The Birdcage (45 page)

‘It certainly did that,' he says drily. ‘Marina has given me an ultimatum. No, Angel,' he shakes his head at her hopeful expression, ‘I can't leave Piers. That's the ultimatum. You or Piers. He's only a year older than Lizzie, and Marina knows very well that once our relationship comes out in the open I wouldn't have a hope in hell of getting custody. They might not even let me see him. I simply can't risk it, Angel.'

‘But what shall we do?' It's as if, even now, she hasn't really thought it through or envisaged the destruction her action has brought about. ‘We can't not see each other, sweetie.'

He stares at her despairingly. ‘It would be almost impossible anyway,' he says at last, ‘with you in Manchester.'

‘But I shall get home,' she says quickly. ‘Lizzie is staying here with Pidge and I shall get back as often as I can.' She watches him, suddenly afraid. ‘You'll still come to see them, won't you? You can't abandon Lizzie, Felix. She needs you.'

‘I've given my word to Marina—' he begins, clenching his fists in frustration – but she cuts in quickly.

‘But not about Lizzie or Pidge. She wouldn't have thought about them, would she? Or did you tell her about the way we are?'

‘No, of course I didn't tell her. Christ, Angel . . . !'

‘So you could come to see them on Sunday evenings just as you always have,' she pleads. ‘I shan't be here so what difference does it make? Please, Felix. It means so much to Lizzie. And to Pidge. You belong to all of us, not just me.'

It is clear that she is beginning to understand the extent of the damage and her distress is so genuine that Felix holds out his arms to her.

‘Oh God,' she mutters, holding him tightly, ‘I think we both need some soothing, sweetie,' and even at this moment, with the months ahead without her stretching empty and bleak, he can't help but smile. He promises that he will continue to visit Lizzie and Pidge at the Birdcage and deep down, though unacknowledged, is the hope that sometimes Angel will be there too, for holidays, between contracts: he knows, guiltily, that it is not quite over.

Now, finishing his coffee, glancing out of his window across to the Luttrell Arms, Felix suddenly remembered his errand. He looked at his watch, wondering how long he had been daydreaming, imagining Piers waiting impatiently for his telephone call, and got up quickly. He threaded the postcard between the bars of the birdcage, so that he could glance at it from time to time, feeling that it belonged there, and picked up his stick. Feeling unsteady, rather dizzy, he went downstairs carefully, let himself out into the sunshine and crossed the street.

The receptionist was friendly and prepared to be helpful but explained that the hotel's policy forbade any such information being given. It wasn't until he was unlocking his door again that Felix was seized by the obvious solution to the problem: the answer that had been under his nose since he'd arrived home earlier that morning but he'd been too caught up with the past to see it.

‘Fool,' he muttered. ‘Damned fool.'

As he closed the door behind him the telephone began to ring and he hurried up the stairs, trying to ignore the aching, which was beginning to numb his left leg, making him awkward and slow. At the top of the stairs he was obliged to pause, breathing heavily, his leg almost useless now, and he just managed to grasp the receiver, knocking it from its rest, before he collapsed face downwards on the carpet.

Hearing Piers shouting her name, Tilda came running to the top of the stairs, staring anxiously down at him.

‘What's wrong?' she cried.

‘It's Father,' he said, his face drawn and frowning with concern. ‘I telephoned him just now but although the receiver was lifted there was a crash, as if he'd knocked something over or fallen, and then nothing. I'm going straight into Dunster.'

‘Oh, my God!' She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Shall I come with you?'

He shook his head. ‘No point. Stay here with Jake and Lion. I'll keep in touch.'

‘Have you got your mobile?' she shouted after him and heard his faint response as he hurried out.

She paused, listening, wondering if Jake had been disturbed and whether she should go back to her ironing, which she did in the nursery, or check that Lion was still safe inside the playpen. There was no sound from the nursery so she went downstairs, checking her mobile for messages for the third time since Saul had left Michaelgarth. Earlier she'd imagined she'd heard an engine and, convinced that he'd returned, had hurried out into the garth to meet him. She'd been surprised by the depth of her disappointment, conscious of Piers' raised eyebrows when she came back looking irritable and rather foolish.

