The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life (30 page)

Then she recalls the touch of his hand on her arm, in the car by the hotel, and all at once she catches the timidity of the overture, the helplessness, and her anger disperses like mist on the wind.

What we had was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Is that true? They were together for ten months, and then it was over. At the age of twenty her life ended. Half a lifetime ago. The memory still has the power to hurt. She still wants to understand. It was cruel, wasn’t it?

And now, this unwarranted return, this too is cruel. What’s done is done. The lost years can never be given back.

So if he hadn’t left me, would I still be with him now? Would we have children together? She flinches from the thought as if it stings her, it does sting her, because it erases her babies, Jack, Carrie, and she wants to hold them tight, never let them go.

And Henry?

If her love for Nick was unique, never to be repeated, what love has she for Henry? She tries to remember their first meeting and fails. It’s as if she always knew Henry, he was always there, she has only to turn round and smile. Yes, she does remember now, it was in Quaritch’s, where she was working as a lowly assistant. Henry sat across the table from her, walled by cases of antiquarian books, and took notes in a hardback notebook. So like Henry: a man who doesn’t throw away his notes. Greville said to her, ‘Be nice to him, Laura.’ The pretty young assistant assigned to look after the young television researcher. And she was nice to him. She could see that he found her attractive, and she liked that. It was a kind of game. She the secret agent, her mission to charm. The joke was that Henry, duly charmed, never had the power to fulfil Greville’s dream. There never was a television programme featuring – what was it? – Oriel College’s sale of their Shakespeare First Folio, Quaritch’s greatest ever coup. What remained was Henry in love. No, too strong a word for that phase of their relationship. In hope.

Did I fall in love with Henry?

Not like the first time. But Nick was long gone. For a year or so there had been Felix, though neither of them really believed they were doing more than marking time. Then there was the Mad Russian, who made her laugh and behaved impossibly badly and proposed to her daily. Some other shorter-lived liaisons, now forgotten. Then Henry.

Never any anxiety with Henry. He invited her to his election night party, quite a modest affair in his flat in Hammersmith. She liked his friends, and she liked him for not laughing at Michael Foot. A week or so later they saw a film together, one of the Star Wars films, and ate in an Italian restaurant afterwards. He tried to construct a Jedi philosophy from the meagre clues in the film, and she knew as she watched him across the stripped-pine table that she would marry him.

‘I think I’ve got it. Yoda is Welsh.’

‘Welsh?’

‘Listen to his speech patterns.’ He put on a Welsh accent. ‘Clear, your mind must be. Not believing is why you fail.’

Laura laughed.

‘The Force is Welsh, which means the Dark Side can only be English. The British Empire, you see. It all adds up. George Lucas has created a galactic version of the American War of Independence.’

‘What are you on about, Henry?’

‘Nothing much,’ he said. ‘Just burbling.’

He was happy in her company, and that made her happy.

Seven weeks later he asked her to marry him. It should have been a big decision but it just felt natural, as if it was the next thing to do.

Pat Kelly comes in with tea and biscuits and the chance of a little chat.

‘Something’s up with lordy,’ she says. ‘Something’s tickling his toes.’

Laura knows but can’t say.

‘More talking in the chapel, Pat?’

‘It’s the shifting about of the man. You must have seen him. You know how he has a way of looking at you like he’s asleep with his eyes open? Well, something’s woken the man up.’

‘Money troubles, maybe.’

‘Could be money, true enough. But if you ask me I’d say the man needs his comforts. No one can go year after year without his comforts.’

‘Do you mean love, Pat?’

‘Love, for sure, and cuddles and kisses and all the rest. Men need their comforts.’

‘And women too.’

‘I don’t deny it. Women too, for sure. Don’t we all?’

‘Are you married, Pat?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’ Pat brushes back her thick black hair and straightens her skirt round her plump waist, as if the mention of marriage recalls to her that she has a body. ‘The old bastard’s not dead yet, but he’s long gone from me. That man is a waste of God’s breath and always will be. But as they say, good men are hard to find. I’m thinking I might get myself a cripple in a wheelchair.’

‘A cripple? Why?’

‘So he can’t leave me. If he tries, I wheel him back.’

She laughs, and Laura laughs too, their laughter echoing round the high hammerbeam roof.

Pat leaves her to her work, but returns almost at once to say Laura has a visitor.

‘What visitor?’ Laura never has visitors here.

‘Says he’s an old friend.’

‘Oh.’

‘Shall I send him in?’

‘No. I’ll come out.’

Nick Crocker is standing in the galleried main hall staring round him in wry appreciation. The hall is three storeys high, the entire upper storey a canopy of carved wood and glass.

‘What a place!’

‘What is it, Nick? Why are you here?’

His gaze descends to meet hers. A shrug: isn’t it obvious?

‘To see you.’

‘But you’re coming to dinner this evening.’

‘No. I don’t think so. I’d rather see you on your own.’

‘Nick, I’m working.’

‘It won’t take long. Is there somewhere we can go?’

He looks through the open door to the chapel.

‘This house really is something else. When was it built?’

‘1870, 1880, something like that.’

‘It’s insane. I love it. Like the castle in Disneyland, pure pastiche. Walt’s fantasy version of Neuschwanstein, which was mad Ludwig’s fantasy version of a medieval castle. Dreams built on dreams. It must have cost a fortune. Where did the money come from?’

‘Patent medicines. Laced with morphine.’

‘Opium dreams. Perfect.’

This is how she remembers him: maddeningly distractable, impossibly well-read, knowledgeable on every subject, ironically amused by the details of the world around him. But ask him what he feels himself, what he cares for, what he’s hurt by, and he’s silent. Knowledge, irony, silence: the Nick Crocker method.

