The Shell Seekers (88 page)

"That's the way I wanted it to be. That's the way I planned it. And now . . ." Olivia yawned. ". . . it's all safely over. Fin-ished."

"You look tired."

"You're the second person who's told me that this evening. It usually means I'm looking old."

"You don't look old. Go upstairs and have a bath. Don't worry about supper. I'll cook supper. There's some soup in the larder and lamb chops in the refrigerator. If you like, I'll bring up a little tray and you can have it in bed."

"I'm not as old and tired as that." Olivia pushed herself away from the table and arched her aching back. "But I will go and get into a bath. If Mr. Enderby leaves before I appear again, will you give him my apologies?"

"Of course."

"And say goodbye to him for me. Tell him I'll be in touch."

Five minutes later, when Danus and Mr. Enderby, their business over, came into the kitchen, Antonia was at the sink scraping carrots. She turned from the sink to smile at them, waiting for something to be said; for one of them to explain what it was they had been talking about. But neither did, and in the face of such masculine solidarity she hadn't the nerve to ask. Instead she gave Mr. Enderby Olivia's message.

"She's rather tired, and went up to have a bath. But she told me to say goodbye to you, and to apologize, and she hopes you'll understand."

"But of course."

"She says she'll be in touch."

"Thank you for telling me. And now I must be on my way. My wife is expecting me home for dinner." He shifted his brief-case to his left hand. "Goodbye, Antonia."

"Oh . . ." Caught unawares, Antonia hastily wiped her hand on her apron. "Goodbye, Mr. Enderby."

"And the best of luck."

"Thank you."

He took himself off, striding out through the door, with Danus behind him. Antonia, left on her own, returned to her carrot scraping, but her mind was not on her work. Why had he wished her the best of luck, and what on earth was happening? Danus had not appeared particularly crestfallen, so perhaps it was something nice. Perhaps—happy thought—Mr. Enderby had taken a liking to Danus, as they chatted over the teacups, and was offering to help them raise a bit of cash to help buy their nursery garden. It seemed unlikely, but for what other reason had he wished to speak to him . , . ?

She heard Mr. Enderby's car drive away. She stopped scraping and leaned against the sink, waiting, with the knife in one hand and the carrot in the other, for Danus to return.

"What did he say to you?" she asked, before he had even got through the door. "Why did he want to talk to you?"

Danus removed the knife and the carrot, set them on the draining board, and took her in his arms. 

"I have something to tell you."

"What?"

"You're not going to have to sell Aunt Ethel's earrings."

"Yoo-hoo!"

"Mrs. Plackett?"

"Where are you?"

"Up here, in Mumma's bedroom."

Mrs. Plackett climbed the stairs.

"Made a start, have you?"

"Not really. I'm just trying to decide how we're going to do it. I don't think there's going to be anything worth keeping. All Mumma's clothes were so old and so unconventional I can't imagine anyone would want them. I've got these trash-bags. We'll just fill them and leave them all out for the dustbin men."

"Mrs. Tillingham's having a jumble sale next month. In aid of the Organ Fund."

"Well. We'll see. I'll let you decide. Now, perhaps you could empty the wardrobe, and I'll start in on the chest of drawers."

Mrs. Plackett set to work, flinging wide the doors of the wardrobe, and commencing to unload armfuls of shabby and dearly familiar garments. As she laid them across the bed . . . some so well-worn as to be threadbare, Olivia averted her eyes. It seemed indecent even to look. She had dreaded this sad task, and it seemed that it was going to be even more heart-rending than she had anticipated. Encouraged by Mrs. Plackett's down-to-earth presence, she went on her knees and opened the bottom drawer. Sweaters and cardigans, much darned at the elbow. A white Shetland baby shawl; a navy-blue guernsey which Mumma used to wear for gardening.

As they laboured, "What's going to happen to the house then?" Mrs. Plackett inquired.

"It's going to be put on the market and sold. It's what Mumma wished, and none of us would want to live here anyway. But Antonia and Danus are going to live here, and show people round, and generally keep things going until such time as it is sold. When that happens, we'll get rid of the furniture."

