The Swallow and the Hummingbird (46 page)

The kite was retrieved and launched once again, but George didn’t recover his light-hearted mood. He sank deep into his thoughts where even his wife was unable to reach him. Seeing his brooding face, she wished they had never come to Frognal Point. They had been so happy in the Argentine.

Rita’s legs were shaking so much she was barely able to walk. He had seen her and he hadn’t taken his eyes off her. During that long moment when their gazes had interlocked she could have sworn she saw, even from this distance, a glimmer of regret. She stepped along the sand aware that he was still there on the cliff top, his wife now at his side. She could feel his disappointment. Perhaps he had wanted to talk. Perhaps if he had been alone he would have run down the sandy path as he had done so often in the past and embraced her on the beach. Maybe he would have held her in his arms and told her how sorry he was, that he had made the wrong decision, that he had spent the last eighteen years regretting it. Rita played with the diamond solitaire ring. Somewhere in the most forgotten corner of his heart she was certain that he still loved her.

Now her spirits lifted and she felt a sudden urge to run up the beach with her arms outspread. When she stole a glance back to where George had stood she saw that everyone had gone. Only wild grasses swayed against the sky, accentuating the void his absence made. Filled with the childish exuberance that had so dominated her youth she extended her arms and ran into the wind. She laughed as Tarka barked in excitement, wagging her tail and jumping across the sand with her. The birds scattered and flew into the air and Rita was sure that she could fly too, so light was her mood.

That evening Susan was subdued, wishing they could just pack up and return to Argentina. Tormented by her fears she opened the fridge to discover there was no milk left. George was in the sitting room reading the papers while Charlie and Ava played chess in front of the fire listening to their Jimmy Hendrix records. Knowing the village shop would be closed and that the milkman always arrived too late for George’s breakfast, she decided to go over to Faye’s and borrow a pint.

Across at the farmhouse, she followed the low sound of voices coming from the sitting room. She would have called out had she not heard Alice mention her name. She froze and held her breath as she realized they were talking about her.

‘. . . Susan’s perfectly pleasant, she’s just rather cold,’ Alice was saying.

‘But she makes George happy and that’s what’s important,’ said Faye. Pause.

‘He doesn’t look very happy,’ came Alice’s small voice. ‘I think he would have been happier if he had married Rita. He grew up believing he could have everything he wanted. He’s always been too ready to give up what’s good for him in the hope that something better will come along.’

‘Not now, darling. He’s completely content with Susan. She’s given him lovely children and stability. I agree she’s not the warmest of people, but it must be hard for her here. She must find the English countryside dreadfully wet and cold.’

‘She doesn’t fit in. At first she made an effort to share all his interests, now she rarely accompanies him anywhere. I’ve bumped into him numerous times on the beach and she’s nowhere in sight. I don’t think she makes much of an effort any more.’

‘That’s no crime. I made no effort to love your father’s silly trees and he didn’t share my passion for sculpture.’

‘That’s different. I’m not talking about a hobby but a way of life. George
is
the sea, the beach, the cliffs, the birds. He loves people, she clearly doesn’t. Have you noticed how she holds back after church as if no one’s good enough for her? She reminds me of Antoinette . . .’

Susan couldn’t bear it a moment longer. With tears stinging in her eyes she crept back down the corridor and out into the wind once again. The cold dampened the flames in her cheeks and quietened her thumping heart. So that’s what they all thought of her. That he would have been better off had he married Rita. She felt the resentment rise in her chest. Is that what George thought too?

She wouldn’t take it any more. She was fed up of stepping aside and pretending nothing was wrong. When she got home George was in the kitchen helping himself to a biscuit. He saw her ashen face and closed the tin. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked, immediately thinking of his mother.

‘We need to talk,’ she stated firmly. He followed her upstairs, wondering what on earth had inspired her wrath. Once in the bedroom he closed the door behind him so the children wouldn’t hear.

‘What’s wrong?’

She turned and folded her arms in front of her chest. Two small red stars appeared on her white cheeks where they smarted angrily. ‘I’ve just overheard your mother talking to Alice.’