‘Thought I heard a car,' she muttered – and Piers, who had remained diplomatically silent on the subject of Saul's sudden departure, had given that facial shrug she knew so well.

Now, as she watched Lion playing with Joker's ball in the safety of the playpen, she tried to analyse her sense of loss. Of course, she told herself, she'd known Saul for years: he'd been around, part of her army life, like one of the family, and she'd come to rely on him heavily since David's death . . .

With a little shock she realized that she was now much more concerned with Saul's leaving than she was with David's dalliance with Gemma. Standing in the sunshine, gazing down at Lion, it was difficult to re-create that feeling of betrayal, of something being ruined, in the face of this more recent loss. The past, at this moment, had moved to some distant point, no longer of immediate concern and therefore less painful. Putting things right with Saul had become much more important.

She wondered now how she'd been able to tell him to go: why his living presence had seemed of no importance in the light of this new evidence of David's behaviour. When she'd said that Marianne had spoiled her life she'd meant it – it had seemed, at that moment, as if remembering David would never be the same again – but Saul's unexpected reaction had jolted it into proportion. What he'd said had been reasonable enough and, although she still felt a sick misery at the thought of David with Gemma, the knowledge of it refused to be invested with quite the same sense of drama she'd experienced earlier.

She could imagine David's retort: ‘Past history, love. Done and dusted. Don't lose your sense of proportion, life's too short.'

Her mobile beeped and she wrenched it from the pocket of her jeans. It was Piers.

‘I think he's had a stroke,' he said rapidly. ‘He's breathing but unconscious and there's a nasty gash on his head where he caught it on the corner of the chair when he went down. The ambulance is on its way. Look, I'll phone you from the hospital.'

‘Oh, Piers,' she gasped. ‘Oh God, will he be OK?'

‘I hope so,' he said grimly.

Tilda put her mobile back into her pocket, thinking about Felix, feeling frightened for him and suddenly lonely: if only she hadn't reacted so dramatically earlier Saul would still be with her now. Supposing Felix were to die . . . ? She lifted the puppy from the playpen, holding him against her cheek whilst he licked her face enthusiastically, taking comfort from his warm, wriggling body and trying not to think of the fragility of human life. Supposing Saul were to have an accident on his way back . . . ? She forced back her fears, feeling confused and miserable, taking refuge in immediate action.

‘Lunch-time,' she told Lion. ‘You first, then Jake. Come on,' and she carried him into the scullery.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

On her way back to Bristol Lizzie spent most of the journey castigating herself for her behaviour during the previous week.

‘A week!' she exclaimed, reverting to the habit of talking aloud: her old trick of feeling less alone and holding anxieties at bay. ‘Can you believe it? A week ago you hadn't met any of them. Well, except for Felix, of course. It's crazy to have become so involved with them in so short a time. But then you are crazy. Potty. Nuts. Doolally. I mean, why did you have to behave like that?'

She groaned in dismay at the memories: practically picking Piers up in the bar; confusing him with Felix on the telephone; doing an ‘Angel' when she'd met Alison. It seemed that she was never able to act normally. As soon as another person came within her orbit it was as if the curtain swished up, the spotlight flashed on and she was thrust out into its glare and straight into her routine.

‘Shuffle
hop
step tap ball change. Shuffle
hop
step tap ball change. Shuffle
hop
step shuffle step shuffle
step
shuf
fle
ball
change.
'

She hummed the rhythm aloud, hearing the tap mistress's voice shouting the steps above the clatter of tap shoes on the painted cement floor. From that tender age she'd been taught that once the curtain went up you had to smile; even in the backest of back rows with no-one looking at you, still you must continue to dance and mime. Animation was essential and you learned to continue to sing for your supper even after the show was over.

