The Last Summer (48 page)

There was a strange shrinking down of my mother at that time. Not just a shrinking down of her material world, but of her, her substance. Her life, once commanded on such a grand scale, distilled itself once more, and she seemed to fold herself into that small place; a place of dusty treasures, no longer fashionable antiques, and sun-bleached silk brocades.

And something happened to me too around this time. I began to change, or perhaps I didn’t change so much as begin to know at last who I was, what I wanted and didn’t want in my life. For a while I’d contemplated finding a job. I’d looked at advertisements in the newspaper, wondering what, if anything, I could do. I’d gone to an employment bureau on Oxford Street, where I spent ten minutes in a poky upstairs office, in front of a bespectacled middle-aged man, who’d glanced at my wedding ring and asked me if my husband knew where I was. He sat behind a desk, his hands clasped in front of him, smiling at me, and then told me that it really was advisable for me to have my husband’s permission before embarking upon
a career
. He’d recently had quite a few young ladies like me through his door, he said, and laughed. ‘Emboldened by the times, I suppose,’ he added. But really, why would someone like me want to work? What about charity work? he asked. I told him I already helped my mother with her
district
and various charitable causes, but that I wanted
something more. He suggested I take up a new hobby, so I thanked him for his time and left.

At home, I continued to play a part, for I wasn’t a wife, not in the real sense, nor had I been for many years. And I was lonely, desperately so. My house was immaculate, my life a tidy, ordered affair. But I was bored of arranging flowers that only I looked upon; bored of agreeing menus for what I knew would be a solitary supper; bored of shop windows, parks and teas; bored of afternoon card games and matinees, and bored of climbing into my bed each night alone. I’d contemplated an affair, and more than once, but of course there was only ever one man in my dreams: only one man and one fantasy.

And I continued to hear about him . . .

I was in Liberty’s, looking at material for a new dress, when Rose tapped me on the shoulder. We tried to remember when we’d last seen each other; had it been at Venetia’s New Year’s party five years ago? No, I told her, it had been longer than that. And it had. I hadn’t seen Rose in almost ten years, not since shortly after the end of the War. I realise now that it was probably a conscious decision on both our parts – to move on, to try to leave those we’d shared a kind of darkness with behind, to be happy. I’d heard that she’d married a major in the army and had moved to Oxfordshire, and she confirmed this that day, telling me she’d been living in the country, raising her own brood.

‘I simply can’t believe it!’ she said, as we sat down together in the tearoom.

She looked more or less the same, a little fuller of face, rounder of figure, and had dyed her short bobbed hair to the Titian red it always promised to be. She talked me through her wedding – ‘A very quiet affair in the country,’ she said, looking at me sheepishly – and the births of her children; and she told me how blissfully happy she was. Then she produced a photograph of her three girls from her purse.

‘They’re beautiful, Rose,’ I said.

‘And you? No babies?’

‘No,’ I replied, with an impeccably rehearsed smile. ‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Such a shame. But I suppose we can’t have it all, can we? And let’s face it, darling, you were blessed with
more
than your fair share of good looks. I remember all those boys, so besotted by you, so in love . . .’

I laughed.

‘Strange to think of that time now,’ she said wistfully, picking up her cup and staring at it. Then, perhaps inevitably, we began the grim roll call of those missing.

‘But what about Henry? I heard, of course, through my parents. Still no word?’

I shook my head. ‘No, nothing.’

She stared at me, as though perhaps I knew something more. Then she sighed in an exaggerated fashion. ‘Well, it’s a strange thing, that’s for certain, to just disappear – into thin air.’

‘I don’t suppose for one minute that Henry has actually disappeared into
thin air
, Rose,’ I said, perhaps a little tartly. ‘He’s somewhere, I know that, and I’ve no doubt we’ll hear from him, eventually.’

‘Yes, yes of course you will, dear. But it must be simply horrendous for you and your poor mama, simply horrendous.’ She sighed again, shook her head. ‘And when I remember poor dear William and George . . . and all the others – seems like only yesterday they were all here.’

‘Do you really think so? Seems like a lifetime ago to me.’

She reached out and placed her gloved hand over mine. ‘Yes, darling, I imagine it does. You and your family have certainly suffered.’

