the task. Had Eric been here, he would have helped me with the heavier jobs and would most certainly have admired the end result. I wish he could see the mass of cyclamen under the apple tree, the Japanese anemones and the hips on the rugosa rose. They are all so beautiful in their sad autumnal way.

It seems strange to me that some people claim to love the autumn best of all the seasons. I have always found it saddens me to watch the dying year, to see the leaves fall and the flowers fade. This autumn is certainly as sad as any I can remember. I only hope that the winter will be a short one and that when the spring comes round again I shall be able to regain at least some enthusiasm for my garden.

The melancholy I feel was hardly alleviated two days ago when I was in the village shop. Just as I was putting my few small purchases in my basket a woman came in and announced eagerly that Mr Janak's house has been sold at last. Had we heard? 

I looked at the ground. The shopkeeper looked at me.

"Miss Fishbourne would know about that, wouldn't you?" she asked.

I said that I knew nothing.

"I expect you'll be glad when there's someone living in that house," she went on brightly. "It must be lonely stuck out there on the end of the village like that, without even a neighbour since Mr Janak left."

"Not really," I lied.

The shopkeeper folded her arms and wriggled her shoulders.

"Brrr," she said, "aren't you frightened night-times? I would be. You get some funny people around these days you know."

If I were frightened, such remarks, I thought, would hardly be helpful.

The woman who had brought the news about Eric's house was keen to tell us more.

"It seems he's a retired admiral. The man who's bought Mr Janak's house I mean. My neighbour's seen him, says he's ever so nice looking. He must have plenty of money, too…" She named a ridiculous sum. "That's what they say he paid for the house."

"What's his wife like?" the shopkeeper asked.

"I think he's a widower," the other woman replied.

"Another single gentleman," said the shopkeeper. "That'll be nice for you, Miss Fishbourne." She nodded at me and laughed a silly, friendly laugh.

On the way home as Pansy and I walked past Eric's house a car drew up and a tall, nice looking man with thick white hair and a straight back got out.

That, I thought sadly, must be the admiral. My new neighbour. I was in no mood for new neighbours. I sighed quietly to myself and passed on.

*

The rumours concerning Timothy and Natalie did not die down for a long time and it was nearly five years before I finally discovered what had happened to them. In fact it was only last year, just before I retired, that I eventually heard.

During those final four years in which I worked at Blenkinsop's I began to feel that I was losing my touch as a teacher. I do not know whether this was in any way due to the trauma of the Timothy episode, or if I was merely growing too old and too tired to throw myself wholeheartedly into the job. However that may have been, I found my life-long enthusiasm for teaching was waning, and I also found it increasingly difficult to communicate with young people. I am afraid that this attitude of mine was to some extent reflected in my pupils' examinations. Up until that time the French results at 'O' and 'A' level had always been among the best in the school.

I tried to explain away the disappointing grades by persuading myself that the children were not as bright as they had been in past years, but I cannot honestly claim this to have been absolutely true.

There were times during those years when I felt that life had very little left to offer me. What indeed did I ever look forward to? The occasional trip to France for a week or two with a colleague, Pansy welcoming me home after her two weeks in the kennels, and then, of course, retirement. But what, I wondered, had retirement to offer?

In darker moments it seemed as if, from then onwards, it would be downhill all the way.

But I am not naturally of a despairing disposition, so that I did in fact rally and began to look forward to my retirement with increasing delight. I looked forward to moving back to the West Country, to finding a new house and a new way of life.

Perhaps it was not entirely surprising if, after so many years in the same establishment, I began to weary of the monotonous repetition of the school year. But there it was. I had chosen that way of life and for the most part I enjoyed it and found myself well suited to it.

Of course, for all my failing enthusiasm, those last years were not entirely bad. Just a little flat, I think, so that when the time eventually came for me to shake the dust of Blenkinsop's from my feet I was, despite the well-worn French saying,
partir
c'est
mourir
un
peu
, more glad than sad.

My old friends I could keep in touch with and a new life lay ahead.

Although the rumours about Timothy and Natalie did eventually die down, I never ever lost that nagging feeling of fear which struck me so hard when I first heard of their disappearance.

I used to dream about Timothy almost every night. Dreadful anxiety dreams in which I was always somehow to blame for some appalling disaster.

Whether or not the headmaster ever knew what became of those two, I shall never know, but I was certainly too proud to ask him and assumed that had he in fact known, he must have had the decency to tell me. I had the feeling that the other members of staff rather avoided the subject of Timothy and Natalie in my presence.

Leo might perhaps have been able to help if, shortly after Timothy ran away, he had not been supplanted in Mrs Hooper’s affections by her hairdresser. Until then, quite dissatisfied with his handsome flat-mate, she had been persistently manipulating to get Leo back. All this would in the normal course of events have pleased me, but now it meant that Leo was no longer in touch with Mrs Hooper and so could not find out from her what had happened to Timothy.

Marietta, Leo told me, was a real bitch where her old lovers were concerned. She didn't believe in keeping them as friends. Oh no. Not she. He even felt quite sorry for the hairdresser who surely had no idea of the vituperation that lay in wait for him when the end came as it inevitably would.

Leo had been called every name under the sun. He was surprised at the breadth of Marietta's vocabulary. Not that it was the sort of vocabulary one would have expected to hear from a lady.