‘What about?’

‘Me.’

‘What did they say?’

‘That you would have been better off had you married Rita.’

George dropped his shoulders and chuckled. ‘And you believe them?’

‘I saw the way you looked at her today. I’m not blind, George.’

‘She lives here, Susan. I’m bound to see her.’

‘It’s not that you saw her, it’s the way you looked at her. Do you still love her?’

‘Of course I don’t. I love you,’ he said, as if he thought the whole conversation ridiculous.

‘Even though I don’t fit in?’

‘You do fit in.’

‘Not according to your mother.’

‘It’s according to me that matters.’

‘God, George,’ she raged. ‘I’m now haunted by
your
demons!’

He strode over and drew her into his arms where she yielded without resistance. ‘We’ve only just arrived. It was never going to be easy, you knew that. It’s not easy for me either. I’m tormented by memories of the war, not Rita.’

‘We were so happy in Argentina,’ she said, wrapping her arms around his waist. ‘I wish we could go back.’

‘Give it time, Susan. It’ll get better, I promise.’

The following morning George felt the need to be alone among his father’s beloved walnuts. Perhaps amidst those trees he would feel him close. If Mrs Megalith was to be believed, he was there, separated only by the intangible wall of vibrations that made it impossible to see him. In his mind’s eye he pictured his tall weathered frame, complete with the tweed cap and heavy boots he had always worn, standing beside the friends he had lost in the war: Jamie Cordell, Rat Bridges, Lorrie Hampton. He put his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the bracing wind that swept in from the sea. Then the sight of a small grey plaque at the foot of a young tree diverted his attention and he bent his head to get a better look.
Charles Henry Bolton, 24th October 1949
. His father had never told him he had planted a tree for his grandson. He crouched down to run his fingers over the words and his eyes misted with sorrow. He missed him. He missed the boy he had once been, and then his thoughts turned to Rita. He missed her too.

Max looked forward to returning to Frognal Point for Christmas. Christmas at Elvestree was always memorable, although it wasn’t their event to celebrate. Mrs Megalith had respected Max and Ruth’s Jewish roots and had read up on the festivals that had punctuated their childhood in Austria. According to what she had learned she had decorated their playhouse out of fruit for Sukkot, lit candles on a Friday night, and hidden their presents at Hanukkah, displaying the eight-candled Menorah in the window according to the Law. She had never taken them to church and had on occasions made a synagogue out of her drawing room. The first time Max and Ruth attended synagogue in England was long after the war, when she had made a point of taking them, as teenagers, to London to stay with her sister. She had sat through an entire Saturday morning service in Bevis Marks without understanding a word of Hebrew so that Max and Ruth could stay faithful to the religion of their parents. That was the first time Ruth had cried for her home. Hearing in the language and ritual of synagogue such distinctive echoes of her childhood she had sobbed all the way back to Devon in the train. Max had wanted to cry too, but he knew he had to be strong for his sister. He had clenched his fists and blinked away tears, for the associations were almost too much to bear. When he got home he had filled the hollowness in his spirit with his mother’s little book of poetry. Reading the verses she had once read to him, he had given in to memories usually too painful to remember.

Sorrowfully, he had recalled the last supper she had prepared for them before their long journey to England on the Kindertransport train. His father had sat solemnly, his thick whiskers twitching, the distinctive smell of tobacco surrounding him in a familiar cloud. Talk of war had dominated their small house, but that night they had tried to talk about other things. No one could have predicted the horror that was to come or the lucky escape that was to be his and Ruth’s destiny. Lydia slept unaware of her fate in her cot upstairs. Their little suitcases were packed and placed by the door, full of warm clothes and hope. Max had noticed his mother’s white hands trembling as she served him from a large pot of steaming soup and he had felt a solid ball of anguish forming in his throat. Had she known that she would never see them again? That she wouldn’t live to watch them grow up? The pain must have been unbearable. She had tried to hide her anguish behind a tight smile, but she was unable to control the trembling in those slender white hands. Max’s heart had filled with fear and the dreadful sensation of suddenly being cut loose from the strings that supported him.