‘The trouble was,' she told herself, ‘that you'd begun to practise the part of the brave but abandoned woman and then, suddenly, everything spiralled out of control and you were stuck with it. Not that you ever actually said that Sam had died; not in so many words.'

It was an attempt to justify herself – but even as she spoke the words aloud she knew that she was being specious.

‘I lost my husband three months ago,' she'd said to the travel agent and now she could remember the shock of the words; how they'd seemed to jump from her mouth, to lie there on the counter in front of her. The woman had accepted them at face value and behaved accordingly, with deference and pity for the newly bereaved, and she, Lizzie, had made no attempt to explain but instead had been seized with a fit of hysterical laughter: teetering on that fine line between bitter tears and mad laughter, which she'd walked so precariously since the telephone call from the States.

Lizzie shook her head, replaying the scene, hearing the words clearly in her head: ‘No, no,' she should have said to the woman. ‘Not lost him as in “dead”. No, I've lost him to another
woman
; to an actress who is much younger than I am and who is expecting his
child.
I couldn't do that, you see,' she might have said to the woman across the counter. ‘I couldn't
give
him a child and, now that someone else has, he's in this terrible
state.
He wants her and the child but he doesn't quite want to let me
go.
Oh, he feels very
badly
about it,' she would have been almost shouting at the travel agent now, ‘because I've tried not to make a fuss about his little flings, and after all
I
wanted a child just as much as
he
did and I've felt so terribly guilty, but this was one bloody fling
too far.
'

Lizzie pulled the car abruptly over to the side of the road into a lay-by, switched off the engine and rummaged for a tissue. Tears streamed from her eyes as she seemed to hear Sam's voice in her head, explaining it all during the phone call.

Immediately she answers the telephone she knows that it's happened again – that there's another woman who has fallen for him – but this time it's different.

‘She's pregnant,' he says, and his voice is an unbearable mixture of embarrassment and pride; shame and excitement. ‘She's says it's mine.' A long pause: she is too clenched with shock and fear to speak. ‘I think it probably is,' he mumbles. ‘Look, it's terrible to bounce this on you but I wanted you to hear it from me. You know how these rumours get about . . .'

‘Do you love her?'

Her voice, cool and almost impersonal – rather as though they are discussing someone else's problem – cuts through these unbearable apologies and explanations. He is silenced for a moment.

‘Love her?' he repeats slowly, at last. ‘How the hell do I know if I love her? Love's such an overused word, I'm not certain what it means any more. Look, I'll grab a flight out—'

‘No,' she cries sharply. ‘Don't do that. I want time to think.'

He talks on, quickly, persuasively, and she knows at once that he is hoping to exercise the same control, the same excuses, he's used throughout their marriage.

‘No,' she says desperately. ‘No, Sam, I'm not prepared to be a kind of ageing head wife, relegated to the background like some old dowager so that you can spend nearly all your time with your new family whilst I get the occasional weekend thrown to me like a bone to a dog,' but when he talks about the expected baby and she hears the longing in his voice, she begins to lose hope. He will choose the younger woman who can give him a child: the one thing he has never had.

As the weeks pass it becomes clear that his new mistress is using the unborn baby to make demands.

‘You can't blame her,' he says with a kind of pleading desperateness, ‘for wanting the child to have its father around.'

‘And you can't blame
me
for wanting to have my husband around,' shouts Lizzie. ‘But I suppose that doesn't matter. I don't get any say in this, do I? Because she can make a baby I can be chucked away as if our marriage means nothing. And don't tell me that you love me. Like you said last time we spoke, you just don't know what it means any more. You probably never did.'

She slams down the receiver and sits trembling: I've lost him, she thinks. I've lost him this time.

He doesn't ring back and after a few days she writes to him saying that, as far as she is concerned, it's over between them. It is a shock to find how quickly the rumours get around and it is a relief to be able to leave London, closing up the flat for a month, and returning to the Birdcage. Still no word comes from him and she imagines him with this new woman, pictures him holding the new-born child.