At that moment I didn’t want Rose’s sympathy. And I didn’t want to think about my family. I looked at my wristwatch.

‘Gracious, I hadn’t realised the time, Rose. I’m afraid I’ll have to be off in a minute. I have to call in on Mama on the way home.’

‘And how is she? How is you mama?’

‘Oh, she’s fine,’ I said. ‘Yes, really quite fine.’

But I wasn’t convinced.

The previous week, I’d called on my mother unexpectedly. It was the middle of the afternoon and I’d found her sitting at her dining-room table, surrounded by papers, her travelling jewellery case directly in front of her. She seemed unusually flustered, and had quickly gathered up the papers lying about the table.

‘I’m sorry if I’m interrupting you,’ I said.

‘Not at all, I was sorting through old paperwork – to do with Deyning, that’s all,’ she replied, looking up at me, smiling. But I knew this to be a lie; I could see perfectly well that they were letters and postcards: handwritten, personal. And I could tell she’d been crying. I stepped back from her, walked about the room as she finished collecting up the cards and papers, folding pages with trembling hands, placing them back inside the jewellery case.

‘There!’ she said, closing the lid of the case.

I sat down next to her at the table. She asked me about my day, where I’d been, and I thought her words seemed a little slurred. She’s upset, I thought, quite obviously upset. In her hands, resting on the table, she fiddled with the small tasselled key to the case, and I immediately noticed the ring on her wedding finger. It was a ring I vaguely remembered having seen once before, a gentleman’s signet ring: gold, and rather heavy looking, but unlike the signet rings of my father and brothers, this one had no crest. It had, instead, initials engraved upon it, overlapping and entwined. Was that an S and an E, or was it a B, and perhaps a D? I couldn’t make it out. But she must have
seen me staring at it because she swiftly covered it with her other hand. And at that very same moment, as I glanced up and caught her eye, I heard Georgie whisper in my ear. Of course: it was the King’s ring, the one
not for playing with
.

Rose frowned. ‘Oh, but what a shame. I could sit and talk with you for hours and hours. We have so much to catch up on, dear. And I haven’t even asked you – how is dear Charlie? And what about the Astley girls? Do you ever see them?’

I opened my mouth, about to tell her that yes, Charlie was well, and that I hadn’t seen either Flavia or Lily Astley in some time when she began again. ‘And what about Tom Cuthbert then?’

I hesitated, wondering what on earth she meant. ‘What about him?’

‘Oh my God, Clarissa, don’t you know? You must know . . . he’s worth a fortune, darling. In fact, he now owns your family’s old place in the country,
and
half of London!’

‘Yes, sorry, of course, I do know that. I’m very much aware of how successful he’s been, Rose.’

‘I should say! And to think we
all
turned our noses up at him, ha! How times have changed. But I must tell you, dear, although I’m not sure when you last saw him . . .’ she stopped, looked at me, and I shrugged. She narrowed her eyes for a moment, as though performing some complex internal calculation, and then continued. ‘Well, anyway, we crossed paths with him at a house party, oh, a few months ago now . . . the Langbournes? Blandford Forum?’

I shook my head.

‘He was there with his wife, an
American
.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘Not entirely sure . . . quite haughty and aloof, I thought. Anyway, and more to the point, Mr Cuthbert is, I can tell you, still as divine as ever. Do you remember how handsome he was?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Well, I can tell you he’s even
more
handsome now, darling. Money and impending middle age certainly suit him. Oh, it’s too depressing! Handsome men just become better looking as they age, whilst we ladies simply fade.’ She laughed, raised her eyes heavenward, then turned to me again. ‘But I must say, you haven’t faded at all, Clarissa. But that’s probably because you haven’t had children. You know they really
do
take such a huge toll on one’s body . . . and one’s energy.’

I blinked, smiled.

She leant towards me, conspiratorially. ‘On our second night at the Langbournes’ I was placed next to him at dinner . . .’ She clasped at her string of pearls. ‘And he remembered me.’

‘Ah!’