But here he is. If this isn’t pursuit, what is? Whatever he’s come to say, she doesn’t want to hear it in the house. Better to seek the privacy of the open air.

‘I’ll show you the lake.’

They go out onto the west terrace and so down the lime avenue to the lake. Laura has resolved not to be the first to speak. This is Nick’s party. He can dance.

In the long grass on either side a few surviving pink-and-mauve fritillaries hide among the withered daffodil leaves. Nick stops and crouches down to examine the delicately drooping heads.

‘Aren’t they exquisite? The colouring! Each speckle has its own shadow. And look inside! There’s a dome Brunelleschi would have been proud of.’

He’s right, of course. Laura feels ashamed that she’s not looked more closely before.

‘And you see how each one stands alone? No vulgar crowding together like daffodils. These would be snake’s heads, do you think?’

‘I really don’t know.’

Then as they turn into the lake walk, without preamble, ‘I don’t forget, Laura.’

‘Don’t forget what?’

‘All of it.’

Laura says nothing. Nor does he seem to expect her to speak.

‘Most of all the last day.’

A cold wind is blowing off the lake. Laura shivers. Nick seems oblivious. He’s wearing a cotton jacket, a tee shirt, jeans. He looks at the overgrown path ahead, never at her. He says, ‘That was the worst day of my life.’

‘The worst day of
your
life?’

‘I know I made a mess of it. I know I hurt you.’

‘Do you?’

‘Laura, I was twenty-two years old. I wasn’t in control. I wasn’t in charge.’

‘Nor was I, Nick.’

‘No. We were both young. That’s all. We were young.’

Twenty and prickly-proud and arrogant-ignorant and timid in bed. Not a time to remember without shame.

‘We were young all right.’

‘I had this thing about freedom. How I wanted no possessions. No baggage, no clutter, no demands, nothing.’

‘I remember.’

‘I needed all that empty space to become whatever I had it in me to become. To grow edges – to make a shape – it’s not easy to put into words.’

‘And I was the baggage and the clutter and the demands.’

‘You were everything I wanted. But who was I? That’s why I was so scared.’

‘I don’t blame you, Nick. I’m sure I was far too clinging. Too needy. Too adoring.’

‘No. Don’t say that. I don’t think either of us are to blame. I loved you in my way, and you loved me in your way.’

‘And it didn’t work out.’

He’s silent for a moment. Then, ‘Back then, did you ever think about our future?’

‘Of course.’

‘What was it? What sort of future did you see?’

‘What you’d expect. We’d stay together. We’d get a little flat in London, or New York. Do our jobs. Support each other, encourage each other. Maybe get married one day. Have children. See them grow up.’ She smiles, shakes her head, suddenly afraid she’ll cry. ‘All the usual stuff.’

‘That’s what I thought about too.’

‘So you did a bunk.’

‘I wasn’t ready.’

‘It’s okay, Nick. It’s called fear of commitment. It’s not at all original. But just for the record, I never asked for anything. Not one single thing.’

‘Yes, but the thing is, I loved you. That’s what made everything different. I knew this was either it forever – or I had to get out of your life.’

Laura remembers the pain of that time and feels a rush of pity for her past self.

‘Why, Nick? Why all the melodrama? Why all the this-forever or that-forever? You could have just given it a go, seen how things worked out, taken it day by day.’

‘Is that how you were back then? Giving it a go? Seeing how things worked out?’

Of course he’s right. It was all or nothing, because it was all, always all. She never believed in nothing, not till it happened.

‘I went over it for days. For weeks. It seemed to me the longer I left it the worse it would be for both of us. So it had to be now. Today. Then today went by, and I said, tomorrow. Day after day went by, and I couldn’t do it.’

‘And then you could.’

‘I did it badly, I know. I was in a terrible state. It was like cutting off part of my own body.’

‘It was like a killing, Nick. Like an execution. I wished I had died. I really did.’

‘All right. I won’t compete. It hurt you more than it hurt me.’

‘You were the one who was doing what you wanted.’

‘Yes. I’m not denying it. I’m not denying anything.’

‘And then you didn’t call, or write, or anything. Just silence. Like you died or something.’

‘Yes. I know.’

‘For over twenty years.’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t think that’s overdoing it?’

He smiles at that.

‘Probably.’

‘And now here you are.’

‘Here I am.’

A silence follows. He’s trying to find the right words.

‘I didn’t call or write,’ he says at last. ‘But I’ve thought about you every day from that day to this.’

‘Oh, come on, Nick. That’s ridiculous.’

‘I’ve tried to forget you. God knows I’ve tried. My last girlfriend, we were together for six years, I told myself this is it, settle down, get married. But I couldn’t do it. It’s very simple, really. You’re the one I gave my heart to all those years ago, and I don’t have it to give to anyone else.’

Laura is silent. She hears the rushing sound in her ears and she feels the trembling melting sensation in her stomach, but whether she’s gratified or angry or fearful she can’t tell. She’s a little stunned.

Nick understands this.

‘That’s what I wanted to say. I’ll leave you to think about it. Pick me up from the hotel on Monday. We’ll go for our walk.’

He strides away across the park to the house. As he goes he takes out a phone and calls for a taxi to get him back to the hotel.

Laura returns more slowly, waiting for her understanding to catch up with her feelings. She finds herself in a state of bewilderment. The uncertainty is not over what to do, there’s nothing to do, Nick has proposed no course of action and none is possible. But what does it all mean? Does she believe him? And if she does, what has changed?