The following morning he had sat on the train with Ruth, staring out at the bleak wintry landscape, remembering with all his might the colour and majesty of the Imperial Theatre. Those crimson velvet chairs, blazing golden lights and the smell of paint and perfume. The sound of raised voices, the scraping of furniture, the screeching of actresses in fur and lace. He imagined he was hiding in his father’s box watching rehearsals, crouched low so no one could see him, enveloped in the warm fog of familiarity.

Christmas had always been a pleasure. It didn’t remind Max and Ruth of the family they had lost in the war or of the childhood that had been so abruptly snatched from them. Christmas was shiny and novel and full of new memories. Most notably for Max, however, Christmas meant time with Rita, more eagerly anticipated than any present could ever be. This year it would be even more special because he was going to ask her to marry him.

He was certain that he could make her happy, especially now that he had made a name for himself and enough money to satisfy even the most materialistic of women. Rita wasn’t materialistic, she had simple tastes. He would buy them a house by the sea as close to Frognal Point as possible and give her children of her own. There she could watch the birds and run up and down the beach. He’d take her to Vienna and show her the theatre his father built, the one he hoped to buy. They’d hold hands on the opening night and stand above the crowd watching them filing in as his father had done on his opening night when his mother had performed there for the first time.

He knew Rita cared for him. He sensed it in the pauses between sentences when their laughter trailed off and they looked at one other with tenderness. He wasn’t sure that she loved him in the same way that he loved her. That was too much to hope for. But there was more to marriage than the passionate excitement of lovers. It was about stability, family and affection. The last few times he had been to Frognal Point she had seemed so much happier and hadn’t mentioned George in their conversations. They had chatted over glasses of wine and walked on the estuary by moonlight. With the exuberance of children they had run up the sand, laughing into the wind, teasing each other. He had never told her he loved her, he hadn’t dared. But time was running on and they were getting older. He couldn’t wait any longer.

Max drove down to Devon in his new MG. It felt good to be at the wheel of a shiny sports car, humming down the country lanes on his way to starting the rest of his life with the woman he loved. Although it was bitterly cold he drove with the hood down, wrapped in a woolly hat, scarf, heavy coat and sheepskin gloves. He liked the feel of the wind on his face, biting into his skin with tiny, sharp teeth, and looked about him through old-fashioned driving goggles with the appreciation of a man who’s spent too much time in the city. The sky was pale but resplendent, the sun doing its best to thaw the frosted fields below. Max’s heart soared in his chest and he sang loudly and energetically to the radio that he played at full volume. As he drove up the drive to Elvestree he turned off the music and inhaled the sweet scents of home. He could already smell the wood burning in the fireplaces and taste the champagne from Denzil’s bountiful wine cellar. He pressed his foot on the accelerator and grinned at the thought of Mrs Megalith who no doubt would be dressed in velvet drapes and silk scarves and glittering with crystals. The world had moved on, but Elvestree was unaffected by fashion and the influence of time.

He parked the car on the gravel and bounded in through the front door decorated with a wreath made of holly and red berries. Stumbling over the cats, he made his way into the drawing room where the smell of the fire and the sound of music lured him enticingly. When Mrs Megalith saw him she rose from her card table to embrace him. ‘My dear Max!’ she exclaimed happily. ‘You must have either driven like the wind or risen at dawn.’

‘Both!’ he replied, wrapping his arms around her large body. She smelt of mothballs and cinnamon, a scent that made him as nostalgic as the smell of the woodsmoke. She stepped away and eyed him up and down, sniffing her approval.
What a fine young man he has grown into
, she mused proudly. ‘Where’s Ruth?’ he asked, helping himself to a glass of wine.

‘In the kitchen preparing lunch. She’s been very morose recently. I think she’s working too hard. She’s very pale,’ Mrs Megalith replied, sinking into an armchair and balancing her reading glasses on the bridge of her nose. Ruth still lived at Elvestree, earning money cooking for local families. ‘You wouldn’t believe the stories she has to tell,’ Mrs Megalith continued, picking up the newspaper. ‘Some of the families she works for are so eccentric!’