‘Well, I think he did. He didn’t mention our little
thing
as such, but he certainly remembered that time . . . the madness, all of us on that dizzy circuit.’ She paused again, lost in her memory of that time, and perhaps of him. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I had only recently discovered that he’d bought Deyning Park, and so of course I reminded him that you and I had been dear, dear friends . . . and that I knew the house from way back when. “Oh really?” he said. “I never knew that.” And then he said, “Do you ever see Clarissa?”’ She stared at me, waiting for something – I wasn’t sure what, perhaps a gasp.

‘So I told him,’ she went on, ‘that I hadn’t seen you for years, which was a shame, because you were on my shortlist as a potential god-mama to Sophia . . . and that I was determined to look you up again soon. It’s been too, too long, dear.’

I was distracted, doing my own internal calculation. I realised that Rose must have seen him not long after my unfortunate encounter – trespassing.

Rose continued. ‘And so he said, “Should you see her, Rose, would you be so kind as to pass on a message?” Of course, I told
him, because – really – I was determined to catch up with you, darling. “Would you tell her that I still have her
tent
. . .”’ she paused, looking at me, wide eyed, ‘“and that . . .”’ she looked away again, struggling to remember the remainder of the message.

‘Yes?’ I leant towards her. ‘And that . . .’

‘And that . . .’ she repeated, now transfixed by the linen tablecloth. ‘And that . . . Oh dear, Clarissa, I’m so sorry, I can’t remember. Anyway, he has your tent, dear, and I shan’t ask any questions. You know me, I
abhor
indiscretion and gossip.’

She sat in silence for a moment, waiting for me to elucidate, but I chose not to say anything. Five minutes later, as I rose to my feet, she said, ‘But how simply lovely . . . and how fortuitous our meeting like this.’

‘Yes, it’s been so nice, Rose,’ I said, bending down to kiss her, and then, as I began to walk away, she shouted after me, ‘An island! He has
your
tent on some island, dear.’

I turned and smiled at her. And I continued to smile as I walked down the wooden staircase and out of the shop. I travelled home by bus that day, but I didn’t see any street, person, or vehicle. I saw my Arabian tent, on the island at home. And I saw Tom, lying inside it, gazing up at those tiny stars, thinking of me; remembering us.

Trust, Mama once told me, is the cornerstone of a marriage. Without trust, she said, there is nothing: for what can be achieved without it?

But Charlie and I led increasingly separate lives. We occasionally attended dinners, parties and the theatre together, smiling, but in private, at home, we avoided each other as best we could, and rarely ate together. When we did, we spoke of mundane matters, trivia. He returned home from the city late most evenings, and often went out again, later still. I asked no questions.
I didn’t want to know. And I only discovered his affair because he told me. He had to tell me.

Of course it wasn’t the first. There had been other liaisons before that, I knew, and I’d chosen to turn a blind eye to them. But this one was different. Madge Parsons had lived with us for over a year, employed as our parlourmaid. And Madge had succeeded where I’d failed: she was pregnant with my husband’s baby. I went to stay with my mother, leaving him to deal with the debris. I was not heartbroken, but I was humiliated, defeated. And I wasn’t sure what to do. I did not love my husband and our marriage was a sham, but it had taken two people, I thought, to create that sham. I was not blameless. And which was better, the sham of respectability or the shame of divorce? Although I’d never told my mother, or anyone else, of the way Charlie
loved
me in private, I knew her thoughts on divorce. It was anathema to her.

Charlie swiftly removed Madge from our home. He begged me to give our marriage another chance. He promised me that he would be different; that he would be a better, more faithful husband. And my mother sat me down and told me once again, ‘Marriages involve sacrifice and compromise; they’re not something one simply abandons at the first hurdle.’ She took it upon herself to explain to me that men have different needs to women; they require . . .
other things
, she said. And I’d immediately imagined a garment of some type: a hat, a scarf or a pair of mittens. Charlie wrapped up for winter. Then I imagined how she’d react if I told her about the
other things
my husband required. I thought of Mademoiselle, and momentarily wondered where she was; was she still alive, somewhere? Was she explaining to some young housebound girl that men had never evolved properly? And perhaps she was correct; perhaps some men hadn’t, but it seemed to me then that Mama and Mademoiselle had more in common than I’d realised.