Marietta had accused Leo of seducing her in order to get at her son and she had blamed him entirely for Timothy and Natalie having run away.

I was not so much surprised to learn about the breadth of her vocabulary, as amazed that she had at last tumbled to the reality of Leo's intentions. She had not struck me as a very perceptive person, to say the least.

So Leo and I were left in the dark about Timothy, both suffering quietly in our separate ways, and both, after the initial shock, reluctant to discuss the subject with each other. Leo, I suspect, being young and resilient, was able to put the matter out of his mind more quickly than I.

Then one day a few months before I was due to retire, I turned to the review section of one of the Sunday newspapers and there, to my amazement, was a photograph of Timothy.

I could hardly believe my eyes and wondered for an instant if it weren't merely a picture of some look-alike, but then there, underneath it I read the name, Timothy Hooper, followed by the words, "shades of Rupert Brooke?"

I looked back at the photograph. Although nearly five years had passed since I had last seen Timothy, stalking away from me across the frozen grass on that Sunday morning, and although he must now have been twenty-one years old, I still seemed to be looking at the face of a child. A dearly loved child. I imagined the green eyes and the red-gold hair and wondered what colour Rupert Brooke's hair had been. Still, I could see no physical resemblance between Rupert Brooke and Timothy except perhaps for the far-away romantic look in the eyes.

But then the comment about Rupert Brooke did not, of course, refer to Timothy's appearance, but rather to a slim volume of his poems which had only just been published. There was a short review.

I read it avidly. The poetry reflected, if not a mature innocence, an innocent maturity with a poetic vision of the world which was at once robust and romantic.

I read the review again. And again. It seemed then, and still does now, extraordinary that at so tender an age Timothy should actually have published a book of verse. I felt my heart swell with a strange misplaced pride, almost as though this were an achievement of my own.

Then I looked again at the photograph of Timothy and I remembered his anger on that Sunday morning, and I remembered all the intervening years of doubt and anxiety, and then I longed to see him, or just to hear his voice and then I put the paper down on my knee and closed my eyes and silently wept.

When I eventually collected myself, I decided that I must, at all costs, contact Timothy. However youthful he may have looked in his photograph, he was after all a grown-up now, and if he had not forgotten me, he must surely have forgiven me for whatever it was that he held against me.

So I sat down and wrote to him. I congratulated him on having his poems published, said that I was looking forward to buying them, told him how I had often thought of him over the years and how I had wondered what had become of him. I expressed a great desire to see him again, wished him well in the future and fervently hoped that if he had a moment he might find the time to drop me a line. I wanted to suggest that he came to see us all at Blenkinsop's, but remembering how unhappy he was there, not to mention the circumstances of his departure, I thought better of that.

I sent the letter to Timothy, care of his publisher.

I never saw Timothy again, or perhaps I should say that I have never yet seen him again. One day I may see him I suppose. But I did hear from him.

The letter came from France and reached me some four or five weeks after I had posted my own, by which time I was beginning to give up hope of ever receiving an answer. It was a nice letter and quite a long one. For days after it came I walked around the school unable to conceal my joy.

Timothy thanked me for writing, saying that he had been touched to hear from me. Touched. I was touched by that.

Blenkinsop's, he said, seemed to belong to another existence. He never thought of it now… anyway not if he could help it.

I supposed he never thought of me either. Why should he indeed?

He wondered if I had heard what had happened to him after he left. He had, he told me, gone to Paris where he and Natalie had lived a hand-to-mouth existence, washing up and waiting in restaurants, cleaning lavatories, walking dogs, minding children, cleaning offices and so forth. Then Natalie's father had paid for her to study art, so that now she earned a modest living as a commercial artist. They were still in France. But in a provincial town now. Timothy was writing a novel while earning his bread and butter playing a guitar in a small nightclub. Things had worked out very well for them. Timothy would recommend running away from school to anyone. It was the most sensible thing he had ever done.

With not a reference to the possibility of our ever meeting again, but I have to admit, a kindly reference to my cakes, Timothy thanked me again for my letter and signed off.

I later learned that Leo, on discovering Timothy's whereabouts, called on him and Natalie in France.

It is hardly surprising that he was not welcomed very warmly.

Natalie, Leo said, was frightful. Perfectly frightful. Not in the least bit friendly.

"Well I was hardly going to pounce on Timothy there and then," Leo shrieked dramatically.

"I should think not," I answered sharply. I wondered at Leo's audacity, and thought him silly to have gone raking up the past. I would certainly never think of calling unannounced on Timothy. Perhaps I am, as my name suggests, too prudent to invite the kind of rebuff which Leo experienced.

Leo felt sorry for Timothy, living as he did in one room with that odious girl. It couldn't last, he said.

I, on the other hand, felt relieved. For me and for Leo the whole episode should be over, closed, finished with. There was no further need for us to discuss it. Timothy was safe, apparently happy, successful and confident. What more could I ask for someone for whom I had cared so much.

Of course I would dearly love to see him again one day, but apart from that, it seemed to me then that there was nothing left for me to do but to mull over in my heart the events of those times and eventually to file them away in my memory for good. And this, I hope, is exactly what I have done by writing about the incident.