"Antonia and Danus?" Mrs. Plackett, nodding sagely to herself, considered the implications of this. "That's" very nice."

"And afterwards, they're going to go off and look for some bit of land they can rent or buy. They want to start a nursery garden together."

"Sounds to me," said Mrs. Plackett, "as though they're gathering twigs. Where are they, by the way? Didn't see either of them when I came into the house."

"They went to church."

"They did?"

"You sound approving, Mrs. Plackett."

"It's nice when young people go to church. Doesn't often happen these days. And I'm pleased that they're going to be together. Do lovely for each other, I've always thought. Mind, they're young enough. But for all that, they seem to have their heads screwed on. What about this?"

Olivia looked. Mumma's old boat cape. She had a sudden flash of piercing memory. Mumma and the young Antonia arriving at Ibiza Airport; Mumma wearing the cape, and Antonia running to throw herself into Cosmo's arms. It all seemed dreadfully long ago.

She said, "That's too good to throw away. Put it by for the church jumble."

But Mrs. Plackett appeared reluctant to do this. "Thick and warm as anything it is. Years of wear in it yet."

"Then you have it. It'll keep you cosy on your bicycle."

"That's very kind of you, Miss Keeling. I'd be grateful." She laid it over a chair. "I'll think of your mother every time I wear it."

Another drawer. Underclothes, night-dresses, woollen tights, belts, scarves; a Chinese silk shawl, lavishly fringed and embroidered with scarlet peonies. A black lace mantilla.

The wardrobe was nearly empty. Mrs. Plackett reached into its depths. "Just look at this!" She held it out, still on its padded hanger. A dress, youthful and skimpy, made of some cheap material that hung limply. A red dress, patterned with white daisies, with a square neckline and bulky pads in the shoulders. "I've never seen this before."

"Neither have I. I wonder why Mumma kept
that
. Looks like something she might have worn during the war. Throw it out, Mrs. Plackett."

The top drawer. Creams and lotions, emery boards, old scent bottles, a box of powder, a swansdown puff. A string of glass beads the colour of amber. Earrings. Worthless scraps of junk jewellery.

And then the shoes. All her shoes. Shoes were the worst of all, more intensely personal than anything else. Olivia became increasingly ruthless. The trash-bags bulged.

Finally, painfully, all was done. Mrs. Plackett knotted tight the plastic bags, and between them they thumped them down the stairs and out of doors to where the dustbins stood.

"They'll be collected tomorrow morning. And that'll be the end of it for you."

Back in the kitchen, Mrs. Plackett put on her coat.

"I can't thank you enough, Mrs. Plackett." Olivia watched as Mrs. Plackett carefully folded her boat cape, packed it into a carrier-bag. "I couldn't have faced it on my own."

"Very pleased to be able to help, I'm sure. Well, I must be off. See to Mr. Plackett's dinner. Have a safe journey back to London, Miss Keeling, and you take care of yourself. Try and have a bit of a rest. It's been a busy weekend."

"I'll keep in touch, Mrs. Plackett."

"That's right. And come back and see us. I wouldn't like to think I wasn't going to see you again."

She mounted her bicycle and rode away, a sturdy upright figure, with the carrier-bag dangling from her handlebars.

Olivia went back upstairs into Mumma's room. Stripped of all personal possessions, it stood unbelievably empty. Before long, Podmore's Thatch would be sold, and this room would belong to another person. There would be other furniture, other clothes, other scents, other voices, other laughter. She sat on the bed, and saw, beyond the window, the fresh green leaves of the flowering chestnut. Hidden somewhere in its branches, the thrush was singing.

She looked about her. Saw the bedside table, with its white china lamp and pleated parchment shade. The table had a little drawer. They had overlooked this drawer and never got around to clearing it. She opened it now and found a bottle of aspirins, a single button, the stub of a pencil, an out-of-date diary. And, at the back, a book.

She reached into the drawer and took it out. A thin book, bound in blue.
Autumn Journal
by Louis MacNeice. It bulged with some bulky marker, and, where this had been inserted, fell open of its own accord. There she found the wad of thin yellow paper, tightly folded ... a letter perhaps? And a photograph. The photograph was of a man. She glanced at it and then laid it aside, and started to unfold the letter, but was diverted by a passage of poetry that leaped to her eye from the pages of the book, much as a remembered name will leap from a sheet of newsprint. . . .

September has come, it is hers

Whose vitality leaps in the autumn,

Whose nature prefers

Trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace.

So I gave her this month and the next

Though the whole of my year should be hers who has rendered already

So many of its days intolerable or perplexed But so many more so happy. Who has left a scent on my life, and left my walls Dancing over and over with her shadow Whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls And all of London littered with remembered kisses.

The words were not new to her. As a student at Oxford, Olivia had discovered MacNeice, become hooked, and voraciously devoured everything that he had ever written. And yet now, after the passage of many years, she found herself as freshly touched and moved as at her first encounter with the poem. She read it again, and then set the book down. What had been its significance to Mumma? She took up the photograph once more.

A man. In some sort of uniform but bareheaded. He turned, smiling at the photographer, as though caught unawares, and a coil of climbing rope was looped across his shoulder. His hair was ruffled, and in the far distance lay the long line of the sea's horizon. A man. Unknown to Olivia, and yet, in some odd way, familiar. She frowned. A resemblance? Not so much a resemblance as a reminder. But of whom? Someone . . . ?

But of course. And once recognized, obvious. Danus Muirfield. Not his features, nor his eyes, but other, more subtle likenesses. The shape of his head, the lift of his chin. The unex-pected warmth of his smile.

Was this man, then, the answer to the question to which neither Mr. Enderby, nor Noel, nor Olivia had been able to find an answer?

By now deeply intrigued, she took up the letter and unfolded the fragile pages. The paper was lined, and the writing scholarly, with letters neatly formed by a broad-nibbed pen.

Somewhere in England 

May 20th, 1944

My darling Penelope,

Over the last few weeks I have settled down a dozen times to write to you. On each occasion I have got no further than the first four lines, only to be interrupted by some telephone call, loud hailer, knock on the door, or urgent summons of one sort or another.

But at last has come a moment in this benighted place when I can be fairly certain of an hour of quiet. Your letters have all safely come and are a source of joy. I carry them around like a lovesick schoolboy and read and reread them, time without number. If I cannot be with you, then I can listen to your voice. . . .

She was very aware of being alone. The house, around her, lay empty and silent. Mumma's room was silent, the quiet disturbed only by the whisper of pages, read and then set aside. The world, the present were forgotten. This was the past Olivia uncovered, and it was Mumma's past, unsuspected until now, and unimagined.

There is always the possibility that Ambrose will be gentlemanly and allow you to divorce him. . . . All that matters is that we should be together, and eventu-ally—hopefully sooner than later—married. The war will, one day, be over. . . . But thousand-mile journeys begin with the first step, and no expedition is the worse for a little thought.

She laid the page aside, and went on to the next one.

. . . For some reason, I have no fears that I will not survive the war. Death, the last enemy, still seems a long way off, beyond old age and infirmity. And I cannot bring myself to believe that fate, having brought us together, did not mean us to stay that way.

But he had been killed. Only death could have ended such a love. He had been killed and he had never come back to Mumma, and all his hopes and plans for the future had come to nothing, ended for eternity by some bullet or shell. He had been killed and she had simply carried on. Gone back to Ambrose, and battled through the rest of her life without remorse or bitterness, or a trace of self-pity. And her children had never known. Nor guessed. Nobody had ever known. Somehow, this seemed saddest of all.
You should have talked about him, Mumma. Told me
. I would have understood. I would have wanted to listen. She discovered, to her surprise, that her eyes had filled with tears. These now spilled over and ran down her cheeks, and the sensation was strange and unfamiliar, as though it were happening to another person and not herself. And yet she wept for her mother.
I want you to be here. Now. I want to talk to you. I need you.